Alright, so I support this idea.
My first reaction though was something like "nooo, not my shinies!" which I expect lots of other members are thinking.
The thing is, shinies are
supposed to be incredibly rare. Statistically speaking, you're more likely to get struck by lightning than find a shiny in the handhelds. And I think a lot of people are missing the point that
you still get an increased shiny chance if you donate. 1/4000 is a lot better than 1/8000.
And personally, I didn't donate for the shiny chance. I wanted the increase in money and exp because I'm the type of player that grinds exp like crazy before every gym battle. I had never, in all of my hours playing the handhelds, caught a shiny besides Gyarados (and with the Lake of Rage, he doesn't really count). Now I have five shiny commons after 140 hours, because of my exp grinding - which I would have never expected.
Yes, there are people who are now used to the 300% increase, and likely don't want that to change. But what's the downside? When you
do find shinies, they'll likely be worth a hell of a lot more. And searching for them so long might yield you other good pokemon - search for them in places where HR are, for example, or stat hunt other pokemon while keeping an eye out for a shiny.
As for other ways to compensate donators, I really liked the ideas that itwill mentioned, especially these two:
3. Membership NPC - in every town that sells items (Greatballs, escape ropes, evolution stones(fire,water,moon), rod, bikes, repel all, etc) at no discounted price so its fair.
4. Member teleporter that teleports member from Goldenrod City to Saffron City. This is not game breaking is it? Don't people hate walking from Saffron in Kanto all the way to Goldenrod in Johto just to make a trade? Personally, I think they should unify all players into 1 trading room.
I also think it would be helpful if, in some way, you could keep people who have already bought a set amount of membership time with their tokens with the higher catch rate until that time runs out. For example: say you made the change in January. Person A had already spent tokens on membership for December and January, expecting the higher catch rate. They would keep that catch rate until the end of January, and if they rebought membership for February, then it would change. Person B buys their membership in January, so they would automatically have the lower catch rate.
I don't know if that is possible or reasonable, but it might help with the transition if this happens.
I think there's bound to be an uproar about this either way. I'm just really glad that the staff team is bring it up. One of the other posters made a big deal about us not taking a "vote," but honestly, this kind of input/feedback is probably a better idea - instead of just numbers on a poll.
I would just ask that you keep updating us on this in the future, so we all know what to expect.
