As everyone knows, any pokemon that gets put into the raffle very quickly gets devalued. Before, it was Yveltal and Xerneas, which were admittedly left up there for too long. Now, it's Latios and Latias, and while they're not nearly as devalued as the former, it doesn't take a genius to realize that obtaining these pokemon is simply too easy. I'll explain why the Raffle is in an unhealthy spot right now.
1. Value: Any Pokemon left up as a reward in our current system is doomed to be devalued and hoarded. Legendaries, while not quite so Legendary here, are still supposed to be harder to obtain than normal Pokemon. The current Raffle invalidates that notion tenfold. You only kinda earn it the first time, and then you either don't care anymore or you hoard them.
2. Economy: Because of their stunted value, Legendaries such as Xerneas and Yveltal are like pennies. Latios and Latias are undoubtedly less valuable than most other Legendaries as well. As Legendaries are part of the National Dex, it stands to reason that they'd be more sought-after than Shinies and Special Dex pokemon. This means that Legendaries are the most valuable commodity for completing the National Dex. When you devalue them, you kill off the market. This is doomed to happen if you "remedy" the raffle by rotating in different pokemon. You'll have a market where people can't really use Legendaries to get what they want, because they're mere pennies. You'll be stuck with a market where the only commodities are Shinies and old Special Dex promos. This is a problem, because the National Dex is the most substantial goal. Without Legendaries being of higher value, the main goal becomes infinitely easier to obtain. How will you nurture a breathing economy when you make the main goal so easy to obtain?
3. Maintenance: Having to go back and maintain the raffle is a pain. What would you do? Would rotate normal Pokemon into the raffle? Only people interested in hoarding the reward will play. Would you rotate Legendaries to garner interest? You'll devalue them quickly, which would bring me back to the second point. It's too much to worry about. Too much to think about. There are things more worth time and effort, and an inherently detrimental feature is not one of those things.
4. Longevity: For all the reasons above, the raffle is overall an unhealthy feature for VA, and it in fact hurts it more than it provides an interesting feature to play with. There will be no lasting benefit to keeping it.
Now that I've covered that, I'd like to talk about the Lottery. It is completely uninteresting and unneeded. No one gives a rat's patootie about the Lottery. Money isn't used for anything. All that happens if you win the Lottery is that you're set for life. But.. Set for life in what? You can tackle the raffle endlessly? Who honestly cares, when the Pokemon are doomed to being devalued? You can buy Green scents? Again, who cares? There isn't even a Dex page for Shadow Pokemon. The Lottery is a perfect example of a staple feature of any browser game that got implemented very poorly on VA.
So we have a feature that's unhealthy for VA and a feature that's useless for VA. But we can fix both of these things in one fell swoop!
We can merge the raffle and the lottery.
By doing so, we eliminate the looming threat of devaluation the raffle brings, while also making the Lottery more interesting.
Instead of explaining it, I tossed together a mockup of what can be done with the Lottery.
Obviously, the layout leaves a lot to be desired, but the idea is still there. You currently just get different values of money depending on how many matches you get. The proposed rewards are not only concise and plainly-stated, but they're also enticing (debatable, as one single guaranteed shiny egg may not be a good reward for 5 matches). There isn't really a threat of breaking the longevity of the game with this system. And if it turns out that the top rewards are just too rare, all that would need to be done is increase the chance of matches, as the bottom rewards won't break the game in any way.
I'm open to suggestions regarding this idea. Let me know what you think!
I ask that if you give suggestions or concerns that you clearly state what is fundamentally wrong and why it is so. Please do not be a debbie downer. Constructive feedback is king.
EDIT 1:
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- The Jackpot reward should be the user's choice of a shiny.
- Egg slot reward should be
EDIT 2:
- Consider making the current two lottery dates give different rewards. Timed rewards could still have a 1 week expiration.
- Matches should only be won once a drawing, and subsequent wins give a secondary reward. For example, you can't win multiple Promos from a drawing by getting multiple 4-matches. After the first win, subsequent 4-matches would give a secondary reward, perhaps money.