Mini-Lottery: Maybe a BIT more fairness?

[Kumabear76]

Let me post my response from a different perspective. You see, i actually am a game designer. I do so for a living as an indie game dev. Now that being said, let me answer the OP as a game dev.

The Gold Saucer was conceptualized as an in game version of a real casino, but optimized to fit the theme of the game. As with all casino games in real life, there is an extremely high amount of randomness involved, hence the huge RNG-ness of it all. The reason there are fantastically high payoffs in very rare cases is because statistically speaking, the chances that RNG would allow for a player to hit that payoff should be relatively low.

The reason that many of the prizes are so costly in regards to MGP is simply, to keep you playing. But smart devs wouldn't intentionally lock important items behind a currency wall, only fluff content. In this case, vanity gear, mounts, and minions. All optional items. The average player would have to continue gaining lots of MGP over an extended period of time in order to get these items and thus, have their bragging rights.

The OP's ideas to make things more "fair" in a gambling system are, for the most part, detrimental. You see, if things were to be "more fair" or if there were more ways to gain MGP, then too many players would have the special rewards and thus, the average players wouldn't see them as a "reward", but more like "just another item." Having too many people with a reward item, devalues the item to the average player. Thus, players will stop trying to get the item, and less people will use the Gold Saucer. That, in turn makes content that the devs spent millions of RL dollars to create into completely obsolete and useless content. Should the producers begin to feel that was happening on a consistent basis, they will pull the plug on the game and we would all lose.

TL;DR - If you give some thing special to everyone, then it is no longer special.