Upcoming Rarity Changes Discussion

[Starrats]

The only thing I can still come op with is that a lot of accounts got deleted (cheating members)
Because that would mean there are less accounts but more pets available which would make those pets less rare

I'm just really sad that my oldest uncommon pets are now common because now nobody would want to trade for them, because the pets I still need have barely changed in rarity

[RavenclawHobbit]

The only real way for the rarity of pets to fall is for the number of "active players" to drop, since this is used to work out how many people are competing to collect pets. That's the number of accounts that have logged in within the last year. In 2013, we had a huge number of accounts sign up and then not do anything in May, June and July (possibly caused by spambots, about 2-3x as many as normal). So when the rarities were updated in the last couple of months, the number of new people who had joined the site in those months this year was about 50% less than the number of accounts that had gone inactive in those months in the previous year, so the count of the number of "active players" over the past 12 months fell for three months in a row. This meant that the "rarity" displayed on all pets fell slightly in those months.

Nick came to our rescue with an explanation! Glad to know that the rarity system itself has not been changed, and that this is a frustrating but temporary problem. The fact that all those spambot accounts are being phased out of the rarity calculation makes for more accurate rarity tags overall!

[musicgurl333]

At first I wasn't really bothered by the drop in rarity, but now I'm down to only 11 rare pets in my trade group, and most of them are recent. This is rough!

I wonder how long it will to take the rarities to rise again.

[DragonWizard]

For those of you who are curious/confused/frustrated, Nick was kind enough to explain why this is happening. Turns out those pets were never really that rare to begin with! The rarities were just inflated by a surge of spam accounts, and are now settling back into their true values.

The only real way for the rarity of pets to fall is for the number of "active players" to drop, since this is used to work out how many people are competing to collect pets. That's the number of accounts that have logged in within the last year. In 2013, we had a huge number of accounts sign up and then not do anything in May, June and July (possibly caused by spambots, about 2-3x as many as normal). So when the rarities were updated in the last couple of months, the number of new people who had joined the site in those months this year was about 50% less than the number of accounts that had gone inactive in those months in the previous year, so the count of the number of "active players" over the past 12 months fell for three months in a row. This meant that the "rarity" displayed on all pets fell slightly in those months.

I understand pets from the last few year this will effect but how can pets from 2008/2009 pets that have been Very rare or Rare for a few years suddenly become less? Their are many less of these pets so they will be in more demand than pets that have been realised in the last couple of years

I understand the rarities have to change from time to time so maybe they could warn us a few days in advance so we can decide to wait to trade or risk it

[RavenclawHobbit]

I understand pets from the last few year this will effect but how can pets from 2008/2009 pets that have been Very rare or Rare for a few years suddenly become less? Their are many less of these pets so they will be in more demand than pets that have been realised in the last couple of years

I understand the rarities have to change from time to time so maybe they could warn us a few days in advance so we can decide to wait to trade or risk it

The rarity of every pet, no matter what year, is based on the ratio between number of pets and number of active accounts. So when the sudden surge of spambots made accounts in Spring 2013, the number of active accounts increased and the number of pets stayed the same, so those '08/'09 pets you're talking about jumped in rarity. But those "new accounts" were not actual players, they were made by machines. So they never posted/adopted/did anything. Now it's been a year, so those spambot accounts are being labelled "inactive", so the number of overall accounts is decreasing, causing rarities to decrease too. It has nothing to do with the age or demand of the pets.

The mods don't need to warn us because they don't actually alter the worth of pets - the pets' value slowly fluctuates by itself all the time due to supply and demand. A knowledgeable trader knows this and tries to make wise decisions regardless of the rarity tag. (You know, the way some "rares" are rarer than others even though they both say "rare".) Every 2-3 months the rarity tags get updated to reflect those changes.

[bronzebones]

None of my rares drop, just my store corgi which was vr

[RandomSia]

I understand pets from the last few year this will effect but how can pets from 2008/2009 pets that have been Very rare or Rare for a few years suddenly become less? Their are many less of these pets so they will be in more demand than pets that have been realised in the last couple of years

I understand the rarities have to change from time to time so maybe they could warn us a few days in advance so we can decide to wait to trade or risk it

The rarity of every pet, no matter what year, is based on the ratio between number of pets and number of active accounts. So when the sudden surge of spambots made accounts in Spring 2013, the number of active accounts increased and the number of pets stayed the same, so those '08/'09 pets you're talking about jumped in rarity. But those "new accounts" were not actual players, they were made by machines. So they never posted/adopted/did anything. Now it's been a year, so those spambot accounts are being labelled "inactive", so the number of overall accounts is decreasing, causing rarities to decrease too. It has nothing to do with the age or demand of the pets.

The mods don't need to warn us because they don't actually alter the worth of pets - the pets' value slowly fluctuates by itself all the time due to supply and demand. A knowledgeable trader knows this and tries to make wise decisions regardless of the rarity tag. (You know, the way some "rares" are rarer than others even though they both say "rare".) Every 2-3 months the rarity tags get updated to reflect those changes.

I appreciate this explanation BUT on the other hand, I know what rarities a lot of my 2013s were when they came out and telling me that their rarity jumped because of this is not correct because it didn't, they were rare to begin with at the end of the months/year. So why are spam accounts in the middle of 2014 all of a sudden affecting immediate rares from a year or more ago? That still doesn't make sense. Sure if they had gone up to VRs and then come back down that would make perfect sense, but they didn't so I'm still very confused at how ALL of my pets are now common or very common, and not just this years.

[Sagaline]

I appreciate this explanation BUT on the other hand, I know what rarities a lot of my 2013s were when they came out and telling me that their rarity jumped because of this is not correct because it didn't, they were rare to begin with at the end of the months/year. So why are spam accounts in the middle of 2014 all of a sudden affecting immediate rares from a year or more ago? That still doesn't make sense. Sure if they had gone up to VRs and then come back down that would make perfect sense, but they didn't so I'm still very confused at how ALL of my pets are now common or very common, and not just this years.

The accounts were made in 2013 and affected the rarities from the beginning, so when those pets first came out they came with the "wrong" rarity from the start. Now that those accounts are becoming inactive and no longer messing things up the rarities are going down to where they were supposed to be. The rarities should eventually start to go up again.

(At least this is how I understand it to be from the explanation.)

[RandomSia]

I appreciate this explanation BUT on the other hand, I know what rarities a lot of my 2013s were when they came out and telling me that their rarity jumped because of this is not correct because it didn't, they were rare to begin with at the end of the months/year. So why are spam accounts in the middle of 2014 all of a sudden affecting immediate rares from a year or more ago? That still doesn't make sense. Sure if they had gone up to VRs and then come back down that would make perfect sense, but they didn't so I'm still very confused at how ALL of my pets are now common or very common, and not just this years.

The accounts were made in 2013 and affected the rarities from the beginning, so when those pets first came out they came with the "wrong" rarity from the start. Now that those accounts are becoming inactive and no longer messing things up the rarities are going down to where they were supposed to be. The rarities should eventually start to go up again.

(At least this is how I understand it to be from the explanation.)

Ahhhhhhhhhhh, upon re-reading your and then Nick's explanations I understand. Having so many very commons from Easter 2014 still seems odd to me if all these accounts were inactive.

[Firekracker]

The 2010 Teal Sorbet cat went from rare to uncommon now. I noticed that yesterday when looking at mine