Real Time Positioning Debate

[unborn moat]

Revised Text:

With the big tournament and marketing push, we want the game to be as casual-friendly and onboarding-friendly as possible. To achieve that, we’re revisiting all our features and reevaluating them. One feature in particular we’re considering adjusting is the ability to see opponents’ real-time positioning during the preparation phase. While this feature definitely has a fun factor, it also introduces significant friction. Let’s dive into the pros and cons.

Pros:

• It gamifies the positioning phase with trickery and APM (actions per minute), adding a layer of skill and excitement to the game.

• It reduces the element of pure guesswork in positioning — although last-second swaps can still feel like a coinflip.

Cons:

• This gamification relies on APM, but autobattlers generally aren’t designed to cater to high-APM players, especially in the casual audience.

• It also favors players with better gaming specs; laggy PCs or slow internet can put players at a disadvantage. If we want to onboard players from all over the world, this feature could penalize those with lower-end setups.

• It can add stress to new and casual players who might already feel overwhelmed by the learning curve.

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What we have right now - Thumbs DOWN if you prefer this:

• Players know their next opponent.

• Players can see their opponent’s real-time positioning on their own board.

VS.

What we plan to introduce - Thumbs UP if you prefer this:

• Players will still know their next opponent.

• Players will see their opponent’s placement from the previous round.

• If they want to see real-time positioning, they’ll need to scout (we’ll add hotkeys to make scouting easier).

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Final thoughts:

The advantage of this system is that it gates real-time positioning behind scouting, removing a layer of complexity from the preparation phase and making the game more accessible for beginners. At the same time, it preserves the opportunity for competitive players to express their skill through scouting.

Please cast your vote and provide feedback with your thoughts an analysis. Thank you!

[merry turret]

In TFT, my most disliked feature is having to scout very quickly and reposition everything in a short time. A big reason why I got into autobattlers was because they didn’t require mechanical skill like a shooter, for example. That being said, I wouldn’t want to remove this feature and go back to blind positioning either.

I think our version is easier to play and relies less on fast mechanical actions, since it doesn’t require switching back and forth between your and your opponent’s board. You just see both sides directly on the field. So I prefer that over the TFT version. I believe there is still enough skill expression for it to work.

Plus if we decide to make it APM focused fast action paced, we are shooting ourselves in the foot regarding polishing, as this introduces a lot of possible bugs and bottlenecks.

e.g. currently our spectate feature is still bugged and clunky and we are talking about attaching a major gameplay mechanic to it.
Even if it is better, lets polish our game now instead of working on minor nuances that increase the dev load, imo.

[quiet dragon]

Does anyone really think this game is causal friendly, or that not seeing live positioning is what's gonna make a difference? I thought our target audience was TFT players but now we want to make the game suit casuals as well? This won't end well.

[odd palm]

I'm for the change but as Paz says spectator mode isn't where it needs to be for it to fulfill it's purpose properly just yet.

[odd palm]

I believe the term "casual" in this context refers to those that play autobattlers just for fun rather than competitively. A casual TFT player and a casual gamer aren't the same thing

[warm panther]

@unborn moat Hi Nil, the current system is amazing. It’s very convenient. I don’t think anything should be changed.

I often see many complaints about various issues in the game,
but rarely notice when people point out that the game has actually improved.

My game hasn’t crashed for a very long time. I don’t know what you did, but it has become much more stable.
The current scouting mechanic and the fact that we can see the opponent’s movements are great.
I think it’s better not to mess with it. Gauntlet has only recently become an interesting and enjoyable game.
I really don’t want to take a step backward.

[ebon rain]

We removed bonding years ago to make the game more casual friendly and now everybody is thrilled to have it back

To me the live positioning is definitely one of, if not the best feature recently implemented. It reduce flippy scenario a ton and enables us to position very well based on what the opponent is doing

This feature is a way to have more skill expression which is always good. Just doesnt feel good to play blindly or have to scout multiple times per round to be on top of your game, we already have enough to do

The game experience would diminish by a lot if we were to remove this imo. Ultimately casuals like anyone else just want a good game and i think thats why it made sense to bring back bonding and to keep the live positioning

Thanks a lot for passing this idea by the community before implementing it @unborn moat . Thats what we need to make the best game possible

[winged agate]

I'm a casual player and I like how it is now being able to see my opponents position. No, I am not always fast enough to change things but it's better than when I used to be going in blind. Showing previous position is more of an advantage to the better players than the casual players. The advantage that the better players have is they can see my team, know precisely how it works and position accordingly. I meanwhile look at theirs and can't necessarily do that but if I can see them in real time I can focus on say their strongest Illuvials and try to counter. Having a scout button will help the people who already don't feel rushed and hinder those of us who are already scrambling a bit. I don't have time to push another button. Paz does.

The only reason I can see getting rid of this is for internet and computer speed but I would prefer to keep it.

[surreal mirage]

This feature makes the game so lively that I'm addicted to it but it's also very draining to play 6h in a row compared to TFT

I could see it being a hindrance to the game's growth if it's too overwhelming but I put a thumb down because I prefer intense and draining games over more boring ones

In TFT I see streamers playing with their bench because there are not many things to do, here we can't do that most of the time which is more of a positive than negative imo

I don't have the highest APM but I'm fine with this since it can be partially mitigated by having a positioning that it less vulnerable to last second changes

[frigid anchor]

real-time positioning ftw

next up... adding illuvials mid-battle

[rough ice]

I might be wrong, but hiding positioning behind scanning, won't give a disadvantage to casual players?
They will go with the last round positioning because changing back and forth between scouting and own board is way more complex than what we have now. Meanwhile hardcore players will do just that, taking advantage of the added complexity to trick players that go with last round position

[atomic olive]

Having to click an extra button to see their positioning is bad UX, and simply forces even higher APM and requires perfection in other areas of the UI.

I maintain that the game needs to employ systems similar to Mechabellum. It needs to be more restricted, not less.

Moving an Illuvial after a round should cost mastery points, or maybe unlocking your board to make moving possible should cost mastery points. Your alternative is go to a much simpler grid system where there's less power from positioning, if you actually care about making the game more beginner friendly that is.

[atomic olive]

TFT, despite the complexity in other areas, is far more beginner friendly than Illuvium, especially around the positioning debate. Enhanced positioning in TFT can make a 5-10% difference, mostly because of the fewer freedoms from both players.

In Illuvium it can influence more of a 30-50% difference in battle outcome, and basically its not worth playing unless you understand how to position. This can make for a pretty savage beginner experience where you are required to learn quite a complex fundamental component to compete at any level of competency.

[quiet dragon]

well but that comes down to another point. Is the battleboard hexes complexity even a net profit to have?

[atomic olive]

I think if the team at least halves the number of hexes on the board, this positioning debate wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue. It wouldn't make it super casual friendly, but it would help reduce the power of positioning

[atomic olive]

I think its a key unique selling point of Illuvium. Its something, not really done in any other video game. But it can definitely be improved.

I still think there should be a dead zone of hexes at the back of both boards. Meaning that Rogues can always get behind the opponent regardless of positioning. Either that or change Rogues entirely.

[ebon rain]

Team is already planning to reduce the hexes

[wind ore]

The ability to see real time movement was a big and exiting improvement in my opinion, it makes the auto-battler feel more alive and that there is an active opponent across the board. I am by no means a pro player (definitely more on the casual side) I'm usually too slow on every round and scouting is next to impossible for me.

I don't know where Scoriox got his numbers but they feel right and bringing down the influence of positioning to a TFT level in the outcome of a battle seems like a better way to go for the game to be more onboarding-friendly.

[supple crag]

this isn't true, plenty of fights are straight up decided by being on one side or the other, so it's basically 50%

[atomic olive]

That's not accurate. That's a 50-50 decision, not a 50% difference. For example in TFT its far less granular, so players simply move all their pieces onto the correct side and then it becomes a 0% difference. In Illuvium there's far more freedom, control and options, enhancing this difference beyond a boolean value.

But you are right, I diminished the value of positioning in TFT overall when I meant to say that you can play while ignoring positioning in TFT until the top 3 without even feeling the difference, but in the final moments, every little adjustment counts, like with any game.