IIP-XX: Competitive Open Beta Launch

[opal vessel]

Following this post, #1244961081722540143 message and the overwhelming community support of 57-0, here's the proposal to officially ensure we get arena in a competitive state for Open Beta launch.

Full proposal: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FXcLxQh4XjzReDKgxm3Nm-i-mJsDeV4EycF7EnsR3OU/edit

[tardy topaz]

working on this proposal rn

[tardy topaz]

ive uploaded this proposal
iip-56

[opal vessel]

<@&814435151307866142> You declined this proposal because it was already planned and we didnt need an IIP for it

Kieran just said in the AMA its not planned to have rewards on launch. Im a little bit confused here, what do we do?

[tame hare]

Dunno what to tell you ser. I asked it was answered. Now, if it was changed midway then I wasnt informed about it till now

Sounds like Arena isnt in a good enough state to restart leaderboards at launch

[tardy topaz]

looks like it's just gonna be integrated into airdrop points

[opal vessel]

Kieran said both airdrop and ilv rewards are planned for the competitive side but not on launch

I was pushing this IIP because i think its extremely important to have the competitive side of the game for launch. Without a direct reason to catch illuvials we surely wont have as much activity and revenue from the OW

I get that ascendant is left in the back until its rework and that gauntlet is still in alpha though, maybe its better this way

I wont push again but i have to say im disapointed in the way it happened and i sincerily hope the rewards wont take a long time to comeback

[young shale]

Let me speak from my personal point of view on this as a very competitive esport-player.

I´d be very in favor of e.g. organizing a weekly? tournament, inviting e.g. the top 64? leaderboard players due to a weekly snapshot and building a high competitive integrity framework around that.

I´d certainly help making the business case to @silk cradle and Labs for that and help with figuring out a framework (most of this and possible technical limitations and makeshift solutions, I did figure out when we last had the tournament scene going already).

If guilds similar to the Hunt events could organize these, it would be on Labs for funding the Marketing expense and early on makeshift solutions wouldn´t fall back on Illuvium, as these would be community events.
I´d argue the organizers should be able to justify expenses made with something like views generated, avg participant having a close to full collection or similar though after a few events at least. (Labs should weigh in here on what goals should be meet)

This would increase the integrity of Rewards as well, as people couldn´t multi-acc and any other unsportsmanlike behavior options are harder to utilize as well.

I´d not suggest to start this day 1 as well, but maybe 2+ weeks into, as I don´t think rushing people would lead to a wanted turn out and positive perspective on the events. Mainly because people want to see esport events as somewhat fair competitions, so there should be time given for players to farm their teams and not be forced to spend money in a way they might regret afterwards.

We have seen the recent ICC idea of trying to copy Parallels incentive structure around owning assets, I don´t think we can easily copy that without major adjustments, but their tournaments e.g. are very liked within the community and they did pretty much adapt the proven Hearthstone Format. I wanted to introduce Conquest Format to Illuvium tournaments months ago, but events were aimed at casual players made that unfit. I believe this would change now.

Disclaimer: I did speak from a community member perspective with extensive esport background, but I am also an IMC member, so I want to note, that it is possible I would partake in these tournaments and or Organize/Moderate/Cast them and possible I could profit of them.
This would nonetheless be very close to high competitive integrity web2 esports events, that are common practice.

[opal vessel]

Appreciate your input Viper, i think this would definitely be a good format to start off the competitive scene and give a direct reason soon enough for people to catch/buy illuvials

When Kieran said we will wait to see what mode players play, user rentention etc it got me scared that this would drag on for months

I get the current state of our competitive games might not be the best but we cant wait too much to start cultivating our competitive scene

Like i stated in the IIP its really important to have this because its at the top of our ecosystem

Incentivized competition in arena --> arena --> ow --> zero

If we wait too much we will miss out on revenue and lose some new players

[tardy topaz]

So basically we need to see if there is interest in the arena before resuming rewards.
i know it's a chicken and egg, but we had weekly leaderboard and the winners were roughly the same people week after week.
ive talked about this with tarren and community event organisers (this was before ascension patch).
bottomline, cmiiw we need to have the arena at a better state before giving out prizes

personally, i believe the reason why arena participation was underwhelming is because of the design of the game itself.
now, ive played a few gauntlet and imo it's far from ready.
so i do agree that we should wait

[noble pine]

i don't agree that gauntlet is far from ready.
Few little tweaks here and there and it's good to go.
rest you can do on the fly

[silk cradle]

Tell me you didn't play set 1 of TFT without telling me

[noble pine]

could have easely go public testing the state it is in

[tardy topaz]

it's buggy.
lost an augment mid prep.
lost a unit.
freezes.
unit didnt ascent.
it needs time.

[tardy topaz]

just once. Like 2 matches i think.
i played magic chess more.

tft was buggy?

[young shale]

TFT had arguably more bugs, and was very unbalanced in every patch as well for months.

TFT to date has many bugs they haven’t gotten to fix after 5 years.