Developing a rarity system for a pet game

[cpvr]

A rarity system is an effective way to establish a game’s economy, especially if you use a structure like R1-R99.


In this system, R1 would represent the most common items, while R99 would indicate the rarest items, which are hard to obtain. These rare items might occasionally stock in the main shops, but not very often.


Alternatively, you could implement a simpler system with rarities ranging from R1 to R20, where R20 represents the rarest items.


Common items could stock 2-6 at a time in the main shops, while rare items might only stock 1-3 at a time.



How would you design a rarity system for your game? What’s the best rarity system you’ve seen work on a pet site or sim game?

 

[Demon_skeith]

It's a good way to get people addicted and keep on playing the game, wanting to get that R99 item.

 

[WontByte]

I didn't have a rarity system, so to speak, where it would show the rarity of the item to the general public. However, displaying the rarity is something that I will keep in mind for future game development.

The players knew that they found/had a rare item as they found it on the map and it stated that they found "Item 1 of 2".

It would've been a great addition to have at that time to show the items and their rarity. Except not in all cases. Some items were defensive/offensive, so if other players knew that you had that item, they could swap out theirs for another item they have that they might think could defeat it in a battle, and it would put the person with the rare item at a disadvantage. Skins, or other things like that, wouldn't be a problem though.

 

[uptrendfinancialsignal]

To be honest, this is a very brilliant idea. The inclusion of the rarity system for our pet game sounds cool to me. Using R1-R99 would create a huge variety of items for the players and it will make the game so exciting too.

 

[lens]

To be honest, this is a very brilliant idea. The inclusion of the rarity system for our pet game sounds cool to me. Using R1-R99 would create a huge variety of items for the players and it will make the game so exciting too.

Agreed to your submission! But don't you think that the R1-R20 would be more manageable? This would likely make the rare items feel truly special and achievable too.

 

[Baw$e]

Adding rarity levels to pets gives players further incent to play longer, and try to earn rare pets. It's good to have a rarity system built in on your pet sites.

 

[cpvr]

Agreed to your submission! But don't you think that the R1-R20 would be more manageable? This would likely make the rare items feel truly special and achievable too.

This structure would work if the game doesn’t have a lot of items in circulation.
However, I see a system of r1-r99 working the best. Neopets uses this system along with a few other games. I’ve yet to see a game use a r1-r20 rarity system, but it could work.

Especially if you have common, uncommon, rare, then ultra rare item based upon this model, but you’d also have to implement other structures into this model.

With common being the lowest rarity while ultra rare being the highest rarity(20).