Quibus

Why has my topic gotten so out of hand? Did anyone even read my original post?

great idea! But.... unless my math is off, the chance to win the jackpot is something around 1 : 4.613.203.125 (25*45^5) ? And the first prize that actually returns more than the ticket prize is 1 : 102.515.625 (25*45^4) ? With a 20k lottery ticket prize I would expect the prizes to be significantly higher, or higher chances to win.

Short story: raising the level of pokemon in some select places (like cerulean cave) to lvl 70, 80, 90 or even 100 would make training in the wild viable again while trainer tower would still be the better, faster (albeit more expensive) option. Long story: The new experience system has changed the way that we have to train our pokemon. For lower levels I think this change has been extremely positive, but training pokemon from lvl 60 to lvl 100 has become a lot harder with conventional methods. The trainer tower was designed to remedy this by offering a quicker way to train, for a price. The idea is very nice, but there's a problem here that I would like to adress (and offer a possible sollution). The difference between training in trainer tower and in the wild is huge. It's practically impossible to train a pokemon to lvl 100 in the wild now, which basically means that people are forced to pay the fee for trainer tower just to get a pokemon to lvl 100. The problem I see is that there's no real alternative. If you don't want to pay money you'll simply spend an inordinate amount of time to train a pokemon to lvl 100 compared to people who can pay the fee for trainer tower. This is important for relatively new players who just spent all of their money on a new bike and are preparing to face red and the elite 4 or players who simply don't have a lot of money to spend. The main source of income for most players are the bosses, and for that you already need lvl 100 pokemon! I'm not saying that the new exp system is too slow (or too fast). I'll leave that up for discussion in other threads. The problem is more that the difference in xp gain (for example: fighting in cerulean vs trainer tower) is too big. The way I see it, there are 2 different sollutions to make trainer tower a faster alternative option compared to regular training, instead of the 'only' way to get a pokemon to level up at higher levels: - make trainer tower harder (lower lvl pokemon) to make it less advantageous (yet still worth the costs!) to train there. This would probably make a lot of players unhappy, but it would mean that players who train in the wild are not as much at a disadvantage. or (and this is the sollution I propose): - add more higher level pokemon to the wild; for example, raising the level of pokemon in some select places (like cerulean cave) to lvl 70, 80, 90 or even 100; which would provide players with a viable alternative to train in the wild without paying a fee. I would personally prefer this option because it also adresses a lot of other concerns with people who complain that training pokemon is too hard now. It's also the easiest sollution to implement in my opinion. Both of these options would allow people to actually make a choice when they decide how (and how fast) they want to train their pokemon. Paying for trainer tower should offer the players a faster way to gain levels, but it should not be the only viable option to train. A simple raise in the level of some wild encounters would already make a huge difference in my opinion.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure @Eon (and most other readers) did not understand that you were talking about a Dutch auction. This might be caused by your phrase Because the decrease in price is actually very predictable and linear based on time in these kind of auctions and it's not you who determines the price, but time. You can however notify people of the current price (again, purely based on the elapsed time)

I think you're actually referring to a 'Dutch auction' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_auction) which is actually a valid auction used in real life. I think for this to work you'd have to specify exactly at which exact rate the price would drop. For example: You start the auction at 1m and every minute the price drops by 1k. This means that after exactly one hour the price would be 940k (1m - 1k * 60 minutes) and after 10,5 hours the price would be 370k (1m - 1k * 630 minutes) all the way down to 1 coin after 16 hours and 40 minutes (1000 minutes) if people don't bid.