Mini-Lottery: Maybe a BIT more fairness?

[DarkmoonVael]

And another one who does not get the point of it. Why are so many people here unable to read?

I can read, have read your original post, and have responded to it. Why dont you get the fact that the thread title and main points in your original post are about mini-cactpot, which is what people are responding to?

Come here to read a thread on why lotter needs to be "fairer to all" (quite the oxymoronic statement), now find a thread full of OP claiming people "dont understand, dont read". Yeah....uh huh....

[RobinRethiel]

How many different people do you need to come in here and post pointing out you're not making any concrete suggestions and that you're really failing to grasp the concept behind Gold Saucer in general before you realize your post I'm quoting fits more as a rebuttal against you than something coming from you?

Not even 1 billion will make a lie the truth. So no matter how many of you are saying otherwise, the truth is, that I made concrete suggestions.

And you are very few people here, just very pushy and when I read your other posts in other threads, you are doing this everywhere. Don't know why the mods are letting you poison the forums like that. I talked with others and they say, they will not post here, because it is pointless to talk with "such people". They just hope, that Square will learn anyway and change it, else they will leave the game, too. And those are a lot more than you few here.

I can read, have read your original post, and have responded to it. Why dont you get the fact that the thread title and main points in your original post are about mini-cactpot, which is what people are responding to?

Come here to read a thread on why lotter needs to be "fairer to all" (quite the oxymoronic statement), now find a thread full of OP claiming people "dont understand, dont read". Yeah....uh huh....

Do you read newspapers? Do you read only the title and not the rest? And if you do, do you think, that you really get the point of the news, if you do so?

And I have yet to see one single argument coming from you.

The only reason you made this thread is because you're not among the ppl who got their 4x10k wins in a row. Otherwise you'd think that the pot is perfectly fine the way it is.

I can not force you to open your eyes and read. Again, just insults. I wrote a few times, what Square could do, you are simply ignoring it and keep insulting me.

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.

Well, I'm a professional game designer, too and a core rule of game design is, that a player should NEVER feel out of control or losing by bad luck.

Good luck is okay. Bad luck a no go. As a game designer, you have to creat flow, for this you need to find this small line between boring (too easy) and annoying (too hard, unfair), empowered by moments of success. A lottery working like this does not fulfill this, because you can only do it one time per day or week and while it IS a moment of success for someone who actually get such a 10k prize, for those who don't get it, it is a moment of disappointment, a bad thing in game design.

To avoid this, you must somehow compensate the losing. One way is, that you guarantee wins, at least now and then, that would be the enforced method. Another way would be, that winning the lottery is really just a little extra, something you can say: well, it's nice to have, but not really needed, because you got a lot of others sources, which also work fine. From the point of game design, grinding does NOT work, because grinding doesn't give flow, but annoys most gamers, it is repetitive and simple = boring and without the enforced need to do it, near to nobody would. Flow = people do it, because they love to do it, not because they must.

Another possibility would be, as I talked about it with my workmates, that you give the people the possibility to share. Some guild mates are feeling bad, that they won the cactpot many times in a row, but while they would like to share their win, they can't.

Gambling systems are a bad thing by the way. Many countries on the world got giant problems with it, while criminal organisations love it. You can easily read about all this.

By the way: Your idea, that people will stop playing Gold Saucer because others get items, too, is absurd. Then no one would ever get in any dungeon. No, Gold Saucer like it is now demotivates most players, because they quickly see, that they will not reach anything without a really, really, really long and dumb grind (because beating the same TT thousands of times is something a bot can do, like working in a factory).

Gold Saucer must be a fun area with something to win for everyone. 120+ hours of TT grind for a mount is not even close to a good design. Something like Gold Saucer must be crowded, because it is fun to play. THAT is good game design.

The title should reflect the content of your post, yes. Your title, and your major complaint, is about the mini cactpot. Your "solutions" don't have to do with cactpot. As such, you have chosen your title and complaints very poorly.

I got some solutions. One of them got to do with the mini cactpot. And of course the mini cactpot is the core problem. Some people get 100.000s of MGP for nothing. Others not. This annoys the second, it makes them dislike he game and leave. And I don't think, that Square like the idea, to lose real money, because people are annoyed, that they continuously lose a mini game by bad luck and got no real way to compensate this.

[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.

[MomomiMomi]

Do you read newspapers? Do you read only the title and not the rest? And if you do, do you think, that you really get the point of the news, if you do so.

The title should reflect the content of your post, yes. Your title, and your major complaint, is about the mini cactpot. Your "solutions" don't have to do with cactpot. As such, you have chosen your title and complaints very poorly.

You should have just made a post saying that the reward for chocobo racing should be increased, in which case, you would have probably gotten nobody opposing your post.

[Duuude007]

Mini-Lottery: Maybe a BIT more fairness?

The concept of 'lottery' is meant to be random, and random is inherently fair.

This daily lottery is somehow something nice

I agree.

but to be honest, it's a BIT unfair, when some people already won 40.000 MGP with it, and other never had even the CHANCE on a single 10k or 3,6k prize.

I disagree, because the chance at the 10k card is entirely random, the chance that they get it will be effectively the same chance that you get it, given enough repeat visits. RE: Law of Large Numbers.

If this continues like that, some people will just get hundredthousands of MGP, while other don't got 10% of this.

Except it cannot, will not, by design. Thus is the nature of RNG. Flip a 2-sided coin 50 times you will probably get heads 25 (ish) times.

It would be one thing, if there would be any other way to get such intense amount of MGP

10,000 a day is meant to be the largest "effortless giveaway", (on par with a hand-out). There are plenty of ways to earn much more, assuming you exert more effort.

but somehow the Gold Saucer is really mainly a Casino like this - in the bad way

Yes, the Gold Saucer IS a casino, except the fact that even when the house wins, you have minimal loss, unlike those "bad" Earth casinos.

and hell: for Chocobo raising you pretty much need all those MGP.

Due to the RNG nature of a lottery, it is inefficient payout, by design. If you wish to get more MGP, Triple Triad is far more efficient. 111 wins against Indolent Imperial will net you 10,000 MGP for use in vanity or Chocobo raising.

I don't really get, why you implement it like this. You nerfed retainers, so they will not bring people raid stuff, but now, with Gold Saucer, it's back and even worse.

I don't know why you don't like retainers, I find many items they bring back very useful. But this is off-topic.

All things, which bring most MGP, are 100% luck based, even the Typhoon Gate, the only one which gives 1600 MGP, is 100% RNG.

All things which reward large MGP values and little-to no- effort, yes. The RNG is in place to reduce the number of people who receive the maximum payout, to keep the value of MGP high. A form of deflation, if you will.

I mean, I really would like to understand: why?

Because MCP is not meant to be a large sum reward every time. There has to be failures intermixed, or else players will get all that they can get, and then never go to the Gold Saucer again. That is bad business for any theme park on Earth to implement, and it would be a bad design decision if SE made it so "everybody wins jackpot every time" here.

TL: DR---- If it's not broken, don't fix it.

[SarkdenTepes]

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OP is more toxic than anyone that has replied.

[RobinRethiel]

The concept of 'lottery' is meant to be random, and random is inherently fair.

The concept of lottery is disastrous and ruins millions of lifes every year, to be accurate. Of course it can not do this here.

RE: Law of Large Numbers.

Which does not work this way in reality, only in theory.

Except it cannot, will not, by design. Thus is the nature of RNG. Flip a 2-sided coin 50 times you will probably get heads 25 (ish) times.

Just did. Got head 50 times. And now? As said, this works only in theory and because of the big difference between 10k/3.6k and all the others and that you can only do it one time every day, this will not adjust by itself.

10,000 a day is meant to be the largest "effortless giveaway", (on par with a hand-out). There are plenty of ways to earn much more, assuming you exert more effort.

There is not. 90 MGP for 40s TT = 1,2 hours of mindless grind and this is ruining TT, because the mass of people will begin to hate TT exactly because of this.

Yes, the Gold Saucer IS a casino, except the fact that even when the house wins, you have minimal loss, unlike those "bad" Earth casinos.

Actually it is not. The Gold Saucer is a Fun Park. Or should be. The original Gold Saucer got no lottery at all and it was FANTASTIC! You could earn your things and it was fun to earn it.

I don't know why you don't like retainers, I find many items they bring back very useful. But this is off-topic.

Square didn't like it, that retainers just brought back superb items, you would have to beat Coil or Primae Ex for.

All things which reward large MGP values and little-to no- effort, yes. The RNG is in place to reduce the number of people who receive the maximum payout, to keep the value of MGP high. A form of deflation, if you will.

The RNG actually creates such low numbers of people who gain a lot more than everyone else. Without those big RNG prizes, all would earn it the normal way. But that was not the point anyway.

Because MCP is not meant to be a large sum reward every time. There has to be failures intermixed, or else players will get all that they can get, and then never go to the Gold Saucer again. That is bad business for any theme park on Earth to implement, and it would be a bad design decision if SE made it so "everybody wins jackpot every time" here.

TL: DR---- If it's not broken, don't fix it.

The Gold Saucer would be a bad business anyway the way it is, pointless to argue with that. Their lottery system would ruin it a thousand times quicker, because they simply just give some people their biggest prizes pretty much for free. If you argue from a realistic point of view, the Gold Saucer wouldn't exist at all. But since it is a game and we don't have to care about such things, the Gold Saucer is here for players to have fun beside the normal game play. Those mini games were always one of the great part of FF games - and that is the point: at the moment they are not in FF14, because the rewards are much too small and forcing the people to a mindless grind ruins the whole fun of it.

Especially since the Arena part is missing, the other games have to compensate this even more. And if Square wants to take out more MGP of the game, they could just implement more prices. Vanity gear or housing items and so on for a lesser prize. People would love this and they woule like, that they could just play in Gold Saucer, without a hardcore gamer grind and still get some things.

[Mordermi]

Just did. Got head 50 times.

The original Gold Saucer got no lottery at all and it was FANTASTIC! You could earn your things and it was fun to earn it.

1. I do not believe that you flipped a coin 50 times, and got heads every time.

2. The original Gold Saucer was also a lot of grinding. In fact, the best way to get GP in the original (besides buying with gil) was from chocobo racing prizes, which were RNG. So yeah, lots of grind and RNG is exactly what the original Gold Saucer was.

[Vidu]

I admit that I was only reading half of the post in here - and each post of the OP made me sadder... even so my statment wont really fit the "discussion" anymore I'd still like to say that I considered the Gold Saucer fun... only, good, old, pure fun. I also liked to have some of that gear, I wanted Fenrir as mount the first time I saw him in snowcloak! But seeing ppl complain about something thats only there to be fun in itself makes me kinda sad... seeing people farming Ultros for one card... seeing people who arent happy if they're not getting 10k from a damn lottery! Hell, I'm glad if I'm getting my 100 back - and even if I dont thats fine too. Why cant you treat a pleasure ground (and everything that is involved in it) in a game as fun in itself? You dont need any of those items. They're cool, I agree - but you're not locked out from anything because you didnt have a shiny Fenrir-mount. Why are people getting so bitter about something that was meant to be fun in itself?

[Duuude007]

The concept of lottery is disastrous and ruins millions of...

Let's not get into the politics or addictive nature of Real world lotteries... That is way off topic.

Which does not work this way in reality, only in theory.

Another off-topic statement. Fine, I'll bite: You call it a theory... a theory is a hypothesis that has been backed up by numerous tests, AKA evidence. This is not a theory, but a Law. Which is considered even more reliable, because no legitimate test has proven it as false.

Just did. Got head 50 times. And now?

You are very quickly losing what integrity people believed you had thanks to this statement by this statement. It flies in the face of reality, unless you performed an illegitimate test. Which again does not support your argument.

As said, this works only in theory and because of the big difference between 10k/3.6k and all the others and that you can only do it one time every day, this will not adjust by itself.

I wish I could fully understand what you are arguing here, as your syntax is lacking. Regardless... The jackpot is designed to not be attainable every single day, and I am confident that anyone with a lucky streak of four wins will have just as many days in a row with net losses as a form of balance. Thus is the nature of RNG.

There is not. 90 MGP for 40s TT = 1,2 hours of mindless grind and this is ruining TT, because the mass of people will begin to hate TT exactly because of this.

You say ruin. that is your opinion. Many of us disagree. Gaining of new cards often strengthens our ability to play, and surplus cards can be sold to approach your MGP goals even faster.

Actually it is not. The Gold Saucer is a Fun Park. Or should be. The original Gold Saucer got no lottery at all and it was FANTASTIC! You could earn your things and it was fun to earn it.

Fun park? ...It is a "Theme Park" attraction within a Theme park video game. Just like the other Gold Saucer in FFXIV, it has many mini-games that offer tokens as their "prize" for "winning". Casino, not a casino, a matter of opinion.

Square didn't like it, that retainers just brought back superb items, you would have to beat Coil or Primae Ex for.

I am quite happy with the five Fat Cat minions I have earned so far, thank you very much. Again, off-topic.

The RNG actually creates such low numbers of people who gain a lot more than everyone else. Without those big RNG prizes, all would earn it the normal way. But that was not the point anyway.

Actually, with a basic understanding of how these sudoku-like cards are, many people realize that if one number is dead center, only the other eight numbers can populate the rest of the board. With this knowledge (and some basic math), anyone can calculate the better rewarding fields with confidence, to help influence their odds at the "best award" a given card can offer. Or you can just be lazy and have the Mini-Cactpot solver do the calcuations (and suggestions) for you.

The Gold Saucer would be a bad business anyway the way it is, pointless to argue with that. Their lottery system would ruin it a thousand times quicker, because they simply just give some people their biggest prizes pretty much for free. If you argue from a realistic point of view, the Gold Saucer wouldn't exist at all. But since it is a game and we don't have to care about such things, the Gold Saucer is here for players to have fun beside the normal game play. Those mini games were always one of the great part of FF games - and that is the point: at the moment they are not in FF14, because the rewards are much too small and forcing the people to a mindless grind ruins the whole fun of it.

It was an attraction they chose to freely give to players rather than requiring we purchase the expansion. That seems like an odd business decision, but in the end many people are grateful for it, and will continue to loyally subscribe thanks to generosities such as this. As for your arguments of "not fun", "mindless grind" and "forcing" are, again, matters of opinion.

Especially since the Arena part is missing, the other games have to compensate this even more.

The Battle square was not immediately available in FF7 either, if you recall. Please try and be patient, like the rest of us. There is enough demand for it, it would be silly for them to not be planning to implement one.

And if Square wants to take out more MGP of the game, they could just implement more prices.

I am trying to interpret what you mean here... do you mean raise the MGP prices? If they do that for everything, then the reward for all content would logically rise relative to it, so that would be a net change of nothing to players and would serve no purpose.

Vanity gear or housing items and so on for a lesser prize. People would love this and they woule like, that they could just play in Gold Saucer, without a hardcore gamer grind and still get some things.

I didnt mention that playing TT with players rewards 180 MGP per win. for a 30 second match. Regardless, you are arguing that people should play games in GS 'for the fun of it', which we already are. Moreover I know many people who are fully geared in gambler attire and over 20% finished with earning MGP for Fenrir. Less than 2 weeks into implementation. Yeah. And that is with no million MGP jackpots and a smattering of winnings from cactpot, just like everybody else.