MAJOR EDIT THANKS TO

I decided to make this a thread of its own, separated from Tobias' one, because I'm 500% more demanding.

Base pet slots are the slots you get when you start an account. Right now, we have 5. I'd like to see that doubling up to go to 10.

Plus, Subeta celebrated its 10th birthday this year! I think that it's a fine point to go and to go up to 10!

Subeta was up for a decade, survived and went through it... and yet, despite the number of pet species and colors that were added over these ten years, we can only go and pick five when we start.

Additionally, 5 is a very very weird number of free slots to start with. I think the reason is simple, it's pretty much a HERP DERP WE'RE ALLOWING YOU MORE PETS THAN NEOPETS CAN! We're moving away from Neopets (who is self-destructing so bad right now),

I never liked the idea of five base pet slots. 5 is a prime number, so it's impossible to divide to look aethetically good.

Of course, the main argument against this is "CASH SHOP PROFITS!"

We have 25 paid slots we can get, and more will be added in the future. That's 500$ worth of slots, at the current rate. Pet maniacs, people like me, we're going to go and get these slots anyway, even if we were given five for free the month before. I'm like that, a lot of people are like that. We'll contribute to the site anyway, when we'll get MORE SLOTS. We're not the ones that are going to lolnope if more cash shop slots are added afterwards

And if anything, getting an upgrade to the base slots will only motivate MORE people into getting more pets, because there will be less heartwretching decisions. It's going to make this aspect more user friendly in a way, because we're doubling up opportunities.

Another potential issue that could be raised by naysayer would be the server space problem. To this, I'm going to say, just because an opportunity is offered, doesn't mean everyone will use this opportunity. Even with the potential of five slots, some people still have one pet only, and have no desire to have more.

This is fine. We're not all pet people, after all! :D

So, these people who have no interest in getting more than one pet, they'll pass on this boon.

And, if it's not doable now, it's fine. It can be in the future, but it would be a great move towards more user-friendliness and more potential for Subeta. :D

EDIT : Acedia has brought wonderful suggestions on page 3 of this thread, so I'll just add them there

EDIT

pretty sure 5 is enough. hell, ten is enough for 90% of the people, and that's just $1.5 away. the only reason I have 13 is because subeta gave me three free slots years ago because I'm cute

5 pets slots gives you plenty of work already if you're actually into pets and developing their characters and profiles and whatnot. An extra 5 gets you addicted to gold accounts. Pet maniacs and battle armies will buy past that but you'd be cutting your earnings big time if you were to offer an extra 5 slots for free, essentially $100 per user

I don't think it's because you're cute.

IS THIS YOU

In all seriousness, a good part of that 100$ loss is gotten back via pageviews, via site activity, to go and get potions, for people like Andrea who go and train every single of their pets, into training, for people that really are into pets, into custom overlays and such.

I'm not that worried for the money Subeta is potentially losing. If anything, I feel they could be winning out a lot more than they're losing. Losing a penny to find a quarter, y'see?

*Last year. We're two months out from the 11th anniversary, so I think we can start rounding up.

I'd love some free pet slots, but like said, that's lost revenue for Subeta. If the current cap is a problem, it makes more sense for them to increase the number you can buy instead.

And once again, increasing the bridge between those who can pay and those who cannot, and furthering CSC inflation. I'm not sure that paid CSC alone are a viable solution for the average user-who-can't-really-access a credit card.

You can have a maximum of 15 slots, if you never get a GA, or any of the cash shop slots.

The maximum number of slots you can have is 49.

That's 31% of slots that can be gained with no GA, and no cash shop purchases.

If we increase the number of slots by 5 right now via cash shop ways, we're at 15/54, 28%.

If we decide to go and give away five more free slots, without increasing cash shop slots, it's 20/54, 37%.

Finally, if staff does both, give five free ones and allow the userbase to get five more, it's 20/59, 34%. With that compromise, the gap between people who choose to pay, and the ones who do not is slightly reduced.

You have to go and balance out CASH SHOP PROFITS!!!! and what you can do for the userbase.

Sowing seeds for the site's future never hurts.

I guess for me I really don't care much if we got 10 or 15 or unlimited GA slots. I figure staff probably looks at the sales numbers for pet slots vs server maintenance. I see a lot of users with massive pet hoards, so obv pet slots sell even if I'd never pay $20 for one.

I do think 5 is fine for non-GA, though. I filled mine up pretty quick, but it wasn't so rapidly I was frustrated by the lack of slots. And getting a GA to get your next 5 pets also gives users a taste of the other GA perks.

ETA: Pet slots isn't an area where I think the site is turning too pay-to-win. Pet slots are, imo, more like DLC. It's totally possible to enjoy Subeta without it, but if you want that extra content you should expect to pay for it.

Now, the fact that most new battle challengers go into the cash shop? The fact that CWs and CSC wears dominate the market? Things like that are where I don't like the CSC/sP-only player gap.

No matter what change, I will still have 6 pets. Unless a name like Moo or something opens up. But those names never do ;-;

I'm not against this change though, but maybe make it cost some CSC, not as much as the other upgrade slots though? like some sort of package deal for the first 5.

What's the ratio of paid/unpaid challengers? I don't have access to everything, so I can't calculate it myself, but can anyone that actually has everything unlocked (including the two tier 13 ones) give me an estimate?

i just looked at your pets.

this is brillant. you get a gold star from me

I PAID 260$ FOR MY FIRST FIVE, REALLY, ANYTHING IS A PACKAGE DEAL BY NOW.

D:

To compare with other petsites

• Neopets offers a fifth pet slot, if and only if you're premium. That's not that interesting

• Misticpets has a higher cap for pet number than Subeta does, unsure what the actual cap is. A pet slot is 5$ per pet slot.

• Flight Rising does not offer cash shop options for lair expansions. Lair expansions are the site's main currency sink, and go from 5K (from 10 to 15 dragons) to over 1M (starting at something like 110 to 115 dragons)

Haha why thank you! I don't think anyone has ever noticed them. All the good names are taken now, so pet slots are not the reason I don't have more.

[edit] how did you pay $52 each o_o I am unfamiliar with the cost of pet slots apparently.

BACK IN THE OLD DAYS

LIKE 2007 OR SO

you could buy one slot for 60$ via the mythical montre plushie or two slots for 100$ with the mythical donadak plushie

this is when we were capped at 15 pets.

oh were those plushies really that much? I remember them, I just never really paid attention to them (thankfully) o_o

Yeps! They went down by 20$ each a couple years ag, and then, it was changed to 2000 CSC/slot

SP was worth a lot more too. The Mythical Montre Plushie was going for anywhere near 20M-25M when I got mine!

I think if they want a lot of people to buy the package deal, it should be the cost of like one normal pet slot. That would be a great package deal and I'm sure a ton of people would go charge csc so they could buy it right away.

well some sP was worth a lot, Rahs Rabbit Following sold easily for 20m+, don't actually remember the range of prices I sold them for back then, I think I got over 40 for a few though

I'm not sure what the gap is, since I don't have everything unlocked. In terms of new challengers coming out within the two years I've been on the site, though, well.... Off the top of my head there's been at least one CSC challenger each month (plus a few other seasonal/permanent CSC challengers iirc). So 24+

For free challengers we got the three just this week that seem to be permanent unlockables, and there were the Morostide challengers which didn't stick around. The Tempest challengers that didn't stick around.... They brought those stone things back for a week but they're gone again. Basically if you weren't there for the event, or your pet wasn't strong enough at the time, you're SoL. You can fight a few old challengers doing BQs but they don't drop the special loot and it's very limited.

12 research notes, 12 signets (when all released) 750 forj package which is 3 challengers 750 meatslab package which is 3 challengers

so that's 30. I mean there are more regular challengers than cs challengers, but the prizes from the cs challengers are a lot better (cronus??)

some cs challengers along with older plot challengers will be appearing in BQs fairly soon though.

[edit] forgot mad/mutant scientists that's 32. and they cost what 750 unless you have all 12 research notes unlocked?

I'd buy a package deal for like, 50$ or something. That's not a stopper! But again, I'd pay full price for pet slots, I have no problem with that.

The idea behind my suggestion is that when I joined, the proportion of unpaid/paid pet slots was 33/66, and that if staff solely keeps on adding paid pet slots, that's skewered towards a minority of the population of the site. Pets are already expensive as if!

Yeah, I was surprised to see that for other petsites, having pet slots priced a lot lower (or for site currency) than Subeta is actually a viable way of doing business.

There is a lot of issues with FR's economy, but the issue of the site's currency being too omnipresent isn't one. A lot of things, including extra nest and extra lair space HAVE to be bought with the main currency, and some valuable seasonal items, with festival currency that you have to be active on site to get. That's something Subeta is getting better at, and I'm happy, but I still think there should be improvement!

True, that is a good point. Either way, it doesn't affect me. I just thought the site should get some benefit from this. even making it really cheap (like 1k) they'd get a lot of money.

I don't really know anything about other sites other than neo.

I'd say the proportion of cash shop / non cash shop challengers is around 50:50, more or less, excluding event-only challengers. I don't think I have everything unpaid unlocked, so my count is most likely off by a few.

I took into account the three Forjs, the three Meatslabs, the 12 research notes, the 2 versions of the scientist, all eight of the seasonal challengers such as Fruit Punch, and the currently released 7 golems

if you want, I can actually count how many there are when I get back tonight. not including plot challengers.

oh right I forgot last year's birds/dragons (underwhelmed by them I guess). right so 40.

I was happy with the release of 3 free permanent challengers yesterday, even if they are all very easy

Totally fine by me, man! if you want to do this, i'm geniunely curious to see the numbers.

Hell, I'm actually willing to see the numbers on each part of the site to compare with pet slots, that's giving me more of an idea to see how viable the original suggestion is.

Even if it's some kind of SP sink or something (like I said, FR does it fine), that's not even something I'm opposed to. Alternatives are love, alternatives are life.