santae-feedback

[santae-feedback]

A collection of constructive feedback and suggestions for Santae from users in our server and the Forums as well as myself.

Note: This is a No-Salt Zone. Saltines will be ignored. We only condone objective, constructive feedback here. These range from serious problems to lighthearted suggestions in no particular order.

Make events more accessible in general.

They have been reported by multitudes as miserable, grindy, and utterly unreasonable across the board with increasing frequency. It has reached the point that users have reported feeling pushed away from the site entirely because they can not participate due to the requirements of item numbers, item availability, time constraints, or else physical impact on those with disabilities. More and more people are reporting being unable to collect event rewards due to the inability to gather required RNG items within low time constraints paired with general NPC item unavailability. The later of which largely being due to the unrestrained scalping that runs rampant on this website which has proven worse than any other Pet or Doll site that this mod has seen in 20+ years.

Make multiple habitats more visible and accessible.

Options for this include letting users display more than one habitat at a time on their profiles and-or adding a button-link to the user profile which would then point to a page listing all of that user's habitats for perusal by others.

Allow syntax formatting on user profiles, up to and including link embedding.

The lack of alignment and font formatting options is crippling for user profile descriptions. Allowing link embedding could provide a stop-gap for the prior request above, allowing users to manually link to their various habitats for sharing purposes.

More user agency for animated images.

It would be ideal to allow users to be able to have more individual control over various animated features opposed to a single universal on-off switch that at the time of writing this still does not even disable all animations such as pet 'breathing' animations. The ability to disable such animations for the pets in habitats and on the gathering screens is needed as it causes motion sickness in some and otherwise mars otherwise lovely and immersive features such as the habitats.

Accessibility Toggles need to be more modular.

One size does not fit all is an apt phrase for this situation. Just because a user needs minimals to not zoom across the screen to cause motion sickness or problems for those with motor control issues or any other disability does not mean they also want to be locked out of the mining mini-game and vise-verse. Just because a user needs certain animations disabled does not mean they should be punished by having their avatar frozen.

This includes Wardrobe Items.

Similar to above it would be more respectful of users money, interests, and medical needs by allowing them to have separate versions of the wardrobe items which are shipped as animated. The animated avatars are a great appeal of the site and for the most part the majority of these items are harmless even for the photosensitive, but there are a handful of egregious offenders that are beginning to create issues for otherwise happy players. This paired with the aforementioned singular, all-encompassing toggle is an unsatisfactory answer to a glaring accessibility issue. There needs to be a way to have static versions of animated wardrobe items without disabling animations globally. Only a small handful of items thus-far have proven to be problematic, but there is a two-fold issue. We still do not have a way to preview these items when they are not actively in the cash shop-- and only when they are outside of a bundle-- so being unable to discern whether or not an item is animated in the first place is already a red flag. Secondly, some of the items in question have perfectly wonderful-looking static frames when aforementioned animations are disabled via the global animation toggle, proving that it is possible to have both animated and static versions of said items with just a little effort. There are two possible solutions for this issue. The more intensive option is allowing toggles on individual wardrobe items to flip their animations on and off per item. This could be handled similarly to the toggle that is on certain items to swap them between their different item versions, but be used instead to toggle between the full animation cycle and a single static frame version. The alternative solution is to ship two separate versions of each of these items, the animated version and a second version of the hypothetical static frame so that the user can add both to the wardrobe and apply whichever they wish to see. Alternatively it would give the user agency to sell the version they do not have need for if they do not wish to keep both, enabling others to have the option to hand-pick what version they want from the user market. This feels particularly egregious to us as disabled users should be allowed to enjoy beautiful avatar cosmetics the same as everyone else and not be forced to miss out when such lovely art has animations injected into it that may ruin their experience or worse-- cause a medical reaction.

Please fix dark mode.

There are glaring inconsistencies in its current state when it comes to site-wide darkening and the item tool-tips. It is also rather disappointing to have the banner dulled so significantly for those who need to use this feature, but based on feedback I have collected the general consensus is that those who need a dark mode do not find the native one useful. Speaking from personal experience the browser add-on 'Dark Reader' has its own set of issues with Santae as well which interact poorly with the native dark mode that has been provided thus-far.

Sanctuary Habitats are missing glaring features.

Pet's minimals disappear into the void, rendering their collection and assignment utterly pointless. It would be ideal to be allowed a toggle on each individual pet to choose to display their minimal with them when they are in a habitat. The same goes with Pet CSS. It all vanishes the moment they go into a habitat, rendering all of that coding a waste. There needs to be a toggle for the pet animations as they cause motion sickness, eye strain, and are distracting at best. Habitats are a gorgeous feature and this ruins the entire thing for many. The wait time for moving pets from Habitat to My Pets is fairly egregious as well, giving multiple users anxiety and dread that their beloved pets are lost in the void to a bug forever. A bit of transparency on this issue would be appreciated. Lastly, there is a persisting bug where the Day/Night/Auto setting on backgrounds is not being respected. Not only is this frustrating, but the bright, super-saturated colors cause eye strain in some users and have even caused headaches. It would be appreciated if this could also be looked into!

A wish-list feature would be a great addition!

A helpful tool for tracking, curation, and random acts of kindness would be a user wish-list feature with a privacy toggle attached! If I recall correctly Gaia Online had handled this by having Public, Private, and Friends Only options for the self-curated wish-list as well as individual visibility settings for each item on the list? It feels like a big undertaking, but it would be an excellent addition.

More pet profile display options.

The option to display pets collections directly on their profiles would be a fun personalizing experience so long as it remained optional and modular. Having pets collections disappear behind multiple clicks that users have to go out of their ways to elect to look at when there is zero incentive to do so is a tad disappointing. Even if it was a limited range of items from the collection it would be better than the current state of things. That being said, the ability to manually organize pets collections like one does a gallery would also be ideal. In the current state collections are a bit of a hot mess. It would also be nice to be able to remove things from collections even if the item in question is destroyed as many items have been unintentionally added to pet collections due to misclicks resulting from the inconsistency of item button arrangement. Finally it would be great if items such as artifacts and plushies could also be displayed on pet profiles as well.

Dial back adding cash shop items to collections.

I know you need money to maintain the site. I get it, believe me-- I am not as ignorant as many naysayers and cash shop whiners. But this particular matter is a bit egregious to me. My one request pertaining to this particular matter is to consider making it so that cash shop collection items specifically might be able to be applied to multiple pets (even if it's limited to say... five of them?) in addition to artifact collection and the wardrobe where it applies. Collections are a large part of the website's appeal, so it is quite alienating and defeating for users in low-income living situations and for those who will never be able to have disposable income. The multi-use dilemma leads into the next point.

Item button layout consistency is a pressing concern.

It is May of 2025 and items still play musical buttons every time you click on them to interact with their functions. Where "Add Artifact" may be on one, "Feed to Pet" will be in the same slot on another. This has caused devastating losses and even some user exodus and should have already been universalized. All arguments against this problem are inherently rooted in ableism. There are cognitive and physical conditions, not to mention ISP ping and lag, that can make this glaring flaw go beyond the ignorant retort of "Just slow down and pay attention." These kinds of issues should never be deferred to the End User. Many extremely valuable (sometimes USD) and even irreplaceable items have been lost in this way. It is especially egregious with many SanCash items being classified as wardrobe, artifacts, and/or food at the same time. The obvious solution to this is to pick a static layout consisting of all available button options and then gray out/disable the options that do not apply to a particular item. Visual bloat is a small price to pay for not having items lost at no fault of the user.

Please stop condensing menus into drop-downs.

You keep adding more and more unnecessary clicks for people with chronic pain and it is getting increasingly concerning. If you want to compact multiple options, once again-- please give users the agency of options.

Galleries need Help.

Galleries are a great feature that many people enjoy, but they definitely need some help. The most glaring issue being the archaic order-by-number system which is many clicks and a lot of data entry which puts people with chronic pain in agony. The obvious solution to this is to migrate it onto the system that the My Pets page has, allowing people to click and drag them around freely. This will reduce the physical pain for some users. In addition to this, we simply need... well. More Galleries. Many people would enjoy and benefit from being able to purchase additional galleries, even if it is a SanCash option. This will allow for more creative control and organization and provides another sustainable income option for Santae at large! ie; User X wants a Gallery that is a catch-all but also a Gallery that is just for a curation of certain themed items! User X navigates to the SanCash shop and purchases a Gallery Display Case for 5sC, adding an additional gallery at its default capacity to be upgraded later with sP! Then they realize they could also have one for minimals, so they can buy another for that as well! etc.

More sort options for mass stock.

Only having Alphabetical is really stifling and frustrating. We would like to see the same sort options that are available in the default inventory sort drop-downs if possible, please!

Previews, previews, previews.

Please allow users to preview wardrobe items on both blank mannequins AND their current avatars outside of the Bazaar & Cash Shop. I really don't feel like I should have to explain myself on this one, it is literally the bare minimum especially where cash items and rare items are concerned. (Accidentally typoed that as bare minimal at first, hmm...) In cases where there are bundles of these items, users need to be allowed to preview their contents and then the appearance of these items within the bundle before purchasing. Again, I really, really should not have to explain myself on this one. Please. :/

"What did I unlock, again?" "Have I bought this, yet?"

Please give users the ability to see what items have already been added to collections, wardrobes, achievements, and etc when viewing item details. The number of times that duplicate items of high value have been erroneously bought because there is no reasonable way to verify prior ownership is staggering. Personally speaking it makes me not want to buy anything at all because it is too many steps to have to go into the wardrobe or onto individual pet profiles to make sure it hasn't been done yet. This is especially problematic for chronic pain havers.

Please fix blurry and squashed wardrobe items.

Exactly as it says on the tin. The moon should not look like it was put in a hydraulic press (planet Saturn do not interact) and a fox should not look like a jpg uploaded to AOL for Win98. lol.

Make the 'Check Price' link actually clickable on mobile.

Santae is becoming increasingly unusable on mobile which is going to cause a mass exodus for many users can only use the site on their mobile phones. I personally use it primarily on an Android phone and attempting to do so is miserable at best, most especially because of the Check Price link being impossible to tap. There needs to be either more padding or bigger font for mobile exclusively or both.

Inventory Jumping = Mobile is Useless

Many people are now experiencing a consistent issue where tapping on an item in their inventory on mobile browsers jumps them to the bottom of their inventory screen. Do I really need to elaborate on how this has rendered the site unusable? :')

Wardrobe issues.

There are significant layering and clipping issues in the Wardrobe, especially with leggings, shoes, outerwear, and various issues with Lycans-- namely eyes, makeup, and contacts. This paired with the lack of user-elected layer ordering is... bad. Santae has one of the best-looking avatars out there and it is undermined by a lack of animation toggles, layer ordering, and load-outs for saving, exporting, and importing entire outfits. We know you say it's coming but... when? This is a very front-facing feature and big draw of the website. C'mon, guys.

Please give us an update to the Mindy situation.

No, really. You ripped away many users favorite minimal when there is no similar minimal to be found. A wise cat once said, "A cat is not a dog." This was a very poor handling of interpersonal drama on staff's behalf. This habit of completely taking away items and modifying the appearance and functionality of items that users have already purchased-- at times with cash-- is a very. Very. VERY. Bad look all-around. Please veer from this trend.

Sanctuary Build Costs are Unreasonable.

We know it's being looked into, but it still needs to be said. It both has to do with and yet goes beyond the item count issue. It is also a glaring accessibility issue for chronic pain sufferers. Having to sit there and manually buy thousands of items from the Crossroads one at a time with multiple clicks per singular item is possibly the worst example of disability hostility on the site thus-far. I am more than a little tired of seeing this uptick of ableism in the attitudes of developers of many games and websites. Then when you get past the absolutely horrific item requirement you get slammed with the "You Need Pet Papers" brick. One slot for a space that took THOUSANDS of items and agonizing real-life pain to build when the first two came with five is possibly the worst thing you all have done to date with this site. You gave users a false expectation and then coded yourselves into a corner. Habitats should have been the alternative to the Pet Paper issue, not one more way to exploit and extort users for Cash-- especially when in the current state these Habitats strip away many of the features that pets otherwise have outside of them as detailed in a prior point much higher up in this post. When Habitats were announced my thought was 'Oh this is the equivalent to FR Hibernal Dens to give users a non-cash option to store their pets!' Imagine my disappointment. Then I let that go when I saw that they have immersive backgrounds and lore potential, deciding that it must be the trade-off-- only to be gutted by the costs, constant 'breathing' animations, and lack of many features that I had expected to persist like minimals and CSS.

Unprofessionalism is Unbecoming.

I want to keep this post as sodium free as possible as it is best for everyone's heart health, but without saying too much... please act your age. All of you on all sides; Users and Staff alike. This many year trend of breakdowns of professionalism among site staff and moderators across multiple browser-based games and even major MMOs is.... concerning. Santae has been an especially alarming case. The fact that blogs like these even have to be made no matter how well-intentioned the users are because they have to fear retaliation from the developers is a big, bright, flashing, neon-red sign. User retaliation does not help, either. You have a wonderful website, gorgeous pets and avatars, a great community, and incredible potential. You have really good ideas that I really want to see bloom into something incredible. I want you to succeed so badly but you are pushing people away with these behavioral issues and the ways you are treating your users and other staff members. Please. We are not all your enemies. There are those of us who badly want you to succeed. But you have made those who otherwise want to love and respect you begin to cringe away and fear that this is a sinking ship. You have got to get these retaliatory impulses and outbursts under control. It is not healthy for you or anyone else. I say this only out of concern and hope that you can recover from this. I don't believe that negative reinforcement is the correct path here-- from either side. Not from saltines attacking staff and not from staff lashing out at users who just want their concerns heard. Please practice nuance when handling critique. Please stop lumping in those of us who actually are interested in helping the site grow and improve for everyone's benefit with toxic sludge peddlers hiding in anon asks on certain other cesspool blogs. We are not the same and if I was not worried that I would be thrown in with the rest of them and harmed for these requests because of the bad air they've preceded me with I would not be anon either. Please be kind. Please remember to be human. Okay? I just want us all to be okay and to have fun together. Alright? I know you are better than this. I know it can get better. Please try...

In conclusion:

Between the Sanctuary costs, how expanding them is being handled, the loss of many features on pets put in habitats, the eye-strain caused by certain animations that cannot be individually toggled, the increasing hostility against mobile users, and the unreasonable demands of events, I am very close to being unable to play Santae any longer... which is actually depressing for me.

This is not a threat but a plea for help as I really, truthfully do not want to stop playing at all... But the site is reaching a state that is physically and psychologically unplayable for myself and many others. I wish it were not so. . . That's why I am writing all of this, because I want it to get better. But I am scared of posting in the forums. Even writing this on this blog frightens me. Do you not understand how that reflects back on you? That my polite requests for accessibility and quality of life improvements make me fear for account closure? I wish that anyone could see this post and remember kindness and compassion for others, knowing that not all of us are like the miserable trolls on That High-Sodium Blog who only want to drama monger and watch it all crash and burn. There are those of us who genuinely love the site but are worried about its sustainability and playability when so many issues remain unaddressed and there is a constant pipeline of more and more problematic issues being introduced like clockwork with what feels like little-to-no regard for disabled or low-income users. It's hurtful. It's alienating. It's defeating. Please remember to be human.

I just want all of us to be okay and to have fun. Life is scary right now and we could use a bright spot in this darkness. Santae could be that star but right now it is being drug down by bad attitudes on both sides, and so everyone is being drug down with it.

It is not too late to save it. Please... My server truly loves Santae.

Do the right thing...