What's going on with all the demand pushing beyond reason?

[Vaal Hazak]

Hello!

I've been thinking about opening a thread about this for a while now. Ever since I returned from my month-long semi hiatus I tried to finish my monthly collection once again - and well, here lies the problem. I've missed a lot of the more rarer outcomes, such as the pps otter, the rainbow bwolf or right now, the pps draft.

Please don't get me wrong here, demand is okay and important as it's playing a big role in determining some values. However, there's a big problem I see here, and it feels like it is slowly getting out of hand. You cannot convince me otherwise, you can't change my mind.

Is this just my feeling? Or is it really happening that the value pushing is slowly getting out of hand, just because a pet seems to be a rarer monthly / free event outcome and right now has the unknown rarity tag?

Looking back into the past months there aren't many extremely uncommon outcomes, and a monthly turning rare is happening maybe once in a year (last monthly rare outcome from the beginning was the Golden Gacha Dog from April 2021 iirc).

I'm curious about your opinions.

xx Imp

[Juliamon]

There was a poll from staff last year asking if users would want more monthly litters to have actually-rare outcomes and the vote winner was "a few times a year." Forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=4905490&p=143697462#p143697462

So that's why demand for anything that normally would turn out to be VUC at most has spiked: any month could have that rare outcome now, with the otter being the first to actually turn out rare.

[Regency]

I'm glad it won't be every time, but it is still very stressful to try to finish the month. I've found myself spending a lot of time searching through people's trades to find these rarer outcomes. When I do find one I'm forced to vastly overpay just for the trade to be declined.
People have valued these things 2-3x more than a normal 2024 rare (I saw a PPS draft going for 50C$ the other day). I've tried offering WL pets from years prior and they've all been declined. I basically tried to trade the whole draft litter for the PPS one time and it was declined. Not even offering multiple 2024 easter rares is good enough even if it's on the persons WL. What ever happened to simple litter swaps???
What's worse is I really cannot afford to spend very much time searching. I'm still in school and I've had to devote a lot of time to it this year just to pass with not much time for anything else. There've been a lot of very late nights.

All that to say the rare outcomes just add unnecessary stress. I might switch to focusing more on my deer hoard again and going for the missed outcomes later.


(edit)
And now they've done it 3 months in a row, this time with a deer. This is going to be a royal pain to get considering a lot of people don't trade to hoarders. I'm not trying to hoard the blue deer. I just need 1 to finish the month.

[Minimanta]

I'm glad it won't be every time, but it is still very stressful to try to finish the month. I've found myself spending a lot of time searching through people's trades to find these rarer outcomes. When I do find one I'm forced to vastly overpay just for the trade to be declined.
People have valued these things 2-3x more than a normal 2024 rare (I saw a PPS draft going for 50C$ the other day). I've tried offering WL pets from years prior and they've all been declined. I basically tried to trade the whole draft litter for the PPS one time and it was declined. Not even offering multiple 2024 easter rares is good enough even if it's on the persons WL. What ever happened to simple litter swaps???
What's worse is I really cannot afford to spend very much time searching. I'm still in school and I've had to devote a lot of time to it this year just to pass with not much time for anything else. There've been a lot of very late nights.

All that to say the rare outcomes just add unnecessary stress. I might switch to focusing more on my deer hoard again and going for the missed outcomes later.


(edit)
And now they've done it 3 months in a row, this time with a deer. This is going to be a royal pain to get considering a lot of people don't trade to hoarders. I'm not trying to hoard the blue deer. I just need 1 to finish the month.

They've actually only done it once confirmed so far, the PPS otter. Anything before it has been EU at most and I don't think the PPS draft is going to be anything more than that either.

The new blue deer is absolutely not going to be anything more than common, not EU, not even simply uncommon. Just common or less unless it splits. There are so many people with lots of doubles out there, me included. A lot of people just aren't trading newborns and the ones that are, are doing it to turn a profit.
Just wait for that blue deer, I'm going to trade my doubles for missed monthly outcomes once they're fully grown and I'm sure other people are going to do the same as well.

But yeah, I'm still in shock over the fact that monthly rares won that poll. Super hype and demand has always been an issue on CS, why anyone would want to make that worse is beyond me. Do you REALLY think this is fun? 'Cause I certainly don't see the fun in this greed.

[odin]

The new blue deer is absolutely not going to be anything more than common, not EU, not even simply uncommon. Just common or less unless it splits. There are so many people with lots of doubles out there, me included.

I found many people with up to 4 of the otter and butterfly (tho we donotknow it's rarity yet) so, just because you and lots of others got more than one is not proof it won't be rare. I thought since so many people had multiple of the otter it will be uncommon at most. 🤷‍♀️

[musicgurl333]

The new blue deer is absolutely not going to be anything more than common, not EU, not even simply uncommon. Just common or less unless it splits. There are so many people with lots of doubles out there, me included.

I found many people with up to 4 of the otter and butterfly (tho we donotknow it's rarity yet) so, just because you and lots of others got more than one is not proof it won't be rare. I thought since so many people had multiple of the otter it will be uncommon at most. 🤷‍♀️

This is so true. I remember I had an extra August PPS lion back in 2012, and when I was trading it, people said I was being greedy for wanting rares, and it would be “uncommon at most” because “lots of people have doubles”. We all know how THAT turned out! Lol. I want to be clear that I am NOT suggesting that the blue deer will be the next August lion. I definitely don’t think that. I’m just making the point that people having doubles of a pet doesn’t mean it’s not rare. Until rarities come out, it’s impossible to say for sure how rare a pet will be.

[Minimanta]

The new blue deer is absolutely not going to be anything more than common, not EU, not even simply uncommon. Just common or less unless it splits. There are so many people with lots of doubles out there, me included.

I found many people with up to 4 of the otter and butterfly (tho we donotknow it's rarity yet) so, just because you and lots of others got more than one is not proof it won't be rare. I thought since so many people had multiple of the otter it will be uncommon at most. 🤷‍♀️

This is so true. I remember I had an extra August PPS lion back in 2012, and when I was trading it, people said I was being greedy for wanting rares, and it would be “uncommon at most” because “lots of people have doubles”. We all know how THAT turned out! Lol. I want to be clear that I am NOT suggesting that the blue deer will be the next August lion. I definitely don’t think that. I’m just making the point that people having doubles of a pet doesn’t mean it’s not rare. Until rarities come out, it’s impossible to say for sure how rare a pet will be.

Sure, some people get lucky with the rares (uncommons really) of the month but it's not just some people with doubles of these blue deer. It's a lot of people with a lot of doubles. I saw someone say half their litter was blue, that just doesn't happen with uncommons and certainly not with rares. Just because many people missed a pet doesn't mean it's necessarily uncommon or rare either.

[MVerity333]

I don’t see a problem with the demand of the pets necessarily, just the price gouging/greediness mostly, because I’ve seen where people have paid $50C for a pet that turned out to just be uncommon. But if a pet is harder to obtain, I would expect more people to be looking for it and for it to be more valuable, but to this degree is disgusting and desperate. Especially for the new users who don’t have much to trade, and people who can’t buy C$.

[musicgurl333]

I don’t see a problem with the demand of the pets necessarily, just the price gouging/greediness mostly, because I’ve seen where people have paid $50C for a pet that turned out to just be uncommon. But if a pet is harder to obtain, I would expect more people to be looking for it and for it to be more valuable, but to this degree is disgusting and desperate. Especially for the new users who don’t have much to trade, and people who can’t buy C$.

If people are desperate for a pet, I don't think there's anything wrong with offering a lot for it. It can actually help users who don't have a lot of trade fodder, because they can trade off their pets for a lot of overpay to desperate people. That's actually how I built up a lot of my rare fodder as a new user.

For those who don't want to pay an arm and a leg, often all it takes is a bit of patience. Once rarities come out, demand often dies down quite a bit and it becomes easier to get those missing outcomes. Not always, but a lot of times. Especially with something like in your example where the pet ends up being uncommon.

However, I do agree that it can become an issue when those first desperate traders over offer by a ton, and then everyone else expects to get that for their pet as well. There's not really an easy fix for that, unfortunately. People just have to not be willing to give in to inflated demand, and eventually it will go down.

Sure, some people get lucky with the rares (uncommons really) of the month but it's not just some people with doubles of these blue deer. It's a lot of people with a lot of doubles. I saw someone say half their litter was blue, that just doesn't happen with uncommons and certainly not with rares. Just because many people missed a pet doesn't mean it's necessarily uncommon or rare either.

Just to be clear, I haven't been very active on the swap threads, so all I know about the blue deer is that I didn't get it. I agree that a lot of people missing a pet doesn't NECESSARILY mean it's uncommon/rare...but it does usually make it more likely. I honestly have no idea myself how many are around. I was just pointing out that it's impossible to know with 100% certainty until rarities are released. Sometimes the results can be surprising and pets turn out to be either higher or lower than people thought.

[Papilio Ulysses]

I don’t see a problem with the demand of the pets necessarily, just the price gouging/greediness mostly, because I’ve seen where people have paid $50C for a pet that turned out to just be uncommon. But if a pet is harder to obtain, I would expect more people to be looking for it and for it to be more valuable, but to this degree is disgusting and desperate. Especially for the new users who don’t have much to trade, and people who can’t buy C$.

If people are desperate for a pet, I don't think there's anything wrong with offering a lot for it. It can actually help users who don't have a lot of trade fodder, because they can trade off their pets for a lot of overpay to desperate people. That's actually how I built up a lot of my rare fodder as a new user.

While I understand that people stand to benefit from an overpay mindset, to me, desperation in a game that is meant to be fun and enjoyable isn't healthy. It just seems wrong to take advantage of such a feeling for one's own gain. And it's not just about the people who want to overpay. People who don't want to overpay are being pressured to as well. The discussion and poll indicate that the current trading environment is affecting players' enjoyment in a negative way, which is reason enough to be concerned.