We need your feedback: Bigger, less frequent pound openings?

[angst]

Finding this thread kind of late, but:

(1) The Pound Bot features people get off site absolutely should be added to the site itself in an accessible spot. People shouldn't have to have a discord to play this game on somewhat equal footing with other users.

And

(2) I actually really love the idea of having the pound be sort-of like a button you click between a certain time period to just... get a random pet. And the pound does this until it runs out or the time slot ends. It's not sending out common or rare first, it's just random. Wishlist is disregarded (I feel it's harmful to the trading and collecting scene to have people have to put rare pets on their wishlist just for the pound and hate that this is a thing users feel the need to do; I don't blame the users here but the interaction of the wishlist and pound features).

I feel this way folks with Internet issues will still have an equal shot at scoring a valuable pet. No awkward scrolling or reloading... just... a RNG.

[Blaubär]

I have to strongly disagree on the "random pet" idea. The pound is a great place to find singular pets that are missing in one's collection. It is fun to put pets on the WL and hope to get some of those from the pond. Receiving random pets would not justify to even try and catch a pound opening on time, since the chance to receive anything you didn't need or want are too high. Even when I'm late to a pound opening and there are mainly recent and VC pets left, I'm happy to pick one that I like visually. Getting just any would really take away all the fun from this feature.

On the new life "already taken" stickers....they are very irritating to me. I feel more stressed now than before and feel more like I need to just click anything, before it goes away. Also, it has happened to me, that my click wasn't registered and one or two seconds later the sticker popped up. I don't know, if someone else was quicker and it needed to update, but I felt more like I wasted time on that pet than before. In addition, I saw other pets claimed in that same time and felt more frustrated than ever before.

[ButterflyChaser]

I'm not in for the random pet idea because to me that would be getting a lot of pets I don't want or need. I've been here since April 2009 and then away the last half of 2013 to the first half of 2018. Most of the pets I am looking for are from that time period and the missed rarer outcomes from the times I've been active.

So far I've kept to the rule of "You don't trade pound pets" so any I rescue are just pets I can't really do much with unless they fit a theme I am collecting, otherwise they just get sent to a "saved from the pound" folder.

I can't say if there's been a new update since I last posted, but I have been, at least two times, gotten a rare pet on the 3rd or 4th refresh. If rare pets are now being released slower that is a good change.

But like the post above, I have instantly (at least quickly clicked on my desktop computer) as soon as a wishlist star appeared regardless if the pet image loaded or not, just to have it delay and then end up with "this pet has been taken by someone else, please go back and try again"

It is very frustrating/ If anything the update makes it transparent that someone or some system is in effect, that can nab pets faster than the page can even load. Whether the delay is on my end, my isp, or there is some program set to automatically open the first row of links on the page, I don't know.

I figure if Opera at one time had snaplinks (that I would use to feed adoptables when that was the thing) that it is theoretically possible this is grabbing pound pets.

My suggestion would be to have a second pop up of "Are you sure you want me?" or "Do you promise to take care of me?" to ckick okay or a yes before the pet goes to the new owner's account.

This may be annoying and disliked as a feature, but at least if there are programs automatically opening the adopt button, this will set them back.

---
Also another thing not mentioned, but if you have another page open with the pound or lost and found, yes you can go to that page and adopt and still get the pet if it isn't taken. I've done this with grabbing items from the lost and found if I see an item I am on the fence on. I may open up another window and try my luck, and if I don't see anything I can use, I may go back to the older page to grab the initial item I was considering.

I don't consider this cheating, but it is something that is worth mentioning in case it is being abused in some way.

[Khajiitcat]

It is kind of a weird thing seeing as what happened today though. Theres been 4 pound openings in the past 24 hours and another pound is set to happen in four hours. There hasnt even been a lost and found today. I feel like pound bot broke today 😂 I mean Im absolutely loving the amount of pets that happened today. But it being up for debate on whether the pound should open once vs twice a day when its been set to open five times in 24 hours today is a little strange. Is today just a special day or something?

[BlingBling]

On the new life "already taken" stickers....they are very irritating to me. I feel more stressed now than before and feel more like I need to just click anything, before it goes away. Also, it has happened to me, that my click wasn't registered and one or two seconds later the sticker popped up. I don't know, if someone else was quicker and it needed to update, but I felt more like I wasted time on that pet than before. In addition, I saw other pets claimed in that same time and felt more frustrated than ever before.

This exact thing happened to me just now with a Jokerbun. I know it's a split second thing and all but clicking before the pop-up and still not getting it feels so disheartening

[ButterflyChaser]

On the new life "already taken" stickers....they are very irritating to me. I feel more stressed now than before and feel more like I need to just click anything, before it goes away. Also, it has happened to me, that my click wasn't registered and one or two seconds later the sticker popped up. I don't know, if someone else was quicker and it needed to update, but I felt more like I wasted time on that pet than before. In addition, I saw other pets claimed in that same time and felt more frustrated than ever before.

This exact thing happened to me just now with a Jokerbun. I know it's a split second thing and all but clicking before the pop-up and still not getting it feels so disheartening

I saw the jokerbun too but I was on mobile and by the quick time it took to scroll down I saw it had already loaded with the already taken. I suspect it was auto adopted by algorithm if you already had your mouse on it when the page opened, clicked and missed.

[Pallastronomy]

I’m just sick of half my page being taken before it even loads, personally; I haven’t gotten anything good in ages because it’s already all gone immediately

[duckblind]

I’m just sick of half my page being taken before it even loads, personally; I haven’t gotten anything good in ages because it’s already all gone immediately

There's definitely been a lot more load-in lag for me lately. This latest one was ok, but the rest from the past 3~ days or so have taken about 5-10 seconds to load in by which there are already about 100 pets taken, making a good row or two already gone by the time I see the page.

[schlottis]

I have been attempting to gather some statistics on pound openings and user activity when I have been online.
Below is my best attempt to transcribe the information from my current screenshots. Take note please of the amount of registered and hidden users, as that is most reflective of the player base.
Took the information down when there was no pounds as a comparative to when there is.

April:
On the 26th April, no pound, 22.10 UK time : 1150 users online. 253 registered. 126 hidden. 771 guest.
On the 30th April, no pound, 22.12 UK time : 892 users online. 240 registered. 98 hidden. 554 guest.

May:
3rd May:
Pound 1 minute from opening, 03.12 UK time: 1070 online. 498 registered. 197 hidden. 375 guest.
During pound, 03.18 UK time: 1574 online. 893 registered. 266 hidden. 415 guest.
100~ left in pound, 03.25 UK time: 967 online. 448 registered. 162 hidden. 375 guest.
Pound closed, 03.36 UK time: 1187 online. 316 registered. 118 hidden. 753 guest.

7th May:
Pound open, 02.38 UK time: 1563 online. 648 registered. 215 hidden. 700 guest.
During pound, 02.45 UK time: 1964 online. 939 registered. 294 hidden. 732 guest.
29 pets left, 02.46 UK time: 1262 online. 469 registered. 165 hidden. 628 guest.
Pound closed, 02.51 UK time: 1011 online. 382 registered. 128 hidden. 501 guest.

8th May:
No pound, 22.32 UK time: 1129 players online. 236 registered. 114 hidden. 779 guest.

9th May:
Pound open, 02.35 UK time: 1434 online. 461 registered. 156 hidden. 817 guest.
Pound open, 02.36 UK time (refreshed for activity reset): 1954 online. 880 registered. 260 hidden. 814 guest.
74 pets left, 02.45 UK time: 909 users online. 411 registered. 133 hidden. 365 guests.
Pound closed, 02.58 UK time: 776 online. 296 registered. 120 hidden. 360 guest.

All of this to say -- the user influx is noticable when the pound is open, and the drop off massive. It doesn't matter how many pounds or how much is in there, its going to be a problem. The bigger issue is addressing the site's capability to manage that many players all arriving at once for the same purpose. The lag will not go away by changing the amount of pounds. The speed pets are taken at and the player frustration will not change by adding more pounds.
There needs to be a more suitable solution to the wider problem surrounding the pounds.

[Lynxkit443]

More frequent more capacity!!