Jumbo Cactpot is losing players interest.

The thing that separates a real life lottery from this is that real life lotteries can be entered multiple times each day. This is one time a week (although this has a MUCH better chance at a jackpot than a real life lottery) that completely invalidates all numbers if you don't have the last number correct, something that a real life lottery doesn't do. At the current chance it is a 1/10000 chance to win. At once per week it would statistically take around 96 years before you even break 50% chance to win (assuming a gambler fallacy model) and would cost 499k MPG. If you were to do all 10000 attempts and win the last, you will win a massive 1600 MPG...and have died of old age twice.

i think if no one won the time before the amount should stack ^_^

I don't know about anyone else, but I pretty much lost interest in everything related to the Gold Saucer within about a week. That's why I've stopped entering the Jumbo Cactpot - the odds don't have much to do with it.

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Originally Posted by Mokikoza

It's a game, and if people don't want to enter because they think there is no chance then it's not fun and therefore should be adjusted.

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I think this is like some kind of newgen concept or something; If people dont' want to enter because they think they won't enjoy it and it's not fun, you can find something else to do.

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Originally Posted by elemental10

It's a lottery.

In real life, how many people you know buy lotteries, and how many of them or lack thereof, have actually won them?

So far, I see 2 winners on my server. But only one fenrir mount........................... hmmm...............................

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Well in real life you can also buy as many tickets as you like....

Gold Saucer did just release this patch. I wouldn't assume that they're not going to update and add more attractions and tweaks to gold saucer with future updates and other prizes. I think if we don't see updates and adjustments to its features then everything is questionable at best.
I mean even PvP (as unpopular as it is for most of the playerbase) gets updates, tweaks, and adjustments to it regardless as to whether or not people want to run it or not.

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Originally Posted by Genaxx

If people dont do it they're only loosing out themselves, its, what?, 100GSP for a ticket? Which is nothing. Only 1 person on my server has won it, just this weekend.

Its a lottery, which lotteries do you know give you your money back if you dont win?

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shame it wasnt me :P best ive gotten is 4th lol

I am not sure people are losing interest, maybe losing enthusiasm but they are still doing it. They are realizing they have next to no chance to win but it only costs like 100MGP so people are just going there in their own time collecting their losses/wins, picking a new ticket up and moving on. It might be a low chance to win but also a low cost to play so people are really just doing it without enthusiasm, they are still doing it though. The in game lottery isn't fun but neither are real world ones unless you win and I would rather win the real world lottery than some in game one. :p

They could return 2,000 mgp for no numbers and have the prizes increase from there. Should encourage more to play without being game breaking, it is only once per week after all.

So how about this...

- Keep the 1mil for an exact match of all 4 numbers. No further comment needed.
- Have a [number of tickets bought] × 100 MGP reward for three numbers matching in the correct places. For example, number drawn is 8374, you have 5374, you win this amount.
- Have a [number of tickets bought] × 75 MGP reward for three numbers matching. For example, number drawn is 8374, you have any three of these on your ticket (eg. 4573), you win this amount.
- Have a [number of tickets bought] × 50 MGP reward for two numbers matching in the correct places, For example, number drawn is 8374, you have 1370, you win this amount.
- Have a [number of tickets bought] × 25 MGP reward for two numbers matching. For example, number drawn is 8374, you have any two of these on your ticket (eg. 8554). you win this amount.
- Have a [number of tickets bought] × 15 MGP reward for one number matching in the correct place. For example, number drawn is 8374, you have 8921, you win this amount.
- Have a [number of tickets bought] × 5 MGP reward for one number matching. For example, number drawn is 8374, you have one of those on your ticket (eg. 3905), you win this amount.
- Have a 100 MGP consolation prize (with keeping the early bird bonus), so at least people won't feel bad about losing, even if they don't actually win. (I know 100 is not that much, for pretty much most of us, but if interest is declining, it might be part of the solution.)

...or something similar. Obviously, the prizes could be adjusted, I just tried to come up with some pointers. The key is - people are losing (have lost?) interest/motivation in JC because it's completely bland and the chances of winning, as well as the tiers, are completely abysmal. By getting them involved in the actual outcome, as well as revamping what can be won and how, it might just become motivating enough to get them to play. After all, actually going to GS and buying a ticket does not take up much time, or effort, so that part could hardly be an excuse.

I happened to win 2nd place this week (Surprised the heck out of me) and the prize was very good but i feel like all the others below it are lacking. Not winning is fine but if you happened to get just 1 number your really still not winning much. I don't mind the lottery system here however. I go buy one...i go check on saturday...i lose then i go downstairs and win some from mini cactpot!

It be nice if certain weeks did other bonuses. Like say just getting ANY number you win some more. Something to spice it up a bit and give out a bit more for winning (1st place is worth plenty...im talking all the other ranks)

It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that an expansion is in 2 months and people simply aren't playing the game right now.

The problem is that it doesn't work well.

If it was an actual lottery, then each week that there is no winner picked. The pool/reward should go up. Should start at 250k and go up by 250k each week that there is no winner.

But it doesn't so the way that it should work is that the prize should be smaller, say 250,000 each week but there is at least always ONE winner.

Another fix might be more number to pick but the order doesn't matter.

If it would be a real lottery, the jackpot would be something like:
Players x 100 = that's what people invested.
/2 = that's the distribution in total
/10 = that's the jackpot, because its part on the distribution is around 10%.

So if you got 10.000 players, the jackpot would be around 50.000 MGP. Before taxes. :o

it makes absolutly no sense to let the jackpot go up if nobody wins. you can buy almost everything for 3 mio. if you win 10 mio - what will you do with the other 7 mio? wait until new stuff is added and buy it on patchday? and never play the new minigames? plus if someone wins 10 mio and has gp for the next let's say 5 updates and then the next week someone wins 1 mio. do you want to be the person who wins only the 1 mio? or will you create a topic here in forum how unfair it is?

Speaking of the Jumbo Cactpot, is anybody pissed like I am about how one of the achievement/titles can only be acquired if you won the Jumbo Cactpot? The expected time needed of doing so was like over a hundred years if you played every week(which is only the average, you can go way over). And not only that, their is another achievement/title that depends on this achievement.

Aren't achievements something you're supposed to work for, not just obtained under blind luck? Not that there isn't an already absurd amount of RNG in this game, it's just that this one is just over the top.

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Originally Posted by RobinRethiel

If it would be a real lottery, the jackpot would be something like:
Players x 100 = that's what people invested.
/2 = that's the distribution in total
/10 = that's the jackpot, because its part on the distribution is around 10%.

So if you got 10.000 players, the jackpot would be around 50.000 MGP. Before taxes. :o

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You are just making stuff up again. That is not how a lottery works.

This is the game developers version of a lottery.

They set up a game that said if you match 4 numbers in order (1/10*1/10*1/10*1/10 = 1/10000) you get 1 mil mgp. Has nothing to do with how many players there are or how much is put into the total pot. You would need 10000 entries to get the prize payout, and I don't think that is even possible. This way its fair, regardless of the amount of players on any given server everyone has the same chances to win the same amount.

So if the jackpot goes up if nobody wins, does that mean the jackpot is split if multiple people win?

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Originally Posted by Brightsayge

You are just making stuff up again. That is not how a lottery works.

This is the game developers version of a lottery.

They set up a game that said if you match 4 numbers in order (1/10*1/10*1/10*1/10 = 1/10000) you get 1 mil mgp. Has nothing to do with how many players there are or how much is put into the total pot. You would need 10000 entries to get the prize payout, and I don't think that is even possible. This way its fair, regardless of the amount of players on any given server everyone has the same chances to win the same amount.

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This is how a lottery works. I never said this is how the Gold Saucer Lottery works. Of course not. Any lottery working like that of the Gold Saucer would go bankrupt in an instant.

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Originally Posted by Mokikoza

It's a game, and if people don't want to enter because they think there is no chance then it's not fun and therefore should be adjusted.

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What's with this generation's obsession with instant or quick gratification?

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Originally Posted by RobinRethiel

This is how a lottery works. I never said this is how the Gold Saucer Lottery works. Of course not. Any lottery working like that of the Gold Saucer would go bankrupt in an instant.

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The lottery you described isn't how real lotteries work either.

*sigh* Then tell me how it works, if you know it better. Just saying "No it doesn't!" is a bit lame.

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Originally Posted by Brightsayge

The lottery you described isn't how real lotteries work either.

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It was perhaps a bit of an oversimplification, but overall, about right. Real world lotteries are always a money sink for the people playing them, because their whole purpose is to generate revenue for the state or organization that's running them. Only a small portion of the money they bring in is used to provide all the prizes they reward, so they're set up figuring the total amount that all tickets combined will cost, figuring some portion of that (half in Robin's example, which is a decent enough estimate for the purpose of her comparison) to become prize money, and dividing that prize money among all the tiers of prizes involved.

Our in-game version has drastically different numbers because, unlike real lotteries that are designed to drain money away from the people playing, the Cactpot is designed to generate points. It doesn't need to bring in MGP through the ticket sales to fund its prizes. It's just generating points for whatever matches you get.

Change the way numbers match. Instead of having the prizes tied to "last x numbers" have it tied to "amount of numbers that match."

I personally don't care to run there and get a ticket. Odds are I won't win, so meh.

Here is an idea. Allow players to auto enter with a random number every week. Say you have to sign up at the GS the first time, but you have the option to play again the next week, and then the next, if you want. It might increase participation. It's kind of like real life lottery tickets. You can just take your old ticket in and play the same exact numbers. Only in this case, don't make me go back to the GS. They could put vendors in other cities too.

The way it's done currently is how it's always been done in Japanese games in my experience. Small amount of numbers (3 or more) and they count from the last number from right to left.

I don't think there needs to be a change made to the Jumbo Cactpot, the problem is peoples' interest. On Tonberry, we have about 6 people who have won(I saw three people win one round but then the next time I checked one of the names went missing :/). The lack of interest might also be due to the fact that people are taking a break before Heavensward too, there are a lot of games out, I have a lot of games I haven't finished too XD.

I don't think there is any problem with Jumbo Cactpot however. When Heavensward is released I think there will be a period where people will not be in the Gold Saucer at all because of the new content, when they are ready to do mini games again the Gold Saucer will fill back up though :p.

The joys of mini games.

For the same reason I don't go out and grab a ticket for real world lotteries every week, I've found it isn't worth the time and effort invested. Like someone said, in 10 weeks you might hit the last number and make as much as you do on a bad mini cactpot ticket. What some people suggest re making all kinds of combinations of the numbers win would skew the odds further and further but perhaps some adjustment is needed to allow more ways to win something beyond the cost of the ticket. Because what we have now is content where you can say each week that for over 99% of players it wasn't worth doing at all.

This week was the 2nd time that I got 3 numbers correct, but not the last one. Damn this Jumbo Cactpot rule!

I enjoy Jumbo Cactpot. As far as I know only 1 person on Excalibur has won.

The only thing that I wish was different about it was the way they work awarding money for matching numbers. I once had a ticket that was 3769 and the winning number was 4739. I only got credit for the 4th number, even though my second number matched as well. I would like it if they could award a bit more money if you have matching numbers, even if they aren't in order from 1st to last. So instead of getting 1400 MGP (or whatever the amount was) It would have been nice if I could have gotten, say a 500 MGP bonus for having another matching number, even though it was not in order.

Yes, I know real lotteries probably don't work like that. :-p

I hope that post made sense.

They could adjust it to Straight and Box play like the smaller lotto has. When you purchase a ticket you select Straight or Box. Straight rule for lotto is the numbers have to match in that specific order. So if the winning number is 3342 your ticket has to be 3342. Currently as it is now. Box rule in lotto however the numbers do not have to be in order. So if the winning number is 3342 your ticket can be 2433 and you will win. With Box rule so as long as the numbers are in your ticket they will match the winning ticket numbers regardless of placement.
Box rule - Allows the person more chances to win but offers less reward.
Straight rule - Has little chance to win but offers highest payouts.

My server has almost nobody playing now ... you don't even get your money back with the early bird bonus, there's so few people doing it. Probably because literally nobody on our server has won for the entire time it's been a thing. Definitely echo that it needs to be individual numbers matched, seen so many people upset because they got 3 numbers, but not the last one so won absolutely nothing.

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Originally Posted by Rynia

seen so many people upset because they got 3 numbers, but not the last one so won absolutely nothing.

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This, this has happened 3 times in a row to me now, and as someone saving for fenrir its jarring as heck.

http://i.imgur.com/IdhmwvC.gif

It's 100mgp for one click a week. HOW do people feel so entitled to something as straightforward as a lottery ticket?
You buy a ticket for a very non consequential price and hope for the best. Didn't win? Who cares? You had all week to get good gains on the scratch tickets.
No one has one on my server (Adamantoise) and I don't think many rational people give a hoot about it.
I personally DO NOT need a refund if I didn't win. I understand how lotteries work. I spend 30 seconds picking my numbers and come back the following Sunday to see if I won anything.
It's like yelling at a lake when the fish don't bite.

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Originally Posted by Tanthalus

It's 100mgp for one click a week. HOW do people feel so entitled to something as straightforward as a lottery ticket?

*snipped truth*

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Please have all of my likes.

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Originally Posted by Tanthalus

It's 100mgp for one click a week. HOW do people feel so entitled to something as straightforward as a lottery ticket?

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There's no point in buying the ticket at all, because the chances to actually win from it are astronomically low. You could be buying a ticket every week for the rest of your entire LIFE without actually winning anything let alone winning the jackpot from it. That's why people want it changed because this is an online game, not real life so the chances to win and gain from this should be a lot higher than they currently are to make it more worthwhile to actually buy the ticket.

Yeah sure, I get what you mean with one click a week for a ticket, but that's not the issue, the thing is that people think more along the lines like: "Well I can't be bothered to buy it because you can't win anything from it anyways" - thus they ignore a feature completely in this game, which should not be the case. It should be more rewarding for the player, now it's just pointless.

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Originally Posted by Nasibihc

There's no point in buying the ticket at all, because the chances to actually win from it are astronomically low. You could be buying a ticket every week for the rest of your entire LIFE without actually winning anything let alone winning the jackpot from it.

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One in ten isn't astronomically low, and you're very unlikely to keep losing continuously. It's certainly not a fast way to earn points, but if you play regularly, chances are you'll come out ahead on it overall. It's only the jackpot that's set for an astronomically low chance, but that one is intended to be.

Now I wouldn't mind if the chances were better. I liked the suggestion a while back of making it the number of digits that match rather than specific ones that determines your prize. By that standard you'd have a four in ten chance of winning rather than one in ten. But the Cactpot is a good deal regardless.

I wouldn't mind if there were more ways to win Cactpot points, even if the odds of winning the jackpot were the same. Seeing as the TT tournaments are giving away MGP like candy, I think a reevaluation of the Jumbo Cactpot is in order (probably the Mini Cactpot, as well).

Players need to feel engaged. Even if they never win the jackpot, they should feel that the consolation prizes are still worth the effort.

The solution is simple, it doesn't pick random numbers, it picks a random ticket. So more like a raffle than a lotto. Always 1 winner.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrZ

The solution is simple, it doesn't pick random numbers, it picks a random ticket. So more like a raffle than a lotto. Always 1 winner.

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That would create drastically different chances on high versus low population servers. I prefer it being a fixed chance of winning, no matter where you are.