Conceptual MOBA proposal - Illuvium Pugna 6v6

[full wadi]

Dear readers, thank you for your time.

The following information is a very high level proposal for the Illuvium MOBA:

**The proposed game aims to: **

-Create a unique experience based on Illuvium’s brand, metaverse and IBG tech.
-Extract the best features of LoL Summoner’s Rift (game in which I have huge xp) and amplify them.
-Build an experience considering the current and next generation gamer mindset.

The full proposal, which is still under construction can be found in this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M3fWPMcmbdHfcdV1LiqhdsuT018v8MjtOHWMSm6pfAo/edit

Game description:

A 6v6 gameplay with isometric view from above in a circular map with 5 lanes, 2 of which would be inaccessible for warriors (Illuvials) and would eventually converge with the habitable side lanes.

The core gameplay would last 25 minutes and would be broken down in 3 phases (info below). If no winner has been decided by then, the game pauses and goes into the extra time mode, which involves 6x 1v1 (1 point each) and 1x 6v6 (3 points) combats in a specifically designed dueling map where warriors fight their mirror role individually (MOBA players are very competitive and would love this mode to demonstrate that they are better than their opponent). This extra phase would last 6-7 minutes max. Therefore, being the max game duration a total of 31-32 minutes.

25 mins seem too short? Gamers nowadays tend to seek faster gameplays and more frenetic experiences. Therefore, to make up for the short duration of the base gameplay, the speed at which the game advances would be 1,1-1,2x faster than Summoner’s Rift. Game gets quicker and more stimulating.

---

**Core gameplay breakdown (25 mins): **

**Apertio (5 mins): **
At the game start warriors are incentivized to fight for equidistant objectives that provide low tier warrior buffs. Thus, encouraging a lvl 1 fight that all players love. After this subphase, players go to their assigned positions and start leveling up (laning phase).

**Omen (12 mins): **
During this phase, a capture the flag and dominion objectives would be implemented to buff both troops and defenses, respectively. The objective here for each team is to level up, get stronger and specially enhance their de/push capacities for the final stage of the game.

**Ascensus (8 mins): **
Final phase in which the most powerful objectives of the game appear. This phase attempts to be frenetic and full of team fight/skirmishes to fight for these powerful objectives. Respawning cooldowns get dramatically reduced. To compensate for that, strong out of combat regeneration is implemented and killing enemy warriors gives substance, which makes the killer stronger. The main win condition for a team is based on pushing as the objective’s rewards in this phase significantly reinforce your pushing capacities to reach the enemy core.

---

Other info (for futher details see full lightpaper link at the thread's description)

Warriors will have:

20 levels + Skill points per lvl (ultimate upgradable at lvl 5, 10, 15 20)

In-game Illuvial evolutions: Illuvials are collectable in the overworld. If you have a ramphite but you don't have a ramphire, you can't evolve it in the Pugna game. A player can choose evolving or enhancing other aspects of the warrior, so despite having the 3 evolutions of a warrior, evolving is not necessarily the best decision.

Augments as game phases advance: collectable in the overworld.

Items to purchase in-game: collectable in the overworld.

Pre-game "Runes": collectable in the overworld.

In-game Talents at levels 4-8-12-16-20.

All these items drastically increase the game variability since the number of possible builds for a single warrior is unprecedented for the MOBA genre.

---

Map Draft: Enter the lightpaper (link at the thread's description) or scroll down to my message on 29/3/2023

---

If you ever get the time to read this and you like these ideas, I would love to know your feedback. I am open to voice chat if smdy requests to! 🙂

Thank you for your attention,

Xz.

[eternal ledge]

First off having a max amount of time in a moba is music to my ears. Love that there is a "lane phase" a "mid game" and a "late game".

I think that if something like TFT augments, kind a rouge like emelnt could be added would be cool. I personal think that brings game diversity witch LoL and most MOBAs really lack

Excited

[upbeat coral]

Can somebody ping me in this idea when the 3 first games are launched

[full wadi]

I definitely will sir.

[full wadi]

Great feedback man, thank you! I also believe that limiting time in a MOBA is key. As players will know for certain if they can start a new game or not. I often don't start LoL games because of time uncertainty.

[copper cargo]

Honestly i disagree. Some of the most epic esport moments in Dota2 happened in the mid to late game and i also never felt that matches were going for too long.

[full wadi]

Nice insight. I am a huge fan of late game stages as well.

However, think of all the strategy revolving a time limitation. Also, if you seek epic moments, imagine how epic would be a 1v1 resolution by roles as the mechanic to decide the winning team.

Finally, it is not only about setting the ground for epic moments, it is also about game repeteability and increasing the chance of a player to start a new game. A MOBA with time limitation would put all of these on the table.

[lavish wing]

Fantastic idea! I've played league for the last 10 years and I love so many aspects about this game design. The overtime duels feel like gladiator battles mixed with penalty kicks and I'm all for that. Also really enjoy the concept of reduced death timers and increased health regen as the game goes on. This mixed with a time cap will make playing the late game feel more impactful.

I do think that we should stay away from the item implementation. To me it only adds an extra layer of complexity for the player and for the balance team. Riot has a big problem with champions like Singed for example. You create a new item like Demonic Embrace and now this champion that was middle of the pack becomes an S tier pick accidentally. So now you have to balance nerfing the item along with nerfing the champion. Dont want to kill the new item but also dont want to nerf the champion's damage to the point that he feels even more useless early game.

Maybe instead of items we could build out skill trees for every illuvial. As you kill minions you can use that XPto unlock parts of your unique skill tree. If you decide against evolving your Ramphy into a Ramphite for example, you get lower cooldowns and higher move/attackspeed. If you do evolve, you get access to more powerful abilities and more damage on autos at the cost of lower attackspeed and higher cooldowns. I think balancing around skill trees and ability upgrades is more accurate to the lore and will be less complicated for players and the balance team.

[full wadi]

Hi BigTuna.

Thank you very much for the feedback. I appreciate it a lot.

I love the idea of skill trees, these would act similarly to the talents from HOTS or even some WoW vibes. Training the Illuvial could make you unlock part of its skill tree and, also, some skills could be NFTs that could be acquired in the Overworld.

I believe it is very important to reinforce the grinding/gathering aspect of your in-game skillset. This would give the game an addicting and rewarding feeling: all your efforts farming in OW are paying off because now your Ramphyre has a unique set of skills and abilities that you have farmed and designed specifically for him. NFT (Ramphyre) on top of other NFTs is the ultimate level of uniqueness, property and addiction. Plus this structure encourages playing other ILV games to maximize your experience in that particular game that you love the most, thus pushing that metaverse experience that Aaron talks about.

I hope @tidal wraith and @timber flicker consider these ideas from the community. I honestly think the MOBA will be an immense game changer.

---

As per the item implementation balancing:

It is indeed a very tough process to balance a game like LoL, but with AI and excellent game designing this is achievable. I unique items would be huge in terms of addictiveness, property, game variation and economy. It's all about proper game designing and finding the right balance. Let's dream big. I trust the team.

[timber flicker]

Keep in mind the effort required. Personally I love doing things efficiently. To me, an action RPG comes first since it will have all the core mechanics of Arena but translated into a real time combat engine. Once this is done it is a smaller step to a moba and an mmo.

[full wadi]

You know better than anyone else the right timing for the MOBA genre development. When this time comes, I will do my best to help the DAO build the greatest MOBA experience ever created. All the stars are aligned to pull this off.

[dense cliff]

Fun to see someone else take a shot at a MOBA. I think 3-4 people wrote a draft now.

I quite like your idea. Having clear boundaries between parts of the game may be interesting, but it may also reduce creativity.

In the Moba i played, you could choose to win in 15 minutes, "just push the enemy base and win straight away with a pushing lineup", or choose to farm and farm until you were strong enough to basically 1-shot the enemies if you were left to your own devices.

having these clear phases may reduce the flexibility within the game. Whether this is a good or bad thing remains to be seen.

I quite like the goals however. Walking around and gathering assets to increase the power of your army is very different from traditional Moba's where your champion does all the work and your creeps are basically cannon fodder.

Reduced death timers are tricky and usually only lengthen gameplay. You added a snowball effect, but usually your team will kill 4 and also have 2 killed. If you make the effect stronger than necessary and you wipe the enemies without having anyone die, you may win the game regardless of the earlier assets that were gathered. I think this will be a difficult mechanic to make the earlier gameplay feel valuable, while also aiming to wrap-up the game.

I don't think the gladiator battle makes much sense imo. You are expecting a supportive character to build like a carry and 1v1 another support. it seems silly to me to have these supports battle each other without backup. making it a 6x6 from the get go makes more sense. If you want to have the 1v1 I'd say both teams pick a representative. the captain shows off their skills.

I like the stage implementation.
I think going over the roles is too early as the players themselves will come up with a Meta based on your mechanics regardless.

Cost in fuel would need fixing as fuel is not "free" by definition. So saying you'd need the fuels for in-game is silly because then every item would cost Eth.

It would be cool to have those item-blueprints show up in a technology lab in Zero. Then you could build them in the overworld and use them in Pugna 🙂
Imo it would be cool if those items had varying stats. from +41 attack to +45 or something. The crafter would have a chance for high power weapons or such 😏

[lavish wing]

Im a big fan of MOBA games, I also like the idea of having somewhat shorter games.

IMO a moba is a nice logical step for the next major release after Overworld and Arena are in full swing. It matches the content that League of Legends has, which will probably be where a lot of our audience comes from especially at first as we try to get TFT players to move over to Illuvium.

Im actually quite surprised at the assessment that an action RPG would be easier to pull off than a MOBA. Ive always though the MOBA gameplay was pretty straightforward to make and would only require 1 or 2 new animations for each character.
Im not a dev though so maybe its more complicated than I thought.

[tidal wraith]

Some really interesting stuff in here, a fun read!

For me - we should be deciding what to work on next from a market analysis POV. With our current game offerings being very strategy based, I'd like to make the next ones be in a different direction in order to attract a wider crowd to Illuvium.

This comes with some downsides as with the work we've done originally, strategy type games are likely closer to our wheelhouse and more comfortable for us to create. So I wouldn't rule out a MOBA, but it does scare me slightly from a complexity POV and from a market POV. (Mobas are declining currently as a significant number of gamers who might have been interested once are either bored of them, or so invested into an existing one they're unwilling to relearn for a new)

[full wadi]

Hi guys,

First of all thank you for the time dedicated to reading the proposal and providing feedback.

To @dense cliff, allow me to reply to the beautiful points you made:

- Regarding potential constraints in creativity: Whilst it's true that creating game phases apparently reduces the liberty of the gameplay, from my point of view it amplifies it. Let me explain with 2 examples:

Game start: It consists of a Lvl 1 engage to fight for 3 temporary low tier buffs that will boost your warrior during Apertio (laning phase). If you have a weak lvl 1 comp you can either choose to ignore these objectives or accumulate all your warriors on one of them to guarantee you obtain at least one (see following image as an example, green boxes represent the buffs' locations). By defining an objective you actually open up a new pool of strategies to play around them. In a well designed PUGNA, ignoring the objective should always be an adequate option if your team and gameplan are suitable for that.

Omen phase: This game phase activates objectives (resource extraction and area dominion) to boost your troops and defenses. Based on a team composition and gameplan, they can choose to:

• Go all out for the objectives, thus reducing the xp obtained (which should always be higher when farming at lane) but maximizing the performance of your push/depush power during the rest of the game. This choice would leave the team weaker in terms of TF and pure strength, but it would equip it with a very tactical capacity: Auto-push power. Such strat allows a team to win the game by consistently winning the auto-pushing battle. With this, despite being weaker in TF, a tactical team would aim to stall the enemy team while it tries to get Ascensus Objectives. These objectives are powerful foes that if defeated provide excellent pushing tools as reward, but fighting these foes while handling a weaker yet annoying enemy team can stall you enough so that autopush gets your base.

• Mixed strategy: Part of your team goes for Omen objectives and the rest is sitting on lane optimizing the farming. Actually, the squad going for the objective could choose to ignore the troop booster mission and go for the defense booster dominion approach to ensure their defenses will be capable of defending the base alone while they are fighting for the Ascensus objectives on the latter stage of the game. Thanks to this mixed approach, you have strong depushing defenses and strong hypercarries that have been farming on lane during most part of the game before the Ascensus stage.

• Full powerfarming: Ignoring the Omen objectives completely. Part of your team is farming on the lanes and the rest are farming on the Danger Zone ("jungle") and aiming to ambush enemy warriors to kill them and scale. This leaves a team with very weak autopushing power, but they should be much stronger individually and/or in TF. Therefore their objective could be to straight push the enemy base with brute force or quickly taking down Ascensus objectives to push with them and get the win.

There are multiple other examples to justify this increase on liberty/creativity and meta definition. But I will stop it here. If you want more examples let me know. By creating game dynamics and scenarios, players get to experience an entire new universe of possibilities and meta styles. This is key on increasing game variation and repeatibility.

[full wadi]

**Regarding the game balancing in the Ascensus phase: ** It is true that reduced death timers, the "substance" as snowball effect and the objectives of the phase are a very complicated package to balance. But it is all about numbers, there is always an optimal solution for everything and I believe this is no exception. I am sure it can be balanced propely. What is important here is to see through the experience. Imagine a late game where you revive fast to keep on providing impact. Your death is costly but not timewise.

90% of late game League games are won because late game respawn timers take so long that a team can clear the enemy base without enemy resistance. I would like this to change or at least stop if from being the main win condition. A victory by pushing power should become more common because it increases the number of strategies available in the meta.

**Regarding the roles definition:**It is impossible to design a MOBA game without assigning roles to design your warriors. Note that League created roles before the alpha was out because these roles were needed to define the champions designed.

If you worry about restricting the meta and capping player innovation, don't worry at all sir: Players are very very creative and as long as we provide them with the tools to build warriors in different ways the innovation and off-meta approaches will never die (and trust me that talents, runes, evolutions, skill points, items, etc. will allow them to build an Illuvial "warrior" in countless ways).

Despite League defined roles, see how soraka top was an option once, or yasuo adc, and on and on and on...

Regarding 1 v 1 battles not making sense because of support roles: I respectfully disagree. There is only one supportive role and that doesn't mean supportish warriors should be useless in terms of damage dealing. It all revolves around warrior design. Well designed supportive warriors will be able to hit like a truck if build accordingly. During the core gameplay they can itemize like supports, but remember they get to rebuild their items before the 1v1 fight to optimize their 1v1 fighting potential. Man the 1v1 implementation at the end of the game will be one of the most thrilling and addictive experiences of the game. I am absolutely sure of that. You can't keep players from fighting their 1v1 battle just because they went support role. They all get to be relevant when deciding the winning team in a sudden death style. Also remember there is the 6v6 fight as well. As a support you can concede your 1v1 fight (1 point) by itemizing support at the dueling phase, but the dueling phase has as well the 6v6 fight (3 points) which is 3x more rewarding. Having a full support there can definitely make a difference. Decisions and innovation for players are endless with this game closure.

Regarding the items: I am ALL IN for creating unique NFT items that can be farmed in the OW and crafted for the PUGNA. The balancing here is delicated, but with slight 3>% changes on the item parameters we can attract the craziest type of gamers: collectors and grinders. They don't necessarily have to be PUGNA players, but they can play OW to sell assets to PUGNA players.

With this we reinforce Illuvium's ecosystem, we increase transactions and eventually income.

[full wadi]

Thanks for the input @lavish wing. I was suprised as well to read that RPG should be easier to build than a MOBA. Nonetheless, I am not qualified to assess this properly. I trust Aaron and Ben's judgement.

[full wadi]

To Mr. Nietzche (@tidal wraith), thank you very much for the time invested on reading Illuvium Pugna proposal!

I will be paying attention to know when the MOBA will start being built.

As per the market POV assessment. I think MOBAs are declining because there hasn't been innovation in this game genre for over 10 years now. League has only improved in terms of champion pool and visual quality. But the core Meta remains unchanged and they haven't adapted enough to the new generation of players mindset. This gives Illuvium an AMAZING CHANCE to build a disruptive MOBA game that takes into account what players enjoy the most of MOBAs, that includes the revolutionary blockchain tech and that is based on an enhanced pokemon-like metaverse with groundbreaking lore. If this is properly made, not only we obtain most of the MOBA market share (players), but also we attract players from other genres that will love to go and try their farmed and trained Illuvial in a PUGNA battle. It all matches perfectly and MOBA is to me a key part of the entire Illuvium clockwork.

[full wadi]

Map Description:

All the map but the pale area (extra side lanes) is accessible for warriors. Displayed in grey there are the lanes that can be accessed by warriors. Bubbles in red and blue are defense clusters. In gray, the Danger Zone (DZ) and in purple key areas where DZ foes can be found. Team’s defenses attack foes at the DZ (DZ=Danger zone=Jungle) too.

Lanes are walled from the DZ and have energy gates that allow access to the DZ. These accesses are only usable for the team sided in that semicircle. Once a base is destroyed, the energy shuts down and the energy gates can be trespassed by anyone. The less defenses you have, the more open you are to the DZ and the enemy team.

The center lane will have more troops deployed than the side lanes. Therefore this lane will have more potential to apply pressure with proper wave management. Also, the defensive systems will be more abundant. The midlane is the pillar of your base, don’t let it fall easily.

[lavish wing]

I love the idea of playing a moba with an illuvial that I've caught and I really love the idea of a true strategy and team based game. One of my biggest disappointments with league was when one lane would completely feed, leading to the akali or irelia for example becoming immortal. I don't know if there's a way to fix that and I don't know if we should but I will say that it feels really bad to win your lane only to be slaughtered by a fed carry once the teamfight starts. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how to implement a more balanced game state to avoid unwarranted 1v9 situations

[full wadi]

Hey Charles! That is a great point you just made. I am going to tell you what I think about it:

In a MOBA, there are various factors affecting the balance for a 1 v 9 likelihood.

To me, the most important one by far is the…

-Snowball Capacity:

This parameter is a function of two subfactors: scaling speed and reward intensity.

Scaling speed: dictates how fast you get stronger.

So, imagine a gameplay with perfect equilibrium. When there is a disruption to this equilibrium (i.e. kill, minion farm or objective acquisition), the winning party obtains “gold”, xp and/or time and the losing party doesn’t get anything. In a fast scaling speed environment, the impact of this imbalance is magnified because the winning party gets further away in the scaling curve than its opponent. Instead, a slow scaling speed would keep the gap in the scaling curve shorter, thus reducing the power level gap generated and snowball potential.

Reward intensity: modulates the amount of “gold”, xp and/or time you get when an equilibrium disruption takes place.

Analogously to scaling speed, when you generate an equilibrium disruption, if the rewards are generous, you will get further away on the scaling curve. Contrarily, if rewards are small, the power level gap generated will be accordingly reduced.

Two other factors affecting the 1v9 likelihood are:

-Warrior Design:

The design of a warrior also affects the 1 v 9 likelihood. Without extending too much on this, the oppressiveness levels of a design and its capacity to get stronger when surrounded by enemies are extremely relevant factors leading into a 1 v 9 situation. Example: Darius is a very oppressive champion in lane because of his skillset. Additionally, it performs well if ganked or in teamfights because his passive, q and r make him stronger when surrounded by 1+ enemies.

-Scaling Cap:

Simply put, if you are very far ahead but the scaling cap is reached faster, the point where you stop scaling and others keep on cutting the power level gap will come sooner.

Now, I can give you 2 MOBA games with completely different solocarry (or 1 v 9) likelihood. On the one hand we have League of Legends, which encourages the 1 v 9 scenario because it has strong Snowball intensity, multiple champion designs specifically made to 1 v 9 and an extended scaling cap. To counterbalance this, they have implemented the champion bounty system and the objective bounty reward. Despite this system, which forces the players to play perfectly in order to preserve their snowball advantage, LoL SR has a high 1 v 9 likelihood due to its in-game snowball mechanics. On the other hand we have Heroes of the Storm, a game where the Snowball Capacity is significantly reduced because of the slow scaling speed, and moderated reward intensity. One example of this is the fact that there are no items nor skill points in HotS, which cancels the itemization and skill level up scaling trees. To compensate for that, they implemented the talent mechanic, but it is much less snowbally. Also, there is one driver favoring the balance of the in-game power levels: the xp is team-shared. So if a lane is being obliterated, the performance of the rest of the team can help you keep up with power levels since xp defines your entire power level.

º
To sum up, my view on all of this is the following:

Speaking in general terms, there are two types of players in this regard, those that enjoy an amplified snowball capacity (leading into a 1 v 9 / solocarry scenario) and those that don’t. The solocarry potential generates addictiveness fueled by competitiveness, but it also generates a lot of toxicity. Creating oppressive situations is fun for the one ahead, but can be very upsetting for the losing player, so it is definitely a double edged sword.

There is a significant pool of players that need the individual potential to carry a game on their own. They want to hold the reins of their own fate, thus not only leaving their fate to “rngesus” and the matchmaking algo to pair them with the right team. These players tend to have stronger mechanics, skill and micro and are often weak in terms of mental, macro and teamplay. Contrarily, there is another relevant pool of players that want to play as a team, play smart and defeat the micro beasts with brain rather than mechanical skill. These tend to play other types of champions which are stronger cooperating. Both styles are beautiful and LoL has such a great player base because they have achieved to have both styles coexist in the meta.
º

PUGNA should be a game where, as in League, both styles coexist. However, the sweet spot imho is found if the solocarry potential is slightly reduced. Taking into account all these variables described above, as well as many other factors, I believe Illuvium Pugna could become a MOBA where solo-carries and team-players get along and the toxicity levels are reduced. This requires a smart balancing and designing job. Since I am not in the team (although I hope one day I will be), it doesn’t depend on me. Nevertheless, as community members we can give ideas and tools to the design team to take into account all of this. Actually, the way I thought the PUGNA proposal sets the perfect ground for what I believe is the best solo-carry/team-player balance.

PS: Remember that, in the game I envision, players won’t have as much snowball potential as in League, but they will have other tools to display their micro and skills, and the final stage of the game sets the ground for that with the 1 v 1s as deathmatch modality. I have other ideas in mind but everything shall come in its due time.