Mobile Overworld alternative Ranger missions or excursions

[hoary timber]

Hey all,

Small idea here, as we have no capture ,mining etc experience on mobile. I had the idea that we could have a mobile companion solution (maybe added to zero) that allows you to send your ranger or a ranger on a mission for mining, gathering or capturing. The results would be random on what the mission would yield but it would take a set amount of time per stage and cost the same amount as the main overworld fuel run. This would allow all mobile only players to experience the same game loop as PC players once the already in development (outsourced) autobattler port is ready.

I feel it would be used a lot and be a good sink for fuel and help capture a large portion for the market for what I see as potentially not a huge amount of work (forgive me if I am wrong).

Yes you don't have the super awesome polished experience that is the overworld but that's the main game, I would also personally probably use this if I was out and about and don't have the time or ability to play a capture/mining loop due to having no access to a useable rig.

Anyway could be cool imo or maybe you guys don't agree, as always open to feedback from everyone and would love the community to build this out if they do
@versed pumice @sinful wedge @gloomy nacelle@near iris

[crude owl]

I have done a few runs harvesting plants and I think the consumables will be a big thing in the game and on the illuvidex. Having a load of mobile players collecting shards and consumables to feed the market would be great for all those players happy to buy them. 🙂

[sinful wedge]

I personally love this idea and off the bat I think it makes a lot of sense! I’m keen to hear Aaron’s thoughts as he is the boss with this kinda stuff!

But I like it and truly appreciate all the effort you spend sharing quality ideas man! Really!

[hoary timber]

I think as long as it doesn't take away from the main experience and the loot pools for missions is balanced correctly I think we dont have much of a downside.

[crude owl]

It would be great if its effectively a companion app as well that lets you do Sanctum Mesa activities (Forge, Locker, Leaderboard). Especially when your illuvials need to revive and recover health before you can use them again.

[viral igloo]

Actualy this is a fucking great idea!

i would totaly farm the shit out of this and sending my ranger on a mission to get at least some sleep 😛 *edit, there should be restrictions though (f.e. you cant play on pc and simultaneously be on a mobile mission, and ofcourse it should take way more time to do this instead of playing on your own, since if you play you should be "benefited" for your timeinvestment, and not easily be able to do this passivly)

[fallen fable]

I absolutely love this idea because mobile gaming is a huge source of revenue. If the concept is simple enough to implement onto a mobile platform without draining team resources to do it, then I'm in favour of this. It will be a great way to transition to mobile too

[hoary timber]

You could limit the amount of daily missions and also have a time allocation to the run completion time, so you can't spam it.

[indigo verge]

I'm getting Fallout Shelter vibes with this one, and it worked so well in this game. Every extra utility like this would benefit strongly landowners, with little to none stress on Illuconomy.

Getting an Resplented shard from a ranger's mission once a year (daily prizes should be tiny and locked to verified land owners, so on one land could be active only one mission at a time) while Timmey can't even get it from a regular mining run would be something satisfying to say at least ^^

[trim stone]

@hoary timber at this point it may as well be a separate idle game. Let you set your ranger to mine for specific things I.e.

Shard mining
Upgrade ingredient mining
Consumable harvesting

Etc.

Throw in some pixel art illuvial battles and it could be a really fun little app

[chilly halo]

@indigo verge That's exactly what first came to my mind when i was reading this. Also if some boosters can be added to ,,speed up" mission completion would be a great thing.

[hoary timber]

This would also be sick

[indigo verge]

or we even could make special consumable, witch could be dropped only from this missions (again, something small, to not turn this mode to something crusial/very important in Illuworld, just complementary to IZ)

[trim stone]

Exactly, set an exploration timer, let players burn fuel to speed it up.

Throw in some battle encounters that link to your deck and get progressively harder (the classic mobile game map) and I'd waste time and money on it (though it's not a waste for once)

[ebon temple]

Oh boy time to play devils advocate ❤️

Although I like the idea of passively farming the resources especially given I am barely home so mobile games suit my bias and lifestyle I have some key problems with this.

The first one is obvious, the way something like this might impact the economy is pretty insane. And very very difficult to balance if that is at all possible. Extending on that if these missions were used to farm items independant from whatever you can find in the overworld I don't think it would be nearly as impactful. Some degrees of separation is beneficial here.

This mostly comes to mind because my biggest concern is botting. With the current overworld setup and ecosystem (and Illuvium: Zero) bots are largely protected against. I don't know many that can play an RPG to collect those valuable NFTs. If you enable the collection of these resources in a system that is overly simple like our favourite Axie Infinity then you would instantly eradicate any of those security measures against botting the system. Your 50k+ people that are spending their time to adventure and enjoy the game and have that time and effort rewarded very quickly becomes 10m+ bots essentially shredding the ecosystem. Not to mention every Illuvial captured reduces the chances of that Illuvial appearing for other players. I feel strongly about rewarding gameplay.

However I like the idea of a 4th product inside Illuvium that's an idle clicker. I enjoy idle clickers. The gameplay won't be super immersive and you cannot get any of the same gear/resources as you can in the overworld but there would be other reasons to play it or it shares the Illuvium IP.

[hoary timber]

Hard to bot this if it is tied to land ownership and also controlled with a time sink and number of missions a day.

[ebon temple]

If its tied to nft ownership yes. I didn't realise that you'd need to hold a land nft

as an added utility to Illuvium: Zero I think it has some merit, but I'd still be cautious balancing

[hoary timber]

Just a step that could be added which would clearly add value to land ownership further. I'd agree balance is everything.

[dull hound]

I also love this idea. Gacha games are very popular and great drivers for revenue, and this creates a gacha-ish scenario where you get a random assortment of illuvials/resources per fuel travel purchase. You could still tweak what you get maybe with drone upgrades geared towards illuvials or resources

[sacred halo]

This could be good, limiting it only to S1 to S3 traveling and you have to pay the cost. If there is botting, they should pay $$ and time restricted for it still

[dull hound]

I guess it doesn't really mater if there's botting, I mean the bots are still paying the same as everyone else and will have the same random chance for different things right?

[ebon temple]

It is a bit lore breaking tho. It's very intentional that illuvium zero doesn't involve rangers at all. But I'm sure there's a simple alternative

[hoary timber]

Some contact to between the areas may be lore compliant,so in theory sending a ranger could be safe not your ranger but like commissioning one there.

[ebon temple]

Hmmmmm an interesting theory. I woulda just said you can make a building that sends a Mozart drone or something

[hoary timber]

A solid way yeah 🧠

[mint nest]

I think this is a great start to add more value to the IZ game. its gonna be a pain in the ass to balance but if they can figure it out why not :D. But just to be clear this is purely for landholders right ?

[dull hound]

I think it should be open to anyone personally - the mobile market is too big to not tap into and currently mobile players will be limited to having to buying everything off the marketplace to play arena, which doesn't generate as much revenue for the dao as if they were all paying for fuel themselves. Restricting it only to landholders is providing a service to 20k people compared to millions of potential mobile spenders/users

[ebon temple]

Currently I think this suggestions biggest strength is adding more functionality to land in a reasonable sense. I am very agreeable to anything that adds to land in a productive manner.

[hoary timber]

Owning land is not something they cant do, I agree you can add this to t0 for those mats/illuvials but super limit runs etc. All mobile players can buy land.

[dull hound]

Are you meaning all players can buy land as in playing the free tier 0 version of ilz?

[hoary timber]

I meant land isn't unobtainable, you can buy on the illuvidex and any future land sales. If mobile players want access to the deeper utility of better land like fuel generation they can buy it, if we then add extra utility such as deeper illuvial selection mirrored by the already in place t0 f2P and t1-3 p2p model then all should work as intended.

I agree that having a mobile players only way to access the materials or illuvials even the t0 the marketplace isn't great and this could be a solution for that.

[dull hound]

Ok gotcha. I think I misinterpreted what this idea was initially - thinking it was giving all mobile players access to obtaining illuvials/materials outside of having to jump on PC or the marketplace which some people may be unable to do. Hopefully a solution for it comes up in the future - I know many people who are mobile gamers and love the idea of illuvium, but don't want to game on PC or even have a laptop that could run it

[hoary timber]

It does exactly that still t0 land gives t0 materials and illuvials just as the pc version does and the better land can offer more runs or better RNG potentially whatever works or makes the most sense.

[dull hound]

ok so limited to just t0 illuvials? sounds like a good idea for entry into the game to get people hooked

[hoary timber]

Yeah just as pc is currently. A free to play user jumps into t0 and gets those materials or illuvials. I wouldn't suggest that change just have an option for mobile only users to experience the full game process or loop.

[dull hound]

I like it. Get's people into playing ILZ also if it's linked. Then they can decide if they like it enough to buy some land and/or fork out some $ on the marketplace for illuvials

[hoary timber]

This, and the main PC game is still the ultimate experience as intended.

[dry pilot]

I think instead of generating resources having the resources that you get in this "version of loot boxes" being bought of the market would be better for the economy and allow for more aggressive implementation as it would increase the buyer instead of seller side.

This putting mobile on the buyer side could also significantly increase the ROI PC players get on overworld runs.

[fallow dew]

This is what I was thinking. But wouldn't you just wanna buy items off the illuvidex you need? But if you can do it in a fun way this would be really cool!

[dry pilot]

I guess this would be comparable to card packs in TCGs, usually it is cheaper to buy the cards you need rather than packs, but people still like packs and sometimes getting lucky.
Could also argue if someone doesn´t know where to start etc. buy a pack, get some Illuvial and start building your team around that is easier to get into than going marketplace and buying specifics.
obv with all of you bring up some "predatory" going after people wanting to gamble and similar as well.

[fallow dew]

I like it

[dry pilot]

I am only worried that our feedback here is a bit echo chamber, many have lands, many have ILV (want more rev dis, sometimes don´t see downside of potential new revenue stream).

[grizzled quest]

[true flare]

I'll err on the side of being critical as well.

Any idle system, like Scoriox mentioned, is bottable. If you tie it to land ownership, you're hard capping the maximum addressable playerbase to 100k people, which is pretty limiting from a revenue perspective.

If we do a mobile game in addition to IL:Z, my preferences would err on the side of an active gameplay loop, as opposed to a passive loop, and ideally with a design that prevents the worst of botting. A Fuel cost is a great idea, it would effectively be monetized like any other game with an in-game currency.

There are some core ideas I think should probably be present in a mobile game.

1. Ownership of Assets (but not assets to access)
2. Monetization in Fuel
3. Active Game Loop, Bot Resistant
4. Scalable - Must be able to address a significant portion of mobile players

I'm sure that Aaron and Ben have already put some amount of thought into a scalable mobile title aside from Zero, I'd be interested to hear their thoughts.

I'll also mention in the sake of transparency that I've committed to not passing any non-essential IIPs related to gameplay until the team indicates they are ready, and we have built out a framework for reviewing such ideas with Game Designers. I'm more than happy to talk about such ideas hypothetically, but anything that would slow down release or bypass the design team would not get my approval.

[lone hearth]

Overall, I like the concept of a mobile companion with an alternate means of utilizing fuel, thus driving the economy while engaging those without the time to commit to other avenues of the game.
I’ll make the argument that it shouldn’t require land ownership, as the impact will be heightened if this game is used to further expand engagement in Illuvium in time, money, and player base. The gatekeeper should be the cost of missions, with fuel requiring purchase to avoid botting missions. The two other key things are making sure the rewards are worth it, but not game breaking in other dimensions of play. There should also be probability of success, and not guaranteed rewards.
Keeping it within the lore of the universe is also important, so I can see this more as another drone like Moz4rt being sent somewhere for something, and not necessarily the ranger. There should also be means of leveling and gearing up your scout/gather team to improve success.
I was a huge fan of WoW’s garrison missions, and would often log in for just a few minutes to set up my missions for the day. It was another form of progression with useful rewards when I wasn’t able to play in other more time consuming ways. Provided it can be balanced in cost, rewards, and integrated into the lore, I’m for it.

[hoary timber]

This is intended as a hypothetical, could be looked at as a post launch suggestion/implementation.
I personally think limiting runs daily and having the T0 land still have this idle option all be it limited and balanced accordingly, would solve the bot issue and add value to the land.
Land is paid content and has benefits that vary 1-5, I think you can fairly adjust or scale this in a way it works or all tiers without issue, balance and implementation of yield is key.
Also having t0 land be useable and have some purpose aside from learning the game and enjoying building it etc could lead to way more exposure for IL Zero as a whole and ultimately the IP in general.

[true flare]

I'll dig right into my concerns about botting if we're talking hypothetically 😛

How specifically would daily runs be limited?

If it's per plot of land (T1-T5), it's appropriately capped at 100k multiplied by the daily runs.

If it's per plot of T0 land, it's effectively unbounded - Someone can simply make another account, and all we'd have achieved is creating some extra hassle into automating the process.

The only way I see for an idle game to generate assets that are comparable or transferrable to Illuvium's main title, if the implementation is not an active game loop, is for the value of each run to be bad enough that botters are not interested. If there's any potential for consistent profit with a loop that can be automated, it will be automated.

At that point we're left with a proposition that is not great. We're either selling out the core game loop of Overworld by providing an alternative that someone can play 20k instances at once of, or we're providing an experience that isn't profitable to play. Neither of those are great options, just from a fairness perspective.

I completely agree with the perspective that mobile games are a great choice, I just truly believe that passive generation games aren't the correct way to proceed with how Illuvium's economy works. Bots are an existential threat to ecosystems where there's potential to earn.

[hoary timber]

If T0 for example you can have resources earned through time gated gameplay that allows you to run the mission once daily or every 3 days whatever the balance needs to be. They need to ACTUALLY play the game to access the ability to use this.

I just think shoe horn this into IL Zero post launch perhaps, I dislike the idea mobiles only way to play the in development mobile autobattler is buy off the market from PC players, if that's the ONLY way they experience Illuvium from mobile F2P isn't possible.
Can just be a post launch update or addition.
Having T0 land do something other than be a fun learning experience for non land users means IL Zero could be a tangible onboarding tool .
Let them have the ability to run missions for T0 illuvials and materials just balanced correctly as to not over reward, cap the amount of times per day/week, this will allow lots of users to play IL Zero and those people will likely decide to buy actual land to access fuel + deeper illuvial/material missions or just go into the full PC game
as an onboarding method I think its sound. Obvious bias here 🤣

[true flare]

Here's my perspective: If I can think of a way to bot the system, a botter can definitely think of a way to bot the system.

If T0 is free to play, and generates resources over time, I can bot it. If resources earned within IL:Z on T0 are the gatekeeper for earning, people will bot T0 plots. No matter what arbitrary threshold you set for time gating, the reality is that a botter can just run more instances of the game, because the cost to run a bot is effectively nothing when we're dealing with earning potential.

Requiring a developed T0 plot is some amount of initial time investment. This could be modelled as something similar to running a bot in WoW. There's an upfront time cost to level a character, and once it's levelled, you can use it to bot.

There's an upfront time cost to develop a plot, but once it's developed, you can use it to bot.

Keeping in mind that by way of comparison WoW is a game with significantly more barriers to botting - There's a monthly cost, there's bans issued for bot accounts, the devs have the ability to delete assets out of the game etc.

You can call me paranoid (I might be), but I'm extremely wary of the potential for botting to ruin an economy.

Active gameplay loops, ones that are difficult to automate and largely require a player to be sitting and playing, are my clear preference for any type of game that can generate assets. My assumption will always be that if any step of the process could be automated, it will be, and there's precedent for that in almost all games with economies.

[hoary timber]

I don't think you can ever stop having any bots, nothing stops bots in PC T0 or people buying land and botting for fuel etc aside from complexity for PC and $ sink for buying land. Nearly every game has bots, if you build something worth botting people will try.

Ultimately you can attach gameplay and activity to gated content that makes botting hard/worthless given the time commitment and output.

All though output for time investment may be low in T0 it can still act as a F2P method of experiencing the game fully. Nothing from the T0 version gives you assets from paid content so the potential economic damage here is solely around T0 illuvials and materials, given the plausible increase in player counts and positive onboarding solution this could bring I see the negatives as small.

I see this as high return for low risk/investment. The benefits specially for landowners in my opinion is worth seriously considering this alone.

[lone hearth]

Very fair points, and valid concerns, particularly when the core element of GameFi is asset value and ownership. That said, I do think avenues such as Josh.eth’s idea are worth pursuing. As you mentioned, the barriers to botting include cost (e.g. WoW subscription or Illuvium fuel), relative to the value of the reward. I think this is worth building out further, and the discussion may be more on the cost and rewards versus the gameplay itself. I personally enjoy this type of resource allocation/management game and this feels different, yet a low investment/high return addition to IZ at some point.
The majority of the rewards could offer non-transferrable but semi-valuable things like building speed ups or research probability enhancements. These could be “soul bound” to the plot and meant as an enhancement for even more casual players, and minimal value to bots.
Essentially this could be another means of drawing revenue from direct return of speed ups to a probability of success mission with nearly identical economic value to the DAO, but added lore or alternate playstyle with engagement of “chance of success.”
By enabling available missions to be random and limited in availability (i.e. daily available missions), or requiring other game play enhancements to gate access could make this style of play lower efficiency value to bots, while offering additional means for players to spend money on Illuvium. This is a means of getting people who don’t want to directly spend $2 to speed something up, but would be willing to spend $1 for a 50% chance to achieve a similar outcome with added fun through additional gameplay.

[true flare]

Changing the available rewards to be things that aren't directly exchangable for money is an interesting solution, but also not necessarily in line with the fundamental idea of asset ownership. I think there's room to deviate from that ethos, but we should be aware that we're fully crossing into the territory of things that have already been done, extensively, in web2.

I'll reiterate that I like the idea for a mobile game, I like systems that can reach broader audiences, but I'm also wary about passive generation games.

Josh is correct that you can never completely eliminate bots when there's earning potential, but making things difficult for bots is extremely important. The Overworld already has some obvious roadblocks for bots. Those systems are not impossible to navigate for a bot, but are significantly harder than running a set path. I'd like to see mindfulness towards the same kinds of systems in a mobile game, as using similar systems would enable us to fulfill ownership of assets, while still having a game that can scale to many players (i.e. not bounded by the number of T1+ land plots).

[lone hearth]

IZ tier 0 is essentially a web2 game already (particularly if there is means to spend money, which there should be), and good use of the studio development cost as a gateway and opportunity for people to engage without having to buy land. This is a good debate around the balance of web3/ownership ethos versus fun, engaging games with broad appeal. Its important to find balance, though I'll advocate really achieving the goals of being a highly successful studio is about broad appeal and engagement, and for IZ, that needs to extend beyond 100k plots. It becomes a question of the long term value of a Tier 0 plot and acknowledging the opportunity to engage/retain a different player base versus value to botting.

[true flare]

I'll acknowledge that IZ T0 is essentially a web2 game already, I think that's completely fair. I'm just curious if extending further down the Web2 path is desirable, or whether a better solution exists that incorporates web3 elements into an equally accessible game would be a better strategic decision. It's significantly more difficult to make a splash in a diluted market, and web2 management games ARE a diluted market. I think there's real opportunity for a web3 mobile game that incorporates some of the ideas of ownership to grow. I'm not inherently opposed to extending IL:Z T0's functionality, but to me, it's not the game that changes how players view gaming. It's not revolutionary. IL:Z T1+, on the other hand, is a completely new idea, a mobile game that is the economic engine for a suite of games. The issue is that it is (necessarily, within the current paradigm) capped, with regards to playerbase.

My interest would lie in a game that is not capped to a fixed number of players, but does incorporate the overall ethos of ownership.

[pastel relic]

Let’s just imagine this idea being a glorified pack purchase without the need to do overworld and it being less valuable per fuel then doing an overworld run. You should have complete control of the probabilities of what’s in the packs. To me bots wouldn’t be an issue because there wouldn’t be anything to manipulate. Why would a company want to limit the number of packs someone can purchase.?

[hoary timber]

For land 1-5 I agree it's only T0 that becomes tricky.

[pastel relic]

I’d be fine with t0 stuff being practically worthless(or not even nfts). If you want to bot for Pennies that should be fine. Also I think t0 land should be able to participate in this mini mobile game as long as they pay. They should just progress slower or somehow make tier 1-5 land have some advantage. I want IZ tier0 to be more integrated into the main game loop.

[rustic berry]

great idea here! Im not sure how much work would need to be put into this and then comes the questions of how long will one mining run cost

[strong latch]

As has been mentioned above. If you want to stop bots you have to make it unprofitable to do the activity. The average player will lose money doing overworld runs, the same should be true of an ILZ version. (Once the economy has settled down). That way if an idiot wants to setup 1000 bots to spend their own money faster, they are free to do it.

[gloomy nacelle]

Cool Idea for sure @hoary timber, I think Blickter and Deraji brought up some great points as well and this is already turning into a great discussion idea. My opinion on bots, I don't remember where I heard, is they are just extensions of humans either way and although they can be an issue like others have mentioned almost impossible to stop. That being said, I do like the idea of "soul bound" rewards like Deraji mentioned. If the can't profit off the rewards by selling them I don't think they have much interest in the botting depending on how the mechanic is designed and it could encourage not only new users to join the ecosystem but existing users to burn more fuel to earn these "powerup/speedups" for their gameplay within the main game.

[hidden reef]

Great discussion. Love observing good ideas being thrown around and fleshed out in a collaborative manner.

[hoary timber]

Slept on it and thought of this, we could have the T0 illuvials and shards etc soul bound to account (still usable in overworld and arena etc) if they move to paid land 1-5 they could then mint these as NFTs.

The team have stated already that this is already something they plan to do for onboarding the Web2 player into web3 on the PC side. This could do exactly the same but for mobile.

[peak relic]

First of all, love the idea @hoary timber. Gears are already turning for the features and limitations of the game. Obviously, we need to ensure its not botable and if it can be botted theres time and cost balance to limit it. With that said here are my thoughts to improve on the idea along with the others mentioned:

Restrict to Mining and Harvesting.
Illuvials and fuel shouldnt be part of this mobile experience to avoid flooding the market while fuel should be restricted in Lands obviously. So the only thing you can gather are resources from mining and harvesting.

Added Features
Add Illuvial Levelling
Send out illuvials to be the very best and earn exp for levelling as an alternative to capturing. Capturing should be limited to Overworld.

Add forging in mobile
Add setting up your upgrades and equipment
Add setting up your illuvials in your deck for both overworld and arena

These are some Quality of Life features where you can fiddle around your Ranger's setup and forge things without being in the overworld. That way when you get to the overworld youre gucci to just go explore

No T0 farming / Only paid areas to farm.
This is to ensure that botting wont flood T0 economy (if there is one lol)

Remove tying it to Lands.
It doesnt make sense to limit the number of players when other features can limit the botting and flooding of the economy. You want to capture the entire market and have accessibility to all target groups

Pattern cost of gathering in stage 1,2,3
Make the cost similar to what the intended price is. So say if Stage 1 is 4 USD per travel make gathering in a stage 1 $2.50 to 3.50 and so on.

Put a long time limit
The idle clicker shouldnt be spammed every minute so put the time to gather in the hours but allow multiple (with a hard limit) gathering. ex. Stage 1: 1hr Stage 2: 4hrs Stage 3: 8hrs

**Instead of the Ranger and m0z4rt youre sending a different drone with some l33t sp34k name. **
You start of with one drone and can build more drones (max 5 as an example) to send out. You send one drone per stage and even in other regions.

You can add some lore into that this is the remote drone that helps in finding suitable land for the Rangers or something lol

[true flare]

I think the nuance is that, in theory, each pack comes with 20-30 minutes of "sit and play" associated with it, and "sit and play" is a bounded quantity. There's a capped amount of "sit and play" available in the world. If "sit and play" becomes replaced by "time elapsed in a single instance of the game", there's an unbounded amount of instances of the game.

Even if we treat these as card packs, if I can obtain and open 100 worse packs in the time that a player could "open" 1 pack through Overworld gameplay, I'm still diluting the market by a bunch. My packs would have to be 100x worse, which makes them awful to interact with (but also not viable to bot). You want systems where player choices increase rewards, and you want a lot of those choices to exist - Bots aren't great at choices. They are great at anything that can be done algorithmically. They can handle randomness, but it's significantly more work to develop them.

@hoary timber You're on the right track with T0 stuff obtained being soulbound, there's still an exploit case there as you proposed it. A botter could simply swing a single T1 plot around to all their accounts, minting their assets. I think just leaving them as soulbound would be the "safe" play, or requiring a T1 plot to be held by an account for some period of time before minting assets were possible. A genuine player might be a little annoyed that there's a week delay, but it does at least put a cap on how many bots could be minting assets at any given time. Uncapped systems should scare the shit out us, there's a reason so much attention has been paid to things like the bonding curve, energy within runs, costs to enter content etc. I see it all as very deliberate.

[true flare]

The other good way to cap things like this is to make it distributive, rather than random. For example, set the amount of rewards that can be obtained daily, and distribute them to players based on a leaderboard or comparable mechanism.

[pastel relic]

I hope when these leaderboards start giving rewards that they are distributed in a fair way by rank. One complaint about Gods Unchained weekend rank rewards are that the top ranks got so much more then the lower ranks

[pastel relic]

Was just thinking about it some more. Just trying to understand everyones point about limiting the amount runs or timing it out. My original idea was no traditional TCG would want to limit the number of packs that are able to be opened. But since the DAO collects fees from the market place there is an incentive for the DAO to have the items on the market keep a high value.

Just not sure in the long run if the fees on an expensive "card" on the market would be greater than selling more "packs" and reducing the price of that "card"....

[hoary timber]

Yeah I think we can still enable the passive, mission structure but it's balancing. So how much each run costs and what is the possible yield of results etc. For t0 stuff you can have them as non nfts and more like soulbound items perhaps until a certain gameplay threshold is hit or they migrate to paid land etc

Whatever the balancing structure is at the end, the result should still be mobile being a much better onboarding tool into the ecosystem and people can technically experience the IBG without the need to buy direct off the market or play PC which needs to remain the ultimate experience.

[lime leaf]

I totally support what ScrubaDubDad mentioned.

Important points

-costs should be the same as OW runs T1-3 but only materials can be found based on luck and it should be balanced that there is no chance to get more materials than with a OW run

-botting should not be an issue as long as you pay more than OW per resource this will mainly be used from addicted players having no time and would not be profitable botting anyway

-T0 could be farmed as well against a small cost for lazy people wanting the latest T0 upgrades

-Every land holder T0-T5 needs to have access to invest in any tear mission (T0-T3)

-There should be no soulbound NFT's we don't want to go back to web2

-Shouldn't be a hindrance for the team to finish the current work. It's important that we have enough runway and can launch a product in 2023.

[fallen fable]

A lot of really great points have already been made here so im not sure I have a ton to add but here's my two cents!

1. I really like the idea general of a mobile companion app, It has the potential to really increase our reach to new players and opens up more potential revenue streams. For the sake of providing a more full experience any mobile app should be developed in line with, or after the mobile port of arena so that users can experience a more complete game loop on mobile.

2. Dont tie in to land. Some folks would see this as a 'value add' for land but its realistically more of a 'value transfer' where the land economy siphons off part of the overworld asset production economy and enriches land holders at the expense of ILV holders.
   The potential mobile userbase is HUGE and the amount of land is small. The whole ecosystem benefits more if we bring in new users rather than gate products behind expensive NFTs.

3. This would have the risk of completely devaluing the time spent by players in the overworld if mobile users can get the same resources, for the same cost, without needing to invest any time. The rewards would need to be arranged in such a way that the mobile experience returned less value in NFTs per $ spent than the overworld game to offset the time requrirement.
   I like some of the ideas others have mentioned about limiting what could be earned, although im always a bigger fan of creating new content rather than just adding more ways to get to existing content.

4. This creates an A vs B optimization issue which will render either the overworld, or this mobile companion app nearly useless in the long term.
   Gamers love to optimize to the extent that the will optimize the fun out of games to get the most efficient results. Right now there is a simple path A (play the overworld) to get to Z (NFTs from the overworld.) By adding a second path B (companion app) to get to Z we allow players to make a choice about how they get to Z.

In a perfect world A and B would be completely balanced between cost, time requirements, and outputs but in practice its likely that one will always have advantages over the other. Especially in a market with real value incentives, this would create a race to the bottom where users flood the more optimized path and drive market prices in line with the optimal method of obtaining resources.
Some people might still choose an option that they consider to be more fun, but it almost guarantees that one of these two options will not be cost effective which could lead to bad player experiences.

Overall this is an idea i'd love to see developed more but I think we should take a step back and look at this from the perspective of "what is the best way to make a mobile experience to compliment the overworld" rather than thinking of how we can jam the overworld experience into a mobile sized wrapper.

[versed pumice]

This would truly make it a 'pack of cards'. There are some lore based problems around it, if connected to Zero, but it is possible. I haven't read the feedback so far, too busy. Someone give me their definitely unbiased summary of all the chat in this thread so far.

[true flare]

ChatGPT is an unbiased champion:

[versed pumice]

It loses points for spelling "emphasised" incorrectly.

But yeah that all makes sense. Some of the ideas just can't work and something already are planned (mobile forging). It wouldn't be hard to implement but would come later.

[peak relic]

Wow. I'm honored chatgp mentioned a lot of my suggestions but what the actual F. That's some solid summary

[hoary timber]

I thought maybe post launch update in line with the mobile port of the auto battler perhaps so it all drops into place, appreciate you taking a look.

[lime leaf]

thats insane!

[true flare]

ChatGPT is a real chad, it also programmed a (bad) simulation for ore deposit mining for me in Python lol

[gloomy nacelle]

Now tell it to do surfer dude version

[peak relic]

I wanna read this lol

[strong latch]

ChatGP is going to put a lot of people out of work. But hey that's progress. We won't care because we will all be living off rev dis. Hopefully. 😆

[pastel relic]

And everyone will have more time to spend in illuvium’s universe

[ebon temple]

How did u do this? Did you copy paste the entire convo?

But yeah I am 95% aligned with Blickter and everything he said tbh so I don't have heaps to add. Honestly I am inclined to just gate it with fuel. If bots wanna pay me revdis I'm not overly concerned. But Illuvials should remain 100% in the overworld

[lone hearth]

An interesting application similar to this was just launched by another GameFi project, Synergyland. They had an initial PFP NFT sale last year, and now implemented a "tavern" with seasonal (~monthly) and daily quests - stake your characters that meet certain criteria (currently only rarity) and send them on a "mission" for a chance to earn crafting materials, and an experience system, along with a "battle pass" system to unlock new quests and seasonal rewards. Low cost missions ($0.50-$3 USD). I've done a few, interesting model with low engagement chance to earn materials, but revenue stream for the project. Not sure if I can share a link here, but tavern (dot) synergyland (dot) live if you want to check it out.

[near iris]

I had quite a lot of input in the very early design of the overworld (some of the grindy stuff like mining and scanning was heavily influenced by me, because I love grindy games like Runescape), but I'm not in it the game design and lore side to really make any calls on this , I can say that the bot concerns are no different to the bot concerns we face generally, so the same strategies we use there would apply here, thats not a blocker but other than that I would defer to @versed pumice

[hoary timber]

Appreciate you sharing your thoughts @near iris , eager to explore this when appropriate. Happy New Year to you and yours! 🍾

[near iris]

happy new year to you too

[versed pumice]

Yeah. A mobile version that didn’t have the actual interaction with the overworld but instead just let you go out and get a random set of items (which some biases based on configurable preferences) could work. But it does lose the immersion so I wouldn’t want to do it soon. But it is an option instead of doing a full on mobile overworld experience.

[fallen fable]

Its a yes from me, mainly bc its similar to my idea WAY back in 2022 hahah very well worded and received gj Josh 😉

[pastel relic]

I feel like PvP in I:z is the next big update that the team is thinking about. I wonder if that could include a capture/mine/craft component. Pay fuel to travel to some area with your team you built up. you mine, capture illuvials and fight other teams.

[hoary timber]

Aarons said it can be done but not at launch, hands full. I think they are adding to the IZ team after seeing the feedback from testers so it would be awesome to see. Would certainly be great for capturing market share and adding a high revenue stream.

[hoary timber]

Viable to look at post launch? @simple ridge

[hoary timber]

After listening to the Ama this idea kind of feels similar to the idea @versed pumice has pitched to @magic quest. Either way I think this or a solution like this would be awesome.

[simple ridge]

Yeah I love the Mobile Companion App idea, Blizzard did something with Warcraft a few years back that was well received.

We have a few items to knock out (Game Launcher, Game Feature inclusions and more) but it's worth keeping on the radar certainly.

[analog egret]

I Like the imersion into the illuvium ip the overworld offers. The whole idea about getting illuvium assets with a few clicks undermines the feeling of the world of illuvium and the economy.
Even if i still would play the "normal" loop, it wouldn't be the Same knowing in the bsck of my head that AT the Same time a whale isndoing his few clicks and mints x amount in a few mins what i get in multiple hours.

[hoary timber]

I think the pack opening wouldnt yield as good results as a proper OW run. It can be priced and balanced to work together.

[analog egret]

Yea i know. But the balance will be that it stays interesting for a whale to just clickedyclick, otherwhise there's no point in developing that, right

[hoary timber]

You get a random set of items. Unlike OW you can pick and choose what you catch etc, overworld will always out perf.

[analog egret]

Yes i know

[untold solstice]

I think this is a good idea. Especially if we are able to get arena for mobile. I’m not sure about how it would impact the game economy or about bots but if bots have to pay to harvest then does it matter?

[dull hound]

Pretty i'm definitely for this. Kind of turns it into a gacha style expierence which we all know is a very successful revenue model for mobile gaming. OW still gives a much better bang for your buck though as you get to be selective in what you choose to pull out of a run rather than it being random

[graceful verge]

\

[toxic cipher]

Restricting to only pc or mobile active at the same time would just be annoying, since all of the land owners would just create separate accounts for each plot so they could have a ranger going out on missions whenevr they wanted.

I’d say to just let one ranger per plot of land do these afk runs at any time. They will should have limited rewards that aren’t as good as an active run since you can optimize an active run.

[toxic cipher]

I tend to agree with this. Ideally, you want those overworld NFT items to be valuable partially because a real player went out and got them. Not botted.

[ebon temple]

To me it's even a matter of principle. I feel these sorts of shortcut systems disrespect the time of those playing the overworld. But that's more personal sentiment than anything super logical

[fair obsidian]

I like this idea (especially since i want to interact with whole system, and won't have that much time to play games), but, there are a lot of things to consider. Haven't read whole discussion so it might have been mentioned before, but for this to work, OW players need to be compensated compared to IZ mission excursion.
To do this i would do smth like this:

1.) mission last 6h - compared to ow run ~ 15-60min, depending of player skill set.
2.) you need to have corresponding number/tier of shards to actually capture anything
3.) you will need to heal your iluvials after a mission just like you do have to in OW (so having more illuvials is beneficial + secondary market for consumables - stimulates economy)
4.) team you send on mission should have some kind of power rating. This rating should be based on tier/synergies/augments etc. e.g. if you send a team of t0 with no synergies and augments (their power is lets say 1000), you can't catch rhymphire (for it you need to send at least 2000 power rating team)
5.)reduced drop rate. how much is debatable. it needs to be some percentage so that it is still better to go to OW by yourself, but again not 2 much so that it is still viable for IZ players to use this system, instead of just selling fuel to OW players.
6.)you can choose what kind of missions you do:
a.)farming plants
b.)farming rocks
c.)farming illuvials (you need a illuvial team for this mision)
7.) one ranger for each plot (only 1 mission at a time can be sent)
8.) something needs to be done to regulate booting this or to oversaturate market, e.g. certain amount of missions can be sent daily. e.g. landowners are guaranteed few missions a day, ftp lands have lottery system for remaining spots.

On the other hand, every1 would need to use fuel to do missions, so more rev dis even with bots. And if they oversaturate market, then it wont be profitable to run missions anymore--->market regulates itself.

[near iris]

I kinda agree, maybe the rewards are notably limited? Not so bad to make this worthless, but a clear line drawn.

[tough sluice]

I was thinking about an idea for a companion app then found there is already a discussion topic here and I like what has been proposed by Josh. Maybe the below can be an additional feature.

What I had thought about is a companion app that allows you to equip Illuvials daily so they get XP as you perform activities IRL (like steps, exercise etc.).
Players would have a limited number of slots (1 to 3) for Illuvials and could buy additional ones from the DAO (let's say for example max total of 5).

The XP gained should obviously be much lower than through playing the game and there could be maybe a very low chance your illuvial brings some game item(s) during the daily expedition.

Overall, an Illuvium "tamagotchi" could be a fun way to build engagement with the IP and those characters you collect and could easily use the fantastic art and idle animations the studio has already created.

p.s. if xp or item gain is based on irl activity, I assume it'd be more difficult to bot. also the assumption should be that this is inconsequential compared to what you achieve/earn in the main games

[ebon temple]

I like the idea of restricting specific elements. For example T3 and above Illuvials are unobtainable through methods such as these

[shell ferry]

I think it's a great idea if implemented properly. Like OP emphasized, as long as these auto runs yield less rewards than OW for the same or higher fuel cost then there is little downside to it other than semantics.

Yes it would be cool to have every illuvial having been found by playing in OW, but at the same time this idea would increase our revenue and please a larger number of players who don't like or don't have the time for OW.

So it boils down to how many players truly care if all illuvials are minted through playing OW vs the additional players and revenue we will get by introducing this feature.

IMO it would be heavily in favor of the latter.

[willow shuttle]

I'm really getting worried with all the talks of making OW mobile with instant travels so here are my main concerns.

• Hyperinflation of Illuvials - Instant travel could flood the market with resources and Illuvials, potentially leading to hyperinflation. If obtaining Illuvials becomes too easy and accessible, their scarcity and value could decrease significantly.
• Lack of Attachment to Illuvials - Players who obtain Illuvials through instant travel don't have the same emotional attachment to them.
• Sell Pressure in the Market - The influx of Illuvials obtained through instant travel could create significant sell pressure in the market and thus devaluing the value of an average OW run.

[nova moat]

Personally I'd really like this to wait until the full game loop can be played on mobile. Check out what AZRA are doing regarding the mobile market.
If it turns out people and the team really want this, I would agree about making the rewards limited. It kind of feels like solving a problem that isn't there yet. It's okay to build a little slower. The mobile market is huge yet I feel it won't destroy Illuvium to wait a bit.

[hoary timber]

Issue is mobile cant be ported to mobile any time soon. So you cut off a massive section of the market. Gatcha is loved and used in many successful games. It can be done here successfully, just needs some good balance, on both price and yield.

[versed pumice]

A full mobile experience for Overworld would be incredibly difficult. Doing this sort of thing would be very quick and we are looking at it. Arena is obviously much more involved than “drone trips” but still way way quicker than Overworld.

We want to get people on mobile playing both games asap.

Just wondering what you guys think about drone trips. For us, the idea of quickly getting stuff is important.

So this could be as simple as “pack opening” but it could also allow some choices. That will slow down the process but make it more of a game. Any thoughts on how involved the player would be in the process?

[pastel relic]

I think both approaches would be good. we release a pack opening. and in the future you could release updates so that you have some agency in that pack opening through drone upgrades.

[willow shuttle]

We should really learn from other games... When you start catering to everyone you cater to no one...
Why do we need a pack opening experience for OW when we have illuvidex and anyone can go there and buy what they want?

[untold solstice]

I really like the idea of drone trips.
Mobile is going to be a really important earner for illuvium.
Not just for people who don’t have a pc but for people who suck at overworld too. The market place won’t have the same pack opening feeling.

[willow shuttle]

why put so much care and attention into the OW and illuvials just to ruin it all in the end... I don't get it...

[hoary timber]

I like it a lot, much less work. Has a big market to tap into across a lot of platforms. I can see it being very successful.

[versed pumice]

I don’t think it would ruin it. I think it would enhance it. Here’s my reasoning/

These drone trips would be less efficient. Traveling yourself and fighting the good fight will net you more stuff.

But it still takes 30 mins or so. And some people value their time highly. So they would do a MIX of travelling and sending their Roomba.

It would still connect to the experience, and could have some agency (as discussed above) and would also highlight how good the value is to travel.

People would still use the Dex as they want to get specific things. But others really want the thrill of discovering what they can get.

And sometimes you are at work and can’t be at your PC but just want to see if maybe you can pull that holo Atlas so you can play it in Arena and flex.

I really do feel this enhances the experience by allowing people options and much more connection time with the game.

[willow shuttle]

What about the economic part of it? Yes I agree that the experience is enhanced for everyone who wants to "get" an holo Atlas instead of buying it from the illuvidex but what about the 3 points I mentioned earlier? How will you mitigate the side effects of this? And why wouldn't I just do a another account to bypass the 30 min timer? I can see how this is profitable for the DAO but at what cost?
#1055081063644397629 message

[hoary timber]

Those sellers were also, buyers. The RNG nature of this would be unlikely to net you great results if your spamming openings on alts. It's a convenance and good companion to Illuviums ecosystem not a replacement.

[willow shuttle]

Please explain to me how the 3 points of concern I mentioned earlier won't happen with this. We're destroying the economic part of the game for short term profit. Just my opinion.

I can guarantee you guys that as soon as the average value you get out of an OW run is hard to break even compared to the fuel cost, it will deter players from going to the OW.

[hoary timber]

How are you destroying it?

You are assuming everyone buying these drone trips will look to sell and sell for cheap. If the net cost per illuvial is more expensive via this method it's highly doubtful that they will be undercutting overworld obtained assets by any notable margin.

Sure supply increases but that's no different to overworld actually being on mobile.

[versed pumice]

What 30 min timer do you mean? What I’m saying is that travelling in the Overworld is 30 mins. This would be 30 seconds. You effectively pay time instead of the extra fuel. That will appeal to a lot of people. And the people who want the “pure” experience are going to get more stuff, so for them it will enhance it. I’ll gladly spend 30 min if it saves me $20. Others won’t. Best of both worlds.

[willow shuttle]

How knowledgeable are you with other web3 games? I'm sure you must have missed how ppl undercut each other and lose money. When there's no attachment to the assets you create a huge sell pressure.

[hoary timber]

People have plenty of attachment and excitement in gatcha experiences that's kind of the point.

[versed pumice]

The price of “packs” would dip below break even before Overworld travel, if at all. If that happens, then travel will skyrocket. That’s part of the point.

Keep in mind I’m suggesting that these pack runs will increase the sell price for Illuvials.

You can get a Rhamphyre in travel for $100 (let’s just say) OR you can spend $200 to get it from a pack.

[willow shuttle]

I think you're wrong there. That's where we disagree. If you inflate the supply of Rhamphyres by giving ppl the option to catch them with just one click, even if it costs double the price they will do it a lot more than it would be possible by actually playing the game. This will gradually devalue the asset not increase its value.

The only good thing in this is the DAO makes more money. at the expense of devalueing our game assets.

What makes something valueable is not how much you pay for it but how rare it is.

[hoary timber]

So by that argument you would be against overworld on mobile. More players on mobile and more illuvial supply increase,as mobile would be a cheaper market segment low income players could play more and undercut others from wider developed nations.

[willow shuttle]

I'm totally in with OW on mobile, because ppl would actually have to PLAY and catch them. Which takes time and effort!

We're devalueing the whole experience by making it possible with a one button click.

[hoary timber]

But their time is cheaper than others. That ultimately means you run into the same issue using your logic.

Having a pack opening does nothing other than enhance and open us to a wider audience.

If anything after not getting what you actually want it may entice you to do more regular overworld runs.

[versed pumice]

From an economic theory standpoint this is only possible if the market values the extra time as a higher cost than whatever the difference in price is.

And I think that is very unlikely. Time for gamers is worth nothing almost. It’s only valuable to whales.

I’m pretty wealthy and even I would still be travelling since I know I can get way more stuff.

The point is that this captures a segment which would not otherwise play: those who actually do value time more than the cost. They are a small proportion, and not enough to alter the fundamentals.

All it means is that people that would otherwise not play at all, will play. PLUS it brings in millions of people who don’t have a PC, that still want to play.

[willow shuttle]

"Their time is cheaper than others"? Whut? Time is one of the most valuable assets there is. I think you are not judging this right. You can't buy back time!

[willow shuttle]

Aaron I love what you're building but can we really call clicking on a auto-travel button play?

[versed pumice]

That’s a better argument than your economic one. “Devalue the experience” is something I can understand. “Make the NftS cheaper” is something I don’t think is remotely reasonable.

As for the point that I can see…yeah. It could. But if we cost it high enough, it’s really only those rich peeps that will do it. And honestly, if you knew the lore, having a select group that just says “nah fuck it my drone will do it for me and I’ll just pay ETH” absolutely tracks.

There will be people who very much resist the directive to become a ranger. They won’t see themselves as a “survivor” either. They will just be rich assholes and that is about as good roleplaying as can possibly be done.

[versed pumice]

Tell that to…99% of all gamers. How many people buy a skin that can be grinded for via game time? Is it even 1%?

[hoary timber]

Yes, some people are willing to sell time for money ala salary in a Job role. Some are cheaper than others, massively depending on where you live.

We obviously disagree and that is okay. We can agree to disagree 😂💓

[versed pumice]

Yes. We absolutely can. Some rich asshole fueling up their drone and saying “fetch me my luuvies, peasant” is about as good a roleplay as we will get.

[nova moat]

I think updates on your drones journey would be cool.
Maybe a map, it has little description in the environment and possible rewards.
You can see it move on the map, if you want to. Maybe it takes 5 mins at first then you can gain something to decrease the time.
The drone takes wear and tear you have to fix it before sending it out again. Maybe it gains a stat increase on time efficiency, less damage, less energy drain or slight increase in success rate.
If I was playing that mode that would be enough for me to feel engaged yet not feel erroneous.

[versed pumice]

That’s a good point. I don’t want to sound like I’m angry or fighting. I’m not. I love a good discussion. And all points are valid.

Just giving my 2c.

[willow shuttle]

Yes me 2 I'm just voicing my concerns. I trust in your judgement. We'll see once the game comes out if this was good or not.

[versed pumice]

Yep. These are all cool things. I would want to make it as lore accurate and interactive as possible.

Maybe simple to start, but later on we can add some cool things to make it feel less like pack opening.

I mean yeah. We made the whole Overworld pack opening. We clearly care about the experience.

[versed pumice]

Don’t trust in my judgement. 😬

[bleak kayak]

For me this seems like transforming the OW experience in an online casino video slot.
I get that it would allow people that don't own a PC to have a go in some way to the OW but it's just the way the game was designed. I don't see other titles out there changing their gameplay just for the sake of maybe having more users. Just my 2c on this

[nova moat]

I have to agree here. Yet I've only seen it happen with nfts sold before game release and no actual attachment to the character they are playing. The physiology here could be vastly different.

[untold solstice]

I’m pretty sure we should. lol

[willow shuttle]

I can tell you that "rich assholes" are not going to get attached to illuvials and their thinking will be how can I make money from this. And they absolutely will put a high sell pressure on the market and lead to a quicker devaluation of a OW run.

[versed pumice]

One thing to remember is that these illuvials wouldn’t have the exp boosts that ones caught via travelling would have. So there would still be a lot of playing needed for them.

[versed pumice]

Evaluate my judgement.

[willow shuttle]

If going to the OW feels like opening a pack of cards I can guarantee you I won't do it.

I'm not a lucky guy, and I don't like to lose money. That's why I rather buy from the market then buying D1sks.

[versed pumice]

Someone is going to “have to have” the first Rhamphyre. Why? Because then they have it and nobody else does. That ain’t selling, unless to an even richer, assholier person.

Sell pressure doesn’t come from those who want to have the biggest collection. My mate has the biggest pokemon collection (as specific pokemon) and all he does is buy them. Don’t think he has ever sold.

[willow shuttle]

EXACTLY! What do you think is the mentality of ppl that will get illuvials from auto-runs? Is to sell for profit for more auto-runs...

It's easy to acquire with no attatchment to the assets therefore it's easy to sell

[bleak kayak]

I know and it's true but it opens the gates to flooding the marketplace with tons of Illuvials(unwanted or just basic lvl 1s) -> like Fillow said earlier devaluating the entire thing. I haven't read the entire thread i admit, but i can't see how this would instead increase the value of Illuvials or bring value to the ecosystem (again i get it we give access to mobile users)
I would hate spending like 20 hrs grinding to get a T5S3 and seeing someone getting that just with 2 clicks. I know it can happen someone just getting lucky to get a Rhamphyre in his 1st run but at least he has to fight/equip grind for it ...

[versed pumice]

Going to the OW is going to feel twice as lucky as “drone trips”. It’s literally designed for people like you. So you have a baseline with which you can say “I can buy this for X, OR I can spend way less, have agency, see the world, and get more stuff and it just takes some time.” Also I coded the game so that you specifically get lucky. Don’t tell anyone.

[nova moat]

People with money to spend on it. Which I guess is the point here. I know plenty of gamers that do grind because they can't afford to buy. Yet also some that enjoy it more than just buying.

For clarification. Will people who can't afford the drone trip still be able to use the mobile experience. Apologies if this is already stated.

I would also suggest looking at AZRA. They are building a full RPG on mobile. Granted they have from the beginning so it's likely the whole development process has taken that into account. I'm not 100 percent sure there is a wide view on the tech already available to a lot of people. Ten years ago people in Africa had mobile phones yet no running water.
My son plays a version of Genshin on his phone. It's not a great phone.
The game is different to the main game yet it's still pretty in depth.

[versed pumice]

They spent $1000 in drone travel to get it. You spent $500 to get yours. Yours is higher level.

When they go to sell it, how do you feel knowing their cost base was 2x yours and their illuvials sucks compared to yours?

[nova moat]

The Asia market has access to high quality phones. They use them for literally everything, not to mention the hand held gaming devices already out and coming out.

[versed pumice]

We can and will do it. It just takes more time than Arena Mobile or drone trips.

Arena mobile will get us pretty close for Overworld mobile. Since the assets will all be done. Then it’s just the interface. Not crazy hard, but still a longer eta.

[nova moat]

They definitely exist.

[bleak kayak]

Even if they spend double than me .. they will be able to get way more Rhamphyres because the time difference ... they can spend 10k in an hour to get 10 Rhamphyres and boom with 9 on the market who's going to care about mine even if it's higher level ... how do you keep up with that?
Again seems like a shortcut or a pay2win adventure into the Illuvium universe

[versed pumice]

I’m saying that they exist in the lore. Or at least, that attitude is right in line with a lot of “rangers” in our world. I can’t say more about the lore, but let’s just say “you’re not the main character” isn’t the only insult I made to the player base when designing the lore.

I really despise you filthy bastards. But I hope you will step up. (I am only joking…or am I?)

[willow shuttle]

Yep we're bringing P2W into illuvium with this. Sadly...

[nova moat]

Yep I get it.
I think it will be overall helpful to Illuviums revenue and player base. Plus it's expansive rather than contractive.
It's just my personal preference to give everyone the full experience.
Yet this idea is also a why not scenario. Illuvium will hopefully be around for years and years. Building revenue and player base in the beginning is needed too.

[bleak kayak]

Finally a topic we both agree upon mate 😄 ... but i really wished it didn't happen especially on this topic

[versed pumice]

I’m sorry but you need to actually think through what you are saying.

There’s 10 Rhamphyre on the market. You own 1. The other 9 cost $1000. Yours cost $500. Yours is also the highest level.

What part of this is bad for you? Keep in mind the other option for those same rich people is to make 10 accounts, farm them out to cheap labour, and now instead there are 10 Rhamphyre, all the same level, and all a base cost of $500.

Why would you possibly want the first option? It’s madness and doesn’t make any sense.

[willow shuttle]

Yeah when it was just skins it was all good. Messing with hard earned assets by introducing one click "drone trips" doesn't suit well with me.

[willow shuttle]

Aaron the answer is simple. Those other 9 don't give a *** about undercuting you because they didn't took any effort to catch them.

[versed pumice]

You know you pay either way, right?

Sorry guys I think I have to step out. The reasoning here is making my head spin. I did enjoy the conversation though.

[willow shuttle]

Thanks for endulging us.

[versed pumice]

How can they undercut you when yours cost so much less?

[bleak kayak]

Wdym? A better stats illuvial being cheaper than the other ones? and why would he place them higher than me ... no he would jusst sell them for whatever (devaluating it further)to get some of his 10k investment back to go back and play some more illuvium slots
Sorry but i don't follow your reasoning either 😄

[willow shuttle]

I'll say it again. The true perceived value doesn't come from how much one pays for it.

[bleak kayak]

Exactly

[versed pumice]

A person who buys a Rhamphyre for $1000 can only sell it for $1000+ if they want to make money. A person who has a BETTER Rhamphyre that cost $500 is in a VERY GOOD situation.

[willow shuttle]

Alpha Illuvitars are a gr8 example of that

[nova moat]

Haha 😂. Either way all good.
I have a personal distaste for elements of web3 and crypto.
A platform designed for decentralization used to pump and dump and take as much as possible regardless of the effects, open sea a f you to art galleries that take 60% of an artist sale, only to be turned into a scammers haven.

I'm not wealthy. Yet I have spent 200 on a character creation years ago to level a character for a guild I shared.
Never again.
There are all types of people in the world. As long as there is an equitable playing field. I don't hear people spend their money as long as it doesn't cause harm.

[willow shuttle]

You're assuming ppl won't sell at a loss there.

[bleak kayak]

Yes if i only have 1 .. but if the slots are paying tonight i don't care about the rest of them .. i just want some fast sells to get back into playing and getting more

[willow shuttle]

Which they will just to keep spinning the wheel. I've seen it happen in other games.

[bleak kayak]

I'm sure i don't have/see the entire picture here but to me it just doesn't make any sense ... this leads to illuvials worth pennies.. just like T0 Illuvitars when Waves are active

[nova moat]

Some people take less for tax reasons.

[versed pumice]

What I like about this is how it favours the people who are not wealthy, who want to spend time. They will make the most.

Here’s a thought experiment

Travel $1
Drone travel $1000.

Is there anyone here that STILL thinks that would be bad for the little guy?

[nova moat]

I think that's great.

[willow shuttle]

That wouldn't be a problem but that wouldn't attract anyone either

[versed pumice]

Honestly sounds like you are saying “I want to drain my bank account, but these assholes can drain their bank account faster”.

[bleak kayak]

And you re saying that a fast travel is going to cost $1000? or 1000 drone travels are going to get stuff/value as a player going into a 'classic' 1$ run?

[hoary timber]

https://tenor.com/view/take-my-money-credit-card-gif-24100661

[versed pumice]

So then really the debate is not about doing it or not. It’s about the price multiplier.

[versed pumice]

I’m using a hypothetical to show what the objection is.

The objection is clearly about the price multiplier.

There was another argument about “devaluing the experience” which I think is totally valid and I only disagree with it for lore reasons.

[nova moat]

As in I spent less maybe took more time, and my assets is therefore worth more.
Compared to a person who spend multiple times more. Then would need to sell for more to get a return
I'm not actually against the idea.
I would have just liked it to be the full loop. Yet that has been explained. I'm more and more, just do it. See what happens.

[bleak kayak]

My objection is not necessarily about price multiplier - although yes it makes sense that if you want something faster usually you pay more - but my main concern is exactly that -> 'devaluing the experience' or turning OW into something that it shouldn't be imo

[nova moat]

I'm pretty keen to learn the lore.
It sounds interesting.

[wary vault]

what the pb if for an 1$ run in Ow during 45' you get 10 illuvials

Vs

for 1$ 24h00 automatic gamified mobile expédition you got max 3 illuvials ?

All is matter of Balance.
Onboarding million of mobile players will be far far far more sup than stay between pc Master race

don't worry about the experience, worry about the success of the game no matter how

[hoary timber]

This gives you access to everywhere apart from console.

[versed pumice]

All good stuff peeps. I think we are more aligned than at the start. 🙂

[ebon temple]

For me. Illuvium Is about more than just an economic model. Knowing that if I capture an Atlas, someone else had to expend the same time, effort and skill to capture that Atlas is exciting for me, it turns the entire world into a living and breathing organism.

If I had to put it into an analogy, what about Pokemon cards. U Cannot shortcut it, anytime a Charizard enters the wild, it's because someone opened a packet of cards. Even if I could spend twice as much for worse odds. The equivalent would be the company putting worse cards into some weird giant bundle that's faster for me to sift through.

However I have an alternative, why not bundle the players' adventures into this new gacha.

For example. I can enter the overworld for $10 or $8. In the $8 run, at the end of it, 50% of my runs acquisitions get selected randomly and sent to a special vault. Anyone who uses this 'companion app' essentially gets a gacha roll from this vault. This means that people playing the game are still generating all the assets but those with lots of money and no time are able to have their gacha experience. Meaning the time and effort expended still remains the same as our current system.

Obviously the numbers can be tweaked but this sort of effort constant is important to me, moreso on principle than any crazy practical reason.

Alternatively u make a mobile gacha roll but it still has some sort of interaction. U need to play a monster hunter now style combat game or u need to correctly choose paths and things to get a good output. It just can't be completely brain-dead at the very least

[versed pumice]

The last part is what I’m suggesting. It might be something we develop over time.

[willow shuttle]

I'm much more open to this idea than I was before, but I agree with Scoriox. If we want the OW to feel alive, I don't think a drone should single-handedly capture any illuvial higher than T2. Unless you send an army of drones, and of course, all this would cost not only Crypton but also high amounts of Hyperion and Solon to be able to craft all the weapons for them.

[versed pumice]

It would definitely be a bundle cost since it requires lots of things.

And the end state would make it a sort of mobile mini game. Maybe that’s a scary word. I’m talking something that would be super super basic.

[wary vault]

would be like MHWorld safari ?

[willow shuttle]

Looking forward to see what the team comes up with. But I can see something like sending more than 1 drone or spending more resources to improve the capture odds.

[fair obsidian]

i did wrote previously a basic idea how this can be managed when sending those drones on missions. search my comment, there might be something in there you guys find useful.

[glad matrix]

Maybe we can add a stamp "Caught in Battle" (or whatever fits the lore) for Illuvials hunted and fought in the OW?

Like the "Alpha" stamp on Illuvials, but this time you can not pay for it, you have to earn it by going into the OW?

With some nice visualization they would gain and hold premium value, because an Illuvial from IL:Z paid travel would never be able to gain this stamp. Collectors might pay a lot more for them on the IlluviDex, which adds extra incentive to go into the OW.

[versed pumice]

I will steal it and pretend it's my idea.

https://tenor.com/view/meme-made-creator-stolen-gif-20229431

[fair obsidian]

😂 please do, i'll be realy happy and have a moral satisfaction 😄

[shell ferry]

What if instead of illuvials, the drone recovers shards or pieces of a puzzle of an illuvial. Then you scale it per stage and tier?

For example Atlas will require 0/5 shards/pieces to complete while Ramphy would require 0/50?

Then play with the % drop chances so that overall it's still less efficient than OW and we have a nice minigame within ILVz already.

If inflation of illuvials is a concern, add a cooldown on it, like 24h. That combined with already limited land owners should minimize any danger of inflation.

Personally I wouldn't even be worried about it, as the illuvials will still be earned by playing a game, not just minted.

[graceful verge]

this idea is growing on me.
with many web3 games launching for the halving, i personally wont have much time to play all. i like
an easier way to farm OW.

i dont mind paying a premium for this option, instead of relying on scholarship

[near iris]

How about every travel run you do makes your autoamted drone runs better. The drones AI learns from your play and gets a boost or something 🙂 This way if you play a lot you can still take advantage of mobile runs when you really want to!
Just to throw more fuel in to the fire 😉

[glad matrix]

Just to throw even more fuel into the fire:

We could auction off the (high tier) automated runs in waves like we did with the land sale, but this time even more gamified and in IL:Z.

The land sale was a lot of fun and besides that it allowed for better price finding. We can have both: Gamers will have a fixed price for OW runs, web3 degens always pay more and maybe a lot more with an auction system for automated runs. Combined with a stamp for Illuvials fought in the OW, gamers will feel good about their time investment.

With Open Beta we are basically having our NFT minting event, that other projects had in their beginnings.

It is a bad market for NFTs right now, but maybe in a few months and with actual games available, 3D NFTs, airdrops and marketing, Illuvium can create its own little hype and bull run?

The money comes from web3 "gamers" at the moment. I just can not see lots of mainstream gamers going on paid runs in the OW, but who knows for sure and so we also have that case covered with fixed price OW runs.

With that initial "sale" we should have enough runway to create new games until one hits with mainstream.

[tough sluice]

A few suggestions to gamify this a bit while also addressing the issue of impact on game economy:

• Like you suggested, to receive the same amount of illuvials a player gets from OW, drone "expeditions" would cost [1.5 to 2] times as much in travel fuel cost
• Your drone(s) would go on expeditions that last [2] hours or more (compared to an estimated 30 minutes for an OW run)
• They would have a cooldown timer and can't go on another expedition right after one is finished
• Additional drone slots can be purchased for eth (max of [5] slots)
• All 3 types of fuel can be used: one for expeditions, one for levelling-up your drone and the third to craft drone chips meant to provide certain benefits
• Progression system: Drones can be upgraded / levelled-up to progressively unlock higher tier expeditions (equivalent to T2 and T3 hunts in OW) and to decrease the travel time & cost multiple (e.g. from 2x to ultimately 1.5x once at max lvl)
• Drone chips can provide certain boosts / benefits (e.g. further decrease the cooldown timer, boost travel yield etc.). To unlock higher tier chips, you'd need to fuse 3 from the lower tier

Had also posted in this forum an idea around the fact that a companion app could also do with a feature centred around Illuvials (equipping a small roster and gaining minimal XP from activity irl like walking). A sort of modern 3D "tamagotchi" could be a fun way to build engagement with the IP, lore and those creatures we collect and could use the fantastic art and idle animations the studio has created.

[violet raven]

@ebon temple what's your opinion around this topic now?

@magic quest mentioned in recent interviews to have the Overworld experience mobile and it wouldn't really matter if people use bots, because they have to pay to access the Regions.

[ebon temple]

I keep giving it thought and it comes down to this.

At this time every resource in Illuvium is a by-product of 2 resources, cost AND time. You would effectively be eliminating one of those resources.

Every Illuvial would instead become purely the outcome of cost. Although we are in the digital age I like to believe that the reason NFTs haven't worked so far is because they are missing the element of time.

Bitcoin is an element of cost and time as well because it's a by-product of energy, which is also an element of cost and time.

Pokemon cards have to be manufactured and distributed, cost and time.

Maybe it's just a hunch but I have a feeling eliminating this secondary resource that is the single foundation of the entire world from the equation...

Now sure you could say it cost time to acquire the fiat to buy your travels in the overworld. But u will essentially eliminate anyone who wants to actually play the game long term.

[ebon temple]

A good example is the Pokemon video games. Since hacking in Pokemon is super easy you end up with a few archetypes.

1. People who like the story
2. People who like competitive

But everyone who likes competitive doesn't even play the story at this point cause it makes sense for them to just hack everything in.

If we were to overlap that with Illuvium u essentially just surrendered any profit from your third archetype. Someone who likes the story and competitive. Since the story becomes 10000% meaningless, they'll buy off the secondary to play competitive or not play at all

Ultimately there's a lot to be said about short term gain of this idea. And it's certainly profitable. But it doesn't sit right with me that you'd essentially be making 100% of the games lore and journey a meaningless experience. Since anyone can now skip it and get the exact same outcome. It doesn't matter if it costs them more, every decision you made in the world used to matter. With this change it simply wouldn't anymore.

Thats more important to me than revdis

However. If you work it into all of that in a creative and meaningful way then it has potential. For example you can't search a specific region because it's too hazardous. Or this method has specific resources because it's in an environment not suitable for humans.

There are certainly ways to do it...

Maybe u have to search on players' lands. And the landowner gets something. It needs to fit like a puzzle piece

[willow shuttle]

I strongly agree with Scorio here and I really hope these "drone trips" actually take time and players can't simply be spamming them all day long.

[ebon temple]

I moreso hope they need to interact in some way. Eg focusing on materials or illuvials and not both. Besides raw output there needs to be a whole host of benefits to playing the actual game.

What would be the ultimate win is essentially building in a scholarship system for this very purpose.

Whales could ultimately pay a flat cost to send out 100 players and take home half their stuff. Literally everybody wins. It's sooooo much better than a mobile gacha and has the exact same output

@versed pumice can we just do this as a scholarship system? But the frontend UI is really simple.

Eg I pay $100. This essentially places fuel into the void. Any player can go and use that fuel to do a run but they lose half their captures etc. Whenever they finish the person who deposited the $100 gets that stuff that's randomly decided.

It encourages whales
It encourages an active player base
Enables people to play and earn for free essentially

Its not fully thought out but it's mostly strong?

[willow shuttle]

I like scholarships I think we should bring it to the game at some point but that's missing the point of this conversation. And that is that they want to bring OW to mobile players.

But anyhow I don't see how the "drone trips" can have any appeal besides being a way for those that don't have a PC and don't mind paying an extra to get some illuvials. That being said I do like your idea and I think it has potential.

[glad matrix]

Bringing OW to mobile is important, but I think they also want to maximize the income for the DAO during the big Open Beta event.

And for this to happen you need mass number of gamers and web3 money.

In the end it all comes down to making money from all sorts of people buying and trading our Illuvial NFTs and making them all feel good about their experience, no matter what the experience is.

The experience for gamers should of course not be compromised by whales buying millions of automated runs, while gamers have to spend hours in the OW and when they have finally found a good Illuvial, big money has already gotten what they wanted and won't pay gamers on the IlluviDex as much as before (without automated runs).

To avoid this, we should set aside a fixed number of automated runs and auction them off to whales for max money inflow to the DAO.

It would be a compromise. Whales get a chance to participate in the big Open Beta event and get hooked into our IP, while gamers still have time to find those valuable Illuvials and sell them for good money to whales, who may want to complete their Illuvial collection and the DAO might make more money in the end by catering to both sides.

[ebon temple]

I mean 2 Birds right

[ebon temple]

I dont mind this idea too much. Almost like the land sale.

But maybe it's a delayed add, to make sure there's plenty of time for the 'fair launch'

[glad matrix]

Yes, timing is important. We could have the auction a few days later, but this all depends on the marketing plan. One big opening day for Illuvium also has its allure, but we also had our fair share of bad experiences with grand openings e.g. delayed Beyond sale due to deployment issues etc.

Getting attention from web3 is no easy undertaking and it won't last long. Maybe we even need a few auctions spread out a bit or something like the waves in the land sale to cover for attention grabbers outside of our control or latecomers.

[graceful verge]

Time-gate x speed-ups = revdis

[willow shuttle]

You can say bringing OW to mobile is important but is this really the way to do it???
I thought the point of bringing OW to mobile was to give the full loop to mobile players. But apparently by your train of thought it's for the whales...

I don't care if the player is a whale or a fish, the only thing I care is if he is a gamer. If he's not a gamer then they are here as an investor. And investors only want to make more money from what they initially put in.

We should be making a game for gamers that's the power of web3 and the hole spirit behind the Illuvium Studio.

If we want to maximize the income we should be making the best game possible and attract as many gamers as possible. Web3 money is good but it shouldn't be our focus since their only concern is how can they extract even more money from the game. On the other hand, gamers spend thousands of $ in games with ZERO return just to have fun playing a game.

If we want to attract whales to our ecosystem then Scoriox nailed it. We copy what Axie did best, scholarships!

[analog egret]

It's about getting money from whales.
If you don't add that, the money from whales would go to other Players by them buying of the illuvidex and stakers just getting trading fees.
If you add box opening Like that, the money of whales goes fully to stakers.
There's nothing about massadoption through mobile market, you would just create a nice mobile Games for that audience.
Also the reasoning for reaching out to the Poor audience who don't have a high End Desktop and give them the Option for " a more expensive loop" (lower droprates) seems weird.

Can't blame anyone for wanting to get that whale share, but the reasoning in this thread for creating that companion app is ... Idk... Had to smirk more than once

[willow shuttle]

If we want to get money from whales we should create scholarship programs. Simple as that.

[graceful verge]

i cant imagine automated scholarship system yet.
how do you half the loot? by market value or by quantity?
how do u market value the stats?
axie scholarship worked well because the loot was token

the scholars not only they need fuel, they need gears and illuvials too

so u need lending system too

[graceful verge]

tbh the best lore is, i put $1000 in and get back $2000

[willow shuttle]

this should have been one of our top priorities long ago. Land and illuvitars would have benefited greatly with this.

[graceful verge]

i thought polemos were building it?

[analog egret]

What if you don't link loot to payment of scholar and just simply pay him a certain amount of ETH/usdc/whatever.

[willow shuttle]

that could be one way of doing it. But the problem is the same. The scholar would need to get the illuvials lent to him.

[analog egret]

Why ist that a Problem?

[willow shuttle]

the only problem is not having the system built

[graceful verge]

yea a flat fee can work.
just need the lending system

we are in the age of AI, why would we need scholars?
Just call the bots (drones) AI that can play the games for you?

[willow shuttle]

It's statements like this that shows how you don't know what makes a web3 game flourish. So far all other web3 games have had their economies ruined by bots, but somehow you think this is a good idea?

[graceful verge]

have you read the team's comments?

[willow shuttle]

what comments?

[glad matrix]

@willow shuttle

Your concern seems to be that investors are here to extract money and gamers are the good guys, who just want to have fun without having any monetary interest.

I think this is wrong, because these are the most extreme positions. In reality the difference is between someone, who has time to go on an OW run and someone who does not, but still wants to get Illuvials.

My idea doesn't preclude scholarships or sponsored runs, it is meant as a way for those who don't have time to go into the OW to still be a part of the Open Beta hype and experience and is highly restricted to a small number of automated runs during a restricted time period.

We don't have to do it, but we should face the truth: There will be bad actors, who pay grinders from low income countries to go into the OW for them and they will then sell these Illuvials for max price on the Illuvidex to extract as much money as possible.

They will pocket the spread between the fixed cost of paid runs and the amount true collectors will pay for Illuvials on the Illuvidex.

I would rather have some of that spread go to the DAO as RevDis e.g. via aforementioned auctions.

We won't be able to prevent these bad actors, but maybe we can reduce their impact.

I think the problem stems from the fixed price for OW runs and the free market on the IlluviDex. Basically price control on one side and free market on the other.

I foresee a huge OW farming in third world countries, which will prob up our DAU numbers, but won't do much for real organic gamer growth. Most won't play for fun, but grind or let grind for money.

[analog egret]

You wana develope an app for open Beta launch?
Might be a bit late starting now😄

Restricting time and number of Runs, just Leads to multiple wallet/Accounts.

OW Runs doesn't have a fix price except fuel stays on top rail, which isn't intended to be.

[glad matrix]

How can an auction with a limited number of auctioned items be gamed with multiple accounts? I don‘t know how much time is required to repurpose the land sale auction code. OW top rail will be fixed and if it goes lower it will make the spread between IluviDex and OW runs even greater.

[willow shuttle]

Yes I know it's not as black and white as I portrayed. I just gave the extreme examples. But I completely disagree with the view that some1 that doesn't have time to go to the OW still has the chance to get illuvials. This just trivializes the whole experience! The only way for that to be possible would be if you paid some1 to go to the OW in your place and you both share the spoils.

Or even better, if you don't have time to play nor do you want a scholar and still want to get illuvials then just hit the illuvidex and buy wtv you want.

[glad matrix]

Yes, you are right with your good intentions, but I think the reality will be different from your good intentions.

I was actually one who also proposed that OW sponsorship and splitting of loot. And it is a lot better than scholarships/grinders setup via some external mechanism that makes the grinder basically a slave without a chance to earn their way into our ecosystem.

But we probably won't have that for Open Beta, the same goes for a simplified OW experience in Zero.

So I guess the question is still: How can we increase the number of paying players during Open Beta when OW is only on desktop without getting lots of grinders?

Or maybe: Do we want grinders to prop up the DAU numbers?

[analog egret]

What do you mean with auctioned items?
What's the problem you see with the prices?

[willow shuttle]

What can players ask more than being able to go to the OW without having to pay? This is exactly how we increase our numbers. Give those who don't have time to play a way to still get loot. And give those who don't have the resources to play a way to go to the OW. Can't really ask for more.

And besides, It just hit me, we don't even need to have a lending system in place. We just need to have a system that identifies scholars and their sponsors. And as soon as the scholar leaves an area half of their loot randomly goes to the sponsor account.

[tough sluice]

Genuine question guys: even if someone is playing for free, what's the minimum cost of a pc build that can run OW and arena?

Obviously any mobile app will not pop up overnight so this discussion remains highly theoretical anyways but I think there is merit to having a mobile companion app at some point...whether the first feature is illuvial pets or OW runs.

Is the issue with OW on mobile the potential for exploits or the game experience itself? I had suggested some ideas to time-gate the mobile feature and if in addition to that there is a higher cost to doing it through the mobile experience, then the only ppl who'll use it are ppl who would not have been able to play the game in any case (for lack of time or hardware). Or am I missing something?

If in addition, you tie the efficiency of the OW mobile runs to an account's level / progression, you make multi-accounting way less efficient (OW > OW mobile > OW mobile muti-accounting).

[glad matrix]

I would create targeted experiences for different audiences to get their hands on Illuvials.

1. For desktop gamers/grinders it is OW.
2. For mobile we don't have a plan yet.
3. For collectors/investors it could be a web based auction like we had with the land sale. Only for a few "automated runs" set aside for this auction. Not forever and not to replace OW.

I know that this goes against the idea of getting Illuvials through OW gameplay only.

But when we take a step back and think about the overall Illuvium business model:

Don't we want to get as many Illuvial owners as possible from all walks of life and then have as many possibilities for them to use them in games, as physicals, merchandise etc., trade and spend additional money on skins, micro transactions, movies etc. in order to create RevDis for the DAO?

The games we already have are not the main attraction - as necessary as they are, it is the Illuvial IP in my opinion.

So the question should always be IMO: How do we increase the number of the Illuvial holders, who bring a net positive to the ecosystem.

And the question should not be: What game is cool or would I like, but what game increases our Illuvial holder size the most (and is easy to develop).

And even speculative traders can be a valuable part of such a community, as long as they don't dominate or like is the case with Blur and BAYC at the moment, when Blur traders extract value from the NFT communities by farming Blur points instead of paying royalties to the NFT project.

[glad matrix]

My concern with price for OW runs:

We could run into a situation (not saying we have to), where the demand for Illuvials on the IlluviDex creates a huge incentive to grind the OW for a fixed price.

Imagine a Rhamphyre costs 10 ETH on the IlluviDex and the cost to find one in the OW is 1 ETH in fuel.

This would make a grinder/farmer 9 ETH and the DAO gets 1 ETH in fuel.

If fuel would be a limited resource like in a real economy and not unlimited as we have it planned, the cost for OW runs would go up as more grinders come in and the DAO would make more money until a balance has been reached.

But this isn't a discussion we should have here, I just mentioned it, because it encourages grinding vs. playing behavior.

[analog egret]

I'm fully in with bringing OW to mobile, but Same mechanics with the time+gameplay comitement and probably less sophisticated graphics. For collectors Investors we habe the illuvidex.

The only question i ask myself is where should the direct revenue go, all for stakers (go with the box opening Click loot Click loot Click loot thing) or is it for the gamer (Big gsming incentive ("expensive" rare illuvials, gamer can Make Big money, lottery Style).

If you give a possibility of Big money earn to a gamer you attract Masses, if you Make whale loot box opening you won't get to the top imo.
Imagine wow would have said either you raid or play pvp for gear (time comitement) or you just buy it with lootboxes (no time comitement). We don't know, but i would bet they wouldn't habe the Same success.

[analog egret]

It's supply and demand... Before you get that high of a discrepancy of 1 ETH Farm 10 ETH Sale more people would play OW to Farm the Profits.

Even if i don't think it will happen... in my opinion this would be best case for marketing the ip, imagine you could tell people they can Make 30k a month by playing OW.

[glad matrix]

If this is our goal, then a simple "clicker" would have been enough. For 30K we will find many, who would click on an empty screen for a few days.

How does the DAO profit from such a kind of marketing in tbe long term? Wouldn't those "gamers" leave as soon as the earnings dry out?

It would look more like a meme coin pump and dump and not a plan for a game people actually want to play for fun.

I think the problem is that OW fluctuates between wanting to be a skill based game and a card opening experience for everyone with monetary incentives. OW does not know, what it wants to be and this could be its downfall. You can't optimize for extreme opposites of target audiences.

[willow shuttle]

I agree with both, you bring up great points.
I would answer this regarding targeting different audiences:

1. OW for desktop gamers/grinders is what we already have so we're gucci.
2. OW for mobile should be like Spoon said, the same game as the PC version but with lower quality graphics.
3. OW for collectors/investors should be sponsoring OW runs for other players and sharing the loot.

Just on a side note, how come the team is already mentioning bringing OW to mobile with automated "drone trips" to give a full mobile experience when we don't even have arena on mobile yet?

[willow shuttle]

I'll add that if we create a scholarship like system we could even have the expected average price for OW runs be higher since players could play the game for free. This paired with a really high top rail guard for fuel price would really allow for the market to naturally balance itself based on supply and demand.
I find it a bit worrisome being so near the OB launch and still not knowing anything about the OW stage prices... Instead of talking about automated OW runs for mobile IMO the DAO should be trying to foster discussions on how to create a way to give a F2P OW experience to players (without segregating them to catching only T0s) or what the price for these OW runs should be...

[glad matrix]

I can also agree with your three points. 🙂

I share the same concern in regards to the team's vision for the economy.

Either they have it all figured out and want to slowly nudge us towards their vision or they are as confused as we are and try to come up with last minute solutions to create some band aids ...

Your point with raising the top rail once we have sponsored runs is exactly spot on. This would solve a lot of the potential problems I mentioned and remove the "need" for auctions completely.

[willow shuttle]

After considering all the discussions in this thread, I've come up with an idea that, although it may require more dev work, I believe it's a better solution over 'drone trips'. I call it 'player trips'.
#1224359515521159389 message

[hoary timber]

I dont think you need a new thread mate, you could have just posted it in here. Aaron already stated it would be lore related that its drone trips and not ranger or players. The general idea here is to open the game up to more users than the PC install base. Fixing this to Sanctum mesa only makes it kind of pointless. You need something that allows mobile users etc access.

[willow shuttle]

You haven't looked into my thread at all based on your response. And I created a new thread to gather sentiment around it. Putting it here would be pointless.

[analog egret]

I didn't say it's our Goal.
Just saying if illuvium OW grind is such a Bad experience to get such a discrepancy in Farm/Sale prices as you said in your example it would rather be beneficial for advertising the game than not.

[hoary timber]

It solves nothing, its a cool addition but the general issue Illuvium has and needs to target, doesn't get solved having passive player trips located in overworld.

[willow shuttle]

Man sorry but you're too drenched in your own idea.

[analog egret]

If you wana catch mobile gamers, why not push IZ/Arena mobile/OW mobile, or create a new mobile game instead of creating a whale box opening experience?

[hoary timber]

That comes in time. Until then you need something to tap into the market in a realistic way.

[analog egret]

If thats the Problem, why not push IZ which is already in developement instead of creating a new app?

[hoary timber]

That was the intent but even that is too much work to get it to market in any reasonable time. A gatcha system using the framework we laid with Illuvitars already is much easier to get to market. I am sure a companion app and quest system pseudo monster hunter comes eventually. This isn't me not thinking @willow shuttle idea doesn't have merit. Just needs to be done later down the line IMO.

[willow shuttle]

you're just trivializing the whole OW hunting experience with this.
so how much should the price multiplier be for these runs?

[hoary timber]

In your opinion.

[willow shuttle]

I'm not the only one that shared this concern in this thread

[hoary timber]

Its you and spoon on repeat, Aaron even came into the thread and explained the thought process and reasoning behind it. Yet here you are on repeat.

[willow shuttle]

lol there's Scoriox, Torrex and others...
how much would the multiplier be then?

you guys are all here with an investor mindset instead of a gamer vision. That's why you have no clue what makes a game good and want to trivialize the whole OW experience.

[hoary timber]

I am not developing it, the balance behind it is ultimately is decided by the team. I am sure they will share the general idea to council and then community whenever its ready.

[hoary timber]

In your opinion. At this point you think everyone is wrong and you are right. Everyone has no clue what makes a game good and you do.

[analog egret]

Aah so you wana lower experience for OW, Risk a dump in asset prices just because you wana Rush a mobile experience on the Market which has nothing to do with gameplay but being able to grind assets without any time comitement?
Just remember the whole vision of illuvium itself being an mmo with farming illuvials in OW, using them in different other modes like Arena, racer, dungeon crawler etc. and now turning the grind into a whale gatcha.
Bring up the example of WOW again, would you think it would have been the same success if you have people the choice of Farm assets with raiding and pvp or just buy lootboxes for the gear?

[hoary timber]

Gatcha experiences are massively successful and loved. You may not like that but they are.

[willow shuttle]

P2W features ruin all games. Change my mind.

[hoary timber]

You PAY to capture Illuvials in the Overworld. The Gatcha system does nothing but enhances the ecosystem IMO and others shared. We have different opinions that's fine but spamming your opinion as fact over and over is getting tiresome.

[willow shuttle]

Exactly! You pay to go capture illuvials not to automatically get loot.
I'm done with this thread as well. I've expressed my thoughts and presented a far better solution.

[hoary timber]

In your opinion

[analog egret]

There might be some, but as far as i'm aware not in the really Big ips and with high quality Games. Especially they not mixed with a real ingame economy.
Can you actually Name 3 Big gacha Games which attracted the Masses?

[analog egret]

There's a major difference, you take out time comitement.

[willow shuttle]

@hoary timber what's your gaming experience really?

[dry pilot]

Just to cut in here.

I think these are only ios store numbers, but monthly revenue like that is rather high.
was a quick search, could likely find better sources

Hoyoverse games aka Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail have been international successes in recent years and making billions of Dollar, as recent examples, also winning game of the year titles.

[hoary timber]

https://tenor.com/view/pikachu-shocked-face-stunned-pokemon-shocked-not-shocked-omg-gif-24112152

[dry pilot]

Taking out the time part of something can be done in a roundabout way as well, e.g. paying someone to play for you, meaning you pay w.e. the game costs+ the wage for that person, so the reduce time option always exists. (Crypto would call this scholars I believe)

Very common in e.g. gacha games, as rich people wanna play the game and unlock everything, but don´t wanna do the boring min/max/farm tasks.
On Asian streaming platforms, you will find people just farming on others accs as their side hustle+streaming even.

[graceful verge]

if scholarship is as easy as a click of a button i dont mind, but i dnt want to deal with scholars

[graceful verge]

dissapointed i dont see ragnarok online mobile there

[ruby lodge]

if platform are provided with a click, why not then?
just need discord to discuss a deal to confirm or not.

[glad matrix]

If there is one thing I learned from playing the Yuga "games" HV-MTL Forge and LOTM, both targeted to web3 investors/NFT holders and therefore not really fun or skill based, but grinding games:

Asset prices have dropped to unbelievable lows since these games have started: Asset holders want their assets to go up in price/value, trade to make some money, love collecting etc. and not play or grind their assets to death.

In the end I see only one solution:

Strict separation between money motivated asset holders from gamers, who just like to have fun and love rewards, but absolutely hate to even think about investing when gaming.

OW tries to cater to investors and gamers and this is simply not possible, not on desktop and not on mobile.

[graceful verge]

we need a waifu, arlene is nice but i dnt get excited

[dry pilot]

top 3 all time gacha games would be Fate Grand Order, Puzzle & Dragon, Monster Strike (by revenue)

Genshin and Hoyoverse games in general are more recent though

[graceful verge]

sometimes i dont understand how such low cost games can make billions

[graceful verge]

as long as theres no P2P interaction ill use it. this proposal solves that

i dnt want to do interview, negotiate fees etc.

[graceful verge]

is hvmtl P2E? i cant remember the earning

[analog egret]

and which of them allign with the visioin of an Illuvium IP with a complex ingame economy and high quality graphics/mechanics?

Do you think gacha can be seemingless implemented into the already existing economy?
Why didn't we do this instead of developing IZ and OW, could have been live on chain since a longtime?

[glad matrix]

The Forge was mostly a minting experience to evolve your HV-MTL. You could play without any further investment, but had to grind quite a bit.

[graceful verge]

no leadearboard token reward? Just upgrading your base?

[dry pilot]

You asked if there are successfull games in that genre, I gave you a list, this is a new question.

On the can gacha be implemented question, I´d refer again to scholars are directly or indirectly doing exactly that already and you won´t be able to stop that or someone building a platform for it etc.

[glad matrix]

The rewards were minimal except for the top few.

[graceful verge]

OW is gacha, d1sk is gacha, blueprint is gacha

[dry pilot]

I fail to understand the "why didn´t we do this..." question, as this is an idea to expand on the current options, nothing here is saying current options or setup are flawed as far as I understand.

[graceful verge]

ow is basically gacha with extra steps, jumps and slide

[analog egret]

i also asked josh not you 😄

I'm fine with that, cause then still is a time comitement in grinding assets. If Bob does it or paul does it i don't care.

[dry pilot]

But the time would go towards 0, as you could employ more people.

[graceful verge]

i guess thats why. i cant see yet why people would want to play web3 games without rewards. web2 games are so much better, u get new $60 AAA games so often

[analog egret]

cause of the economical impact and also the impact of gaming experience.
Why would i invest time if i can also just click a button to get the assets, or why would i invest time to hardcore grind a game knowing majority is just clicking to get the assets.

[dry pilot]

I understood the idea is that the ones clicking a button pay a premium for doing so, so I don´t think this would impact the economy negatively.

[analog egret]

no, that's not a correct comparison if i got you right. It's more like more people grind with time and a whale is buying that assets from them.
like it is now, people grind ow and whale buy from illuvidex.

[dry pilot]

Aren´t the majority of games pay 2 progress faster, this seems similar to that.

[glad matrix]

I mean the main reward was to evolve your HV-MTL, but it was just to time consuming for most holders, so they sold them. If we had a real action oriented game for real gamers, things would have been different IMO.

[analog egret]

yea, but that premium has to be balanced so people are willing to just click the button right?

[dry pilot]

So your concern would be that people are happy to on average pay a premium to gamble how much they pay, compared to buying from the illuvidex and other players

[dry pilot]

I don´t think anyone would disagree with wanting that premium to be researched and optimized.

[analog egret]

with a somewhat calculated chance of a lottery win (be lucky and get a desired asset) discrepancy has to be, otherwhise you wouldn't click and developping the app would be a waste of time

[analog egret]

that wasn't the point, the point is the price has to be attractive, whatever price it might be... otherwhise nobody would pay for the box opening.

[dry pilot]

So you don´t oppose the idea, but want the price to have a "well balanced" premium compared to what a player gets who plays overworld?

[analog egret]

no

[graceful verge]

some people have time but less fund, some people have fund but less time

[analog egret]

absolutely.
So either let them buy from Illuvidex and increase trading volume on there and make it attractive for gamers
Or
Let them buy lootboxes from the IP, decrease trading volume and make it attractive to buy token

[graceful verge]

i choose rich, so ill go with the later. i think nick has mentioned an idea of the dao selling booster pack too.
im all for getting more revdis for stakers

[analog egret]

i respect that, you the only one in here admitting it.
I'm all for getting more revdis for stakers too, but if possible not with shitting on gamers

[graceful verge]

i do acknowledge your point of view, selling booster pack or launching this mobile game can have an adverse effect on the overall gaming experience

[glad matrix]

The problem is in the definition:

For some, a gamer is a person playing for fun and social status.

For others, a gamer is a person buying a loot box with some elements of play to open it.

They are not the same. Someone playing OW is not a gamer in the old sense of meaning.

[graceful verge]

it can make the whole thing less immersive and create oversupply of illuvials like we see in illuvitars.

[hoary timber]

Like Aaron mentioned its a cost issue. There will be a premium to the pack opening. Not only will opening a pack cost more, it will net you less in the vast majority due to Overworld giving you the choice of capturing or mining etc what you what in the run. Overworld will always remain the ultimate and best yielding+value option.

[graceful verge]

d1sk is $12 but illuvitar fp is $0.14

[analog egret]

it will.
It won't if the premium is so high barely any whale wil play the box opening game and just buy it from illuvidex.
But what would be the point of developping an app and set the premium so high just 10 whales would use it.
Premium will be balanced with the target that masses will buy the boxes...

[bleak kayak]

Yep I think this sums it up -> turning the OW experience into an online video slot machine (don't want to repeat myself but it's the best comparison i could find). Why didn't we did that since 1-2 years ago if this is the direction?

Do we really needed an AAA ?

[willow shuttle]

@dry pilot thanks for the list cause it sums it up pretty well. There's not a single game in there with a thriving economy.

[glad matrix]

Good question, I think OW should be a AAA shooter, skill based and fun, and not be a disk opening experience.

[graceful verge]

imo no, for me graphic is nice to have, but gameplay is king.
i thought OW was the game, for the longest time i didnt accept that OW is just a pack opening

[bleak kayak]

Exactly my point and, i think, also of the others here that oppose this

[willow shuttle]

The problem stems from the team saying it early on... That OW was like a pack opening

[graceful verge]

it can be just a like a web browser fiverr dev game

[hoary timber]

We built a lot of the groundwork for a pack opening system with illuvitars. I think if that is what route the team want to go down. A lot of work is already done.

[dry pilot]

Well, what Illuvium and Illuvidex are, are basically what TCG-games are, but online, TCG games are "gacha" games in that sense and have economies that work for decades.

[glad matrix]

Yes, we can have both: Skill based OW and a pack opening for investors. This doesn't take away from the gamer experience at all e.g. if we give them additional rewards for hunting in the wild.

[hoary timber]

Basically all TCGs are gatcha and P2W to get assets but skill needed to actually use them effectively. TCGs are a great comparison to use for Illuvium IMO.

[graceful verge]

the simplest solution is just to sell d1sk with illuvials and some materials in it like what nick has suggested

[hoary timber]

Pretty sure this is what they will look to do, it will just be balanced and priced accordingly.

[dry pilot]

Yeah, most of web3-ownership of gaming assets games are just TCG concept but online, as the ownership part wasn´t possible in web2.

[graceful verge]

Lets call it B0xs

[ruby lodge]

rental system,
this are necessary I think.
Is like rent a building for business.
going through agent, he will still negotiate on behalf of third party person.
well unless you just the agent off, no interview and negotiate

[graceful verge]

D1sk, B0x, Cr4tes

[willow shuttle]

so we're really comparing hunting illuvials in the OW to a TCG?

[bleak kayak]

If we put it like this, and extend a bit we could say that every game in existence that has some form of loot and inventory system is a TCG/gatcha idk whatever

[dry pilot]

You said gacha games don´t have economies, TCG games are cleary gacha games and have clearly working economies.
I merely stated that fact.

[willow shuttle]

I said thriving economies. And I think we should focus on web3.

[dry pilot]

TCG games revenue is going up year over year, I´d consider that thriving.

[willow shuttle]

That is player spending not an ecosystem economy.

What's the value of the assets?

[dry pilot]

I can surely find stats that cardmarket and tcgplayer marketplaces have increased trading volume, I believe those are private companies though, so finding that number might not be easy.

I know from friends who are vendors in that industry that they certainly make more profit and have more volume than few years ago

[willow shuttle]

and why is that? Because of ease of access to buy and sell those assets.

When I talk about a thriving economy I'm refering to the value of the assets themselves. Web3 has very easy access to trade assets which makes them very susceptible to the economy balance.

[dry pilot]

TCG games have multiple online platforms, the hurdle is shipping cost and time, outside of that a very easy and liquid economy for most parts. (counterparty risk and trust can be problems as well)

[willow shuttle]

axie had very high revenue, but was their ecosystem sustainable? no...

this idea will bring revenue to the DAO for sure, but it will devalue the whole OW experience. I bet ILV on it.

IMO this boils down to which group do we wanna cater to? Players or investors/collectors.
If it's to the players then we make OW an actual game with no P2W mechanics where you need to get your 4ss into a region and capture the illuvials. If it's to the investors/collectors then yes just implement a gacha system that with a button click you get yourself illuvials out of thin air.
If we want to cater to both then we should implement something like I suggested with quests/sponsorship.

[ocean crow]

There is an aspect I have not seen addressed in this thread yet, the bonding curve. As far as we know, the plan is that every time an illuvial is caught, the chance of capturing the same type of illuvial again decreases. This is supposed to be one of the core pillars of preventing oversupply of illuvials.

If we allow whales to click their way into farming illuvials without time restriction, they could snap up a bunch of them as soon as they are released (regardless of the extra price, since they would still have a higher chance of capture), while every player who would prefer to catch their illuvials in the OW have to grind their way of being able to catch T4s-T5s.

If you are an OW player, you need to grind a team, level them up so they are strong enough to catch higher tier illuvials and move higher again. It's a process that likely takes weeks/months before they can realistically catch the most valuable ones. A gatcha without time restriction would mean whales would snap up the best ones by the time the players even make it there, leaving them with much worse odds to catch one.

[bleak kayak]

That's a very good point and a concern to be raised indeed.

[graceful verge]

ur right about whales can snag a lot of illuvials. time limit might not work as intended since u can use multiple wallets.
still, this idea is a good option to snag up revenue in a short period

[willow shuttle]

good for short term revenue, bad for long term. As illuvials would become cheaper due to the increased supply. Therefore making OW runs less valuable and less appealing for players to farm them.

[hoary timber]

Overworlds value would not decrease Aaron already stated Illuvials obtained in the packs are not leveled and have distinct difference to Overworld caught. He has stated multiple times here the idea is to enhance the overall experience including Overworld not replace it.

[willow shuttle]

if they're leveled up or not you're still increasing their total supply....

Just because Aaron says something it doesn't make it so.

I'm not doubting the intention is to enhance the overall experience but I'm afraid this could have the opposite effect.

Alpha illuvitars were also supposed to be super rare with a 5x multiplier and look how things ended up.

[hoary timber]

Well no, but you kind of have to see what they have in mind and then decide. Repeating the same point over and over that everyone is wrong and you are right does nothing. You've gone over this a million times at this point. Wait and see what they had in mind.

[versed pumice]

https://tenor.com/view/shocked-surprised-gasp-what-cat-shock-gif-635629308990545194

[willow shuttle]

I love you Aaron, no harm intended.

[willow shuttle]

If I'm not mistaken the discussion boiled down to what multiplier these drone trips would have. So I'll wait to see what the team is thinking. But I can't hide the fact that i'm disappointed this is the way the team is going.

[hoary timber]

Yes you have voiced your opinion thoroughly at this point. I think agreeing to disagree is the grown up thing to do and move on until something else is presented. You may be disappointed but others may be excited.

[willow shuttle]

Clearly with 66 likes, everyone just wants to click and get illuvials. But you make it sound like I'm the only against this when I'm not.

I presented a solution which doesn't dwarf player time and engagement with the overworld I expect the team to at least consider it. And if drone trips are 10x the price of a normal run I'm fine with it. Just doubt anyone would pay for it.

[hoary timber]

What if its 2x or 3x

[willow shuttle]

too little IMO

You know why I'm so against this idea? I've been in a lot of web3 games and communities by now. And I can assure you this is the type of system that looks good on paper, and as time passes by it completely erodes the whole economy and asset value. Trivializing the gaming experience to accommodate to everyone is never a good idea.

It always starts innocently with a simple idea that wants to please everyone. In our case, this idea ends up increasing the illuvials supply disproportionately to the demand creating an increased sell pressure, which then leads to a lower average value for the OW runs, which consequently decreases the buy pressure of fuel price, lowering its price, which then trickles down to decreasing the landplots ROI which inevitably ends up lowering their price overall. With this, we managed to turn the whole ecosystem in a downward spiral just from a simple idea that seemed so good to everyone on paper.

[analog egret]

Debating what exact multiplier it is to forsee if it will have an impact on illuvial lricing is pointless.

What if it is 3x and nobody would buy the boxes because it's too expensive with the restrictions and the whales would buy of the illuvidex?
You would probably lower it to make it more attractive until the amount of people you wish would buy lootboxes instead of buying the illuvials of the illuvidex.
Result: more supply, less demand, price decreases.

Multiplier just defines by how much prices will decrease, not if...

And don't forget... Gacha whales don't care about making Profit, they buy to Flex. Now with web3 they even get some money back with Stuff they don't need out of lootboxes. They will undercut floorprices and probably by a fair amount to make the offer look like a discount and get liquidity back fast so they can open more boxes

[ocean crow]

This is a pump and dump mentality, ser. A set of illuvials should last for about a year (give or take). If whales are allowed to farm the most valuable illuvials during the first few weeks (with no time limit and the higher bonding curve being in effect at the beginning of a new set) what do you think will happen to the other 98% of the player base during the remaining 11 months? Do you think they will just happily keep grinding with a lowered catching chance and keep pumping your token bags? I don't think so...

There is a simple way to make this work, no matter how many wallets they have. We will have data from set 1 on how long it takes for an average player to grind themselves up where they can catch T4-T5 illuvials. We can design the mobile gatcha game where it would require a similar time frame for the mobile players to click their way to T4 T5s as well. At the beginning, their drone would only be able to capture T0-T1 illuvials + farm the same resources as an OW player. Keep the crafting elements of OW in the mobile app too. As they collect resources and upgrade their gear/drone, they could capture progressively higher tier illuvials.

We can design the duration of their runs according to the data we gain from set 1. Maybe 1 run lasts 3 hours, or 5 hours. They can click the button and go about do something else. In x hours they have the loot. They click the button again, until they have enough to craft a more powerful drone, rinse and repeat. It does not matter how many accounts they create, they would need to follow the same process on every account.

The benefits: - increased engagement from mobile players (as they need to put some effort into upgrading) without being able to steamroll all the rest of the player base. - we get the additional revenue from mobile players. - since its a slower process, they would buy more from the market (more revenue). - it works for busy people without the same time commitment as it is required from an OW player

[willow shuttle]

Now this is a good idea. If this is done for set 2 instead of trying to rush it for set 1 with this progression system then I would be in favor of it.

[willow shuttle]

If a system like this were in place, I would feel like I'd be missing out if I didn't level up my drone for automatic travels to the OW. And I suspect I wouldn't be the only one. So this isn't only about bringing OW to mobile this is something that would affect all players.

[ocean crow]

I think this mobile app is out of the question for OB so we should have the data required to design s similar time frame for sure.

And here is another idea to spice this mobile app further, providing extra value for whales, and encourage even PC players to play this version too: we could incorporate the rest of the land sale into this gatcha system. In addition to OW loot, drones could also find map fragments (or some other items fitting the lore) that could be redeemed for land plots. Every land tier would have their own maps and higher tier plots would require more fragments. Higher level drones would be required to find higher level map fragments.

This way we could: - release land plots incrementally as the organic demand grows (without a significant drop of income for existing land holders) - we could price plots at a premium compared to earlier land sale for more revenue - this would incentivise every player to also play the mobile game - map frags could also be traded on the market, allowing whales to pick up plots faster + more trading commission revenue.

Perhaps towards the end of a set when capture rates are slowing down for illuvials, we could release 1000 land plots to offer a good incentive until the new illuvial set is out. Also any new gatcha elements for future games could be added at will to this app, keeping it fresh.

[willow shuttle]

I was under the impression this was about to be pushed for the OB, hope you're right.
It's an interesting idea tying this to the landplots for sure. I'll be looking forward from hearing more from the team.

[shell ferry]

That thought process is flawed, it assumes you have infinite resources like fuel and time.

For 99% of players, they will have a certain budget of fuel they can spend a day/week/month. For them it will be much more efficient to run the OW and not the drone runs as they would be less efficient.

For people who don't have the time for this, they can choose to do the drone runs for less rewards. This is actually a deflationary mechanic in a way, as the dao will get same amount of revenue but less rewards will be produced.

For the rich whales who have infinite budget and can do both OW and drone runs, let them. Those will be so small % of the total playerbase that it wouldn't matter, provided there is some sort of limit/cooldown to the drone and it can't be spammed all day.

So there would be no point to feel like you are missing out if you are not upgrading your drone or doing drone runs, unless you have unlimited budget. Most people will do the OW runs as it's the most efficient way to spend their money. This proposal targets those who don't have access to PC, don't have the time for OW, don't enjoy farming OW, or any other reason. It is a nice addition to the ecosystem that adds more depth and choices for different players.

[shell ferry]

I was under the impression this proposal will only apply to paid lands and not f2p? Then if a whale has multiple wallets with multiple lands and wants to spend hard on those, whats the difference between that and 10 people/whales playing/spending on 1 land each? We still get the revenue from it. This is also the reasoning behind botting in OW, it's pretty unavoidable, will cause inflation and all that but still the dao will get it's revenue from the runs.

This proposal is way better in that regard, as the rewards will be less than OW, and some whales will prefer that option instead of botting, which is a win win.

Now if f2p lands are planned to have this feature too, it changes things and the parameters for the proposal, but it still can be made to work. Depends what the team has in mind.

[willow shuttle]

Let me explain why I think the thought process isn't that flawed, and I'll even give you an example.
For starters if you're a landowner you do have a constant source of fuel. But let's imagine you're a casual player with a finite budget.

One crucial aspect you seem to overlook is that OW gives you real value for each travel you make. You're not simply spending without getting anything in return. Quite the contrary. You just need one lucky run to pay for the entire week/month runs.

For instance, take @chrome ice, who pulled a Blazing Rhamphyre on Beyond wave 1. To this day he's still a top 100 Beyonder and that pull alone payed for all his expenses on Beyond and probably still made him be in profit. Sorry for the tag Nijafe, please correct me if I'm wrong.

I think we already have a good gacha system in our ecosystem with Illuvium Beyond. The good/bad thing about Beyond is that there is no demand for illuvitars and so it's really hard to sell them, which on the upside makes their prices hold their $ value. I guarantee you there's a part of our community itching for that dopamine hit they get by opening another D1sk, to the point they would be willing to sell illuvitars for less than half their average selling price if they had the chance.

[shell ferry]

I'm not sure how that reply has anything to do with what I said but let's see.

Land owners do have a constant source of fuel, but I believe you are massively overestimating it. A tier1 land will probably produce 15-20$ per month, which is only enough for a few runs. Even without cooldown on the drone run, it's not like they will be spamming it all day. Personally in this scenario, id much rather do the OW runs, or sell the fuel and buy smth off the market than do the less efficient drone runs.

Regarding your blazing rhamphyre example, what has that to do with anything? Why do you dismiss the fact that zero is also a game and these runs will require you to play that game to earn the resources for it? If playing for a full month only net you a few of those runs what's the problem? There is still playtime and effort behind each run. Or you prefer the whales to run 100 bots instead?

And last, what you said about the gatcha, it sounds like it supports this proposal rather than dismiss it. If the whales are willing to dump loads of fuel to do the drone runs to hit that dopamine spike, for only 75 or 50% of the rewards, isn't that a good thing? Less inflation because of the reduced rewards for the same revenue. Or would you rather they use bots instead for the 100% value?

We keep selling treasury tokens in order to sustain future development, the extra revdis from this will be more than welcome. Not to mention additional content for land owners which is desperately needed. Look at this objectively, not only through your point of view.

[willow shuttle]

I brought Beyond as an example since it's a gacha system as well. My point is that Illuvials will have a $ value and for every travel you make you'll get back some of the value you spent by selling illuvials/materials. This whole idea gives the DAO revenue at the expense of devaluing their own game assets.

The rhamphyre example was to show you that you only need to pull one holo/dark holo illuvial to get the money back of a ton of runs, and with that keep the wheel spinning without having to add more funds.

[shell ferry]

I'm not sure you understand how RNG works, just because it happened to someone, doesn't mean it will to the 99.999% remaining players. If it did, then the value of that asset wouldn't be as high to begin with. It's a really flawed example.

You haven't replied to my other points. While this proposal doesn't fix the botting problem, it has the potential to greatly relieve it.

There is time and effort behind each run for the normal players. It's not gonna create illuvials out of thin air.

[willow shuttle]

I gave an extreme example. Not every run will net you a dark holo rhamphyre ofc... But you'll get atlas and lynxes and you'll try to sell them on the market to make some money back to keep traveling.

There's no bot problem with Illuvium since you have to pay fuel for each travel. And there is only time and effort behind each run if we're talking about normal runs not the automated 'drone trips'.

[shell ferry]

You are contradicting yourself once again. So it's not a problem for a whale to run 100 bots daily, for 100% of the rewards, according to you, because they have to pay fuel for each travel for the bots.

But at the same time it's a problem for the drone runs? They spend the same amount of fuel as a normal run but with reduced rewards. According to your logic that should be much better.

Your extreme example holds no weight, because most of the players will not be net positive from their runs.

[willow shuttle]

the bot still has to play and pay for travels no?

Anyway I'm done trying to defend this game's economy, I got more things to do. If you guys think this is a good idea so be it. I'll be here in the future to see how it plays out and I hope I won't have to say I told you so.

[ocean crow]

I don't think this proposal has anything to do with lands mate. The whole point of this mobile app we are discussing is to bring in mobile players who can't play OW on their phone. What does it have to do with lands?

So we are not trying to address those few whales who own land + don't have the time/desire to play OW. We are trying to avoid a situation where any whale could spam their way into farming a bunch of illuvials without time restriction and potentially undermine OW.

[shell ferry]

Are you serious right now? If you call the bot 'playing' but not the zero player who plays and gathers the resources for a month just to be able to do a few drone runs, I don't know what to tell you. Seems your arguments were proven wrong more than once and you are getting tilted for no reason.

[willow shuttle]

I'm talking OW this has nothing to do with IZ

[shell ferry]

Cause land seems to be the best place to introduce this, there is no point to build an entire app for it. Since zero is already mobile, we already have the platform for it.

Whales can also bot and will most likely do so, like in every other game. This proposal helps relieve this issue, by giving whales another angle on this, for less hassle and less stress on the economy.

[willow shuttle]

I feel like you came in without reading the whole discussion, so there's really no point continuing the conversation.

[shell ferry]

No that's you mate, your last 5 msgs literally made no sense. The topic is mobile OW alternative and this is exactly that. It is also mentioned in the second sentence of the original post "(may be added to zero)". So I don't know what to tell you.

[willow shuttle]

If you followed the thread discussions you would have come to the conclusion that the discussion has deviated from that a while ago. I'm done here.

[shell ferry]

Yep it's time for you to go, haven't added any useful input on this besides argue to protect your ego or something. Bai

[willow shuttle]

At least I'm not rude. Don't know what this has anything to do with ego but ok. Cya.

[shell ferry]

Different definitions of rude we have then. To me repeating the same thing over and over again without taking into account anything the other side has mentioned is rude. It is also rude to tell me I just came in here without reading the post, when it specifically mentions what I suggested. But to each their own, no feelings hurt on my side. Take care

[willow shuttle]

Just so we're clear. I may have repeated myself in this thread but I took into account every single comment. And don't be disingenuous cause I didn't say you didn't read the post, I only shared my opinion that it seemed like "you came in without reading the whole discussion".

[analog egret]

Do you really think whales rather create bots and do the hustle coming with it than simply buying their stuff on illuvidex?

[shell ferry]

Some whales will absolutely bot, like Filow mentioned earlier they are after that dopamine spike. Also it may not be just whales botting, might be shrimps or other type of marine life that look after profit. If there is incentive for it, botting will happen.

I believe this proposal if done properly can somewhat mitigate it.

[shell ferry]

I also didn't think I was being a rude but you took it that way. To each their own mate, cheers.

[analog egret]

Yea i guess bots will always be in Games.
It just sounded Like you think it gets runover by bots Like "new world" or other games. I would have guessed that you have to pay for every Run And you don't know the outcome in Profits for that (if even Profits) it would decrease the number of bots drastically also i'm not a pro in this Stuff, like can you easely Run 100 bots on 1 machine?

[shell ferry]

I'm not so up to date with the newer tech like clouds and all that, but 100 bots on 1 machine will be impossible, it would mean running the game 100 times at the same time.

I was running bots in D3 while it had real money auction house, and with a flagman PC at the time, I was only able to run like 5 bots at the time. It could probably be optimized to run more, but I don't see it being more than 10.

Now ILV is much heavier for the time being, so it will for sure require multiple gigs.

Also I only mentioned bots as a comparison to this proposal. Some whales or people who would otherwise bot, might choose this option, for being much less hassle. And more healthy on the economy because of the reduced rewards for the same amount of fuel spent.

[analog egret]

Yea thought so.

Idk my impressions was always whales just buy of the illuvidex, thats what actually bring's the biggest chunk of value to the assets. If everybody is farming OW, who actually ist buying assets in the End? Not talking about some buys here and there, that would barely bring any value.

[shell ferry]

Whales, especially asian ones love gachas and to gamble. They are after the thrill and will probably do both.

[willow shuttle]

I've given it some more thought, and I'm in agreement with @peak relic. To me, this concept would make perfect sense if it were limited to mining and harvesting. The drone shouldn't be capable of hunting illuvials by itself, but it should be able to easily gather materials across all stages. This paired with a progression system for the drone's gathering capabilities for higher stage regions would be ideal.

Players will inevitably need to go on mining and harvesting runs, and these tasks can feel more like chores when compared to hunting illuvials. Automating this aspect a bit would undoubtedly be a huge win.

Illuvial hunting should remain exclusive to human players. If we aim to involve whales/mobile users in the gameplay, IMO it would be better to incorporate them through a player-driven quest system or another similar approach.

[tough sluice]

@willow shuttle @analog egret it doesn't have to be one or the other...investor or gamer. Check this suggestion I made. In a system like that where you clearly establish that OW mobile is not going to have a superior yield and where you can make multi-accounting inefficient through a progression system (both for drones and maybe at overall account level), you can still have a balanced economy. It's about making it so that anyone who has the specs to run OW on pc would be highly incentivised to do so and making the mobile experience an alternative for those who don't have the hardware or the time.
Maybe if am in that position, I'll buy from secondary market because I don't like to rely on luck. But if someone has all this fuel from their land, no time to play OW and want to try their luck by levelling up then sending their drones for gatcha, why not? It's still fuel burnt and the drone expedition + cooldown would take longer than a OW run

[willow shuttle]

Your suggestions are good, but I would restrict them to material gathering. Hunting illuvials is something special.

Honest question: Suppose you have plenty of fuel to spare. Would you rather send an automated drone with a time interval limitation for double the usual cost and inferior loot when compared to a regular run? Or sponsor a run for another player with no time interval limitation and share the loot, with the flexibility to determine your share % of the loot?

[chrome ice]

This is correct. Without that single D1sk I probably would have never made the leaderboards

[tough sluice]

Just my opinion: Unless there is an official / clean system for it, scholarships or "sponsoring" is a headache for me...even more so in a system where you earn NFT's which - unlike tokens - are not that easy to split with someone else. So in a scenario like that, I would personally be willing to pay a reasonable premium instead of having to vet ppl, set-up sponsorships, figure out profit-sharing arrangement etc. 🙂
If I find that premium too high, then maybe I just sell my fuel and buy what I need on secondary.

[willow shuttle]

Yes I'm talking of a clean, simple system ofc, no need to vet people...
The idea is in this thread, take a look. It's only an idea, and it can be further polished with everyone's support.
#1224359515521159389 message

[tough sluice]

I upvoted this and I think such a system could be cool but in terms of timelines, something like this would probably take much more time than a simple mobile companion app. So this would be further down the development line.
I would see the following order of release: OW then OW mobile then Sponsorship / Questing.
In my opinion, if this is done correctly, these 3 products can co-exist. With the right rules and incentives, OW can remain the main experience and the source of the majority of Illuvials. The mobile experience can cater for gatcha and/or mobile-only players and questing can make sponsorship fun and hopefully limit the classic scholarship side effect of value extraction from players who are only here to take money out without spending any.

[willow shuttle]

I agree. I would just say that the quests will also be a way for the mobile players to interact with the OW.
Also, if we create automated runs for illuvial hunting instead of just gathering materials there might be less incentive to provide quests for players.

I see these automated drone trips as an excellent option for individuals with limited daily time who prefer not to spend their play time on mining or harvesting. These runs would allow them to gather any necessary materials automatically, freeing up time to go hunt illuvials, rather than spending it on gathering resources when they have the opportunity to play.

I know the art team put a lot of attention and detail to the rocks. But let's be real, no one wants to travel to the overworld to mine rocks...

Just to be clear, contrary to illuvials I see no issue with automating mining and harvesting because these items won't be the primary focus of every game, nor will they have different sets, they are infinite. Over time, they will consistently become cheaper as more and more players acquire them.

[willow shuttle]

It's comments like this that show how having some automatic material gathering would be a nice feature.

[shell ferry]

Might as well close this proposal. It got the needed upvotes to be considered, team added their input as well. It's just Fillow spamming the same stuff over and over again.

[analog egret]

Upvotes in #1020759212172775464 are not needed to write a proposal.
#1020759212172775464 is just die gathering Input and sentiment to actually write a good proposal

[shell ferry]

Yeah seems all the input has been gathered already

[analog egret]

😄
Because you have spoken?
Or what makes you think there won't come other additional inputs?

[shell ferry]

What are you talking about mate, what's your problem right now? It felt like the topic is exhausted way before I even wrote anything. It's just one person repeating himself and spamming. I rly don't care if it's closed or not, it's not even my proposal.

Hard to add anything new when you have a person like this arguing with everyone he doesn't agree with and spam the same shit over and over again.

Anything else?

[willow shuttle]

How come you say I'm spamming when I literally went from being against to in favor under certain conditions? I'm sorry but you're not making sense I don't get what's your problem with me.

[analog egret]

What? I don't have a Problem 😄
The topic was on pause Like 3 or 4 Times, yet there were still valuable inputs after that Breaks.

[willow shuttle]

If there's is anyone who should voice their opinion it's the ones that have something to say against the idea. Coming here just to support or put a thumbs up helps zero to improve the idea.

[shell ferry]

You mentioned you are done with this proposal like 3 times already, and yet keep coming for more. If that's normal to you I don't know.

[willow shuttle]

that's just how resilient I am.

I'm here fighting for the well-being of the game.

I'm here to help create a good, sustainable game and am not concerned about revdis or increasing the size of my investments.

[shell ferry]

The survival of the very project you are supposedly fighting for depends on revdis. Or you prefer we keep selling treasury tokens until they reach 0?

[willow shuttle]

revdis will come by making the best possible games. Not by chasing it with short sighted strategies.

[shell ferry]

This proposal adds depth and more content to our ecosystem, while also being healthy for the economy. We already know you don't like it.

[willow shuttle]

on the contrary, If you would actually read what I type, you would know I do like the idea. Just limited to mining and harvesting. Not illuvial hunting.

[shell ferry]

So you don't like the idea, because it is not what it proposes. Why don't you follow your own advice and comment in your own proposal if you don't like this one?

[willow shuttle]

because this is an idea thread not a proposal m8.

I'm just giving my feedback. Hopefully, in a constructive manner.

[shell ferry]

Semantics, you understood what I meant and just feel like saying shit.

[shell ferry]

And I just repeated what you told me few mins ago in your "idea".

[willow shuttle]

wtv man. I'm done talking to u.

[shell ferry]

Finally

[willow shuttle]

Since the majority here seems to be in favor of pay-for-convenience features, I want to remind everyone that this was precisely the downfall of WoW, the biggest MMORPG in terms of player base and revenue. It's also the reason why they released WoW Classic servers a few years ago, which was such a huge success.

Why would my leveling process matter if I can just buy a boost for 19.99$ to level my character to 100? Why bother playing hard to acquire the remaining gear for a set when I can purchase it from the store for 9.99$? Why take the effort to get rare mounts when I can just buy them on a special discount of buy 2, get 1 free? I think you guys get the idea.

Money has no intrinsic value, it has infinite supply. If we make illuvials available through dollar purchases, they'll lose their intrinsic value as well. And I'm sorry Aaron, but whoever says this will actually increase the value of illuvials because the runs are more expensive doesn't really understand what makes things truly valuable and clearly didn't learn any lessons from what happened with wave 1 Alpha Illuvitars. I've been using Beyond as an example because it's also a gacha system within our ecosystem, and yes, that initial alpha sale was great for the DAO in terms of revenue, with massive profits from the 5x multiplier. But what happened next? I think we all know.

I have no doubt that everyone here would just love to be at work or chilling by the pool, while automatically capturing illuvials with the push of a button, zero effort required. I can already imagine the whales saying, 'Oh yeah, I paid 5x the normal price. Who cares? This is so cheap. I got a Rhamphy the other day. I'm going to catch them all without even going to the OW,' as they spend their day clicking every chance they get, with multiple accounts.

Meanwhile thanks to the illuvial bonding-curve the whales are artificially making it harder for all players to capture rarer illuvials as @ocean crow mentioned earlier.

And I just watched @sinful wedge say on the Download episode that this is a no brainer with massive gains for the DAO. Therefore, here I am, humbly begging the team to consider only automating the mining and harvesting part of the OW. Please don't take the essence of the illuvial hunting away just for convenience or short term profits for the DAO.

I see everyone a bit too fixated on making profits when I have no doubt that if illuvium doesn't mess things up, we'll all be drowning in profits. What we should really be focused is on making THE game of the century.

[graceful verge]

WoW downfall is because blizz keep milking a ded cow

questing is only a part of the gameplay, the main gameplay is dungeon and raid. without level boost, you can skip questing by doing party finder

[shell ferry]

It's just more of the same nonsense which was addressed already and conveniently skipped by the fella. Even the wow example was wrong.

If the drone runs are done through zero and require actual resources from the game, how is that printing anything, isn't that the point of the games being connected? It will also give people more incentive to try and play zero and be more immersed into the games/ecosystem which can create a nice addiction loop.

The main idea of this is to give people who otherwise wouldn't or can't play OW to have a chance to participate too. Its not about trying to milk the whales or whatever he's thinking. There can be a certain cap on how many runs can be done by a certain land so that it mostly benefits the normal players and whales can't abuse it. It's all about the parameters that will be set for the drone runs, the bonding curve and everything else can be taken into account so that the OW experience is impacted to a minimum.

It will also take away some of that bot incentive. I don't see how a whale running bots is better than this. It's much more harmful to the eco. Unless the game will be impossible to bot, which is highly unlikely, this gives another angle that many people who would otherwise bot will choose.

[glad matrix]

It is a brutal realization, but with Open Beta we are actually trying to sell our main IP - the Illuvials (games are just a facilitator for that sale) to a web3 audience, that does not care too much about the gaming experience. It is only airdrops and meme coins.

To make matters worse, Apple restricts NFT games on its platform, which makes a lot of our plans for a mobile OW (and Zero) theoretical.

I would suggest:

• make money from web3 with the ability to buy/auction a few Illuvial gacha boxes. It is a pretty tough market for NFT sales/mints at the moment, we missed the hype by a few years. And it doesn't make it easier, when you have to grind a OW game to mint Illuvials.

• let mainstream casual gamers play a F2P mobile Illuvial game (see below)

• OW is for our web3/gamer audience, should become skill and action based and as the name suggests, a beta product that needs to be tested and fine tuned

• Zero is a game for investors and fuel generation and can not be F2P and not on Apple devices

But what we need ASAP is a causal F2P mobile game with the Illuvial IP at the center stage to get mainstream hooked e.g. https://discord.com/channels/760344898200666112/1222607986883559556

We can let kids and grown ups level up their Illuvials in an Apple friendly mobile game. Ideally they could level up an Illuvial caught in the OW (as a companion app to OW) or an Illuvial bought in an auction or just any favorite Illuvial, but then not connected to the blockchain. All while collecting ILV airdrop points.

This Illuvial IP sets us apart from all other web3 games. We need to get people hooked on this IP and its future potential. Pudgy Penguins sold cute, but trivial Penguin NFTs and Walmart plushies without a single game! We have penguins, birds, dragons, lizards etc. in the best possible quality ...

Because F2P games, plushies etc. will make the big money in the years to come and it will take time to convert mainstream gamers to become NFT owners. Mainstream will definitely not come for paid OW runs during Open Beta.

We are not a „one game only“ web3 gambling project, which needs to make its one and only game (token?) successful, we need to make the IP successful and games are just one NFT utility and one way to success.

The Illuvial IP is ready, the games are not. It is a long term play, that needs a long runway. Ideology over how Illuvials can be acquired or what games are allowed should not play a major role in our long term business planning.

PS: Yuga tried a gamified mint two times, with horrible "success" and insane loss of value to their NFT assets - web3 does not like to grind for NFTs, only for token airdrops.

[willow shuttle]

The cow was very much alive, and it was they who killed it with their greed and lack of connection with their own player base... If there's anything we can learn from the downfall of retail WoW and the surge of Classic servers, it's that what's meaningful is not just the destination, but rather the journey. While the end game may revolve around mythic raiding and PVP, that's not what truly makes WoW an RPG.

Features like the party finder, and other convenience features were what ultimately led to a decline in player interaction and engagement within the world. It's these seemingly innocuous additions, meant to please everyone, that have dire consequences and ultimately ruin the game. I still remember the days when people would just stay idle in front of the bank flexing their gear as a symbol of dedication, earned through countless hours of gameplay with no shortcuts available.

Now, bringing it all back to Illuvium, we already have P2W mechanics in place, it's called illuvidex. Our journey here is through IZ and OW, and the destination will be all the other games that will use the assets we'll be acquiring from IZ and OW. If we start introducing convenience features that cheapen the IZ/OW experience for DAO revenue, we are shooting ourselves in the foot in the long term just like WoW did.

The most important aspects of any game are fun and a sense of accomplishment, and now with web3, also the potential for wealth accumulation as it translates into real-world value.

[willow shuttle]

First of all, if you believe what I'm saying is nonsense, so be it. It's simply your opinion, and I don't understand why you're so fixated on arguing against me and defending this idea. I've read through all the comments, and I'm presenting my own counter-arguments, yet I have yet to see a reply that convinces me why they are wrong, besides you dismissing them as nonsense. You say my WoW example is wrong but provide zero counter-arguments.

Secondly, the concept of these 'drone trips' is to provide access to the OW to everyone. Therefore, if they are tied to IZ, you are essentially forcing people to play another game that they might not even enjoy.

Thirdly, I don't believe these 'drone trips' will diminish bot activity at all, as they are less lucrative to run. Those who run bots are trying to maximize their gains, and they will continue to do so whether or not these automated runs exist. Additionally, creating a bot to play in the OW is not that straightforward. While a bot that traverses the world and farms materials is one thing and I'm perfectly fine with it, creating an aim bot to shoot illuvials and also be able to play in the arena is much more complex. I'm not sure what the policy for bots will be, but I would assume that anyone using aim bots should be banned.

Lastly, this will be my final response to you, as I will be ignoring you from now on since, according to you, I only say nonsense.

[graceful verge]

The players are old. The active subs number is steadily decreasing. Classic is only for OGs who missed the olden days. Web3 market is vastly different than WoW. Nowdays, the younger gamers are tiktok generation, they have a very short attention span, play some, spend some then move on to the next blockbluster games.
We want to capture that, generate as much as we can in this bull to build the next games.

[willow shuttle]

I don't think it's such a brutal realization, it's quite down to earth. I completely agree that the OB will be for web3 players. Web2 players will only come later, after the game proves to be a humongous success and dissipate all the bad rep NFTs and web3 has in general.

While I do love the concept of illuvipets, I believe it's deviating slightly off-topic. The focus here should be on how to make OW the best game possible, not how other games will bring in more players. Before expanding into other games, we should strive to polish the 4 games we already have. Yes, I said 4, I'm counting Beyond.

If we aim to attract millions of players, both web2 and web3, we need to start thinking more like gamers and less like a businessman. Currently, OW lacks progression for F2P players to convert them into paying users. We can discuss pricing all day long and say we're making stage 1 regions very cheap, but that is missing the point. What's considered "very cheap" is relative to everyone. Since we're aware we'll be targeting web3 players for the OB, we could even make the OW runs somewhat expensive and later introduce ways for web2 players to play for free.

For example, implementing a player-driven quest system could prevent gating F2P players to playing only in T0 regions and offer them a path to eventually pay for their own OW travels. Segregating F2P players from the rest of the playerbase isn't a good approach. While T0 illuvials are great, we're lacking a way to provide F2P players with higher-tier content experiences. This is how we can massively attract players!

Imagine Pokemon saying you could catch all pokemons but they would be all black & white unless you would pay a fee to enter each gym. Do we really think this would appeal the masses?

[glad matrix]

So we can agree on OB for web3 players mostly, but why do you think OW needs to become a success with OB ?

Don't get me wrong, we should try and root for its success, but it is just a beta and might not be the best way to make money for the DAO.

And making money in this bull run is way more important than a quick OW success. We might need to produce a few games until one hits with mainstream.

Most of your suggestions are for mid and long term OW success, not for the next few months IMO.

Instead of discussing details about OW we should first decide if OW is actually a way to make money.

And if you think money is not important at the moment, then we should first discuss this.

[willow shuttle]

I might have given the wrong impression. These ideas are not to be implemented within OB, I know they'll take time. I hope the same for the 'drone trips'. At least leave set 1 alone, please don't ruin it with automated features.

And ofc money is important for the longevity of the DAO but the focus should always be on making great games and not on profits. Because by making great games we'll inevitably be making big profits.

[glad matrix]

Why should we not ruin the experience of Illuvial Set 1 ?

I am serious, because I don't know of a good reason other than what has been promised or personal feelings.

[shell ferry]

This concept targets people who don't like OW or cannot play it for whatever reason. If they dont like OW and don't like Zero then maybe the game is not for them? We want all of our games to be a success, this creates a cool gameplay feature for one of them, that desperately needs it. No one is forcing anyone to do anything, it is an option for those who like it.

There are bots that do mythic raids in wow, which would be much harder to setup than something like OW, so yes it will be done and no one is getting banned for it, the teams last comment on this issue was - if they pay for the runs then it's alright. There may have been a more recent update on it which I'm not aware of, but that's the last thing I remember.

Running bots is both time and resource consuming. If there is an automated option in the games for this, bot runners might opt for it even with the reduced rewards, provided they don't have to spend anything to setup the bot gigs and the additional electricity for it.

I've literally tried to answer each comment of yours in a civilized manner but when you keep refuting everything without taking into account what's being said, it gets frustrating.

Oh and your wow example is bad for many reasons, Jaga already explained some. It has nothing to do with the example you gave, to try to spin it to fit your narrative. The game died mostly cause the model is out dated, no one has the attention span for 10h raids, the content got repetitive and stale, and the lore has been completely ruined.

There, don't say I don't address your points cause I did each time.

[willow shuttle]

Are you really asking me why we shouldn't ruin the set 1 experience?

I mean first of all because we don't know the illuvial bonding-curve. And secondly, and just my opinion, the longer we are without pay-for-convenience features the better.

[glad matrix]

But who would suffer and how?

[willow shuttle]

With pay-for-convenience features? It depends on what we are talking about. If its 'drone trips' doing illuvial hunting for example then it's everyone who plays OW and owns those game assets. Since it increases the supply disproportionately to the demand.

[glad matrix]

Lets say we can sell 1 million Illuvial gacha boxes, but the demand from players for Illuvials is just a few thousand at the moment.

It could bring down the price, but it doesn't have to, because Illuvial owners would wait for more games to be developed and not sell them for cheap.

Once we have games for mainstream, the demand for Illuvials will increase.

Worst case it is not different from projects, which sold NFTs years ago and still don't have utility for their NFTs.

Illuvials have a value beyond their immediate use case, especially when you have a F2P mobile game for leveling them up until you have a "real" game to play with them.

[willow shuttle]

Am I missing something here? It's not that we need more games, we only need one game, like Arena for example, to explode, and the demand could easily surpass the supply. If you want to obtain illuvials out of gacha boxes, you have illuvitars for that. This is the crux of the conversation and why I provided the WoW example of how pay-for-convenience features can ruin games. If you increase the supply without corresponding demand, you'll devalue the average value of the OW game assets, thereby reducing the demand for buying fuel and consequently lowering land ROI, which also devalues its price.

• "because Illuvial owners would wait for more games to be developed and not sell them for cheap"

I don't think you understand how ppl dump their assets for one more shot at the gacha systems.

[glad matrix]

If they want to dump, then there needs to be a buyer, which makes us money from royalties and since you need fuel to buy gacha boxes (you would not buy with sILV or ETH) fuel price would not drop, quite the opposite.

By the way: Someone could also argue that OW players will want to dump to buy more fuel.

Gacha just leaves out the OW play/grind for those, who don't want to play and creates a different price for Illuvials on the IlluviDex, but most likely it will be higher.

The price for Illuvials will depend on many factors, some of them completely out of our hands, and should be left to the market.

And by the way: Fuel should also not be on rails to avoid issues like you described. When we have web3 as our main customers, fuel price does not have to be on rails, would be different for a web2 audience.

That's why I think our "economy" is pretty much a mess right now, there are features that work for web2, some only for web3 and together they create something that just won't work.

I just hope they get their act together in time for OB, right now it looks more like panic mode with all the news about Zero delays, automated runs etc.

[willow shuttle]

While I agree with you, I don't think it's that simple. Yes, it's true that for every seller there's a buyer, but the fact that someone buys an asset, whether they need it for a game or with the expectation that it will appreciate over time, sets the average sale price at that time for that value. This puts higher pressure on OW, as it becomes harder to break even or make a profit from an OW run since the assets are cheap, which in turn, disincentivizes people from traveling to the OW. Let's not forget that traveling to the OW is already a gamified gacha system.

And you're right, the economy as of now is a mixture of web2 and web3 elements, and it seems like an experiment that we don't know if it'll work. But we're close to at least providing some feedback, since PB4 starts by the end of the month. Let's wait until then before we start crackin. 😅

[fallen fable]

@hoary timber do we know what the outcome of this was? It was such a good idea