How rarity works, and why your score went down

If your score went down in October, you did nothing wrong. I fixed a counting bug, and the fix moved almost everyone down at the same time. Here is how rarity works in CanMog, what went wrong, and what I changed.

How rarity works

Rarity in CanMog is about ownership. The fewer players own a can, the rarer it is.

The app counts how many players have each can on their shelf. This is how the count sets the tier, and how many points each tier gives to your collection score:

A can that only you have found is as rare as it gets. Cans from big brands follow a stricter rule, explained below.

Two things add to the points of a can:

• Your streak. A long streak multiplies the points of each new can: 1.25× on day 3, 1.5× on day 5, 1.75× on day 7, 2× on day 10, 2.5× on day 14 and 3× from day 30. The can keeps the bonus of the day you scanned it.
• First find. The first player to scan a can gets 50 extra points.

Your rank comes from your score. So the way up is variety, now on four shelves: new cans, new flavours, cans from small brands. Ten cans of the same drink count once.

Votes on how rare a can feels are only opinions. They never change a tier.

What went wrong

On October 11, a player wrote that common Hell cans showed as Legendary. I checked and found the cause.

The app counted the owners of each can from only part of the shelves. It read about 8% of the real data. So a can that 100 players owned looked like a can that 8 players owned. Thousands of common cans became Epic and Legendary.

Before the fix, shelves held 14,121 Legendary cans. With the true counts, 296 cans were Legendary.

Why your score went down

Your points come from the current tier of each can. When a can drops from Legendary to Common, its points drop from 500 to 10.

The first fix had a second problem. The new tiers came to each player only after that player updated the app. For a short time, players who updated fell down the leaderboard, while players on old versions kept their high scores.

On October 13 I fixed that too. Now the server sets every tier and every score, for all players at once, whatever app version they use. That day:

• 3,541 players went down and 38 went up. Almost everyone moved together.
• Most ranks held. The #1 player went from 103,979 to 13,156 points and stayed #1.
• One player went from #417 back to #3 with the same points, once everyone was counted the same way.

I know this hurt. Some of you lost tens of thousands of points overnight. But a leaderboard built on wrong counts is not fair to anyone, and it gets worse with every new player.

Big brands have a floor

A Red Bull flavour that only 2 players have scanned is not a rare can. You can buy it in almost any store.

So big brands get a minimum popularity, based on how popular the brand is. Red Bull and Monster flavours top out at Uncommon. Flavours of less popular big brands can reach Rare. Cans from small and local brands have no floor. They can reach Epic and Legendary.

This rule has a cost. A flavour of a big brand that is truly hard to find, for example one sold only in one country, is capped too. For now I think that is the fairer side to be wrong on.

What changed on October 21

Two more rules came in on October 21:

1. One barcode is one drink. Before, the same can could split into two drinks when it had two names, and a rename could make a can look rarer. Now a rename changes only the label.
2. Your points never go down. Each can remembers the tier you found it at. If the can becomes more common later, you keep the points of the tier you found it at. If it becomes rarer, you get more. For cans that were already on your shelf, the starting tier is their tier on October 21.

So a drop like the one in October cannot happen to your score again. When a can is now more common than when you found it, its card shows a Found at chip with the tier your points still follow.

If you scanned a can as Epic or Legendary before October, that tier came from the counting bug. It did not carry over: the starting tier of the cans already on your shelf is their tier on October 21, after the fix.

Why your phone may show other tiers

Old versions of the app show tiers saved on the phone, some of them from before the fix. Leaderboards, profiles, clans and the global catalog always show the server tiers.

If your shelf shows tiers that look wrong:

1. Update the app. Open the App Store on iPhone or Google Play on Android.
2. Open it once. The app loads the server tiers for your shelf.
3. Check again. If a tier still looks wrong, tell me in the global chat or write to support@canmog.com.

More questions

Will I get my old points back?

No. Those points came from tiers that were counted wrong, and every player lost them on the same day. Since October 21 your points for a can never drop, so this cannot happen again.

Do duplicates or re-scans give points?

No. A second copy of a can you already own gives no points. A re-scan still counts as a streak day, so it keeps your streak alive.

Is the tier of a can the same for every player?

Yes. The server counts the owners and sets one tier for each can, for everyone. Only old app versions can show something else on your own phone.

How do I find rare cans?

Look for cans that few players have:

1. Regional brands. Local energy drinks and sodas from your country or city.
2. Imports. Cans from other countries, from travel or import shops.
3. Limited flavours. Seasonal and limited editions of small brands.
4. New cans. Be the first to scan a can and you get the first-find bonus too.

Flavours of Red Bull and Monster are easy to buy, so they stay Uncommon at most.

Talk to me

I read the global chat, and many of these rules came from your messages there. If something about rarity looks wrong to you, tell me in the chat or on the support page. The tiers and points are also on the rarity part of the home page.

New here? Get CanMog and start your shelf.