Remove the Random Craft Hat blanket from Price suggestions

[Strange]

I've been suggesting for long enough now to realise this. The random craft hat blanket never gets updated anymore (hasn't been updated in 2 years) and is still stuck at the 1.22-1.33 ref price. However through the past year now multiple craft hats have been priced at different prices (1.22-1.33 ref; 1.33-1.44 ref or even 1.66-1.77 ref) It seems like there can't be a specific "random craft hat" price anymore since everyone seems to value different craft hats at different prices, but what gets me is that mods still expect price suggesters to use the blanket in certain circumstances even though it's clearly outdated and doesn't represent the price of the majority of craft hats anymore. I've also seen the blanket cause confusion in suggestions (I.E https://backpack.tf/suggestion/6056836f08259970c4330891 , imo pricing these hats at 1.22-1.33 ref instead of "1 hat" would make more sense too). Wouldn't it just make sense to remove this blanket completely and just use ranges like we would on any other item? I myself could prove that craft hats sell for different prices, thus a blanket couldn't really be used correctly anyways. I'll also mention that suggestions have been closed just because they wern't suggested under the blanket even though 1.22-1.33 ref is literally the same value, was it honestly worth a resuggestion? ( https://backpack.tf/suggestion/604cd748dad7d45c232c6570 )

 

Priced at 1.22-1.33 ref: 

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/6056836f08259970c4330891

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/6052316c3c08614ed32fb8f8

 

Priced at 1.33-1.44 ref:

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/60587bf21db793580b572497

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/60587c88d7a05b38f036b03a

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/60587c38f81b31074d542caf

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/60576d097b2bde27dd2b4342

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/6056822735d8326e973ec3f7

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/605683d290e03159524182f7

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/6056819f2d3dfa136f3e7eb1

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/6056431436d1fe41001906b2

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/605644055f0c8b4ac23c0bf1

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/605643bdee2990635972704a

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/6056445f646ab813fc6867c6

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/605644b22bf4af3d6262e551

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/6055f738b6468b672d1b7ddc

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/6055f879e0155f292532321e

 

Priced at 1.44-1.55 ref:

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/60577225f9e870577a7eea55

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/605680f2ebd89a479962f180

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/6056434e2af5c471a8517b46

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/605486917bce48303822afc8

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/6051e247dc04dd4cbe52da86

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/605268a8b6b3c921e715c3fe

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/6050940dcd7e093e7d3ca4f7

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/605094ec44871a7ed63e95bd

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/604e929d8dd88e21680b6477

 

 

As we can see based on all the proof I've shown, the selling prices for craft hats are all over the place and a "blanket" isn't really representative anymore. I'd appreciate to hear your opinions, thx for taking your time to read 

 

 

[[RCR] The Red Cross]

Gotta say I am with you here mate... And I just deleted my 1.22-1.33 suggestions

[Luciferr]

+1 petition to stop the blanket

[Vrakos Anthrakir]

I'd support removing it.  It used to create quite a hassle when stuff moved in/out of the blanket, then the blanket price would change and some stuff would be left on the wrong side of things.

[Puddilicious]

The craft hat blanket was thrown in by Brad because craft hats used to frequently rise and fall in price together back then. Though they rarely ever change price together these days, it's nice to have the ability to update them if they ever do. I don't think we have to worry about the blanket screwing up prices since the blanket price hardly ever changes these days. Perhaps Fisk can have the site automatically change 1.22-1.33 refined to the blanket price in price suggestions for craft hats. I don't know how difficult that would be to implement.

[Strange]

I just honestly don't think a blanket for craft hats is suitable anymore. I mean, it could be argued that the blanket can just be updated, but as I've mentioned, there are just as many hats being priced at 1.33-1.44 ref as there are at 1.44-1.55 ref, and there are still a fair amount at 1.22-1.33 ref too. So making a good decision as to what the blanket should be priced at is a pretty tough call (the stats pages above are only what was being priced around the time I created this thread, I could show some fresh ones if you wish)

[Foamy the Fearsome]

Personally I fail to see the issue with the blanket, and I do not see a compelling case made for such a heavy dev job. As mentioned before, I do not know anything about the development side of the website, so when I hear that it takes a lot of work to do so, all I can do is take their word for it, but regardless of whether or not it is easy, removing the blanket will mess up everything that is priced in it. If there were truly to be a groundbreaking reason for its removal, I could see it being worth the effort, but the case presented here is not a very strong one.

Basically, the main point made seems to be "some hats are higher than the blanket", but what is the harm done? if some hats are worth more than the blanket then they can be priced separately, and anything that sells for the blanket value can be considered as a generic hat.

Im not saying it bears as much relevance as it did when it was implemented, but I do not see why you are so dead set on removing this when in reality it does not negatively impact the site.

My question here would be:
What is the negative experience you have with the site that is caused by this blanket, and solved by its removal?

As an aside, the fact that the blanket is not updated implies the generic hat value static, which is fine in my eyes, even if that means that a smaller percentage of hats falls in the blanket. The whole benefit of the blanket is that if generic hats actually raise, that one blanket raise can save a lot of extra effort & searching for every hat priced at 1.22-1.33. Note though that this does not mean that if some hats sell for more that the blanket should raise; don't mistake the blanket for "the average value of all hats"; a decent analogy are unusual buyers that buy any effect; they will primarily buy flies, n&b, aces etc., but the buy orders are not affected by a raise in the price of a burning one, since those are worth more than a generic unusual. The same applies here; if some hats sell for more than 1.22-1.33, then they are worth more than 'a generic hat', which means a blanket raise is not necessary based on that. Until nothing sells below, say, 1.33-1.44 anymore, I do not believe there is an issue; and even then - if that happens, the blanket can simply be raised to 1.33-1.44, if that value seems to have become the new static minimum.

[Strange]

On 3/29/2021 at 12:12 AM, Foamy the Fearsome said:

Personally I fail to see the issue with the blanket, and I do not see a compelling case made for such a heavy dev job. As mentioned before, I do not know anything about the development side of the website, so when I hear that it takes a lot of work to do so, all I can do is take their word for it, but regardless of whether or not it is easy, removing the blanket will mess up everything that is priced in it. If there were truly to be a groundbreaking reason for its removal, I could see it being worth the effort, but the case presented here is not a very strong one.

Basically, the main point made seems to be "some hats are higher than the blanket", but what is the harm done? if some hats are worth more than the blanket then they can be priced separately, and anything that sells for the blanket value can be considered as a generic hat.

Im not saying it bears as much relevance as it did when it was implemented, but I do not see why you are so dead set on removing this when in reality it does not negatively impact the site.

My question here would be:
What is the negative experience you have with the site that is caused by this blanket, and solved by its removal?

As an aside, the fact that the blanket is not updated implies the generic hat value static, which is fine in my eyes, even if that means that a smaller percentage of hats falls in the blanket. The whole benefit of the blanket is that if generic hats actually raise, that one blanket raise can save a lot of extra effort & searching for every hat priced at 1.22-1.33. Note though that this does not mean that if some hats sell for more that the blanket should raise; don't mistake the blanket for "the average value of all hats"; a decent analogy are unusual buyers that buy any effect; they will primarily buy flies, n&b, aces etc., but the buy orders are not affected by a raise in the price of a burning one, since those are worth more than a generic unusual. The same applies here; if some hats sell for more than 1.22-1.33, then they are worth more than 'a generic hat', which means a blanket raise is not necessary based on that. Until nothing sells below, say, 1.33-1.44 anymore, I do not believe there is an issue; and even then - if that happens, the blanket can simply be raised to 1.33-1.44, if that value seems to have become the new static minimum.

Hello Foamy, sorry it's been a while. Been a bit busy. I originally decided to bring this topic up because of how obsolete the Random Craft Hat Blanket was. I felt like something had to be done because the craft hat's selling places were all over the place and the blanket's value it's stuck at is pretty much low and doesn't represent the vast majority of the hat's values anymore. The negitive experience I had with it is that some suggesters (mostly new-ish) ones would make suggestions at 1.22-1.33 ref and then get asked to resuggest using the blanket even though the mean value is exactly the same, hence I didn't see the reason for a resuggest. Heck, I've even seen mods close suggestions for that very reason (I won't mention names).I wouldn't say it “negitviely” impacts the site, but I do still think it needs enhancing.

 

As you mentioned, removing the blanket as a whole would possibly create hassel for the devs' side of the site, thinking about it. So if you're not opposed to this idea, something that could work is if someone checks through all the craft hat's current selling prices and counts up all the selling prices, takes the most common selling point and re-prices the blanket at that (Of course I would volunteer to do this since imo it would make suggesting a whole lot better). As you said, the blanket is a “Generic Hat” but it can't be considered “Generic” if it doesn't even represent the vast majority of the hat's market. If this also isn't too much work, why not put the Craft Hat Blanket's value on the home page too? That way it might be a whole lot clearer to the newer suggesters what the blanket is and in which situations it should be used in. Or even as Puddilicious said above, why not make it so if someone types in the blanket's value (in this case 1.22-1.33 ref) it automatically prices the suggestion under the blanket?

 

I appreciate your response and am willing to hear back from you.

[MeFigaYoma]

1 hour ago, Strange said:

Hello Foamy, sorry it's been a while. Been a bit busy. I originally decided to bring this topic up because of how obsolete the Random Craft Hat Blanket was. I felt like something had to be done because the craft hat's selling places were all over the place and the blanket's value it's stuck at is pretty much low and doesn't represent the vast majority of the hat's values anymore. The negitive experience I had with it is that some suggesters (mostly new-ish) ones would make suggestions at 1.22-1.33 ref and then get asked to resuggest using the blanket even though the mean value is exactly the same, hence I didn't see the reason for a resuggest. Heck, I've even seen mods close suggestions for that very reason (I won't mention names).I wouldn't say it “negitviely” impacts the site, but I do still think it needs enhancing.

 

As you mentioned, removing the blanket as a whole would possibly create hassel for the devs' side of the site, thinking about it. So if you're not opposed to this idea, something that could work is if someone checks through all the craft hat's current selling prices and counts up all the selling prices, takes the most common selling point and re-prices the blanket at that (Of course I would volunteer to do this since imo it would make suggesting a whole lot better). As you said, the blanket is a “Generic Hat” but it can't be considered “Generic” if it doesn't even represent the vast majority of the hat's market. If this also isn't too much work, why not put the Craft Hat Blanket's value on the home page too? That way it might be a whole lot clearer to the newer suggesters what the blanket is and in which situations it should be used in. Or even as Puddilicious said above, why not make it so if someone types in the blanket's value (in this case 1.22-1.33 ref) it automatically prices the suggestion under the blanket?

 

I appreciate your response and am willing to hear back from you.

I always thought the point of the blanket was to price a "hat to be used for crafting". If you're trying to craft hats, you don't care what the hat is, you just want the cheapest possible craftable hat. If this is its purpose, it doesn't matter how many craft hats are worth more than the blanket, as long as some are still at the blanket. The blanket only goes up when the cheapest available craft hat goes up. A hat, once priced at the blanket, should only be repriced higher than the blanket if it suddenly becomes popular as a cosmetic, rather than as a crafting ingredient, raising demand to the point that other hats become cheaper as crafting ingredients. Also, there should not be any craft hats priced under the blanket.

 

If you think the blanket price is inaccurate, you can make a price suggestion for it. I don't see the issue there.

 

It's possible that my understanding of the blanket's purpose is incorrect, but this is my view.

[Strange]

16 minutes ago, MeFigaYoma said:

I always thought the point of the blanket was to price a "hat to be used for crafting". If you're trying to craft hats, you don't care what the hat is, you just want the cheapest possible craftable hat. If this is its purpose, it doesn't matter how many craft hats are worth more than the blanket, as long as some are still at the blanket. The blanket only goes up when the cheapest available craft hat goes up. 

This isn't necessarily the case, since some craft hats do have 1.11 ref as the low end . In some rarer cases I've seen like 1-1.11 ref too, or even 1.11-1.22 ref

[Strange]

It's been a few months, and I can still see issues with the craft hat blanket. 

 

I'll start off with this: the craft hat blanket is messing up the estimated value in people's backpacks. As we can see in my screenshot, the blanket is estimating hats at 1 ref even though the value is supposed to be 1.22-1.33 ref:

This situation ain't new either, this has been a problem for a few months now, mentioned a few times in the bptf Discord server too, yet nothing has been done about it. Of course, removing the blanket would stop this too. Like why would the blanket wanna estimate hats at 1 ref when it's clearly priced at 1.22-1.33? you tell me...

 

 

Lemme also bring up some of your concerns:

On 3/29/2021 at 12:12 AM, Foamy the Fearsome said:

The whole benefit of the blanket is that if generic hats actually raise, that one blanket raise can save a lot of extra effort & searching for every hat priced at 1.22-1.33

The blanket hasn't been repriced for over 2 years now. also just because the majority of the hats under the blanket go up in value doesn't mean all of them will. Some might stay at 1.22-1.33 whereas some might go to 1.33-1.44 or even 1.11-1.22. 

 

On 3/29/2021 at 12:12 AM, Foamy the Fearsome said:

but regardless of whether or not it is easy, removing the blanket will mess up everything that is priced in it.

If starting now we stopped pricing the 1.22-1.33 ref hats under the blanket, this whole "mess" idea can easily be avoided, like we can get to the point that nothing is priced under the blanket, so once we're at that stage how can removing the blanket cause a mess?

 

On 3/29/2021 at 12:12 AM, Foamy the Fearsome said:

Basically, the main point made seems to be "some hats are higher than the blanket",

 

On 3/29/2021 at 12:12 AM, Foamy the Fearsome said:

I do not see why you are so dead set on removing this when in reality it does not negatively impact the site

This isn't the only problem, as mentioned above

[Foamy the Fearsome]

I dont use the forums but I recently saw this again because of Lemons' application.
 

On 4/8/2021 at 6:09 PM, Strange said:

Hello Foamy, sorry it's been a while. Been a bit busy. I originally decided to bring this topic up because of how obsolete the Random Craft Hat Blanket was. I felt like something had to be done because the craft hat's selling places were all over the place and the blanket's value it's stuck at is pretty much low and doesn't represent the vast majority of the hat's values anymore. The negitive experience I had with it is that some suggesters (mostly new-ish) ones would make suggestions at 1.22-1.33 ref and then get asked to resuggest using the blanket even though the mean value is exactly the same, hence I didn't see the reason for a resuggest. Heck, I've even seen mods close suggestions for that very reason (I won't mention names).I wouldn't say it “negitviely” impacts the site, but I do still think it needs enhancing.

 

As you mentioned, removing the blanket as a whole would possibly create hassel for the devs' side of the site, thinking about it. So if you're not opposed to this idea, something that could work is if someone checks through all the craft hat's current selling prices and counts up all the selling prices, takes the most common selling point and re-prices the blanket at that (Of course I would volunteer to do this since imo it would make suggesting a whole lot better). As you said, the blanket is a “Generic Hat” but it can't be considered “Generic” if it doesn't even represent the vast majority of the hat's market. If this also isn't too much work, why not put the Craft Hat Blanket's value on the home page too? That way it might be a whole lot clearer to the newer suggesters what the blanket is and in which situations it should be used in. Or even as Puddilicious said above, why not make it so if someone types in the blanket's value (in this case 1.22-1.33 ref) it automatically prices the suggestion under the blanket?

 

I appreciate your response and am willing to hear back from you.

Based on this, I see potential changes in the blanket that I am okay with - Id be okay having it on the home page for instance. Making it so that the blanket value's boundaries automatically suggest in the blanket would be okay too but the issue is that if non-hats are suggested at that value they'll automatically become hats and change with the blanket even though they should not.

Theres also a point about not all hats being the same value, but as I said before, the point of the blanket is not to be the price of all hats ever, it is supposed to represent a bottom value one can get for any craftable hat. Due to the nature of the blanket that would mean that hats selling for less should either not exist or they are just very rare exceptions. Actually, hats wit ranges below that could be converted to the blanket if found, since they should be able to sell for the generic value.

Other than that, I don't think getting asked to resuggest something in the blanket is a reason to remove it. I suppose not closing instantly for that is a fair request, but it should be possible for us to ask our users to adapt their suggestions.

 

On 7/14/2021 at 8:20 PM, Strange said:

It's been a few months, and I can still see issues with the craft hat blanket. 

 

I'll start off with this: the craft hat blanket is messing up the estimated value in people's backpacks. As we can see in my screenshot, the blanket is estimating hats at 1 ref even though the value is supposed to be 1.22-1.33 ref:

This situation ain't new either, this has been a problem for a few months now, mentioned a few times in the bptf Discord server too, yet nothing has been done about it. Of course, removing the blanket would stop this too. Like why would the blanket wanna estimate hats at 1 ref when it's clearly priced at 1.22-1.33? you tell me...

 

 

Lemme also bring up some of your concerns:

The blanket hasn't been repriced for over 2 years now. also just because the majority of the hats under the blanket go up in value doesn't mean all of them will. Some might stay at 1.22-1.33 whereas some might go to 1.33-1.44 or even 1.11-1.22. 

 

If starting now we stopped pricing the 1.22-1.33 ref hats under the blanket, this whole "mess" idea can easily be avoided, like we can get to the point that nothing is priced under the blanket, so once we're at that stage how can removing the blanket cause a mess?

 

 

This isn't the only problem, as mentioned above

 

Based on this, the problem seems to be that theres a bug in the blanket and that thát is the issue, in which case I would say thát needs to be fixed (if it hasnt already).
 

For the rest, personally I still dont understand the issue with the blanket value being old. It's not like with unusuals, that it being outdated means it's no longer valid. If there is a compelling reason for the base value to raise, it can raise (or lower, analogously). If not, then it can stay the same. In the case that there is a reason to raise it, the blanket actually has a function in saving the time to update everything individually, which would be a reason to keep the blanket.

This is all only looking at whether or not the blanket has a purpose. The last point responded to was one to show that even if it would not have a function anymore (which I disagree with as mentioned, since I feel it still has a purpose, be it less prominent than in past times), I would need a very specific and compelling reason to put effort into removing it. Manually converting all values to ref is exactly the kind of effort I deem unnecessary, regardless of whether or not the blanket has a purpose.

I've asked other mods for their opinions as well, as I dont really handle non-unusuals, so others may have more direct insight in this.