Make Open Beta Competitive P2

[flat cedar]

Posting on Behalf of @lean yew

Let me start by saying that, as someone deeply invested in both the games and the economy surrounding Illuvium, I understand that initially, prices are high due to limited supply but will drop quickly as more supply is introduced. We also know that prices will decrease further due to the fuel economy design and the upcoming massive influx of fuel supply from landowners. However, what causes the most significant price drop and the near-absence of volume is the lack of demand since we haven't yet introduced the Arena.

Even though I, and most people close to Illuvium, understand this situation, it doesn’t matter. What matters is how people perceive the situation. Launching the supply side without the demand side in place is ineffective. Introducing Illuvium without it's key component of the ecosystem, the competitive Arena, disrupts the ecosystem loop.

The impact of an incomplete launch on investors, new players, and external perspectives is substantial. First impressions is important, and once people turn away, it’s challenging to win them back. The launch is happening now, the airdrop is now, and the Arena needs to start now!

We attempted to address this with IIP-56 Make Open Beta Competitive, but it was declined as it was already planned. Unfortunately, the team decided last minute not to launch the Arena because the game modes weren’t ready.

I understand that Ascendant needs to be reworked and that Gauntlet has upcoming features will significantly enhance the experience, but we cannot afford to wait.

If it cannot happen immediately, we need to at least make concrete plans to launch very soon and start promoting the imminent leaderboards and/or tournaments.

<@&814435151307866142> & Team, what are the current plans?

[magic tiger]

I completely and entirely agree with you.

[faint jetty]

I fully endorse

[scarlet rune]

i'd even propose to use the airdrop ILV as leaderboard rewards for say the top 1000 players/tournament rewards etc. Make everyone grind in their own way to get to the top instead of telling them ''mine 5 of these'' ''capture 3 of those''

[noble abyss]

@flat cedar the game has no burn system for the illuvial or fungction to make player keep hold it, with situation where illuvial is minting everyday and no demand for it

[lean yew]

Yes we also should use this to incentivize our game. Apparently both direct reward from the in-game reward pool and A-drop (cant say the word ill get blocked again) are planned for competitive arena modes

Thing is, we need it asap ⚔️

[urban valley]

when you fuse illuvials the 3 are burned and the 1 is minted

[timber sleet]

I totally agree, could you add something like that? They could allocate a portion of the 30k ilv AirDrop to Arena, in which it would be paid according to the position in which one is placed and or according to the victories achieved, this reward should be without vesting, to incentivize people to buy better illuvials or hunt and generate movement in the market, in this way it would make more sense to go to the lands to hunt illuvials, since if this continues like this in a few weeks it will almost not be profitable, unless your goal is to farm points for the AirDrop. (Sorry for the inglish is the google xd)

[lean yew]

It actually is planned to have the competitive scene rewarded both by the in-game reward pool and A-drop (why can you guys say the word but me i always get blocked lol)

I think the A-drop portion doesnt need to have an exception to not vest though. It complicates things and isnt necessary imo

[timber sleet]

I agree

[timber sleet]

I feel that it is almost not profitable to go to the lands anymore, what good does it do to go to a land, you get 1 t5 and you sell it for 4 dollars? and in 1 week it will be worth 1 dollar because there is no demand for it, the lands will not be profitable at all

[lean yew]

Yup, its a pack opening gamified but right now we dont have the demand side for it so things are going down fast and will continue to do so, especially with the fuel incoming from ilz

[timber sleet]

Of course, that's why they should make people want to buy iluvialls, because currently it's useless to you, just to compete in arena, for fun? People play and invest mostly to get something in return, it's obvious that they should give eye-catching rewards.

[lean yew]

It was initially planned its just that ascendant mode has to be reworked and gauntlet isnt ready. The point of this post is that we should start the competitive scene even if those mods arent 100% ready or reworked because the consequence are important and will get worse day by day

At the very least we need to promote concrete plans that its happening very soon, (a real soon)

[timber sleet]

I completely agree, if something is not done quickly, it will have quite bad consequences.

[ancient ermine]

This seems like a real concern for the ecoystem. I think kieran commented recentely about the revamp of the airdrop system. I have separate some questions that could be use as ideas to improve the airdrop system.

Is there any intetion to add a leaderboard system?

Are dailies continue to be randomly generate? Wouldn't be better to have a more consistance and less rng based system (i feel that there is an overall bad sentiment/angry of people to receiving quests that are not optiomal or possible to make)?

Is there any intention to make a more balanced system for what is going to be a free-to-play points and what is going to be pay-2-extract points? I'm kind of tired to see lots of compliments and people trying to use arbitrary numbers, maybe we can use a balance system. Thinking on this:

If a free-to-play quest give x, a pay2extract quest give 1.3x and so on. Considering that, people would feel less harmed and we could try to mantain a balance to incetivize whales to be on top and competitivinize from shrimps and free2playors.

it’s crucial to strike a balance that caters to both whales and those who might be inclined to spend more in a good behavior system. implementing a balanced points system and reducing the randomness of daily quests, we can ensure a more satisfying experience for everyone.

Furthermore, a leaderboard system could motivate competition, making people spend more into the ecosystem.

I always remeber the way i feel that way on airdrops that use leaderboard "if i spend X i could get a better rank, let me buy some skins and get better units to reach a certain leaderboard rank". I feel that the current system doesn't encourage collecting more; it lacks this positive incentive.

[lean yew]

Hey gustavo, i completely agree with you here

Yes the leaderboard is eventually coming, we even already have the place for it on the website

The airdrop structure will get completely reworked for next season

You are right we should find a way to make both pay and free to play players happy. Most importantly it needs to be un-abusable by alt accounts and bots

We daily/weekly missions to be balanced compared to milestones and get to sense of advancement and dopamine rush

[ancient ermine]

The alt accounts seem to be the most complex one, but i think we are not encouraging competitiveness enought to filter it. Making a leaderboard ranking with a max allocation of players (7k~15k) and define the rules before each season would be much better to solve this issue: people would need to spend time and money to mantain certain rankings and players that have assets could benefit for multiplers/points that holding them would give. Inclining a good behaviour of buying them on the Market, making runs to fullify their collection, etc (idk, you could add any action that benefits the revenue generated).

I have written on another topic about a paywall that seems to solve a lot of those problems, the trade license.

#1268237562435207220 message

[arctic zephyr]

☝️

[neat timber]

I agree that Arena tournaments, ladders, prizes, and competitive play are the short term path to sustainability. Longer term I think Overworld features and content might become more important, but that can't be done nearly as fast. However you can't just say "okay now we want it" and it magically appears (as you know).

With regards to short term gains there's really not a lot you can do:

• teams are structured along product and technology lines, moving will cause notable friction (i.e. slow down)
• there is still, at the very least, a baseline level of fixes and support needed for products like Zero, Illuvidex and Overworld
• the skill sets may not align (for example this work probably requires web and backend developers not, say, Unity developers)
• even if people are multi-skilled you can't just change someone's job description without talking to them and giving them a right to refuse
• hiring new people and onboarding them takes time
• on another tangent, I don't think lowering the quality bar is a good option, we've already pushed it pretty far down in service of hitting OB date, now is the time to lift it back up

So pragmatically this can only mean a clarity of focus and a small shift in resources.

Reasonable steps are things like: clearly defining a competitive Arena roadmap, establishing this as the top priority for the Arena team, ensure a notable allocation of shared resources to this endeavor (infra, security, QA), targetting marketing efforts to the competitve roadmap, etc.

Anything more dramatic (like reallocating resources from other product teams) would need very serious deliberation: it runs a very real risk of destabilising other products without a notable gain in progress.

[timber sleet]

Perfect Johnny, I understand your point, but if something is not done about it or an announcement is made, when they start to make the option to claim the tokens, don't you think that many people will leave? Because why would they reinvest if currently the lands are not profitable and you also don't get rewards for making achievements or something like that, there is no incentive other than the AirDrop and I think that it is not enough for people to stay, I also think that if something is not done, the market will continue to fall in 1 week if nothing changes the t5 will be worth less than 1 dollar, I think that a more conscious decision should be made and that if no steps are taken it could end badly, and I say this because I personally like the project a lot, but if there is nothing that encourages people to reinvest, I don't see a future for it.

[neat timber]

I already said I agree that this should be an area of focus. I just want people to understand you can't just move 100 staff to focus on Arena and expect that makes a 12 week turn around become a 2 week turn around (exaggeration to illustrate the point).

It's also clearly not the only thing that can be done. Adding a bunch of cool quests and multiplayer to the Overworld would probably have a much more dramatic effect, at the cost of a much longer turnaround.

People tend to get blinders "this is the way I like" becomes "this is the only way".

It's not like after 3.5 years of development the team runs out of ideas and stops working. There are so many things already planned or even in development. New things will also be announced as feedback and data is processed. Many things will happen over the coming months.

But ultimately and back on topic I do think competitive Arena should be a big area of focus. (I'm an upvoter)

[cobalt pike]

Full support

[acoustic bay]

I'm with you wrote up a Tournament system that will be player funded ( as to not to cut into their runway ) and allow for tourneys and all they need is a copy of the current que but into 8 man double elemnation bracket loops . https://discord.com/channels/760344898200666112/1268316381703569408

[lean yew]

Appreciate you jumping in Johnny, thanks

I totally agree with the points you made

I get that we can't make stuff magically happen but arena rewards (illuvials utility) were planned for launch right up until the last week before launching

Even if the modes arent totally ready i think we should at least have the plans to launch the competitive scene very soon and start to announce it already. This alone would drive some demand

[lucid shell]

Yes

The missions and milestones should be revamped to reward owning illuvials

• collection leaderboard
• more win ascendant points
• reach ascendant rank points
• gauntlet rank

[acoustic bay]

Agree even if tourneys aren't ready right now talking about them will build hype

[rare relic]

Nah, we always knew. No good arena = no demand for Illuvials = Dead Overworld.
And it is exactly what the entire community is experiencing right now.

this is how much was spent in 1 week (since launch).

Marketplace is dead. and we did less than 2ETH last 12 hours.

Really disappointed by @neat timber 's answer and will actually just go back to what I was doing before launch. Good luck everyone.
And I mean it, I wish no harm to anyone. But i personnally feel like I've seen enough this last week to comfort me in my choice 5 months ago when i heard: quote "Esports isn't an area of priority right now. Kieran wants to focus on the marketing for Overworld and Zero etc. 🙂" end quote.

[lucid shell]

pls dont go we need u zep

[rare relic]

nah thank you, I will leave a feedback of my entire Illuvium experience tho. just so it's out there. but i dont believe in the project anymore and am happier since i left

[neat timber]

You are disappointed that I agree it should be a focus?

Or disappointed that I pointed out the realities of pivoting any large team?

(Note that I have no visibility in to how far away specific features are, the numbers I was suggesting were to illustrate a point).

Anyway esports will happen, timing wise it might have been better if happened differently but I really don't think its a big of an issue as people make out. 99% of the esports community haven't heard of us. Once features are built then the marketing push can begin. Nothing is lost in this respect.

Even if those chasing earnings potential in the Overworld leave they will come back if earnings can be made, that group is not loyal to a game they are loyal to profit. Those playing Overworld to enjoy the experience are only going to be better served over time as new features get added.

It really doesn't seem like a time for doom and gloom. We've still got a bull market coming, if the games are well sorted before that it might turn out to be the best way for things to have happened.

[icy sage]

Make it up to the top 100,000 players get rewards, but make the top 1000 get substantially more. Top 100 big bonus. Kind of like the airdrops. Everyone gets a piece, even if small, but top players get more so.

Also, I really think both levithan and equalized stat mode ranked should each get a prize pool, so it’ll motivate people to build teams for leviathan which will drive the market.

[lean yew]

100% man, ascendant normal and leviathan are our 2 modes with utility at the moment. They should be rewarded the most

Gauntlet should be decently incentivized (via ranking) because it can serve as a great onboarding tool even in the airdrop! If you tell a F2P to farm T0 runs 12h per day i doubt he comes back to illuvium, but gauntlet he would legitimately have fun for free + rewarding ranking which incentivize real involvement in the game, literally playing to get better and advance compared to shooting 10k rocks per day and doing it on another account the next day

Also gauntlet will eventually have its leviathan mode and potentially a normal one too

[icy sage]

Yeah. Fun ideas. The trick is not having too many modes and dividing the player base too thin. Need to be able to actually find matches

[lean yew]

Hey <@&814435151307866142>, its been 36h without news, we would like to have your thoughts on this.

What your stance on this?
Do I need to push via IIP?

[autumn aurora]

I am in favor of implementing tournaments and similar options, that aren´t exploitable or would incentive unsportsmanlike behavior.
I would not be in favor of some short term not thought out solution, that might cause negative side effects, just for having something in place quickly.

That´s why I made this new thread https://discord.com/channels/760344898200666112/1268897132186832956 to figure out more specifics and what is doable in short, medium, long-term on this topic instead of having multiple threads about it with various ideas.

[simple mango]

Zeptyle always was doom and gloom. We appreciate you chiming in and giving clear insight in the inner workings and probable executions 👍

[lean yew]

Thank you for getting back to us and concretely acting on the matter 👊

[silver trellis]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts @lean yew

Ascendant has an extremely low retention rate, and we have explained that many times, so we are reworking it. Gauntlet has a much higher retention rate, even in Alpha. That is why we are focusing on Leviathan mode for Gauntlet first while we rework Ascendant.

You keep suggesting we offer tournaments and rewards for a game mode that has proven unsticky. You talk about first impressions but want us to funnel new people into something that isn't retaining players. How hard will it be to get those back that play a game they don’t enjoy?

We will not incentivise people to play Ascendant when fundamental changes need to be made first. We didn’t want to add missions and milestones for Gauntlet until we reviewed the player data. Now that we are happy with the numbers, we will begin incentivising Gauntlet players with milestones. Regarding tournaments, we need custom lobbies before we introduce them. Right now, it is possible, as we showed with the first tournament, but it’s clunky and definitely not something we want to roll out on a large scale until we have the game infrastructure to support it.

Your idea reads like we are sitting on our hands with all of these features and that’s simply not the case. Of course, we want to reintroduce leaderboard rewards and a competitive esports scene, but doing so before it’s ready will only push more people away, and as you point out, it is much harder to get them back once you lose them.

[acoustic bay]

I agree that it makes since if the data says people are having trouble staying in Ascedant that it shouldn't be part of a marketing push towards introducing new players. and What is E-Sports if not truly a marketing wing of the game. I feel the general player sentiment seems to be coming from "Hey we want something to do with our cool illuvial" i think a sense of ownership of the assests and putting them to use would help in general but if funds for sponsoring them is a concern even including a fresh leaderboard with air drop points based on rank ( taping the already setup rewards ) would generally be helpful and inward focused. I think everything the team has built is Great and personally i love ascendant even if i think it needs a few tweaks like smaller deck sizes and more balance in the augments. WHile Ascendant isn't Perfect i think a AGILE approach is best and instead of trying to refactor it all in one go would be to let the players continue to beta test it and give feedback on how to improve it through pushing the format. Also the push towards Gauntlet has made some players who love ascendant feel like they are being left behind for the shiny new toy where many players have said " Well Gauntlet doesn't even require assets" . MTG base set was a horrible mess of balance and now is remembered as one of the greatest sets of all time. I hope teams keeping spirit high and understand all this feedback just shows peoples passion and eagerness to do more with their illuvials 🙂 . Love your guys work Keep it UP !

[lean yew]

Appreciate you coming in to share the Team's point of view on it

The game will definitely get exponentially better with the upcoming gauntlet features, its ownership mode(s), and the ascendant rework

The point of this post is simply to share that despite the modes not being "ready enough," it would still be best to have something in my opinion

No matter if it's through the 🌬️ drop rewards or from the in-game reward pool, I truly believe having a little incentivization for users to go into the arena would improve their experience

Even if the modes aren't ready enough, I think it's a much better experience to go into the overworld and arena than simply the overworld for them

On top of a better experience and game loop for the players, we would also create demand for the OW players / ILZ players and get positive community engagement around those events

After all the discussions, I believe the best short-term solution is to start small weekly community tournaments and ensure the season 2 🌬️ drop structure incentivizes people to play in our diverse arena modes

[icy sage]

I think leviathian ascendent would have a lot more retention rate among hardcore players using their actual stats and levels on their illuvials--but it is also a bigger barrier to entry. Double edge sword. Levethian Gauntlet sounds amazing! Regardless, using the actual illuvials you own, is a crucial gameplay element which will drive people to collect the best stats and level the crap out of their illuvials.

[rare fable]

Just please, please don't turn ascendant into some variant of gauntlet. Initially we were aiming to dethrone TFT, and ascendant was our attempt at it. It hurts that 3 years later we still haven't figured it out and decided to switch the main mode to the gauntlet, which is a copy paste of tft. Ascendant has its flaws but it's not that bad, just needs some tweaks. From what I read in different threads it seems the plan is to randomize ascendant and turn it into a gauntlet wannabe. I rly hope that's not the case.

I also hope we don't turn into a TFT clone and keep a unique identity for ourselves. I think it's not a good idea to copy paste TFT, majority of it's success and 95% of it's initial playerbase were due to being attached to the League IP. Without that how successful would the first iterations of tft be? Furthermore it's players are emotionally attached to the characters there, it's very unlikely we will pull a large % of them over, unless we build better and more entertaining features.

/Rant off

[icy sage]

It is similar to TFT sure, but with a completely different character, attributes, classes, and abilities. TFT is also just a copy of Dota 2 Auto Chess Mod, which was the oringinal auto chess hit (as far as I know). It's really just a genre of game, and Illuvium plays so much differently than TFT or Dota2 auto chess it is a completely different game imo, but within the same genre type.

[rare fable]

The mechanics and characters are different, but the gameplay is not. All I heard from my web2 friends is - oh it's just a tft clone, not bad not great, gonna stick with tft. My point was tft's success was mostly due to the already established IP success, and without that it's not guaranteed the game would've popped off at all

[icy sage]

They are improving it still. I personally do love being able to play regular ranked and gauntlet, gives me options depending on how I am feeling.

The biggest difference is the overworld and creature collection, leveling, and stats all set the leviathian modes of the game apart from TFT. The characters will only be as strong as you make them to be in levithian mode, so the game ties together with overworld nicely.

[rare fable]

Me too, I enjoy and play both ascendant and gauntlet for the different vibe, but if I had to choose one or the other, I'd choose ascendant as I like theory crafting crazy comps that you can pull on demand. I know for most they will prefer gauntlet and it's alright.

I just hope we don't completely overhaul ascendant to be more like gauntlet, and only tweak/improve the current format.

[lucid shell]

like 1v1 gauntlet?

[rare fable]

No gauntlet is fine as it is, don't turn ascendant to gauntlet 2.0

[icy sage]

For me Levithian ascendent is so much more fun than regular standardized ascendent, because it's YOUR TEAM, YOUR ILLUVIALS, the stats matter, the XP levels matter, augments matter so much more (does that illuvial have good Omega power upgrades?). Which of your team has the best stats and affinites and classes to counter the enemy. Takes so much more strategy and effort to craft a deck in overworld and put it into pvp

[rare fable]

We went a bit off topic but yeah I also enjoy ascendant, even though it needs some additional spice, I hope we don't completely change it.