Shifting Illuvial Acquisition to a Pack-Opening Model

[rose quiver]

In light of the recent news @hallow cipher just dropped on us, I'm starting this thread so we can discuss a bit more what's everyone's opinion on the matter of shifting the illuvial acquisition to a Pack-Opening Model.

#💰〕token message

Here are some relevant topics for discussion:

• Pros & Cons of shifting Illuvial acquisition to a Pack-Opening Model
• Should we stop the current OW mode or keep it running simultaneously.
• Suggestions on how to implement the automated drone runs.
• Impact on Beyond by having two different pack opening experiences.
• Impact on the current game economy.

<@&814435151307866142> <@&1107754780744487002>

[foggy widget]

We could also think about adding the OW card opening experience to Arena, if we are already accepting automated runs anyway.

Basically OW without the time consuming hunting. You instruct your Drone to scan a region/stage of your choice and your Drone returns with a list of 30 different encounters. You then go into the Arena battle like you did in the OW.

And if whales don't want to play Arena, they can pay a bit extra to skip/automate/simplify it.

Illuvials could also become rewards in Leviathan and maybe even Ranked mode.

This would allow Arena/TFT players to grow into ownership via their preferred Arena game play, while still allowing whales to spend money quickly.

[tender bolt]

I will add my comment from the other thread here.

If we were to do a pack opening, I think it would make the most sense to have it as an alternative to the OW and keep OW for those that want to hunt specific Illuvials with good stats, and gain XP for doing so, and also use OW to gather crafting materials.

A pack opening, by doing a Drone run would be a cool additional option that I think many would prefer, and the game loop could be a bit similar to how OW runs work.

1. you instruct your Drone to scan a region/stage of your choice.
2. your Drone returns with a list of 30 different encounters.
3. you choose the encounter you want to start, and you get into the capture sequence, and use shards to try to capture.
4. After you successfully captured 5 Illuvials the drone runs out of energy and you would need to start the process again.
   (just random numbers)

• You would still need to have shards to do the drone runs, making it viable to farm materials in OW and sell on the marketplace (need to make it easier to sell/buy a bundle of shards,,, drone checks if you have shards before it start)
• You still benefit from having Drone upgrade to improve capture chance.
• Might be an option to having to choose your team to go beat the encounters before you get to do the run and capture.… so you maintain the sense of progression. You will need a certain powerlevel in your team to beat the encounter… you don't actually play with your team, it's just a “power level check”, for you to even be able to initiate the drone run at the higher stage.

I think having an automated Drone run would be cool, but I would not “scrap” the current OW mechanics at this point, I think there is value in having both. (I can see myself wanting to do both versions)

[foggy widget]

I copied your first steps and added optional Arena gameplay.

[radiant falcon]

Value for closing overworld and releasing it again when it's feature finished is marketing and hype around the re opening.

Rather than feeling like a patch it feels like a new game launch like it deserves.

[livid lichen]

had some time thinking about your idea and ended with the following:

• real pack opening is the better way to go
• The argument that a cheaper, but boring way to acquire Illuvials could reduce the willingness to purchase packs seems valid.
• To implement the change smoothly some criteria need to be met:
• highest possible consistency between the two system to reduce advantages/disadvantages that prevent people from purchasing packs, because they think they are behind or getting a bad deal for the sole reason of buying too late or too early. (As a new player I wouldn't want to enter a game in which early birds had such a hugh advantage to get good stat Illuvials)
• decent lead time that allows people to plan accordingly (merge fuels and give us some time to use it)
• chance to get good stats Illuvials shouldn't change too much in comparison to OW, because they are the only Illuvials that are needed for Leviathan

Suggestion:

• Stage 3 drone run should cost around 2700 fuel (1350 crypton + 1350 hyperion)
• Drone run offers 40 Illuvials (650 energy) + gems (50 energy) + essences (50 energy) and -you can pick for 4500 energy (adjust numbers with data)
• gems and essences are still needed to fuse Illuvials
• Accounts with remaining shards/gear can trade those back for the initial fuel costs (same for consumables/ore based on average costs?)
• This would keep consistency between the two systems in regards of good-stat-Illuvial-density, while simplifying and speeding up the acquiring mechanism. This seems important to not give to much of a head start to early birds, which would disincentive new users to enter the eco-system and to allow a seamlessly transition.

The price for packs good be a little higher than I wrote here to award early-birds for their invested time.
I think this could work without a big cut, which wouldn't sit to well with current and future users, while allowing a new direction for the economy, which is necessary.

This would be ok for me, I guess

Also it is not wonder that OW isn't working, because the team decided to stack as much pain as possible into OW.
Just look at the capture chances. 50% alone are rediciouls. With this chances you get insane swings for users that can go over 10k captures way below average and more. People who played poker know this. Ofc. no mainstream normal web2 player wants to play this.
Another option aside from packs would be to reduce the variance in this rng simulator, but maybe pack opening are easier.
Also market place isn't good and gauntlet isn't pulling people for the time being.
So, maybe it would be better to fix this first and reevaluate afterwards.
Sometimes it is not what you do, but how you do it.

BUT it is super important that we get clarification regarding this very fast, because I guess we can't handle this uncertainty for too long

[plucky wraith]

I think a simple pack opening is a great idea. Not only OW isnt ready to be enjoyable and a game on its own but its simply too long for a pack opening. Its impossible to spend a lot of money right now in illuvium. We need to be able to swipe the credit card and get fast dopamine

Disk sales compared to OW fuel shows how those spending model differ from one another

[radiant falcon]

I'll just say its great to hash out ideas but @hallow cipher will be posting his/team's vision in full then we can properly digest and give feedback on that.

[queen tide]

I don't understand at all how Kieran can say this, it is in fact the destruction of OW and Zero taken together as individual games and all the work and investment of users is simply useless, he talks about a large flow of players in the closed beta but somehow does not understand why they came and it's money it's a drop if they make an OW leaderboard with prizes for top 50 weekly leaders then OWs will run and use fuel reduce T5 by 10x and t4v 5 times, and the cost of illuvials Make a leaderboard in the gualnet and leviphan arena, where the latter will have the highest prizes, but not as stupidly as in the tournament when there are prizes for 1-2-3 place, make a top 100 ranking and people with weaker decks will try to get there, this will give a boost to the market, too distribution of prizes is not 50% for the first 3 in the table, but more loyally, for example, 1st place $100 5th place $50 50 place 15$ per week, the numbers are illusory, meaning that there were no very large gaps You beat this kind of work in OW and you want to do such a stupid thing as an autoscan with a drone, why is it just close the game make packs with illuvials and hide everything, get the main thing PEOPLE GO WHERE THERE IS A DROP AND EARNING, THAT'S THE BASICS everyone was waiting for season 3 and where is it? and what happened, what is the fuel bonus? It will also be the same and with the Arena there will be no rewards for the big table, dozens of people will play and that's it, I've been with you for a long time and I'm honestly disappointed in your idea with OW

[rose quiver]

don't you think it's helpful since the team hasn't yet written the IIP and it's only Kieran's ideas to have these discussions now?

[radiant falcon]

That what I said, it's great to hash ideas now, then when we have the vision for it we have a more informed brainstorm afterwards.

[rose quiver]

for those that didn't follow what Kieran said in token chat here is the short version by chatGPT.

Kieran’s thoughts outline an ambitious pivot for Illuvium that would rely on player psychology around ease, engagement, and excitement over open-world exploration. Moving towards a model with automated drone runs—essentially making the collection aspect less time-intensive but still engaging by simulating a pack-opening experience—aligns with the success of Illuvium: Beyond and a "minting" feeling that resonates well with players who prefer instant reward mechanisms. This could appeal to whales or other players less inclined to commit hours to collecting in Overworld but who enjoy the thrill of rarity and ownership.

The core argument for shutting down Overworld temporarily, rather than keeping both systems active, is that the current pay-per-play model is off-putting for newcomers and may hinder player retention. Kieran suggests that the Overworld could later re-emerge as free-to-play with a refined experience and storyline. For existing players who prefer a hands-on exploration experience, though, this approach may feel like a step back, as they would lose the choice-driven exploration that sets Overworld apart.

Creating a temporary or permanent system where Illuvials can only be acquired through drones or “disk” packs, while initially contentious, could streamline the collection experience in line with popular trading card models. This may alleviate frustration over repeated microtransactions while aligning Illuvium with traditional TCG dynamics.

Kieran’s concerns about maintaining a competitive and viable player base are also well-founded, especially with current player engagement trends leaning towards simpler, less demanding experiences. If the transition is communicated as an improvement with an eventual return to a free Overworld, it could foster mainstream adoption, especially if structured around a thoughtful monetization strategy.

[mellow nova]

im for closing OW for pack opening

[livid lichen]

If that happens we need clarification on how and when as fast as possible. Something like this should have been presented in a nearly done well thought out way and not as a sudden thought without any real structure. Therefore it is even more important that we clear this topic fast in form of a roadmap and I know that is not the strong side of the DAO. Even if we close it we need to know what exactly will happen as soon as possible.

[hallow cipher]

This original message isn't really correct. I'm not saying turn the Overworld into a pack opening experience. What we turn overworld into is still very much up for discussion (although we have ideas). What I'm saying is the acquisition of Illuvials is through pack opening not the overworld

[rose quiver]

thanks for clarifying. 🫡

you mean exclusively right? The current OW will never come back?

or there's a chance we have both experiences at the same time?

I'll say it right of the bat if we can't see the traits before capture then there's really no point in the current OW mode. I'll just buy the packs.

[hallow cipher]

It would turn into a free to play game where you don't need your illuvials but owning them would give you advantages.

Sorry im in the middle of a tournament right now 😓

[rose quiver]

all good, so basically like gauntlet leviathan.

[hallow cipher]

Exactly like that 🙂

You would basically buy packs of cards to play

• Overworld
• Arena
• New game
• New game

I'm in the middle of writing an IIP, so I'll post an ideas channel with my exact thoughts shortly

But toally fine to discuss her until then

[rose quiver]

awesome 👍

[livid lichen]

but how will the transition look? There are quite some problems if OW gets canceled

[rose quiver]

yes, maybe we can go a bit deeper on those. Might help later on writing the IIP.

[mellow nova]

i think we are just at ideation stage

i get dopamine hits from opening lootbox, card packs.
and when i dnt get the cards that i want for my deck, i just keep buying more gems.
i dnt really get it from Ow because i have to work for it

[frigid harbor]

Gotta love those fun microtransactions

[mellow nova]

u know that feeling when u need to get a fix, and how easy it is to satisfy your addiction by just clicking twice

ok i need to get help

[haughty field]

i've been thinking many times i would probly had spend more if it was pack opening, OW runs toke to long and got to boring for me.
the worry is we once again alienate the community by devaluing the time/money they spend wich is a big no no even for web2 games, so hard to get players, very easy to lose them.

[sacred kayak]

When you say we don't need Illuvials, does that mean f2p Illuvials will be non-nfts and still acquirable in game or does that mean we can just play through the content with only the Ranger.

[rose quiver]

if I understood correctly and it's like gauntlet leviathan than basically you have access to all illuvials, but you only get access to their stats/levels if you own the actual NFT.

[sacred kayak]

So the f2p experience would not require any farming for Illuvials and they're just handed to you?

I'm hoping that's not exactly the case.

[rose quiver]

I think that's the case.

[mellow nova]

in that case, why do we still play OW? Exp?

send help

[rose quiver]

maybe there's a leaderboard for OW. Or also maybe (hopefully) you just play because the game is fucking fun and addicting.

[sacred kayak]

I think it'd be better if we can still hunt Illuvials as a non-NFT and just remove traits for them unless we have the NFT

[rose quiver]

there can obviously be an account progression system. I also don't think having all illuvials for free right of the bat is the right path as it would be overwhelming. Maybe F2P start playing only with T0s.

[feral cape]

I think it would make sense to keep some level of hunting for NFT illuvial in overworld, but it should not be the main pack opening.

[sacred kayak]

But if we want to bridge people to paying players, they should get a taste of the traitless T1 to T5 Illuvials so it gives some exposure to them

[rose quiver]

I agree, hence why I said there could be an account progression system in place where you get a couple of high tier statless level 1 illuvials to wet their appetite.

[mellow nova]

whats really important for pack opening to work is the pokedex

[sacred kayak]

What are the thoughts about a gacha banner system for pack opening.

T0 could be the standard banner while T1 to T5 would be the limited banners

That way we could give out free "fuel" tokens to roll for T0 Illuvials and hand them out as rewards as well

[rose quiver]

I also mention it in token but I'll say it here. I think giving away daily T0 packs for free could be an interesting approach. And then having a monthly subscription where you get free daily higher tier packs to allure spending.

[sacred kayak]

It certainly would get people into the habit of purchasing card packs.

Every step should make it one step closer to being a full on pay 2 play player

[rose quiver]

when you know you have a "free" pack it makes you go back to that game as there's a sense of value in there.

we can make something like, if a pack is 5$, then a pack per day would cost in 30 days 150$, but the monthly subscription is only 100$.

[rose quiver]

yes I'm taking a lot of inspiration from pokemon pocket.

[sacred kayak]

I think that solves a lot of issues because it keeps T1 to T5 values, but T0 Illuvials are already free so there's no real harm in handing out free rolls.

PLUS if people want more rolls, they can just buy more standard banner tickets and that's another revenue stream

[mellow nova]

add me

[frigid harbor]

Easy on the swearing, chief

[queen tide]

What will happen to the fuel, what will happen to the land?@hallow cipher

[livid lichen]

#💰〕token message

[storm stag]

Pack opening system could be good for Illuvials, but what about their XPs? How to level up?

[rose quiver]

Shifting Illuvial Acquisition to a Pack-Opening Model

here are some bullet points from chatGPT

• Pros & Cons of Shifting Illuvial Acquisition to a Pack-Opening Model

Pros:

• Accessibility & Convenience: By centralizing Illuvial acquisition into a pack-opening experience, players can engage without dedicating time to exploration, catering to those who prefer straightforward access to Illuvials.
• Revenue Potential: Pack-opening models, typically more profitable, offer faster, revenue-friendly engagement by appealing to those willing to pay for instant acquisition, as observed with Beyond.
• Enhanced Engagement: Pack-opening is known for its excitement and appeal across card-collection games, which can attract and retain a broad audience.
• Lower Barriers for New Players: This model can draw in mainstream audiences less interested in RPG-style exploration, reducing onboarding friction for new users.

Cons:

• Risk of Disconnect from Overworld: If Illuvial acquisition is separate from the immersive exploration of OW, players may feel that a core game feature—encountering and catching Illuvials—is diminished.
• Perceived Monetization Risks: Players might see pack-only acquisition as overly monetized, impacting the game’s reputation if not carefully managed.
• Alienation of Existing OW Fans: Shifting away from OW-based Illuvial acquisition could disappoint players who value the RPG aspect, impacting the community of explorers.
• Reduced Skill-Based Acquisition: Players who enjoy using skill and strategy to acquire Illuvials may feel limited, as pack openings rely heavily on chance rather than gameplay achievements.

---

• Should We Stop the Current OW or Keep It Running Simultaneously?

Given the passionate community around OW, a hybrid approach might be ideal:

• Pros of Stopping OW: Simplifies the game model, which could appeal to new players; allows for a clean reset and overhaul of the economic model.
• Cons of Stopping OW: Risks alienating current fans and eliminating a unique gameplay layer, which could reduce player loyalty and overall retention.

---

• Suggestions on How to Implement Automated Drone Runs

Automated drone runs should emulate some of OW's thrill while offering a streamlined experience:

• Tiered Drone Runs: Allow players to select different levels of drone efficiency or rarity levels. Higher-tier drones might cost more or offer greater control over Illuvial selection.
• Choice in Pack Results: Incorporate a “choose your best” feature where players select a few Illuvials from a larger catch pool, balancing accessibility and engagement.
• Dynamic Outcomes: Include variations in Illuvial stats, levels, and rarities, replicating the diversity players experience in OW but through automated means.
• Fail Rates or Challenges: To prevent automated runs from feeling too predictable, consider optional challenges that might increase or decrease the quality of rewards.

[bleak kernel]

A monster catching experience was cool. Seeing them in the natural habitat. Too bad it didn't catch up

[rose quiver]

---

• Impact on Beyond by Having Two Different Pack-Opening Experiences

Two pack-opening models could be a strategic advantage or a source of market confusion:

• Positive Impact: Pack opening in OW can add variety, and both experiences can complement each other by targeting different audience segments. Beyond could cater more to collectors and purely RNG-based pulls, while OW’s packs lean toward strategic advantages for use in other game modes.
• Potential Negative Impact: Players might view two similar models as redundant, diluting the uniqueness of each experience. Differentiation is critical: OW packs might emphasize functional utility (e.g., acquiring battle-ready Illuvials) versus Beyond’s collector-oriented focus.

---

• Impact on the Current Game Economy

The transition will require an economic overhaul to ensure long-term sustainability:

• Increased Spending: Pack openings are typically higher revenue-generators due to their addictive nature, which could improve token value and overall revenue.
• Potential Inflation: With an influx of Illuvials from pack openings, careful supply management will be critical to avoid devaluing Illuvial scarcity.
• Marketplace Shifts: The OW economy will need to adjust, with demand shifting away from fuel and other microtransactions. Automated packs might lead to shifts in token allocation, which will need balancing to maintain Illuvial and token desirability.
• Long-Term Player Base Growth: If the pack-opening model succeeds in attracting a larger player base, overall token demand could rise, benefiting the game’s ecosystem. However, player satisfaction and retention will hinge on maintaining a fair economic balance between free and paid elements.

[charred burrow]

Maybe I missed it or I’m simply too hooked on the original vision…But how are we supposed to launch (let alone entertain) a meaningful leviathan scene in the scenario of OW (“temporarily”) shutting down?

Or is the mysterious leviathan tournament next week just a way to get a nitpicked data driven excuse to start nerfing stats and levels, to a point where opening fresh ones in a pack is all a player needs to compete?

I mean, not even saying that would be all bad and sad. Just hoping for some clarity before spending more (or less) time and money on the game.

[unique star]

So after we have spent hundreds of hours and squizzed every single shred of dopamine we call it boring.

Instead of being proud of the best looking blockchain game we call it boring and want to pause it...

Overworld for a single player game and in beta has what? maybe around 50-100 hours of content? that's more content then most beta games i played

I brought 3 friends and spared them of having to buy form marketplace and so on they have passport and i send them what they need, i have to tell you they are having fun, screaming when they see a holo makes me laugh so much, they don't know there are thousands of holo's on the market they are just having fun

We can't fill lobbies in gauntlet but wanna pause overworld or add another game or game mode, this will bring so much uncertainty it's not even funny

[shut lodge]

I think we have to be extra cautious about how we approach adding the speed run (pack opening) feature:

1. Finish the Arena updates and see what that does to player growth
2. There is definitely a need for a speed run function for Illuvials, the implementation should be completely different than that of Beyond to avoid player confusion.
3. Careful analysis on the cost of a speed run is needed. Are we consolidating the 3 fuels to a single fuel type? If so, how will that impact IZ? Will the speed run have a dynamic shard cost or just the underlying fuel? If I pull a pack with a T5S3 Illuvial will there be a scaled shard cost as we expect in OW (i.e. a Master shard)?
4. Lets get more information after the Arena updates and use that to decide if the speed run (pack opening) should be a "replace" vs. "new/additional" game mode.
5. I could easily see the speed run being a building in the existing OW that we could use to execute the speed run. That way its a choice, go here for a manual run or here for a speed run. In both cases all the fuel and shard requirements are easily handled. But maybe that isn't fast enough because we want the pack opening to be an out of game (illuvium.io website) experience similar to Beyond. I like the former better at this point.

[main crane]

I have no problem with any change as long as the value of the NFT I have now and the time and money spent on it is not wasted.
(I expect to make money more than I expect to have fun. If it's fun, I'll just play the Web2 game.)

However, if it is packaged, it is likely to be flooded with more ILLUVIALs than it is now and the value will decrease.
We need a new burn system, including the problem of having no use for the garbage statisticilluviuals.

Pokemon could raise their stats.
For example, if we could increase the status by 1 if we burn 3 iluviuals, the economy would turn around.

[upper ibex]

I personally dislike the idea of shutting down OW and doing a pack opening to get Illuvials. That to me is boring.

What is the purpose of Zero without OW?

[faint bramble]

It really does feel like we are in this dangerous cycle of just chasing whatever shiny thing is happening in the industry. First palworld, and now before OW combat comes we are talking about chasing Pokémon pocket TCG mechanics.

I’m not really even against a pack opening idea. I think the quick dopamine hit is awesome in its own right. I just feel like we keep going in circles.

I don’t particularly love removing the OW from the gameplay loop of acquiring illuvials for arena though. I think it’s a super idea for Illuvium to create a real TCG game and have a pack opener for that game separately. If we’re worried about illuvials we have already captured not having utility in that TCG as a separate game, that’s a problem we can easily solve for through airdrop mechanics or bonuses. Idk.

Good convo here either way.

[frigid harbor]

I think if a game were to take the Palworld concept further it would be successful

[faint bramble]

Agreed, what I’m saying is a pack opener is/can be a new game. Maybe a TCG should be Illuvium’s 4th game and it could be a huge success. We have great artists and tons of lore to explore through a proper TCG.

I just wouldn’t pivot OW/Arena to be a pack opener in the process. There’s more than enough to build on there already.

While we’re on the topic, I also think it’s a wasted opportunity to try to pivot Beyond into a TCG. It handcuffs the existing art/assets in a way that makes it hard to exercise artistic freedom in the storytelling and gameplay mechanics. Beyond is super cool just as an album collector, avatar/cosmetic and nft vehicle speculation. Doesn’t need to be more than that imo, just do what it already does better.

[compact dove]

OW would not be shut down, it would be f2p.

[upper ibex]

F2P but not collecting Illuvials, doing something different.

We don't have (much of) the lore in yet. We have no album to show our collections. We are talking about giving it up before it's even close to done.

2 pack opening games? One for Beyond, one for Illuvials? I don't know. I don't get to see the numbers. I'm not on team or council but I'm not convinced it's a good idea.

I will wait for Kieran's IIP.

[compact dove]

The main point he makes is people don't like having to buy fuel to play and making a pack opening for Illuvials solves this.

I'm guessing he is seeing the data that is telling him this.

But your right Same, we really need more details and a Iip would help

[upper ibex]

I will save more of what I think until after the IIP, in case my mind is changed by it.

[jolly wind]

I would hate the drone run option being added. It takes away my point of difference playing OW.
I don't care about playing arena, it is not my type of game, open world exploration is.
If I don't get to capture illuvials whilst doing the exploration, again, count me out, that is just f@cking my experience up.
I will not play in that environment in any way shape or form, and will remove my financial stake in the game.

For some perspective, I expect to own a game outright for $100 and not need any further transactions to enjoy it. A monthly subscription that costs $100 is absolutely insane. you want 'normal' everyday people in this game, you aren't getting them with $100 per month purchases, not at the level you need to sustain this game.

If you want normal everyday people you need to provide an experience where they are not trying to make money, they are actually only there for fun. Then you get the repeat customers. Some will want to collect all, and therefore the value goes up. Some want to get specific ones, and the value goes up. Some will want the coolest kit, and that brings $$ in. But to expect everyone to want to make $$, that is not a sustainable way to keep it afloat. How much do you want to fight amongst each other for this pie you made yourself?

Disjointed rant/statements over

[livid lichen]

wrote a counter proposal to this. Maybe you are interested #1305046514929893427 message

[vernal locust]

@hallow cipher Allow free to play illuvium zero land to harvest fuels atleast 1% rate & allow them to sell and use fuels this will attract more players from all walks of life, poor, average, rich can enjoy playing the game totally free and make some money at the same time. Giving fuels as a rewards to players who only wants to play for free also makes sense just to try this game and eventually if they like the game they will spend more money to get what they really want in the game.

[foggy widget]

Please read this post from Kieran. #💰〕token message

I think it is important to understand that these changes are required to support the focus on Arena. We want new Arena players to have a good experience acquiring Illuvials for Arena gameplay. IMO every piece of Illuvium should make changes to support this push.

[livid lichen]

I think it is important to not just go for divorce after the first little problem.
It was clear that OW monetization won't work (Many people wrote about this over a year ago)
Now, we encounter a problem and instead of trying to fix it we just throw it away?

[foggy widget]

We don‘t throw it away. We focus on Arena, then we focus on OW. There needs to be a focus. Such a small team can not produce more than 1 game at a time. When we want to start marketing the experience needs to be flawless.

[restive lion]

What if there would be 2 options in acquiring illuvials/resources/etc.

Option # 1
Original (current OverWorld)

Option # 2
Opening a Pack (but only 50% potential loots compared to Original Potential Loots in current Overworld)

[foggy widget]

Please read the few posts after Kieran‘s. He answers it. #💰〕token message

[livid lichen]

you don't have to produce anything in OW just change the monetization. Ofc. it will still be hard to come back after nobody listened to the complains regarding monetization, launching the game with that and losing momentum, but packs aren't better. We would just sell the soul of Illuvium and that won't work.

[foggy widget]

Instead of answering myself, here is what Kieran said. #💰〕token message

We need to refocus on new Arena players and write down what we want their experience to be. I think they will prefer a pack opening experience over going on OW runs or buying from the IlluviDex.

[livid lichen]

you see who kieran tagged in that statement, right? 😉
But lets talk about that message. It could be very well made on ground of false data, because it remains unclear if the sentiment would remain the same if OW monetization changes and combat gets introduced (see #1305046514929893427 message).
It is just wrong to go to the most extreme measure after a small set back. A good project keeps its general direction and makes small but important corrections.

[foggy widget]

Oh yes, just saw it 😀. If Kieran could deliver a great OW experience that attracted lots of players and made good money, then I would agree with you. But maybe he realised that the new OW features will be delayed, the same with new Zero features etc. The polishing touches on any kind of product are 80% of the work. And we need a 100% polished game, at least one game that proofs we can develop a fun game. There is Shatterline from Faraway coming, there is already OTG. OW would have to compete with these web 3 shooters. But there is no web3 autobattler that could compete with TFT. It is all a big gamble, but I would bet on the Gauntlet/TFT strategy.

[livid lichen]

I totally agree with the focus on arena, but changing the OW monetization needs as much as changing some numbers, removing like 2 pieces of the interface and that is everything. The most work would be the compensation for people who played under the old system, but that would also be necessary if you cancel OW and introduce packs. Or do you think people will just sit here and say "ok, I paid a lot for ore, gear, shards, essences and plants, which are useless now, but that is ok"

[foggy widget]

My current thinking is to keep the core OW experience with ore, gear, shards etc. and just automate the grinding aspect and make the experience something like this:

A pack opening, by doing a Drone run would be a cool additional option that I think many would prefer, and the game loop could be a bit similar to how OW runs work.

1. you instruct your Drone to scan a region/stage of your choice.
   your Drone returns with a list of 30 different encounters.
2. you choose the encounter you want to start, and you get into the capture sequence, and use shards to try to capture.
3. After you successfully captured 5 Illuvials the drone runs out of energy and you would need to start the process again.
   (just random numbers)

I think we could even keep the Arena style gameplay from the OW experience:

1. You instruct your Drone to scan a region/stage of your choice and your Drone returns with a list of 30 different encounters.
2. You pick an encounter and then go into the Arena battle like you did in the OW.
3. And if whales don't want to play Arena, they can pay a bit extra to skip/automate/simplify it. But they can still watch the automated fight. How cool would that be ?

This would allow Arena/TFT players to grow into ownership via their preferred Arena game play, while still allowing whales to spend money quickly. They could play a quick card opening Arena battle, while they are waiting in the queue for a Leviathan match.

[livid lichen]

Yeah, yesterday I wrote something similar #1304805258844966923 message, but I also think that this is destroying the soul of Leviathan and kills the dream of working your way up. I wouldn't agree to this anymore

If you don't want to play there is still the market place, which needs some improvement

[foggy widget]

How would it destroy the soul of Leviathan and kill the dream ?

[livid lichen]

"a Leviathan team shouldn't be something the average user buys with packs! A leviathan team is forged with work, tears and a lot of time. Getting it handed in packs without forging a connection is just wrong. It also kills the dream of working your way up to that point. With that Illuvium would sell its soul without even trying to save it. "

[foggy widget]

The marketplace is not as cool and exciting as a card opening with an automated Arena fight you can watch.

[foggy widget]

This is the reason why I like the Illuvial metadata "Caught in OW". If we made this into a good cosmetic then these OG Illuvials could be worth something if Illuvium IP becomes a success.

[livid lichen]

we have capture changes at around 50%. How much fun will people have just looking at a pack opening simulator which fails at sharding an Illuvial half of the time? Also this sort of integration sounds like more work than changing some numbers in OW

[foggy widget]

We should have something in a pack opening all the time like ores etc., maybe you get a second chance ...

It is good to have this discussions and you pointing out the problems. But I think we can make it happen.

[foggy widget]

I don‘t know of any other IP or web 3 game that has so many awesome NFT assets like Illuvium. It is crazy, from Illuvilas, suits, skins to ores.

[rose aspen]

I feel a split sentiment here and agree that it might be a feature add. I suggest OW must continue. Too much resources have been put into something that can be great.

Add a pack open. Single cost random illuvials and stats from T1 to T5 with same rarity.
T0 only obtained through OW or marketplace and is F2P.
NOW HERE IS THE TWIST. Single cost OW runs with chances for T1 to T5. The difference is, the player gets to choose where the pack opening is random. This way too the game studio can monitor and modify drop rates for balancing also

[foggy widget]

Maybe we can find a solution to keep OW open and have a second option via packs. It is definitely worth exploring, but we have to be very careful with new mainstream gamers and almost hide it from them. Because they will look at it once, see the paywall and the grind and call Illuvium a P2W scam. It is a huge risk. We have seen it before.

[humble bobcat]

Why is nobody saying anything that will happen to the marketplace if we do this packopening. We need another sink for bad stat illuvials or the marketplace will be destroyed

[bleak kernel]

#1305046514929893427 message

[cosmic flame]

they will remove marketplace after update haha.

[bleak kernel]

Same idea on two posts.
I agree, marketplace is way better than a gacha opener. Ow should be left alone

[humble bobcat]

Ye seems a lot of extra work for something that there already is

[bleak kernel]

People ride the pokemon tcg train.
I agree that experience would be nice, but for a totally different game. A tcg game. But we already have beyond, which is almost the same

[cosmic flame]

if the problem is lvling up i think that is must to fix now . good idea is to buy lvl using ETH to max your illuv instantly.. its like buying battle pass lvel in dota2 ;D

[foggy widget]

A marketplace is something that mainstream gamers hate, because they need to buy from crypto gamblers. It is a completely different experience from buying a card pack. There is no reason why both can not coexist IMO. Even Pokémon TCG will have card trading. But as trading between friends and not on a marketplace with fluctuating prices and scams.

[humble bobcat]

I thought the card packs were for whales which aren't mainstream gamers

[foggy widget]

Mainstream and whales I would say. Whales don‘t have time and mainstream does not want to pay for OW „gameplay“.

Whales should have the option to buy expensive packs with a higher chance.

[tender bolt]

I think it would be wrong to shift direction and turn it into a “traditional Pack Opening model” only. The creature capture concept that we started is what makes OW and Illuvium unique to most other games, and It would be a shame to lose that. I agree the journey could have been different and if this was discussed 2 years ago, it might have been a better plan to start with the Pack Opening model and avoid the complexity of the OW that has been built now. but completely shifting direction is a pretty drastic step at this point that I dont think is needed.

I don't think it should be a big surprise that activity in OW has dropped significantly now… when there is currently no rewards to lure people to grind, other than prepare for a future arena deck, that is not yet here, The loyal player base will obviously be drawn to play arena gauntlet instead as it’s more fun but that doesn't necessarily mean the OW concept is all bad.

I 100% agree that the current OW experience needs to be made a lot more simple and ensure it’s easy and quick to spend $$ in the game without having to spend resources/fuel all the time.But I think we already on the right track and should go “all in” on making it simple instead.

• Only one fuel currency.(and change to fixed price for now)
• Only cost is to. Travel, Craft Armor/Weapon/drone upgrade, shards, and fuse.
• Remove cost for “mining”, only use energy for catching Illuvials.(already paying to craft, I know there is a market for people to farm materials and sell to the market, and it would devalue the price, but I think it's the right move to reduce the feeling of “everything costs something”.)
• One Skin can be used on all armor types. (remove complexity, and they are not crafted in OW)
• Combat to beat encounters in OW and allow capture sequences.(looking forward to see that)
• Only two options to travel to regions.. free or paid… you will encounter different difficulties in OW, and you will need a good team/equipment to beat the higher Tier you encounter with the new combat mechanic.
• Autobattle mode is an option from trainers , and can be used to gain XP (could place them in the OW regions, so you already pay for the travel).
• Automate Drone runs… for those that want to acquire illuvials without running around in OW, this should be an option. (a lot of people is likely to spend more using this mode)
• Ideally we should have the marked place available in-game as well, but that might be something for the “future roadmap” and a bit more complicated.

I know some of this is already planned, and I think it will add a lot to the “player experience”. Together with the added quest/story, multiplayer and F2P focus, it will be a good foundation to acquire Illuvias/equipment, etc…. but end of the day there needs to be a demand for what is collected in OW to make people spend in game, which is currently extremely limited.

[rose quiver]

Ok @hallow cipher, here's some food for thought.

First off, I don't agree with what you said that gamers hate having to pay for every action they take in-game. That's not really the problem. The problem is that they have to pay a substantial amount for every action they make to the point that it's noticeable. Tons of games have this same system. The difference is: (a) you usually get access to the spending resources by playing the game (just like we do through IZ, which also feels bad now after the fuel nerf), and (b) players don’t really care when it’s only an in-game resource but it’s a different story when it’s a resource tied to real-world money.

Also, the fact that you were advocating in the town hall for fixed prices to travel at half the top rail price is mind boggling to me. The game needs to be cheap as hell, to the point where an average wage person isn't really thinking about the money... That’s how you attract tons of players without gating them by their wallet size! I would imagine having the free market currently pricing stage 3 runs at 0.50$ would give you a clue. It's 10x lower than what your target price is.

Beyond Alpha Wave 1 should have taught you this lesson already... It’s not by making things expensive that they become valuable.

But besides all that, I think hastily wanting to pivot and changing things without first cleaning house is not the right approach. Right now you should care about fixing your own game economy and not rushing towards a complete overhaul.

Fuel prices haven’t stopped dropping, alongside Illuvial prices. But there's one thing that has maintained its value and it's good stat Illuvials and dark holos, because they’re rare to find! Key word: rare. Scarcity = value!

We have no burning mechanisms to put buy pressure on the market, not a single active game that requires illuvials to drive the economy, and no competitive scene to push further spending. How are you surprised that things are not working as intended?

[livid lichen]

Was shocked about that statement as well, because we wrote this like a thousand times and the results after launch showed that many people think the same. We even had one influencer video about this and yes, this is bad attention.
To me it sounds like they want the entire collection to be valuable, but that is impossible. Usually you have a few valuable cards in a collection. In our cases good stat Illuvials and dark holos. Having prices around 20$ for a normal T5S3 is already a lot.
We talked a lot about playtime/$ and so on. I don't know if it will ever be understood that mass adoption isn't possible with higher prices than we have now. We still have normal bad t5 Illuvials for around 2$. That is a pretty good start considering that we don't have usecases for them at the moment.
So, please don't increase the paywall too much again >.<

[weak mulch]

I don't know if it will ever be understood that mass adoption isn't possible with higher prices than we have now

I disagree with this as there will be free to play modes.
OW would be completely free to play and you would also have Arena with a completely free to play mode.
No-one is being forced to purchase anything, nor would it even be necessary to enjoy the games.
It is simply an option for people that want to dive deeper.

[livid lichen]

• other play modes don't impact the monetization of OW, so, they can be as f2p as they want
• If no one is being forced to purchase OW runs and that isn't important, why are we talking about this?

[high zenith]

The sole goal of having free to play, is to convert players from these modes into paying players. If the cost is too much, then they wont make the move., then the conversion of free to play players into paying players will be very hard

[hallow cipher]

Paying for every action is absolutely a problem. Go look at the videos and comments all over social media that were written. I'm well aware that there are some games that have this monetization model and it works, but they are few and far between. Our largest player base was when fuel was approximately 50% below the rail, and lastly, once we set the price it's very hard to go back up, much easier to go down. We have the ability to test things now before doing a big marketing push after adding all the new features. Suggesting 50% is a starting point that we would obviously tweak down if required.

But one thing for sure is having Fuel at $0.50c hasn't meant OW players are rushing back, and yes that can be a number of factors but to say it not the current monetization model seems foolish.

[rose quiver]

the answer to that is rather simple. It doesn't matter the monetization model or the price tag. The game just isn't appealing.

[hallow cipher]

Sure, then there can be the exact same argument that when it was fun and new players didn't mind spending at 50% of rail…

I'm not saying 50% is correct, I'm saying its a starting point

[rose quiver]

don't you think you might be letting the airdrop farmer numbers cloud your judgement?

[hallow cipher]

And that IIP isn't out yet. Our head of data is suggesting 1/3 of rail to start and I'm happy to go with his opinion. He's writing the IIP.

[weak mulch]

It's about trying to find a balance. Too cheap is potentially dangerous, as is too expensive. Beyond had teething issues in this regard, but they finally found a sweet spot. I don't see any reason why we couldn't do the same here.
You certainly will need rare/expensive chase cards though, that is what will draw a lot of people in, in the hopes of pulling them.

[rose quiver]

yes 1/3 seems better, still on the expensive side but yeah better. 0.30$, 1$, 3$ for travel seems ok. But there are other costs besides that. Curing shards, drone upgrades, weapons and all that. The fuel I spend the most is hyperion to cure shards, by a lot.

[hallow cipher]

Of course they affect the data. My point is its not just the pricing that is the concern.

To completely ignore all the negative feedback we received because you think its okay doesnt really make sense.

[rose quiver]

I'm not saying to ignore it at all. I get that you received negative feedback alright. It's only natural. But we set ourselves up for that honestly.

for example in each stage 3 travel right now I spend 0.50$. But then in shards I probably spend over 3-5$ depending on the number of T5 illuvials on the map and the capturing luck

[hallow cipher]

As an example, lets say a normal player goes into overworld for 2 hours a day. That's say 5 runs. At current pricing around $75 per month. Someone would rather buy a monthly overworld pass for $99 get less runs but not feel like they are being charged every step of the way. That was the feedback we received.,

[short bay]

Doesn't that make a drone run cost 6$ justified if it covers everything?

[rose quiver]

Yes that's what gamers are used to. But come on 5 runs in 2 hours??? That's unrealistic, at least the way I play. And that's also very little game time for A LOT of money.

[hallow cipher]

Change the values around then. The point I'm making is the mechanism not the amount...

[rose quiver]

I know I'm in the minority and I think the mechanism is fine, it just can't be too costly that it persits in the back of my mind how much I'm spending for every action while I'm playing.

What I was alluding before with other web2 games that require some sort of energy or resource to keep advancing in the game is that players use those resources without care because they're not tied to real-world money, it's just a game resource/money. Web3 games put real weight to that, so if things are not cheap you'll always end up facing the same problem and ppl complaining.

"I wanna play illuvium OW, but I don't have the funds to support it."

the entire game loop feels absolutely fine when you play IZ, and generate fuel to play OW. The problem is that the majority of players don't produce fuel and therefore it feels bad.

cause I bet with you that prolly everyone that criticized illuvium's monetization model doesn't own land.

(maybe some land owners did after you nerfed the fuel to the point that having a T4 plot gives very little runs per day)

[livid lichen]

I criticize the model, but I own land, but it is a T1 land, so, I guess that statement is still correct 😄

[rose quiver]

the best way to solve this would be to give players a F2P way to earn fuel without it being exploitable by bots.

[weak mulch]

Wouldn't that not be yet another blow to landholders though.
IMO we need to start thinking of ways of getting landowners more profitable, not less.

[rose quiver]

yes as things currently stand it would be. But I also think IZ needs to have a huge overhaul.

the game is not appealing enough for F2P plots.

Since we've spread ourselves between 3 completely different game genres. In case I wanna play without constantly be spending money, if I want to play OW I need to play IZ to get fuel. If I want to play arena I need to play OW for the illuvials. IMO it's a death spiral.

[weak mulch]

But Kieran did suggest a model last night where OW would be completely free to play, story mode, exploration, lore, social aspects etc. This would eradicate all of the pay to play complaints and people could play purely for the fun and fall in love with the IP.
If we incorporate everything that is great about Beyond into the pack opening experience that will be incorporated into Arena, with an active game, that is already proven sticky, you definitely have a recipe for huge success. It feels more of a balancing act between pricing and rarities.
If all disks etc are all purchasable using Fuel that creates huge demand for landowners too.
Seems like a win win for everyone.

[high zenith]

Just make gauntlet a killer game, add some rewards for leviathan, demand for good stat illuvials come, thereby demand for fuel, increasing the price of fuel, boosting revenues for the DAO and landowners. Should focus on increasing end demand through creating a better, more enjoyable game. Gauntlet is on the way, but needs less bugs and some unique features

[rose quiver]

but that's the thing. The OW right now doesn't have a F2P mode!!!
We need the OW main game to be the Project Breach. And then if players want to go deeper they go and play the pay 2 play OW mode we have now (hopefully improved with combat), or pay for instant drone travels.

[lusty raptor]

Hey, my friend! I really liked your point about "purchasing disks with fuel in mind."
Do you mean that to purchase a disk, you'd need to spend both Ethereum and Fuel from Zero? Am I understanding that correctly?

[weak mulch]

I would imagine that you would be free to choose which currency you prefer, ETH or FUEL, unless they go strictly FUEL, i'm not sure, team will have to comment on that one.

[foggy widget]

I agree, but I am not so sure anymore about turning off the current OW and removing the current mechanisms like shards and crafting etc. from the Illuvial creation.

[rose quiver]

IMO it should all be priced in fuel. And if someone purchased with ETH than in the background there would be a fuel market order buy happening to purchase fuel to pay for the d1sk.

[weak mulch]

I like that idea 👍

[lusty raptor]

@hallow cipher Hi Kieran! I'm really interested in learning which currency will be used to purchase the disks with Illuvials inside. I would also like to understand the role of landowners in the new reality you're proposing. I’d appreciate it if you could share more details!

[foggy widget]

Do we really want to remove all of the OW economy and just have packs that contain Suits, Illuvials and Weapons ?

[hidden pawn]

afaik he is preparing a proposal with all the details in it.

[rose quiver]

sorry I forgot to answer, yes it would but that math is with current prices. If we're talking 1/3 of the top rail then it's like 6x that... So are you ok with a 30$ + drone run?

[lusty raptor]

Amazing thought, my friend!

[high zenith]

I don’t really get the point in pivoting the whole OW model. It will be a really pain to balance this rework to not upset anyone. Just focus on Gauntlet. The majority of people playing OW does this to sell illuvials to leviathan arena players, or keeping them for themselves for leviathan. Increase the number of gauntlet players, you increase the number of OW players supplying illuvials. So the focus imo for the next 3-6 months should solely be on gauntlet. Not reworking other things. Get gauntlet as good it can be, to the point where Free to play players would really enjoy playing it. Add rewards to leviathan. Then u get a natural conversion of free to play players into leviathan, boosting demand for illuvials, fuel and revenue for the DAO

[weak mulch]

For me, and many may disagree, but yes.
I like the idea of OW being a 100% free to play experience. A place to really unpack the lore/story of the illuvium universe and interact with the illuvials and your friends and discover/battle together.
You could also jump into the free to play Arena mode or Zero. You would basically experience most of what Illuvium has to offer without spending a single cent.
Speculation into asset ownership/appreciation as well as leaderboards/rewards will be a huge draw at converting people over from free to paid.

[foggy widget]

I also like F2P OW games, but they can coexist with the current OW. We don't have to turn it off.

[rose quiver]

why does it have to be one or the other? We need a F2P game version for web2 and a web3 game version to cater to both audiences.

we have no web 2 OW game mode and we want to appeal to web2 gamers? Not gonna work.

[weak mulch]

Maybe, i'm not saying that they can't, i'm more focusing on simplification. Illuvium is a complex beast and I think many have great difficulty understanding what is going on with all of these different games/modes. Simplification can also go a very long way in driving adoption.

[rose quiver]

I'm gonna be honest, only getting illuvials out of packs entirely kills the spirit of illuvium for me.

[high zenith]

OW in its current form would not have many players in a free to play format. OW is a cool pack opening experience, but one that should be reserved for NFTs. You could of course create another type of free to play game mode, based on the maps already created, but that would have to be a very different experience in order to attract players.

[foggy widget]

Absolutely, but there are ways to achieve it without turning off OW or other parts. We could have a landing page just for Gauntlet, an installer just for Gauntlet and keep all web3 related products separate. I am also still for a card opening integrated in Gauntlet as an alternative to OW, but it should just trade money for less grind, not change the complete OW economic model.

[rose quiver]

yes they're already making that. It's called Project Breach a co-op multiplayer roguelike game.

[rose quiver]

just like in the arena we should clearly differentiate between the F2P mode and the leviathan mode. The current mode we have for OW is the leviathan mode.

[weak mulch]

OW in its current form would not have many players in a free to play format

100% agree.

[rose quiver]

they really need to nail it with Project Breach. So it becomes THE overworld game.

[weak mulch]

In saying that though, I still think it would perform better than the paid mode.

[high zenith]

I don’t see how OW without a massive rework, could become anything more than a way to open packs in very nice graphics. The majority of the players playing this game does it to sell the illuvials or get them for another use case. OW in itself is not what people want to play, it’s a means to an end - get hold of illuvials for Leviathan, or get illuvials and sell them. Changing OW to pure packs, saves time for the players that supplied illuvials to the market, but does it in a pure RNG format.

[foggy widget]

So we get rid of shards, ores etc. ?

[high zenith]

They would simply just add all those costs directly into the packs. Yes, if they were to remove OW, there would be no use of any of those things. I wonder how they were to balance this. Imagine I had 50 resplendent shards, what about that scenario. Imagine I had a ton of essences, and ingots etc.. how would they balance this, if OW were removed. It sounds to me like this would become very difficult to achieve, removing OW and replace it with packs.. without pissing off people

[foggy widget]

Other games would be happy to have so many assets and such a rich crafting system. There are problems with it, but throwing it away …

[marsh sapphire]

I better buy a pack of illuvials then i would spend more. 5 runs of OW becomes repetitive and tiring somehow unlike opening of cards

[feral cape]

It is easy we need to have the two ways.
Some people want to hunt for their nft, some people want to open packs...
Just do both

[faint gate]

I would same pack opening as an option is fine as long as its total cost is equal to the aslightly greater cost than a run. A run can be a way to Target specfiec illuvials in a more time consuming method and pack opening can be quicker. But we GOTTA add some burn mechanics for trash illuvials or we are going to get even more flooded

[bleak kernel]

The OW concept was good. An open world monster fighting game with rpg influence. Cool story where you discover regions and capture illuvials.
Everythng good must die

I would like automated drone runs as an addition, not a replacement

Also, i unerstand why a gamefied pack opener doesnt work, as someone doesnt want to spend alot of time and not to get anything worth.
Feels like being screwed twice. Like a bandaid, if it hurts, at least make it quick

Also by having "packs" you can open multiple in a short amount of time, getting at least a few good units in one "pack opening run"

[hallow cipher]

This is our number one focus.

[hallow cipher]

It would be fuel. But that does add an extra step which hurts onboarding

[hallow cipher]

This is a given and our main focus. But there is no harm in making the experience feel much better for those supplying the Illuvials.

[brisk dawn]

Who still plays overworld!? too repetitive boring, very good idea to stop the bleeding

[brisk dawn]

Unfortunately this is not the case, it is not a real RPG, illuvium needs several years before making a real RPG

[brisk dawn]

all illuvium purchases should be in fuel👀🙏

[lime estuary]

I am catching up on this thread and all i am thinking is that EVERYONE is being influenced by "Pokemon Pocket"

And i keep thinking of this scene from Friends...

[lime estuary]

https://tenor.com/view/ross-pivot-friends-pivot-pivat-ross-friends-gif-16902898

[marsh sapphire]

there should be a way to burn illuvials already

[hallow cipher]

I'm not taking any inspirational from it. I'm looking at the feedback and results of Illuvium in the past 4 months

I downloaded and played for a few mins

[lime estuary]

This was more a comment from all the feedback specific to this thread and not towards the Team or where the idea originates

What were your impressions of the Pokemon TCGP game? How many Poke-Gold did you buy to spam the pack opening? 😉

[hallow cipher]

I legit only played a few mins, so I only got through tutorial

actually I dont even think I got all the way through

[hidden pawn]

that's pretty much how far i got aswell 😄

[foggy widget]

I want a mainstream LAYER on top of our web 3 economy. No pivoting, no throwing away, just an ADDED experience, that is more player friendly. A web 2 layer on top of a web 3 economy.

Real world economies work the same way, we all know it: Before you can buy groceries in your local shop, thousands of producers, importers, sales people etc. have done their work and simplified your experience to make it fast and enjoyable.

We can do so much with the existing OW ECONOMY in the future: Maybe instead of action oriented hunting and capturing Illuvials, it becomes more of a slow paced farm, craft, breed, catch and produce type of game that is more suited to its financial/economical background.

So in summery I would say: OW economy is good, but OW action oriented game play is not suited for its rich economy. Make hunting/fighting F2P and create a new experience for crafting, hatching etc. and put a mainstream friendly shopping/pack opening layer on top of everything.

[high zenith]

imo, if the team goes for a pack opening style, they should resemble how FIFA does it in FIfA Ultimate Team. Super dopamine rush. Where the illuvial with highest stats would appear in an animation. First DH, then stat, then Tier, then stage etc, in that order. In my opinion, they should also add player agency, so let’s say you open a wake of 10 illuvials - then u can pick 1, max 2 from that. In total there would be let’s say 8 picks from a total selection of around 80 illuvials (10 illuvials x 8 rounds of wake selection). right now with 40 possible encounters in ow, you are potentially looking at 120 possible illuvials in a given run). Therefore 80 seems about right. That would be 8 dopamine boosted illuvial picks. Would say u would need enough illuvials to look at. And also more interactions. Instead of one big opening, make it 8 or so. More dopamine. The one with the best stat appears in an animation, but you could decide to choose another. I am generally in favor of normal OW, but if it would have been in this format, I’m sure I would open a lot of packs!! I have done so in the past in FIFA

[foggy widget]

"player agency": I see it the same way. The pack opening should have a few more dopamin inducing steps and twists.

Even getting shards, ores etc. in a pack, you can then craft and refine and use them for the next pack opening. There are so many mechanisms we can use to keep players engaged and keep opening packs.

Animations and automated battles in 3D to visualize the card opening. I see it as a time condensed OW experience. Without the running around, but all the great moments like the capture animation.

Of course with the option to skip (for money) and open 100 packs at the same time.

[high zenith]

As I see it, shards would not be needed in this new format. Or maybe shards can boost a single stat of an illuvial or something, so a T1 shard, can boost a single stat of your choice on a T1 illuvial, or something like that. A T5 shard could boost a single stat of a T5 illuvial. If it would have been like this though, shards should be really really rare. Ores and essences could also be included in the pack, and the crafting system for weapons and armor, could remain how they are, but then remove the Hyperion cost to do it. The fuel transaction should be only one time: the pack you purchase. No more microtransactions. To Keep it simple.

[foggy widget]

The reasoning for keeping shards: They exist and whatever exists should not be removed from the economy. As you said, we can find a new kind of utility that can keep players engaged. We can have shards in packs or as leaderboard rewards and you can still craft them.

[high zenith]

Yep. Agree. With that utility, the shards would be really sought after. In addition, you don’t have to do so many changes to the current system. If u for example put weapons and armor in packs, there is no utility for all the ores, essences and ingots that all current players currently own. So the whole crafting could be scrapped. In my opinion it is better to keep the crafting system like it is, it is actually very good, provide ores, essences etc in the pack, let players decide what to craft from it to increase agency - and remove Hyperion cost for the actual crafting

[foggy widget]

I would really love to open a pack and almost watch a movie of an automated OW run with all the great moments. I would be presented with a few options e.g. what encounter to battle, then the “movie” continues, I watch the Arena battle (or enter it myself and play it), the capture sequence … This would be something never seen before and we have all the bits and pieces.

[foggy widget]

And the shards would be provided by web 3 players and used by mainstream/whale players to boost their card opening. A perfect example for how to make web 3 and web 2 work together.

[foggy widget]

Crafting is also more suited for Zero gameplay than OW anyway. Zero is the true economic game of Illuvium. It always was, but they wanted to make OW the main hub for everything and created a game that wants to be everything for everyone.

[high zenith]

I just wrapped my thoughts into ChatGPT and asked it to structure it and write a proposal, here it is in its raw format. Heading to meeting now, so will adjust it over the day. Please provide feedback. We can maybe add it in feedback ideas later.

1. Proposal Overview

This proposal suggests transforming Illuvium’s Overworld (OW) experience into a dynamic, 3D pack-opening format. This new system introduces “wakes” of Illuvials that players can view, interact with, and select in a visually immersive environment, inspired by the high-energy pack reveals seen in FIFA Ultimate Team. With 3D animations, a suspense-building reveal sequence, and collectible resources like shards, ores, and essences, this format is designed to maximize excitement and engagement while preserving the depth of Illuvium’s crafting system. This proposal also simplifies transactions by moving to a one-time pack purchase model, minimizing microtransaction friction.

2. 3D Pack Opening Experience with Wakes of Illuvials

Immersive 3D Reveal: Each wake opens in 3D, showcasing Illuvials in full animation with unique movements, sounds, and visual effects. This immersive presentation enhances the individuality of each Illuvial and makes every reveal feel meaningful and exciting.

Layered Animation Sequence: The reveal of each Illuvial progresses through stats, tier, and stage, with the highest-stat Illuvial showcased in a dramatic final reveal. This structured sequence creates a high-impact, cinematic experience that maximizes player excitement and anticipation, similar to high-energy pack openings in other games.

3. Player Agency and Selection

Choice-Driven Selection: Each wake reveals 10 Illuvials, from which players can select 1 or 2 to retain. With up to 8 wakes in a session, players make a total of 8 final selections from 80 Illuvials, balancing choice with scarcity and providing meaningful strategic decisions.

Interactive 3D Navigation: Players can rotate, zoom, and view each Illuvial in detail before making a selection, adding an interactive layer to the experience

4. Shards no longer is needed for the current model, could be changed to Enhance Illuvials.

Shards should be very rare (let’s say 1% prob to appear in a pack)
• Rare Shards as Stat Boosters: Shards become rare, valuable resources used to boost a specific stat on an Illuvial of the same tier (e.g., a T3 shard for a T3 Illuvial). This targeted utility makes shards powerful strategic assets.
• 3D Presentation of Ores and Essences: Ores and essences are also available in packs

5. Resource and Crafting Integration, and Monetization
   • Resource-Rich Packs: Packs contain ores, essences, which are used for crafting weapons and armor without additional Hyperion costs. This preserves the integrity of the crafting system while integrating it into the pack experience.
   • Streamlined Monetization: The one-time pack purchase model means packs include all necessary Illuvials, resources, and crafting materials, eliminating recurring microtransactions and making the experience more user-friendly.

This 3D, dopamine-driven system offers a visually engaging and streamlined way to collect Illuvials while preserving the depth and customization of Illuvium’s existing systems.

Conclusion

This proposal reimagines Illuvium’s Overworld experience as a 3D, choice-driven pack-opening system that emphasizes visual engagement, dopamine-rich reveals, and player agency. By integrating immersive 3D animations, rare stat-boosting shards, and ores and essences, this approach provides an exciting, customizable experience while simplifying transactions through a one-time pack purchase model. Retaining the core crafting mechanics respects existing player investments, while the suspenseful reveal and interactive selection process appeal to both new and dedicated players. This format has the potential to create a vibrant, streamlined, and highly engaging Illuvium experience that retains the thrill of discovery and collection in an evolved, player-centered way.

[weak mulch]

"Stat boosting" has been proposed before numerous times and has been very poorly received, and for good reason.
With pack opening we are likely to get completely flooded with illuvials. Preserving rarity/collectibility needs to be a top priority.

[high zenith]

It was just a suggestion for an alternative use case for shards, but one could ofc say that if u get a shard of a particular tier, you get an additional selection of an illuvial of that tier. Get a T5 shard, you get a wildcard, that u can use to select an additional illuvial. A free-pick

[unique star]

I agree but how will we preserve rarity/collectibility when illuvials will be brought at our nose in seconds by pressing one click?

[weak mulch]

Drop rates of stats, holo, dark holo. These 3 features are the basis of it all. Hence why they have to be very carefully planned in advance to make sure that rarity is preserved and cards/illuvials continue to hold value into the future.

[obtuse sun]

I disagree with this idea very much, first of all there are a lot of players that spent hundreds of hours to acquire this Illuvials, by doing this you are pretty much destroying their work by diminishing the value, your also destroying the people who invested thousands of dollars into building this teams plus the time wasted to get better deals from players. This card pack system would have to be majorly tweaked so that the players that played hundreds of hours and the investors that bought illuvials for a lot of money wouldn't be at a disadvantage, this would require very much time and work and you do not have that kind of luxury at this point, the market is stalled since the end of the last season because of the new game modes getting released and all of your devs are busy solving problems with it. I would like to suggest that you you focus all of your strength into getting the season started as soon as possible because you are panicking players and investors, this is the main reason at this point in time that the market is stalled, your also scaring potential investors with patches and a lot of changes that are really not necessary right now, in my point of view you would need to focus on getting the arena ready, get the season started, and after that the focus should be shifted towards OW tweaks, such as multiplayer, reducing the time it takes to finish a run, improve the quest system, tweak the performance there are a lot of issues with fps dropping using a ton of ram and vram, and maybe then you can bring new ideas to the table when you have a decent game ready-to-play not messing with the entire ecosystem in the middle of seasons and completely bamboozle everyone on what their focus should be right now.

[foggy widget]

How would we preserve rarity if we had millions of OW players ? Rarity with 5.000 players means 1 DH Rhamphyre, with 1.000.000 players we can have 100 of them and they are still rare. And the first 1 or 2 DH are still more valuable.

[short bay]

I kindly ask you to think the idea through again, without emotional thinking. If the new card packs cost 100$ (an extreme example), while a s3 OW run currently costs 0.50 cents, this will actually increase the value of your illuvials (provided we also get an increase in demand). It's not black and white, all about how it's implemented and fine tuned.

[obtuse sun]

I suggested that this idea is dismissed for now as we are not in need of messing things up more than they already are, if the card system is tuned and it does not affect past investors and players and it actually brings something new to the table that is beneficial for the ecosystem then it would be a fine addition to the game. There are too many things going on right now that need to have a higher priority you can't shift the devs on working on a pack system when we already have so many problems.

[foggy widget]

We need it to make the Arena experience for TFT players complete. It is all about Arena at the moment.

[short bay]

Yes that's the idea from what I understood. The only way to make the current model work is if we offer some sort of ground breaking, never seen before RPG experience, which OW is years away, if ever. It will take a ton of resources without a guaranteed result.

[unique star]

And it will take even more time for ow if we shift devs to another game, a pack opener game i just don't see how a pack opener solves everything

[weak mulch]

Projections and drop rates. Project out how many illuvials that you believe will exist over time based on player numbers, average number of packs opened per player and how many illuvials are contained within each pack. Figure your drop rates accordingly based on what population of each illuvial/finish/stat you would like to see.

If projections are off in a real world scenario, you adjust the variables accordingly. Obviously this will need to be communicated clearly in the TOS etc so that everyone is well aware.

[foggy widget]

Making it easier and more fun to spend money in Illuvium ?

[high zenith]

An OW run is boring, takes 1 hour time, is super repetitive. You can accomplish the end goal - get 7-8 high stat/high rarity illuvials in 5 minutes in a visually cool pack opening, boosting revenue, creating a win win situation

[short bay]

It solves many things, while the success with it is not guaranteed as well, it is much much much more likely to work than what we have currently, while also easier to deploy compared to all the things OW needs in order to justify the current one.

[obtuse sun]

Well if OW as we want it takes too much time, then add small changes that makes it more enjoyable instead of working on an idea that is impossible, after your done with OW, then you could start working on the pack system, but with all the tuning that needs to be done to it you might reach the same result or release it unfinished and destroy the entire ecosystem.

[foggy widget]

Yes, and whoever collected the first few will have the most valuable anyway. So we are all early and should not be worried about many more players joining us.

[weak mulch]

I think this is a false assumption, a lot of packs will likely contain unrare items with poor stats.

[unique star]

A win for who? for future players while affecting everyone who played and invested so far?

[foggy widget]

But they will contain shards, ores etc and motivate you to open more packs. With a subscription like Pokémon TCG you can open a pack a day.

[high zenith]

Not any different than the current system. You get a list of 80, you select 7-8 illuvials or ore, shards etc. the end result is completely the same. You just don’t have to spend 1 hour per run. You would still select the best stat illuvials from a pack in the same way u do it in an OW run

[short bay]

The problem is small things ain't gonna cut it, OW needs to be absolutely perfect to justify the current monetization model. And even then its not certain it's gonna generate enough players and revenue, since there are many similar games which you can play for free or with a one off purchase.

[foggy widget]

Your investment is worthless without an increase in player base.

[weak mulch]

Without new players joining us, we are on borrowed time anyway and everyone loses.
We get inundated with 1 million players like you suggest, I dont think any of us has to worry about that.

[unique star]

@weak mulch you can clearly see that most people who want this don't want it with the idea of accounting for what happened so far you can clearly see this no?

[high zenith]

The cost will be fixed, at a much higher price than the average cost for the last months. So in that regard, the value of the illuvials I currently have, should increase, because I have a Lower average acquisition cost than incremental illuvials

[weak mulch]

No I don't see this, sorry.
What I can see is that this could be implemented in a way that doesn't have to negatively impact the illuvials that already exist.

[foggy widget]

With known drop rates a pack opening establishes a fixed price hierarchy for Illuvials.

[obtuse sun]

What about the P2W aspect that this card system is gonna bring? If i'm spending 1h to complete a S3 run and that guy opens 100 packs in this time, then he will have a huge number of illuvials acquired and ready for fusing while I have a lot less and did more work than him, this is pretty much setting up whales to have all the good illuvials all the sales on the market if we will at least have people buying from the market why buy from market at a big price when you can just open packs and hope to get it for a smaller price?

[high zenith]

That’s why u have ranked free to play gauntlet. Leviathan has always been a P2W game mode

[hybrid spire]

if player spend 2-3k$ why not? 7-8 chook)

[short bay]

Bad example, the whale is always gonna have more than you if he chooses. The problem now is much bigger, no one even wants to play the game.

[hybrid spire]

100% the same behavior like in OW but fast mode - any guarantee to get full stats - than need fuse

[hybrid spire]

you will be able to analyze who to catch and who not (if the OЦ is not closed), catch good stats, but the player who opens packs will not be able to, everything will fall to him

[high zenith]

I suggest you read the suggestion I laid out above, it includes player agency, similar to an OW run. An OW run is basically exactly the same. Here is a list of 120 illuvials in total. You can scan everything and only decide to capture the ones with high stats. This takes 1 hour +. Alternatively: through a pack model: here is a list of 80 illuvials, divided into 8 selection rounds, where u can select 1 of the 10 illuvials appearing. It’s basically the exact same thing. The end goal is accomplished in the exact same way as current OW runs. But takes 1/10th the time. And is actually more exciting. It is super boring scanning, not finding what u want, being taken back to the teleporter, then u have to fly around looking for encounters

[hybrid spire]

now without a drone the player can catch 7 iluvials, let this number be in packs, whoever is ready to spend an hour in low with a drone will catch 11 iluvials + will be able to pump up experience and resources

I do not agree give the opportunity to choose which iluvial to save, which not. Each iluv is nft. After opening it gets a number. Any game does not accept your saving option is better - only RNG. Got below-average stats, go ahead and buy solon and fuse. Like do everybody

[short bay]

😀

[high zenith]

I really don’t get your point here 🙂

[hybrid spire]

I do not agree give the opportunity to choose which iluvial to save, which not. Each iluv is nft. After opening it gets a number. Any game does not accept your saving option is better - only RNG. Got below-average stats, go ahead and buy solon and fuse. Like do everybody
this point?

[high zenith]

This is exactly what you do by having selections. You open a selection round, u pick 1 illuvial - or pass. In total you have 8 selections of illuvials. The same way as in OW. Normally end up with around 5-6 high stat illuvials in one OW run

[hybrid spire]

yeap, but in ow you spend for it 1h, for packs - nothing. if you want to choose - play OW

[high zenith]

This is the problem, it does not bring in enough revenue. Because whales don’t have 1 hour to spend for a single run. But they could have bought 20+ packs easily in 1 hour. 20x the potential revenue for the DAO

[hybrid spire]

yes, that why we will have a lot players who will do it on ow for whales whales can fast open

[hybrid spire]

we already have working functionality of shards, until it is reworked, players with a small wallet will not be able to open packs , but they can buy fuel , and catch something better, and sell it to whales too

we have left 2 option packs and OW

it will be cheaper to go through the OW than to buy packs and its normal

in a lot of games you can pay a little bit more for fast run or pay less without fast run but long

[marsh sapphire]

@hallow cipher H and DH should be the soul essence for rarity plus their are tier 5 already. Those are rare. Stats increase should and needed to be attainable. You guys been fighting for stat adjustment in leviathan when the answer is so easy. Whats the point of having DH when it has shit stats?!. Illuvial burn answers the illuvial scarcity, stat increase answers the leviathan stat gap. H and DH SHOULD ONLY BE THE ESSENCE OF RARE! PERIOD.

We want to become pack opening? We will become a gacha game and one of the system in gachas is duplicates are burn to power up the other.

Its kind of funny when you guys been debating to adjust stat multiplier when the answer is so simple. We need burn mechanics for illuvials already, imagine if illuvium reaches 100,000 players and will open 2 packs a day? How saturated the illuvialswill be in just 1 month? Imagine having a DH ramphyre and you want to flex it in arena but u cant coz it has shit stat and need to prioritize on winning so you will use an ordinary ramphyre w/ better stats for a better chance of winning. whats the point of that DH then?

[hybrid spire]

die with a beautiful iluvial in the arena 🙂

[hybrid spire]

maybe will be leader borad like beyound)

[short bay]

The point is to have another statistic for rarity other than stats. If you get that dh + good stats = lottery feeling. Otherwise you can also play it in the non leviathan modes for look cute, cause those will be the most popular modes with highest playerbase anyway.

[foggy widget]

We need good utility for average Illuvials, maybe not now, but pretty soon. It should not feel bad to open a pack with an average stat Rhamphyre.

[marsh sapphire]

DH w/ shit stats? Lottery missed? Right now having a perfect stat illuvial is the lottery, you only feel winning a lottery w/ H and DH only if it has good stats. Stats is the main factor to call an illuvial rare, where in fact it should be H and DH.

[foggy widget]

The best outcome would be different kind of rarities for different kind of players. A collector has a different look on it, than an Arena Leviathan player, a Skin Crafter etc.

This way all Illuvials have value, some of course more, but there would not be many useless Illuvials.

[marsh sapphire]

@hallow cipher Stats should be treated like illuvial levels. If you catch it low then you can increase it. Rare illuvial should only be tied to H and DH. Illuvium is so complicated to the point that it hinder the development of the games. Different type of fuel, sLIV, changing from OW runs to pack opening and now even stat multiplier is being debated? Why make illuvium so complex? But i must say pack opening is nice.

[marsh sapphire]

Right like tier 5 illuvials, H and DH should felt amazing when you happen to open one, but to know that it has shit stats, the pleasure and motivation immediately decreases. I dont understand why is stats being tied to rarity. Holy grail should be tier 5, H and DH. Why make the game so complex

[livid lichen]

you cannot implement this now. This would punch everybody who played OW in the face. With that you break too much trust and could just say the project is done. Stats were most important thing in this game and they should be the most important thing in the future.
Everything else is cosmetic.

[faint gate]

I think we need a burn system for bad stats to be re-rolled but not stats leveled up, I could also see decreasing the range of stats for holos and DH , by +1 and +2 so holos where all 1-5 an DH where all 2-5 so that they on average where better ( to avoid the DH with shitty stats problem ) but leveling up stats is not the intended design of the game so changing htat is bad. Changing the stat mutipler is a balancing effect thats the whole point of gettin gthem base STATS instead of just 10% bonus on the raw stat so that you can balance it in future to make sure your game modes are fun

[livid lichen]

How about this: 10 Illuvials can upgrade one into a holo
Or we just sacrifice Illuvials in another way. For example Ranger progression or just anything else. There is no need at all to touch stats.

[faint gate]

I'm sick of this IDEA that STATS are a holy grail that can't every be touched things like that are annoying and hamper game design. The ONLY reason to not want stats touched is you think you can BUY an advantage in levithan mode and you want to maximizes $ power over skill power. Bringing stats into balance and incresasing rarity of illuvials by destroying MILLIONS of them in the quest for decent to well stated illuvials will increase the VALUE of your illuvials much more than keeping the game modes of levithan Horrile off balance and with minnium players.

[marsh sapphire]

If stats is the main rarity, then tier 4 and 5 illuvials should not be rare in opening a pack, there should be one in every pack.

[faint gate]

Everyonne involved WANTS stats to be a MAJOR player in levithan we all agree with that but no one is going to play levithan with shitty stated illuvials so we have to fix the system . Burn mechanics for bad stated ( espically needed if we have a pack opening model ) makes the must since. Re-rolling them into a new random card keeps the same mechanic as the normal opening. Doing this plus maybe a small fuel cost is good for the game

[faint gate]

I imagine youll have 3 tiers of packs ? Tier 1 Guarnteed Tier 3 in every pack tier 2 guarnteeded tier 4 in every pack , and tier 3 guarnteeded tier 5 in every pack

[marsh sapphire]

I could agree w/ this. H and DH should have better stats automatic. As long as we have ways to burn those shit illuvials and increse the chance to have better ones, its fine

[faint gate]

As long as the pack opening cost is greater to the current Run cost ( includeding shard value ) i'm good with having a Drone RUN style pack opening for thsoe who don't want to spend hours and hours doing runs

Diagree with the idea of a BURN 5 Illuvials to Create 1 Random iluvial of the same type? WTF is your problem with this ? You litterally are about ot be able to BUY packs of illuvlas? why do you not like the idea of burning shitty illuvlas. why do you want them to exist all they do is make the game look like a joke as they have 0 purpose?

[livid lichen]

Leviathan is about having the strongest Illuvials not only about skill. If everybody has the same perfect stats Illuvials we don't need this game mode at all.

Also maybe consider to not tell me what I think. I am not here to buy an advantage. I am not somebody who invested a lot. I am the one who loses in Leviathan against people with more money, unless I manage to work myself up.

[faint gate]

No one is saying that levithan SHOULN"T be about having hte strongest illuvalis as a MAJOR part of the game your playing. But right now their is NO game stats matter more than COMP, Placement, and Augments. GOOD stats just win. That has to be brought into the actual game . Balancing is being tested and underway. Their not changing the illuvails just the stat weighting from 10% down to a lower number . Proably going to end up around 4 to 6 % and looking at reducing level bonus from 60% down to something like 5% .

Right now the balance in Levithan mode mine as well be like the BEYOND leaderboard. You can tell the winner without really playing the game Just rank the teams of the players and its over. We just need to bring things inline. But that still doesn't explain why want peoplet o be stuck with Shitty illuvials and NO use for them. Why is burning 5 illuvials not worth 1 Random illuvial

[livid lichen]

Only ok, with a diminishing return mechanism. Which means
290%--> 300% = 1000 Illuvials
280%--> 290% = 800 Illuvials
270%--> 280% = 600 Illuvials ....

Adjusting balance for Leviathan is a different topic you opened up. I haven't said anything against that. Ofc. we need to be able to adjust balance in that regards. That being said your numbers, especially only 5% for levels, which is something everybody can grind, look totally wrong. If anything you could say that levels should be more important than stats.

[hybrid spire]

you can play in ranked and and don't pay attention to this mode🙂

[hybrid spire]

if you do nothing then yes, you can tell who will win by just one look

[rose quiver]

ok guys I've opened a new thread regarding a burning mechanism. Please move this conversation there so we try to stay on topic here. Thank you.
https://discord.com/channels/760344898200666112/1305538984797012010

[livid lichen]

Also who says witch stats are bad. Maybe we get a breach encounter which turns some of our Illuvials for 10 seconds against our other Illuvials. Having the most attack damage/attack speed might be an issue. Maybe it is better to kill that boss slowly. Just invent encounters that highlight different stat weighting and there are no bad Illuvials anymore.

[raven dock]

I would like the option to swipe a credit card or use my fuel to purchase asset packs in Overworld. That being said, I was under the impression we would retain Overworld, perhaps improve it, and add the automated drone runs as an extra feature. Choosing to play in Overworld would give players more bang for their buck. If they don’t want to spend the time, they could just buy Overworld packs instead.

Removing Overworld entirely seems like a waste of all the resources that went into creating it. Of course, if something is broken, it needs to be fixed, and we can all agree that Overworld could use some improvements to make it engaging for long play sessions.

The main point I want to emphasize, as shown in the screenshot, is that many casual gamers love playing an Overworld run 1-3 times a week as a way to relax and appreciate the beautiful art in those regions.

Until we have something incredibly polished, like an "Overworld 2.0," I believe it should stay. Overworld has a dedicated base of die-hard fans who enjoy it as it is.

Project: Breach, the roguelike Overworld game, could serve as an additional game mode without replacing Overworld. I understand that we want to avoid spreading our focus too thin—especially given our efforts with three games at launch and Arena’s three game modes—but it feels as though Overworld might be sacrificed to streamline things, which could be a knee-jerk reaction. This is similar to what happened with Palworld and Illuvial Combat, as well as with Mavia and Play2Airdrop. It seems we’re now facing a similar scenario with the new Pokémon TCG and their Card Packs, where we may be too quick to set aside everything else for the new hype. While asset packs are exciting, Overworld provides a holistic experience that can be very enjoyable for a specific player demographic.

I don’t want to stand in the way of progress, but I, for one, would be sad to see the classic "venture into the wild and capture Pokémon" experience disappear entirely.

This is just my perspective as a player and based on what I've read here on Discord. I'm sure the team has a solid plan in place and won't "waste" or "throw away" the work, as I may have exaggerated here.

[tender bolt]

Current OW is basically just a “pack opening” wrapped in an “open world capture game”, which I still think is a cool concept and whats makes illuvium unique… Although I completely get why we need to change it and make it way more easy to acquire the packs/Illuvials. I would still prefer to see something that is in line with the current game and lore, and not go to “buy a pack of cards”, You could make a nice experience using a simple Illuvial drone capture. (auto drone runs, both in game, and via an app… this is just a simple illustration, to show the concept)

This would compliment the current OW, and offer a simple way to capture illuvials.

1. you instruct your Drone to scan a region/stage of your choice.
2. your Drone returns with a list of 30 different encounters.
3. you choose the encounter you want to start, and you get into the capture sequence, and use shards to try to capture.
4. After you successfully captured 5 Illuvials the drone runs out of energy and you would need to start the process again.
   (just random numbers)

Would work both for free T0 runs and "payed runs".

[rose quiver]

I've posted an IIP a while ago about this. For those interested you can give it a read here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQrhihepxvHVoxhWS2T0dVEGI8yyOxILbtViQv5hUnkmD9BHOl_WBx2g3bxsc79KkuH4EmDvEoSKl5K/pub

I still think there should be some progression system to these automated drone runs.

some key points from the IIP

The Drone Trips acquired loot and mission duration would depend on various factors:

• The drone’s progression system and its upgrades, which encompass factors such as the mining or harvesting rate, drone’s speed, heatmap accuracy, and so on.
• The average level of the illuvials defending the drone. For instance, sending the drone alone without illuvials for protection would result in lesser resources due to inaccessible gatherables due to nearby enemy illuvials.
• The stage of the region. Higher stage regions would necessitate higher level illuvials for safe defense of the drone and improved gathering rates. Entering a stage 3 region with low level illuvials would yield fewer resources as they may struggle to defend the drone against the enemies there. The higher the region’s stage the longer a mission would take.

a lot has changed since then, but there were some good ideas in there.

[tender bolt]

100% agree... I think its a very good concept, but I would properly also simplify some of the current mechanics at the same time, to make sure you can just use it to go get your Illuvials for arena or whatever you will need them for in the future. Might even consider getting rid of the 3 stages, and just determine what you can catch by what level of shards you have with you on the run. 🤔

[radiant falcon]

The Illuvial pack opening/access to Illuvials was discussed thoroughly in idea threads ages ago.

[lime estuary]

I know, but its resurfaced in full force recently

Overworld is treated like an "extravagant" and extended pack opening (with some choice to the players how they play their runs). Many enjoy the game loop but the dopamine hit is dragged out for sure vs. the immediate hit from pack/d1sk opening

[shut lodge]

I don't think this will work. @hallow cipher has said we need an automated drone run for players that don't want to grind, but they would pay a price for that. Why on earth wouldn't the DAO want that as well? I think the heart and soul of leviathon is ownership, doesn't matter if you grinded or paid a premium to skip the grind.

[shut lodge]

We keep talking about pack opening vs. current OW state. How about both? I think they both have a place and attract differernt player groups. I am only concerned about those advocating for a replace of the current OW with pack opening. I see that as a win-lose vs win-win.

[compact dove]

Having both is the right answer to me right now.

[rose quiver]

we also haven't discussed much about pricing, but I'm curious. How much do you guys think it would cost to open a pack? For stage 1, 2 and 3. We don't even need to make these automated drone runs costly since they get you random loot. Just what you think would be the fair price if they for example fixed fuel prices at 1/3 of the top rail.

I think I would be something like:

• Stage 1: 3.30$
• Stage 2: 10$
• Stage 3: 30$

I'm doing the calculations with prices being 6x their current price. (meaning T5 shards would be 5$+).

on thing I'll say is shards are too damn expensive, I spent way more hyperion than any other fuel.

[high zenith]

You don’t need to make the packs in a total random manner without any agency. You could introduce selection, just like in OW runs. In OW runs, you see 120 illuvials and their stats, and select the best 5-6. Why does it have to be any different? 🙂

[rose quiver]

there's only point for that if you don't receive the best available illuvials from the run. Unless you can see the stats you would always choose the highest tier/stage?

[rose quiver]

and seeing stats and choosing I'm completely against that. That should be the whole edge gamers have vs simply buying packs.

[fresh hare]

Why wouldn't the packs just have the same amount illuvials available to choose from that an Overworld run currently has?? I think that's around 50 right?

[high zenith]

You always see the best possible illuvials from a single run basically. Because there are almost never more than 4-5 illuvials with good enough stats worth capturing, so you always have plenty spare energy from a run.

[rose quiver]

not really my experience, I always bring at least 5-7 and at max 10.

[high zenith]

OW in its current form, is opening packs, which takes 1 hour. Why not make it 5 minutes and accomplish the same? The game in illuvium is gauntlet. If they are to do something different in OW, a new game mode that is really fun, a Br or something. That’s a totally different story

[rose quiver]

it doesn't even need to be 5 minutes. It can be instant. But gamers should always have an advantage over P2W features. That's just my opinion.

if I go and spend an hour opening a pack instead of it being instant. I expect to get some sort of benefit out of it.

[high zenith]

It doesn’t need to be sure, but you could do it in a really cool way. Opening a wake in a 3D environment, moving around seeing the illuvials as a ranger. Include some selection agency. Creating a dopamine rush multiple times from a single pack. Adding fireworks when the best stat illuvial appears, adding the insane sounds from the illuvials.. etc I am not advocating a single click boring pack opener that u can do in your browser. This has to be done in a very cool way

[fresh hare]

Your benefit is leveling up your illuvials and paying less than the quick pack opening.

[high zenith]

This will be the case in Gauntlet as well, leveling up illuvials, so don’t think that will matter that much after a while

[fresh hare]

Perry has already said that exp from OW will be more efficient than Guantlet

[rose quiver]

why can't you be leveling illuvials while opening packs? Is the drone going alone to capture them without illuvials aiding? I think packs could even do a kind of power leveling to illuvials as well. And the pricing can be the same.

[fresh hare]

Because there need to be features that add to the Overworld that the pack opening doesn't have. If you give both options and they are the same price and you can level while pack opening then no one will enter the Overworld.

[rose quiver]

like being able to see stats for example.

you can't expect to buy a pack and being able to choose the best illuvials out of the pack by their stats. That's not a pack opening experience. That's just cheesing the game.

[high zenith]

Exactly, why do you need people to suffer through an hour of stat checking in the OW? They can reintroduce the OW - use the maps and everything beautiful that is created once combat is live or something. For another game mode. But having it as a pack opener.. it has been tested, and people don’t want it, it seems like. And it is not bringing in revenue needed, because people with a lot of fuel and money do not want to spend it, because u spend 0.5 USd and have to play 1 hour

[fresh hare]

You just described how people play Overworld atm haha. The pack opening feature is about saving people time.

[rose quiver]

the odds of getting good stat illuvials are extremely low. I bet with you that if we couldn't see stats almost no one would be playing OW.

[fresh hare]

If no one could see stats people would have asked for a proper progression system by now.

[rose quiver]

but the game experience is horrible right now. I have to go through a ton of loading screens to check the illuvials. If I could simply scan the encounter and see the stats it would be a much better experience for example.

[rose quiver]

like what?

[high zenith]

It’s about accomplishing the same and boosting revenue a lot. But sure, one would still need agency. Like the agency there is in OW. Selection in my opinion is required.. can’t be pure RnG

[fresh hare]

Like any other gacha game. You get duplicates to power up the base character. No one is playing Overworld because there is no mode pushing ownership. A pack opening isn't going to change anything about that. So making any change prior to there being a game mode to test with ownership is moot atm.

[high zenith]

I totally agree, but this is the company’s main goal at the moment. Make gauntlet and leviathan gauntlet so good it can be, this should drive demand for higher stat illuvials. But if I want to play gauntlet, I am forced to play OW for 1 hour in hopes of getting 3-4 semi-good illuvials. Or I have to pay ridiculous prices for high stat illuvials because there are very few people playing hours and hours to supply them

[fresh hare]

We are living in this weird ass ecosystem that the devs allowed to happen by seeing stats. Honestly there shouldn't be stats on the illuvials. All the illuvials should be base characters and then u level up, catch duplicates, and burn duplicates to add to the traits. But now that people have the ability to choose only high stat illuvials it made Overworld a worse experience that you guys are describing.

That's also the reason Overworld runs aren't really fast like the first few days when people didn't know about the stats. Runs were taking me less than 15 minutes

And I take my time haha

[rose quiver]

I kinda disagree there. The game might not be in the most appealing state, but I would not be playing it if it was a brain dead game that you don't even see stats and just capture by their rarity. Just give me packs for that.

[high zenith]

If stats were not visible beforehand, I believe less people would be playing OW.. imagine throwing 5x resplendent shards on a T5 stage 1 illuvial with 50% catch provbability and when u get it, it has terrible stats.. imagine how bad people would feel. People would quit so fast. They would feel so ripped off

[fresh hare]

But you would be in and out in 10 mins and every illuvial in the ecosystem has value. You guys are also not addressing the huge issue that these instant runs are going to cause and that's the economy is going to be flooded even more than it already is with worthless crap. Which also puts more strain on the illuvidex because of the added assets

[rose quiver]

that issue will be exacerbated with instant pack openings 🤣

[rose quiver]

and runs would get boring pretty fast.

[fresh hare]

If u r gonna reply to me at least read what I wrote. Every illuvial should be blank like the tutorial illuvials. You wouldn't have bad stat illuvials, u would have a progression system.

[high zenith]

I don’t get why you believe the situation has to be different than a regular OW run.. it doesn’t. You see 100 illuvials, they appear from worst stat to best stat in a visually cool way, and u select the best ones. Exactly the same as in an OW run

[fresh hare]

U dont see 100 illuvials, its like 50 or 52

[high zenith]

U basically mean that illuvials shouldn’t have stats at all? Sorry my bad

[rose quiver]

why would you even need to choose then? You're basically picking the best always...

[high zenith]

U actually see 120. 40 x 3

[fresh hare]

Ahh ok u are talking with encounters. But in f2p u see the same amount and that's where I have been grinding recently.

[high zenith]

Because I might want to choose a Rhampite with let’s say 250% vs a kukka of 280% i believe u would too.

[rose quiver]

sure, but here lies the problem. Capturing a kukka or a rhamphite have different costs, shard wise.

unless the pack costs varies according to what you pick, what you're describing is not fair at all.

[high zenith]

Not if shards are no longer needed for that particular purpose - you can find another use case for shards, I believe they want to get rid of microtransactions. You could bake everything into the cost of a pack

[rose quiver]

I don't really like where this is heading. Since when do packs let you choose its content???

[fresh hare]

They don't, you would think it would just be random, like Beyond

[rose quiver]

that should be the advantage of someone that spends an hour in a map

[high zenith]

You are describing OW here, u get to pick what u want from a pack 🙂

[rose quiver]

by playing yes. Not by swiping my credit card.

[high zenith]

You are swiping the credit card and flying from encounter to encounter checking stats, if you think that is playing and having fun, then sure 🙂 you can call it playing if you like that. I don’t, I do it to get illuvials for leviathan. And I believe the majority of players play OW to supply illuvials to leviathan, either through selling or keeping them 🙂

[rose quiver]

why would anyone play otherwise?

[rose quiver]

yes, key word flying, and spending 1 hour+ in it. Hopefully in the future also fighting in some engaging way when we ditch the auto-battler.

[rose quiver]

just use the marketplace then.

yes it is actually playing, you know why? Because you have to know what you're capturing. What stats matter to each illuvial and what not.

[high zenith]

I would call that optimization. You learn what matters in Gauntlet. And sure that helps when in OW, but that would not be any different if you could do the same selection process in 1/10th of the time 😉 but hey, if you really enjoy OW in its current form and game-mode, It’s perfectly fine for me, I just have a feeling that the majority does not really enjoy spending an hour per run. I could be wrong though.

[rose quiver]

the experience could be a lot better if they assumed from the get go that seeing stats wasn't a bug and made it an actual feature, where I don't have to constantly be dealing with loading screens.

[rose quiver]

all games are a grind man. Gamers spend countless hours farming for worthless crap. But to them it means something.

[high zenith]

Agree, they should instead have the highest stat illuvial show up in the owerworld with a power level meter or something on top of the illuvial displaying its stat in a scale (color green to yellow to red) where a red ish color on the power meter would indicate close to 300% stats. Then u wouldn’t need to go into 40 encounters to check stats. Having the Tier and stage take priority in what u see, I don’t actually get that, because what matters are the stats. That would make the current OW experience a lot better, and u could probably do a run in like 15 minutes. See a very green bar: skip that encounter. See an orange bar on let’s say a T5 illuvial: oh.. that’s interesting, I enter that. See a totally red bar on a kukka: definitely going into that

[manic spruce]

As a landowner actually don’t mind (I. Don’t think I represent most of them though). I actually think is an extra step to buying packs. Maybe we should look to overhaul fuel systems too.

[rough tulip]

Make it like counter strike. You get containers that has a pack from common - exotic or something. Then use fuel of X amount to open them.

Arena gets these for arena wins

• could make keys a thing instead of fuel, but same concept as fuel.

Ow -> would hate to see this go, it’s just to many microtransactions right now and of course no story/progression content.

[radiant dagger]

Afaik is that removing it is only temporarily to improve then relaunch with all the fun features.

[livid lichen]

Lets check this scenario for a pack opening in which you get 40 Illuvials and can chose 5:

1350 fuel = 3$

OW disadvantage:

• Illuvials can escape captures several times in a row and disappear for ever
• You can lose to an encounter

To account for these disadvantages I will calculate this with a 50% capture chance, which is below the actual OW numbers.

Further assumptions:

• In a Stage 3 run we encounter two T5S1 Illuvials on average
• We need two t5 shards to capture one T5 Illuvial (I know that other shards would be possible, but lets put that under OW advantages)
• We find one T5 shard and four T4 shards with 2000 energy used
• we get 4700 energy per run

Costs for 2000 energy: (3$ x 2000) /4700 = 1.277 $
Costs for 1000 fuel: (3$ x 1000) /1350 = **2.22 $ ** (cost of curing T5 shard)
cost for 160 fuel: (3$ x 160) /1350 = **0.356 $ ** (cost of curing T5 shard)

costs for finding a raw T5 or T4 shard (I will just give 50% of these costs to the t5 shard and the four t4 shards will each get one quarter of the remaining 50%):
T5: 1.277 x 0.5 = 0,6385 $
T4: 1.277 x 0.125 = 0.1596 $

Costs for a cured shard:
T5: 0.6385 $ + 2.22 $ = 2.86 $
T4: 0.1596 $ + 0.356 $ = 0.52 $

Shard costs per Illuvial
T5: 2.86$ x 2 = 5.72 $
T4: 0.52$ x 2 = 1.04 $

You can get two t5 and three t4 Illuvials out of a pack on average:
Stage 3 pack: 5.72 $ x 2 + 1.04 $ x 3 + 3$ = 17.56 $

This price wouldn't account for the following **advantages **a pack opening has:

• no escape
• no possible losses
• no knowledge needed
• higher Stage Illuvials have worse capture chances in OW, while a pack opening hands them out without account for that
• way faster

This price wouldn't account for the following **disadvantages **a pack opening has:

• T1-T4 Stage 1 Illuvials could be more expensive, because they are basically captured with a higher Tier shard

So, with 3$ for 1350 I would say 20$ would be the minimum to account for the disadvantages OW has.

Thoughts?

*Note is 160 fuel cost for a T4 shard correct? I am in a run and can't check

[high zenith]

20 USD for the option to look at only 40 illuvials and choose 5 is way to high. Imagine u don’t get any decent stats, and no T5, no Holo/DH, you are looking at a 15 USD loss at least

[livid lichen]

now it is too high? These are the OW costs.

Maybe, you could argue that you won't go for a T5 capture this often, because stats matter more, but we would still end up at 15$ a pack in my opinion.

[hybrid spire]

man i spent 12k$ to take one legendary hero in mobile web2 game

in web2 game you need open 200 shards to get legendary hero - when you have 200 legendary hero in game you will receive worst legendary hero) after opening 200 shards

and everybody told me that for 20$ we need to get a lot full stats iluvs)))

[short bay]

I think the basic pack should cost 5$ max, with reduced drop chances for higher tiers. And then a whale pack for 50$, which can offer additional stuff compared to the basic version.

Both should differentiate a bit with what they offer. Opening 10x of the basic one should not equal 1:1 to opening the 50$ one, otherwise it would be pointless to have both.

[zenith pivot]

Why cant we just set a $ fixed and not fuel fixed ?
If there are a lot of fuel so value is low, it uses more fuel, if there is low amount of fuel, it uses less fuel. Its still a free market for landowners and web2 players dont get scared about prices changes overtime. And so the market of the nft is still a free market from rarity and finish...

[zenith pivot]

And i think we have to think to fix the games more than trying keeping the same value as it is now.
In the futur, you wont be able to select only high stats illuvials to capture. Only random. That is already a big advantage that early players have if that gonna be removed.

[livid lichen]

I think if you remove the ability to see stats before you capture a Illuvial you can also just close the project. It is normal for a monster hunter to be able to check stats without additional costs aside from time. Randomizing this entirely with the odds the game has is just insanity. I wouldn't even want that advantage over others.

[zenith pivot]

Well seeing the stats is a bug atm shouldnt be there. And i remember that it should disappear in the next ow patch. Anyway thats not the main discussion but when you open a pack. You dont decide to keep only high stats one. You take them all.

[livid lichen]

why? It doesn't have to be that way. That would be such an insane disadvantage. We have to have some sort of consistency in this project otherwise nobody can trust this project. It wouldn't be too much to have some sort of selection that is similar to OW. If gauntlet is good enough people will sacrifice the time for a quick selection process.

[zenith pivot]

Just think more about it. every one will be in the same condition. And leviathan is the "whale" game.
In that random case. The non whale will be more in the same boat and the really whale will need to spend a tons more to get something with good stats as it is gonna be more rare. For the non whale to have the jackpot to have a good stat one, he can decide to keep it to try reach better ranking on leviathan. Or sell it at a good price to whale. All are winners in that setup. The market is destroyed by being able to select only good stats one.
We have to spend hundred hours to run from encounter to encounter to capture nothing or only the perfect one. Im sick of loosing my time for nothing.

But well. Again, thats not the main discussion. I just bring a point where if thats the case. We have a huge advantage to be early and dont be scared to drop the value of what we have in fixing the economy.

We need a drastic change more in web2 vision and stop trying to innovate. We dont have the fund to continue failure

[livid lichen]

but that is exactly my point.
In the case of 5 random Illuvials in a pack we have too much of an advantage. I wouldn't want to buy anything in a project in which the early birds paid around 8 times less than I have to for good Illuvials. If OW gets closed aside that I would even ask for a refund of my remaining fuel, because I bought under completely different assumptions. Also you have to consider that other OW players go to different measures, because their ores, plants and so on are now worthless, but they paid for that. I don't know how much of this would even be allowed without compensation. Closing OW without a clear plan could turn into a legal problem.

Edit: Therefore keeping it as consistent as possible is important.

[zenith pivot]

There still isnt that much perfect ones.
There is what. 1M total illuvial ?
Maybe 100k-200k with good stats?
If we are 100k players it makes 1 in average /player ?
Yes the people grinded for leviathan and is full ready now will have an advantage (and im not in this case. Stopped to play weaks ago) but its like 50 players ? Whats that over hundred of thousands or millions if we look to mainstream...

I dont say it the thing to do. But i dont mind if there is drastic changes if it bring mainstream. You prefer everything goes to 0 trying to keep your little nft valuable ?

[livid lichen]

I don't get this last sentence. I am advocating for the opposite. I don't want my nfts to be too valuable.
The rest of what you said is a good argument will think about that for a moment (Still leaning to consistency, because consistency and trust bring you to that playerbase)

[zenith pivot]

This discussion is to remove acquisition from OW to packs. OW is already planned to be random. Packs are random. So for me OW bring nothing good to the game atm and moving to packs change nothing about the random as it is planned anyway.

[zenith pivot]

Well what i read from your initial message. Was scientific calculation to define a good pack prices from what we paid until now. (Can understand it). I just propose to have a bigger vision and not be limited to "keep consistency" if it bring bad décisions again.

[livid lichen]

yeah, never thought that it is a good idea to capture Illuvials without knowing stats beforehand. We are talking about 5.72 $ in shard costs (based on target price of 3$ = 1350 fuel) for something that is potentially trash. I always thought it is good enough for the gameloop to only see stats after beating an encounter but prior to catch.

[zenith pivot]

Consistency would have to fixed the ***** silv2 buying fuel and getting the bonus. Months of people farming and im just here waiting on my silv2 because i was ready for and not being able to use it. So if the team is not able to be consistency. Dont ask them to much about this change...

[livid lichen]

ok, so we kinda have different visions on what is better:
A complete change of a system, because the system is supposly vastly better than the old
OR
Keeping some consistency, because consistency builds trust.

So, the question is would a new completely different feature be that much better that it justifies to break some trust/consistency.

In the end you say yes and I say no in regards of the last point. Nobody can be 100% sure.

[zenith pivot]

We could imagine packs where there are shards and illuvial not captured in. And you have to use shards on illuvial card to capture it.
And propose a burning feature for the non captured illuvial cards. Like burning for fuel or something.. it Will make people want to continue gamble. And continue spending. There could be a lot of solutions with "close to what we got already now" with better experience. Just dont limit yourself by a too strict consistency

[livid lichen]

hmm, that is what I wanted?
I thought you are just advocating for pay x and get 5 Illuvials

[zenith pivot]

Nah im advocating to move away from playing OW to get nft to play arena. A more direct way as pack opening but we can still keep a gamified way with forge in.
The other point that i advocate for is the have $ fixed prices of packs and not anymore fuel fixed. It Will give back value to Land fuel.
Burning lot of fuel when there are to much in the market and less when there is demand.

But we had this discussion because you didnt know that OW planned to remove stats scanning

[livid lichen]

I saw that announcement and I think it is a terrible idea, but ok, so, we agree on the pack opening part and maybe disagree on the see stats in advance part.
Regarding fixed $ price for packs:
If you always get 1350 fuel for 3$ that is kinda fixed?

[zenith pivot]

There is a free market for the fuel. Today i spend 5$ for 10k fuel tomorrow i spend 5$ for 11k fuel. It makes me able to open more or less with 5$ overtime.
If the run was 5$ fixed. Today i would have burn 10k fuel and tomorrow 11k fuel for the same reward. So it would be now fixed from a $ perspective. And burn more fuel when the price is low of the fuel (low demand or to much supply) and burn less If the price of fuel is high (high demand or low supply). People can still play the market and buy when its low to spend later when it cost lower amount of fuel.

People are living in the real world. And reconnect $ value to thing they can get in the game without having their packs permanent changing price. The only impact it Will have is for landowners revenue. They wont mint infinite fuel and loose value until we burn it all at a fixed price but will adapt to the market..

I really dont see any downside of having fixed $ for packs.

[short bay]

I agree with you on everything, packs should absolutely be with a fixed price, but fluctuating fuel prices can also create problems, if that's how we buy the packs. For example a player spends 100$ on fuel to open 20 packs during the week, only to login on day 3 and see he can only open 17 packs because fuel price dropped. Of course it can also be on the upside, but it still creates uncertainty.

[zenith pivot]

I think the process should be different from atm.
Zero player should "Sell" directly to a pool from the dao (price defined from the supply of the pool).
When Landowners sell from Zero to the pool. Its done. They receive the money from the prices they saw. And the fuel is in the pool.
When people want to buy a pack 5$. It Will uses 5$/prices of the fuel amount of fuel from the pool to get it.
The price of the fuel will be permanently recalculate.
So gamers never really "hold" fuel. Only Land owners do and sell it when they want to.
Its more web2 accessible as it is invisible for them. They buy their 5$ pack and thats it.
Land owners receive more or less depending on when they place fuel in the pool

Its seems even more simple that what we have now...
The x20 fuel can still apply in.

I know that team spending months to implement thing. But sorry, in the wrong direction from my perspective.
We advocate months ago for fixed $ prices for players the time of vetemor and Zeptyle that were still motivated and was bringing web2 value in that project. But well. Need mistakes to realise maybe.

[zenith pivot]

In what i read there in your exemple. It isnt fixed price. If the person did put 100USDC. When he decide to purchase his 20 packs. 1 week before or after. He will still have 20 packs. The amount of fuel that get used maybe would be different from a time to the others
But with what i explain above. The goal is to keep a direct link between $ to the pack without fluctuation visible.

[high zenith]

Packs does not necessarily have to be completely random. You can introduce some agency in terms of selection. Think of how an OW run is. It is a pack, with some selection agency

[zenith pivot]

Yeah i agree it would bring a gamified way on it. Some energy that you can spend to chose your cards.

[rose quiver]

and this is exactly why I wanted to bring the topic of pricing. No one wants packs at $20+ and @livid lichen is even making it cheaper than what I was at $30. But that would actually be their fair price.

But let's also keep in mind this would be the price for a stage 3 pack. Stage 1 and stage 2 packs would be way cheaper.

[high zenith]

These are the OW costs if you decide to capture illuvials. But you have optionality. You can go into 10 runs, scout 1200 illuvials stats in a stage 3 run, and it would cost u 6 USD ish if you don’t decide that not even one of those 1200 illuvials is worth capturing. This is a huge difference vs buying a pack of 40 illuvials for 20 USD, where u have to pick 5 of them regardless of their stats are shit

[rose quiver]

I'm sorry but I disagree, it's your choice if you go to the OW and don't capture illuvials. You have the same number of illuvials there.

packs can't give you the same advantage as if you actually travel to the OW

[high zenith]

You can scout 1200 illuvials for 6 USD, you can see 40 illuvials and have to pick 5 of them in a pack - for 20 usd. There is a major difference.

[livid lichen]

agree, but lets say out of the two t5 Illuvials you want on average one, because it is above average. You would end up at 11.84 $ per run. That seems pretty close to the reality to me. Especially, because you get t5S2+ Illuvials without trying to capture them. Also you get t4S3 Illuvials without trying to capture them.

[high zenith]

A T5S2 would be very rare to get, and then you also need that to be high stats to have any value, which will be incredibly rare

[livid lichen]

yeah, as it is in OW, but you also have to capture it with a master shard or with 25% chance of capturing.

[high zenith]

But if you do, it is only if it has very high stats. Because resell value is higher than acquisition cost. No one would use a master shard on an average T5S2

[livid lichen]

that calculation is an estimation not a detailed calculation. For that I need real probabilities. BUT you get it without even trying. I had an adoredo which escaped after 5 or 6 T5 shards. It for me was on the verge of being worth a master shard but not quite there. In a pack opening you just get those.
But all this inaccuracies of the calculation are mentioned.

[high zenith]

Sure, and appreciate people that try to think of these things! If the team were to introduce packs, I feel they should be incredibly similar to how the current thinking of an OW run should be. Optionality in terms of selection, you need to be able to pick from a large selection of illuvials in a pack, like in an OW run (where u can see the stats of 120 illuvials)

[rose quiver]

why would ppl go to the OW then?

[livid lichen]

Oh, wow, you are right. I am so stupid. We see three per encounter >.< .. what an oversight by me oO

yeah, lets make it a hundred, but that sounds awful in terms of working through it

[high zenith]

Because you would have even more agency and optionality. You could choose not to capture any. And then it just cost u 0.6 usd. In a pack you would have to pay upfront a higher cost (because captures are not optional, you get the 5 best in the selection of 120 illuvials). This allows grindy people to grind and optimize at a lower cost , and whales to spend a lot faster and efficient, but at a higher cost

[livid lichen]

But that is actually awesome. Make it 40 (sounds like a decent amount of work) and cut my price in half.
That sounds sellable

Maybe, you would get too many T4 Illuvials, but with that thought the price nearly sounds reasonable while keeping some consistency

[daring badge]

1 mil illuvials and only 1.2k perfect stats without movement speed

[short bay]

Aren't we getting rid of OW as a hub for illuvial acquisition? That's what I understood from Kieran's posts, that opening the card packs shouldn't put anyone at a disadvantage, and thus be the only source of illuvials in the future? Or did I miss something

[high zenith]

Think different things are being discussed, but that was his initial idea yeah, but think he moved away from that thought

[short bay]

I hope we don't end up with a half assed model trying to please everyone.

[rose quiver]

what really gets to me is that this actually solves nothing besides some whales being able to more easily spend money. The game economy will still remain in shambles and we will still not have a playable game.

We have no burning mechanisms to put buy pressure on the market, not a single active game that requires illuvials to drive the economy, and no competitive scene to push further spending.

[short bay]

Not just whales, many non whales don't like OW and don't spend because of it. But you are right on the other points.

[livid lichen]

I guess this is the wrong way to look at it, because a perfect stat Illuvial will be captured 100% of the time, so, it doesn't matter if you get in a pack or in OW. It is more about the Illuvials you don't catch.
So, you would need to look at the best 10% of Illuvials by stats. So, lets say the best 10% of Illuvials have stats above 19/25 (excluding movement speed). (This distribution is combarable to two dices. A 7 is more likely than a 12.)
If now your share of the best 10% Illuvials in terms of stats makes out around 50% of the supply, you get an estimation for the advantage OW provides compared to packs.

[zenith pivot]

I think he just answered to me to give the exact number when i was saying it had not a big impact if we were moving to a no scout stats way.

The more i think about a gamified way to open packs, the less I like it.
Why ? : the hacking and cheating factor.
If you buy a pack that is directly opened and minted on chain. We remove all the possibility of blackhat to increase their energy available, changing stats before capture or that kind of thing we could see.
When we saw the hack available during p2a. I would love to protect our minting process the more we can..

[livid lichen]

Isn't that the same as our current OW? In the end you could just do the pack opening in OW at a terminal. You get to see 40 Illuvials (with or without stats) and pick 5. By picking these it is basically as if you throw a master shard at the Illuvials and they get minted. Sounds to me like the same as an OW encounter.

[zenith pivot]

Yeah and if the game become mainstream. Im sure there will be more cheat. Im still surprised that there wasnt leak of hacker into the actual overworld. As all is readable in text files..
Even if the stats are hidded. There will be people selling bot to see the stats before capturing.

[livid lichen]

perfect, so lets just allow everybody to see the stats as we have it now and that issue is of the table. What is the damage in people seeing them anyway, if we just work from here.
Regarding opening we could just present 40 Illuvials (20 on each side) on the battle board and you get 5 "pack" shards, which can only be used in that environment and provide 100% capture chance. Now, you can check and capture. If you only want to use 4 and use one for another pack that would be ok too.

I guess this also could be one of the fastest ways to do it, because we use what we have in OW

[rose quiver]

what about the bonding curve? Illuvials in the OW are getting harder and harder to capture and you just get a 100% capture chance from packs? And it wouldn't affect the bonding curve?

[livid lichen]

delete the bonding curve. Someday we get batch 2 and that's it

Or if you want don't let the bonding curve have an effect on capture chances but still on rarity for OW spawn or pack cards

[high zenith]

if one were to keep the current OW system, the super simple solution to some of the things being discussed that the majority of people do not want to spend that much time in a run, could simply be to allow people seeing the stats when you do a scan. It cost 3x more, and you can select the 4-5 encounters u want, and thats it, and have the remaining energy be given in the form of option: ores, consumables+essences, shards. This would be insanely more valuable, and triple the revenue. Because even though people do a scan, they still have to go through all encounters to check stats- so you might save a couple of minutes, but not much more than that. If you include stats in the initial scan, then: you could basically do a run in 10 minutes, whales would be happy but pay 3 times as much, grinders would be happy to spend the current price. Win-win. If i had the option to see the stats in a scan, i would scan every run. Since not, i would not scan, because it doesnt feel worth it, because i still have to check all encounters. I dont care about the Tiers that much, what i care for and would wish was possible was to scan for stats

[rose quiver]

https://discord.com/channels/760344898200666112/1304579109502058617

the amount of threads we have regarding this is staggering.

[high zenith]

havent seen this, thanks bro, should definately be implemented

[rough tulip]

This.

To many things to keep track of for OW. If I don’t have 2-3 hours play time, where 80-90% of it is me figure out costs.
I either don’t play or it’s to discouraging to start.
My feed back recommendation in this:

https://discord.com/channels/760344898200666112/1302316206895792218

As well as trying to buy and sell takes the same amount of time.

Both are not enjoyable or fun to do, one is accounting,
and the other is just filled with road blocks, and pricing that doesn’t reflect stats because you can’t search by them easily.

My feed back recommendation in this:
https://discord.com/channels/760344898200666112/1300087499087024148

[weak mulch]

You know from Beyond that it isn't just whales that love opening packs, it drew in over 10k players of all backgrounds and that was during unfavourable market conditions.
Just imagine what Arena could do with a functioning "Pokedex", pack opening experience and a fully functioning Arena with paid leaderboards, all during favourable market conditions.

And as for your other points, those will come. One huge benefit from pausing OW would be to bring the full team of devs over to help build Arena out, to give illuvials the best use case possible and in a much quicker timeframe.
I'm sure once Arena is fully live, feature rich and bug tested, some dev time will be freed up which will allow mechanisms such as burning to be built out.
OW could then receive a much larger focus and they can look to relaunch it when it is a much better place than it is right now. Give it the launch that is deserved. Factoring in the above, we would also have a much larger player base willing to participate in that launch, not even factoring in the external hype that would be generated.

[foggy widget]

Agreed, but please keep the existing OW economy.

[weak mulch]

They probably will, but if it was up to me, I wouldn't.

Id keep it ticking along as is until Arena was ready to go live with pack opening.

Another thing I would also do, is price packs and factor drop rates in a way that would price them above current OW pricing, so that anyone that has captured an illuvial or will capture an illuvial will be doing so on a smaller cost basis than people would out of packs. This would provide a benefit to continue running up until launch.

[high zenith]

or simply just add stats in an OW run scan, would save 10x the time, whales would be happy. a lot of people would definately then scan. Instead of having to check 40 encounters.. this is what takes time, is repetitive and boring. This would have boosted fuel demand, no question. You dont need to rework anything, or set up a pack system, simply turn on stats for illuvials in the encounter on the map once you have paid for a scan. I have began leaning more against this option, after having thought about a pack opening system for the last days

[rose quiver]

Yes you and Nasty are right it's not only for whales, but OW has over 30k illuvial owners. So I don't really get your point (3x the Beyond numbers). We don't need pack openings. We got much better things to focus on right now.

if you guys think closing the OW is the solution so be it. I doubt it solves anything. But just my opinion.

[livid lichen]

Can we have a poll regarding this (would be curious to see how many think what). Also from here on we are likely to just repeat arguments.

1. Only Pack and Choose 5 out of 40 Illuvials (numbers can change)
2. Only pack - You get 5 random Illuvials
3. Pack and OW (Packs as in 1)
4. Pack and OW (Packs as in 2)

2nd vote:
5. Show stats prior to catch in OW and Pack
6. Show stats only after capture
7. Show stats prior to catch only in OW
8. Show stats in OW when performing a scan

[weak mulch]

but OW has over 30k illuvial owners. So I don't really get your point (3x the Beyond numbers). We don't need pack openings.

This is the point, Beyond with only 1/3 of the player numbers and no "game" associated, generated over $5 million in revenue, completely blowing OW out of the water with a 3x larger player base.

[high zenith]

maybe add: Show stats in OW when performing a scan - this in my opinion could be the best option. would require 0 work. So the focus can be 100% on onboarding and making Gauntlet perfect

[weak mulch]

One can only imagine the revenue that could be generated from Arena with the same pack opening experience and an ultra strong utility for the illuvials/items coming out of the packs. Not to mention the player numbers that could be achieved when people actually enjoy the entire experience, onboarding process, unlike current OW, where based on feedback, the majority of people are not happy.

[high zenith]

drawback of only packs in a complete random matter (no selection) - you loose all sense of agency. Complete RNG. Impossible to grind and build yourself up for the small player. No potential to make smart decisions. The majority of current OW players will be gone

[rose quiver]

ofc the majority of people are not happy... Everyone expected a game you could play for OW and we got a 'glorified pack opening' where you need to spend thousands of dollars in order to play or have an horrible F2P experience...

The arena should not be generating illuvial packs I'm completely against this.

this completely breaks the immersion for me and the meaning of illuvials.

[weak mulch]

The majority of current OW players will be gone

The majority are already gone, that is the problem. IMO clinging on to a failed model in hopes of turning it around is such a bad idea, especially when you already have a proven winning formula in another product.

I too would bet that once pack openings are launched, the majority that are complaining would be right there opening them.

[high zenith]

you know that there were insane expectations for Illuvium at that time. Illuvials didnt exist, there was no game out. This was at the hype of Illuvium. The token price was sky-high compared to now. You are fooling yourself if you believe the numbers for Wave 3 will be even close to what you saw in Wave 1 for example. It was a different story, it was other factors explaining the solid numbers for the first waves of Beyond, not the model in itself. Strip away the rewards that also were given out.. then the revenue numbers would have been far lower for the Beyond sales.

[weak mulch]

I suppose we will find out shortly as it will be launching in a matter of days.

[short bay]

I don't know where all these expectations for OW came from? It is exactly as what they said it would be, even over delivered on that by including the roaming illuvials, when the plan was to be just a wake in the beginning.

People were wrongly expecting some top notch mmorpg which was very unrealistic with the timeline and resources they are working with.

[rose quiver]

I disagree, myself and everyone are just expecting a plain game for OW. Something that we don't have right now. We have a pretty but tedious pack opening experience.

[high zenith]

I think what we mean were the expectations for revenue numbers implied in the Token price 🙂

[rose quiver]

I can play arena all day without spending a single dime. I can't do that for OW. Cause there's no game.

[short bay]

Yes I agree the current experience was/is awful, but I didn't imagine it would be much different than what it is currently by following the project all these years. It is exactly what they had planned and it didn't work. I was hoping other people would find it entertaining as giving the benefit of the doubt, and maybe the web 3 factor kicking in, but that just did not materialize.

[rose quiver]

indeed this is what has been worked on for all these years. But the current state of the game doesn't work, it's just an unfinished product, all cogs must be working in conjunction. 1st playing OW for more than a few runs per day involves crazy costs and 2nd it's not even fun.

I'm a web3 guy, and Illuvium can't even appeal to me with this broken economy, how do they expect me to bring in my web2 friends?

[short bay]

I'm totally in the same boots mate, they were over confident with trying to build 3 games at the same time, and especially one of them being an open world rpg, that takes an insane amount of time and resources to pull of correctly. Then to add more salt to the wound, we have this crazy monetization model, that is totally unjustified for the current state of OW. That's why I'm in support of fully switching to pack openings (provided it's done right) so that it can buy the team enough time to realize OW's full potential, which will most probably take years.

[rose quiver]

sure I'm fine with pausing OW just like we did with Beyond to get it to a better place. I just don't want the illuvials to come exclusively out of packs. To me it takes away the entire meaning of the Illuvium world.

[short bay]

I agree but taking everything so far into account, what are the options?

[zenith viper]

Is there a simple middle way? Packs are 80-90% of the illuvium volume for mass appeal. The other 10-20% with the higher elite stats come from OW captures. Given the Oct 24 burn report ILV desperately needs revenue acceleration and a strategy that requires the minimalist of development and leverages artwork and IP based on the past 4 year of results.

[rose quiver]

why not start by cleaning house first for now until we make the new game for OW Project Breach?

Finish the arena once and for all, start the competitive scene, fix the illuvidex, implement the illuvials pokedex and introduce a burning mechanism.

and if we're going to pause the OW we also need to give players an alternative way to level up their illuvials. I presume by playing arena.

[short bay]

This is for the team to answer, we can only guesstimate how long all of these fixes will take. If I have to judge by how fast things had been happening so far, I'd say 6 months to 1 year or even more, but it's just a guess. We could miss the biggest hype period for the foreseeable future and turn to dust.

[rose quiver]

true, but I doubt selling packs for a dieing game is what's gonna save us anyway.

[short bay]

If arena is finished by then, it very well could. Cause ow needs much more love compared to gauntlet.

[rose quiver]

yes I agree, OW needs a lot more time than arena.

but then here's another thing. Why would new players go buy packs of illuvials pegged to 1/3 of the top rail price when there are so many cheap illuvials in the marketplace?

[short bay]

I think we can solve this by creating a quick endless dungeon/arena map where we fight waves and bosses as a solo/co op experience. If combat is in a good state, it shouldn't take too many resources to pull off and can be great band aid for the time being. Eventually it can just be one of many things players can do, once breach and other content is finished.

[short bay]

Well that argument can be also used for current state of OW, cause the fun factor is just not there yet.

[rose quiver]

yes but I'm in favour of pausing it. Just not removing it entirely 4 ever.

[short bay]

We are going back to the previous points of needing alot more content, like burning mechanisms for lower quality illuvials, more content towards ownership and stats, etc.

[weak mulch]

I don't think anyone would be for removing OW forever, i've definitely not seen anyone suggest that.

[high zenith]

despite that the fun factor is not there, in the current OW, you can at least make a profit selling off illuvials u capture, at least for the moment

[rose quiver]

if there's any buyer left interested.

[high zenith]

thats true, a lot of the ones playing and prepping for arena, maybe is on their way to get the illuvials they need with good stats

[bleak kernel]

I think the problem here is that the team launched ow, arena, zero and beyond and spread their efforts too thin. they acknowledged that. And now threads appear where some projects will go on pause like ascendant and now ow. They want to focus on one project at a time.
That is what i understand

[rough tulip]

Where is this revenue? Last burn report showed zero gross revenue for illuvium in October.

[weak mulch]

That's right, instead of having multiple ok games, they can have one amazing game, and then work to bring the others up to the same level once that is achieved. At least that is my understanding.

[weak mulch]

Beyond has been paused for a long time now unfortunately so there has been no revenue. Wave 3 will be launching November 21st so that will change very soon.

[radiant falcon]

They had revenue it stated no revenue was distributed. Revenue is still occurring and going into the pool until 150 ETH is hit.

[rough tulip]

To complicated.

[zenith viper]

By any accounting standard I have ever seen in over 25 years of business, it makes no sense to report financials in this way to stakeholder base. This needs to change immediately.

[rough tulip]

Exactly.

[worn river]

"It just can't be too costly that it persists in the back of my mind how much I'm spending for every action while I'm playing"

Nailed it. This is one of the REALLY important issues that hasn't been discussed, afaik. Anyone else find themself entering into an encounter, checking stats, then immediately pressing F11 to go on illuvidex and check prices to see if capturing is worth it..?

@rose quiver we may disagree on some details, but this is a glaring issue that highlights the point you're trying to make here.

@hallow cipher

[marsh sapphire]

Why would someone suggest that opening of packs should be more expensive than OW runs? Many were complaining how costly OW run was w/ microtransactions. Besides, when arena will be marketed to people including web 2 players they will surely complain that packs in illuvium are way more expensive compared to their used to gacha/opening of pack games

[radiant dagger]

Its an accounting thing. Since no revenue is distributed the DAO treasury didnt receive any revenue for Oct. However, the IP did generate revenue.

I understand why its that way since they cant book it as revenue they cant display the net burn less the revenue. So best thing to do is have it in a separate report. Id even like to see what the revenue streams look like per product if that was the case.

[bleak kernel]

After almost a month of not playing overworld, i tried it again today.
I am a slow player if i dont scan, trying to search everything.
Losing so much time and leaving the stage with full energy it's just bad.
I would preffer throwing $100 and give me 10 packs to open instantly
Playing ow right now makes me feel bad for all the time i lost if i dont find anything good

[loud egret]

How about you can buy a pack and just open it and or go in OW and catch the difference is OW has a 30% chance of you getting better Illuvials and other dops

[weak mulch]

Why would someone suggest that opening of packs should be more expensive than OW runs?

For a multitude of reasons.

1. If it was cheaper to acquire illuvials from packs, no-one in the right mind would pay more to play and acquire them in OW.
2. You would devalue all existing illuvials and pretty much screw everyone that has already invested into OW and illuvials on the open market.
   There are more reasons, but I think those reasons alone are more than sufficient to justify a higher cost per acquisition via Packs.

[marsh sapphire]

1. How would you explain that to the bigger audience that never played overworld but used to the pricing of packs in Web 2? Did Kieran said that OW will run alosngside opening of packs? i thought he said OW will be temporarily close and will relaunch w/ a complete and different mechanics
2. Why would price of opening of packs devalue the current illuvials? playerbase is what drives the market value, if there are more demand from playerbase then illuvial value will increase. Remember, pokemon cards are cheap but there are cards that have insane secondary prices.

[mellow nova]

you can book accrued revenue

[vernal locust]

Many people enjoy the relaxing run in overworld specially kids, women and casual players who just want to kill time and enjoy exploring the overworld map hunting for interesting illuvials maybe adding some boss to fight in overwolrd will make it more fun and challenging. We definitely prefer catching illuvials than opening packs. It will only takes a minute to be excited to open a pack but catching illuvials in overworld will take more than an hour of excitement and fun and can be more profitable for players who spend more time in overworld if more lazy whales comes in and buy from marketplace instead of catching illuvials in overworld. We already have illuvium beyond for disk opening we don't want another same mechanics getting the illuvials.

[mellow nova]

this is something that @little latch need to crunch.
pack opening is more random.
while in OW, you can choose which illuvials you want to catch, holo/non-holo, which ore/plant nodes to harvest

depends on the design of the pack opening too, pokemon tcgp has dedicated drop rate for the 1-3rd cards, the 4th and 5th card

[weak mulch]

1. How would you explain that to the bigger audience that never played overworld but used to the pricing of packs in Web 2? Did Kieran said that OW will run alosngside opening of packs? i thought he said OW will be temporarily close and will relaunch w/ a complete and different mechanics

Sorry I am not too sure I fully understand the first question. From what I do understand, I think that question should be aimed more at an economist, not myself 😅 .
Both options have been floated, but nothing confirmed. An IIP is currently being worked on which will contain a lot more details.

2. Why would price of opening of packs devalue the current illuvials? playerbase is what drives the market value, if there are more demand from playerbase then illuvial value will increase. Remember, pokemon cards are cheap but there are cards that have insane secondary prices.

This is true, but if they released another way in which you could obtain the cards that were cheaper than their current model, what do you think would happen to their current secondary market prices?

[neat fulcrum]

I don’t mean to sound too harsh, but Illuvium OW feels lacking. I’d much prefer a straightforward open-pack model, allowing the developers to focus on creating a more engaging and addictive game. Hopefully, Breach will attract new players to the ecosystem

[radiant falcon]

I think price parity is actually fair but not cheaper you are right, given pack will be completely random, OW you can pick and choose what you want to catch. So OW should yield better results for $ spent.

[rough tulip]

This. It web 3 mostly adults who have money to play with, that wants return in their money for anything crypto/stocks/gambling in crypto.

Vs web 2 which is mostly kids or the adult that do play games. These type of gamers who spend crap tons of $ on games/system just to have fun. Not an ROI.

Imo:
arena- is for web 3. You buy the best mons to win $ on fights/gamble from the side lines for that casino feeling type rush.

Ow- web2 story should be so good people will want to cosplay.(I already want svg images for 3d printing the armor)

As for:
Zero-was supossed to be support of the above. But not sure how this will play out. If OW goes what’s the point of BPs? I could see fuel being the “key” that unlocks packs though.

[short bay]

I think you have it backwards. Arena is as close to web 2 as we are gonna get, while OW would be your thing if anyone is after ROI.

[vernal locust]

That's the problem here if they only target crypto audience for their ROI then it will never be like pokemon or any other popular games today that's for sure

[brisk dawn]

it's normal that we expect a return on investment, people come to crypto to invest otherwise we would stay in web 2 the games are 100x better

made that we chose the right game for the bull run🙏 😭

[rough tulip]

I am web 2 and love OW. The story just drops off.

I don’t play arena at all.

[rough tulip]

Yeah. Every busines in America/world wants ROI but if you don’t care about your customer how the hell y’all gunna sell a product?

For those who don’t understand. You INVESTED in a company aka took a risk. Now you want the company to just pay y’all and not care about the customer. Minus we’ll be a black rock and bill gates.

[brisk dawn]

You buy $15k of land, it's not for the pleasure of playing🤞

[hybrid spire]

I want the company not to throw us in which we invested, after cutting gas production, made DAO 80%/20% until it returns gas production to the previous level. So don't talk about what we want swarms and we are not fair(
and we wouldn't have lost so many investors, the lands wouldn't have fallen into the abyss, because we would have seen the attitude of the Iluvium towards us

[rough tulip]

I get that but I don’t see people who drop millions complains and whining all day in chats about ROI.

What I got from the end of this chat.
Screw the game I want my ROI.

As a web 2 guy I’ll never work a 9-5 for that crap.

[rough tulip]

True. 100% of the game I saw in crypt did rug pulls. I prepared myself for this one doing the same BEFORE I invested.

The DYOR crowd from 2019-present, can’t following thier own rules ?

I say get arena going 1st
Get betting going so ppl can get their dopamine fix.

Then
Everything else.

[hybrid spire]

that's why I chose iluvium as serious guys who accept IIP and follow them, but unfortunately it's all air, there is a goal of the company and it goes towards it, even if the community is against it, that's why we live as we live

[zenith viper]

I second a breakdown of the DAO's revenue. While at it, how about the DAO be given the basic courtesy of a profit & loss (income/expense), balance sheet (asset/liabilities), statement of cash flows (the true runway), and a reconciliation report demonstrating on-chain and offer the transparent accounting of the financial affairs of the DAO? The DAO can make up whatever name it wants for such reports, such as 'burn report,' but simply adopt ethical and equitable accounting standards of reporting. To not report financials transparently discriminates against ILV and NFT holders, negatively impacting their in-game and future purchasing decisions. If not the entire DAO, at least our elected officials, namely IMC/ICC. I bet future venture capitalists who perform due diligence would appreciate this as well and supply better terms for their funding.

[vernal locust]

Me too I rarely play arena I like to play overworld more because it is less boring. Arena sux to be honest. I don't even know why these people like any of the arena games it's just stupid that they allow to use all illuvials for free what is the fun and excitement catching and collecting illuvials if you can use all of them for free in arena. What is the point of having overworld stage 0? OW stage 0 is already free to play game so people can play and collect illuvials stage 0 and they can use that to play in arena as well for free no need to let people use all illuvials in arena for free.

[compact dove]

How would we ever get a large player base in Arena if we made it so you can only play if you own at least 30+ so illuvials?

[vernal locust]

Are the illuvials from overworld stage 0 not enough to use in Arena to play for free? I believe illuvials from OW stage 0 should be enough to play in arena if they want free to play only. And if they like the game and want to try higher tier illuvials then they will invest to get higher tier illuvials to test the skills of their newly acquired illuvials in arena. I hate the current game play in arena because I did not want to use any other illuvials that I did not catch or not in my collections. Why would someone spoon feed you with something you don't want right? And what the heck is the purpose of collecting illuvials if you can play all the illuvials in arena anyways. What is the fun in there? If you already played all the illuvials existed on this game then you will just feel like you already achieved everything in this game so then people get tired of all the illuvials they kept playing in arena and quit because they get bored and there are no more new illuvials for them to try in arena anymore.

[compact dove]

That is why we have Lievathan Arena, you play with what you have captured.

[vernal locust]

You are missing my point. I just want new players to be more curious of higher tier illuvials and when there is curiosity they will want to explore stage 1 to 3 OW map and there will be excitement discovering new illuvials and their skills in arena battles. Let people discover illuvials on their own and you will see more activities in Marketplace and fuels.

@compact dove it would be great if we only have Leviathan gauntlet if that's the case

[brisk dawn]

I use Google translate, sorry if no one understands what I say 😆When you only had ascendant mode it made sense to create your own team but gauntlet forces you to play all the illuvials you lose the Friendship Link with your illuvials

[radiant dagger]

No. no it wouldnt. Youre just catering to a niche group of people thats already in the ecosystem. Youre not pulling in A LOT of new players with this. I admit it will get a small audience whod be interested but we need to have an avenue for the majority to be able to try then convert them to leviathan.

I do agree that we need to incentivize or make them curious about Leviathan. The question will shift from ADOPTION to CONVERSION. We cant just jump to conversion when the base audience is low. Statistics have shown that conversion from F2P to a paying customer in a game is as low as 2-5%. Imagine 2-5% of our current playerbase. Thats not sustainable sadly.

[vernal locust]

I mean it's ok to have other arena games. We just don't like all illuvials that we don't own to be used for arena or other games. It totally kills our desire to own or collect those illuvials you have tried in battle games specially if you find that illuvial weak or ineffective in your team.

[vernal locust]

That's why we have overworld to capture and own them for free in stage 0 OW map or pay for fuel to travel to higher stage OW map to capture higher tier illuvials and that will be everyone's goal to own and collect all 30 illuvials so they can play the arena do you think that makes sense because I think it is?

[vernal locust]

Add 1 random illuvial or Rangers weapon/ Gear in Illuvium Beyond illuvitar disk and allow players to pay using fuels for illuvitar disk. This proposal will enhance the interoperability all across 4 games Arena, Illuvium Zero, Overworld and Illuvium Beyond. Allowing fuels to pay for illuvitar disk in illuvium beyond will have players options to buy illuvitar disks without spending excessive amount of time to catch illuvials from overworld and players can also use the fuels to travel to overworld for them to level up their illuvials or catch more illuvials to add to their collections, for fusion or for arena battles. This proposal will also help improve the economy for both illuvium zero and illuvium beyond. This also solves the issues we are having right now for both players who likes opening packs and for players who likes catching illuvials from overworld. The countless hours and million of dollars making overworld a unique and beautiful place for players to explore should never be closed, temporary closed or trashed. Devs should keep the overworld open, make it better, add more interactive game play or features and more multiplayer games to it. We have an endless possibilities to make the overworld the main stream that can go viral in web3 cryptocollectible gaming.

[jolly wind]

I don't care about Arena, it doesn't intrerest me in the slightest

[wispy rivet]

Here’s my two pennies worth.

The IBG concept can’t be taken to a mass market. The feedback from gamers has been pushing back on P2W models.

Sure it can retain a small player base, but people got excited about overworld because they thought it had the potential to be the new Pokémon RPG, with a cool story (remember when everyone was dying for the lore), fantastic characters and a purpose to collecting the characters in game (Pokémon league/gym battles/region & story progression)

I would guess most people in the community are Pokémon nostalgics like Kieran who wanted to see overworld in that way.

Not as a pack opening thing, but so much more than that.

We already have a fantastic pack opening product in beyond.

If Leviathan is a 2nd overworld game mode and that player base want that option then sure.

But please build the F2P (or payment at outset) overworld (monetised by skins) that we all wanted 🤙

Also, please make the story far more direct. It’s toooo cryptic! You need to outline what we’re up to and why.

I worry Aaron is too intellectual to be able to deliver a story to the end user that connects emotionally, like Pokémon did

As Kieran has realised, the majority of people playing creature capturer games want to keep and own their characters, not catch them to sell them for a profit. It’s about the collection.

Which sort of invalidates the reason for blockchain 😬

As nothing will come to the market.

You need the mass market to make this work financially. And the mass market won’t be bothered about paying to catch illuvials to then sell them. So there won’t be a big market.

People like beyond because they’re actually collecting and are filling an album.

So the pivot away from leviathan/IBG as the main game mode can’t come soon enough.

And as soon as that happens we can actually focus on building a great game, with a great purpose and a story that connects

[shut lodge]

I am also in favor of this and would like to see an IIP to move this forward. I think Illuvium could set the standard for DAO financial reporting with far more transparency than current US/International standards.

[past orchid]

Before I get started, TLDR: Not excited about card packs for acquiring illuvials. OW is a great mechanism for sole acquisition. Automated OW runs sounds like a bad idea with many negative consequences.

I primarily play OW and Zero and Beyond - in that order - and I play then for a little bit of fun, but primarily as investment and income.

Card packs for acquiring Illuvials - I can see how this would be enjoyed by a population. It also makes the market way too easy to flood and ruin the economy. Just look at the beyond economy- ugh. Illuvials shouldn’t be cards, even in a minor sense. This is an advantage that Illuvium has. Don’t go down the easy route when you can put more into OW and make it much more fulfilling. We already have Arena to give the adrenaline junkies their fix.

Scrapping OW (or removing the Illuvium acquisition from it) - With anything game related online - the most valuable items are those that have rarity due to gacha or due to effort involved to create/acquire. OW is a fantastic way to put that effort and rarity together to make truly valuable NFTs. I’ve never found another market as good because of these mechanics. Other games focus solely on gacha (ie like card packs opening) mechanics and they just don’t have the longevity because over short time the players just open more and more - because it’s so easy to do - and in doing so really degrade the market. Great for short run games - but not for long term. Those games only continue to keep players with new cards to open (ie more content) - but the mechanics are dreary. Don’t ruin OW by taking away what makes it exciting - enhance it further to make it even better - so much potential you can throw a rock and hit a dozen great ideas.

And Automated OW runs - Ew. If you don’t have time to play OW - buy from the market and make the economy work. Don’t implement new features that undermine hard built economies because some players have more money than time

[keen cape]

if ppl dont want to spend time hunting illuvials or dont have time, there is an option called marketplace, where they can buy what they need...

[brisk dawn]

It's been a few days since I replayed Overworld, it's true that it's sad to replace it with a card packs

[faint gate]

I don't think anyones Saying Replace 🙂 , I think Must Pepole are Just Taking that for Granted. I think the idea is to have an option to allow people to get LESS but quicker through a pack opening. Kieran Himself has said this about 50 TImes that a Pack opening will give 20% LESS than an Overworld Run. You have to Learn the people on Discord have NO ( AND I MEAN Like 0 ) Ability to understand things are NOT black and whtie you can have mutiple ideas and you can have inbetween soultions 🙂

[wispy rivet]

In the collecting genre, most people want to enjoy the capture, not just buying from a marketplace.

The sense of ownership is very different

[keen cape]

then there is overworld, go there capture and that is that, opening packs will destroy overworld

[faint gate]

This is A Bad Faith Argument. You want to Force Players Playing a NON Collecting Genere (Auto Battler Game to Play a Game they DON"T LIKE or a depen on players Playing a Game they Don't LIke) . Each Game in the illuvium Eco System need to be connected but offer ways to play the game without Playing the others. Like Kieran has layed out its Better to do the Overworld Run but if you Don't want to you don't have to. Each Game Needs to Stand on Its Own . If the Only way Overworld is Played is out of a NEED for Illuvials for Other games its not worth keeping

[keen cape]

Then putting card packs as drops in overworld wouldd be solution, ppl would play overworld get them andd sell them to ppl that dont want to do runs but only play autobattler....

but there would need to be set max price for packs

[faint gate]

The idea is to make them not Dependent on Ovewrold Either but Illuvial Price are farming. Ovewolrd is meant to be a Monster Hunter RPG style game that can generate weapons and armor and illuvials. Having those in Packs as long as its MORE EXPENSIVE and cost fuel is a simple and good option. (As long as we add more use cases for illuvials of all quaility )

[keen cape]

put car packs as drops in overworld that would have higher chance of getting something, and put card packs that wont come from overworld but would have less chance of getting something