Limited Purchases for Special Colletion Kitties

[Tad Carlucci]

Prices dropping are a fact of life for breedables, there is nothing anyone (consumer or provider) can do about it.

There are certain biases built into the system. Some can be removed, some cannot. Removing some of those which can be removed would, most likely, slow the rate at which prices fall; but the complaints about those changes would far overshadow the complaints about falling prices.

So, go ahead and complain. But, please, realize there is nothing you would accept which can be done which would gain the effect you want.

If you feel the issue harms your enjoyment, ignore the problem. Work on areas which have already worked through it. (Forget Grotto and work on Prismatic.)

If the newest is your "thing" ignore prices and work those traits. (Purchase starters and breed for Grotto, but ignore the price for Grotto.)

But, if it's all about profit and making a quick fortune, you'd best think of it betting on a very long long-shot and expect to lose vastly more often than you'll win.

---

The complaint is my responses are too long. So, if you don't care about my reasoning for stating the above, skip what follows.

This is a multi-fold issue.

First, there is the issue of "burn-out". This is where so many new traits appear, in such a short time, that players begin to feel burned out trying to chase after them. This issue generally occurs each Spring. The company usually promises to do better, but never seems to. This is a delicate balancing act and, most likely, the "goal" changes every year, so I doubt it's even possible to "get it right". As a player, your only winning move is not to play the game. That is, pick some (or none) of the new traits to worry about and ignore the others.

Next, there is the issue of "price". This is where the value of traits drops.

One desire is simply to increase the time it takes for the price to drop. This is a direct function of the breeding cycle. To hold prices higher, longer, the current 5-to-10-day breeding cycle would need to be adjusted. One step would be the elimination of "hasteners" such as vitamins, milk and cuddling. That would make it 10 days for everyone and, roughly, double the length of time it takes for prices to "crash". Another step would be to simply make it take longer. So, instead of 5-to-10 days it would take 10-to-15 or 15-to-20. Note, however, that there is NO way to prevent dropping prices for breedable traits. Any change which might slow the decline is unpalatable.

The other desire is to completely stop the decline in prices. This requires (a) the trait be non-breedable and (b) only a limited number appear. KittyCatS did this, once, with the Lepricat offspring, which were non-breedable and limited to 100. These conditions are necessary, but it's not proven they're sufficient (they're thought to be, but not proven) .. so it's possible that prices might still decline even with a non-breedable limited production. This, however, is only feasible in limited use, so it's not a real solution which can be broadly applied.

The suggestion in this thread is to reduce the number special collection cats which are sold.

Any limit on a per-avatar basis is meaningless because it does NOT impose any limit. It will, however, shift the initial population away from those who do not know how to bypass the so-called "limit" (call them "newbies") and shift it toward those who do (call them "established breeders"). It should be obvious that this so-called "limit" would, in addition to totally failing, increase complaints about bias against new players because, in fact, it *is* a bias against them.

Limiting the total number sold won't work either. First, it biases sales toward those who are online at the time the sale starts. Second, it biases sales toward those who can afford to purchase larger quantities. In the most degenerate example, the first person to purchase could purchase all available specimen. Not only would limiting the total number sold increase bias, it will fail. It won't only fail to slow the falling prices, it will make them fall further, faster!