Warning: This post is hella long, you have some reading to do, whoops
Additionally, I mention 'veteran users' pretty often in this post. I have nothing against people who've been playing this game for a long time, I'm only about 2 years from being considered a 'veteran' myself. They absolutely deserve to be ahead on some aspects. They come up so often because it's incredibly easy to understand the differences between a veteran and a newbie, and why even if a newbie is consistently more active than the veteran, the latter will always perpetually be ahead.
I also mention 'New' and 'newer' users a lot- this ranges from absolute first day newbie to rookies who are still just a couple years in.
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Dear God I've been meaning to make this post for so long, and I do believe I've mentioned it in the server move thread but I would like to go more in depth here.
Note: I couldn't make the edits that I wanted to because I couldn't find any screenshots of the raffle page, and since it's unavailable for users, obviously I couldn't get any for myself, so I'm going to explain this in as much detail as I can possibly manage.
Feel free to comment your own suggestions or ideas on improvement.
.·:·.✧✦✧.·:·.The General Problem.·:·.✧✦✧.·:·.
Read more on the general problem here. While I personally don't agree with everything 0R0ry said, and I have things to add, they pinpoint a couple very key points that I think are incredibly easy fix.
First of all, its incredibly slow going, especially at the start. This, I believe, is what discourages new users from sticking around, because they realize they need to click 50-60 Pokemon in the CE to hatch one egg, with little to no reward. On top of that that, without a whole lot of love for the game and dicipline(which, lets face it, no new user has), they realize that the only people winning anything are veteran users who already have everything.
They could use the money they earn in the lottery, but after a couple drawings, or simply reading up on the forums, they'll soon learn that, yet again, the only people truly winning anything are the veteran users who already have everything.
The best shot new users have is luck in the Congratz, and hope they get either a shiny mewtwo(because everyone has regular by now), or a Tapu(which still goes for pretty good for collectors). Sometimes though, it takes several thousand clicks to get a Congratz, which sometimes is a measly 1.000$.
Personally, the only way I actually completed my national dex was because a very old user was leaving the site and gave away her Pokemon through the GTS, and I somehow managed to snag almost a complete dex from her. This was about a year ago, so I had been here for about 3 years. Most of those years were spent pretty inactive, in all honesty. Even with my pokedex complete and my trade /shiny boxes piling up with extra pokemon, I still don't have anything a veteran user wants in exchange for older promos. Which brings me to my next point.
There is a huge problem with availability. Whether it's the oldest special events or the simple dex promos, we can all agree that there's a serious availability issue with either kind of event/promo. Even if a newer user completes their dex, now they're stuck for another few years just trying to save up enough extras/shinies to trade older users for those events that are presumably forever unavailable for the sake of completion. On top of that, most people are only looking for rare/incredibly sought after shiny Pokemon in exchange.
Or even further, some people that have managed to collect 10% of an old promo on site(I'm looking at you, Harvest Furret), and no one is going to give up any of their collection, which is perfectly fair on their part, I have no issue with hoarding rare, pretty things- that's the whole point of this game. However, it becomes an issue when veteran users were the only users who were on site during the distribution of events like Harvest Furret, and the event has never made a comeback. It's then next to impossible for even seasoned users like myself to snag a rare promo unless it's being given away from someone who isn't going to be online any more.
═.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.═
With all of that out of the way, let's talk about problems in the individual areas of this threads topic and ways they can be greatly improved to benefit everyone- not just people who've played for 4+ years.
For obvious reasons, I'm not going to be talking in depth about the lottery- there's already topics about that and, well, it's a mess, lol.
.·:·.✧✦✧.·:·.The Click Exchange.·:·.✧✦✧.·:·.
This is going to be very brief, because there's not too much to be improved on in the click exchange. It's a straightforward concept and it's essential in gameplay- even more essential for newer users who have nothing to their name.
So in this spoiler I've compiled a couple of suggestions that I think would make the Click Exchange more worthwhile for both newer users and older users collecting pokemon.
.·:·.✧✦✧.·:·.The Raffle.·:·.✧✦✧.·:·.
Alrighty, so this is really the main reason why I made this post, so I'll be doing a lot of talking in this section, sorry, I know you're sick of all the reading! But to be honest, I was really upset when I saw that the raffle had been removed, since it had been my main money dump. It was just about one of the only reasons I clicked in the first place, so when it was removed altogether, I was really confused as to why it wasn't just fixed instead, and the fixes for it are really, really easy!
So below once again, I've made a list of problems/solutions for the raffle, and why I think it needs to be brought back immediately. Ive also provided examples of the solutions I suggest.
Alright! This took me all morning to type up on my phone, so please execute any spelling or grammatical errors you may find. Feel free to share your own thoughts or ideas, and my PMs are always open!
<3
Additionally, I mention 'veteran users' pretty often in this post. I have nothing against people who've been playing this game for a long time, I'm only about 2 years from being considered a 'veteran' myself. They absolutely deserve to be ahead on some aspects. They come up so often because it's incredibly easy to understand the differences between a veteran and a newbie, and why even if a newbie is consistently more active than the veteran, the latter will always perpetually be ahead.
I also mention 'New' and 'newer' users a lot- this ranges from absolute first day newbie to rookies who are still just a couple years in.
═.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.═
Dear God I've been meaning to make this post for so long, and I do believe I've mentioned it in the server move thread but I would like to go more in depth here.
Note: I couldn't make the edits that I wanted to because I couldn't find any screenshots of the raffle page, and since it's unavailable for users, obviously I couldn't get any for myself, so I'm going to explain this in as much detail as I can possibly manage.
Feel free to comment your own suggestions or ideas on improvement.
.·:·.✧✦✧.·:·.The General Problem.·:·.✧✦✧.·:·.
Read more on the general problem here. While I personally don't agree with everything 0R0ry said, and I have things to add, they pinpoint a couple very key points that I think are incredibly easy fix.
First of all, its incredibly slow going, especially at the start. This, I believe, is what discourages new users from sticking around, because they realize they need to click 50-60 Pokemon in the CE to hatch one egg, with little to no reward. On top of that that, without a whole lot of love for the game and dicipline(which, lets face it, no new user has), they realize that the only people winning anything are veteran users who already have everything.
They could use the money they earn in the lottery, but after a couple drawings, or simply reading up on the forums, they'll soon learn that, yet again, the only people truly winning anything are the veteran users who already have everything.
The best shot new users have is luck in the Congratz, and hope they get either a shiny mewtwo(because everyone has regular by now), or a Tapu(which still goes for pretty good for collectors). Sometimes though, it takes several thousand clicks to get a Congratz, which sometimes is a measly 1.000$.
Personally, the only way I actually completed my national dex was because a very old user was leaving the site and gave away her Pokemon through the GTS, and I somehow managed to snag almost a complete dex from her. This was about a year ago, so I had been here for about 3 years. Most of those years were spent pretty inactive, in all honesty. Even with my pokedex complete and my trade /shiny boxes piling up with extra pokemon, I still don't have anything a veteran user wants in exchange for older promos. Which brings me to my next point.
There is a huge problem with availability. Whether it's the oldest special events or the simple dex promos, we can all agree that there's a serious availability issue with either kind of event/promo. Even if a newer user completes their dex, now they're stuck for another few years just trying to save up enough extras/shinies to trade older users for those events that are presumably forever unavailable for the sake of completion. On top of that, most people are only looking for rare/incredibly sought after shiny Pokemon in exchange.
Or even further, some people that have managed to collect 10% of an old promo on site(I'm looking at you, Harvest Furret), and no one is going to give up any of their collection, which is perfectly fair on their part, I have no issue with hoarding rare, pretty things- that's the whole point of this game. However, it becomes an issue when veteran users were the only users who were on site during the distribution of events like Harvest Furret, and the event has never made a comeback. It's then next to impossible for even seasoned users like myself to snag a rare promo unless it's being given away from someone who isn't going to be online any more.
═.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.═
With all of that out of the way, let's talk about problems in the individual areas of this threads topic and ways they can be greatly improved to benefit everyone- not just people who've played for 4+ years.
For obvious reasons, I'm not going to be talking in depth about the lottery- there's already topics about that and, well, it's a mess, lol.
.·:·.✧✦✧.·:·.The Click Exchange.·:·.✧✦✧.·:·.
This is going to be very brief, because there's not too much to be improved on in the click exchange. It's a straightforward concept and it's essential in gameplay- even more essential for newer users who have nothing to their name.
So in this spoiler I've compiled a couple of suggestions that I think would make the Click Exchange more worthwhile for both newer users and older users collecting pokemon.
Spoiler:
Alrighty, so this is really the main reason why I made this post, so I'll be doing a lot of talking in this section, sorry, I know you're sick of all the reading! But to be honest, I was really upset when I saw that the raffle had been removed, since it had been my main money dump. It was just about one of the only reasons I clicked in the first place, so when it was removed altogether, I was really confused as to why it wasn't just fixed instead, and the fixes for it are really, really easy!
So below once again, I've made a list of problems/solutions for the raffle, and why I think it needs to be brought back immediately. Ive also provided examples of the solutions I suggest.
Spoiler:
<3