Ascendant Rule Structure Revision

[kindred coyote]

I'm posting this on behalf of @onyx oracle and <@&1107754494466469919>

With PB3 and open beta approaching, many thoughts and discussions are taking place around PvP. The <@&1107754494466469919> proposes a rule structure revision in the Ascendant mode.

In short, we believe those changes will ease onboarding, improve players' experience and help retain them. They are ultimately benefiting the whole Illuvium ecosystem.

Full proposal https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gsg_hUz3eZFa2SyLWQD6jnFxt8vdfgu0tkL8W0El6gk/edit

FAQ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LdcE5GCjKMz7xs3hFwABOjSBbgchzOixUSXhGOtpROE/edit

<@&1107754494466469919> We will host a town hall in about 19 hours to discuss the IIP with the community and answer questions. Your feedback is greatly appreciated; thank you.

[brave dirge]

rip revdis

[ebon fulcrum]

When i read a variety of Decks and Ranger Stuff for free what we talking about? Like 50% of all Stuff already given to every Account?

[onyx oracle]

Can you please expand?

We believe those changes results in a net positive (more revdis if thats what you are thinking about)

[brave dirge]

which Tier is going to be in the free deck

[onyx oracle]

This is adressed in the FAQ. We are proposing the concept and intent but not exactly what they are as its impossible to say exactly without proper game testing.

The idea is that pre-built decks would be very bad decks, almost only T0. No one would want to play with this only and they couldnt rise the ranks or be remotely close to win rewards with this.

[spring mango]

In case people only skip over,
tldr. idea is optimizing onboarding and while doing so allowing us additionally to have better reasons for valueproposition in higher stage Illuvials without hurting the onboarding process

[brave dirge]

If the free deck is only T0, then why dont let them play OW first?

the idea of the game is to collect then battle. you are skipping the process.

[spring mango]

not everyone will want to play overworld, allowing players to test out what they can get from overwrold might incentivy them more to play it

[onyx oracle]

Making people obliged to play another game before the game they want to try is a great barrier to onboarding imo

[spring mango]

idea is to have multiple games interconnected, forcing everyone to play every game was never the idea

[brave dirge]

i cant believe this is happening

OW and arena are two modes in one game. you follow the lore

[onyx oracle]

A certain demographic will love the whole illuvium concept of games working together but another demographic will mostly only want to play arena, another only OW and another only IZ

[brave dirge]

intro the game through OW, not jumping to arena. thats called immersive

i crashed landed in an unknown planet, wow i can already fight other people.

[onyx oracle]

Our aimed demographic is TFT and web2 card games. How i see it is if you tell TFT players to come try arena but they have to play another game to collect their deck or have to pay absolutly just to get started is a big barrier of entry and will affect negatively the onboarding

[brave dirge]

do you even consider OW is important?

its a pokemon game, you catch the illuvials and THEN use them in battle

ascendant is a PvP leaderboard, if you want to invite TFT players, you can give a tutorial PvE

[onyx oracle]

OW succes entirely depend on Arena success (onboarding, great game itself/fun, user retention,etc)

[weary lark]

I like the concept, I was never a big fan of accessing all the higer stage illuvials. I like these sneak peak decks. I won't give a thumbs up or down because I need to play and understand PvP first, I don't know nearly enough of the mechanics to back any changes made to it right now

[onyx oracle]

And IZ success depends on OW. All inter connected but how the whole thing is dependant on Arena success.

[spring mango]

OW is the supply side and Arena is the demand side, we need to onboard people into the demand side, the supply side will always be filled by people playing for marketplace, play 2 earn etc.

[brave dirge]

yes, but you dont have to give them free decks to compete in the ascendant.

[onyx oracle]

The pre-built decks dont replace decks. The idea is to have them very limited in power so that people dont want to keep playing them and are incentivized to build their owm.

Its meant to serve as a great onboarding tool and a tool that is efficient at teaching the different mechanic and illuvials at the early stage.

[onyx oracle]

You dont have to this is true but we are proposing this as we believe its beneficial to do so and they cant "compete" thats the thing.

[brave dirge]

i like the first part, because everyone will have to buy all the 3 stages.

[onyx oracle]

This seems more natural for sure

[brave dirge]

the ascendant deck is going to be more expensive tho

how much do u think it will cost to own a full meta deck

[spring mango]

not certain
people needing more higher tier illuvials for higher stage could e.g. lead to more surplus lower tier illuvials and reduce those prices and make decks using more of those cheaper than in this other fictive future
or using free rotation things to fill your current deck could also lead to cheaper onboarding to simply play

having every illuvials every tier/stage maybe more expensive

all of this kinda depends on how popular the game, liquid the nfts etc. are, generally more popular games, more people buying/selling is good for getting prices to as low as it costs to get them from overworld or slightly +- to that number

[onyx oracle]

^

• Overall average deck cost or meta deck cost still mainly depend on core aspects such has OW run$/fuel, spawn rate, etc

Making stages as they are mainly changes the spread between each stages.

[brave dirge]

you still need 9 stage 1 illuvials to get 1 stage 3 illuvials

[hidden quartz]

"but these concepts will be designed to prevent players from reaching high ladder ranks"

what are higher ranks? why not the free decks only for non ranked mode?

[brave dirge]

it should be calculated top down. web2 gamers are used to spend $60 or free to play. lets say a deck cost $50 -$100. we can calculate the fuel price x spawn rate

[brave dirge]

yes like a tutorial mode

[spring mango]

this line pretty much just means the decks won´t allow someone of same skill to beat someone that has an actual deck, obv we can´t predict the skill level of players at rank X, so allowing people to play in especially low level ranks where they can quickly match vs similar skill is good, as similar skill would prob quickly lead to similar strength in decks due to matchmaking

[hidden quartz]

so lower ranks will be full of this people that wont spend anything and play against each other with the same exact decks?

[spring mango]

maybe, preferably they enjoy playing and then want to expand their decks to beat the other people and climb the ladder

[spring mango]

topics like deck cost are difficult to grasp quickly

one short tldr. that is often overlooked in deckbuilding when this is talked about here is, that one deck might be a 50%+ deck playing mainly low stage/tier Illuvials, trying to win quickly and not allowing the other to get the big endgame combo of lots of high tier, high stage
another deck could have 50%+ including those high tier high stage and having way to get to the later stages etc. and this is where player skill comes in etc.

[humble vale]

i generally love the idea of prebuild decks, pvp is the best the game has to offer and if done correctly can be addictive but i often thought about the fact that people have to grind overworld first to play pvp which can be a barrier to entry.

If they are not really powerful but give people the option to get a first taste of pvp, why not? I think everybody wins here. It should work like this: new player tries pvp with prebuild deck ➝ plays a few days ➝wants more power/variety ➝grinds overworld/buys them of the illuvidex

[ebon fulcrum]

i know i read it. But there has to be a ball park number. Can't intrudce such a big change without having a clue how you want to implement it later on.

im all in for the change to need all stages to play them

im all in for make onboarding easier, but multiple decks and multiple assets sounds too much to just give every account. I guess the idea is to give them really a bit of everything?
Like a deck of every class? Some augments? Some legendary augments? Weapons and Armor?

What size does a regular deck have in pvp?

[coral zodiac]

You're not giving them anything. These aren't NFTs

[ebon fulcrum]

yea, ofc...
But what's the incentive to buy if you already have half the assets in existence... enough to give your gameplay variety to stay fun...

[coral zodiac]

Because you can't win with them

[ebon fulcrum]

most people just wana have fun, they don't strive for rank 1 in world....

[coral zodiac]

It's not fun losing over and over or being stuck at low ranks

[hidden quartz]

looks like 7-8 is normal, if the last leak is accurate with that

[coral zodiac]

This guy gets it

[hidden quartz]

why not make them non ranked?

[ebon fulcrum]

you are just saying the same thing again... should i repeat my answer aswell? 😄

[coral zodiac]

The leak is just UI not an actual deck

[ebon fulcrum]

naa, they will be way bigger, more like 50 i guess

[hidden quartz]

i guess you cant say how much?

[coral zodiac]

I'll leave that for @silver umbra

[hidden quartz]

what

[scarlet remnant]

I like this proposal but whoever is using these free assets can't be getting ILV rewards

[coral zodiac]

Of course they wont. The free decks are going to be bad

[onyx oracle]

I understand that even though we are presenting an intent its hard to get behind it without knowing how it will be.

Im not saying its how it will be but right now my idea thinking about pre-built decks is to have 3-5 decks of different concepts (e.g. fire/rogue, earth/bulwark, etc) that are composed of T0s and a T1s to get a composite, give with this the worst armor/weapon and you get the most limited deck possible in strenght but still accomplishes your goal or 0 barrier entry for better onboarding, give a new player a deck that makes sense so that he can have a good first experience + learn different mechanics and illuvials while its easier to make them learn and grasp the concept of pvp with those.

[hidden quartz]

perfect time to leak pvp info so the community can give their best opinion

[ebon fulcrum]

yea, as i mentionied. i'm totally for it and get the intention behind it, but with no additional info about how you going to implement it's tough to give a vote for it.

[onyx oracle]

Yes totally understandable. I gave my own idea of how i think about them at this point in time and i would like to add that once implemented its something that is easily changeable/controlable

We thought a lot about "why dont make this available in unranked only" and we believe as long as they are limited enough (its the goal) theres no problem at all having them in ranked as people couldnt really rise the ranks with this anyway.

On the other hand making them unranked/tutorial only would be like taking something away. It would also add a barrier to playing ranked, would feel like "pay to play" for some.

[weary lark]

Will these decks be fixed or randomly generated every so often?

[silver umbra]

Average deck size currently is 30. Across augments, illuvials, weapons and suits.

[spring mango]

build with the intent in mind and adjusted to keep it up if anything changes, giving more than the intent is difficult as we can´t for certain say what the "meta" is gonna be, how good avg player, above avg, below avg etc. will be etc.

[silver umbra]

Proposed is fixed starter decks containing as low tier and stage as possible, whilst still maintaining interest and allowing teaching.

So it's not ever going to contain a Rhamphyre or even a Rhamphy

But it might contain (and testing would confirm this) a bunch of t0 and t1s

Maybe even a T2, but these would be oriented towards onboarding rather than long term success, a very skilled player might be able to play this deck to the mid ranks.

So to use a LOL reference gold. But it would be a very sub par method to do so

Idea being that our economy feedback is that the current model is not providing the value we need from the stage 3s and isnt nearly as attractive to a player retention or for onboarding

Just as an explanation, it is the team that has originally pitched this to the game council, they have improved the initial generosity by adding free decks (which I entirely support)

So in my opinion, this new approach offers stronger onboarding, stronger retention and a more competitive deck pricing

But because it's a significant difference from the original approach, it's better to go via the council and community.

[weary lark]

Thanks for the input Ben 👍

[brave dirge]

the proposal says a rotating deck. "A rotation of illuvials, ranger equipment, and augments will be introduced for free. "

"Having access to different types of decks will ensure they can experience different illuvials"
how many "free decks" ?

[silver umbra]

Rotating free stuff. Not a deck

So a free deck - used for onboarding free to play but not to change. Used to teach mechanics or to onboard but it a tool for climbing

[hidden quartz]

Yeah, makes sense

Will you be able to mix free decks and your own?

[silver umbra]

But every week we would have X free illuvials, free weapons that you could add to your existing decks to try

Those are what rotate

[brave dirge]

the free illuvials on that week will have less volume traded

so as a farmer/trader i have to worry about which free illuvials are going to be next week

is it possible that some illuvials will always be free

[silver umbra]

No. T0 fulfills that gameplay objective

Rhamphyre might be slightly less valuable in a week that contains it's freely, but we'd expect players to experience it and then want to own it.

[brave dirge]

wouldnt they want it more if they get beaten by a certain illuvials and dont have free access to it?

they would feel like they have to buy them from the marketplace

[silver umbra]

The free rotation model has been used for a decade and the evidence that it increases demand for ownership is evident

[spring mango]

could also be that even during that week people want to frontrun the expected demand in the following week, we can´t predict that for sure, if in the end we get more people wanting more Illuvials, I don´t see how this would be bad for price

maybe there is a beat the rotation deck every week and demand for those Illuvials, in general it likely creates shifting meta and opportunities for people to outplay the meta more

[brave dirge]

in free to play games?

[silver umbra]

Yes. We're a free to play game also

[brave dirge]

we are not. We are play to earn

[silver umbra]

Man, that's a wowzer statement

[brave dirge]

thats what the bot said, its P2E

[errant rain]

ju

[errant rain]

he's right

[silver umbra]

I'd appreciate you not just wasting my time

[brave dirge]

can the rotation be announce for the next 4 weeks so people cant frontrun them?

[silver umbra]

So you front run the 4 week announcement

Good god man

[brave dirge]

well people who decides which free illuvials can frontrun them

free stuff for web2 games is good, because its skinomics. with web3 everything is tradeable

[spring mango]

we concluded free rotation makes people buy the free things after testing them more likely than before, you can buy during that period and "frontrun" the ones wanting to buy it afterwards, I don´t understand your remark, you wanna know the next weeks rotation and already buy before people can test them?

[spring mango]

games giving you trials of their assets is very common in games that don´t monetize cosmetics as main income as well

[hidden quartz]

Cant you get free skins in lol now too? I dont see them losing money either

[brave dirge]

skins are unlimited, they can draw new skins every month

thats the business model, just sell new skins. And make the heroes accessable

[hidden quartz]

Free rotation wont include old sets

[gray kindle]

Create a new game mode on purpose to test pvp for free without reward

[brave dirge]

a tutorial that wont mess with the marketplace

[bronze gale]

I am good with this as long as you can't mix and match free deck with nfts. Also my suggestion is limit stage 3 T0 quantity to 1 or 2 a week.

[opal iron]

This was a concern we discussed in detail. I personally was against it at first for this reason.

The thing is, with how many illuvialls we have in total, the limited number of illuvials in rotation, and the frequency of the rotation we believe we can create a rotation that will have a minimal effect on the economy.

If we do see volatile swings in NFTs we can adjust those parameters to ensure the swings are reduced

[brave dirge]

you can

[spring mango]

what makes you think this will negatively mess with the marketplace, as data we have from web2 games would show this is positive for sales
more people wanting to buy products is generally good, to get your web3 benefit of being able to sell things you need buyers

[brave dirge]

you are basing it with web2 skinomics games

[bronze gale]

To be fair what other data could they possibly use.

[spring mango]

no, not only cosmetic based games do this, I mentioned this already, if you have no other argument, I will just ignore you as a troll at this point

[brave dirge]

im not aware of the games ur saying, what are they

[brave dirge]

is it possible to see an example of the free deck

[opal iron]

We have many ideas of what it could look like but we are providing the intent to the design team and let them decide what they think looks good first after playtesting internally and with QA.

Once they have it is a spot they like we will have an opportunity to look at it and provide feedback.

At this point we just don't know what would look good and still provide an engaging first experience.

[onyx oracle]

@brave dirge @bronze gale No, the idea is that pre-built free decks cant be changed and you cant add some illuvials to them. Naturally this helps make them very limited.

It incentivize people to go buy their own illuvials and build their own deck because those non-pre-built decks are much stronger, cooler.

[hidden quartz]

But Ben said that you can?

#1130189397531303957 message

[brave dirge]

well

[spring mango]

card games usually have more than enough actual free cards for people to play, we have a only timegated version of this, to not impact market prices negatively
could also just make all T0 free, obv this isn´t great in web3, so we don´t do it

many rpg games, in which you get characters via gacha let you play missions/quests/bossfights with those
Hoyoverse Games like Genshin, Star Rail are examples of that, the newest Black Clover game as well

[brave dirge]

i guess the council and ben still have different ideas. maybe u guys can sort it out first?

[spring mango]

ben talks about your regular decks you can help with those free rotation things, the free prebuild decks are kinda just us doing the deckbuilding for people so they can press play quicker

[opal iron]

No there are two features:

Free decks: Can't be changed or added to

Free rotations: Some illuvialls that can be added to your personal collection

[silver umbra]

Legit man, debate in good faith or leave

[brave dirge]

why would i spend time if not

[spring mango]

only you would know the answer to that

[silver umbra]

If you needed more free time, maybe we could endeavour to free you from this discord

I'm sure the local pigeons miss you yelling at them

[hidden quartz]

My bad, read it once, didnt notice the difference. Not wanting to waste your time, obviously

[silver umbra]

Not directed at you at all mate

You're not the person wasting everyones time

[brave dirge]

i get the same impression thats why im asking questions

[spring mango]

yeah mate, you didn´t make the snarky comment towards people, who invested lots of time figuring out the best way for this, trying to consider all the risks, pros, cons

[hidden quartz]

Oh, good. So they will be different numbers?

For exmaple:

Like 30 illuvials in the pre built deck

And 10 free rotation that you can mix with your own?

[bronze gale]

@silver umbra he only yells at em cuz they are hard of hearing haha

[tough schooner]

I propose the following: in the arena, you should have the possibility to play both free to play and normally (blockchain pay-to-win). In the free-to-play mode, you would have access to all the Illuvium creatures that have been discovered by pay-to-win players. This means that if no player has discovered Rhamphite (Rhamphy level 2), then no free-to-play player can use it. Both free-to-play and pay-to-win players can play together and rank up, and there will be two leaderboards: one general leaderboard for everyone, and a second one specifically for pay-to-win players. Only second leaderboard will win Ilv. I hope I made myself clear.

[spring mango]

not saying anything re numbers, but yes

we make decks so people can easy press play, majority T0 stuff, maybe only, we will see

free rotation so people can trial new strategies in PvP, not enough for an entire deck if you don´t own T0 stuff yourself

[opal iron]

It's all good, I think we all know everyone here is supporting the DAO in their own way. If you still see an issue please let us know how you would address it. Or give us that 👍 lol

[bronze gale]

But nah im good on this proposal, i didn't see it in the document and wanted to double check on mixing. Trust the team that the free rotation won't get out of hand with quantity.

[spring mango]

This would fundamentally change the entire game and ecosystem that has been planned and build towards.

[onyx oracle]

Thats the free rotation "not a pre-built deck"

[bronze gale]

We are in web3, since all assets can be bought/sold everything is pay 2 win. This was the reason Diablo 3 Real money AH got negative press, people hated Diablo having a pay 2 win mechanic.

[tough schooner]

I understand;)

[hidden quartz]

I see. Makes sense. I like it

Could always cancel the proposal if the game is live and doesnt work anyhow

Yeah, got it @onyx oracle , thanks

[opal iron]

I see where you are going with this, however it could provide a bad experience for players who paid for illuvialls or grinded in the OW maybe spent hundred$ or more and still can't place well because free to play players have access to all the illuvials. However if you would like to pursue that idea more feel free to make a separate post and we can discuss it more in detail.

[brave dirge]

i agree with the first part of the proposal. but i dont agree with free decks and free illuvials, it removed the fun of discovering illuvials. im not sure how you gonna incorporate the free deck/illuvials to the lore. i believe in proper intro to a game. you start with starter illuvials just like pokemon, and you grow from there

[tough schooner]

Yes, I know, but ok f2p you do not have to pay anything…on my idea…but I understand that is not possible 🙂

[tough schooner]

Also they can play f2p…but the rewords will be only for that the play P2W..and also they will be the onwers of illuvium

[brave dirge]

starting with starter illuvials, having to discover new illuvials in OW. try catching them will feel more immersive. OW is so massive, prob most of the budget spent.

[opal iron]

This was alaso a major concern to me at the begining. I like to consider my self a true gamer who loves playing all the genres and thought this could be a great onbroading experience for multiple genres but the truth is. There is a lot of data that supports gamers only play a few genres and tend to stick with those. There is a potential of losing a lot of players to the "Hassle" of going to overworld.

TFT players may only play TFT and thats it. We don't want to force them to do an experience they don't like.

[onyx oracle]

Again, most people will play 1 of the games. Our main aimed audience is TFT and then web2 card games such has hearthstone, if you tell those web2 players our game but they have to go hunt their cards before they wont come.

Imo we have to hook them with the game and then how our 3 games work together is a super bonus + blockchain/web3 bonus. But at first we hook them with our game(s) depending where they are coming from.

[scarlet remnant]

are we forgetting we'll have a marketplace where you can buy or possible rent illuvials?

If players don't want to go to the OW then they need to go on to the marketplace

[bronze gale]

Retention probably still going to be an issue because as you guys pointed out at a certain point the prebuilt decks will start getting destroyed and people will leave because either: 1) They aren't progressing in rank anymore. 2) They aren't willing to put the time or money into starting a fresh NFT deck. This part you guys can't possibly know so I am certainly not holding it against you.

[scarlet remnant]

I would say we only give f2p players a glimpse of what the game is and not very fancy rotations or wtv. If they get hooked and want more they have 2 options. Either go to the OW(which will cost money to buy fuel) or they go to the marketplace

even more, I don't think you need a free ride with some illuvials for you to want to play with them. You just have to get your 4ss wooped in the arena by them

I like the proposal tho just contentious with point 3.)

[worthy gate]

I'm a no good web2 HS player and if I could go hunt (oldschool pokemon style) for my cards I most certainly would 🙂 I just can't. And in Illuvium you can (or at least in the future). So taking that away (or not making it truly necessary to do so), could mean being less of a revolutionary 'gamechanger' (although I personally don't think it would be). But that's part of Jaganites point, I assume. I don't get all the hostility towards him (or his opinions). Or maybe I missed some deleted comments...

[opal iron]

We will ensure the OW runs are still incredibly necessary. That is the core of our economy. These features will only support the massive efforts you and the other ow grinders will achieve. Players like you will still be key to the overall ecosystem. If it ever sways we will intervien to ensure the OW is healthy

[onyx oracle]

Its a good point. We believe making the proposed concepts limited enough will ensure people dont want to stick with them. Even not wanting to go pro or attain top rank the fun of the game is to build your own deck and try to get better.

We believe this rule re-structure remove the entry barrier for the demographic that only wants to play PvP Ascendant while ensuring OW still stays as meaningful. Actually i believe this is beneficial for OW and the illuvium ecosystem as whole because easier onboarding, better game quality in ascendant and better user retention = literally more demand for OW

[light scroll]

Is the free rotation allowed for ranked play?? I'd only be a fan of this if any 'free' access is for unranked only

I think the other thing we are missing in the discussion are rentals. Once u can rent out decks I expect many players to just rent out their decks for free. Which might help onboarding on its own. But u can't predict that obviously and it takes some time

[weary lark]

Why? if you are a ''playing'' player you still have access to the free decks

[light scroll]

Nit sure what u mean

In league u can't use the free champs in ranked mode. U need to earn your roster and then that's what u have access to.

[ebon fulcrum]

Rent out Decks for free?
Haven't Seen someone renting something out for free in a while. Actually never Seen that. What makes you think that?

[weary lark]

I don't see the harm in having the free deck in a ranking (my personal opinion and preference) specially if they can't compete with the top ranks

[spring mango]

Illuvials can get levels, so renting instead of doing nothing is beneficial in theory

[scarlet remnant]

I don't think Scoriox meant for 100% free but for a low price. Renting in web3 is always way cheaper than buying the assets.

[ebon fulcrum]

Fair point depending how renting is Set up.

[ebon fulcrum]

I think he meant 100% for free if he says so 🙃

[scarlet remnant]

100% free isn't called renting but delegation

[spring mango]

Illuvium is single player, Games like LoL or Overwatch etc. that gatekeep ranked after lots of time spent playing the game have teammates, in those you don´t want uneducated players as your teammate to just lose for free or gamble who gets more new players

worst case in our ranked would be someone gets an easy opponent, there is no bad experience here

[scarlet remnant]

I'll just leave this word of advise, if you open the game too much for f2p with potential to earn rewards the game will be flooded by bots extracting from the ecosystem

[spring mango]

idk if you refer to people potentially renting out NFTs for free or if you talk about this proposal, the proposal does highlight people won´t get top ranks or anything close to it

regarding renting, we can´t control what other people do, things like botting, multiple accounts, boosting, wintrading, etc. aren´t things that should be encouraged by rewards (my opinion), I agree with that and would prefer systems that don´t incentive this

[scarlet remnant]

was talking about this proposal, I don't get where this idea of renting for free is coming but that doesn't exist has previously stated

usually bots beat humans in autoplay games due to all the data they have available

[coral zodiac]

Show me on lolchess who the bots are in TFT

[scarlet remnant]

there are no good bots running web2 games because there is no incentive to do so

[coral zodiac]

So you're just making stuff up

[scarlet remnant]

sometimes i think you guys forget we're in the web3 space

[onyx oracle]

@light scroll here a previous reply to answer

[light scroll]

They do it a lot in TRV. Its basically TRV people know getting players in is a win. And so they do everything they can as a community to promote that

[light scroll]

I dont mind that take, all the F2P players will get hardstuck iron. Which isn't necessarily a good experience for them but doesnt impact paying players

[spring mango]

bots doing inhuman things is very detectable
if there would be bots that aren´t detectable, that would be a further reason to only give e.g. tournament invites instead of cash as ladder rewards, I am already in favor of that, way too many problems with cash rewards, but that is an entirely different topic

[light scroll]

There are some great AI solutions that can recognise bots, also this doesn't work as well against so many unknowns. That being said I have seen some impressive Pokemon bots but I'd argue this has thousands more options per turn.

[onyx oracle]

Naturally only being the best is a great incentize and even web2 games have rewards and esport for top top players.

Unlike literal chess Illuvium PvP had a great natural component of playing your opponent and predicting what he will do depending what he did / who he is, like poker.

In poker you can go play against non-professional players and try to play perfect GTO and yes will perform terrible compared to a human that plays and adjust vs his current opponent and intels.

[light scroll]

💯

[ebon fulcrum]

What's trv?

[light scroll]

The Red Village, doesn't belong in this chat so tag me elsewhere if u want to continue the convo

[pulsar wolf]

Im thumbs down on this one. For me to this to pass i would need direction of who our target audience is. Are we going for web2 or web3 audience? If we are going for web2 i think we are heading in the right direction. If we want web3 than this shouldnt pass.

Also im not a fan of changing a lot of things. especially when it effects the tokenomics. We are trying to fix something before we even know there is a problem. Maybe the game is already balanced and the on boarding isnt an issue.

Right now I see Arena is in the same spot as Beyond. Trying do too many changes that drasticly changes things from the original plan. Lets see how the original plans plays out before we start changing everything.

[onyx oracle]

Our audience is TFT and web2 card games. Being "web3" all web3 will naturally know of us but we dont have anything to with current other web3 games.

Illuvium aims to compete against the best web2 games and last for generations. We just have the bonuses of blockchain technologies but with insane game quality and no ponzi, unsustainable, shory term model to ride the hypes and suck peoples money.

[coral zodiac]

Yah don't let the discussion about Illuvitars fool you. We are focused on Web2

[pulsar wolf]

For me I dont like how free to play players can have anything that I have to obtain with money and time. I say give them free access for the t0's. So they can play other free to play players. Maybe one weekend a month you open it up and any player has complete access to everything. So people can try things out.

[brave dirge]

thanks. no i didnt delete any of my comments. i understand the hostility, its because imo most of the gaming council are arena players. just like @coral zodiac said, OW is just a pack opening. thats pretty much the sentiment i get.
this proposal is really an eye opener on where the project is going. thats why my first post is "rip revdis", and now "rip OW". In that case, @spring mango is right for saying arena is the demand side, what im concern about is TFT playerbase is smaller relative to exploration game genre.
all i care is how we are going to pump the token price to $500 - $1k again. i try to think how is this proposal is going to affect that. Token value is from revdis, revdis is from fuel and volume traded. this proposal is going to affect those. Most of volume is always be driven by farmers and traders.

[brave dirge]

yea thats what i dont agree, giving free illuvials to ascendant arena player. ascendant is competitive PvP. if you want to give free heroes it should be in a non competitive mode. @spring mango said there are games that do this too, i wasnt aware and would like an example. afaik free heroes in moba are only for the casual match, not the ranked match

[wheat wadi]

Autobattlers are generally free. Most card games now start free. Hearthstone also started with free cards and unlockables.

I would prefer that any free deck would not be usable at a point in time but GSC gave the assurance that the power level of these free deck would be entry level and wont be viable in higher levels.

Im not also sold on free rotation absent any guideline but this can be solved by future iccp if need be.

[brave dirge]

cmiiw TFT all heroes are free but their revenue is from skins. HS you need to grind to access all heroes or buy packs. ILV's economy is more like HS where you need to grind to open packs or buy illuvials on the market place. giving free illuvials will affect that. most of the players on launch will be OW players, TFT players will come much later, most will only come in the bull market. this is due to the average web2 gamers regard nft as sc@m. imagine the early adopters, which are OW players, have grinded and invested their time to collect illuvials just to see you give out free illuvials

[halcyon sable]

2. and 3) seem fine, regarding 1)

What would be the difference between T1-3 in ascendant? Is it gonna count stat difference? Spells? If yes, what would be the difference from leviathan?

If ascendant turns out as p2w aswell, when ppl lose the 1v1, their first excuse will be 'oh but hes p2w, thats why i lost gg fk this game' and leave in rage instead of looking into what they did wrong. The current model had this handled, how about this one? Or is that not a concern and we just want to onboard more paying players?

Sorry if my questions were already answered

[coral zodiac]

Ascendent: Normalized Stats/Levels
Leviathan: Stats/Levels matter

[halcyon sable]

im confused, whats being changed then

[coral zodiac]

Being able to use a Stage 1 as a Stage 3 in Ascendent Arena
You can no longer just own a Rhamphy and play a Rhamphyre in Ascendent Arena

[halcyon sable]

but the stats/levels are normalized so its the same?

[coral zodiac]

They are normalized between Illuvials that are the same
Rhamphy and Rhamphyre are not the same

[halcyon sable]

yep that would be a problem in my opinion, adds p2w elements into a mode thats supposed to be competitive

[coral zodiac]

The idea is that even though we are making this change, Strategy Council will see this and price travels accordingly to keep the cost of decks affordable

[halcyon sable]

there should be a mode where f2p players can compete on the same level as those that pay

[coral zodiac]

No

[halcyon sable]

Yes

[brave dirge]

means stage 1 and stage 2 are going to be much cheaper with this proposal

[halcyon sable]

otherwise u cant market it as f2p, yes its free to login but ur playing a beta version of the game. for the full version u need to pay

[light scroll]

No

[light scroll]

In every version of that people bot the game and both economies implode

[halcyon sable]

What do u mean with this? I never suggested OW to be f2p

[wheat wadi]

OW has a F2P mode. What this proposal is doing is to allow users to try the game mode for free = F2P mechanic. The whole point of "free decks" is to address that.

[halcyon sable]

Yes just need to rebrand it to free-to-try as its not free to play at all. u cant progress or compete in any area without paying, the current version allowed for that more of less

[coral zodiac]

The current version did not allow for that anyways
You could use only T0s for free from the OW and that would take time to farm

[wheat wadi]

Nobody uses the term F2T. Also it falls squarely in the definition of F2P. From the wording of the proposal, you can literally rank up using the free decks.

Just cant take it to high ELO as the constructed decks will smoke you

[halcyon sable]

Not completely, but much closer to that than this new proposal

[halcyon sable]

i disagree with this but it is what it is. hopefully u guys took into account any negative sentiment that may arise from this, ppl dont like to lose, especially 1v1, especially when there is money involved in a competitive enviroment. p2w will spike those emotions higher, and it always feels worse on the recieving end

[wheat wadi]

Id like to discuss this more with you off this thread. Maybe in General or in d.ms. Cause Im not understanding where your concern
is originating from.

[brave dirge]

good free to play games means you can progress but it will take so much time. ILV is not F2P because you have to pay to progress.

[coral zodiac]

Technically you can continually farm T0s and sell what you get for pennies and slowly work your way up from there. It's just not a good or efficient way of doing things

[brave dirge]

i think people need to stop misleading potential customer by calling this F2P

[halcyon sable]

sure u can dm me anytime. the main concern is if we market the game as f2p there should be a mode in the game where f2p players can compete with the paying players, not only up until Gold, higher too. ideally u want that mode to be ur competitive mode, especially if ur trying to build an esport. if the game is marketed as f2p, only for them to hit a pay wall not that far into the future would yield negative sentiment and that will spill to socials, youtube etc

[serene mica]

DMs are scams

Mods and Team members will never DM you.
Never trust advice or links received in DMs.

Beta access, giveaways, and promotions are not given out via DM. Scams are designed to trick you into installing malicious software to gain access to your wallet or to convince you to enter your seed phrase into a website. Never give your private key (12 to 24-word seed phrase) to anyone.

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Please follow the instructions pinned in #report-scammers to report bad actors so we can remove them from the server.

[coral zodiac]

Who said it was F2P?

[brave dirge]

ben

[coral zodiac]

I see the free pre-build decks more as a tutorial

[brave dirge]

you play T0s, and earn money by selling them.
then you have to pay for T1 runs, earn money by selling them.
then you have to pay for T2 runs and so on.
thats P2E

[coral zodiac]

I agree more with that

[brave dirge]

web3 games will always be P2E

[light scroll]

Technically u can do the same in web 2, u just use their predefined currencies. Its the same system except this way u rely on other players, which has a chance to extend or shorten your grinding time. Likely extend

[brave dirge]

which web2 games that allow trading

[light scroll]

Either way I've never been big on F2P. The only reason its useful is for player volume so matchmaking doesn't take a year.

In its current form the game doesn't encourage the 'younger' generation very much. They are where I see F2P hit its true strengths. Riot's suite being the exception and not the rule

[brave dirge]

i think the project is confused on what it wants to be and how it want to be marketed.
the last thing you want to do is calling something that its not.
remember, in generall web2 gamers hate crypto/nft. meanwhile, web3 traders are only interested in P2E. choose wisely

ILV has always been P2E. it was on the website before they took the word out.
its in our slogan "Fight for ETH".
beyond and ILZ are P2E.
the free deck is a tutorial deck, T0 OW is tutorial runs. they dont make ILV F2P.

[halcyon sable]

f2p players are the bulk of viewers of any large esport, which last time i checked is one of our priorities. if that succeeds it can give u much longer game longevity aswell so the pros of that model are alot

[light scroll]

Yeah I mean if each travel was theoretically like $0.5. I'd say thats practically F2P. If the cost to enjoy the game is less than a streaming subscription thats enough given the game is good

[brave dirge]

how much do you think a decent deck will cost?

[coral zodiac]

People have different opinions on that but when polled over 70% of people voted for options in the $50-200 range

[light scroll]

relatively unimportant. The meta will change every x days, new sets, itll be consistent either way. But getting a mid tier deck should be sub $150 in the first months maybe

[halcyon sable]

id say its not f2p even if u have to pay 0.01$. yes its all semantics but u wanna clear as much confusion as possible. if a competitive deck really costs 100-200$ than its not f2p aswell, which is alright just change the marketing

[pulsar wolf]

This is exactly it for me. This was built and marketed as a crypto game that could compete with web2. Now we are starting to change strategy. I would choose wisely indeed. You dont want to lose your crypto gamers that spend money trying to get free to play players to try it and HOPEFULLY spend money.

Nothing is broken. Why are we trying to fix it?

[coral zodiac]

Because the Web3 audience is infinitely smaller than the Web2 audience
Our main competitor has always and will always be TFT. A free Web2 game

[halcyon sable]

and how did they get so popular? is it by limiting ppl that compete to spend 200$ on a deck or ppl can compete as much for free and spend if they wish?

[coral zodiac]

It's different but thats why I aim to keep Illuvium as affordable as possible

[halcyon sable]

we can utilize different modes for that, i dont see why we have to mix things up

[coral zodiac]

You need a large playerbase to utilize different game modes effectively. You don't want to split up a small p[opulation into smaller parts

[light scroll]

Here is my opposing argument. In League of Legends if you play for 16 hours every single day and dont pay a dime. it may take you 6+ months to acquire every champ. At least when I first started in Season 3. Is this free to play?

[halcyon sable]

yes thats why ur mainstream and competitive mode should be for everyone, f2p players aswell. then u can add other p2w modes that fully utilize the illuvials potential

[halcyon sable]

and the answer to that question is u can reach grandmaster playing only 1 champion, u can absolutely compete with the best without spending a dime

[pulsar wolf]

So with this mentality what are the changes going to be for OW? Because none of those OW games you have to constantly pay for things to participate (travel, sharding, fusing etc) So what are we going to give to those gamers for free to try our game?

[coral zodiac]

They have T0 OW runs

[pulsar wolf]

They have t0 for arena

[coral zodiac]

They would still have to grind for hours for a deck to do that

[pulsar wolf]

Im okay giving them a free deck to play with it but it should only be t0. Which i already stated. When you start putting in t1 and t2 that is when things go sideways and people paying will get pissed. Why piss off the people that are paying?

[halcyon sable]

Why would u be pissed? You only give them access to different illuvials each week, without the ownership. It's just to try out different builds. That part is fine

[coral zodiac]

The free prebuilt decks are not NFT, cannot be used anywhere else, and nothing can be added to them

[pulsar wolf]

You can do the same thing in OW. Then why not give OW people free runs for traveling but anything they capture is not an nft? And only certain illuvials will be available to be captured?

[coral zodiac]

Why would we do that?

The whole point of the free deck is to give players a taste of the Arena and teach them the mechanics of our game. That lets them find out if they like it and will want to spend money on it.

[pulsar wolf]

Yes and give them a t0 deck. Thats what the t0 were created for

[coral zodiac]

The T0 deck wouldnt provide them enough of a balanced deck as well as wouldnt teach them about composites.

[halcyon sable]

2. and 3) are good changes
3. is better currently I feel, with only one change, if u own a T1, u dont get to play with T2/T3 in ascendant, u can only play what u own, with normalized stats

[coral zodiac]

Yes thats what 1 is? And its stages not Tiers

[brave dirge]

unimportant? you are trying to compete with one of the biggest game IP, with millions of player, a game that cost $0.
the cost of the deck will define fuel cost, spawn rate and overall potential of onboarding.

[mighty wagon]

I didn’t like tier 1 giving access to tier 2/3 bc I felt I personally would spend less time in OW if this was the case and I would have less personal connection with my deck. With this change I see myself spending more time/money in OW and I think others will too.

[pulsar wolf]

Totally agree with this as well.

This will be my last post as I want other people to voice their opinions. I just caution the council making too many drastic changes before open beta. The orginal plan was solid and needs to be tested before we truly know what is broken. We need a base to go off of, that way when we make changes that can be measured.

[coral zodiac]

Why would you just assume that the original plan was solid and this isn't?

[brave dirge]

i agree with the first part of the proposal. Its good for token and will drive demand for stage 2 and stage 3 illuvials.
i dont agree with free deck and free illuvials on launch. because it means people can skip T0 OW, the intro to ILV.
free deck and illuvials will be good if the game has run for awhile, just like how WoW provide skips after they have many expansions.
WoW is not about questing, its about raiding, but people need spend tens of hours questing to get immerse in the lore and learn their heroes. after decades, blizz introduce leveling skip to max level

[gray kindle]

I agree with you trying illuvials in a beginners mode just between people trying illuvials

[spring mango]

Our goal is better onboarding for players, this is not us trying to shoot in the dark, but using one of the most proven concepts in gaming to do exactly this.
We don´t assume anything is broken, but we could do a better job, so that is why we want to implement this.

I get your worry and if this would be something like reducing prices, I´d agree with should just see how it plays out first, as increasing those later is difficult and usually net negative.
Also couple seem to miss, that free deck/rotation are closer to a trial version than to giving free things in web2 terminology, pretty much every game does this.

[coral zodiac]

Yah trial version is a good way to phrase it since you arent actually owning these things.

[spring mango]

If you integrate that additional mode, you would split playerbase likely more and less people would be interested in playing the stronger decks, as they could choose this only beginner game mode, this could reduce the benefits for marketplace and economy overall and maybe turn the benefits into negatives.

[brave dirge]

im playing mobile legends (biggest mobile moba). the classic mode (unranked) you get starter heroes, we get weekly free rotation and on sunday all the heroes are unlocked. But the free heroes are not playable in the ranked mode.

the problem is you are giving free illuvials for ascendent arena which is the ranked mode.
Having an unranked mode should be good

it doesnt have to be beginner mode, it can be a casual mode where everyone can play for fun

Mobile legends latest prize pool is $800k, almost twice of TFT

[ebon fulcrum]

Absolutely unranked Mode needs to be implemented, for These Tutorial Sets and for people who want to test their new built Deck without the Ranking pressure.
Lot of Games have unranked Mode afaik.

[brave dirge]

yea why would anyone want to fckd up their ranked stats by starting out in the ranked mode

[manic pollen]

The hook in illuvium is grinding the ladder (ranked) in arena. Overworld is about supporting that need to improve and climb further. Exposing new players to that loop early is important imo. I fully support these changes 👍

[spring mango]

Many people disregard normal games as worthless and only play ranked, no matter what.
Like testing in the easy game mode doesn’t benefit you as much mindset.
This was very true in HS, almost no one played unranked games there.

Having the option of a game mode that essentially uses the same elo system, but doesn’t show it publicly (normals) is obv fine, but forcing people to play it even though they want to play the real and serious games with something at stake seems suboptimal.

[ebon fulcrum]

Ofc would be nice to have elo calculated in in unranked Mode, but if it's not possible (which i don't think) i would still donit that way
It's all about hooking people up, right?
If they wana get serious in ranked game and climb the leaderboards, they either should implement themself in the gameloop with ow or buy assets, isn't that the Plan?

[spring mango]

I am not sure if I understand all of this correct, but my point is we want to onboard and attract people as well as possible, putting some game mode restrictions on them if this is not how they approach games seems suboptimal.
In your example of forcing normals before buying assests, people could after having bought assests jump into ranked, lose every game as they don’t have a calibrated mmr, feel bad, sell their stuff and quit again.
Buy->sell I short timeframe is likely at most a small money lose only as well, so no sunken cost or no reason to give 2nd try.

The cost of trying Illuvium is incredibly low, as you can sell your assets again, way cheaper than buying a 60$ game and learning you didn’t like it afterwards.

[wheat rivet]

Great proposal, well done gaming SC, no brainer up vote

[ebon fulcrum]

I'm not forcing anyone to do anything...I just said Plan is:
Onboarding
Hooking up
Sell Stuff to them (fuel, Arena related, cosmetics)

Wouldn't you say onboarding with "no rewards"-Mode and tutorial decks would be great for onboarding?
And being able to play ranked (with the restriction of have to buy a Deck) with possibility to earn rewards/tournament invites would be a great hook up?

[spring mango]

The idea that free rotation/decks would get you top 0.1% area for things like top leaderboard invite based tournaments is simply untrue

[ebon fulcrum]

Didn't say otherwhise

[spring mango]

You said gating being able to play ranked behind buying assets of marketplace or playing Overworld to earn rewards

[ebon fulcrum]

Absolutely

[spring mango]

Yeah, you won’t get rewards using free rotation/decks that has been stated multiple times

It will be designed to not have that scenario

[ebon fulcrum]

Yea i know, was mentioned a lot

[runic flicker]

The only think about this proposal i like is number 1 - the rest is >>> many negative expletives
This proposal entails the introduction of the following Ascendant Arena rule changes:

1.) Removal of the rule that allows a Stage 1 Illuvial to count as a higher-stage Illuvial.
100% agree with this - This is a collection based game ( MTG pokemon yougio- collection should matter .
Rationale

This rule structure revision provides a fair ground for all players, ensuring that gameplay skills and strategic planning are more vital than the players' wallet sizes. It greatly facilitates the onboarding aspect, and fosters a healthy, competitive environment.

IN THE CONTEXT OF A COLLECTION BASED GAME

This is full Face palm material and some the " e -sports " pros came up with because as I have had conversation in the past some don't consider a MTG a true e-sport. because a pro could have a bad draw and lose to a noob and thats not really a win

I have made my distaste for the auto battler in in t curent form well known. That if nothing else will chase people always any one who does not like cheess or go will not like this version o the auto battler.

You want a chess game where noth8ing but pure skill counts the not leass t come out and be hoinest about it

[coral zodiac]

You don't like Autochess cool. You're not forced to play it.

[runic flicker]

I like other auto battlers - Raid shadow legens , Bloodline heroes of liththas ..might an magic chess royal..... etc

[coral zodiac]

Those games are not in the same genre as we are

[runic flicker]

You made a stament i don't like auto battlers --- i disputed that now your moving the goalposts

[coral zodiac]

I said Autochess, which this game most closely resembles even if it is a bit different

[runic flicker]

Show me in any marketing where this is portrayed as auto chess please

[coral zodiac]

I don't need to because I know what the game is. If you don't like the game then you can give this a thumbs down and not play it. But the game isn't going to change.

[runic flicker]

Yourr welcome to havetaht opiniopn ----= it is most certinaly not fact

The game RAID: Shadow Legends has quickly become one of the fastest growing collection RPGs with over 75 million downloads across all platforms exceeding $1 billion in lifetime revenues. Not bad forr a game released in 2019.....

[misty spruce]

I like everything that lowers barrier to entry. This proposal gets an upvote, although I really dislike making decks more expensive for players who want to compete.

[runic flicker]

points at clan....

[spring mango]

Idk what esport pros you refer to in that.

I actually am one, who played a card game, that was respected by e.g. starcraft scene as well, as the actual top players see that every game in the end is decision making and judgement call based.
The difference between variance based games in random events happening and players making decision towards creating those events isn´t major.

in a moba or rts you have fog of war, so you don´t have perfect information and base many decisions on how likely you think event X or Y is going to happen, similar to in card games you make decision based of what you expect the enemy to have in hand.

the variance argument taking away skill is to an extent true in best of ones, no tournament is one round, one best of one, these upsets are more theoretical, rarely to never happens in reality and when people refer to a noob beating a top player it usually means like rank 200 beating rank 1, not rank 100000 beating rank 1

[coral zodiac]

The strategy council will have to take this proposal into account when determining prices for travels in order to make the game affordable

[runic flicker]

I been playing MTG since the 90' and have played I tournaments I have not been a top 3 ... but i have beaten people at a much better " standing" than myself in a best of 3 enviorment ---that is what makes MTG great.

[spring mango]

yeah beating someone once is different to winning the tournament, magic is rather heavy on draw rng compared to more modern games as well to be fair on that point with this example

[runic flicker]

I edited ..this was tournment so best of 3

[misty spruce]

Yeah. I hope we consider that being the best in a competitive game which have a player base of a thousand players isn’t really that much fun. Every decrease in price opens up an exponentially larger playerbaser

[spring mango]

idk why people think ILV arena won´t have the chance for upsets to happen, obv you don´t play with perfect information and someone can surprise you by doing unexpected things or having unexpected Illuvials/augments in their deck

[coral zodiac]

Even unexpected pathing can lead to a round win. I don't get it either

[dusk fiber]

Or tease people with a ramphyre deck but they can’t pass round 15 ?

[runic flicker]

again if somone loses to a variance factor that is is still a "win" it does not matter how W is achived -- the peroon who gets the W desrives it

[coral zodiac]

A win is a win

[runic flicker]

Any awways that was off topic ...

ON topic I agree with point 1 and completely disagree with the above statment i quoted and points 2 - 3.

I have read this and it seems that ANYONE who disagrees with this proposal just plain " wrong and should feel bad"

[spring mango]

not sure what plain wrong and should feel bad is supposed to mean

if people state things as facts, that aren´t true or don´t have data to back those thesis up, I agree those are wrong, idk why people should feel bad though

[ebon fulcrum]

I don't get that feeling... Just people explaining what they think, either council or mob community member

[runic flicker]

I still have faith inthe team making the game ... lost faith in the community completely .....

[coral zodiac]

Anyone is free to disagree with any one of the parts of the IIP

[spring mango]

? you are aware that the team agrees to this, right?
we simply want to do it as iip to include community

[dusk fiber]

I mean it’s like current beta, we get a deck, we can test what we are allowed to. Pretty cool for teasing players.

[runic flicker]

that makesthings worse ....

[gray kindle]

On wow you can try a character for free up to lvl 20

[errant rain]

?? so what are you saying now? or you dont like it to include the community or you think the team is doing bad job?

[runic flicker]

there is a whole area for FTP playes ...

[runic flicker]

No I m saying mission staments like the one above are irrelllevvent to a collection based game and if the t eam is being swayed by the commity to go in that direcor then its worse .

[misty spruce]

Or maybe it’s better

[coral zodiac]

Why is it irrelevant. It's a good goal to strive for

[onyx oracle]

Being very limited those will never have a ramphyre, even a ramphy or anything close to it. The idea i have is mainly T0s and a T1 at minimum just to bond a composite, add with this the worst armaments and you get yourself the worst deck possible pretty much. Still fulfilling the intent very well though.

Theres not gonna be any rounds ascendant is pvp not pve

[gray kindle]

With t0 empaths you can finish in the top 10😂

[runic flicker]

Really then why not just scrap the collection based thing all together and jsut have a box say here is all the illuvial everyone starts off equal l ike a game of chess ? ---im sure xborg would love that

[gray kindle]

Free deck = zero rewards

[runic flicker]

I have no doubt you truly believe that

[dusk fiber]

Oh, only PvP, forgot that. Then yeah no round, still there are ways, if a normal deck is 40 cards, give 20. People won’t be able to beat player with normal full deck, still can tease them with illuvials they need to pay for…

Anyway too early to discuss that, at least the proposal set the bases for the future

[runic flicker]

which economy are you going to base affordable on --- 1st world minimum wage worker - or 3rd world x country where it take $100 to make 1 first world dollar

[misty spruce]

Would definitely be an interesting mode to have, and make game accessible for the masses. While collecting would have value in Leviathan arena. Interesting idea for sure

[onyx oracle]

Yes theres many variables to play with when limiting the deck. We are not proposing exactly how it is but understand very well how this concept could affect negatively everything is its too powerfull. We are confident this can achieve the intent while being very very limited. (can always change them along the way after first iteration anyway)

[proud stirrup]

Seems good in theory, I think they’ll be a lot of scenarios where players just realise they need “This one Illuvial” to perfectly add to their deck that week to unlock some OP synergies and interactions

I think especially with a huge focus on elemental dynamics and synergies at the core of Illuviums Ascendant Arena gameplay, this is probably the best long term middle ground solution on paper, curious to see how it plays out!

Although I’m super interested to see Leviathan proposals in the coming months as the deep Whale economy needs to be built out properly as well 👀

[runic flicker]

Ill put more respect to a top level leviathn player than i will so call "" pro player" --- Leviathan will be the Pure game ...

[manic pollen]

Apologies if this has been mentioned. Dipping in an out of chat with work

Could we have illuvial spotlight weekends that allow you to add something like Rhamphyer or other rare illuvials to your deck?

[runic flicker]

Im noteven close to bein the same solars ystem as a hale but its will be more like a MTG pro tour than what is being discussed

[coral zodiac]

Thats the exact opposite of what you think it means

[runic flicker]

in your opinion

[onyx oracle]

Yes exactly.

For leviathan some aspects have to first go through legal to see what can and cant be done. Then we can dive deeper in this, definitely a very interesting mode!

[coral zodiac]

Honestly Leviathan is the key to the whole thing as if we get those whales to battle it out then we can focus on keeping Ascendent arena cheap for the masses

[runic flicker]

Yes but Leviathan should be wherethe "real" tournaments take place

world champion etc

[coral zodiac]

Nope. Ascendant is the true esport version of the game

[misty spruce]

This

[coral zodiac]

Also here is Ben's Statement about this proposal @runic flicker

[spring mango]

leviathan is more similar to legacy/vintage, ascendant would be similar to modern in mtg terms, I think you missunderstand that

[proud stirrup]

Strong agree. As a Whale, Whale PVP isn't the mass ESports scene, Leviathan is for the Top 100 Megaladons to throw around for whatever top reward they care about (E.G Dark Holo Illuvial Shards). The Mass ESports scene potential has and always will be Ascendant.

[runic flicker]

Mabey if #1 is enacted

[proud stirrup]

There are ways to structure rewards & incentives to make both groups very happy long term.

[coral zodiac]

Yah when the time comes I'd be interested to hear your ideas on what type of rewards and structure you'd like to see for Leviathan
I'm no whale so I'd be focused on Ascendant but I know the importance of Leviathan to the game as a whole

[proud stirrup]

A lot of this depends on how the endgame economy is put together and what are the most valuable endgame Whale Items are, I think it's likely one of two things: Dark Holo Illuvials or Items that increase an Illuvials base stats and allow you to get perfect stats on Illuvials. Both of which would be insanely insanely rare.

[misty spruce]

Also this

[proud stirrup]

We're still so in the dark in terms of how the whole Illuvial progression economy is being designed, so it's really tricky to speculate on what the ultimate carrot on a stick for Whales will be, at least in my opinion Wagering is niche & occasional and Dark Holos are the reward that get me most excited to play on a daily/weekly basis personally.

[coral zodiac]

Good to know for now thanks. Obviously once more information comes out things can change

[runic flicker]

Again if averyone is worried about accented fairness screww the free decks --- jsut make all illuvials available when playing accented ...there everything solved .

full on chess with illuvvials game

FTP players have a chance ... whales have a chance everyone has the same chance as ecveryone else

[silver umbra]

that is not correct. ascendant is a game mode. there are potentially a chunk of play modes - ranked, unranked ect.

[ebon fulcrum]

New Info but very nice Info 🔥

[brave dirge]

i see. why not make the free decks and free illuvials only for the unranked mode of ascendant? people who have tried the game on unranked can catch or buy illuvial to compete in ranked

i cant imagine people who just started go to ranked on their first games

[scenic cloud]

I'm just voting yes for this. As a gamer any game that says it has f2p I'd be expecting this.

[scenic cloud]

It's actually not necessary and probably going to backfire. You want people to play the game in order to get hooked. If you limit the access to the place where most people are, they might just leave. You won't get free players to spend money, no matter how much you limit them. There're always these kind of gamers. But you monetize out of the other people they bring. And in order to maximize revenue, you just need more people.

[brave dirge]

i dont play LoL, but can you use rotating free champs in ranked mode?

isnt there a minimum level to play in ranked mode?

dw i just googled it, in LoL, free rotating champs are only available in unranked mode.

[onyx oracle]

@brave dirge

[onyx oracle]

Why not?

If the decks are very bad i dont see any problem. Naturally people wont want to stick with this, all the fun is in building your team and trying to get better, no get rekt over and over buy people that build their own deck and play cool illuvials

For many they just want to straight go in ranked with 0 barriers

[brave dirge]

the proposal is based on web2 games, e.g. LoL rotating free champs and mobile legends rorating free heroes.
do you think is there a good reason why these companies decided not to allow free champs in ranked?
why would new people want to go straight to ranked and mess up their rank stats

people would practice in the unranked mode using the free champs

[coral zodiac]

Completely different reasoning for that
Also unranked modes are absolute dogshit

[brave dirge]

its fun actually, u can get really rekt or really rekting

most new F2P games even use bots to play the newb

[ebon fulcrum]

Is there a nerf planned for t0/1 to ensure you can't do shit in ranked mode with the prebuilt Decks?

[coral zodiac]

lol not necessary

[ebon fulcrum]

You think so?

Like imagine you playing vs idk...vetemor... You with the prebuilt Deck.

[coral zodiac]

The decks will be bad

[brave dirge]

its better to make a new account after getting rekt using the free deck in ranked

[ebon fulcrum]

You say it Like thats easy peasy 😄
Like Synergien and bonding advantages etc. Should be shown... so can it really be that Bad a pro loses to a total pleb?

[brave dirge]

i reckon u have stats like win rate?

[coral zodiac]

If I can make a good deck , I can make a bad deck

[versed stump]

I’d like to see more about how the Leviathan Arena will work. It might help people accept these changes for Ascendant if they know that free decks and a free rotation will not be included for that game mode.

[onyx oracle]

We know those changes are not for leviathan, we made sure to state it in the proposal, in the FAQ and in the townhall so theres no confusion.

What we know now for leviathan is that,

-you have to bring your deck
-stats matter
-levels matter

[versed stump]

Awesome. Yeah I didn’t catch the townhall. I was hoping the FAQ would give a little more detail.
I see that leviathan remains unchanged, but I think it would be helpful to most to see those rules side by side with the new ascendant proposal.

[onyx oracle]

I agree this wouldve been a good way to give an overview of the changes. We really do this effectively without a finalized leviathan model (have to make sure everything is ok on the legal side)

I hope with what we have we were clear enough through the proposal, faq and townhall.

So far the overall feedback is very good :)

[halcyon sable]

I feel this is approached in a very wrong way reading more of the stuff. Feels like we wanna make changes in order to squeeze more spending out of the players rather than providing the best possible experience to as many players as possible.

Do we wanna make the greatest autochess and take over tft or do we only wanna squeeze maximum revenue out of each player? The first one can also get you to the second part but I feel we are mostly focusing on the latter part which does not guarantee the first.

If we gonna release a weekly deck in rotation then it needs to be random illuvials of all tier and stages, not some half assed bs to make sure 'they dont go too high in ranked', thats just silly

[scarlet remnant]

giving "the best possible experience to as many players as possible" needs to have some boundaries that's all

[halcyon sable]

the boundaries are that u dont own any of the illuvials in rotation, u play for a few days, get to enjoy different types and how they fit into ur team, after a few days they are gone and if u liked some of them u would wanna aquire them from OW or the market. i dont see whats wrong with that

[scenic cloud]

Many games introduce starter decks that are really bad as you claim ranks. And probably from the get go you can make the deck better with starter cards. The whole point of those is to get you through the door in the first 5 minutes in the game. People want to experience the gameplay. And play with other at the similar level. But I support the idea that it would be possible to have T5 illuvial free for a week. It'll shake the meta. Which I think is a good thing.

Maybe a disproportional split of tiers:
1 T5
2 T4
3 T3
4 T2
5 T1
Total of 15 free illuvials every week.

We now have 5 T5 illuvials but those have 3 stages each, so this puts as at 15. If we cycle them in order and rotate each week. If you play a Rhamphyre and you like it, you'll have to wait almost 4 months until it's free again.

[scarlet remnant]

i'm fine giving higher tier illuvials in the rotation but these would need to be like ghost nfts that don't get you any rewards besides the joy of playing

[halcyon sable]

yes thats the plan, no rewards from those

[scarlet remnant]

I feel like this could open a can of worms if not done correctly

even if you guys say there's good AI to detect bot action the bot dilema is ever existing

[halcyon sable]

what has that to do with anything? bots would be in OW not ascendant

[scenic cloud]

There might be bots that play ascendant. But those should not reach top leaderboard spots for eventual rewards. This is not P2E.

[halcyon sable]

thats a good point, but i dont think this is the proper way to handle it

[scenic cloud]

Detecting bots with AI and some other overcomplicated solutions, when people can just pay $1 to someone in a 3rd world country to grind for them...

If there's a monetary value that can be extracted => it will be extracted.

[halcyon sable]

How does tft fix this problem then? Limiting the f2p experience because of bots has to be the worst idea ever. Im not a developer but there should be a proper way to do this

[scenic cloud]

People still sell WoW gold. Botting or not. This is not the problem. There needs to be a skill threshold in order to reach that value.

Bots/cheap labor can only get you so far at the leaderboard. Our focus should be on that. We should not provide any incentives to just grinding games.

[halcyon sable]

What do u mean cheap labor? Poor ppl cant compete? lol

We wanna make these changes to attract more players, mostly targeted at f2p players. The game is marketed as f2p. Invite all the spoiled web2 players and tell them its f2p, only for them to realize a week later the devs 'dont want them to reach higher than gold'

You gonna get kids shitting on ur project and bad press for eternity. Whats our goal here? To create a decent game that makes good profit? Then those changes are alright. To compete with fking riot for the top spot, and build an esport on top of that? Then these changes suck (IMO)

Feels like we are all over the place

[brave dirge]

imo they are praying that F2P TFT gamers, who only spends on skins and can show it off, are going to be crypto P2E payers, who need to buy the champs that they used to get for free.

[scenic cloud]

I was envisioning Chinese wow gold miners. Who do it for really low pay and they're not technically botting, but fall into the same category of value extraction.

I also mean if someone is paying you to play and you don't want to, will you reach top of the leaderboard for a small cut?

[scarlet remnant]

if these free built decks and illuvial rotations aren't meant to compete for rewards then why are these ideas being implemented in the ascendant mode and not on a casual unranked gameplay where you could try out all available illuvials?

there will be a casual unranked game mode right?

[ebon fulcrum]

#1130189397531303957 message

[scarlet remnant]

thanks man wasn't finding it.
can anyone answer 1º question then? why implement this on ascendant and not on unranked with all illuvials?

[ebon fulcrum]

it isn't said in proposal in which mode they wana implement this

[misty spruce]

Will one need to have multiples stage 3 Illuvials, to have both affinities and classes (dominant)?

[hallow siren]

Great proposal, just gving my opinion on this point particularly... we'd better make these decks good enough that they're "SOMEWHAT" competitive. making them straight shit just because of the fear of some people never paying to play is BIG strategic mistake. We need to stop being afraid of providing value for free.

[onyx oracle]

Hey Zeptyle, yea i believe a good balance can be found here. Play testing will reveal how we approach the first iteration and after that it can be easily adjusted along the way.

[onyx oracle]

Hey Filow, there will indeed be an unranked ascendant and ranked one. To answer your question here's a previous reply.

#1130189397531303957 message

[modern pagoda]

My opinion:

Good enough so if a pro player uses it they can beat me using the best/OP deck out there

(NOOB with best Deck < PRO with free to play decks)

lol

[scarlet remnant]

Thanks 👍

[opal iron]

Yes this is a major reason we decided the decks(have to give credit to @coral zodiac specifically) would be a good add.

Early playtests from the team internally showed that playing with only T0s was not a great experience. Having some additional units should add some additional competative capabilities.

[light scroll]

Not necessarily but thats a fair call. Its easy to be in the camp that free is always best. But theres something about paying to achieve a goal thats a neat retention hack and makes you care more about it. When I pay for a new league character. Even if I suck at them I become more determined to learn it, cause I spent my hard earned money to acquire it. I wouldn't underestimate it

[cold mica]

I’m a strong supporter of this model. Well done @silver umbra with the restructure.

@brave dirge I’m not sure if the Illuvials in rotation will have much if any of an impact with their pricing during that period. Demand may increase as people will get a chance to try them out.

[cold mica]

Credit to @coral zodiac ? He debated with me for hours saying that players who catch a stage 1 should be given a stage 2 and 3 in ascendant mode. Glad he came to his senses.

[coral zodiac]

1. My issue was always focused on the price of a deck with the change not on the actual idea of it. This proposal just makes natural sense
2. I am under an NDA so couldnt tell you that we had all been working on this the whole time lol

[cold mica]

Yeah lol

[coral zodiac]

I still maintain that the intent of a lot of us is to keep things reasonably priced even with this change.

[cold mica]

This change makes perfect sense. We did go back and forth for quite some time with you backing the free stage 2 and 3 but we’ll leave that in the past.

Thanks for your input with this proposal.

[coral zodiac]

Yup. I still have my concerns about things but we shall see how things play out over time and it seems like the community is strongly in favor of this.

[cold mica]

@brave dirge what about if the free rotation was individual to each account.

And you can pay fuel to re-roll

[radiant flint]

i'm a little confused on point number one of this proposal. How does a stage one illuvial count as a higher stage currently?

[brave dirge]

im fine if its strictly T0 and unranked mode.
Giving out free T1s and T2s to try is going to affect the marketplace, and people who knows the coming rotation can frontrun that.
not clear how big of an impact.

the proposal is based on web2 moba free rotation champs/heroes.
there are 2 main diff

1. Champs/heroes in moba are free
2. Free rotation champs/heroes are not allowed in ranked mode

it makes me realized that the gaming sub council would have tremendous insight to illuvials market value. they are the one who can nerf or buff illuvials

unrelated topic, lets say they are going to buff an illuvial and make it the meta. they can just buy them up before announcing the buff

[cold mica]

Your assumption is that players that are buying Illuvials won’t buy the “free” ones in rotation because they get them for free for a week or whatever.

If I was playing a game and got a high powered gun and knew I only had x days to use it I might be incentivised to buy it. Maybe before it’s removed from rotation. Try before you buy.

If each player had an individual rotation that lasted a week then no marketplace effect would occur.

Also if we gave people the choice to pay for a re-roll of the weekly rotation that would help with revenue.

[brave dirge]

i said affect the marketplace, it can be either more or less demand

im not sure individual rotation is possible, because the proposal wants to give people a workable deck

in principle, the proposal is good.
free rotation champs/heroes work for MOBA games.
you try the champs/heroes, you want to buy it by grinding points or buy it with microtransaction.
the main diff is, the whole ILV economy is about farming and trading illuvials

[dusk fiber]

They are not giving free illuvials

Just allowing you to play a predetermined deck.

[brave dirge]

yes, its a non nft

they are borrowing it from MOBA weekly rotating free champs/heroes

[cold mica]

You said “the free illuvials on that week will have less volume traded”. But yeah to my point may be a negative or positive effect. But the benefits should outweigh that.

[cold mica]

How many “workable” deck combinations are possible?

[rich token]

i really thought it would be this way from the start

but does it give any leveling / ranking power over those who are out collecting their deck properly? not sure on correct term there as I have no clue how it works

[rich token]

that's the beauty of the game. its more like chess than a "meta" The answer is a crapload, but that crapload can also be bad, and it can also be positioned bad

the best decks will not win championships, experience, intellect, wisdom, and a small side of luck will

and why this game will be a hit because while its not catered to newbs, its simple enough they can play, but the grandmasters will be more than meta masters

[brave dirge]

would you buy a champ/heroes that you currently have in your deck?

[rich token]

if you play the free deck and like an illuvial, won't you go out and hunt or buy it, remember you have to level these guys up as well.. no leveling up free ones...

[brave dirge]

level doesnt matter for ascendant

[lucid gale]

From my understanding, if you want to use that Illuvial outside of the premade deck, you still have to hunt or buy it. You can't add to the premade decks or take Illuvials out of them to play in other decks. They are a fixed package for onboarding and getting people to try out the game.

[coral zodiac]

This is correct

[brave dirge]

yes. for the rotating free illuvials you can

[tacit oasis]

Given that there are 30m TFT users, PVP has great potential.
I suggest a more competitive free deck.
By expanding the number of users, I think a percentage of them will actually play OW or buy decks.
It will ultimately benefit OW users too.

For Web3 gamers, the hurdle to buying a deck is not high, because they know that they can sell the deck if they no longer need it.
If PVP turns out to be a really interesting game they will buy and play it in no time.

Rankings and competitions should be played together, however, game rewards are only for paying users.
The better-performing players among them would buy the deck.
I think expanding the number of users is the way to success for illuvium.

[brave dirge]

then we should be fully F2P and sell cosmetics only.
the problem is they are mixing up the target market.
do you want F2P market or collecting market? if you say both then GG

TFT players are F2P gamers.
So they get the free decks and free illuvials. They try it and they like the game.
Then BOOM, you need to buy illuvials with ETH bros

They go Illuvidex, spend time looking for the illuvials they want to buy. Click buy. Guess what you need a wallet.
Ok fine, lets make a wallet. Oh no you need to buy crypto first. Ok cool just use the credit card. Oh no you need KYC, and it takes hours.

By the time the KYC went through, ETH just pumped by 20%. rip

[cold mica]

Would you buy a car you can test drive? My answer is the same.

[dusk fiber]

No, you can just use the predetermined deck, there is no using the illuvial by himself

It’s like the beta today, you can play the deck, you own and can use nothing else

[brave dirge]

you buy at the end of the week or after you see that its not in the following week rotation

[coral zodiac]

Yes and you would have to add these to the decks that you already have spent money on
You won't be able to just play with only free stuff out of the rotation

[cold mica]

When others are buying and the price has gone up 😄

[halcyon sable]

I've been saying for years now that t0s were not enough for a f2p model, met with resistance as usual and then turns out to be the case. Where my credit?

It's a good proposal, just remove the handicap from f2p and let them enjoy one of our modes, if they like the game they will spend

[tacit oasis]

I target 1-2% of TFT users as paying customers
Some of them are Web3 users.
If other TFT users play for free I don't see it as a problem
More users is a very good thing for illuvium.
More users means more publicity for illuvium and the possibility for other Web3 gamers to join in.

[kindred coyote]

https://tenor.com/view/give-him-some-credit-though-william-newberry-goremiser-smite-you-gotta-hand-it-to-him-gif-18067007

[dusk fiber]

Ok my understanding was similar to @lucid gale but @silver umbra message seems to be different

[coral zodiac]

There are two separate things

1. Prebuilt decks
2. Free Rotation

[young radish]

jag, it's the model of all Tcg Games, and it works very well. Give pré build decks and rotation isn't New.

[brave dirge]

so you want to be TFT or TCG?

[young radish]

jag, it's the same économic model and you know it

[brave dirge]

nope, TFT is skinomics
TCG is collecting

[young radish]

ok

[brave dirge]

TFT sells cosmetic, while TCG sells card packs

[young radish]

all Tcg i know sells cosmetics too

[brave dirge]

so HS

[young radish]

you are a TfT player and you arrive on illuvium. You are given two choices, Go through the marketplace or go Farm in the ow that does not interest you. Alt f4. With pre-built decks they can try out the game mode that interests them and get hooked. Later discover the other games

[young radish]

HS, shadowverse, Marvel snap, Magic, Legend of Runterra etc... they all sells cosmetics.

[brave dirge]

but HS is F2P, not free to try

the proposal is free to try

[brave dirge]

TFT main revenue is from cosmetics, HS main revenue is from card packs. do you see the differences? the team main target market is TFT

[young radish]

yea but how to attract and hoock TfT players ?

[brave dirge]

go full F2P, and just sell cosmetics

[young radish]

i understand your point view. That model work too

[scenic cloud]

Will it be a problem if people can hunt non-NFT illuvials and play them?
Basically the monetization will have to start on wave 2, because then it will be impossible to grind for free wave 1 illuvials and people will wake up to the idea of ownership, supply and demand.
But maybe people will be selling accounts second hand.

Or maybe when you play lets say 10 games. You get a illuvial pack, that is non-NFT and you can use only withing the ascendent mode and we monetize on cosmetics.

There are many ways to go about this.

[brave dirge]

TFT players are used to playing the game for free, $0 to access all the champs.
But in ILV, you have to buy illuvials.

[brave dirge]

yea ive seen that model.
it clearly separate F2P and P2E gamers. it can work.
ascendant can be fully F2P
while leviathan is the P2E

i strongly believe the game need go pick a niche and not trying to be everything, master of none. is it a pokemon, TFT or HS?

[manic pollen]

Sounds like you want to take the web3 out of a web3 game 😅

[brave dirge]

thats the idea right? onboarding TFT players

[hallow siren]

its more like let's say week 1 we have a deck around Ramphyre, a free to play player plays it for the entire week and loves it... but! the rotation changes and the new free to play deck is around Adorius and that player might enjoy it and play it... or miss his BIG ramphyre casts. in which case that player will have an excellent incentive to cross the pay barrier to make the ramphyre Deck for himself and potentially edit it etc.

So i'd really like this proposal to have this spirit rather than "let's give em crap to make sure they're not too tempted to never spend" which we can read higher in this chat.

People psychologically HATE when they feel like something's taken away from them. let's just make good use of it to increase our sales and not be afraid of providing value/fun for free!

[hallow siren]

i had made a proposal a few months ago to give the possibility for some players to just play for free with soulbound in-game (non-NFT assets) highly rejected.

[hallow siren]

right answer is it's none of these.

[manic pollen]

Maybe it's hard to say. If you believe the limited data out there the average age of a tft player is 20-25. Does this demographic have the disposable income to play illuvium? My guess is 25-35 is a more appropriate target for illuvium. If so then what are they playing and how can illuvium on board them?

There's multiple factors that need to be considered aside from favorite game/genre alone. Probably one for marketing/strategic subs to figure out.

[cold mica]

Does TFT offer the ability to use assets in other Riot games so that you only need to “pay” once. If not, Illuvium can and should charge more for Illuvials. Hopefully by the time Arena is gaining momentum the next generation of Illuvium is in discussion.

[scenic cloud]

This is not applicable, because you don't have to pay for any riot games to begin with.

You don't need to own a champion in LoL in order to play it in TFT or in their TCG.

[brave dirge]

New wave of Illuvials is another thing that TFT players may not tolerate

[brave dirge]

so getting none of pokemon, TFT and HS playerbase?

[brave dirge]

im not sure which council can decide which target market ILV is aiming for. im so lost on what the project wants to be.

[coral zodiac]

Its already been decided

[brave dirge]

technically ILV is a P2E, and now that you need to own 3 stages of illuvial its a P2W.
But its aiming for F2P players.

[brave dirge]

which council can decide this

[coral zodiac]

lol. Dude its been known for a year +. Our target audience is TFT players. You don't like it and thats fine.

[scenic cloud]

How is ILV p2e? You'll not earn from just playing.

[dusk fiber]

Sounds sexy. I like it.

[halcyon sable]

Putting p2w into ur competitive mode has to be one of the dumbest things ever. You want things to be as balanced and set in stone as possible so that the player skill shines through. This is the wow element of watching an esport, not how much pixel the tree has or how much revenue ur making. I don't know why that's so difficult to grasp

[dusk fiber]

I want end game for solo players, collectors, and story mode lovers

[coral zodiac]

Other stuff could come later but not for Open Beta launch

[dusk fiber]

Im sure

It’s just that those discussion and affirmation should be done by population

Today there is no end game for collectors, outside of collecting them all. To appeal even more to them, some game mode designed for this population will open a wide range of opportunities

Anyway! Back to topic.

[brave dirge]

You play T0, earn money by selling T0 to pay for T1 runs, earn money by selling T1 to pay for T2 runs.
its P2E.

or if you never sell, its just Pay-to-Play

definitely not F2P

[brave dirge]

because people bought the token at $1800 XD
we need to pump the token

[hoary goblet]

I feel It was always pay to win for those who don't want to get their own deck. It's kind of like ESO. If you want a particular weapon yet don't wan the grind you buy from the market place from someone that made it, or try your luck in a mystery box, for a rare item/skin/mount/funiture.
However this is about playing the game. For RPGs you usually get gear in start up through the story, yet illuvium isn't just overworld or rpg or really any of the games out there. Games referenced are always closet comparisons to something truly unique.
I think it's fine to have a free non NFT deck to play with.
Assuming you get to play all illuvials, depending on the deck that day, as we currently have now, people will see all illuvials have a go and see what they like for that space. They can buy it grind the overworld for that type of play.
As others mentioned it's for PVP so some may just play that likein other games, ESO for example, I have friends that never play the story line, they just purchase gear from vendors , or make backend deals. I think it's okay to try the PVP mode with a free deck, as I imagine it will probably be people who are only interested in PvP that will go there.
When I play arena I get connected to illuvials and want to go catch them.
I imagine PvP players will want to make their own decks and create a killer team.
Therefore I see this as being beneficial, it can be tweaked along the way.

[scenic cloud]

I thought we're talking about arena/ascendant.

[halcyon sable]

I refuse to believe it's this one, would be a sad state of the original vision

[cold mica]

That’s not a given way to earn. How many if any will be buying tier 0? What’s the chance your run will produce Illuvials at a higher price than the fuel used?

It’s a game of odds in the end and hopefully in this case the casino always wins.

None of it really matters in these discussions. It’s just about allowing more players to get a good sense of what Illuvium has to offer for minimal expense. Hopefully the games are fun to play. That’s the focus right. If they’re fun some players will be happy to spend.

[hoary goblet]

Unless it's not possible to sell illuvials on the market then it always has the element of pay to win, if you want to. You don't have to so I wouldn't call it 'pay to win'. There are games out there that set their systems up so it's impossible to get anywhere near competitive without purchasing.

I get where you say it's pay to win as you need to pay for runs, to collect illuvials, yet I'm guessing it won't be more than a subscription overall.
The only free to play games I know that aren't subscription based, in some form, is never winter and you absolutely couldn't get anywhere without insane amounts of hours playing and grinding their boring repetitive gameplay.

My feelings are chuck all that wording out. Call it an interoperable blockchain game. It keeps it broad and overarching.
Many different facets that don't really fit anywhere make it difficult to grasp as the concept hasn't been formed yet.

I think overall it will be a benefit to try the game.

@brave dirge I remember you and @coral zodiac arguing, with me, to do away with overworld and just have decks to purchase. So I'm a little confused with your sentiments on this one.

[coral zodiac]

I think Overworld is fine to have as a pack opening. Obviously it's not necessary but its an interesting way to do things

[hoary goblet]

Not you @sjud

[cold mica]

Drop the pack opening analogy, it’s far from it.

[hoary goblet]

I'd much rather catch them.

[coral zodiac]

No reason to drop it when thats what it is and even the founders say it

[hoary goblet]

I can get my head around it, because it doesn't feel like it. Yet I get they need someway to describe the game.

[cold mica]

Who’s going to play it and say this feels like opening a pack of cards? Not a single soul.

Team should let go of the analogy too.

[coral zodiac]

It feels different yes, but thats what its function is

[brave dirge]

Fight for ETH

[hoary goblet]

I agree, yet what do you replace it with. I find it a bit indefinable.

[brave dirge]

sorry. Well there is 1m ILV token rewards for people to earn

[hoary goblet]

Yeah, the mechanic behind it. It's still so different to me. Like catching a real object.

Anyway, it's semantics its definition will become solid overtime.
It's all so new and uncharted.
I'm happy with this proposal going through.
I'm very impressed with the GSC on this. I can tell they worked hard on solutions and working out the method they have.

[cold mica]

Collection game is better than pack opening.

As we are finding out players don’t want to skip around an extravagant environment and pick up Illuvials. Which is closer to a pack opening. It’s like a given you will get Illivials and not much will stand in your way because you paid for the pack.

It turns out we want drama and conflict and have to fight for a reward in order to appreciate it.

[brave dirge]

yea, im still in denial lol

[brave dirge]

im confused with the direction of the project too. if they want TFT players then it has to be F2P game, and just sell cosmetics

[cold mica]

TFT players are forever tied to F2P games that sell cosmetics?

[halcyon sable]

Any successful esport was a balanced game for everyone, to compete properly every player needs to be on the same playing field and only advance thru their skill. I can't recall any successful p2w esport.

Regarding free to play games without subscription, I don't know what to say. I can name a dozen off memory alone and those are the type that make up for a good esport. Thats one of the benefit of having f2p in ur game.

We can't market this as f2p, better remove this from marketing. It's hardly p2e either, pay to try or pay to own suits it better. So it only leaves p2w at that point.

Anything else is misleading

[hallow siren]

agree

except for the p2w thing, i'd argue that HS and Fifa are pay2win to some extent. they both are POSSIBLE but ultra grindy to get around, but most pros just pay to not have to deal with that pain

[scenic cloud]

Those 1 mil tokens are used on the leaderboard so far.

I'd like to make a big distinction between how axie used to be. You win => get some SLP, you lose => get less SLP. But you just have to spend the time.

And something like a DOTA, in which valve also has like 1mil USD reward and they spend it on the international. DOTA is not considered play to earn, because a very select few get to the money. DOTA also has "scholarships" in the way of paying players to form teams and get sponsors in order to atempt to reach those money rewards. You can also pay someone to play on your account to rank you up. Those players are not "playing to earn". They have to be winning or they're not getting paid.

I'm arguing that illuvium falls into the second category. So it's not p2e. It just makes all those nuanced interactions more transparent and accessible.

[brave dirge]

anyone good can earn the ILV leaderboard. in Dota you need to be a pro player in a pro team to win TI

[hallow siren]

yep, well said. Illuvium is not P2E and as far as i know our marketing Team/sub Councils are doing everything they can to dissociate our branding from it... except removing "Fight For Eth"

[halcyon sable]

But the fact that it is possible to grind thru stuff, no matter how long and tedious, is the balance factor. The option is there, we don't have that here

[hallow siren]

where do you pull this from?! and i agree with you @halcyon sable i've been fighting for us to have something similar on illuvium for more than a year now.

[brave dirge]

wdym

[brave dirge]

if you type ?earn the bot will say its P2E.

[hallow siren]

if that's the case i believe @kindred coyote or @tawdry rover will solve that very soon 🙂 I'm sure It was probably programmed a while ago and they just forgot to change it to fit the narrative of the last 1.5 years

[hoary goblet]

Agreed

I'm not a pro player at anything, I speak as an average gamer. I know very little about eSports

[brave dirge]

oh btw ned the bot said ingame reward is part of P2E

[scenic cloud]

Anyone good can be a pro player.

Web3 just removes intermediaries. So you don't have to go through an organization.

P.S. I'm pretty sure in hearthstone there were championship winners who were not at the time associated with a pro organization.

[halcyon sable]

It's alright we all want what's best for the project. Would be sad if we made everything great and polished only to screw up the play and monetization model in the end

[hoary goblet]

What do you mean the option isn't there?

[scenic cloud]

Artifact flashbacks.

[scenic cloud]

Pretty sure this was part of the narrative during the bull market. It brings the bacon 🙂

[hoary goblet]

Lol yes. It's a business after all, there is no point denying that.

[halcyon sable]

For f2p players to grind hours and weeks towards earning something that is usually paid for. Yes I think that would also be beneficial

[hallow siren]

having to be part of an organization is not "a web2 thing" it's a team game thing.
In TFT, HS, Fifa or Pokémon people can qualify by themselves through leaderboard or events circuit

[hoary goblet]

We can do that in the overworld and land?

[hallow siren]

💯

[halcyon sable]

Can be done anywhere, as long as it gets the job done. Yeah on the outside it looks like we are handing out free stuff, but in reality it's a hook mechanism.

During these long hours of grinding, by the players choice, he becomes attached and addicted to the game. Gonna watch YouTube vids, his favorite pro player, watch the eSports, tell all his friends how great the game is and all that. The benefit is there

[hoary goblet]

Yeah, I'm not disagreeing. I think the free deck is a great hook. I just didn't understand what you meant by can't do it now? Because we can go into the overworld and get the illuvials/gear/augments. We just didn't have a trial pack in the arena ascendent?

I mean the ability to try PvP without grinding or buying first.

[halcyon sable]

To do these things we need to pay fuel for ow or buy it off the market. There is no way for a f2p player to properly compete in any mode, either with t0 or with this deck proposal.

If we wanna market it as f2p and do an esport that's gonna be a problem

[cold mica]

I wonder how it will feel if majority of people have the same rotation. All those complete F2P players will be competing with the same deck right?

[halcyon sable]

Would be the weekly rotation deck+ whatever t0s they managed to get

[hoary goblet]

Ahh I get you. I don't believe in changing the way it's set up for runs will benefit anything.
Maybe just don't market it as FTP, just aspects of free play.
That is what overworld is.

[cold mica]

@silver umbra Is it possible so each individual has their own unique Illuvials in rotation. Would that not make the gameplay more interesting with a wider range of Illuvials in the Arena?

[hoary goblet]

I think the idea isn't that you get the full experience. Like you may be able to be fairly competitive yet making it full free to play with all the illuvials seems counterproductive. I don't see that enticing you to get the the nfts. unless you get sick of winning and not having the asset to show for it.

[halcyon sable]

Yeah ow is good as is. For ascendant, our competitive mode, the f2p players should be able to compete with the paying ones on the same level. We already have another mode where p2w matters. We don't need p2w in ascendant, in my opinion at least

[hoary goblet]

Okay cool. What would be the benefit, what's the end goal for the user?

Why would people pay if you can just compete for free? Also how does that encourage someone into the overworld?

[halcyon sable]

Same like skinomics games, to obtain as large player base as possible. Some will be paying, some won't but both groups compliment each other

[onyx oracle]

That could be an idea! Ill give this more thoughts and discuss with other council members.

Even if community approved as it is once it will go through voting in the Gaming Sub-Council we could suggest modifications 👊🏽

[cold mica]

Did you listen to the AMA?

[hoary goblet]

Yes. I'm questioning nastys opinion

Reasoning to have it completely free for all illuvials

[halcyon sable]

Eventually people that play for free will get bored of the t0s and the rotation deck keep changing their stuff, so they will have to pay to get the illuvials they want.

[hoary goblet]

So you don't want higher stages included?

[halcyon sable]

If they quit the game cause of p2w they will never reach the paying point

[halcyon sable]

Included in the free rotation deck? Absolutely I do want them

[hoary goblet]

Oh wait, you mean they will think it's pay to win and drop out? So you don't think they might actually buy or go and try catching it for themselves.

[cold mica]

Appreciate you. Doing it that way would also offset any marketplace effect of the Illuvials in rotation, drive players back to the game to see what their unique Illuvials are for that rotation and also add the ability for an up-sale if we allow players to re-roll their weekly deck for a small fee.

[hoary goblet]

Thanks that's what I was trying to understand.

[silver umbra]

Possible yes, I don't think I'd want that though

Lot more work, but more importantly I think it would encourage people to make lots of alts

[halcyon sable]

They won't, ppl already hate losing in general, x10 more in 1v1 cause no one to blame but themselves. Now add the p2w excuse and the raging reddit keyboard warrior kid is born

[silver umbra]

to guarantee they have a rhamphyre

[hallow siren]

agree and even the concept itself doesn't seem super attractive to me

[silver umbra]

so to me - lots more work, little bit of gain, large risk of negative behaviour.

having fixed rotation is also good for helping one another

"oh there is an X,Y,Z in the rotation this week, I've made a build that uses them"

[hoary goblet]

Maybe just using it as a tutorial is best.

[hoary goblet]

Hi Ben, what do you think of what nasty is saying. I don't have the knowledge, yet It seems it would mess with the economy of the game.

[coral zodiac]

Lol

[hoary goblet]

Lol lol 😂

[silver umbra]

Sorry could I get a synoposis?

[ebon fulcrum]

The more i think about this proposal, the less i like it. First i was totally hooked because of the easier onboarding, but...
The real hook in illuvium for me was i actually have to own the asset i wana play with. It’s like a new world i dive into as complete noob own and know nothing and start working my way up. If i start playing at launch, i have no other choice than go for an overworld run and hunt for them. After a week or 2, arena starts getting traction with some half baked decks being at the very top. After a month decks start getting more specialized because the marketplace really gets traction, and the variety in decks is enormous. Me, want to get better or just change my playstyle, i still have to buy/catch new illuvials to change my team or start a new team completely from scratch. This Hunt for the asset, which will start over and over again with new sets is what really attracted me. It was a collection game at first, and arena was just the first game to play with my assets in a world of a lot of other games in different genres.
With this free decks and spotlight drops we are going to have weekly(or whatever it will be, cause this iip leaves a lot of room to interpret. First voices already showed up, who wana have decks which are competitive) the narrative totally changes. It’s more of a we have 1 game thats the autobattler where you can compete with other players and we have every week new action loaded decks for you… and we have another game, thats the overworld where you can collect illuvials, in case the variety isn’t enough for you to have fun in the autobattler game.

[hoary goblet]

What do you think @coral zodiac

[hallow siren]

maybe instead of having free "illuvials rotation" people could have a Fixed deck per week? something easy where they can just click play free deck or choose deck from your inventory.

Easier to get into for new players and this way we can also use these decks to showcase some strategies and educate the playerbase on how to play X or Y

[halcyon sable]

No p2w in ascendant, f2p players can compete on the same level as paying ones, with the limited illuvials provided

[coral zodiac]

He thinks having to own assets makes something p2w

[hoary goblet]

@halcyon sable I think is wanting all the illuvials to be playable for free.

[halcyon sable]

If those assets provide u any advantage over f2p players then it is p2w. U really can't get that? Lol

[coral zodiac]

Thats not what p2w is. That just makes it not f2p

[hoary goblet]

I get it, yet it's not a f2p game.

[hallow siren]

in our case, i'd describe it more: free for Demo, Pay to play

[ebon fulcrum]

I showed this iip to a group of friends which follow illuvium but not really close, they were hyped as fuck, not because they don’t have to create wallets and buy crypto anymore… they don’t have to buy assets anymore. Playing the autobattler is fun for them, they don’t need to be rank 1 in the world, they don’t need to have a perfect deck, in fact they liked it even more because it’s kind of a weekly challenge to beat each other with weekly randomized decks. So you onboarded them, but just for the f2p autobattler not for illuvium. you actually lost them for illuvium, because they would have played it and just bought the deck for a few bucks. Will there be people who buy assets, yes of course. Will there be more? I don’t know, I doubt it more than I believe it will be because target audience is tft and they play for free… maybe very very short term, yes because you make it accessible for all at the first day. But you talk to a different audience, now we are way closer to a tft which has all assets for free (big plus for them). But at the same time we lose pretty much all collectors because there's not a big point for them to hop in if you can anyways play the assets in the autobattler without having to own them.

[halcyon sable]

Are u trolling or what's happening? The player with biggest wallet wins, that's definition of p2w. What makes it not f2p is having a upfront cost. Anything else u need explaining?

[coral zodiac]

The person with the biggest wallet doesn't win here

[halcyon sable]

Ok if u wanna speak semantics, 2 equally skilled players, the one with the bigger wallet wins. P2w. Anything else?

[coral zodiac]

That's not true

[hoary goblet]

You don't get to own anything so it will still encourage playing the overworld and put lights on IZ, I can see some people will want to get started just playing PvP, if that get them into the system then cool.

[silver umbra]

sorry this would fundamentally break our economy design

just can't be done

[coral zodiac]

Ascendant is not p2w. Leviathan is

[hoary goblet]

Was that for me or nasty

[halcyon sable]

Even if it onboards alot more players and some percentage of those are paying? Netting in a larger paying player base?

[coral zodiac]

Nasty

[hoary goblet]

Lol.

[hallow siren]

depends, if one of the player has 2cts of a budget and the other one has 100000k sure... but that's why the <@&1107754638884745236> are discussing and theorycrafting the pricing points to make sure that anyone with at least a budget of X can be competitive

[silver umbra]

Onboarded players is nice, but how many more would we onboard? Pretty much an impossible question

[hallow siren]

therefore if Player A has a budget of exactly X and his opponent has 10x that amount, Player B won't necessarily win, even at equal skill

[silver umbra]

Its the type of change you might consider, if launch occured and we were not happy and needed to rethink our economy model

but its not the type of thing you do without very very strong data

[halcyon sable]

It is almost impossible to predict the exact number but it's what made completely f2p games popping. Ur not required to spend anything in those and yet they still make billions.

[silver umbra]

and the data we have right now points to that not being a success financially

[silver umbra]

thats not quite correct, lots of f2p make no money at all.

[cold mica]

I thought that may be a concern. I’d think that’s a good problem to have if people have made multiple accounts and sign in and out of each just so they have a Rhamphyre. The game and the Rhamphyre must really be worth it as I guess the odds would be low.

Also wouldn’t all new alts have a low level ranger?

You could make it so each rotation is relative to their account creation date. That also has the benefit of gifting players a decent deck when they are likely to drop off the retention funnel.

[silver umbra]

f2p is good for generating playerbases - but doesn't guarantee revenue

and right now we have a playerbase

how many people are in our discord?

on our socials?

[halcyon sable]

If the quality is there, may I ask which are those games?

[silver umbra]

there will be hundreds of thousands of players on launch

if our numbers are correct.

[coral zodiac]

Maybe maybe not

[hallow siren]

yeah a few F2P games made a big boom, but in comparison there are 99,99999% of the entirely F2P games, only cosmetics who actually generate less than 1k/month. If this was to happen in Illuvium, it would be the biggest fail in history

[silver umbra]

If we say 30% of the players in the discord play the game on launch. - thats already a very sizable starting crowd.

[coral zodiac]

That won't happen

[silver umbra]

you can't say, I can't say

but free to play isn't the way anything is set up, to change would add a year+ of delay

its not a decision that is even worth entertaining at this point

[halcyon sable]

The idea is not to go completely f2p, the deck they operate with would be limited and eventually get boring. If the game is fun some of them will spend.

All I'm saying is we should have a mode where f2p players can feel normal playing without being screwed by anything. Everything else can remain the same

[silver umbra]

thats survival mode

[coral zodiac]

That's what we have

[silver umbra]

survival requires nothing.

completely equal playing field.

[halcyon sable]

It's not what u have. What u have is a deck that is supposed to be limited in power, can get u to gold or whatever. It's not the same

[halcyon sable]

A pvp mode

[versed stump]

A lending system can solve this. Give those players with a budget of 0 and opportunity to play with more expensive Illuvials and be competitive.

[coral zodiac]

Lots of games cost money and they do fine

[silver umbra]

Sorry nasty - its not even possible really.

at least not feasible in the short term

[silver umbra]

^

[halcyon sable]

Do we wanna do fine or compete with riot. Pick one.

[hoary goblet]

This seems good

[coral zodiac]

We can't be a true competition to riot

[hoary goblet]

I think we are in completely different territory here.

[cold mica]

Anything to add to this @silver umbra , or your thoughts are the same?

[halcyon sable]

That's some bs mindset. When they started the f2p model in 2008 everyone was laughing. Takes balls to get there not this ratlike thinking

[coral zodiac]

The goal is to get a small percentage of those tft players

[hallow siren]

we're not competing with riot anytime soon trust me... xD would be awesome, but let's remain realistic and hope for 5% of their playerbase over the next 5 years.

[halcyon sable]

For 3 years I'm listening how team wanna compete with riot and blizzard

[hallow siren]

Riot is easy to onboard and f2p to an extent we can't be. both due to technical limitations (crypto/web3 etc) and financial limitations (budget) so they'll keep having AT LEAST 100x more players than us until both of these limitations are sorted (at least 5 years from now and i'd even shoot for 10)

[hoary goblet]

While this is true, it doesn't mean now.

[halcyon sable]

It will take a new innovative model to topple them, I always thought we are best geared at that. We have different modes for different customer ontop of web3 perks. If we scared to go for the spot that's disappointing

[scenic cloud]

You'd be crazy to expect more than 20-30% of players to pay for your game anyway. It's not a problem that there will be people playing without paying. Because the more fish is in the sea, the bigger the whales. If there is noone to flex on, would you spend on a dark holo rhamphyre. Getting players to play takes precedence to monetizing. If you don't have players monetizing is meaningless.

[hallow siren]

yeaaaaaah euh... sadly you needa take everything Kieran and the other WW bros say in AMAs with a grain of salt... they're ultra hyped about the project and truly believe what they say, but as time goes they also got back to reality a bit and have now more realistic aiming points

[hoary goblet]

We would all like it to be on that level now, yet we are still at the beginning, watching illuvium grow into something amazing.
Small steps to big goals.

[ebon fulcrum]

wow had a pretty big playerbase, and 100% had to pay for it

[onyx oracle]

From all the people this easily hook a portion of them will get hook to the whole illuvium thing, anothee hooked on the autobattler only maybe but atleast if they like it and want to get better they will be incentivized to build their own deck and buy assets.

Its hard to hook people straight to the whole illuvium thing, especially web2 people. Having to go capture your illuvials or buy them before you try out the arena is a big barrier imo.

[scenic cloud]

LoL/Fortnite/Hearthstone/TFT have a bigger playerbases and you can play for years without spending a dime.

[ebon fulcrum]

for f2p tft players for sure, for others this "barrier" can be the hook

[hoary goblet]

How many people actually do that though. All the kids that I know who play fortnight are bleeding their parents wallets.

[halcyon sable]

I don't know why. The free deck in rotation is already a great idea, just don't limit it in power and give the proper tools to compete thats all. How does that break the model? Cause f2p players will be able to compete?

[ebon fulcrum]

yea so what you said 100% payer is crazy to expect i brought you an example it isn't? Before this got introduced it was more or less a you have to pay for the game. sure you have the f2p but they didn't hold you here. They are goo for a try and get hooked or leave.

[halcyon sable]

That further proves the point that f2p does generate revenue if it's done properly

[hoary goblet]

It's too different a game for comparison

[silver umbra]

Skins - battle passes - lootboxes

[scenic cloud]

Recent studies I read were going up to 40-60 percertages but it's heavily different based on age/gender/(even mental conditions like computer gaming addiction)

[hallow siren]

BECAUSE the playerbase is sooooo big that the incentive to spend for the flex is a thing. nobody cares about flexing on a small game except @wheat rivet 😂

[silver umbra]

we don't have any of those for our gameplay. -to go to a fortnite approach would be a complete refactor

[manic pollen]

Yes tft champions are free but to say everyone has access isn't strictly true. There are many factors that can prevent a player building a particular comp. It can actually get off-putting if you go multiple games frustrated by rng

[hoary goblet]

Yeah don't go there please

[silver umbra]

Lol - you can earn the character for free, you have to buy the skin to look cool.

[hallow siren]

now making our game entirely free to play still isnt enough to reach that big of a playerbase so we can't aim at that model.

[halcyon sable]

No one is suggesting that though

[silver umbra]

this isn't possible - to do that model well we'd have to refactor everything - 1 year - 2 year of delay.

its not worth talking about more, sorry.

[scenic cloud]

@hoary goblet

[hallow siren]

yep this is pretty accurate for most games other stats i've seen say similar stuff like the top 5% spenders being responsible of 90+% of the total game's revenue in some cases

[ebon fulcrum]

well don't we have skins... and ib as kind of a battlepass?

[halcyon sable]

We can't handle too many players is that so? Would be the most logical explanation to this

[scenic cloud]

This is when you go to gacha games. Basically you don't care for free players, but those bring in the whales.

[hallow siren]

that is also a limitation we have right now and the reason why we won't be doing VIRAL BIG BOOM expensive marketing right from the start

[ebon fulcrum]

as i mentioned they like the rng factor, i guess most of tft playerbase aswell

[halcyon sable]

Well would be nice if we started with that. Cause everything else makes 0 sense

[scenic cloud]

Even this is not true. Have you heard of pirating games.

There are people who take the biggest pride in not spending a cent on a game/service. Pirate everything.
But you want those in your game to boost popularity. They bring views to streams. And bring the money.
If you're not paing for it you're the product.

[proud stirrup]

Dolphins % seems too high, but good visual illustration

[ebon fulcrum]

are you saying 35% of wow players have never spent a dime on their monthly subscription?

[hallow siren]

yeah i know it's not a piece of info most people in the community have. I myself happen to know it just because i pushed for more marketing a few months ago and that's one of the reasons they gave me.

[scenic cloud]

You know you can play wow on unofficial servers, right?

[halcyon sable]

That's kinda big though, should be made known early especially to investors

[ebon fulcrum]

yes, not talking about the very very small private servers

[hallow siren]

Apparently one of the actual challenges for the team rn is to make sure everything is smooth for everyone, and apparently the best way to ensure that is to grow our playerbase gradually so our back end teams have time to adapt for bigger audiences

[halcyon sable]

Some of those reached millions of players and blizzard had to step in and sue/close them cause they got too big. Nevermind the fact that wow classic was a private server, blizzard sued and closed them. Then stole their idea

[halcyon sable]

That's cool but it shouldn't be private info. That's borderline lying or hiding information that can limit the projects growth

[ebon fulcrum]

1 of those... then it was like 1 mio accounts of all privat servers compared to 130mio accounts for the official server...

[scenic cloud]

WoW subscribers: 127,210,582
Private server users (data of 2021): 90k

So you can say this number is insignificant. However there is 1 number you can't find here. The amount of people who are not playing WoW, because they have to pay.

I know for a fact I was one of those. I didn't want to vote with my money on such model.

[ebon fulcrum]

ofc. you don't know that number

[halcyon sable]

It's not one mate, several servers with millions of players. Do u expect some yolo nerd in their basement to compete with blizzard for players?

[ebon fulcrum]

show me data

[hoary goblet]

Goodnight people. I feel a lot of questions will be answered with the strategy council, and many more conversations will be had.

[scenic cloud]

r/wowservers in reddit.

[ebon fulcrum]

i can't analyze this data package

[halcyon sable]

Dude it's freely accessed information, just Google it.

[ebon fulcrum]

i did google it and it doesn't say its millions of millionns of people on private server

[halcyon sable]

Which server did u google?

[ebon fulcrum]

i guess he also googled it ...
#1130189397531303957 message

[halcyon sable]

That's now, I'm talking 10 years ago or more. The main game is on its last breath u can't expect private servers to be still popping as when they had 12m subscribers and the game was at it's prime

[brave dirge]

5% of how many?
lets say 10m
thats only 500k people
if they spend $100 on decks, thats only $50m revenue.

[brave dirge]

i dont think WoW has that many people

idk why we dont just offer card packs to people since OW is just a pack opening

[cold mica]

Well I’m going to say we trial a number of decks arranged in an order so fresh accounts get week 1 deck and move to week 2 deck and so on.

We run a massive split test to see which decks are more likely to retain new players in starting weeks.

After x amount of weeks we can just randomise the rotation.

This is a better system for a number of reasons.

1. We can use analytics to improve retention and promote OW or Illuvidex activity.

2. No market manipulation when Illuvials come into rotations

3. No over saturated Illuvials in gameplay as every free player has a similar deck.

4. Provides opportunities for weaker players to perform better with a well balanced deck compared to veterans.

5. Creates new revenue opportunities.

[mellow mirage]

Probably so non-whales don’t complain about pay to win money grabbing. Illuvials only being minted by players that have caught them allows grinders to sell to those that just want to pay.

[cold mica]

I’d think it’s more for the lore and IP. The Overworld is the center of it all. The games are our way of utilising assets from it.

[brave dirge]

if OW is the center of ILV, we wouldnt have this proposal and let everyone start in OW

raids is the end game for WoW, and yet we all started at level 1, until blizz offer paid max level

[halcyon sable]

U start in ow with t0 and slowly build ur assets(gear and level in wow) up? Sounds similar to me

[brave dirge]

the entry point is arena now based on the discussion.
u cant start wow in raids.

[cold mica]

How do you figure? People can start in the OW, though you play that game to get Illuvials to use them in games such as the Arena.

Players are not going to line up to pay to play a game to get an asset for another game they have never played. This fixes that.

[brave dirge]

its gonna be way cheaper to buy illuvials in the marketplace than paying OW, just like illuvitar, its cheaper to buy from secondary.
stats and levels dont matter in ascendant.

so people who starts in Arena is more likely TFT players who wouldnt farm hours in OW just to progress the leaderboard

[halcyon sable]

That's just a tryout version for ppl that are not sure. Wouldn't call it entry point, u still start in ow to build the assets for arena

Well I guess u can buy them off the market and just go arena so idk

[scarlet tree]

when will we stop to compare the economy model between TFT And Illuvium ?
TFT Is free to play but don't bring the possibility to sell back any asset you unlock in.
TFT player that will join Illuvium, will certainly follow a new economic model.
Playing some of free illuvial to try better deck, will just give them a taste to have it in their deck and to buy / Capture it. I never spent money in F2P, but wasn't scared to put more in web3 game. The mentality will change. we just have to define a model that is proper to illuvium and follow how our economy work.

[brave dirge]

possibility to sell back is only good if prices are stable. but this is crypto

the TFT players who bought the top of the bull market will be sad

[halcyon sable]

Not rly, they bought skins which can't be sold and at 100% loss but don't care. The fact u can sell it for something is already a bonus

[scarlet tree]

if we are able to create a sustainable economy. there could be some fluctuate, but it's a game itself. some will love to play with the market + playing their arena. Other will just minimze the risk and play arena. why do you think web2 gamer will just be scared to spend money ?. they already do knowing it's lost forever

[cold mica]

That’s an assumption based on your belief. Illuvitars are cheaper because there isn’t much demand. What about popular NFT projects are they cheaper on secondary?

If there is demand for the Arena and Illuvials are cheaper on secondary then people will just buy them from the secondary market, I agree. But if they buy them all won’t the supply go down and prices increase? If prices increase where will people get them from… the OW.

[pulsar wolf]

I only have 2 concerns from everything i have heard the last few days.

1- Beyond townhall we have Kieran telling everyone we are focusing on web 3 because web2 players are years away from buying nfts. Even if they change the price to $2.00 they dont think they would get adoption. Few days later we get a townhall from the gaming council. We are making all these changes to try to onboard web2 people into arena. So what is it? Are web 2 prople ready to purchase nfts or not? Illuvium has no idea what direction they are going. Just seems the council will spin whatever narrative they want to pass their own proposals.

2- the free deck i can get behind but where I am very nervous is the free Illuvials to try. This has to be done in a very calculated manner. Especially considering their are rewards being handed out to players. I say if anyone uses any of the free illuvials in a match it becomes an unranked match for that player.

[scenic cloud]

These are 2 different worlds.
Beyond is PFP collection.
Arena is F2P game.

So they target different groups.

[brave dirge]

i agree with kieran. especially TFT players who are used to paying $0 to play all champs

web3 games need to be P2E if they want to make it

[opal iron]

As @scenic cloud mentioned, two different demographics.

Beyond(debatably not a game) is a targetting web 3 collectors.

Illuvium Arena is targeting mainly web2 audience with web3 features.

I would then classify:

OW as a mix population of Play and earn and web2.

IZ as mainly Web3/P2e

Now as @scarlet tree stated we should eventually not refer to these as these demographics, but we are still heavily segmented.

[pulsar wolf]

Well if arena is f2p. Then the whole game loop in Iluvium is doomed. The whole selling point of OW is that you needed someone to grind to get that illuvial because in order to play arena or any other game in the future you needed illuvials that were caught in OW. So now that arena is f2p. OW just lost a huge demand driver for illuvials. Because casual players dont have to pay anything.

[opal iron]

Now all of that is still up to debate and depends who you ask. But that is how I classify them

[scarlet tree]

Thats bullshit to Split our project in different demographics. Illuvitar for whales, arena for web2. Zero for investors, mobile gamer.
Kieran that say gamer is not ready to buy nft... Just give them a way to trial. Then they see there is a way that people are rewarded, and player would buy nft as a fucking skin or battlepass from a game...

[opal iron]

I really wish we were at that point... but in any marketing Campaign you want a very specific demographic that will resonate with your branding, message, and economic model. If we want the overall project to be successful we need to do this till there is more traction.

When we still have major influencers and governments against us. The frame of view of a gamer can be quite differnt from person to person.

The customer acquisition cost will vary drastically based on who we push a product towards.

[brave dirge]

so which demographic ILV, as a whole, is targeting?

[scenic cloud]

I'm interested to hear your point if pokemon game loop is doomed, because you can't sell your pokemon.
There are people who like collecting. There is leviathan arena. And also the purpose of this proposal. Once you show someone how great a titanor is in a free rotation. And the next time it shows up is 3 months from now... you'd be tempted to buy it before waiting for it.

[ebon fulcrum]

haha... how fast this proposal turns into arena is f2p 😄

[bronze gale]

It's a hybrid, base is of an autobattler and strategy of a TCG, which has already been adjusted to be simpler twice publically, internally could have been more, so far to reach more of the wider target audience. The plan isn't to let everyone play for free, it essentially is a PvP trial.

[spring mango]

it always was free to play, T0 was always free

[ebon fulcrum]

I wouldn't call a game f2p where you can just have Like 20% (decreasing) for free and have to pay to get the Rest.

Sure now with this proposal we are getting more and more in the f2p direction

[brave dirge]

its free to try, not f2p

[spring mango]

obv you are free to have your opinions and disagree
I´d just repeat already mentioned things at this point

f2p in the gaming tag world or w.e. we wanna call that means you can download and play, doesn´t mean you have 100% of everything besides cosmetics
majority of Gacha games, online card games like hearthstone, Master Duel are considered f2p, obv you don´t have all the cards for free, but enough to play a game, this seemingly is a proven model that is very successful

[brave dirge]

is WoW free to play?

you can play up to lv 20

[spring mango]

you can play wow for free, sounds nice

[halcyon sable]

The game is obviously not f2p, its free to try. If you consider t0s and a half assed deck proposal that handicaps players to a certain rank f2p, then that is ur opinion too

"Free-to-play (F2P) refers to video games that give players access to a significant portion of their content without paying or do not require paying to continue playing. These games are perfect for casual gamers who do not want to commit to an expensive game." This is a short explanation of the model. Instead of a significant portion of the game, they get to enjoy the scraps.

[spring mango]

I will refrain from engaging in an opinion based discussion around games monetization and as what do classify what, had many of those in this discord before and it wasn´t useful in any way

again you can dislike the proposal or disagree with the reasons we presented, you can have different definitions, etc. you are free to think and expect what you want, it seems the fast majority sees this as a good idea
It doesn´t seem your opinions will change no matter what anyone would present, so I won´t try to create 100+ messages in this chat for others who wanna catch up with the topic

[halcyon sable]

maybe its opinion based maybe not. to me it doesnt match the f2p model based on how it is described.

🥱

there u go guys ur welcome

[mellow mirage]

While every game (game mode?) in Illuvium is not f2p like league of legends, Fortnite, or hearthstone are f2p, none of them will actually be able to be purchased. At least nothing that is currently being developed.

The appropriate response to the question “Where can I buy the game?” is “You don’t buy the game.”

[halcyon sable]

https://tenor.com/view/alvin-and-the-chipmunks-what-confused-question-mark-gif-10512236

[runic flicker]

Polite request, Please refrain from making statistically incorrect statements .

" it seems the fast majority sees this as a good idea" if 46/ out of "big number" discord --- represent a (I believe you mean) " vast majority " the game is doomed.
" majority of the people who have reacted to this thread" would be more accurate. . But not it is not justifiable to suggest or infer it is a majority in any other way . I have seen this mentioned a couple of times sounds like a "justification" to add more "weight" unjustly

[ebon fulcrum]

real feedback you see when it got implemented and the people play with it.
Most community members don't really care for the DAO and don't read here or in discord in general.

[cold mica]

I’m trying to suggest an alternative model of this proposal and it’s falling on deaf ears. The current rotation system suggested is half-baked.

If we are going to implement the model we should do it right.

The rotation should be ordered by your amount of time spent playing the game.

A simple model would be week 1 Illuvials, week 2 Illuvials and so on. This way we can test multiple decks with new players and find which Illuvials lead to retention early on. We use the best as a control and continue to refine the order.

Your current system may give a new player a deck that new players don’t enjoy and you retention rates will bounce around. As well as other concerns such as saturation of those Illuvials in rotation in the Arena.

Another more complex model would be to monitor the return rate of the player. They need to return each day for x days to unlock the next rotation. So rotations are almost like a reward for returning. This is also good so that an early high retention deck is not missed if the player has their second week off the game.

Speed to market should be less of a priority.

[runic flicker]

Your welcome to your definition but the fact that you can play the to areas for free it can be classified as FTP as you do not need to spend money to explore or interact with the environment.

That does not inherently mean said FTP players are entitled to monetary or rank progression or even a "fulfilling experience" or the game itself loses the FTP designation.

[runic flicker]

So your sayin that justifies the statement in your opinion ?

[ebon fulcrum]

Not at all

But i guess you could argue it is an indicator

[cold mica]

Are the prebuilt decks the consisting of the rotation or are they separate? The proposal reads as they are separate.

[coral zodiac]

Very clearly separate

[wheat wadi]

Appreciate the ideas on this. Gaming council purposely kept out guidelines to be fluid. The reason being they haven't tested pvp yet to give a proper guideline for implementation.

We will most likely get an iccp or at least more info on this provided the proposal gets passed by the imc and after they've throughly play tested.

[cold mica]

Thanks for the response.

[halcyon sable]

what ur describing is a demo version of the game, not f2p

[pulsar wolf]

If people use the free rotational illuvials can they move up the leaderboard and get rewards?

[young radish]

yess

[pulsar wolf]

Well if that's the case, that could be worrisome. I just think its a slippery slope when there is money involved. Im not an autobattler so I dont know if there are any games out there where you pay for your deck or get money rewards for placing on the leaderboard.

But I could see players getting upset if they have a deck they have been playing with and bought/grinded and doing well with and been getting rewards. They know their deck has some huge vulnerabilities but right now they arent worried because the vulnerabilities are cards that are very scarce and when they have the money or gain enough from the rewards they will buy the cards to counter the vulnerabilities. Along comes a rotaion of illuvials and this player gets rekt because now the cards that were vulnerable to him that were scarce, everyplayer can have it. They move down the leaderboard and now get no money. Is that fair to that player?

I know everyone is for getting people to try things. But if you let them gain rewards or move up leaderboards trying out the free stuff its going to get people upset. There is a lot emotion in play when money is on the line. I would caution the council to be very strategic in how they give rewards out when using free stuff.

[young radish]

relying on rotations and being efficient is going to be very difficult. Good luck to be competitive and earn rewards

[pulsar wolf]

I didnt say anything about relying on it. But for the first few months there is going to be very limited supply of rare illuvials. So as the game matures i absolutely agree with you. But in the early days these rotaion cards could have a larger impact then what people think.

[ebon fulcrum]

Not only illuvials, but also augments and Ranger gear...

I guess you have to stick to the preset decks during this time to be competitive

[latent summit]

The only open world game that has more active monthly players than TFT that I am seeing is Minecraft.. and well.. that shouldn't be very surprising ⛏️

I have actually told you this already but there are over 33 million active MONTHLY players for TFT

[brave dirge]

genshin impact

roblox

pokemon go

gta

[latent summit]

Roblox has less monthly players by over 10M+ players (22M) and Genshin has 50M compared to TFT 33M but that's a small difference in the grand scheme of things. You are also comparing a game genre that has decades of history to a genre that is less than 5 years old. "Why not just pick the game with the proven track record?" sure and we will get OW to a state where it is amazing but let's focus on the new genre that has a ton of upside and less competition.

[brave dirge]

genshin is 3 yo

[latent summit]

I even thought it looked wrong when I first saw it so my bad on that but as far as the rest go they are either close to the same or lower in monthly users. Not to mention a saturated market with far less upside compared to a new emerging genre. This is very off-topic so Ill end the conversation there as I am pretty sure you're debating with intent to troll or be a bear at this point. ex. saying genshin is 3 yo when I explicitly said the genre has decades of experience, stating certain games have far more players than TFT without checking the actual stats, etc.

[brave dirge]

i agree with the first part of the proposal. im suggesting the 2nd and 3rd part to be strictly T0 and are not allowed in ranked mode, just like how weekly free rotation works in LoL, and other mobas

[lucid gale]

free rotations and free decks will likely have zero impact on competitive gameplay. The starter decks will be super weak and be there as a free introduction to try out the game. Rotating free Illuvials will give people who are building up their collection a chance to occasionally try out something they don't own yet. This has nothing to do with top competitive gameplay. They are entirely separate (except for potentially extremely early on after release, when very few Illuvials in total are even available, in which case almost everyone is using the free stuff).

[latent summit]

I pretty much approve every aspect of this proposal as it is designed to facilitate the onboarding of web2 users into our ecosystem. My assumption, which to be fair could be incorrect, is that those who disagree with this proposal might not be the "real gamer" types or may be looking at the issue through a web3 lens rather than from a wholistic gaming perspective. We have observed other games that prioritize a web3 audience over gamers, but our goal is to achieve mainstream adoption, and I believe referencing successful web2 games is pertinent since the only difference between web2 and web3 lies in the ability to trade in-game assets.

This concept has already been proven effective in different online card games, and given the relatively high barrier for entry in crypto games, I believe this approach will demonstrate to web2 users that we are a REAL game that happens to have crypto elements. By offering affordable onboarding with decks that may not lead to high ranks but are suitable for learning the game, we can cater to new players and help them become familiar with the gameplay.

It appears that many individuals believe we will see losses with this approach, but, ironically, the opposite is true. To achieve mainstream adoption, we must offer players the opportunity to experience the game fully, and restricting them to weaker decks serves as an ideal method to teach the basics and encourage engagement with the market. Introducing free rotation illuvials allows players with limited funds to occasionally incorporate missing pieces into their decks, making it more likely that they will eventually purchase the actual illuvials.

While my following experience is anecdotal and may not directly correlate, when I initially began playing League of Legends, I utilized the free week character and subsequently purchased it after the rotation's time limit because I wanted to continue honing my skills with that champion. Furthermore, I was exposed to different characters that aligned with my playstyle by trying out multiple champs for free. As a result, I went on to purchase multiple skins for that champion, all due to Riot's implementation of rotating free champions.

In my opinion, this proposal has no downsides except that maybe it could be limited to the unranked or "normal" mode for arena. Other than that very proud of the GSC and those at ILV Labs that helped. Good job guys

[young radish]

jag i will answer for you : go full free2play if u want onboard web2 gamers and Just sell cosmetics

[latent summit]

Where is the evidence that backs up the claim that not doing this would be better? It would be a waste of time to go back and forth on anecdotal evidence.

[brave dirge]

LoL and TFT are F2P
i made a suggestion too that ascendant should be full F2P, all illuvials are free.
while leviathan is the P2E

[spring mango]

the 2nd biggest autobattler HS-Battlegrounds e.g. tried this full cosmetic concept, failed as monetization and they put an 15$ every 4 months pay 2 win into the game

the claim you and others make for f2p is the only way to onboard web2 is baseless and anecdotal period

It is also rather off topic

the proposal betters Illuviums economy and onboarding, it doesn´t change the monetization, this chat has already many duplicate and off topic messages, makes it harder for people to engage into governance, would be better to keep it on topic and try to repeat as little as possible

[ebon fulcrum]

i voted down mostly because the iip isn't very specific and leaves to much room for interpretation.
maybe a little because it looks like it is planned to have the tutorial decks and rotation stuff be available in ranked mode.

i feel like it just got out a month too early

[latent summit]

That is the only point I am worried about as well. Let's consider that these decks are unlikely to carry players beyond the Gold rank, even if they are Illuvium's version of Faker. In such a scenario, it becomes less significant if individuals can utilize free decks in ranked play. Those who opt for this path would likely find themselves stuck in lower ranks, unable to secure rewards effectively. This situation could potentially serve as an incentive for players to invest in a proper deck, thereby enhancing their ability to climb the ranked ladder AND interact with the ILV market.

Regarding the rotating free illuvials, I also support the idea, especially given the weekly rotation. It's doubtful that players would invest money in building a deck solely around a free illuvial. Thus, the impact on the pricing of higher-tier illuvials appears minimal to none, depending on the meta for deck construction. This is one I could be swayed on tho 🤔

[ebon fulcrum]

i guess that's totally dependent on how much dau illuvium will have in the early stage.
i can totally see in the first month leaderboard full of tutorial decks. And then starts slowly decreasing. But if a "faker" of illuvium isn't on the leaderboard anymore with the free deck will take some time i guess.
maybe i'm just missing the point on how bad of a deck one could create...maybe pvp is absolutely totally different and doesn't rely on skill very much, but i doubt that 😄

[spring mango]

I think you underestimate how impactful a better optimized deck in a deckbuilding game is, very unlikely anyone with free rotation + T0 only will be top 100 after a month

[ebon fulcrum]

in a pro's hand for sure... a noob might not even feel a difference

[halcyon sable]

Dunno who this is targeted at, but its wrong on most points.

• no one except jaga wants a pure f2p, rather a fair f2p
• no one said f2p is the only way to onboard web2 players, but the best one
• the point was, the game is marketed as f2p but its far from that, its a demo. if u want to attract web2 players then do it properly without handicapping them or change marketing without f2p

How are any of those off topic? Its literally discussing the OP and why it is or isnt a good idea? You are one to speak against opinion based arguements and yet doing the same thing, hope u realize that.

[spring mango]

in modern gaming, a noob will look at youtube or some website guide telling them what to do on a basic level, making a how to beat the free decks or free rotation+ T0 options will be a thing for sure, easy content

[spring mango]

like I said before I won´t engage in this, you clearly have your own opinions and can have them, trying to jab at me and bait me into some useless discussion won´t work

[ebon fulcrum]

maybe. We will see 🙂

[latent summit]

Isn't this a point made in favor of the proposal tho? 😂

[ebon fulcrum]

like i said, i mostly voted down because to less detailed 🙂

[halcyon sable]

How am i taking jabs, im replying to what u wrote mate. Calling it useless discussion cause u got emotional or cant comprehend it doesnt prove anything

[ebon fulcrum]

and idk... i don't see an advantage implementing it in ranked.

[lucid gale]

this.
many comments here keep suggesting that these free items will impact ranked gameplay. They just won't at any reasonably high level. They're starter kits, not competitive packages.

[latent summit]

Yeah that's fair! I can see your point and definitely respect that ser

[spring mango]

I guess it makes sense, not everyone has played deckbuilding strategy games period and even less on higher levels, I get where the concern comes from.

ILV is a no draw rng deckbuilding game, so a difference in power level of your decks will be rather relevant and obv
matchups in games like HS/MTG/Yugioh etc. being 60-40 at most usually due to draw rng, this isn´t the case here so someone having free rotation+NFTs to fill the deck out will be a lot stronger

obv skill is relevant, but big part of the skill in a deckbuilding game is simply the deck you build as well if you want to fight for high ranks

[pulsar wolf]

All I care about is that people that put no money into the game cant be taking money out of the game. (Perhaps an occasional free tourney here and there for ftp players, once things get more stable).

I am not a strategy deckbuilder gamer. I am a web3 gamer though. I have seen a lot of economies fail. I liked the tokenomics and kieran always saying the only way you are going to get to play with an illuvial in arena is getting it off someone or playing OW. but when I start hearing giving free things to ftp players and with those free things they can win rewards. It makes me extremely nervous.

Anyways I have said my piece and in the end we all want Illuvium to be successful!

[noble spruce]

lol how are you gonna take money out without putting any in?

imagine you buy need for speed 5 or whatever and you get a fiat panda as your starting car, racing against paganis and bugattis, are you ever gonna win even if youre skilled?

[modern pagoda]

Clearly you haven't seen me play racing games 😉

I do like the idea behind the entry levels decks and rotation- it provides less barier to entry, without affecting the economy and competitive nature of the game

[spring mango]

Your worry is more about the reward structure of the ladder than about this proposal

I also don´t want an unsustainable reward structure, I do not believe ILV will have anything like that

[pulsar wolf]

Exactly that is my biggest concern! Especially for the intial 1-2 months.

Also with agree Dr Spoon that it should be only in unranked.

For me I really liked the idea of only playing people that had skin in the game that there was a barrier for entry. For me that is what crypto gaming is all about. It costs money for ownership and to play the game but it is 10x better experience overall than web2 gaming. So this proposal takes that ideology away for me of how I envisioned Illuvium to be. So im not as excited for arena as I once was. But I know im the minority here. So if I dont like arena i will just tend to my lands and play OW. Haha

Thanks for listening. Done talking about this topic.

[tacit oasis]

Regarding game rewards, Pelican said that ILV rewards can be added from DAO Revdis, not just 1 million.
This means that as long as illuvium is successful, there are unlimited game rewards.
illuvium doesn't have enough runways so they need to get users faster and I think game rewards can be that tool.
TFT has 30m users, some of whom are Web3 users, and even if 95% of them are not interested, 5% of them are enough.
The first promotion is very important to get users, and if you fail here, it will take even longer to get users.

You're right, many games companies have failed, and Illuvium is in that position at the moment.
It's because of their runways.
There is no reason to have an ILV, especially if ILV staker cannot expect Revdis after July 2024.
SLP have no reason to have any, SLP also have liquidity problems

My suggestion is to offer x2 promotional gaming rewards for the first year.
People are very fond of words like discount and promotion.
Do you have any ideas about this?

[rich token]

i believe there is 2 modes, one mode is fixed decks, the other is open ascension where you bring in any deck you desire

[coral zodiac]

Same mode

[bronze gale]

Was gonna say that's how I read it. One ranked mode and for people that wanna demo the PvP we are introducing prebuilt deck.

[runic flicker]

If you want to use that definition you can.

FTP in reality pay no money to interact within the environment you are playing for free...hence FTP.

[rich token]

thought there was Arena, and then Ascension?

[bronze gale]

Leviathan and Ascension

[vivid salmon]

Intro decks and rotations are going to cause nightmares for whomever has to maintain balance given that the plan is for Illuvials to have variable stats.

[ebon fulcrum]

Can you elaborate? Don't See the Problem 🙃

[vivid salmon]

Without knowing how the stat structure is going to be it is harder to explain exactly, but what power level are you going to expect from intro Illuvials compared to those caught in the wild.

[young radish]

on ascendant mod, there is no stats

[vivid salmon]

Also how placement in pvp is going to play out will definitely have an impact here also. Whether you can see how your opponent is going to deploy will have a large impact on what stats you're going to want your Illuvials to have also

[young radish]

no stat on ascendant mod bro

[vivid salmon]

That seems incredibly pointless and detrimental but ill retract my previous inputs then

[bronze gale]

You just listed reasons it would be a nightmare....

[vivid salmon]

Let me clarify, having a mode where stats are not a thing is pointless and detrimental if that is intended to be an intro to leviathan and ranked

[bronze gale]

Levithan isn't going to have the prebuilt decks and will use the stats.

[vivid salmon]

Exactly, so it will play completely differently to how Ascendant will introduce people to the gameplay

[bronze gale]

Levithan is the unranked flex side of PvP. Ascendant is the ranked competitive PvP. They aren't meant to be the same.

[ebon fulcrum]

Leviathan should be ranked, right?

[vivid salmon]

If there is no interoperability between OW and ranked Arena I think a lot of people are going to find that Arena and ranked is going to lack a lot of staying power

[ebon fulcrum]

Like leviathan is with stats and ranked, for all who wana Deep Dive into illuvium.
Ascendant was meant to be for esports

[bronze gale]

It was supposed to be the betting side but probably gonna scratch that because of possible legal concerns.

[ebon fulcrum]

Both will have different playmodes according to ben

[vivid salmon]

That's a lot of play modes for a playerbase that already has 3 games to interact with - but thats for another topic. I can see how having a rotating base deck would be beneficial in the presented Ascendant ruleset though, I do think that is a good idea if that is a game mode they choose to release

[latent summit]

Can you clarify what you mean by this?

[vivid salmon]

I'll expand on my thought there but I'm going to limit it to this since it isn't relevant to this feedback thread. I also don't feel like my input on an Ascendant mode (if it is truly an un-statted Illuvial arena) is worth as much as I don't see the point in such a mode in it's current planned state - expanded below (I admittedly don't see somewhere to discuss the merits of Ascendant specifically otherwise though). My feelings here are based on my understanding of OW/Arena interactions; if I am misunderstanding a system, that may change my thoughts.

Who is the target audience for Ascendant mode? I'm struggling to think of what drive those playing Ascendant will have to interact with the OW outside of needing to unlock specific Illuvials for use in the mode. To that aspect, Ascendant feels like it is something that should be tied to an Illuvitar collection, not an OW one.

Taking away a major proponent of OW - Illuvials having varied Stats - and having a second arena mode based on that is simply splitting the playerbase and giving them a reason to avoid the economy that will form around the three games. Not to mention that this gameplay mode will be different than how Leviathan would play (any serious ladder player will use Illuvials that are focus-statted towards their intended Arena use) and that using Ascendant to plan for a Leviathan collection will only give you a fractured sense of how the team will actually play. Class and elemental bonuses will only compound that skewed vision.

Without Ascendant, Illuvials that roll poor stats would simply become fodder (or have non-ranked testing use) for those with good stats in evolution; allowing a section of an Illuvials capture population to exist only for use in a mode where their stats don't matter seems counter-productive to having a soft-limit population in the first place and is just going to cause bloat once dead wallets start to cause value inflation on a certain Illuvial pop.

[coral zodiac]

Ascendant Arena is the game. Everything else is secondary

[runic flicker]

In your opinion.

you seem to have quite a few thoughts that you in your own reality think are fact.

IMO PVP /pro players/ esports etc are the piece of bread beside the main course (overworld) and leviathan will bring in more money for the stakers as the real top players will want what ever is meta . Any way Congrats you are the first person on a council I have ever blocked as i don't feel you have the best interests of the game itself but instead pushing a personal objective to make somthing only Pro player and people who have that mindset are happy with. (top small % of what will be total player statistic)

i may unblock you so i can continue to dispute you but that is a decision for later.

Continue to get #1 in survival if you feel that is validating .

I also hope it stays as previously discussed No monetary prizes for survival or ascended Only payout should be in official tournaments which again probably just act as the " pro player pay check" the way the autobattler is configured atm

anyways .

I hope others can see though your inferred statements of fact an realize they are just opinion ,

[mild zealot]

I think this is a good proposal and I voted in favour because I believe this revision strikes the right balance in terms of further opening up to new players while still preserving the game economy.

Obviously, the devil is in the detail but I trust the team to do a good job later in terms of balancing the starting decks and of the number of illuvials/items in rotation. Experience for newcomers should be nice enough to retain a good % while still keeping an incentive to acquiring illuvials.

I disagree with some views that the proposed structure would diminish the interest for OW: Whoever likes that game mode / lore component could start their experience in OW capturing illuvials first.

This revision only gives the option to those only interested in arena to directly start there. If they love the game, they would either:

a. want to keep playing for free and then go to OW to capture enough T0's that they can combine with the rotating illuvials to enjoy deck building (maybe some will end up enjoying OW); and/or

b. want to rank up and build more deck variations => go to OW (paid run) and/or marketplace to get those T1 to T5 illuvials

In any case, ppl will do OW then arena or vice-versa, we're just increasing the number of ways in which we attract a new player. A win-win in my book!

[latent summit]

Players will engage in Ascendant mode for fun (because it's a video game), and it's worth noting that Teamfight Tactics, the current largest auto battler game, boasts an impressive 33 MILLION active monthly users who play for nothing but fun. However, the true potential for substantial revenue lies in the Leviathan mode, attracting whales and significant financial stakes. It is essential not to underestimate the value of holos, dark holos, tier 5, and stage 3 illuvials, which could potentially fetch considerable prices, especially when considering royalties for the DAO. Moreover, the immense profitability of gaming lies in the sale of skins, with TFT players spending vast sums on non-NFT skins in the millions and millions. When envisioning the possibilities with NFT skins and the added revenue from royalties, the potential for generating lots of money seems inevitable nfa.

[vivid salmon]

Without knowing the extent that F2P will be able to exist in OW (and the variables that still exist across all ILV games), it's difficult as a non-council member to continue this discussion, as much as I'd like to. Also don't want to derail this thread. I'll leave it as: I can only hope that Ascendant mode will be able to sustain the level of interest that is opposite of what I think it will (compared to Leviathan).

I support the pre-built deck and free rotation, but feel that both will fall too short in the power intended without infringing on OW.

[lucid gale]

The power intended is extremely low. Hard to fall short of nothing.

[vivid salmon]

In that case, what is going to drive a f2p player to continue playing Ascendant if OW also has limited options for that player to increase their deck power? That's where I'm failing to see the TFT comparisons.

[lucid gale]

The game is not "completely" f2p. It's free to start and play with a subset of the possible assets. There is a cost (undetermined exactly how much) to obtain higher tier assets. TFT is a mainstream autobattler that has the closest comparisons to Illuvium right now, though it is by no means the same game.

To the question of "continuing playing Ascendant": Ascendant is the main competitive game mode. As in other strategy games, obtaining or building a deck/collection/etc is only the first piece of the puzzle. The main drive to continue playing long term is about developing skill, building game knowledge, studying and adapting to changing metas, competing in ladders/tournaments, or even just playing the game for fun.

[humble vale]

A bit of topic but imo super important: How far are you in terms of adding payment options like PayPal, CC and stuff like that?