Battle encounters that aren't event-specific feel a bit lackluster. If you win, they give pitiful amounts of SB and a small chunk of EXP, and that's it. For most players outside of super-statters, choosing to battle random lion encounters, dog packs, etc. is always a suboptimal decision unless you are on a Snake quest or have 0 energy left. Even if I have a quest from V'Kai to fight 5 lions, I will skip the year-round lion encounters and wait until I find an event lion because it gives the same rewards plus at least 1 event currency.

I'm not quite sure if I would want them to give event currency only during the relevant month(s) or also during other times, but at a reduced rate. Maybe both? Off the top of my head, December has an encounter that gives Meteorite Shards, which are from July. Similarly, January(?) has an encounter with a shopkeeper that takes several different payment methods - one of which is Dry Bones from August. I think it's an interesting way to tie events together.

January is all about making sure your pride doesn't starve, so you fight other predators that could eat your food supply. Why don't regular non-starving AWD/Boerboel packs count towards anything? Or cheetahs or leopards? They're predators too, and how much of YOUR prey are they eating to be so well-fed?!

For March, the only standard encounter that could be included is the "Shady Poacher". It confused me as a new player - and again as a returning player - that it never gave any event currency even though it's a poacher.

In May, every lion encounter should give 1-2 Manticora Beetles just like the event lion encounters. Or, if the argument is that not every lion participates in the Championships, it can be between 0-1 or 0-2 for those.

I don't think the other events have themes that would warrant adding event currency to regular encounters for them, but the ones I mentioned are the main ones. Outside of those respective months, the currency drop rate could be somewhere around 25-50% of what it would be during the event? I don't think people would seek out regular battles super often for that sort of drop rate, but it might not feel like such a waste of energy to battle them.

Let me know if you can think of anything to add, or if you have any reasons for not supporting! I got annoyed on a whim after accidentally battling a regular enemy today, so I didn't really think things through fully x)

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My other suggestions:
Masterpost here