Delay Arena Leaderboard Rewards

[tired temple]

The actual game state makes it pretty obvious that it's not close from ready for such a financial incentive unless we really wanna throw money out the window that badly.

Here's what i suggest should be done before we add Leaderboard rewards:

• Fix game breaking bugs like the 0s freeze or the Mastery Points bug.
• Have a game with a solid balance state for at least 2 weeks consecutive.
• ** Make the game skill based first!!**
• Have better DAU stats, 1800-ish being the cut for top100 considering all the alts up there is really lame.

As of now matchups matter way more than actual game knowledge or understanding or even mind-games. So for all these reasons, i would delay the Leaderboards rewards until we have a game worth grinding and not just: oh good matchup, cool i win or oh wrong matchup -> forfeit.

Because believe it or not, that's all this game is right now. Unless your opponent plays completely wrong you won't win a negative matchup, or maybe you will somehow with some fight RNG who knows, but very unlikely.

Now, i know. This proposal is the opposite of what we do usually as it aims to do what's right rather than ask for extractable value, but i have good hope our DAO will make the right choice on this one.

Your choice, do you want value to extract? Or do you want our project to stand out as the only one in the entire Web3 who values what Esports means and what it implies?

[tame minnow]

No issue with the odd tournament rn to build hype/onboard new players. Rewards however should be delayed until open beta imo.

[wispy pond]

• got the 0s bug multiple time, loosing rank for nothing
• got the mastery bug so many times, same
• starting at 1500 elo is an issue, I can’t crack it back lol
• no picking from a deck make things 1/0, win/lose, I find it boring and only way to go up is to play THE s-tiers deck. The “good matchup, I win, bad matchup, forfeit” is a great way to put it. I suppose make things to easy to climb the ladder.
• rewarding half of the player base, ahahah, I mean go full retard ponzi
• rewarding players without revenues stream? What is the strategy there? … nop
• rewarding players without a proper release date, nop
• I’m not good enough and educated enough on the game to talk about balancing, I’d trust the pro rather than the community or the team
• alts and no solution is a joke, I mean I laugh hard seeing viper with Alta in the top and with the same names, I don’t wanna know how many other have hidden alts lol

Bonus: why the hell after 2 years and a half delay we don’t have a proper AAA-level players documentation? I still understand only 10% of what I’m reading on those augment and no way to know easily. Won’t onboard people by making their adoption more complicate.

[pliant ridge]

💯

[boreal solstice]

I mean I don't disagree but some of this doesn't make sense to me. Leaderboard rewards will pump up the DAU very quickly so I don't think it should massively dictate this. I am not convinced a solid balance state really 'exists' not in the games current form but I still agree with having it feel more balanced than it does now.

But yes we need to fix the contest of skill that is not greatly happening rn, we could delete indom augment and the bird and we r done I think 😛

[tired temple]

i think this kind of "marketing" like: "oh DAU is low let's just attract more snakes willing to extract value" is just wrong.
I know we are all about organic marketing and empowering back the gamers, but i think there is a right time for that and now it isn't.

Now we should be focusing on building a great game that people are willing to grind for FUN and FLEX. That's why gamers usually climb leaderboards. If we can't get them to play our game when it's free without giving away money how will we do when getting the illuvials costs $$$?

Not to mention, i think the community tournaments and the incoming Team Liquid x Illuvium are enough financial incentive for one to be willing to play ranked and become good at the game

[boreal solstice]

I mean there's always an end result in every game. Currently striving for number 1 is great but in most competitive arenas you are grinding for challenger, or to win large tournaments and prize pools etc. Obviously many games are fun enough for that to not be completely necessary but right now Illuvium is not quite there, whether it be difficulty to onboard or repetitiveness of the opponents on the ladder. Nothing wrong with stimulating that, but I think its all connected, a better game leads to more DAU, but we have no way to increase marketing rn so I am not sure thats possible at all

[boreal solstice]

But yeah the tournaments overall will help a great deal, but unless we can make it easier for people to learn how to play the issue wont magically resolve itself

Either way I am not disagreeing with you, just think you r being a tad strict, as long as the game feels fun I think it's not too crazy, but this does depend on quantities and things like that for rewards. No harm in starting slow

[tired temple]

I mean you kinda said it. We need to focus on improving the game first. That's the one and only priority right now. Otherwise we'll lose on both acquisition and retention.

[boreal solstice]

Agreed

[upper sky]

I agree with this idea.
I don't know if minor balancing will dramatically increase the number of users.
I think we need multiple languages.
Japan, Korea and China have huge gaming markets, but we are not in the habit of playing games in English.
You will not get users from these countries if you think, "It's easy English, so I can understand it, right? You can't get users from these countries, they won't even download it!
You can see how much access we get from these countries now.
I don't think it has increased at all as far as the Japanese discord is concerned.
I know it's a resource issue, but if the number of users hasn't increased until OB, I think we need to consider multiple languages.

If you want to increase the number of users slightly

1. Create a login point
2. NFT distributed according to the number of plays
3. Create a spectator mode

[wide warren]

thanks for the feedback, zep.
i see two approaches in establishing esports:

1. Organic growth.
   prize pool grows in parallel with the DAU. It is more cost efficient, we will have stronger playerbase. Cons, it will take much more time, runway is limited and we will have more competition in 2024.

2. Paid growth.
   Huge incentive and prize pool. High cost, extractor playerbase, fast growth. May attract more web3 and hopefully web2. With limited runway, this is the degens way, hoping the game will get adoption before ingame prize runs out.

We do need to see the epic store data for week 2 and week 3

I can suggest a printscreen from epic store while we are waiting for the visualisation

[tired temple]

Ok you're missing the point though. The point is that both of these points will fail if we don't make a GOOD and competitive game first. And Illuvium Arena has still a long way to go before we reach that state so we are suggesting getting it closer from good and competitive before we throw in money. That should give the short term results of your second option, in a more cost efficient way and provide the strong playerbase we need for long term success.

[wide warren]

The first point mentioned DAU. If the game is not "good" as you have said, the DAU will show.

Retention will keep declining. Maybe it's a good idea to approach this based on data, not subjectivity.

So far the incentive is minimum.
48-hour GA, 100 ILV
Christmas, free emotes

[tired temple]

Anyone who plays the game knows DAU is trash. And anyone who's been in the ecosystem for long enough also knows that if DAU was any close from good, Kieran would be bragging about it everyday on X.

[wide warren]

We are planning to launch in 3-6 months. Many web3 games are heavily incentizing their players. For context, Shrapnel has $3m prize pool and it's a shooter. How long do we need to wait for the game to be "good"?

I understand people have expectation, but this is web3. Web3 gamers go where the money flows.

I do understand you argument, I share the same feeling. Without adoption, we are giving prizes to the same people.

Can we afford to wait for the game to be "good" and losing more market share?

[tired temple]

well... 100ILV in 48h is not really what i'd call "minimum", but that's not the point. I have no issues with what has been made so far to try to incentivize people to play the Arena.

Yet it had very poor retention and here's how to prove it:

• We know that 1st week we got 23k downloads
• Yet only 1.7k are above the starting rank
• and not even half of the 23k plaied at least 1 game of Ranked.

[wide warren]

I am one of those who stopped playing, just one casual match. Don't you think we will retain more people with incentive? We can't lose them to other games, can we

[tired temple]

We will lose it anyways if we don't prioritize improving the game first.

[tired temple]

no, you will attract a lot of snakes for sure, but we already have plenty of those and these are not the people that will farm Overworld for fun and bring us Revdis so we dont care about them. We don't need them!

having a best DAU for a couple months just for the flex won't bring us anywhere.

[wide warren]

@sonic monolith can you share the epic store stats for week 2 and week 3? And can you share if the team is addressing the points that zeptyle listed? Thanks

[tired temple]

improve the game, get it in good shape, then put money incentive if they want to, idc. i'm just saying right now it's a loss-loss scenario we're heading to.

[wide warren]

I'm sorry but have seen how web2 reacted to a NFT game during TL streams. We gotta settle for the extractors for awhile

[tired temple]

well the only one i watched was broxah who had 6k viewers until he starts Illuvium and then lost around 3.5k in the next 45mins.
that's still more than 30% of his Web2 who doesn't care of it being crypto or not and just goes for good or bad game.

Isn't that good enough? where we really expecting any better?

[wide warren]

Are they playing tho?

Improvements are underway and it's gonna take time. What if we see the leaderboard incentive and you suggest to lower it until we are satisfied with the state of the game

[tired temple]

why are you so eager to attract snakes?

[wide warren]

because they gonna be paying the bills

[wispy pond]

You'll push new revenues streams with the rewards ?

[wide warren]

and mint our jpegs

[tired temple]

will they though? how many of those do you think will stay once they have to pay for the NFTs? All you gonna have is 50k people desperate for money, coming extract this FREE MONEY, and leave at the second open beta kicks in!!

[wide warren]

Building customers takes time, it's probably good to start before OB

[tired temple]

it takes a good product first no?

[wide warren]

maybe works in web2, but in web3 we just care about the money

[jovial fiber]

Is the consensus that no one~ is currently playing the game for fun?

[wispy pond]

I am, but I'm geting smashed lol

[tired temple]

you maybe. but thank you for clarifying that you are not the target audience but part of the ones we wanna get rid off for the game's success 🙂

[wide warren]

read kieran's tweet

it's the reality

[tired temple]

his salt is legitimate. i'd be pissed too if i was trying to build something good and my project was full of "gimme money pls"

[wide warren]

well unless you are spending $6m/month in this game, you argument is not valid for dissing the extractors

[jovial fiber]

If the target market is financially motivated crypto bros then the game and the rewards need to be way more randomised.
Clear logic and skill based match making are not the crypto bros forte

[wide warren]

that's the issue. we need a simpler game mode for degens who can't read good

[tired temple]

nah most people who upvoted actually do enjoy playing it for fun. We just think it's not competitive enough yet for money to be put on the table as leaderboard rewards.

Tournaments are another topic as they can have rules that consider inbalances and bugs. but Ladder is just the far west anything goes.

Not even mentionning that the current state of the game is fully bot-able.
Tell the bot what to play each round, it does it for you, free rewards

[wide warren]

the official view from team (nick), alts are allowed but discouraged

[jovial fiber]

Sounds like feedback for the game sub committee. Because that ain't the way it feels ATM

[tired temple]

that doesn't exist anymore. now we have 4 warwick pawns + scrub in a main council and 5 community council members who just help the community doing their proposals, educate them on governance and vet on some proposals before they even get to main council.

[hazy geyser]

I doubt anyone on that sub committee has ever played autochess

I agree with both Jag and Zeptyle here.
The games not good enough right now and the numbers show that.
But we do need to start building a playerbase and leaderboard rewards is a form of marketing that might get us some players

[jovial fiber]

I agree with @hazy geyser agreeing with both Zep and Jag. 🙂

[wide warren]

I agree with Dozer agreeing with SJUD agreeing both Zep and Jag

@tired temple we have $140k tournament already committed, what do you say about that?

[jovial fiber]

I'd look at it as a player acquisition strategy. How many new players do we think we would generate by spending $140k.
I get the feeling it will not be a favourable investment when all is said and done. It's those staking incentive pools all over again..

[urban oriole]

Agree delay rewards until bugs are fixed.

Disagree that the game isnt in a balanced state. It is very balanced atm. However, with no RNG and only a 1v1, it will always feel like you cant win matchups and something is too OP.

Eg I bet everyone here wont agree on the best build atm that doesn't have a counter.

Solution? I think there needs to be some consideration to adding either RNG or a 4 player game format like TFT.

[tired temple]

we also dont have any date for the TL x Illuvium tournament, we can't speculate what the game state will be by then. all we know is 2024.

[wide warren]

TL deal is only for 6 months

[tired temple]

and with 1 patch every week approximately, that's 24 iterations max before the tournament. who knows what the game will look like by then

[tame minnow]

This easiest win for getting illuvium into a more competitive state would be getting the rest of the illuvials in PvP before offering rewards.

[balmy thunder]

At least remove all the created alts, how many are left and fully agree, fix the game first and make it more fun.

[wide warren]

25 upvotes
im suggesting zep to provide specific criteria to be met before we start leaderboard incentive

[fringe saddle]

Didn't that change?

[raven steppe]

I may be wrong here yet my understanding is shrapnels prize pool, isn't happening for some time.
Plus the pool afaik is shrap tokens.

[wide warren]

our ingame rewards is in token

[raven steppe]

Which are like 30cnts or something

Different system. The token heavily tied into the game currency.

@tired temple although I don't agree with some of your wording, I believe this has merit to be discussed or at least the point you made given clarification by the team.
I get where @boreal solstice is coming from too.
Maybe it's just a rolling theme that's hard to unwind when rewards start rolling out in other places.

[wide warren]

not sure why this is relevant, but their FDV is higher than ILV

[wide warren]

why do you think people who wins ingame prizes care about token utility

[raven steppe]

Because you're comparing a token that's used very differently. It's unlikely the token will move up more than $1

[raven steppe]

What does ILV have in utility for the game? Am I missing something here.

[hazy geyser]

Why does that matter? Money is money

[raven steppe]

I'm not talking about utility.

[wide warren]

why does hitting $1 matter? they have 3b supply, look at the FDV fully diluted market cap
and yea they are cashing it for stables

[raven steppe]

I just cashed mine. Free from having nfts.

I think I'm not explaining myself.
This post is about halting rewards?
The rewards are in ilv.
You mentioned shrapnel are doing it. I imagine as a way to say it's fine.
Yet it's different
Although I guess a reward could be .0001 ILV

[hazy geyser]

How is it different?

[raven steppe]

To mind the difference is the value in the token.
Also ILV isn't used in game. Unless I'm mistaken

[wide warren]

we dont even know how much is the incentive
for comparison, beyond leaderboard is 12 ILV per week

[raven steppe]

Shrapnel are massively funded.
ILV is not.

[wide warren]

people gonna see the value is USD

[hazy geyser]

What the token does doesn't matter at all. It's just money

[raven steppe]

A lot more than 12 shrap...

[hazy geyser]

Ilv has 100 million dollars for rewards

[wide warren]

the $3m is for a season

[raven steppe]

That's not the point. My point is the comparison isn't fair.
I give up.
I think it's worth talking about.
Do we start giving them all out now or later.

[hazy geyser]

The comparison is perfectly fair

[raven steppe]

How

The 100 mil is counted for I get that. Yet is it a slippery slope.
Maybe the overworld can get rewards too.
I acually didn't think much of it. Because I thought it was good marketing. Yet the points raised have me questioning.

[hazy geyser]

The only reason we'd give rewards to Overworld is if we went full blown P2E

[raven steppe]

When the Beata drops in Q1?

Totally off topic yet a friend of mine was flown to see them and play in the latest live event.

[boreal solstice]

Its certainly harder since Beyond has active rewards. It does feel a tad salty when other components of the universe dont get their own rewards. Certainly stacks on the pressure

[boreal solstice]

The overworld cannot since its still under beta key. Since not everyone has access it is relatively unfair. Also I'd rather reserve the hype for it for Open Beta.

I fear Illuvium Zero faces similar issues except anyone can buy land if they want so it technically is an even playing field

[wide warren]

The incentive to play OW = sell illuvials for ETH

[raven steppe]

Personally I was fine with beyond getting rewards. They are given to some of the biggest holders and it was important to acknowledge them.
I also don't think rewards for playing betas even open ones are mandatory and really ought to be dependent on the health of the whole project.

Yet I'm also okay with them if it gets more people playing as there are other markers and goals I'm guessing need to meet.

[hazy geyser]

Well we have found out that not a lot of people want to play our game without rewards. So something has to be done

[raven steppe]

You can't yet though?

[raven steppe]

Yeah. I'm thinking the whole system together will change that.

Anyways I don't think I can contribute anything else of value.

[pliant ridge]

why would we wanna fake boost with rewards? Shouldnt be making the game more competitive, interesting and fun the highest priority

[hazy geyser]

Yes that should be the priority. We are also running out of time to build a playerbase though

[pliant ridge]

im not against rewards i just raise my voice agsinst the current state of the game here

[tame minnow]

Paying people to play a game via rewards is an option. It's just a bad option if our intention is to create a good game.

Have we learnt nothing from Axie 😅

[hazy geyser]

Having an option is better than having 0 options

[tame minnow]

We first need to work out why nobody outside of the hardcore fans are playing frequently.

As someone that enjoys PvP I find it difficult to answer that question. Too steep a learning curve for new players maybe. Or is it the crypto tag that is just too toxic for web2 to even try 🤷‍♂️. Something isn't working that's for sure

[hazy geyser]

I think it needs to be broken down into 2 segments

Why are people not downloading and playing our game?

Why are people who are players not playing a lot?

[wide warren]

our 1m token ingame rewards is there since inception. it's baked in our whitepaper. no matter how you see it, playing ILV is going to be incentived

[wide warren]

imo the game is too niche

[tame minnow]

Oh I don't know, I think there's plenty autobattler players out there to bring over to illuvium. It's just a matter of working out how to do it.

I've not played this genre for very long but I get the impression converting a player of one autobattler to another is extremely difficult. Think of all the hours required to acquire the deep knowledge and understanding of a game like TFT. To ask a player to give that all up and join illuvium is quite a challenge.

It's not that the genre is too niche. It's that those who play in it are extremely loyal to their IP of choice and are reluctant to change imo.

[agile ermine]

1. It's not currently connected to the other 2 games and there's no ownership.

2. See point 1.

It's basically 'practice' mode with all level 100 pokemon without ever having to play through the adventure of catching, collecting, leveling up. Pokemon woulda fell flst on its face if it only released pvp and everyone gets every pokemon at level 100 to choose from. Gotta create that emotional connection for long lasting players because emotional connection = nostalgia later on. The focus is on the wrong game. OW will provide long term demand. Arena is important for creating a fun way to use what I collected and to satisfy pvp players but the majority of ppl want to have fun collecting and more importantly level up and "progress" towards a goal.

[tame minnow]

Great point

[hazy geyser]

OW is the supply and Arena is the demand.
Why are people going to spend 100s of dollars for the OW? Have you played it before?

[wide warren]

every web3 gaming need competition, play to earn

[agile ermine]

Maybe in your eyes. For me, a casual gamer with a full time job, and family that doesn't have time to keep up with the meta but is more than willing to spend money to have fun collecting at my own pace I would argue that Demand is Fun/entertainment and supply is all 3 of the games. Your focus is too narrow and not on the full experience. Kieran had a great X thread about a day in Illuvium. That's what will create a "cultural phenomenon"

To answer your question, yes I've played OW and no I wouldn't spend $100s for a run and thats why it needs improvements. But I would spend 100s on illuvials that I wasn't able to catch on my own for the sake of collecting IF the collecting experience is fun and memorable. Not everyone wants to solely play pvp. It's massively important yes, but not the primary driver for many long term players.

Why do ppl keep buying pokemon games? Because they're hooked on the adventure and allure to starting from scratch collecting new mons and grinding a team to beat a new pokemon league. It's emotional attachment.

[agile ermine]

Agree to both. But why does arena have the be the only source of "earn"

[hazy geyser]

Because the Overworld is a no skill pack opening
Providing the earning portion to that is basically just using the game as a P2E (which is fine if thats what people want)

[wide warren]

people buy pokemon because it's pokemon

[hazy geyser]

This.

Also pokemon has a story and bosses to beat.
We have that too. It's called the Arena.

[agile ermine]

The "pack opening" analogys is so overused and just wrong. OW is a GAME an adventure, battle, capture, collecting GAME. With your logic then Pokemon red/yellow/blue is just a massive pack opening. Life is just a massive pack opening. OW is a game in thr IBC and should be acknowledged as such.

[agile ermine]

Exactly. Shouldn't that be the goal for Illuvium? The points I'm making are my observations as to how pokemon created the infinite demand for its IP

[agile ermine]

What Boss is there to best in Arena currently? Another human? Thats not the same as beating a boss in a story mode

[hazy geyser]

The founders themselves have called it a pack opening because that is what it is.
You open the pack in order to build a deck in the Arena. Sorry if you don't understand it but thats what it is.

Nobody is going to spend a ton of money on the OW when they can spend that same money on fully fleshed out AAA games.

[agile ermine]

Yea thats what they said like 2.5 years ago. We've evolved since then. OW was never supposed to get the focus that it currently is. I.e. illuvials were never planned to be roaming on OW but that's the goal now. Sorry if you aren't able to adapt.

[hazy geyser]

Roaming Illuvials is what you are going with? LOL
You do understand what that means right?

[agile ermine]

Why can't overworld be a dully fleshed out AAA game?

[hazy geyser]

Because that takes time and money. Something we dont have.

[agile ermine]

The point I'm making is the project is growing and changing. Things that were said 3 years ago may be limited in scope today

Ok well your issue with the player numbers will not be permanently fixed by throwing prize money at an limited release game. The data isn't credible for use with projecting the player base until the fully released IBC set of games are released and connected. I was just answering your question with a different view point and you got real defensive. Just wanted to add perspective.

[hazy geyser]

Where did I say that the player numbers would be permanently fixed?

[agile ermine]

You were expressing concern over the low numbers and discussing how to get the player numbers up. I didn't accuse you of saying you wanted a permanent solution. I was stating I don't think adding prizes now will keep players around until the full IBC experience is unlocked. Ppl will play for the period the reward is active and then quit until they can own their assets. I'm not attacking you or your opinions. Again, just want to add a different perspective.

[hazy geyser]

Well I believe you are actually proving my point there. Some amount of people will play for the rewards.
These leaderboard rewards would be permanent
How many players that ends up being? No idea.

[wide warren]

until we do another d1sk sale, should we delay beyond leaderboard incentive too?

[agile ermine]

Personally not a fan of beyond because that's what a true pack opening is to me and I don't have any connection to the cards.

I may be wrong but isn't beyond basically fully implemented? Like in its end state. Not intended to be connected to the IBC past profile pictures? (Ik there was mention of maybe making it a more in depth game years down the road but that's not confirmed).

So since its in its final state then idk why you couldn't treat rewards as such too. I think the idea behind delaying rewards for Arena is that it's not in its final state in regards to connection with the other 2 games so the money isn't well spent. Bigger bang for your buck if you can draw players in when we are ready to keep them around long term with all 3 games connected.

[hearty ibex]

I think it would be fine to do expermentation around the edges with a leaderboard, but we definitely need boards that reset rather frequently then. Monthly rewards for the top 500 players, including non ILV prizes for the bottom tier like illuvitar packs instead of straight ILV. We do need to start learning about what works best here, so not doing it until its 100% ready I don't agree with but agree with the sentiment that we need to be careful not burn funds into an unfinished product

[silver junco]

Some business will pay for Ads on social media and create flux on their product generating more sells. Giving away is the same thing as marketing.
I remember Axie infinity being a shell of our product and still having almost a monopoly in Web 3 .i want the product to be viable long term . But there is another gear Web 3 is reacting to and its pure degen game with $$$ . Knowing we are soon to be in Halving season it could be good touching a bit more with the web 3 degen . I think we have credibility . The game looks good. More complex than tft . Just not as fun yet for some stuff that needs improvement but as a tft player this is not so far off from beating it. Adding monetization would propulse us in web 3 . I know i can get alot of web 2 player to go to ILV from TFT if we start making money tomorrow

[silver junco]

What about giving Disk Plate or free land or ETH instead of ILV token in leader board. That could reduce dump problem like AXS had and the incentive would still create momentum

[raven steppe]

Because for shrapnel, the token is how you purchase everything, make skins, vote on maps. I think fair was the wrong word. Maybe a tad misleading.

The comparison, to me, is you are rewarded token for playing and it can be used in governance.

Shrapnel isn't and hasn't been available to play beyond live events and few select people.

I've seen how rewards and season rewards work in other web3 games.
Usually once it's over player numbers/hours drop.
Maybe a few are retained each time.
Yet to me it creates a cycle like sales. People generally wait now to purchase.
Maybe that's okay, yet it's becoming a non sustainable marketing tool.
I agree with the premise that emotional connection is missing for a lot of players.

[copper moss]

The ranking system is designed to cuck you if you aren’t winning every match. So not surprising people are below starting rank

[copper moss]

Where we getting the money to throw away on eth rewards instead of ilv tokens? I wish the game was seemingly more balanced rn however regardless of that since we don’t have paid advertisements like shrapnel since we have no money left we gotta use investor funds to draw players in it seems.

[shadow lintel]

Proper tutorials need to be a prereq to leaderboard rewards. Everything we see is data that we need to incorporate into decisions.

The "web 2" reception to the TL streams told us a lot.

1. Illuvium is a complex game. A player doesn't just sit down and figure out all the keywords and terminology. Even some of the advanced players who tried Illuvium had no idea what they were doing. Games like Hearthstone have similar amounts of terminology, and they have built-in means of learning about the functionality of those terms. We don't necessarily need to do the same, but we do need something more descriptive than currently exists.

2. Web 2 players are still having a gut reaction to any game where crypto is involved in any way. Illuvium isn't even hooked up to the blockchain yet, and the response we saw to the TL streams is that mainstream gamers aren't interested in giving any blockchain game the time of day. This isn't fundamentally an issue with game quality, because mainstream players aren't even going to install the game on principle.

So yes, the game does need to be better, in terms of balance, competition and onboarding, but we also need to update our thinking as we're moving forward. Our long term target is absolutely gamers, but it's looking more likely that we're going to want to target Web 3 players FIRST, and target mainstream gamers later.

One of the best ways to target web 3 players is leaderboard rewards.

Often, conversations around rewards make some pretty wild assumptions about how much incentive could exist. Looking at extreme cases isn't necessarily bad, but it's rarely accurate. Testing a limited rewards program could be fairly valuable as we're moving forward. Agreed that it won't drive value to the DAO if it were implemented tomorrow, but if we're talking over the coming months, I'm not sure I agree. It will also let us see any issues with a possible implementation, and rectify them. Building systems for long term use and testing them has value.

These 3 points are somewhat in conflict with each other:

1. Have better DAU stats.
2. Web 3 players will likely be our first market to target.
3. Don't provide incentives.

This is just one pawn's opinion though. I do appreciate the constructive dialogue that has happened here.

[raven steppe]

Aiming for web3 first makes sense
Testing and refining the system before OB seems perfectly reasonable.
I'd definitely be on the side of continuous rewards.
On a semi unrelated note. I absolutely agree the TL responses were a great source of info.
I also noted there were a few choice responses by Aaron, Kieran and Nick ( main people I saw) that swayed opinions.
I also saw it as positive that some people were willing to try it out purely from watching the game.
I 100 percent feel even the hardcore never going to play a crypto type game, may start to be curious over time.
On a side note I have never thought aiming straight to web2 was going gain the results expected. So I see where it's coming from.
Will the leader board in the overworld have a reward system ever?

I'd definitely like to see the alt account issue looked at.

maybe players only have a limited amount of forfeits?

[shadow lintel]

The alt acc issue might not be a major issue, there's some mitigations that exist. There will be no true solutions if we maintain decentralized access (i.e. don't KYC every player), and even if we did do something drastic like KYC, there's still ways someone could workaround that system, it's just more effort.

Some of the best mitigations I've heard mentioned so far is frequent hard or soft resets on leaderboards (weekly or monthly), because in reality players only have so much time. We should target the egregious cases first, and if a few minor ones fall through, it's not as big of a deal. Someone operating 20 or 50 or 100 alt accounts is a major problem. If someone had a main and and alt account, but doesn't have time or incentive to do more than that, it's not great, but it's also not causing major problems.

With most things in gaming, if there's an exploit, the magnitude of how much it can be exploited matters a lot. Gold farming in WoW is extremely prevalent because farmers can make a lot of money selling that gold. That's something worth considering when thinking about leaderboard rewards. Making them extremely high creates a massive incentive to break the system in any way possible. Making them more moderate still provides a reason to grind, but it's not a "quit your job and play Arena 22 hours a day" kind of reason.

[raven steppe]

@shadow lintel
I was just wondering. What if information, such as you provided, was given when things like this happen.
Maybe a news channel? So it doesn't clog up announcements.
Having detailled and in-depth reasons and the methods may help the community understand things better.

[raven steppe]

That makes sense.

[shadow lintel]

Did I miss something happening? AFAIK nothing has happened.

[raven steppe]

I don't think so.
I mean when things like leaderboard rewards for the arena are announced. The description you gave was informative as to the reasons why it's valuable.

Just an idea. For the community to understand the deeper level of things then maybe there would be less suggestions such as these? Yet maybe it would make no difference.

[shadow lintel]

It's a topic we've discussed a bit in council, but nothing final either way.

I think it's good that the community is thinking about these things and making posts to discuss them. I wish I'd been here sooner to provide some more context, but it's been an unusually busy holiday.

[raven steppe]

Understandable.
I'm trying to have a tech break yet keep finding myself drawn in 😅 I don't even have to. Probably people would appreciate if I didn't. Lol.
Bring on the moratoriums.

[hazy geyser]

1. This is easily solve-able with tutorials and slower build ups. And this stuff is already in the works so I'm not too overly concerned about straight up confusion. Overall it is still more complicated for someone completely new to the genre than a game like a first person shooter so thats something we will always have to deal with short term.

2. Yah once NFT or Crypto is mentioned we not only do not get a majority of the audience but a percentage of them will even fight against us based on their own misguided principles. This is a more long term problem that we can't really do much to solve.

If we can't gain players because of just naturally having great gameplay (combination of the NFT issue and that the game just isn't very good) then a pivot into Web3 gamers is unfortunate but probably necessary. There's just not a large total amount of them and their incentives are more profit based than game quality based. For some amount of time we might have to take the hit and make it Play to Earn in order to generate revenue to sustain/keep going.

[wispy pond]

What’s the strategy with TL?

Are we going to see a more structured relation Illuvium x TL ?

Like, properly scheduled and regular streams, training sessions, discussion on the game, feedbacks, dev talk, some marketing, etc

That could help on the “crypto game disgust” and aren’t those the main objectives of this partnership?

TL is our best shot for now on getting in other players hands… mean shouldn’t this major partnership be used at full potential?

Then leaderboard rewards can be explained as the crypto side.

And just activate the skins as revenues streams or something to make a bit of sense with distributing rewards but mostly show the web2 it's similar to what they are used to

[hazy geyser]

It seems like the TL thing was just your standard sponsored streams with an Illuvitar sale.

[tidal bolt]

Yeah ima agree with zeptyle here on delaying it BUT the question is.. Is there an official launch date already?

I do believe there are certain factors that need to be addressed before rushing leaderboard rewards:

• Are we really giving a fair opportunity for all players of the world when there are still language barriers within the game being English only?
• as pointed out there are still some bugs that create disruption in competitive battle plays.
• Need distinctive agreed upon rules for alt accounts. say if there is a player with 2 accounts and both are ranked top 10.. are they entilted to double rewards or does one get Voided having to readjust the whole top leaderboard reward mechanism - to me it would be a pain in the ass for back end team as i could see multiple top tier players having alts + this could leave a bad taste to some

Curious.. do you think it would be a good idea to do a reset on the leaderboard before launching rewards? My thoughts are saying it would be a good idea, it could create an even playing field for everybody around the globe for the begining, especially those newer to the game still learning. I guess i picture it (if it were to happen), do a reset 2 weeks before scheduled rewards, use those 2 weeks (and weeks prior) to heavy market the opportunity availible for gamers, creating a fresh "rat race" for all .. then again it would be a fair to allow those who have been involved in the game for a year+ to have first dips on first few batches of rewards 🤷🏽‍♂️

[upper sky]

What we need now is a user base, not top players
If game rewards are to be used for marketing to acquire users.
Random weekly rewards for users who have played 35-50 games or more

1.0 ILV 10 players
0.5 ILV 20 players
0.2 ILV 50 players
0.1 ILV 200 players
Total 50 ILV/week, 200 ILV/month

How about this?
If you play the game with multiple accounts, you only double your chances of winning.
And I think most people don't because it doesn't make much sense.
This doesn't require any strict identification right now.
We need to get users before OB starts

Top players will be rewarded in guild-sponsored competitions!

[tired temple]

So we encourage people to make 50 games/account and as many accounts as they can just forfeit everygame to get it done quickly and maximize their chances of getting rewards? This is very web3 minded and might give good numbers short term, but no substance. just a bunch of alts everywhere.

[wispy pond]

They want to reward the top 5000

[hazy geyser]

Well that's clearly ridiculous

[wide warren]

it's for early access too. token utility doesn't matter, web3 degens are generally sell their winnings for USD

[hazy geyser]

Only around 10k people have played a ranked game

[upper sky]

That's for sure.hahahaha🤣
For example, can you not count a loss in R4?

[wide warren]

Big time has crafting leaderboard prizes too for its early access.
So incentive for testing the game in early access is the norm here

Take it as marketing and testing expense.
You want people to try the game before the launch

[wide warren]

Shrapnel and Big Time require KYC. Yes, people still can use their friends, but that's a potential legal issue for the offenders

[wispy pond]

That was my comment about rewarding 50% of the players. And going full brain dead ponzi lol.

I mean go big or go home 😐

That’s also why I say it’s not right to distribute not only to 50% of your player base, but also without way to monetize this player base …

Just creating an outflow of funds with no way to get inflow. Even Axie had a better ponzi model.

[wide warren]

multi languages prob will come post OB.
bugs testing are part of early access.
KYC to deter alts.
leaderboard usually seasonal

[upper sky]

I would be really surprised if it was 5,000.
How much will the 5,000th person get? hahaha🤣
I think The people who are voting against it here think the 5,000 number is crazy.

[wide warren]

Yes, we havent seen the leaderboard incentive structure and people already wanted to delay it

[wispy pond]

Get some cheap VA, 400-1000$$ for a work translating all the sentences in game.

Then if they dev the game without support for language abstraction, then it’s another issue and should have been done from day 1 but can be changed with 2 weeks of dev.

Opening your player base to everyone.

Release.

Then take care of the bug and size issues that arise. Get the comment from the different languages communities.

Done.

[tired temple]

sorry guys i'm done with this conversation. Jaganite idk why you keep going for no reason and with no point... its like you wanna prove your web3 friends made a good job electing you... this isn't going anywhere and most "arguments" i've read here in favor of leaderboard rewards coming earlier make no sense unless your only goal with illuvium is to find exit liquidity.

That's not my plans for this project so i will take the constructive comments, ignore the others and work a proper proposal for the council to vote on.

Thank you everyone for the feedback.

[wide warren]

i provided example from Big Time and Shrapnel, they are incentizing people for early access too. maybe it's a good idea to hear from team on why they want leaderboard incentive

[tired temple]

Or maybe 32 upvotes from people who actually play the game vs 3 downvotes is just enough to say: Hold on before we do that! we want X Y and Z to be done first.

[wide warren]

ive been playing big time, their game is broken af, still they do leaderboard incentive for early access testers

[tired temple]

nobody here is saying no leaderboard rewards, we just say: game is not ready for it

[tired temple]

cool for them idc. you're talking about bigtime like it's any sort of reference... T_T please respect yourself man! like i said i'm done hearing nonsense.

[wide warren]

shrapnel gonna be broken too and still have $3m incentive

the point is marketing and paying people to test your game in early access stage

[wispy pond]

Even better, put the languages files open sources in a git

Let your community in charge. 0$

[tired temple]

but bro do you realize what kind of mainstream marketing you can do with 3M?! 3 flipping M!
people here are disconnected from reality there's no point in keeping this discussion going

[fringe saddle]

Voting on speculation. You want to stop something before knowing what the actual plan is.

[wide warren]

exactly

[fringe saddle]

I don’t understand how you are not asking @sonic monolith for any feed back in this? Why are you wasting time on making this and making a paid council vote on it while you don’t even know what the team has planned. That’s the only thing that doesn’t make sense here.

[upper sky]

I agree that we are not ready.
Is the game that broken now?
How many new users will notice it?
Since you know so much about marketing, what are some possible marketing things we could do up to OB?
How about limiting it to a rating of 1,200 or higher if people are losing on purpose?

[wide warren]

either way, we will bring this topic into our next meeting and try to invite a team member for discussion

i acknowledged the concerns, and i will need to hear from the team

[wispy pond]

Go also with the language thing. Could be cool to involve the e community and open the game to everyone for cheap

[wide warren]

sure

[tired temple]

Possibilities for marketing before OB are endless, and no, giving people money is not the only one.
I already made a few proposals in the past, and there is more to explore. Team has also stated they don't want a "big boom" effect and rather have a slow steady snowball. That kinda limits options and means we're not to the moon yet so people can chill out and stop being so eager for value to extract.

[tired temple]

language is indeed an issue but reality is that most games don't have multi-language on start. That little extra work doesn't seem to fit in the actual rush for launch and imo should come shortly after though. I plaied enough japanese games months or years before they get released in the west so i know how it feels to play a game understanding only half of what's written, but there's not much we can help with the actual deadlines i think. but yeah bring that to the team and let's see their answer

[wispy pond]

• Abstraction layer + user serttings UI. Content of the drop down is dynamic and source the flat files list + content. It's 1 week dev max.
• Initialize the translation with google translate or chat gpt. 1 day.
• Put that on GIT and get the community to help update the content. 1 hour. (or you don't and just leave it to google/gpt.)

Yes there will be issues with sentences too long, non-latin languages display issues, translation mistakes.

But you opened your game to all people on the planet. Then you just iterate to correct mistake people report OR just refresh the files if the community can update it via GIT.

Really not a big work and Illuvium do not have a lot of content.

That said and to come back to topic:

• Rewarding 50% of the players is going too much full brain dead ponzi to me.
• There are still bugs that can F you up so this should be addressed quickly.
• It’s not right to distribute to 50% of your player base that are 70% alts
• Without way to monetize this player base, it's creating an outflow of funds with no way to get inflow.

So in the end you're maybe rewarding a few hundreds people for playing the game. Nothing else. At best you can pray to have people making videos and talking about the game and maybe get people in web3 that seek free token.

In the end, the question is always the same, what are the team web2 and web3 strategies ?

[wide warren]

so how do you incentivize people to test the game

[hazy geyser]

I get what you're saying but in our case this is using money that can't be used for traditional marketing. It's specifically for in-game rewards.

[wispy pond]

You want to pay to test the game ?

That's call a QA team.

You can build a 1-team lead + 8 people team in Philippines or India for 7000 - 50000$ montly total. And they will have to test non stop.

But again if that's the idea, to pay to test the game.

We're far from pay to rewards players and create viral marketing to web3 people.

In any case, doesn't generate any revenues, and your player base is flawed.

Anyway let's stop wasting time going in round and round here lol

[wide warren]

if every AAA studio can pay QA team to solve their issues, there wont be a bug

[wide warren]

and testing is not just about bugs. shrapnel wants community feedback on game mechanics. what people like/dislike.

[hazy geyser]

Yah finding bugs is a lot different than getting people who actually know what they are doing gamewise to give feedback

[wide warren]

and they want to see gamers behavior, how much are they spending the consumable etc

[wide warren]

so far, IZ, OW and arena players are providing feedback for free

[tidal bolt]

Its crazy.. the $$ value equats from the amount of tokens that are distrubted.. right?
We would be giving out a . ILV to people & the dollar value of rewards would equate to market value.. If people decide to liquidate before real revenue comes in for the dao so early, could that jeopordize the main end goal of hosting the next esports with continuing record breaking prize pools in the future..?

The games good, the feed back is good.
Just would need an official release date in order for the proposal to go through IMO.

[wide warren]

yea, for sure. we will paying more in ILV now vs in 2 years.
thats why i started this thread with 2 options, organic growth or paid growth.
and we have to take account our competitors that are spending their warchest too

[tidal bolt]

https://tenor.com/view/dave-chappelle-rick-james-come-here-inviting-in-celebration-gif-16742513

we all know jaggy is taking notes for the next meeting ❤️
but for now lets relax rill 2024
go have fun and celebrate the new year

[wide warren]

i tried that, didnt work out

[valid gyro]

i think this are some very valid points.
With that said i think kieran was spot on in a post few weeks back, web2 gamers dont care how good the game is if they hear crypto or NFT they wont do it, so maybe we should focus on web3 people for now.
Web3 people seem to care a lot about being able to earn even if its very small amounts, for that purpose i think it would make sense to get some kinda rewards going tring to draw people into the ecosystem.

[tired temple]

And everyone here seems to agree to go towards Web3 "gamers" with a conversion rate of 30% let's say cauz even web3 gamers have different genres they like more or less... than go towards Web2 and aim for a 0.1% conversion rate. The math is so bad that i just can't guys sorry.

[valid gyro]

Dont think its that people dont want web2 gamers, thats the end goal.
We tried to go for web2 dont seem like people are ready, and dont think its something we can force.
the stigma will go away with time, think it have to happen naturally.

[wide warren]

we are just being realistic, as any business should

[tired temple]

i don't buy that narrative. From all my gamer friends i spoke to about Illuvium and crypto gaming only ONE had a guts reaction of nono not crypto and NFTs.
Myself i didn't even have a wallet before i buy into Illuvium! Others like me are already in the community.

The Twitter/Discord sphere completely misrepresents the situation by blaming the NFT stygma rather than questioning their own projects! About 30% of the americans under 40 already adopted Crypto and own cryptocurrency:

"Crypto ownership is highest among younger Americans, with 36% of Gen Z and 30% of Millennials reportedly owning crypto assets."

That's LITERALLY the target audience! majority of the gaming market is under 40 and from what we see a good portion of that is NOT against NFTs etc.
It also looks pretty similar to the viewers drop on the TL streams 6k start 2.5k after mentionning crypto.

took america cauz that's a country we have loads of data on but other major Gaming markets like EU or Australia are not much different.

[wide warren]

sounds good, doesnt work.

[tired temple]

Because the game is NOT FUN! It lacks replayability, it lacks decision making, it lacks skill expression.
in what language do we need to say it?

[wide warren]

the download numbers dont even reflect what you have said

ive been saying this for 2 years, web2 wont come for awhile. and even kieran finally admitted it. we can stay and live in the echo bubble. but this is a business, and we need revenue

[tired temple]

and you're gonna kill the business with that mindset because the people you're trying to attract are not the ones that will make us revdis. we need people playing for fun to have revdis. If all that people see in our game is one more financial tool it's doomed! 3-4 months of hype and dead as soon as the market goes back down.

Also acting like "we did everything to attract mainstream" just because we had ONE partnership with TL and ONE with Gamestop (where let's be honest gamestop really didn't make much for us, they just took the money and a good laugh) is wrong. 3 billion players around the world and you think 5 streams to 6k people each are gonna make any impactful change in numbers?

Like i said, stop blaming the audience for not showing up and use instead that energy in finding solutions for them to be willing to come. That's what we're doing with this proposal and the other ones i redacted

[wide warren]

That's the plan. Now, we have to adjust to the reality

like i said, if you and your gamer friends are spending $6m/month on this game i would gladly change my view

[still matrix]

Haven't Seen kierans Post. But saying Like the game is on epic Games launcher since 1 month and we die a collab with TL... Thats didn't help, to attract millions of Players now we go full ponzi Web 3 is just laughable 😄

[wide warren]

i understand it's hard for people to accept the actual market condition.

[tired temple]

tired of playing brandolini's law game with you. bye

[wide warren]

we are incentivizing beyond. beyond is for web3 and the numbers confirmed that.
do you personally feel beyond is fun?

[still matrix]

Numbers confirmed what?

[tired temple]

just stop it... you may not be realizing it but the more you go the worst you look. stop doing that to yourself mate.

[wide warren]

wallet growth with each promo sale

[still matrix]

Another + 100 wallet? Seriously?

[tired temple]

easy to say when we have no data to show a potential correlation with new player accounts everytime a TL player streams the game.

[wide warren]

i will be asking for that data from team

[wide warren]

yep where are the millions of GS and TL crowd that we were trying to get

[tired temple]

your perception of how advertising works is concerning... like what you think 50% of the Dragonball fans downloaded Fortnite when they included the Goku Skin?

[wide warren]

people are fully aware of what i believe

ive been repeating myself for 2 years

[valid gyro]

I think if you ask most web2 gamers they will say NTF's is a scam, or they dont know anything about it, the majority dont understand it yet. guess we can agree to disagree on that.
During the twitch stream i saw a lot more people leave overtime then what you say, if im thinking about the right stream(one of the first onces) he went all the way down to about 500-600 people, but thats not uncommon for sponsered content crypto or not.

Also its not like we are closing the door on web2 gamers, they are free to join if they want too, but dont think its worth it at this point in time to spend to much energy/resources on it.

[tired temple]

btw that's not even supposed to be the topic here. The topic is: is it worth giving money for leaderboards rn with a game that has gamebreaking bugs, that lacks replayability, decision making and skill expression vs later once these issues are adressed.

[valid gyro]

my point was its worth it because it seems thats how we get web3 peoples interest, and rewards was always the plan anyway.
I dont think we should hold back rewards due to the frezee bug, but it should be a priority to get fixed, also i dont think i lose MMR when game frezees from what i've seen, not sure if anyone can confirm this.

[turbid palm]

I couldn't read this whole thread, but skimmed some and I really appreciate this comment. DAO should be careful to hear out the team and step in when the DAO has fundamental disagreements with the team's approach.

I'm not sure how I feel about preempting them and won't vote either way without that full background.

[hazy geyser]

I think that was the basis of @tired temple starting this thread. He disagrees with the teams approach

So now we've had a long discussion about things going back and forth and with the required upvotes it's up to council

Zeptyle can either write up something more official himself or maybe work with someone on the community council to do so

[turbid palm]

Do we know much about their plans other than leaderboard is now here and rewards are imminent? I'm sure I've missed something along the way...

Would like to know reward budget, how that would be distributed, and reasons/marketing push that would accompany launching leaderboard rewards from the team.

[hazy geyser]

Numbers aren't known but I think Zeptyle is just fundamentally against the idea. He can correct me if I'm wrong on that.

The reason is definitely marketing related to get people into our ecosystem and keep them playing/engaged

[turbid palm]

I don't disagree with his premise at all, but would like to see a response from the team and if they agree but want to move forward with rewards anyway, why?

There could be good strategy for player acquisition behind it still.

[hazy geyser]

Yah I see both sides of it and lean more towards trying to acquire more players before open beta hits. If rewards help that then that might be necessary

[sonic monolith]

Afternoon,

Firstly I'm strongly against delaying Ranked Ascendant Mode Leaderboard Rewards.

It is my belief that...

• Arena Dev Team are in a position to roll out balance patches & bug fixes in conjunction with Game Design & the DAO in a much quicker manner following infrastructure changes made late December 2023, therefore we should absolutely be working towards rolling out and automating Ladder Rewards NOW rather than waiting X weeks or months to start the process.

• Implementing rewards for a Ranked Ladder are a far cry from what our biggest Web3 competitors are doing i.e. BigTime, whereby there is zero skill involved and extracting is based purely on grinding. Remember: We are compared directly to BigTime and others when it comes to DAU but the reasons WHY DAUs differ aren't part of the discussion when it comes to most investors.

• We should be doing everything we can to attract new players. Simple as that... we should explore every opportunity to steal market share and attention from other Web3 Games.

This does not mean we stop working to do the following: Ease onboarding, Improved Tooltips, Improved UX/UI, In-game Tutorials, Team Builder In Client, Improved Gameplay, Additional game-modes, New Illuvials, Balance patches, Bug fixes and more.

• As @wide warren mentioned, there is a supply of ILV set aside for exactly this reason and we are talking about something like 1% or < 1% of that supply (NOT CONFIRMED) for 12-months of rewards, to be rolled out in arguably the most critical part of our Studio's life as well as the start of what is potentially the 2024/25 Bull.

• Top players, who have spent hundreds of hours mastering the game and fighting for top spots... are deserving of rewards.

• Regarding In-game Tutorials I disagree it will make that much difference. I've personally never looked at a tutorial when playing Dota 2 or League, and we are lucky to have great 3rd party tutorials and information available across YouTube & more.

Players will learn games that are fun, competitive, rewarding regardless of whether or not we have In-Client Tutorials, Videos and baby the players. What I feel we need is to double down on social proof, exciting tournaments, and cut-throat competition.

• Re: @wispy pond 's comment about rewarding half the player base, nothing is confirmed but I would want to reward a large portion of players and really encourage people to climb! Hell yes I'll spend 8 hours grinding if by climbing 1000 RANKS I'm rewarded an extra $20 on a weekly basis.

The above is strictly personal opinion, the final implementation will reflect feedback from the wider DAO & IMC.

[hazy geyser]

Fantastic post
While I disagree about rewarding a large percentage of players based on my own personal thoughts (number TBD of course), I can definitely see the value add that comes from it.

@sonic monolith What are your thoughts on whether we reset the ladder or not considering we have people who have been grinding their ranking for the past month + without any rewards.

[sonic monolith]

Yeah absolutely that's up for discussion and I'm not tied to any one outcome, the rewards for top players would be substantially higher than the tail end certainly.

[sonic monolith]

First thought is I'd prefer to not reset the Ladder, and as it exists right now there are no plans to reset.

However I'd be open to hearing reasons for a reset.

[hazy geyser]

Depending on how often the reward schedule is I could see something like a reset after every reward period or even after X amount of periods.
If it's every week then maybe let it run for 4 weeks of weekly rewards and then reset it.

[sonic monolith]

Yeah I really like that, Seasonal Ladders

I'll share that feedback, I wasn't involved in the latest discussion on this topic but I'll share it.

[hazy geyser]

Awesome thanks 🙂

[wide warren]

agree 100%.
huge competition from big time and shrapnel. we gotta Fight for Market share.
thanks so much for commenting

[vague remnant]

My thoughts regarding a reset, we should only do that ever season or so. So that could be 3 - 6 months.

[hazy geyser]

Yah that makes sense as well. Can coincide with "Sets" and/or the new Illuvial release schedule

I know Kieran talked a little about this yesterday about how smaller batches of new illuvials more frequently are better than huge batches less frequently. And I agree.

[vague remnant]

Didn't want to be the first team member to share my personal thoughts but now Nick has done that. I will openly state, I agree with almost all of Nick's points.

Is the state of the game perfect to implement rewards right now? No.

But there are many positive consequences from implementing rewards that are being overlooked in this thread.

Some I can discuss publicly and some I cannot.

Overall, based on the research and review I've done, I've come to the conclusion that this initiative will be a net positive.

This is my personal opinion on the matter and doesn't reflect the rest of the team's thoughts on this topic.

[hazy geyser]

What are some of the positive consequences that you think are being overlooked?

I think we agree that it is a solid marketing tool to get people into our ecosystem and to encourage the people already here to play more

[wide warren]

big time is broken af and they got incentive to mindlessly grind dungeons.
shrapnel got $3m leaderboard incentive for their first season, i bet they gonna be broken af too
web3 is all about money

[vague remnant]

I'll share one that directly relates to my role.

It's an easy incentive to encourage web3 creators to grind the game (we see it with Big Time) and it's also very appealing to smaller Web2 TFT and HS streamers who would welcome the opportunity to earn.

[vague remnant]

My assesment is that not everyone agrees with this, hence this thread, correct?

[vague remnant]

Not sure what the intent of this statement is so unable to respond accordingly.

[wide warren]

im agreeing with you, pvp doesnt have to be perfect for us to start incentive

[hazy geyser]

I think the disagreement comes from whether its the right time for this initiative because of the state of the game and not the effects it would have.

[wide warren]

gotta grab or at least retain market share ASAP

@tired temple

looks like the team used big time as a reference too

[vague remnant]

To be clear, what we are discussing is very different to Big Time. We are merely referencing them for the effects of such incentives.

[wide warren]

zep thinks its nonsense

[fringe saddle]

Thank you.

[tired temple]

it is 🙂

[tired temple]

So let's not put our standards too low right? i'm not saying make a perfect game before leaderboards, we all know that would mean like 2026 it's not reasonable and as @sonic monolith mentioned that would've make us miss the bullrun which would hurt the project.

The proposal just points Issues that we have currently that would be worth adressing before we start leaderboards rewards.

Now about the Web2 content creators comment you stated below, Web2 gamers play fun games in priority. Web2 content creators make videos on games based on a mix of:

1. the fun they get doing it
2. how large is the audience for that game.

As Illuvium is right now we'd unfortunately miss on both points.

But i heard all the feedback in here and how do you feel personally about this list of requests that are imo and based on the discussions here the bare minimum we need for the leaderboards launch to be a positive for the DAO rather than a negative experience for anyone trying to climb for it.

1. Fix known game breaking bugs first (Mastery points and 0s freeze mostly)
2. Reset leaderboards. Some people made a lot of accounts that they got into the 1800s (top100) for basically free before we change the Elo system and these accounts shouldn't be rewarded. A change in the elo system is imo more than a fair reason to reset leaderboards and elo for everyone.
3. Make sure we have the ability to rollback the Leaderboard by like 24h in case a new major issue arises (example the Mud-Enchanter interaction we've seen last week)

This way we ensure a fair climb for everyone and avoid as many furstrations as we can. Remember, at the second you implement money in the game, all complaints and toxicity will grow by an order of magnitude.

Do you personally think this would be fair to ask as pre-requisites for Leaderboard Rewards?

[vague remnant]

Regarding your points.

1. There could potentially be new gamebreaking bugs with any new patch that gets implemented. What's your proposed solution for this?

2. We are planning parameters that will be required to be met to be eligible for rewards so not all those accounts would automatically be eligible. What's your proposed solution for when players still remake new accounts after a reset and get back to where they are now?

3. Regarding this, who do you propose be the objective decider on what is considered a "major issue"?

[hazy geyser]

I've never really been a fan of rollbacks. Team should just be on it with a quick hotfix.

[tired temple]

1. At the second there is money on the line we would expect that any game breaking bug should be biggest ever priority to fix, even if it means make a patch that wasn't initially planned.

But there are 2 kinds of gamebreaking bugs. the 0s freeze for example who just happens and affects players randomly. or like the ones we saw with mud that are abusable.

While the 1st option is something we could accept it taking up to a week or 2 to fix.
2nd are immediate hotfix (just like @copper raft and @unborn solar did for mud-enchanter, that was great) + Rollback

2. We can't stop smurfs. Not realistically at least. Like i'll take my own example, i honestly don't have time for more than 20games a week and most weeks don't even get that. but how many games can a streamer get... PER DAY? I bet you see the issue so plaied amount of games is not the solution.

KYC would solve it but i doubt the community wants that.

Also a new account used to start at 1500s and be 1800s in 3-4 games and 2k in 5-6 games. it's not the case anymore so i think a Elo reset between each rewards is enough of a counter-measure for now. people wanting to be in these 1800s will now always need to deserve their spot and hopefully with time the game ends up being competitive enough that even for a streamer it's hard to get more than 2 or 3 accounts in the top.

3. i won't engage in a ridiculous wordplay to try to define "major issue". Like please... -__- If there is a weird interaction that does stuff that is OBVIOUSLY BROKEN and is or looks like bugged because it's allowing stuff it's not supposed to, then it's a major issue.

Example of a major issue: Enchanter mud ranger getting full energy back out of it's own ability leading to it just chain casting forever wiping the full board in less than 10s

Example of not a major issue: Blazenite is meta and i don't play AOE damage, please destroy that comp with a quad nerf so it loses even to positive matchups!

For these major issues, i'd like to see a protocol in place where as soon as it is identified as a major issue (by top players and reported to the team working on the arena) the team then evaluates how long it will take to solve the issue. if it's an easy fix, just fix and re-deploy + rollback for the X hours that occured between the report and the deploy of the fix. An announcement is made to make sure all players are aware that a fix will happen soon and that any games plaied during that period will be canceled.

If it was to take more than 24h Team removes the bugged element in a way or another (let's say the dodo line to stay on the same example) from the game, and take the time required to fix. again with rollback from the time where it was reported to when the broken element was removed.

while i get it's frustrating to get wins cancelled, it is just as much to get losses due to bug abuse from the opposing player. This aims to preserve the integrity of our leaderboard and promote fair play.

[wide warren]

KYC to claim the prize shouldnt be a problem. most of us are KYC'd by CEXs. it's a 3rd party KYC anyway.
our competitor like big time and shrapnel do kyc.

[tired temple]

I'm all for KYC too, actually solves the issue of alt accounts quite effectively even though people REALLY willing to game the system still can it's all about making it as hard as possible

[raven steppe]

Hey, thanks for the clarification. I don't quite understand the following, can you expand on what you mean.

Remember: * We are compared directly to BigTime and others when it comes to DAU but the reasons WHY DAUs differ aren't part of the discussion when it comes to most investors.*

What do you mean by investors.
I disagree that big time is zero skill, you have to play with others to achieve results.

I think it's also worthy to note, people played big time for over a year I'm thinking even close to 2 before it reached its current state. With rewards from the beginning.
They also had a massive ad campaign.

Plus a lot of the people playing afaik, continue to be really pissed off about the bugs and broken elements of the game. Due to the fact it affects there earning potential, more than it does about playing the game.

Shrapnel isn't out yet, so it's impossible to say how their system will be received or if it's successful.

I understand the idea behind it, more people trying the game leads to more potential long term players.

Yet I do believe it needs to be done right. With other factors considered. I'd also like to see the retention rate on big time.

Blocklords have rewards seasons and it would be interesting to know how those have panned out too. A lot of their community feel they are never listened to. So I think it's more complex than just adding rewards and players will come.

Also worthy to note, shrapnels game testing has been done mainly in house.

-we should explore every opportunity to steal market share and attention from other Web3 Games.

Why steal and not collaborate? To me the markets ( players) are very different target audiences?
Is market share players or something else?

I'm in favour of rewards I do believe however ILV labs need to be prepared for the affects of giving them especially if it's directly related to gaining more players, or at least increased turn over players.

I'm also a little concerned there is no feedback into the ecosystem. As in It's just rewards given out without the other mechanisms in place to purchase. Other than beyond, land and ILV/sILV2.

If that's the intended case for those to pump too, then cool.

Also will OW have a similar reward system before full release?

[wide warren]

Have you played Big Time @raven steppe ?

[raven steppe]

Yes.

[wide warren]

What skills do you need

[raven steppe]

I know people that have a lot more than me as well. I played it when it first came out and again before it went to the current rewards system.

[raven steppe]

The standard skills with any rpg game. It's less skill than illuviums auto battler. Yet it's not empty of method or thought.

[wide warren]

It's just click mouse when its green and dodge

[raven steppe]

I don't want to have an argument about it.

How about you actually play the illuvium games.

[wide warren]

And you have mentioned that most complains are bugs that we will have too and issue with earnings more than gameplay itself. That's summed up the web3 market, we only care about making money

[wide warren]

I have. Im one of the first to get beta access, thats why ive been saying for the past 2 years that web3 market is less likely to play ILV games

[raven steppe]

How many times.

[wide warren]

Enough times

[raven steppe]

Your bit understanding where I'm coming from and not even trying to understand.

Happy new year Jag.
Agreeing to disagree with you.

[wide warren]

I understand where you are coming from, it just doesnt work for web3

[raven steppe]

You actually haven't.
I never said no to it.
You missed everything I have said.

[wide warren]

You are saying be mindful in giving out incentive because we don't know if it works. That's why im saying, incentive is the only way to get web3 players

[raven steppe]

That's not what I'm saying at all.
There are effects to consider.

[wide warren]

You are worried that we are only attracting people who only care about earning

if it's not it then idk teloolah. i cant keep playing the guessing game

[raven steppe]

I thought I made it clear.
We will attract those people without a doubt.
That's okay. We will attract casual and grinders plus pros.

My worries are probably not an issue and I'm guessing the team have already thought about the difference it makes in the chat and general vibes.

Please read more carefully what I say.

Or actually ask me questions.

For now I don't want to communicate anymore. I want to enjoy the new year.
You too.
I asked questions.
They haven't been answered.
We don't actually have to understand each other.
I have had significant experience with web3 games I have played many of various kinds.
Sometimes I don't articulate well. Yet I'm getting over constantly having to prove myself. At times it feels one sided.

To me the crux of decentralization is the variety of experience and different opinions. We don't have to come to the same one. We can create new ones together.
You are good at what you are good at.
I have my skills. They can be compatible if you're willing to work with, instead of against me. Which is how it feels a lot of the time.

I was going to keep this in DMs yet I feel it's conversation everyone ought to have In public.

[wide warren]

in summary, what do you want? what is your goals for ILV for the next 6 months (pre OB)

[hazy geyser]

A "difference in general vibes" is not a reason to not do this

[wide warren]

zep was pretty clear, he wants bugs fixed, leaderboard reset and alts deterred.
so what do you want @raven steppe ?

[wide warren]

yea kinda hard to do governance with "vibes". need actionable objectives

[vague remnant]

Let's focus on the topic of discussion. This comment isn't achieving the objective of this thread.

[raven steppe]

I never said don't do it. I said be mindful of the effects. .I'll answer tomorrow as I'm out and about to go dancing and have fun.

[wide warren]

trying to get what teloolah is asking from team before our next meeting. i invited nick, are you available?

[vague remnant]

You would need to give me a date and time before I can confirm my availability.

[wide warren]

nice, ill dm

[tired temple]

just on this comment, the reaction i hear from Teloolah in the BigTime community about bugs affecting rewards is what we're trying to avoid here with this proposal, or at least reduce as much as we can.

Due to the human nature when it comes to salt and money i doubt the zero complaints is even achievable but this aims for a lesser damaging more controllable uproar.

and yeah @wide warren in another message you summed up pretty well what the topic is, still waiting on the people pinged in that same message i sent, like @vague remnant to say what they think about it 😉

[wide warren]

oh yea big time is broken af, doesnt stop the dev or grinders tho
just maybe it's part of the process. it's early access anyway

[tired temple]

but that's the thing, even for money i won't play if it's not good enough. Same reason i never touched Axie, BigTime or GodsUnchained. Downloaded all, tested all. Left instantly.

Also have friends feedback of people who are part of this community and discord for just as long as me, who are not even willing to grind for the 140k tournament because of the actual state of the game, can send you the screenshot privately.

So you guys can keep pretending it's a web2-web3 thing and blame NFT stygma if that makes you all sleep better, but trust me it's really not the biggest issue we have right now.

[wide warren]

i got friends who are grinding those games too, kinda hard to judge without data.
im guessing ur not a grinder?
for big time, people are grinding the crafting leaderboard at a loss hoping for token airdrop to make up for it, they dont even know how much is going to be airdropped

same with blur, the first season i got $10k. and whales spent $millions to washed trade. this is a web3 thing

even IMX is incetivizing grinders

web2 dont grind because they grind fiat with their job, for us in web3 it's our job

[tired temple]

if the question is: Am i the kind of person who can do something not fun for countless hours to earn 50-100 extra $ by the end of the month?
No in fact not. I am wealthy enough that even for my job i don't need to do that.
I am just like every gamer, i play games at the end of a rough day to evade reality and have fun.
Actual game is turning off these players, who see gaming as an expense like any other hobby, and the "solution" proposed is:
Oh fine, let's attract people who will play because they desperately need that money, knowing that that demographic is usually not big spenders because of the limited disposable income they have.

I really don't get it. All this does is making sure the people already in have better chance to find their exit liquidity rather than trying to build a sustainable long term project.

That's really a disconnect to me.

[wide warren]

we incentivize whales too, people who might be more wealthy than us combined. beyond leaderboard

[tired temple]

and you said yourself why. What you just said means you agree with me, we should be incentivizing people with disposable income rather than the people that don't have that financial freedom.

If the game succeeds and there ends up being a way to make a few dollars from overworld, these people with low income will join anyways. But if the game is not good enough, we won't have the people with disposable income willing to buy for it and it's a net loss for everyone

[wide warren]

because we need the whales to keep spending on d1sks.
let's say this IIP get passed by the IMC, and our DAU goes down even after we fixed the bugs, how are you going to be responsible

[tired temple]

we are still in private beta, current DAU is already low anyways for way deeper reasons like i tried to explain multiple times. If we can't incentivize people to play our game for fun, and decide that paying them is the solution, all that's gonna happen is that we'll need to pay these people even more once they need to pay to own the assets, and this only keeps working as long as we offer more than they have to pay, but here's the question: What will we do then? Keep giving more money than we get until it runs out? The DAO gets no money from us currently playing PvP as @wispy pond said very well.

[hazy geyser]

I think you just discovered the P2E theory/solution there

[wide warren]

zep, thats pretty much the idea. remember 1m token for ingame rewards

have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, arena will never be as fun as you wished it would

[tired temple]

and the reason why they all die after a couple years too! So here's my suggestion. We stop taking example on low life expectation projects like P2E... and take more example on actually long term succesful IPs like HS, Fortnite, League of Legends, Pokémon, Yu-gi-oh whatever you want, as long as it has a model that is based on people paying to have fun, like we do with netflix, golf, cinema, Night clubs and what not rather than on people trying to make money.

Because people trying to make money do math on everysingle cent they'll spend, and treat it as an investment and expect returns on it. People spending for fun, only expect fun from it

[hazy geyser]

And what if the game isn't fun? We still need to generate revenue as a business

[tired temple]

So we turn into damage control mode before even failing? That's not the mindset of an entrepreneur.

[valid gyro]

if we want 10x web2 price, and dont want to give back to the community i dont think that will end well

[wispy pond]

Ponzi is ok to start with web3 if there is web3 adoption

[wide warren]

exactly. i understand that a lot of people want the project to be different than the other web3 games. sounds good, doesnt work. maybe in the future

[wispy pond]

But still no revenues stream to monetize the ponzi is stupid

(IMO)

[valid gyro]

could maybe work but first we need to lower every price by 90%

[wide warren]

what if we lower it and still no web2 adoption

[valid gyro]

ohh well, guess its game over 😛

[wide warren]

im gonna blame zep

cmon guys we have learnt from beyond wave 2

[fringe saddle]

Wen wave 3

[wispy pond]

Ponzi this shit but monetize it otherwise die for nothing

[hazy geyser]

The idea is that the period of time where this is active and there is no revenue is very small
Initially it is to build the playerbase so when Open Beta hits we have X amount of players ready to spend

[wide warren]

yea the goal is to increase DAU or at least retain

[tired temple]

but you keep saying that before we even try! that's what's mad to me. Launch is in 3 to 6 months, and everyone is acting like it's already over.
But reality is -> ponzi model we die in 1-2 years GUARANTEED, there is enough case studies that will prove my point.
gamer first model and maybe we die, or maybe we survive and keep florishing through the bear market like no other web3 project.

And don't tell me we did everything to attract Web2, we didn't. we didn't even do 1% of what should've been done for that.

[wide warren]

i wont try lowering our DAU by delaying incentive lol

[hazy geyser]

So are you saying one of the bigger issues is that the marketing department has been failing for the past 2 years in acquiring players and breaking into Web2 markets?

[wispy pond]

We have no firm launch date … just saying … so you monetize nothing

Sounds like a all-in bet to me with 0 risk management

Something I’m not used to do.

But ok 🤷🏻‍♂️

[hazy geyser]

You don't believe that we are on the edge of Q1/Q2 like stated in the roadmap and interviews?
We can't work under the assumption that it will be delayed further.... or can we?

[tired temple]

Nothing new there. If i thought they were doing a good job i wouldn't have ran for marketing sub council. I'll give them that the TL partnership is a really good one and a step in the right direction. Results from this 1st good step shouldn't discourage them and if i was them i'd just keep going in that direction.

[wispy pond]

I’m hearing next quarter for the last 2 years. I need more than an interview saying “we gonna make it crypto bros I promise”

I’m sorry. Honestly. No more trust of any kind from me for this project and 0, absolute 0, risk management.5

Faced so many lies for the past 2 years and a half.

But I understand the web3 thing and to ponzi this, look, my first message, I said to “ponzi half of the player base”, and I meant it.

But do not ask more trust from me.

[wide warren]

what if we sell season pass

[hazy geyser]

Obviously I totally get that and agree with you, but its tough to work on solutions to problems if we dont actually know and cant trust these things.

[wide warren]

season pass can financially justify the incentive

and we dont have to worry about alts, more alts is better let them pay

if you dont grind hard like viper or the web3gamingtv guy them its on u

[wispy pond]

Trust me bros.

No.

The team didn’t proved itself to be trustable enough. FOR 2 YEARS!

But again, let’s ponzi this shit.

[tired temple]

i've always been all for this. And advocated for it quite a few times already. Consensus i faced is: "maybe later"

[wide warren]

why dont we turn this IIP to season pass then. compromised made. win win.

[valid gyro]

can we sell it for 10x web2 prices?

[tired temple]

No because the season pass solves lelahel's point of we're not making any money yet, but doesn't solve any of the issues i stated above.

[wispy pond]

What’s the season pass about ? Is there any season mechanism already explained by the team ?

[tired temple]

and also this, season pass ok, but how, when, what

[wide warren]

how confident ru that the IMC and team gonna agree with this proposal

[tired temple]

that's not up to me to decide. I bring ideas and solutions. What they do about them is in their power, not mine.

[wispy pond]

0

[tired temple]

And i won't make my proposals based on what i think is the opinion of X or Y. i propose what i think is best. Assuming what other people think before asking them is a common mistake i try to not fall into when i can.

[wide warren]

secondary market. it was minted for $179, $299 and $499

[wispy pond]

Let’s goooooooooooooooo

[valid gyro]

So do those give access forever? and if you dont want to play anymore you can sell it

[wispy pond]

5000$ pass or nothing 😘

[wide warren]

u get perks, but anyone can play now

just need codes

[wide warren]

Gold VIP utility: date with jag

[valid gyro]

Crazy, oh that's not to bad then 😄

[wispy pond]

For 5000$ I B…. F… you mate

[tired temple]

https://discord.com/channels/760344898200666112/1190972076111175731 made a discussion for the season pass idea
@wispy pond @wide warren @hazy geyser

[copper moss]

Even if illuvium was fun and therefore at a minimum balanced, no one in their right mind wants to play an autobattler or really any game that has zero rewards of any kind. The play 25 games to win emotes got me to play a little more though frustration will likely keep me from completing it.

Illuvium isn’t a story driven narrative to be enjoyed like a book or film. It isn’t leading to an end, just play arena over and over.

Your brain quickly runs out of excitement because there is no ‘drug’ keeping you coming back. No treasure chest for playing/winning your match, no monetary goals, barely a functioning leaderboard that like a number of puzzling elements aren’t in the game itself yet though who really minds rn. Without a drug whether it’s skins, illuvials, raffle tickets for end of season draws, or money among many other options no one is going to keep playing illuvium, let alone would they continue playing autochess games among many others in general if they weren’t firing off endorphins with their reward feedback loop.

Eventually, we have to add some continuous rewards mechanics even as simple as a raffle ticket. More than just ranking rewards every two weeks or so.

If we want to wait a few more balance patches and saw roll out at the end of january no worries. Token price isn’t going to be hurt by a couple hundred or even thousand tokens getting thrown away for free advertising.

We’ll still fall 50% or more from people going to other crypto plays while we wait 6 more months to launch a good game.

[wide warren]

well said, nitro. thanks.
some people will argue that 33m TFT players are playing the game for nothing tho

[hazy geyser]

People play games and have played games for decades with no rewards. They play because it's fun

[wide warren]

web3 ruined me

i wonder if the pros are streaming for fun or for gifts

[copper moss]

Could you please give me a timeline and estimated dev resources to add this feature you call ‘fun’ and then see if the team and council deem it worth the extra effort to implement :p

[tired temple]

you're disconnected from reality. won't even take the time to read past the first line.

[wide warren]

maybe thats the problem zep u wont listen

because what nitro wrote is basically what other web3 games are doing and what we are doing

[valid gyro]

havent played TFT, but i think he got a great point in there is no reward for keeping playing arena atm.
etc in WoW your reward is character progression, you feel good when you level up, reach max level, get bis gear because you spend a lot of time to get there.
not sure if ownership/catching the illuvial's your self could give somekinda feeling of progress, but it would probly be mainly for OW players.

[hazy geyser]

The reward to keep you grinding in competitive strategy games is your rank

[copper moss]

It’s fine, we’ll all be on the same side when the game fails soon and want our money back anyways.

[wide warren]

is arena better than TFT
is OW better than pokemon arceus

is IZ better than CoC or starcraft

[valid gyro]

only played starcraft of those, but would assume no not in its current state

[tired temple]

Brandolini's law makes that i'll need way too much effort to explain to him why he's wrong right from the first line than it's worth. So why would i even mind read the rest?

[copper moss]

Pasta ain’t gonna save anyone once this token goes to zero so keep patting yourself on the back while our investment money continues rotting away.

[tired temple]

cool, listen mate if you have no intent of being constructive in any way... may i suggest you to just go on with your life and let people try if they want to rather than just waste our time with your salt?

[wide warren]

everyone who wrote here are right. but this isnt about right or wrong, just making a business decision

[tired temple]

that's one more false claim.

"no one in their right mind wants to play an autobattler or really any game that has zero rewards of any kind" this sentence shows a disconnect with reality and an obvious lack of understanding of what we're talking about. Video-games plaied for fun are one of the most profitable businesses in the world and Entertainment is probably THE most profitable.

Autobattlers have a large and loyal community as well.

We can't say everyone here is right. There are times where 2 people who disagree can be both right, but you can't disagree with facts.

[copper moss]

Yes, complain about being constructive while disregarding anyone and everything that doesn’t agree with your pasta fetish even if they weren’t ordering a response from you. You responded like an ass to a comment not even directed at you. And then waited for me to write up something even after saying I’m not worth your breath so you could immediately type another snarky comment. I’ll keep responding til you’re full of yourself to the bursting point if that’s what you need to have a good day.

[copper moss]

Just disregard all the little rewards/drugs they add in to actually addict players to the game, no worries. But fine I’ll stop there. I’m pretty much out of patience with this failed project anyways.

[tired temple]

you're crossing the line my friend. I disregarded your comments because they're not constructive and you spit things you don't even understand yourself as if they were factual. If you do your research and instruct yourself i'll maybe dedicate you some of my time. In the meantime, i wish you a good day.

[copper moss]

Nobody will play your clone game when they can play another clone game with more drugs

[sonic monolith]

So anyway..

DAUs + other metrics continue to improve each day.

The team can and will continue to develop Arena (Reminder: This is Beta 1 and EVERYTHING is subject to change) as well as push on existing and new marketing avenues.

What we are suggesting is using 1% or <1% of an existing pool set aside for rewards (for 12 months of Ladder Rewards) and we know that we're being compared to other Web3 games that are heavily incentivizing grinding their games rather than skill.

@tired temple when do you suggest we roll-out rewards? and what is the benefit of waiting an extra month when we need a boost in DAUs immediately.

Is there more to lose by crypto-twitter & new investors seeing average DAUs (when compared to BigTime or other) without the context as to why?

If yes, we should do everything we can to increase DAUs now.

If you're saying, nope, everyone understands the game is in Beta and it won't negatively impact token price... than we should delay or even scrap the idea in it's entirety.

[tough socket]

Is there a design already underway for the ladder rewards? monthly reset? minimum # of games played? or alt account considerations? Leaderboard on beyond didn't seem to place a lot on long term engagement and I wouldn't want to rush a design for Arena Leaderboard rewards that are not well thought out or even thought out without the help/input of the community.

[sonic monolith]

Yes the requirements for account eligibility as well as the reward values for each banding have all been finalized (from our end, pending review by DAO + IMC).

[still matrix]

What's the reasons behind "we need a boost in DAU immediately"?

[sonic monolith]

We have seen what happens when we share genuine player data with the Web3 community whilst going up against competitors that are incentivizing play to a significant extent.

I think it's fair to assume, if we don't get aggressive about capturing attention and DAUs we will see this reflected in...

• Token Price
• VC interest & options
• Partnerships / Brand deals

For me, a happy medium is incentivizing skill over brain dead grinding, given we are committed to both a fair launch and competitive gameplay experiences.

Again, personal opinion, I think our player data is quite reasonable for a game in Beta and it's most basic iteration at that. However, we have a duty to token holders and we know the Web3 landscape enough to know people aren't doing as much research around context or the WHY behind BigTimes DAUs versus ours.

So, is <1% of the existing reward pool worth spending for 12-months of rewards? Keeping in-mind we don't only see the potential boost to DAUs but also increased player-data we can utilize for balancing as well as feedback and bug reports?

[hazy geyser]

Are we going to be able to see the player data. I thought that the monthly data would at least be released

[sonic monolith]

Yeah, I'm sure Kieran will jump on this with Jeremy, Perry & Florian once they're online

[wispy pond]

Only ?

Thats 200 ILV per week more or less

[upper sky]

What do you think about multilingualism if you need DAU?
Japan, Korea, China I don't think these countries play the English game
I will understand that 1% of the game rewards are used for marketing, but after the OB release, we will need to spend a lot more on marketing.
If we fail to get users using this 1% game reward, do we just double or triple the reward even more?
Ultimately, I think Zeptyle is right, you need an interesting game to be successful!
Web3 users are looking for short term money and I doubt they will spend hundreds of hours playing to get 100$ in game rewards!
I want to log in more every day and I want a system that gives us a sense of accomplishment every time we win!
For example, it would be better if there was an incentive other than game rewards, such as a system where points are accumulated for each win and NFTs can be exchanged for NFTs, and a daily ranking system like Survival Mode where NFTs are given to the 1st-10th place players.
I'm a little bored to play every day because there is no goal or end to the game now.
And once you stop playing, you stop logging in.

[sonic monolith]

I mean < 1 % could be 1 ILV per week.

I don't set the values, that will be determined by relevant individuals.

[sonic monolith]

Absolutely multilingualism is a huge deal and a great value add. It's also a massive undertaking that we can't accommodate right this second.

Zeptyle is right to say the game being interesting and fun is required to be successful...but that's obvious, no? We are working towards an improved state and significant changes to gameplay come from feedback and deep consideration.

I know Aaron's been working through the holiday period to document possible changes including quick wins and more significant changes.

Re: Awards & Account Progression, yes absolutely! Again it requires development and effort.

Ranked Ladder Rewards are something we want to roll-out in conjunction with ongoing Product Development, Marketing and more. They are a relatively trivial effort that has the potential to make an impact to DAUs at a time whereby we're being judged harshly by a market that doesn't fully understand the product.

[still matrix]

But thats not going to change with rewards. I doubt majority understands the product when open Beta, probably need the following game for people to see what it really is about.
I also don't see THE big impact on DAU since it wasn't the case in beyond either. It's probably more a paying of the already existing userbase than onboarding new DAU.
Happy to be proven wrong tho 🙃

[hazy geyser]

Thats because Beyond is lol

[sonic monolith]

Ultimately it's an experiment and I can't promise you it adds 5,000 new active users overnight.

I know that If I was ranked 4378 and could increase my weekly reward by $20 if I grinded 200 rating, I'd aim to do so.

As it exists today, our competitors are offering players earning potential and I'd argue most would have dogshit DAUs without it.

[knotty glen]

It's time to reward the players in the ranking🥇
@hazy geyser I'm behind you top14

[wide warren]

its good that the team acknowledges that the DAU correlate with investors confidence and may be reflected in token price action. the 48-hour giveaway, the christmas emotes, how weekly stats are no longer published and the move to publish MAU which may show bigger number kinda gave us the hint.

[upper sky]

Since it is an NFT game.
What about making PVP and OW versions of the illuvitars?
Play games and earn points, and when you accumulate a certain number of points, you can pull a gacha once.
Complete the album while playing PVP and OW.
If you don't want to do that, you can also buy them.
What's different from Web2 games is that you can sell NFTs, and I think you should take full advantage of that.
If you have other interesting ideas, that's still fine.

[vague remnant]

I couldn’t have worded this better myself

[raven steppe]

I think this is worth it.
Then use the data (not necessarily DAU) yet also feedback/sentiment regarding the rewards and any future systems to deal with possible overflow of negative sentiment, and abuse of the system.

I do believe however once all games are connected, it will change a lot. Also if/ when there are eventually rewards tied to all the games it will incentivise players who prefer those genres.

I'm happy it's not the same system as big time or others that have similar ones.

Afaik shrapnel mentioned they will freeze the accounts of bad actors.

Thanks for adding more info and again further clarity.

The more we know the reasons why, the more effectively we can assess the information.

[raven steppe]

I have to admit the current theme has had me a little concerned, that confidence has been lost. Which I turn has knocked my confidence a little.
It does kind of feel like a panic.

The more I think about it the more I see it as illuvium needing to have a good metric for web3 traders/investors and VC funding.
Which in its own right is understandable, yet imo needs to be clear in the reasoning.
Which I feel now has been explained better.

[wide warren]

thats what we've been trying to say, DAU is everything. thats why we need the incentive yesterday

[hazy geyser]

People have been way too confident for way too long for no reason at all
There's been a bit of a wake up call for a lot of people

[wide warren]

the 48-hour giveaway was obvious

[raven steppe]

This actually makes sense when you give a reason to the statements you make.

Re your question what's my vision for illuvium in 6months.

Firstly I have never been an advocate for the push to adopt web2 players.
I have felt the sentiment is still too one sided and the push would be too hard. I certainly wasn't keen on a web2 push before we had all games active and connected, yet I understood the need to.

Secondly
When talking about gaining players in web3 they are not all the same.
-grinder gain token trade player, game isn't important, only extraction of value.

-casual what to play because it brings them joy and they like the whole premise of web3, rewards and earning are cool yet not a motivator

-full time player grinder, fun, competition, replayability and rewards, possible income regard high

• pro player, status, competition, high rewards, tournaments, possible income regard very high.

Add one - pure investors, never play the game play the market. Trade ILV, land, illuvials, resources, gear, skins, battle boards and illuvitars

In 6 months I see illuvium fully connected to the blockchain, all games have a reasonable rewards system.

The token is never tied to in game purchases.

KYC is not necessary because the team/DAO, co contributors have come up with a system that doesn't need it. Therefore not alienating web3 people that will not do KYC.

The player base has increased maybe 5x? This is unknown.

People who play the game become attached to the narrative and the illuvials through the various types of game play.

As more web3 people have been adopted and continue to be adopted, along with significant retention of players and significant game play metrics. A slow campaign can be initiated, perhaps up to the launch of the mobile arena, for web2, maybe even longer to catch the greater Asia market of web3 players first.

The metrics look good, people are buying the token, wanting to invest in the ways possible.
There is significant movement Forward.

The systems for rewards have been tested and fine tuned to a satisfactory level, whereby a balance is achieved between gamers enjoyment and needed results for DAU.

There are enough moderators to handle any negative feedback and large influxes of unhappy people due to system issues.

[raven steppe]

Then you just say it.

[wide warren]

read my first comment on this thread

[raven steppe]

I also don't share your concerns.
I feel it's fear based.
The whole game hasn't come out yet.
Its the sentiment that caused me worry not my actual understanding of where we are now.
My belief is the numbers are lower to do the focus on web2.
I get the need for better. metrics.
Anything that's done needs to take multiple complex factors into consideration.
From what @shadow lintel and @sonic monolith have said, it seems this has been thought of.

[raven steppe]

Link it

[wide warren]

#1189615583424172042 message

[wide warren]

its not fear based, just logic based.
web3 players need incentive, thats all

[raven steppe]

I'm not talking about the reward being fear based.
I talking about the current theme and push to increase the DAU leads me to think there is a loss in confidence from the team and that causes me worry.
I do believe the push to increase the DAU now isn't inline with what has been said previously. That we have enough runway VCs won't be hard to get.

[wide warren]

people were just too hopium that somehow we'll get web2 adoption right away. remember when some keep spamming "33m TFT players and if we get 5%-10%"

[raven steppe]

This is not clear to me at all.
You don't directly say anything.

[raven steppe]

It actually could have happened. It just didn't. Did you read my answer to your question. Do you read what I write?

When I ask you to read carefully what is written the other day. I meant what I wrote , not Zeptyles idea.
Because you were questioning me on what I wrote. Yet the questions led me to believe you actually hadn't read it.

There were a fair amount of TFT players in the audience of the TL streams that were keen, and a fair amount that turned around.
I felt it was successful.

Yet I don't want to talk off topic anymore.
Im for rewards, I felt Zeptyles proposal was worthy of consideration regarding the point brought up.
I feel a lot of great information has come from it.

[wide warren]

in summary, do you agree or not with this proposal?

do you want arena leaderboard incentive to be delayed or not?

[raven steppe]

I have said multiple times now no, due to what Blickter and Nick have said. I feel there is enough time to get some of the concerns Zeptyles mentioned fixed and I believe the other concerns will be worked on over time.
Obviously you don't read what I write.

#1189615583424172042 message
Here

And in other places. Yet that's your job. To read comments right.

[wide warren]

thanks you

[raven steppe]

That being said. I wouldn't want the push to be hard to begin with.
I still think Zeps concerns are valid.
I want to see the info regarding this when is goes through IMC

[wide warren]

i read everything and will bring it to the meeting

[tired temple]

Hi Nick! Happy New Year!
So... In fact it would be naive of me to say "everyone understands it's in Beta"... Unfortunately even i have been around for long enough to realize how little most people invested understand about creating a game and an IP.

I see your concern.
But is what you're saying that the solution is to boost DAU, even though it's with Users that aren't really our target audience when it comes to spend money in game? That seems like putting a band-aid on a gaping wound to me and i see the short-term benefits, but as soon as i think long-term i struggle to find any and even more, i see a lot of medium-long term problems with this band-aid.

I also remember us having a discussion some months ago about the marketing efforts and approach. Back then you told me we were aiming for a slow-steady growth rather than a big boom effect. Yet we are here discussing how to boost DAU immediately. What changed?

How did we go from "we are different than any other web3 project because we want real gamers more than web3 play2earn grinders" to "we'll see about gamers later, we need grinders right now"?

How comes we are losing the gamers we HAD in our ecosystem and plaied 100s of hours back in Survival Private Beta 1, and aiming towards grinders rather than trying to retain these valuable customers?

[raven steppe]

@tired temple regarding immediate boost in DAU was answered here#1189615583424172042 message

[wide warren]

💰

[tired temple]

i've read it but it doesn't seem like something new. So here's another way to put my question... Are we really making this decision based on the bullrun coming because of some FOMO of being left behind, while we said for 2 years we were not trying to time the market and that we'd be ready, when the product is ready period?

Or i guess this narrative just makes sense to justify delays and not when it's to justify a rush?

Wasn't it always the bet that regardless of our timing, we'd win the market shares because our game is better?

That's why my question is: what changed?

Where does this change in the narrative come from?

[raven steppe]

Yeah I like that phrasing. I've also been wondering about correlations with that too.

[sonic monolith]

Happy New Year!

Correct, we do understand that this experiment may attract users that do not make up Illuvium's 'spender' target audience... but that isn't an absolute truth.

What type of player may be encouraged to participate and what value do they add?

A)

A player from a lower socio economic country that would typically grind X hours to reach the top 100 for a reward offers us Player Data, Feedback, Bug Reports and helps to foster a more inclusive diverse competitive environment.

No, this user may not ever spend in Overworld... but that isn't necessarily true in every situation.

B)

A player from a higher socio economic country that would typically compete for Rank & Flex offers us Player Data, Feedback, Bug Reports and helps to foster a more inclusive diverse competitive environment.

Yes, this user is more likely to spend at some stage.

How did we go from "we are different than any other web3 project because we want real gamers more than web3 play2earn grinders" to "we'll see about gamers later, we need grinders right now"?

This is personal opinion and maybe Admin's / other Team Members feel differently...

Firstly - That is absolutely true, we do want real gamers more than play2earn grinders (despite the fact both audiences will be of importance), it is my feeling rewards for a Ranked Ladder are far closer to 'reward for skill' rather than 'reward for time'.

Secondly - We must be flexible, read the market and react accordingly. We know we have the foundations of what will be a great gaming experience, and naturally we will do everything in our power to reach that polished experience as quickly as possible... however, we have a duty to token holders to remain competitive within our niche to the best of our ability in any given moment.

How comes we are losing the gamers we HAD in our ecosystem and played 100s of hours back in Survival Private Beta 1, and aiming towards grinders rather than trying to retain these valuable customers?

Perhaps this is churn? I can't say for certain as I'm sure each player has their reasons.

These games are In Development perhaps many don't understand what that truly means. Game Development allows us to do literally anything! we want based on feedback, the intention has always been to shape this experience alongside the players.

Finally, as I've stated previously... rolling out Ladder Rewards does not take away from other Marketing Initiatives, Client updates, Tutorials etc etc.

[tired temple]

Thank you for the valuable insights like usual. I will withdraw this idea, but before i do, can you tell us if there is an Elo reset before Rewards are implemented? Some people started at 1500s and other at 750, i think it would be more fair for everyone if there was a reset before the 1st Rewards "season".

[sonic monolith]

I'll need to confirm on that, I haven't been part of the most recent conversation on the topic.

Tagging @pallid bramble <@&814435151307866142> as far as I'm aware the requirements / specifics are with IMC for review.

[hazy geyser]

As one of the people who did grind Survival for 100s of hours I can tell you it's because I don't think the game is good.

[tired temple]

that's pretty much the feedback i got from Setsuna, Frobei and Denis as well and why i fight so hard to try to make it better 😦

[hazy geyser]

Yup I'm on the "it needs a complete redesign" train of thought and we aren't going to draw in skilled players without it.

[sonic monolith]

The message has been received guys, appreciate the feedback

A range of changes will be made some quick wins and some larger changes, as with everything this takes time.

[hazy geyser]

Are you able to share these changes at the moment?

[sonic monolith]

I'm not across the proposed changes sorry

The broader team comes back online today from a short break so I'll hopefully know more soon

[hazy geyser]

Sounds good

[wide warren]

Thank you for the understanding zep. I'm sure we will get there in the future, but meanwhile compromises need to be made for the greater good.

[glacial locust]

I don't think the arena will catch on for the public either.
TFT could win to some extent without knowing the detailed rules, but Arena is not likely to do so.
It is too Esports content.
You have to build synergy perfectly from the Teambuild point to win first.
In the end, I think most people will just copy the deck and play it that way.

[pallid bramble]

We're looking to finalise it this week if possible. I think top 1000 is better to start off

[tired temple]

Will the leaderboard be reset to adress the starting inequalities stated above?

[knotty glen]

Don't tell me that, I spent the whole week climbing the rankings😢

[tired temple]

We have to, people who came in early like you and me started at 1500... while the people who started last 10 days started at 750 or something around that.

[hazy geyser]

How many people started the last few days that werent smurfs?

https://tenor.com/view/boom-annakendrick-pitchperfect-pitchperfect2-micdrop-gif-11777671842894244430

[tired temple]

we don't know but i have seen names had never before yesterday so we can't say for sure. But most likely more than 0 no?

[hazy geyser]

I actually have no huge opinion either way but dont think that argument particular is great. You can announce a deadline for when payouts would happen and even new players would have the chance to get as high as anyone else.
Say the rewards start next monday, I could get a smurf to just as high as my account is now

[tired temple]

cut for top1k now is 1662 Elo. so a lot of people who are not necessarily good started in that area anyways... how is it fair compared to someone of a similar level but has to start the grind from all the way down to 800?

[hazy geyser]

They could just new account
AFAIK its not against the rules

[tired temple]

New accounts now start at 750, not 1500s like we did. that's the entire point xD

[hazy geyser]

Ah I misread a bit.
I thought you meant a player in ELO hell at 800 currently in which case they could just restart and get placement elo bonuses

I think that itd still kind of be lame to not give anything to players that have grinded for the last 5 weeks now when starting rewards. Could just as easily do a reward and then reset rankings for the next "season" of it.

[wide warren]

alts are pumping our DAU

if the leaderboard doesnt get a reset and alts are permitted, you know what to do

[hazy geyser]

https://tenor.com/view/robot-robots-bot-bots-robot-army-gif-19992580

[wide warren]

[knotty glen]

I have a 2nd account I started at 750 and yet I am at 1930 now 'no difficulty

You gain so many points at the beginning🍾

[mossy spear]

while i agree its too early for the game state alone, i also think throwing this ilv away when its so much cheaper than what it probably will be in the future it will hurt down the road when it really matters... imagine just say 5000 ilv now... $400,000 but 5000 ILV in 6-12 months... probably double if all goes well??? then triple? thats 3x your bank

[knotty glen]

In 6 months you want to give the rewards you're too crazy

[wide warren]

i agree that spending ILV early hurts the DAO, however we need to pump the DAU now or at least retain it. I believe in the direct correlation between DAU and investors confidence, which will be reflected in our token price. Why would the token price be doubled or tripled if we see very low DAU or ever declining DAU

ILV is a gaming project anyway, the success of it should be determined by the number of people playing the game, not by the number of people hoping someone will

[silent oriole]

We need to test everything before Open Beta including Leaderboard rewards, also having more people playing the game before Open Beta is great, even if some of those players are only playing for rewards.

Best case scenario players come for rewards and then are hooked to the game, worst case is we spent Marketing money too soon.

[mossy spear]

Any rewards is going to players already here, unless you can show me different tell me how giving away ILV is going to bring in new players just because theres some ILV reward, those who would come for the prizes are those who have no clue what the ILV token even is.

[mossy spear]

be better off doing a fiat giveaway for people to just download off epic games and play 5 ranked games... dont see why this has to be the solution.. call it what it is, just funneling ILV to the brotherhood... aint gonna go to anyone new coming in lol

[hazy geyser]

Why wont it go to any new players?

[wide warren]

It is more efficient for the treasury to payout in token, we councils are paid in token too

[tired temple]

my understanding is that Marketing team is in panic right now. They bragged for 2 years about 1.5M "people waiting to join our beta" and now too many people are asking where are these people. In the end only 10k actually plaied our game for free... somehow the same amount of people who own Illuvitars. Crypto market is going crazy and ILV is tanking. Supposedly it means too many people don't believe in ILV short-term and want that liquidity instead to put on SEIGA or SOL or TIA or those coins that have been pumping like crazy recently.

That 1.5M number was also probably over used to keep VCs trust during bear and through the delays and we can imagine some of them putting pressure because of this.

I think that's why DAU and token price correlation/investors trust became suddenly such a big deal so quickly. Fair enough on one side, on the other i would still prefer we put the gaming experience above everything else.

In the end... it's whatever anyways. Kieran's response didn't seem like the 42 upvotes here had any influence on the matter.

[wide warren]

new comers may or may not learn about token, but they will definitely learn about the game

[sonic monolith]

There is no panic and Kieran will share updated player data today (I'm pretty certain).

I wouldn't consider ILV comparable to $SEIGA or whatever (personal opinion), I do notice that my $SHRAP investment has pulled back and is performing similarly to ILV.

[tired temple]

Nick, no offense, but we've been told that for 3 weeks now xD

[wide warren]

yes. the target was 5%-10% conversion from the 1.5m registrant

[wide warren]

will we see DAU?

[sonic monolith]

No offence taken, the guys are going to update player data monthly and Kieran just shared the update with me to eyeball it before it's shared.

[sonic monolith]

Monthly as we're pulling data from multiple sources.

[wide warren]

but the team has access to DAU right?

[hazy geyser]

Why exactly is DAU not gonna be shown?
It was shown before

[sonic monolith]

Yep

[hazy geyser]

Awesome. So lets see it 🙂

[wide warren]

maybe if we have access to epic store API we can show live DAU on the website

[tired temple]

hmm... you can run the game without having your Epic store open. In fact the game doesn't connect to Epic ever while running, not even to take account info since that's on our own website. Epic data would probably be very inaccurate.

[fringe saddle]

Cause they delayed 😅

[wide warren]

so what is this?

[sonic monolith]

Player metrics have always been important, we heard the reaction, we see our competitors and what they're doing to boost DAUs and we act to remain competitive within the bounds of what we believe is ethical and in the spirit of competition.

[hazy geyser]

A graphic that has a DAU chart?

[wide warren]

it says epic store statistics

[knotty glen]

People will come for the rewards and by playing they will understand that it is the best game in the world.

[tired temple]

Wow that's quite a claim there! Sad that so little amount of people agree with you we'd be rich otherwise

[knotty glen]

yes I agree with you but don't take me seriously, I only live for myself😆

[mossy spear]

because they wont win?

[mossy spear]

Does a donkey eat carrots or ILV?

[hazy geyser]

Why wont they win?
Players started playing when PvP came out and have done very well

[sonic monolith]

Tarren said it best in one of our discussions:

esports winners
rest of esports competitors
competitive enthusiasts
rising stars
good players

Rewards distributed top to bottom with deciding factor being skill / game knowledge.

The intention is not to give everyone a cookie for logging in, it's to incentizive competitive play.

[mossy spear]

thats another problem of itself, if all the playerbase is esports competitors and randoms come in and queue up to smurfs and get smashed trying out the game, Retention & DAU is not going up,

[sonic monolith]

Yes and we're addressing that in several ways...

• In-game Tutorials
• Improved UX/UI & Tooltips
• A requirement to have played X Casual Games prior to unlocking Ranked
• Refining the starting Rating
• A separate matchmaking queue for new players

• More

[mossy spear]

have a non displayed elo on the casual games is probably best

someone comes in with a triple magma tsunami super build with youtube knowledge and wrecks a player in 4 rounds, should probably not queue again against someone < 30 games and many losses

[raven steppe]

Personally I like the ability to have multiple matches (in casual) against the same person.
I find I can get a better handle on my team.
It would be cool if we could chose how many rounds.

[hazy geyser]

You can always do that in custom games

[raven steppe]

Or have like a training section that's like casual yet you can select the level of your opponents.
We are always goinh face meta issues

[raven steppe]

Yeah. If you have someone to play against at the same time you are.

Plus be willing to have extensive matches.

[hazy geyser]

Thats fair. If you ever need matches just hit me up and ill play if im free

[raven steppe]

Cool thanks.

[vague remnant]

Yes a rematch option has been discussed and I personally think it makes perfect sense. If both players opt in to a rematch, they can rematch.

[tough socket]

and rematch opt out would be nice. "Thanks for wrecking me 3 times in a row I'd like someone else now"

[hardy plaza]

I think rewards are a great idea, however I think since PvP is not yet associated with ownership, they should be delayed untill there are purchases required to build a team. It would be unfair to people who are buying illuvitars for similar leaderboard rewards.

[hazy geyser]

Arena is a game that takes skill.
Beyond is not.

[hardy plaza]

https://tenor.com/view/monsters-at-work-mike-wazowski-to-make-money-you-gotta-spend-money-making-money-gif-22949609

Otherwise we're just inviting bots/scholars/smurfs and whatever else that just wants to extract. It only hurts the DAO.

[hazy geyser]

Bringing players into our ecosystem hurts the DAO? News to me.

[hardy plaza]

It's just a top 100. Even good players will be out of it.

[hazy geyser]

Who said it was top 100?

[hardy plaza]

The proposal did. I'm fine with it however, just wait until the illuvials have to be caught.

[hazy geyser]

What proposal?

[hardy plaza]

This idea mentioned top100/1800 MMR as a cutoff.

[hazy geyser]

This isn't the teams proposal. This is to delay whatever the team has in store

[tired temple]

<@&821154860816793604> you can close this discussion, it's not relevant anymore.