Suggestions

Some clarifications and thoughts:

• The Gilded Crown incident was a catalyst for me to vocalize thoughts I've already been sitting on since Roundsey was introduced. I don't think it's made any new aspect about the system obvious that didn't already exist.
• There are three general suggestions that have been made by me and others: a ticket limit, a barrier for entry, and vetting of winners of KS-level items. I don't think any one of these suggestions without other changes, either listed or unlisted, would be effective and/or worthwhile.
• I know Roundsey is a treasure sink. My thoughts on this are complicated. I don't debate the necessity of sinks in general (I was here for the 1g:1300t days), but I have always personally thought they are better left to features that are individual to users, such as high lair slot unlocks, genes, etc., so that large amounts of money spent are not influenced in any way - however minor - by the conduct of others. However, I am a user who prefers to play this game with a limited amount of contact with other users, so I know this is partially a matter of opinion.
  • Yes, yes, it's gambling, no prizes are guaranteed no matter how much money you spend, I know. That's not the point. I am fine with gambling individually, where my odds are not influenced by others' behavior (eg. scatterscrolls, hatching eggs for the chance of a double instead of selling them, etc.), and I do this kind of gambling regularly. But, I think people have the right to be upset about an otherwise "fair" gamble being compromised by cheaters, even if it's not a gamble I personally engage with. ("Fair" meaning your odds are proportional to how much you put into the gamble.)
• Saying that Roundsey favors the wealthy is me reiterating a common complaint of others. I don't really care about this, personally. A one-ticket limit as a suggestion was one that was intended to cater to this viewpoint, but as stated above, it would not be a good idea to implement without some additional wards against multi-accounting.
• I recognize that multi-accounting doesn't explicitly aid someone in winning a first place prize with the uncapped ticket model - only number of tickets bought does, whether across one account or several. However, it has always provided an advantage in winning multiple prizes, and I've always thought there should be something in place to reduce its prevalence, in the same way the dragon captchas in the coliseum are there to limit people using grinding macros.
• Preventative vetting of winners is an option, where winners of high-profile prizes are reviewed before prizes are distributed. It's definitely preferable to what has had to happen after the fact with the Gilded Crown. However, I think the possibility of raffles needing to be rerolled, or prizes being pulled and left for a later raffle, might cause some resentment in the community. There was also some concerns voiced about how this may impact users who violated the ToS in the past (however minorly/harmlessly) but not as part of the raffle who are then reviewed upon winning a prize.

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I don't claim to know what exactly the account that was in violation of the ToS did to win the Gilded Crown last week, be it treasure funneling from multiple accounts (which was my initial assumption) or something else. However, I've seen lots of complaints about the treasure "wasted" by both people who didn't AND did win the other prizes, as a reroll that keeps the existing winners would mean the original winners wouldn't have a chance at the Gilded Crown, but a reroll that reset everything would've meant those users may have won a prize and then likely have it yoinked from them (which may not have even been possible if they claimed a consumable prize and used it). A lose-lose situation all around. I don't have a great answer for how to fix this goof, but I think it might be worth it to revisit the structure of the raffles in the first place in order to prevent something like it from happening again.

A general complaint since Roundsey was introduced is that this system heavily favors the super wealthy, for whom converting 1000g or more into treasure and dumping that all into Roundsey is hardly a loss, considering the potential payout. (I don't know how many people actually do this, but the potential is there, and that's more the point.)

I don't play it anymore, but another game (Lioden) has a weekly raffle that you can only gain one entry to per account. Making extra accounts is discouraged by requiring your main lion to be at a certain level for entry. This way, everyone has an equal chance, but some investment is required in order to be eligible. Why would this not be a better model? In my very brief forum search, I didn't immediately find any justification from staff for keeping the current model of raffle of cheap, uncapped tickets.

What the barrier for entry would be in the proposed model is up for discussion. I've thought about account age, a higher price for a single ticket, or a certain minimum lair size. I don't think any of these things would necessarily prevent multiple-account cheating entirely, but it would require significant effort with very little payoff, since each account would only be one extra ticket among thousands.

Would these suggestions all potentially be a bit unfair to brand new players? Yes. But genuinely, I think that's fine. Being a 1-month old player and getting one of the most valuable items in the game would instantly change your entire play experience, and quite possibly for the worse. (I think of a new player who recently hatched an XXX G1 and was immediately beset by PMs and offers from all sides.) Perhaps it would suck a little more to be disqualified from the smaller prizes too, but a secondary suggestion to that is maybe adding a tier system to the raffle prizes that have different barriers for entry or costs associated with them.

Thoughts welcome.

I think people just need to learn to let it go when they gambled and lost. you know all these people who are demanding refunds wouldn't be saying ANYTHING if the crown had gone to somebody with one account who bought just one ticket or if it would have gone to somebody else with just one account who spent an exorbinant amount to increase their odds to the maximum possible. in fact I think then we'd have an entirely separate complaint about there being a P2W factor in the raffle in general but I digress. the ONLY reason there's a fuss is because there's a banned account in the mix.
everybody complaining about how much money they "wasted" chose to throw millions of treasure into it knowing there was every chance they would have still lost and whether or not the multi-accounting factored into the raffle win still doesn't change the fact that at the end of the day, throwing a lot of money at the raffle doesn't guarantee you anything and it certainly doesn't mean anyone is any more deserving to win than anyone else. the odds also likely would have hardly changed even without these measly 2 accounts in the mix, there was still only one crown and it was still only going to one person and that person could quit playing the very next day and everyone would still just have to deal with it. it's a treasure sink and the big spenders used it as exactly that. let it go.

[quote name="ShiningLatios" date="2024-01-16 17:19:41" ] I think people just need to learn to let it go when they gambled and lost. you know all these people who are demanding refunds wouldn't be saying ANYTHING if the crown had gone to somebody with one account who bought just one ticket or if it would have gone to somebody else with just one account who spent an exorbinant amount to increase their odds to the maximum possible. [/quote] Uh. Yes. Obviously. [i]But that's not the problem.[/i] But the point is that each account can only be drawn once. It's obvious that there is [i]at least[/i] one account that drew nothing but that should have won something. This has been a complaint for a long while about Roundsey's Raffle, and this just makes the problem more obvious to the average user. However, a ticket limit wouldn't solve the problem and I don't support it.

Roundsey was designed as a treasure sink, capping tickets would defeat the purpose. People need to accept that it is gambling and if they want an item, they will always be better off saving for it and buying it outright than literally gambling for it and most likely losing.

The rich players who can afford to throw millions of treasure into raffles are rich because they don't gamble all the time.

The bigger problem with this particular situation isn't rich users throwing their money in, it's that it seems the process is automated so that they couldn't look into the winning accounts before the items went out. If this one had gone through a manual process, the multiaccounting could've been caught before the crown went out and the ticket redrawn. I obviously don't know for sure if it is fully automated, but I don't see any other reason for this to have happened than not being able to review the winners before the prizes were sent.

this completely defeats the purpose of the raffle. people who can't handle buying tons of tickets for nothing to come of it have no one but themselves to blame. it has always been the case that you can buy thousands of tickets and get nothing, just like you can buy one ticket and win. that's what's fun about it.

i don't understand why people view roundsey as anything other than a treasure sink where you might something if you get extremely lucky.

[quote name="ShiningLatios" date="2024-01-16 17:19:41"] I think people just need to learn to let it go when they gambled and lost. you know all these people who are demanding refunds wouldn't be saying ANYTHING if the crown had gone to somebody with one account who bought just one ticket or if it would have gone to somebody else with just one account who spent an exorbinant amount to increase their odds to the maximum possible. in fact I think then we'd have an entirely separate complaint about there being a P2W factor in the raffle in general but I digress. the ONLY reason there's a fuss is because there's a banned account in the mix. [/quote] Why [i]would[/i] people complain if the results were fair by the standards of the currently designed system? The point is that they weren't fair, because somebody exploited the system to win. I already acknowledged the P2W factor as a complaint about the system in general, and one that would also be addressed by this suggestion, but it's not my primary concern. (I don't particularly care about it. I don't pay because I don't feel the need to win at these. Some people do care though, and I don't think those concerns are entirely unfounded.) Going through this whole rigamarole of reviewing and reclaiming items from cheaters is time-consuming, a little silly, and can only occur once the damage has already been done. I think everybody would be better off by implementing something preventative - such as a system redesign, but that's obviously probably not the only possibility - to patch holes where cheating is currently possible. [quote name="Almedha" date="2024-01-16 17:32:03"] However, a ticket limit wouldn't solve the problem and I don't support it.[/quote] Elaboration about what you mean here would be productive to the conversation. [quote name="Tserin" date="2024-01-16 17:37:12"]Roundsey was designed as a treasure sink, capping tickets would defeat the purpose. People need to accept that it is gambling and if they want an item, they will always be better off saving for it and buying it outright than literally gambling for it and most likely losing.[/quote] I know Roundsey was designed as a treasure sink, but it's a flawed one that is producing unnecessary tension by these results. There are certainly other possibilities of sinks to introduce that are unique to individual accounts, like how higher lair slot unlocks currently are, instead of site-wide competitions where the validity of your investments don't have to be compromised by other users' disregard for the ToS. We all already gamble when we hatch eggs and use scatterscrolls, but the fact that I've never gotten my own double or triple isn't because other people are cheating.

No support for two reasons.

A ticket limit reduces Roundsey's effectiveness as a treasure sink.

And secondly, this would actually encourage multi-accounting (the primary issue behind last week's raffle snafu), not prevent or discourage it.

If every player can only buy, say 1000 tickets per raffle (or whatever arbitrary amount you want to set it at, even if it's very high), that makes multi-accounting even more tempting and profitable because it's another 1000 tickets.

And that's on top of the "you can win more than one prize a week" advantage that multi-accounting already gives.

So definitely no support for making multi-accounting to win at Roundsey even more appealing.

Edit: Incidentally, the problems involved in last week's raffle are extremely varied and complicated and actually have little to do with Roundsey's functionality.

The problem is more directly linked to the exclusiveness and RMT value of KS items.

Yeah, no. We shouldn't be removing treasure sinks. It's true that it favors the people who can drop a billion gagillion treasure into the void but that is quite literally the point. People can and do hit the jackpot by purchasing less than 10 tickets, and people can lose despite buying hundreds of tickets. Plus, this wouldn't do anything for cheaters. One of the reasons why people multi to cheat Roundsey is to get multiple prizes rather than just one. If anything, having values the same across all accounts could encourage people to multi for it, since it's all the same anyways!

Maybe I could support having high value items be moved to a sort of sweepstakes system instead of a raffle to "solve" the problem of wealthy users having an advantage, but that wouldn't do much from stopping cheaters either. IMO, the only real solution to preventing cheaters from winning is for the distribution system to be adjusted so staff can conduct reviews before prizes get sent out.

[quote name="Twizz" date="2024-01-16 19:37:04" ] No support for two reasons. A ticket limit reduces Roundsey's effectiveness as a treasure sink. And secondly, this would actually encourage multi-accounting (the primary issue behind last week's raffle snafu), not prevent or discourage it. If every player can only buy, say 1000 tickets per raffle (or whatever arbitrary amount you want to set it at, even if it's very high), that makes multi-accounting even more tempting and profitable because it's another 1000 tickets. And that's on top of the "you can win more than one prize a week" advantage that multi-accounting already gives. So definitely no support for making multi-accounting to win at Roundsey even more appealing. [/quote] [quote name="Lyvenex" date="2024-01-16 19:42:46" ] Yeah, no. We shouldn't be removing treasure sinks. It's true that it favors the people who can drop a billion gagillion treasure into the void but that is quite literally the point. People can and do hit the jackpot by purchasing less than 10 tickets, and people can lose despite buying hundreds of tickets. Plus, this wouldn't do anything for cheaters. One of the reasons why people multi to cheat Roundsey is to get multiple prizes rather than just one. If anything, having values the same across all accounts could encourage people to multi for it, since it's all the same anyways! Maybe I could support having high value items be moved to a sort of sweepstakes system instead of a raffle to "solve" the problem of wealthy users having an advantage, but that wouldn't do much from stopping cheaters either. IMO, the only real solution to preventing cheaters from winning is for the distribution system to be adjusted so staff can conduct reviews before prizes get sent out. [/quote] I addressed my thoughts about Roundsey as a treasure sink above. I am not debating the necessity of treasure sinks, but I think there are better (ie, "fairer") options. Secondly, I suggested a very very low ticket limit, not a high one. In my vision, it would be just one ticket per account, with a barrier to entry (ie. some kind of gameplay investment that is unique to the account) to discourage multi-accounting. As has been said, multi-accounting is never going to be fully gotten rid of, but lessening the incentive to do it - or making it much harder to do so effectively - is possible. Reviewing accounts before prizes are sent out is certainly a solution, but it doesn't seem very sustainable or comprehensive to me. Only reviewing the top-prize winners doesn't mean you'll always catch somebody who attempted to cheat, just somebody who attempted to cheat and won. A better first layer of protection would be making it harder or less worthwhile to cheat to begin with.

[quote name="Technician" date="2024-01-16 19:43:25" ] Secondly, I suggested a very very low ticket limit, not a high one. In my vision, it would be just one ticket per account, with a barrier to entry (ie. some kind of gameplay investment that is unique to the account) to discourage multi-accounting. As has been said, multi-accounting is never going to be fully gotten rid of, but lessening the incentive to do it - or making it much harder to do so effectively - is possible. Reviewing accounts before prizes are sent out is certainly a solution, but it doesn't seem very sustainable or comprehensive to me. Only reviewing the top-prize winners doesn't mean you'll always catch somebody who attempted to cheat, just somebody who attempted to cheat and won. A better first layer of protection would be making it harder or less worthwhile to cheat to begin with. [/quote] The lower the ticket entry, the more people would be inclined to cheat. A single ticket raffle would be the [i]worst[/i] possible scenario and creating arbitrary barriers of entry would just block out legit new players or players who don't/can't do certain actions from playing. Multi-accounters are more than willing to set up their accounts to whatever arbitrary limits are needed. It won't keep them out. The best plan of action is to not encourage them in the first place or encourage them as little as possible. Also, it is [i]far[/i] easier to review the tiny amount of players that win every week than to review the vast number of players who enter. Take this week's raffle for example. It's got a decently sized prize pool but there will still only be 111 winners. Compare that against the near 4000 players who are currently online and have likely bought tickets or worse, the near 700k accounts currently in existence. Much easier to just vet the winners. And if it becomes cumbersome, they can just make smaller prize pools. Less winners, less work.