It was shorter than Toya's by like two lines I think, I guess you can try your luck?

Ironically we're using the exact same profile template, but I had to heavily edit mine to make room for my 400x400 resizes of my own art... honestly it's not big enough but the code breaks easily if I push it further than that. The stuff I really want to do doesn't seem to be possible with subeta, at least not in a way that won't entail me learning a million new code things, though.

Yeah.....I'm not going to try my luck. It's basically confirmed that I need to write more for her.... :(

I tried to code my own profiles for a time, but I quickly noticed that the pet pages weren't looking like the examples in the coding tutorials/manuals that I had (I got a coding book at part of some of my classes in college).

I heard that Subeta's code is so different because the staff don't want people to put down profiles or links that have malicious software in them. Which I understand, but dealing with their system kinda damaged my self-confidence when it came to coding.....

On the pet spotlight topic, maybe we need more incentives for winning than just a trophy on our profile? Maybe if we win, we get a choice between one of the available potions or an item that gives us a lot of pet treasure slots (50 perhaps).

Since there's a cooldown period between wins, I think this idea wouldn't be taken advantage of.

That wouldn't be very fair for the people who won in previous years.

The trophy and the newspost are good enough. I don't think the pet spotlight should be something that you should profit from.

thank you! I knew there had to be some info besides this post, but it felt like it was hard to access/find if you misplaced a link. I'll bookmark.

The idea behind my suggestion was to increase the chances of a user entering with another pet once they win. The spotlight is based on pets, so reward people with something that assists them in character creation for a pet. We'd have to make a new item for the TC slots option and possibly code a new page where people could accept the prize, though. Users who previously won spotlight before such a change could enter again with another pet to get the prizes for themselves.

Hopefully the pet profile change will increase the number of users who will enter, but I'm thinking more prizes for winning may have to be considered at some point.

Sounds like the rules for the pet spotlight need to be more accessible to users....that's definitely something that staff should work on.

The thing is, like Destiny said, they don't just want more pets. They want more different users entering, and I don't want people to enter just for the sake of potential profit.

It would also cause people who win with inexpensive pet colors to be accused of just doing it to maximise profit, compared to people who got Angelic or Harvest pets. Most of my pets are recolors, and I'd hate for people to accuse me of being cheap because my pets are Arid and Sun.

Oof, I didn't think of users bashing each other for cheaper pet colors....

I expected the backlash towards my idea would be about damaging the economy or making the potion lottery redundant.....

I also thought this suggestion would be a good reason to keep the current cooldown period intact, to protect from people taking advantage with the prize.

I do hope the upcoming pet profile change will alleviate the fears of users who can't code, but if more users still don't enter after the change other incentives will have to be considered.

Most complaints I've seen about the pet spotlight are either confusion about the rules (and frustration from denials) or sadness due to being unable to make a working profile under Subeta's system.

Remember the Pet Profile Massacre? That alone is why many users quit entering spotlight.

Or people might bash the people who don't have the ability to make their own assets and buy everything they need. From what I seen, people complain about them already, add a prize that isn't just a trophy and it'll get worse.

The spotlight's biggest problem might just be perception, and that's not going to easy to fight against.

You’re 100% right. It seems like a lot of users believe there’s some sort of elitism at play. There’s this pervasive idea that only users who can afford to “buy” the spotlight (AKA commission profiles) end up winning.

I won spotlight with

It’s sad so many people think you’ve gotta spend money to have a pet win spotlight. It really discourages people from working on their pets. No one’s gonna spend hours learning to code a profile if they think they’ll just keep “losing” to someone with a commissioned profile. “Losing” is in quotes cuz it’s not a contest, and in reality spotlight is set up so every eligible pet can win eventually.

No idea how to fix it though, cuz it’s somehow become the common narrative.

I won with a code that I mashed up together too for SonataMoon, my first win. Ever since then I've won with the free profile templates other users have graciously provided. And I have around 11 wins, so....

I've noticed that custom overlay pets tend to get more comments when they win. Pets with a very unique profile/TC layout also get lots of comments. Other than that, there isn't much fanfare when someone wins spotlight. I wonder if that's related to the elitism?

The only thing I can think of doing to remove this elitism perception is by adding a separate queue for custom overlay pets. That queue would also have a cool-down that keeps more than one pet with a custom overlay from winning within a certain period of time.

But I'm pretty sure that won't happen because of the time spent coding such a feature. In addition, doing something like this would result in lost revenue, because people pay money to the site to submit overlays.....

I have a tendency to comment on things that feel unique. While I understand that Sweetheart is a go-to color for bakers and Bloodred a good one for Serial Killers, I'm more tempted to take the time to congratulate someone whose Bloodred pet is a unlucky baker who keep injuring themselves while looking, or someone whose Sweetheart pet is a Yandere Serial Killer. I love things that aren't exactly what you'd expect.

It's less of a problem these days, as most winners are very, very creative, but in the early days of the Spotlight, it was 90% Happy Bakers and Emo Serial Killers and Spotlight got boring fast, because a lot of pets really felt samey, to the point that I asked myself "Wait, didn't that pet already win?" at least once every two weeks.

Again, it's not a problem now, but a lot of people might still think that about the pet spotlight, so their interest is minimal.

I've wanted to enter the spotlight for years, but due to life and other things, haven't quite gotten there yet. I can write and draw well enough but I can't code to save my life, and I do feel some hesitance entering because I'm afraid that a lot of people will only look for outward appearances (custom overlay) and if it's just a regular pet, won't click on it to even check out the story or art that I put a lot of time into. If they do still click on the pet, then I'm afraid the plain layout/premade will make them scoff.

I understand that the main thing that grabs people's interests is going to be something that sticks out visually, but I feel like users who don't have that & aren't well known are at a disadvantage. I think having a small blurb (a sentence or two) about that pet when they win would really help to potentially hook more people in for the story aspects so more people appreciate the winner of that day. I'm not sure how feasible that would be, but if possible I think it would be a great addition.

(And who knows? I may just be projecting this feeling of elitism out when it doesn't actually exist and I'm just overthinking things, LMAO.)

In saying these things, I don't have a solution and I don't think there is one--I don't have any custom pets myself but I did plan on getting one someday, and I don't think they should be removed--just wanted to say my 2 cents on the topic of elitism. Glad to see this feature is getting some attention!

edit: fixed a typo

ooo I like 's idea of a couple of sentences about the pet. I've had (lots) of spotlight wins so far, but I know that some of my winning pets have had hardly any comments on the news post compared to some of my others. I can't help but feel their lack of custom overlay / a pretty nondescript name (as in not obviously a HP fan pet or something that's really well known) meant that people didn't bother clicking through to read the story.

But then I'm also guilty of not commenting on a lot of other spotlight posts (I do some, but not all of them) 😊

I know a few of my winners had only a couple of comments on the news

Yeah, like that! A little something that might hook interest into a pet's story.

I'm just like you! When my pets win I tend to get less than ten comments, and I think it's cause I don't have an overlay. I thought I was the only one who felt this way.....

A tagline would be great for pets with long stories like mine! 😆 I'm a good writer but I can't code well either, FYI. So I have to find templates for my pets. I do sometimes create my own backgrounds for them though.

Like

Likewise, I also have long stories! Most of my effort goes into my writing and art for my pets. I have the same worry as you, haha.

Love your backgrounds!

You’re an amazing writer!! Really great character building!

I honestly hadn’t thought much about the comments on spotlight wins, and how much they could make people feel even more congratulated by the win! Thanks for mentioning that.

(Now to try and remember to comment on everyone’s spotlight wins.. hehe)

i already stated my suggestions (though i want to massively reiterate my support for users helping with approving/rejecting and giving feedback on nominations, please let me do it, i actually really really want to), but i want to respond to some of the other stuff people have mentioned here. (split under spoilers because this got long, sorry!!!!)

a lot of people talk about feeling discouraged because they don't think they have a good shot at winning with template profiles, or no custom overlays, or short/simple stories. i just want to say that of my 7 spotlight winners, the first 2 used template profiles, none had custom overlays at the time of their winning, and all but one have only a few paragraphs worth of text – not even stories in the typical sense, just brief descriptions, snippets of scenes, or a little dialogue.

keep in mind, it's not a competition; you're not "losing" to pets that are judged as "better" than yours. someone else having a pet with a complex profile, custom overlay, and in-depth story doesn't actually make you more likely to be rejected. spotlight winners are varied, and everyone has their own preferences for what they think makes an interesting pet.

I think the cooldown should be increased - we had someone who won twice in 17 days, now. IT might not look much, but it means that two of the last ten winners were owned by the same person.

Increase the cooldown to 30 days, please.