Figuring out viable short, medium, long-term solutions for competitive play and tournaments.

[glad bone]

Hey everyone,

Esports, competitions, and rewards for arena/gauntlet have been hot topics recently, so I thought I’d share my thoughts on the best options from traditional web2 esports/rewards and the additional possibilities due to web3.

A brief background about me: I am a former Hearthstone Pro-Player, having competed at the international top level for seven years starting as a hobby, then making it my profession, earned over $250k in prize money, and was a world championship finalist in 2019.

First, I want to highlight that cash rewards for leaderboards incentivize unsportsmanlike behavior, cheating, and using multiple accounts to farm more rewards. That's why traditional web2 games and some web3 games now use leaderboards and online ranked gameplay to qualify for high-prize-pool tournaments. This means giving points for certain leaderboard ranks at specific snapshots. While this won’t eliminate unsportsmanlike behavior entirely, it reduces it since there is no direct cash return. Multiple accounts become less relevant as, at most, you could "sell" the qualified account, which is a risky and potentially troublesome endeavor.

Unsportsmanlike behavior includes manipulating matchmaking and avoiding or trying to match against specific players to gain an advantage through various means.

Illuvium essentially has four PvP game modes:

Gauntlet
Ascendant
Leviathan for both of these
Focusing competitive events on all four might split players and competitors. If having events for all four is desired, there are two main options outside of entirely separate events, which at the current state might dilute the interest in each.

Make it team competitions, sending 1-2 players to each game mode. The main downside would be not being able to compete alone, increasing the barrier to entry. It might also be tougher on production and viewer experience. However, it could increase interest for web3 orgs, guilds, and esports-oriented entities.

Frame it as a sort of Illuvium Olympics, where you have to play every game. Every tournament for a specific game earns a certain number of points to qualify for bigger events. These bigger events could then focus on one game for a better viewer experience and higher skill level, allowing players to prepare more specifically. Repeat and cycle all four game modes for bigger events, leading to a final, which should most likely be Leviathan Arena/Gauntlet.

The above speaks about higher-level events, similar to an esports program spanning a year with multiple event levels. We've seen community feedback on drafts for how this could look.

Another short-term option could be community-organized, Illuvium-sponsored events, similar to the Hunt ones we had during Testnet. I suggest a DAO/Labs-approved rule-set for these to avoid rules that might favor or disadvantage specific players or groups at the organizer's discretion. There could be a vague bonus added, where these events award points that might be valuable for future undisclosed events, to avoid locking in something bigger at this stage.

Further ideas include themed tournaments, which should be considered more "for fun" but might have great community support. Basic ideas include "only Tier 3 and lower assets allowed, with one exception for a Tier 4 or 5 Illuvial," "Teams must include certain affinities or classes," and "speed matches: e.g., If a player has 500 HP left in the arena, it is considered a loss."

Another major part of competitive events is figuring out a tournament format for them. In Gauntlet, it is simple and likely doesn't need changes. For Arena, adjustments are needed, as the classic blind 1v1 best-of-one online ladder setup is competitive with a high sample size, but tournaments don’t allow for that. A better format is needed, such as best of 3/5/7 depending on the event and stage, with teams submitted in advance to prevent changes based on opponents. Illuvium has no restrictions in teambuilding, so either teams must have zero overlapping assets or only a specified number can overlap. A Swiss format for matchmaking would be optimal, providing the highest sample size to reduce RNG in events. Depending on the time allocated to the event, single-elimination top cut can follow Swiss rounds.

Lastly, some positive options due to web3 could be that prizes, in addition to cash or cash equivalents like tokens, for low- to higher-level events could be given as NFTs. This could include cosmetics only obtainable for participating or achieving certain results at certain level events, potentially customized with engraving for top finishes. Additionally, for tournaments requiring qualification via online ladder or smaller tournaments, the bigger ones could award tradable entry tickets for following events as a prize. This allows trading and makes the prize of qualifying more valuable by allowing trading, enabling competitors or organizations to enter the system even after inception, without waiting for the first final big event to conclude.

I essentially want to figure out what is doable and wanted, preferably as soon as possible, so that soultions can be ideated or started to be worked on.

[fervent frost]

I like your idea of special tournament. It would open the door to players who wants to play with their own illuvial, but does not have the funds to buy tier4/5.

[brittle ravine]

Illuvium zero tournament who can build from nexus 1 to Nexus 9 the fastest

[glad bone]

Yeah I think that is one of the fundamental questions, should the short/medium Term goal be more towards the casual for fun side or more towards the competitive esport side.

[glad bone]

my credit card is ready

[fervent frost]

I think short term it makes more sense to focus on fun events, similar vibe as the hunting events we had.

I think competitive should come when the team is happy with the state of their game (probably medium term).

[lofty oracle]

Arcade will help sponsor/contribute to prize pools 🫶🏻

My personal opinion is to lean more towards the casual / fun events and less to professional esports events just because the community is still relatively small and the games are being refined. But we can still have a lot of fun with these casual events and make them enjoyable for gamers who otherwise wouldn’t feel they can compete at a pro level.

[charred island]

Thank you for acting on the matter @glad bone

We certainly have to set things up right and although a more sophisticated esport program is needed for the medium long term i believe we can and need to start things up as soon as realistically possible

It has such a negative consequence to have the pack opening without the game, new comers dont even know what they are going in the overworld for and market as basically no volume as we arent incentivized to go play arena

You touch on a great point for the leaderboard

For the paid vs fun mode i believe we should have tournament in both at this stage but the paid versions should definitely be more incentivized. Giving utility to illuvials is the whole point of the competitive scene and our arena games

Concerning splitting the userbase I think a good way to approach this at this stage would be to alternate between the modes. One week ascendant tournament, the other one gauntlet ascendant and another leviathan ascendant

The community is more than happy to help with the organization and hosting of such events. We've seen how the inferno and HUNT events have been a success

Even if its only weekly tournament, if properly incentivized, it would properly incentivize people to not only own illuvials but invest themselves to play and get better at the game

We've to establish a solution as soon as possible for this and start to announce the tournaments

[glad bone]

I will get back in more detail soon, but I didn’t suggest to create pay to enter events here.
The barrier to enter is already owning assets in every game mode outside of basic gauntlet.
I am not sure that this is beneficial at this stage.

[charred island]

If we only incentivize free modes we dont give any reason for people to own illuvials and armaments. We are seeing the effect that has right now

Without utility we generate much less revenue than we could. Arena competition is the only driver of the ecosystem for now

[glad bone]

I think for weekly tournaments, something like top 64 from ladder qualify+ 64 open entries or higher numbers if demand is high enough can work well.
Rotating game modes is an option, could use polls or sign ups before to gauge which versions more people are interested in. Adjusting Price pools for different Game Modes and different barrier to entry (harder to aquire/more assets needed) would make sense as well I believe.

Like I mentioned above I am not a big fan of charging a fee in whichever legal form would be possible, for these events. I think 3rd party organizers can create those "higher stakes" events, maybe even as 4-8 player only short single elim ones e.g.
People are playing the game and spending money for Fuel or on the Illuvidex, I wouldn´t want to double charge them in a sense.

I also think in this case in comparison to the Hunt or Inferno events Labs/DAO should have more oversight on rules and enforcing them, to maintain competitive integrity at all times, essentially just outsourcing the moderation of the events, not the setup.

[charred island]

Rotating game modes is an option, could use polls or sign ups before to gauge which versions more people are interested in.
Interesting idea, but i dont think we should do this because majority of votes would probably go for the free mode. Then we could open the votes across the paid versions sometime but again people might vote in favor of the normal mode instead of leviathan simply because they couldnt play in it. We still want to incentivize normal and leviathan mode

I think its also perfectly reasonable to promote all different mode, as they all use the same assets. Also ensuring we give something to both ascendant and gauntlet fans

Adjusting Price pools for different Game Modes and different barrier to entry (harder to aquire/more assets needed) would make sense as well I believe.

I also think in this case in comparison to the Hunt or Inferno events Labs/DAO should have more oversight on rules and enforcing them, to maintain competitive integrity at all times, essentially just outsourcing the moderation of the events, not the setup.
Totally agree here 💯

[mortal geyser]

Finally someone rational !!!
Love to see this ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

When all the people discuss about how to make more money for the DAO, how to spend even more in aidrop and how, you arrive and just speak the truth !

• A game with no player won t work
• a game where you always pays for everything won t work.

--- The CASUAL are a game, and ONLY after, when we have a good base of player, meaning alot of player, then we can thing about esport, competitive ect ---

Competitive scene is always a niche in game, If people still try to think about the right now, when we don t even have solutions neither to bring or to keep people is silly.

Time is to find solution to gain player, and to keep them, people are either not comming or stopping fast cause it feels that you get milked every minute of your money.
Solve this -> player will arrive cause the foundations are good -> the hype will start -> only then think about esport

[glad bone]

I guess Gauntlet being the only actual f2p game, we could obv limit the amount of Gauntlet events, but if people prefer Gauntlet leviathan> leviathan arena, focusing on that would make sense as an example, similar to if the Leviathan events don´t have many participants, but ascendant arena has a high interest etc.

We could also start this with having rotating every weekend and evaluating participation and sentiment.

[glad bone]

Well we are certainly somewhat far away from esport, but competitions and event certainly make sense.
Hunt events had a skill element and a competitive element, they were widely appreciated.

[charred island]

I think starting off all around and evaluating is the best approach here

[mortal geyser]

It s not us who decide what is competitive ....
It s the player base not the other way.
We can t say ok we make acendent competitive but not Gauntlet but yes for gauntlet Leviathan ect ...
It doesn t work like that, it s the other way around

see what people play, what people like and this is where we can make a competitive scene

[glad bone]

To some extent yes, e-sports is a marketing tool and you tailor it towards your audience, viewing audience. The players who want to partake follow to where they can make money.
You can´t control what people will want to watch, you can certainly create events and tournaments for the game modes so people can watch high level players, teams and gameplay.
If there is no audience that wants to watch this or many who want to partake and therefore buy assets to play with, you have to change things.

TCG events often have fewer viewers than participants e.g., but every participant needs to have a deck of cards, so it makes sense for the events to happen.

To know what people want to play or watch, you do have to start somewhere though.
That´s why I am not suggesting to start some month-year long planned esport league, but have smaller scale events in the short term to gauge all this.

[charred island]

I totally agree with you but as we have a free mode we have to keep in mind that people will most likeky want only this if we give the option

Still it wouldnt make sense for us to only incentivize the free mode, let alone incentivize it the most. Our gauntlet and ascendant modes that require ownership is what drives our ecosystem

If hearthstone starts an esport league where you dont need to own assets and ask the broad playerbase which one they prefer to compete in most everyone will chose the free one but it wouldnt make sense for the game

We definitely should have something for free gauntlet but we have to keep in mind that its our unboarding mode

[sleek lion]

I'll say this though the goal is to create a system in which the average player knows and undersatnd the "Road" they would to travel to go from (To Use MTG Terms) Friday Night Magic the World Champion. That dream will drive your more compteive players even though only .1% will never make it this was hearthstones biggest problem there was no Journey and E-sports where generally invite only for the longest time and seperate from standard competive play. As those playing ladder where virtually playing a diffrent game compared to last hero standing or conquest formats. I think having fun events is great but atleast keep things similar. My thought would be Arena would be best of 1 in a swiss round with lots of games ( aiming for everyone to have 1 or 2 losses) Similar to chess tourneys the game already takes a while and has several back and forths. Gauntlet would work probably also in a swiss format but with pods. You put everyone into a game and they get points then you reseed using points from the previous one and at the end you pick your top 8. ( Glad your hear viper)

Ascedant already atleast encourages Card Ownership in the form of you have to own it to play it ( or it be in free rotation), and we Only have one form of Gauntlet right now. I would imagine for your top tier play you May want to aim for Levithan formats to display top end play. However for now its easy enough to go with what we have in the short term. I would think eventually you could do standard Ascendant and Levithan Guantlet

[glad bone]

Hearthstone 2016 onwards wasn´t very invite only, online ladder qualified you for events.
Also offline free to enter/open to qualify for all tournaments.
They also tried the inperson local events, there wasn´t much interest for those.

If Gauntlet would end up being the Game Mode most want to partake in, it is f2p, but people can own cosmetics, so on a monetization side of things, the demand by f2p Gauntlet, could certainly be there btw.

Also Leviathan Gauntlet as we are web3 isn´t as scary a barrier, as borrowing assets is easier than in TCG comparrison.

[sleek lion]

The MTG player in me loved them i played in several dream hacks around the county. Never got to the level of you grandmasters though . I think also setting up a system that allows both qualifying for events like you said based on ladder and based on strong play in larger events is a good method. Hearthstone did evenutally have a good mix of booth

[glad bone]

I meant Fire-Side Gatherings btw, not 3rd party major/minor events.
Dreamhacks were nice, sadly blizzard wanted to maintain as much control as possible and hampered 3rd party events.

[sleek lion]

They wanted control but refused to give us a tourney system like the chinesses from what i gather primarly not to upset mobile players 🙂

I went to lots of firesides "At my house to do pre-releases and open my packs"

I wish hearthstone was NFT lol i have so many gold sets from back in the day lol. I think thats why games like this will take off though i did it when i didn't own the assests 🙂

[glad bone]

Yeah would be nice if cards/cardbacks would have been nfts or tradeable overall at least.

[sonic herald]

If gauntlet was a 6v instead of an 8v I would play it more. For me it's a drawn out.

[tidal raven]

Thanks for great post @glad bone .

Personally I think Gauntlet should be the focus, simply because we know from TFT that that format works. Watching streamers play it for first last last night the experience was extremely similar to a strong gamer trying TFT for the first time. They understood the mechanics at a high-level very quickly, they understood there was nuance they would have to work out over time, but mostly ... they had fun.

Getting Gauntlet eSports ready means:

1. Fix bugs and get it stable. Hopefully not too far away.
2. Add ladder with small prizes. I think this should be fairly quick to add, we've already done it before.
3. Address any major balance issues (but it doesn't have to be perfect... see almost every season of TFT)
4. Add tournaments, this can be for a start be done quite manual, although obviously a full integrated tournament system with satellites, etc would be great. Big prizes plus existing relationship with Team Liquid should bring players pretty quick once the game is stable and balance is reasonable.

I do think there is a way to solve Ascendant for competitive play (possibly quite simply...e.g. bring 4 decks, no overlap allowed, ban 1, in a last man standing or conquest tournament format). I just think sticking with something very similar to what people already know is the best way to get quick wins.

[glad bone]

That´s a very true point, Gauntlet is intuitive to be picked up, same as people can pic up any mana based card game quickly, any classic Battle Royal Autobattler Player can dive into gauntlet and have a feeling of knowing what to do and understanding the genre basics.
Ascendant Arena is essentially an entirely new genre and certainly harder to attract people, as they at first have no idea what is going on.

Maybe having Ascendant Arena Tutorials/Show Matches or similar during Breaks of Gauntlet Events Main Stream could be very helpful onboarding there.

TCGs like Yugioh have been doing that with old formats (which people play as side events/for fun in smaller communities anyways in recent years) or easy to follow decks on their main broadcasts of Major events to fill time between games.
I think Yugioh might be a good comparison to this overall, as the game is incredibly beginner unfriendly due to the sheer amount of knowledge needed to start any current meta deck and they have been trying to make that an easier entry via different easier games/formats or tutorial like things during broadcasts. (Yugioh has been growing and doing well even while being beginner unfriendly, as this also leads to a long lasting, replayable, enjoyable experience for experienced players as relevant side note)

[sleek lion]

Gauntlet is Great - ( needs coding work) ,
Ascendant is great but could use some changes to be more fun and balanced
It seems like the things needed for Ascendant are rules changes and smaller if any features.
Why the things needed for gauntlet are more long term fixes that will require more development.

Suggested Ascendant Changes

• Reduces Illuvial deck size to 30- ( That's a full team all the way to stage 3 and 2 optional units)
• Balance Weapons and Armor ( Game currently can be flipped by an item that cost 32,000 Solon To make )
• Limit Refunds
• Across the board balance of Offered Augments
  (These seem like balance and rules adjustments that could make it more fun we already have custom match
  making. Nothings stopping someone from hosting a tourney in Ascendant tomorrow)

[glad bone]

A while ago I repeated some of my thoughts on ascendant arena and how you´d make it not as high rng, low skill as it is atm here.
#1256893047422189649 message
(pic for people who don´t wanna jump threads)

I don´t think this is a short term thing though, but obv depends on what updates the Teams has planned in the near future and how far along they are there.

[sleek lion]

Ohh i just had a Great Idea for a diffrent kind of Ascedanant ( well i didn't have it but it its from another game but it could work here) , We could have a Splinterlands Style battle game where your given a mana cap and a set of effects that are in play like ( Nature void can't play nature creatures , Thorns ( all creatures get 50 thorns ) . etc then you build a lineup from all your illuvials to battle your oppent and then the rules shift and you play a best out of three. This turns the strategy into a team and lineup builder but it solves the meta problem becuase no two games are ever the same. I think i'm going to write up a propsoal (that being said this is a new mode )

[fervent frost]

For the short-term : I think we should resume leaderboard rewards and weekly tournaments (these could alternate between game modes). Even using previous prizes, it would only be a fraction of the airdrop prizes while encouraging people to play and own illuvials. This could lead to the Team Liquid tournament. I think this one is shaping out to be gauntlet.

Medium/long-term : A list of future tournaments to be held should be published around the TL tournaments to use the hype. I liked the idea of having smaller tournaments open and/or based on ladder with bigger tournaments based on smaller tournaments performance. This would lead to a final event. In this scenario, i think that tournaments could alternate game modes or be a combination (such as a top x cutoff from gauntlet into a knockout ascendant).

[glad bone]

I heavily dislike any cash rewards for leaderboards, especially with far more anons and airdrop farmers around, those are incredibly exploitable.
Leaderboards can simply qualify for tournaments.

If the goal for leaderboard rewards is to have more people play, it should likely be a different setup than rewards top X, maybe more a raffle nature, could certainly give higher ranks more raffle tickets e.g., but then again exploitable.

[urban heron]

noooo
IMO ILV leaderboards it's the best incentive we can give to players. And we don't really need to count airdrop farmers here since this will be rewarding the best of the best players.

[glad bone]

It very likely would reward wintraders, same people multiple times, etc.

Why not have top X play a tournament instead of giving cash in the leaderboard to reduce the risk of unsportsmanlike behavior and same person using multiple accounts?

(to be fair, the caveat is the amount of cash and if it is worth to abuse the system for that amount, a low amount would then again not incentive people to get T5s e.g.)
I empirically see this in any web3 game in which people can earn money on the ladder, either there are budget deck multi account grinders or people acting incredibly unsportsmanlike at the higher ranks for rewards.

[urban heron]

and what would be the prize of the tournament?

[glad bone]

Could use ILV from the rewards pool.

[urban heron]

I mean yeah wintrading is a thing, but it should also be bannable whoever is caught doing it.

[urban heron]

why not simply reward the ILV to the leaderboard then? And also have ILV for tournaments.

[glad bone]

It is incredibly hard to prove wintrading unless players admit to it.

[urban heron]

is it really though? You check their history and see who their playing against. Not saying it's easy. But it isn't impossible to figure out.

[glad bone]

So you want to ban someone for being 0-5 vs another player?
You certainly don´t prove wintrading with that.

[glad bone]

Most web2 games have no solution to this, that´s why they don´t pay rewards for ranked ladders.

[urban heron]

no you don't but catching players playing always against the same opponents does

if the same account keeps losing they'll get demoted out of their league.

[glad bone]

So just play some games inbetween for real, you gotta maintain the rank on the wintrade acc anyways.

Can just cycle couple people and accounts.

[urban heron]

yeah that's true. Getting an entry to a tournament would solve that indeed.

I would still like to have leaderboards with ILV rewards. The ones win trading wouldn't be the majority if there are rules prohibiting win trading.

[sleek lion]

Having Leaderboard with Prizes does seem like it could be useful. So maybe something like "Fuel Rewards" or "Cosmetic" rewards for leaderboards. I think having something to chase even right now maybe just "Airdrop" points for leaderboards for say top 1,2,3,4, then top 8, top 16, top 100 , top 500 or something

In addition of course to awarding tourney spot invitations so if your top 64 got invited to a big tourney that would be the real reward

While i would love to have this in Gauntlet right now i think we would need to start with Ascedant, tourneys for it can be hosted on Battlefy or Conquest as it atleast has match making

[urban heron]

why fuel or cosmetic and not ILV?

[sleek lion]

Becuase one i think ILV should be your big tournament prize and you want to have biforcation on your reward strcuture to make it seem diffrent. and two i think its the approiate sort of award for climbing a ladder which generally envolve finding a setup with a 55% win rate and spamming that setup in 1000+ games verses a test of top level strategy

[fervent frost]

I agree that leaderboard is exploitable, but it is an easy win, easy to market, and the reward should be low.

I think Illuvium has a chance to do something special, that is have tournaments that are made of multiple modes.

For instance, we could start with multiple gaunlet games, and then the top X players move to the next phase, which is an Ascendant bracket

[sleek lion]

The Mutiple mode thing just doesn't work. MTG has tried it at their World Championships it just hard to have an audience that appreciates the details of how each mode is diffrent

[fervent frost]

Good to know, then maybe not in World championship, but in some for fun tournaments

[last merlin]

Tournaments are huge time sink, you need to clear your schedule for the day basically and be awake at night unless you get lucky with the time zone. While a few leaderboard matches can be played in a 30 minute break or something, any time you want.

[glad bone]

It seems unlikely that a few leaderboard games could reward a relevant amount, as that barrier seems incredibly low, you´d likely award a huge part to people playing multiple accounts.
Now at least they have to own assets on each account, an ascendant Team with Tier 3 and lower Illuvials would likely be similar to a starter deck setup people do this in other games with, so not a high barrier.
Then you likely have a lot of the rewards from the mid-lower end ranks taken by the multi-acc farmers.
Top Rank accounts likely would need to play more than a few games to maintain high ranks and for any leaderboard rewards, there should be something like daily/weekly min set of games anyways. If you put substantial rewards, for which top end accounts likely have to invest more than few minutes (maybe now they need Teams with T5s, so again maybe ok?), you likely leave a substantial part of the rewards to people cheating in various ways even if they need a more expensive team.

Disregarding all the cheating and multi-acc, yes it is nice to attract some people to play/buy assets, but what once it becomes very apparent how much abuse of the system is going on?
Also if people are purely attracted by "roi" on their team and they then see that a relevant amount of their opponents is cheating in one way or another and there is not much to be done about it, I can see this being very negative narrative as well.

I want to point out the issues that most likely will happen with cash for leaderboards, if those downside issues are deemed to be neglectable, so be it.
I don´t think they are, especially given what I see in other web3 games, when it is mainly about extracting as much value as possible by anons, who have no reputation or such at stake when it comes to cheating in various ways.

[glad bone]

It might also be worth to add, that the leaderboard rewards during Arena-Beta did not have a very positive effect and did not make many people want to engage and play.

[urban heron]

that's a bad assumption to make due to the game's state back then. Rewards definitely increase the engagement.

[glad bone]

Arena has not significantly changed, the main difference is you need to own your Illuvials now.
This is my personal opinion, yes, I don´t think new weapons or all Illuvials released change much on this.

[urban heron]

yes it's a big difference since you can't simply copy any meta team while playing on God mode.

[glad bone]

Like I mentioned above, there likely is some e.g. enchanter, berserker budget team and you will have many multi-acc farmers grinding to the applicable rank threshold, they can get with that.

Top end who prob do have/need a closer to full collection will just copy whatever the best team is, like it used to be.

[urban heron]

yes that's true there will always be a good viable budget team to play. However once set 1 ends if everything goes right set 1 assets won't stay cheap forever.

[glad bone]

That is a possibility, but has nothing to do with the short or medium term options for competitive play or incentives for it.

[glad bone]

Something that slipped my mind to mention in the original post btw:
Gauntlet doesn’t have custom lobbies and creating them in a makeshift way with queuing up at the same time isn’t a great solution for events.
If there should be short term gauntlet events the structure would likely have to be something along the lines of everyone plays X games in a time window (have to stream in discord, to avoid cheating) take screenshots of your placements and give points according to placements and tiebreaker rules for final overall placements as example.

Depending on the amount of participants this would be high on admin work and some limitations on discord maybe as well, so certainly not optimal until something like match history to verify results would be available.

An easier option could be people have to turn on stream when they are in the final 1v1 and only top 2 get some kinda rewards/points/or whatever.