Illuvium Zero Patch v1.2.7

[vivid meadow]

Patch v1.2.7 was a big patch with 3 big implementations; Megacities, Blueprint minting, Science cost dependent on tier of land but also small stuff like hotkey implementation. This is my very personal opinion as a player of all games. I own and play all kind of plots, T1-T4, balanced plots, unbalanced plots, single plots, a megacity and give my best to make it an objective feedback with a subjective touch of what I like to see, as always.

Patchday and patch itself
Testing out the first hours after patch, it was unfortunately quite buggy. People experienced game breaking bugs from plots vanishing after forming an MC, not being able to sell fuel anymore on MC plots all the way down to minor bugs like wrong info screens. I personally was amazed on how fast some bugs got resolved from the small Zero Team. Sure there are still many left, but most of the game-breaking stuff got resolved within days. Awesome job team.
The patch itself had many small improvements most probably won’t even notice but were really needed and are very much appreciated 🙂
I hope the team still got some days off to cool down and were actually able to enjoy christmas and celebrate new year.

Megacities
Having more space and shared resources/storages is pretty cool and opens new possibilities to arrange your plots included in a Megacity. The navigation between the Plots is fine with the map. For the “fast” navigation with shift+arrows, I would love to see that one is able to navigate to whatever plot he likes and not just to the adjacent plot north/west/south/east.

It also has some downsides/missing pieces with the current implementation.

• Visuals
  It doesn’t look like a megacity, more like a neighborhood feature. Since one can just see roughly 6 squares wide of the other plots and the background not being optimized for that kind of view it does not look very pleasant.
• One can’t move structures between plots is in my opinion a huge let down. Storages/scanners/mat labs/databanks etc. have to be recycled and rebuilt instead of moved around. The nexus can’t even be sold which makes it impossible to “move” to other plots and therefore one has to have 1 Nexus on each plot.
• Not being able to choose which plots should be in a Megacity is suboptimal. In some situations one has to move 1 plot to another wallet, losing builders/biodata/blueprint-data/elements.
• Plot locations are Upside down compared to the dex. Not optimal and one can have a serious disadvantage/advantage depending on where his fuel/element sites are sitting on each plot.

In my personal opinion it’s super cool to finally have some of the MC features live. Restructuring the plot layout would be an awesome time playing… if there only would be an editor mode.
On the other hand, MC in my opinion lost value when implemented compared to what they had before when just speculating due to reasons mentioned above, but also the advantage “progress fast in early game” didn’t have the effect it should have with not being ready at launch.
It would be sweet to see that one day MC really is on 1 big plot and maybe some MC only features being implemented to bring it back to the value it should have

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Blueprint minting

• Cost (elements=high | fuel=low)
  I guess there were many jaws dropping when finding out how many elements are needed for Blueprint minting.I personally was asking for element sinks for a long time and the team surely delivered 😄 (Would be nice to see, that in a future implementation there is also an element sink for all those not focusing on science)

• Time (7days at max level ZPT)
  I really like the long minting time, acting like a scarcity factor but also makes the ZPT not to a 1 amount is enough building and with that making the structure a factor in the layout creation process.

• Process
  At the moment Blueprints automatically get minted into the wallet the land is on. It would be super nice to be able to choose in which wallet linked with the passport the blueprints are going to be minted.

In general I think the cost and time needed to mint 1 single BP are working well to artificially increase the scarcity of blueprints, but still letting science focused landplots some leftover fuel to use for other stuff.

---

Science cost dependent on Tier of land
This was for me personally the biggest surprise in this patch.
A change in science cost or in fuel production was needed in my opinion to bring back low tiers into the BP game. With the change the team decided to proceed, a lot got reshuffled.
Low tiers are now back in the game, being able to produce either a high amount of fuel or max out the science build and also their value in general compared to high tiers increased not insignificantly with the science nerf of high tier plots. I can see that t1 plots “feel” they are underperforming but in my opinion and based on numbers i gathered while playing they are not. I would have preferred a simple reduction in cost instead of the change “science cost based on tiers”
In case the reader is not aware of what I'm talking about here, check the new tier table below.

---

Hotkeys
Super cool to finally see hotkeys in Zero 🙂
Would be nice if we actually can set them ourselves in the setting menu.
I’m not sure if it’s a bug or intentioned… but i would love to see the “esc” working everywhere to leave the window. (like for example the scan/research window)

---

Questions to councils/devs:

• Is the team working on a 1 Plot solution for megacities or do we settle with the “neighbourhood” solution?
• Is the location of the Plots in a megacity going to be corrected, or are we living with that?
• Will we see MC-only features in the near future? (2025)
• What’s the reasoning for implementing science cost based on plots and not go with a simple reduction in cost?
• Is there still visual work being done on Zero-Skins or are they final now?
• In meeting notes of the IMC of Nov11 it was mentioned that it is considered to put Zero development temporarily on hold. Possible to get any additional info on how the DAO want to proceed on this matter?
• According to ICCP-17 revenue share for the landowners had to be distributed twice.
  So far there was no distribution yet. What are the reasons and when will we see the first distribution?

[arctic arrow]

Very nice summary.
I agree with the vast majority of things.

In my opinion:
Blueprint minting
Cost (elements=high | fuel=low)
All of them: scan, research and mint have too low cost of fuel: the discount was too big (it devalued the work before the patch) and unnecessary (why should a Blueprint only cost 0.003 USD in fuel?). Higher price of element is OK.
7 day minting is nice too.
I think minting to the owner's wallet is OK and fine. I don't see a reason to automatically send it elsewhere.

Hotkeys:
Yes, the still very poorly functioning "X" button for exiting the window with a failed scan/research is especially bad on mobile.
Otherwise, the control is good.

[vivid meadow]

Imo it's not good to compare fuel value in Zero ingame with usd value of fuel on the fex.
You should think about the ingame economy of zero when pricing stuff in there in fuel.
It's also worth to mention that in my opinion a major part of the value of blueprints is coming from "space-value" in Zero, besides the added fuel cost to scan, research and mint.
The value outside of zero is another topic.

I personally wouldn't want to increase production cost of Skins created with Blueprints since they are already pretty expensive anyways with how the system is set up now, how they look and with the "flex-usability" they have right now.

It's just a nice qol update in my opinion so one doesn't have to manually transfer every BP to the passport after every mint.

[undone wren]

Very interesting your post but I would want to understand several things.

Why do you say "low tiers are now back in the game"? I thought that low tiers were dedicated to minting BP, while high tiers produce fuel to OW. It is true that high tiers have a high advantage about improving buildings, but about producing it is a linear advantage (T2 -> 150 fuel, T3 -> 300 fuel).

[undone wren]

About this I have two questions.

Why do you say that cost production of skins is pretty expensive? At least in T2 you require 4+4+4 = 12 fuel for researching a BP, so with 5%, in 20 attempts (20 days) you spend 12x20 = 240 fuel for getting a skin. The problem is that, in the same 20 days, you produce 150×20 = 3k fuel. So, 240 compared to 3k is a little, less than 10% you produce.

What do you refer with "value outside zero is another topic"? I think everything is related because in Zero we produce things of nfts for other games, so, the amount of value generated in Zero is also determined by the amount value that represent in the other ones.

[vivid meadow]

I might should have put the text through chatgpt for proper english 😄
Low tiers were meant to be better suited for Blueprint production than high tiers, since they offered more empty space for scanners...yes.
However, it's not like you can't build a low tier for fuel production and a high tier for BP production.
If you go all the way back to starting prices of the dutch auction and buy as many low tiers as you could to have the same value spent as a high tier, you actually can produce more fuel with low tiers.

You can see the production output difference in the production boosts of the tiers and the number of fuel sites.

[vivid meadow]

The blueprint is just 1 part of the skin. You also need 3 illuvials and some solon to craft a skin, which can get pretty expensive.

[vivid meadow]

Absolutely, everything is connected.
But, in my opinion it's wrong to for example argue that 0.003USD is to cheap, a BP's should cost at least 10$ in fuel. If you calculate that back into zero, considering the bonuses noone actually would have the fuel available to even mint a single Blueprint.

I'm no economist, but in my opinion you should balance Zero out in itself first, so structures can be built, mats can be crafted and the surplus of fuel going to be sold on the market in a somewhat calculated way. Then you can pull multipliers to balance the cost of all the rest. If you do it the otherway arround you going to have varying prices in Zero, which makes it super hard to balance everything out in OW since you can't calculate the supply and likely increase volatility. For example 1 day a landowner needs 4 fuel to mint a blueprint, a week later he needs 1k fuel to mint a blueprint, same with new structures getting implemented over time, which results in 1 day a landowner sells 90% of the produced fuel, a week later he doesn't sell any fuel at all and also can't create materials or research biodata.

[undone wren]

Okey I got it. But still, I don't see why you said that lower tiers were behind before the patch.

[undone wren]

Ohh yes. I hadn't considered that part of the process in the maths. But I was just thinking in the fuel we have to spend in Zero. If we consider the part that we have to spend in OW too, what measure do you use to say that it is expensive?

I ask it considering the excess supply problem we have on the game, since the amount of Solon "produced for crafting skins" doesn't satisfy its demand.

I say "produced for crafting skins" because, Solon is used for several things, yes, but, if we look things by parts that integrate the total consumption, we can say that there is fuel for crafting skins, for crafting suits, for fusioning Illuvials, etc.

[void bay]

I'm so happy that we finally have the MCs and appreciate the effort the Zero team has put into them. There are some issues that I know are temporary bugs - like minting issues and resource amounts being off.
Then there are the things like you mentioned Dr Spoon, the plot lay out being a major one as many built their plots knowing how they would fit together and now it is all messed up.

For me the biggest thing that I am unhappy with is the inability to move buildings to other plots. It should function as one plot. This is especially true if science costs on lower tiers will be less.

Speaking of science cost, I understand the reasoning but I am also not sure I agree with it. I do feel like those that have a T4 land should have a major advantage in ALL ways over a T1, they paid significantly more for it. I have a city that has both a T3 and a T1 plot on it. When the minting issues get fixed will I actually be able to mint on my T1 for the lower cost? If so that seems unfair to the person who paid more to get a T3 with 3 T2 or something.

I too would like to know what is going on with the revenue share.

[vivid meadow]

Fuel cost were actually to high to Max out science

[vivid meadow]

Not sure i understand you totally.

Blueprint production cost i would measure ingame in Zero being expensive or not.
Skins i would measure on the illuvidex being expensive or not

[velvet oxide]

Great summary! Only part I don't agree with is:

"Plot locations are Upside down compared to the dex. Not optimal and one can have a serious disadvantage/advantage depending on where his fuel/element sites are sitting on each plot."

They actually got this right because remember that the plots themselves are all upside-down. So the megacities also need to be upside-down or when they make that correction it will mess up all the magacities.

Although it would have been hard to anticipate, the error here was by people who planned out their megacities as if they were right-side up (unfortunately).

Also, I really hope they address all these bugs quickly. There are just too many, and poor patch notes made it very frustrating to attempt to distinguish bugs from intentional changes.

[runic fable]

The main selling point for the lower tier lands was always blueprints over fuel. Somehow that vision got lost until they fixed the costs in the last update.

[void bay]

I always thought that was just because there is more space and less chance of having to put a scanner next to fuel or elements so they would run at max efficiency.

[velvet oxide]

Agreed, it was decided by the community for that reason. The team never promoted it that way though

[runic fable]

Kieran definitely went on AMAs and said it himself. He said T1 and T2 would produce alot less fuel but are going to produce more blueprints for skins. The problem with the system is the economy being so bad because no one is getting any value from lands' higher tier fuel production. In all the testing blueprints never had fuel costs minus the buildings themselves.

[velvet oxide]

ah, ok I missed that. I don't remember what the costs were in the alpha for scanning/research, it didn't cost fuel though?

That might be right

[runic fable]

I was lucky and got a chance to play with every tier in the alpha tests even tho I only own 3 T1s. The lower tiers took way longer to get to scanning because of needing alot more element storage built but once you got there it was pretty easy with no extra fuel costs. Now the lower tiers need less storage to get there but the fuel costs were too high and the change was probably made to scale by tier because the team seen the lower tiers weren't scanning as much. I know for sure I wasn't using the system because i need the fuel to keep upgrading my plot still.

[velvet oxide]

It was certainly very easy on T1s in the alpha and clear early on I wouldn't be doing much science on T1s in beta with those fuel costs! lol

I think this was a good change to make science more accessible, but the fuel cost swings are pretty wild/huge changes.

[runic fable]

We needed more fuel sinks inside IZ so I get the change it just wasn't optimized well until now.

[velvet oxide]

yeah, they may have gone too far the other way, but we will see and I think the fuel cost of minting blueprints may keep T1s in-check still

[runic fable]

Probably but I'm still upgrading so idk yet. All 3 of my T1s are finally going to start their final fuel site upgrades later today. Should have been yesterday but my dumb ass forgot to cancel repeat extraction haha

[red mantle]

thanks for the summary, was hoping you'll post it.
as always i rely heavily on your insight.
i believe all of the feedbacks and questions should be addressed.

[dusky veldt]

The one I can answer

What’s the reasoning for implementing science cost based on plots and not go with a simple reduction in cost?

A bit of a personal experiment, but decided in talks with rest of the team. We've found it was difficult to balance costs when the fuel delta between T1 and T4 was 27x. Everything meaningful for T1 was trivial for T4 and everything meaningful for T4 was insurmountable for T1.

But we still wanted to preserve some advantage for T4 so hence we used production boost as a multiplier

One could argue an overall cost reduction was implemented as well by not having higher stages cost more

Over the months we've felt the feedback from T1 plots was overwhelmingly that they were lacking fuel to do Science proper hence the decision

Perhaps we didnt exactly hit the mark between the group who wants things more accessible and the group who wants things more scarce and should have leaned slightly more towards scarce after this accessibility pass, that's fair enough

[arctic arrow]

I Never said about 10 USD / BP ... I'm just saying that the 80-90% discount in the last patch was complete nonsense.
Zero, if it's to work as a game, should also be about balancing and choosing what to produce... which it isn't now:
I have a land on T2 and T3:
2x max scan - daily
5x max sc. laboratory - daily
7x max transducer - daily (include T5 minting - and without morphopods discount)
and I still have fuel left on both lands to sell...

I think that's a mistake and sad.

[vivid meadow]

I can totally see the clinch.
But also this is basically an added buff to core values of the tiers (except t4). The lower the tier the higher the buff.

I just feel that T4 got less attractive over time.

• On landsale it was like t4 produce 36x amount of fuel and you save playtime with just using 1 plot
• Then it was "no it just produces roughly 27x (infact just 20x at that time) but it builds up fast because it produces more fuel and you just have 1 plot to handle" that's why it's priced 40x the value
• Then it was t4 produces roughly 27x but you have to login 3 times more often than all other plots to get that 27x and you can still build up fast.
• And now its t4 produces 27x, you have to login 3x more often, science cost you 4x more than t1 but you still can build up fast to justify a 40x price valuation.

From an outside perspective it feels like it's always a "we can do that, t4 produces still a shit ton of fuel anyways"

[vivid meadow]

it was just an example with the 10 usd 🙂

[dusky veldt]

It's been a while since land sale but:

• 36x for active fuel was correct but then passive generators came into the picture design-wise and there's an IIP which sets value estimates to 1, 3, 9, 27 I believe
• 27x is still the goal we design off (due to that IIP), it was never priced at 40x the value, the dutch auction started at 40x. If you look at sales data on-chain it paints a different picture close to the 3x multiples
• "have to login", you dont have to do anything. Getting to the end in the most optimized way possible might require more actions because of the amount of fuel and resources you get sure, but that's part of building up fast
• Once you're done you don't have to login 3x more often on a T4 vs a T1 or am I wrong? science does cost you 4x more but full science build compared to T1 you still have much more fuel left to sell than a full science build T1/T2. 40x price valuation makes no sense here either

It's still a game end of the day, 4 versions of it, if it was "NFT staking" then just 5% revshare and multiples of 3 sure

[red mantle]

hi perry.
im trying to get my head around this:
the science cost scales with plot tiers but there is no additional benefit for the higher cost.
for me it does not make sense to pay less or more just because you have lower or higher tier plot

[vivid meadow]

• I slightly remember having seen those being set in a recent IIP, yes.
• The starting prices proportions is whats perceived as value proportion from a customer pov. But also the buy price from customers was pretty much exactly 40x since just everything got scooped up after 60 mins. See the average buy prices of each batch on the picture below.
• Active conversions on t4 is if i remember right roughly 20% of the total fuel production and you have to collect it every 8h(without path bonus) if not you don't get to the 27x. (have to check that again to be sure about the 27x and 20% when i'm back home)

Sure it's a game, but i guess we can agree it's not a traditional citybuilder with the built in mechanics for earning potential and the high pricings to aquire some land and people won't just play it casually twice a week at the weekends just for fun. If so, the customers would just play the f2p plot 🙂

[dusky veldt]

You're not wrong, but end of the day we're just overruled by the IIP that was accepted by the DAO, so not sure referring to the starting sale price has any value anymore at this point, if you want to return to starting sale price, we can set up an IIP to repeal that IIP and rebalance

Active conversions is a much bigger part of fuel production in relative terms on a T1 plot than a T4 plot with the same timing so I'm not getting the argument

Not saying it's "just a game", but I'm also not saying it's "just NFT staking", it's somewhere inbetween. Sometimes we balance for the game, sometimes for NFT staking. One could argue playing T4 is hardly a game (I still have them myself FYI). This was done to solve two problems

1. Make it easier for low Tier plots to dedicate their fuel production to research
2. Not make it an even more trivial decision for T4 plots to "have it all"

Analyzing what most T4 plots do, they play the "fuel magnate" path (and quite a few have a T1/T2 sidepiece plot to focus on research)

But if "Plot tier dependent science costs" is a failed experiment, then by all means I'll take the blame, it's revertible with some effort but nothing crazy, I'd love a few more opinions on it first though

[vivid meadow]

Value shifts from low tier to high tier almost stand no chance to go through as an IIP. I saw that when arguing over months to make it somewhat right when fuel-output proportion was totally out of balance in favor of low tier. Unfortunately in these cases majority is just looking for their own bags and not to balance things out. If team thinks at the moment its right, then so be it 🙂

Here and there you have to convert on a t1 to build out the plot, but it's not massive... especially not since the conversion amount is the same as on a t4. As soon as T1 is built out there is no conversion needed anymore (especially not when looking forward to the 3fuel to 1 fuel conversion change)
A t4 on the other hand has conversion built in the max fuel output. As mentioned above, it's roughly 20% of the total output.

Yea, that "Not make it an even more trivial decision for t4 plots to "have it all"" is probably the reason why decisions being made perceived by myself as t4 getting more and more unattractive.

It's fine, i asked for the reason and you very well delivered. I guess most community members will like it 🙂

[dusky veldt]

Here and there you have to convert on a t1 to build out the plot, but it's not massive... especially not since the conversion amount is the same as on a t4. As soon as T1 is built out there is no conversion needed anymore (especially not when looking forward to the 3fuel to 1 fuel conversion change)
A t4 on the other hand has conversion built in the max fuel output. As mentioned above, it's roughly 20% of the total output.

I really don't understand this part. How is conversion not built into t1s max fuel output but it is in t4s max fuel output?

[vivid meadow]

Efficiency
T1 max efficiency 150% = no output+
t4 max efficiency 180% = output+

[dusky veldt]

Even with efficiency it's quite big difference percentually, and the converters are maxxed at 12 per type

[hollow adder]

I just wanna say that I don't like that you feel chained by IIPs. If you think an IIP is limiting your range of action then please just make an ICCP to change it. I'm sure the DAO will support you.

[dusky veldt]

It takes a lot of a team member's time, effort, writing and social/convincing to make an ICCP, it is hardly ever worth it outside of major changes we feel very strongly about, there's almost always something that is better ROI on effort

[hollow adder]

fair enough, but why not put the ICC members to work? They've helped writing proposals for the community.

[dusky veldt]

This epoch has been a massive step in the right direction in that regard, but doesn't nullify effort on the side of the team member

[hollow adder]

you know better, I just wanna see you fly and make epic systems for us 🤣

[red mantle]

do u remember which IIP was this

[vivid meadow]

no
maybe it was inception of perry and he planted a seed in my mind 😛

[vivid meadow]

I made the calculation with assumed averaged out numbers and not my own. Maybe it's a bit more or a bit less depending on how many fuel converters you build and how many of your extractors are fitting the landmark.

But 15 fuel per conversion Times 3 to get to a daily production Times 10 for the average amount of converters fitting the landmark is 450 fuel a Day 🙂

(without path Bonus)

[dusky veldt]

Sure, agreed with your calc, hence T4 are pretty juicy especially if you're logging in 3 times a day

I just reread my message and potential confusion comes from me using the word conversion and not converters. I mean that passive gen (on converters) is a big part of t1 max fuel output, percentually bigger than conversion + passive gen on a t4 (maybe if you get very unlucky with your extractors vs your landmark that might not be true, but would have to run the math to confirm)

From an output POV, T3 is probably the one who needs love

[vivid meadow]

no really juicy... it needs those 450 to get to the 27x according to my napkin tables.

[vivid meadow]

agree, t3 always have been in a weird spot

[dusky veldt]

You're close according to my model, I tuned it around logging in twice a day I believe

[vivid meadow]

Possible that the remaining questions being answered <@&1107754780744487002> <@&814435151307866142> ?

Questions to councils/devs:

- Is the team working on a 1 Plot solution for megacities or do we settle with the “neighbourhood” solution?

- Is the location of the Plots in a megacity going to be corrected, or are we living with that?

- Will we see MC-only features in the near future? (2025)

- What’s the reasoning for implementing science cost based on plots and not go with a simple reduction in cost?
Answer from Perry #1324343085928419389 message
*A bit of a personal experiment, but decided in talks with rest of the team. We've found it was difficult to balance costs when the fuel delta between T1 and T4 was 27x. Everything meaningful for T1 was trivial for T4 and everything meaningful for T4 was insurmountable for T1.

But we still wanted to preserve some advantage for T4 so hence we used production boost as a multiplier

One could argue an overall cost reduction was implemented as well by not having higher stages cost more

Over the months we've felt the feedback from T1 plots was overwhelmingly that they were lacking fuel to do Science proper hence the decision

Perhaps we didnt exactly hit the mark between the group who wants things more accessible and the group who wants things more scarce and should have leaned slightly more towards scarce after this accessibility pass, that's fair enough*

- Is there still visual work being done on Zero-Skins or are they final now?

- In meeting notes of the IMC of Nov11 it was mentioned that it is considered to put Zero development temporarily on hold. Possible to get any additional info on how the DAO want to proceed on this matter?

- According to ICCP-17 revenue share for the landowners had to be distributed twice. So far there was no distribution yet. What are the reasons and when will we see the first distribution?

[burnt lodge]

I don't believe a 1 plot solution is coming, but @vague drum could probably correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm not sure what this location of plots thing is, but Aaron can likely handle that too.

I don't believe we will see MC-only features in 2025, but I can ask at the next meeting.

Zero-Skins are not final, they are kind of placeholders, at least for the rare ones that will have additional sfx and such in the future. That's how I understand it at least.

We will give additional info when possible on the matter of Nov 11 Meeting Notes

Landowner revenue share is pending some other updates to the general Illuvium ecosystem/economy. Hopefully not too long until thats a possibility.