Arena Brightland Steppes Battle Pass Feedback Thread

[deep hatch]

From talks in the arena chat I've been wanting to do this in some time after release of the Battle Pass on production, but the video by @wispy tinsel convinced me that there's no better time than the present
Also to pay an homage to the good old "build in public", as I am one of the main designers behind this Battle Pass, to take all who are interested through my thought process

Addressing misconceptions:

• Rewards are NFTs
• The alternative for them not being NFTs but soulbound was heavily considered, both have pros and cons.
• This Battle Pass is seen as a cosmetics (web2 + web3) + utility (web3) battle pass. Its goals are monetization of the player base which is already somewhat retained as well as a much needed light progression system

Gathered Positives

• Overall Structure
• Rewards
• Reward pacing
• Arena Point Multiplier at 3,000
• Quests & Premium Quests
  • Potentially add a Daily/Weekly Quest to improve completion effort problem discussed later

Gathered Negatives

• Target Audience

  • Not web2, while we have web2 players coming in, the main target audience is our current player base while keeping things friendly for new (both web2 and web3) players. Balancing act. Once a significant portion of web2 players is in, we will adjust accordingly
  • This is also because I don’t view battle passes as an acquisition tool, but as a retention/monetization tool. In my view, players don’t switch their main game just due to the other game having a good battle pass, they switch because the other game is good and then deepen through a battle pass

• Duration

  • Very related to reduce pricing, but probably the point I resonated most with
  • Goal was to have the battle pass run for IPL Season 1
  • The upside for long season battle passes at these prices is that the team can invest in high-investment cosmetics like the battle board

• Pricing

  • Competitor analysis is spot on, we look really expensive compared to other battle passes
  • Regardless, we wanted to make sure this Battle Pass would be an amazing deal, by being filled to the brim with value. For cosmetics fans: 15000 fuel worth of cosmetics for 5000. For web3 utility fans: rewards and XP gain for Leviathan. For fans of both: kid in a candy store.
  • I sometimes regret that we made 1 Fuel == $0.01 and then further discounted that by 20% with the highest two bundles. This argument actually lead me to convince the council to price at 5,000 instead of 4,000. In my view, the price isn't $50 but $41.67

• Effort of filling

  • We plan to be very lenient with bonus periods (triple AP if necessary) as a tool within a currently tightly set up battle pass, but our current player base plays a lot, even outside the competitive scene
  • While the audience in terms of time investment is “midcore”, I don’t think we’re too far off with all the bonus periods, but the perception is that it’s rough

That said, perception is everything and we appreciate the feedback, my takes for this or next Battle Pass:

• Seems I heavily underestimated relative competitive pricing despite me being convinced of the amount of value in this battle pass relative to price for both cosmetics and web3 utility fans. Will try to see with the art team what is the minimum duration we can still make a cosmetics battle pass cool for and price accordingly
• Another interesting option is creating one or two additional tiers
• Bonus periods will have to prove to be an effective pass completion tool, but it works quite poorly in terms of completion difficulty perception, I would like to improve this perception by making things more lenient, through additional weeklies or just increasing the rate slightly.
• After chats with the art team, lower duration battle passes with less rewards do sound very interesting, but a part of me always wants them to have enough oomph to not be trivial. Overgrowth Battleboard will be a testament to those who completed the first Arena Battle Pass of Illuvium

• Lastly, the amount of Fuel we give back in the Battle Pass does not seem to help its perception, especially with competitor analysis, likely considering to reduce both price and fuel rewards, they do act as nice "filler" rewards in our ecosystem though

Looking forward to your feedback very much, don't hesitate to let us know what you think of this system going forward

cc @unique stream

[finite berry]

Love to see your/the teams thought process here, thank you for taking the time for this Perry!

I have to admit ive been surprised with how good the battle pass is. I initially was scared that it wouldnt be worth it, just for the grinders or simply be filled with cosmetics but tying it to rewards & xp actually makes it a must for any kind of players 👏

I personally dont mind the season long battle pass even it means higher 1 time price. Good end goal is also important and if we have to cut on this too much it might not be worth it. Also this is just a feeling but i feel our demographic is pretty logical and will for the most part look pass the number 50$ and analyze for themselves if its worth it

The first thing i would like to add in it for the 2nd season would be more "loot boxes". Right now we have i believe 1 for emojis, but i think we should have some more of that, also beyond disks and even the fuel could be giving in a fuel box where the ev$ is the same but you get that exciting dopamine hit of maybe you hit high. Oh and why not XP loot box too

The second thing would be to tie the lb rewards and maybe even the xp to the illuvial collection. Maybe even the loot boxes could have better odds depending on how is your collection

There were talks about collection completion rate but i believe it would be best if stats and level also count. I envision something like the beyond game where you have points based on your attributes and place on a leaderboard. Multipliers for certain things would be attributed to you depending on your rank

I think this would give great utility to the illuvials and be another step in the leviathan direction /(revenue for illuvium)

[limber zinc]

Since I am more a web2 player than any sort of web3 player/investor (aside of Illuvium) I always though Illuvium was out of touch with its pricing. I have opened a lot of posts about OW/Illuvial target pricing in the past (complicated topic, don't want to go into detail here), but I haven't thought that the BP is too expensive. USD 13.50 per month isn't much by any standard. Also, there is a lot to get: Skins, xp, payback (fuel, raffel, lb rewards). The only thing I would change/discuss is the duration or upfront payment of 41.67$. For example Brightland stepps BP in three stages, one per month, you get 1/3 of a nature themed battle board upon completion, or something like that...
Was a little surprised about the video, because even for the target audience of web2 players I don't think that 13.5 per month are that expensive. Maybe, 9.99$ per month would hit the mark more accurately, but I would say it is still ok with all the payback

[unique stream]

As Perry mentioned this is just the 1st battle pass iteration and we're looking to build upon it for future iteration. You guys know we try to actively listen to your feedback as much as possible because that matters a lot to us.

Having said that I can share some of the feedback ideas already collected from some community members:

• Big entry barrier by having to pay 3 full months of Battle Pass.
  • Would be nice to be able to purchase 1 month duration of the Battle Pass or the full Battle Pass with a price discount.
• Lacking the "gamble excitement" apart from the emote d1sks.
  • Create Arena d1sks/loot boxes for the future.
• Create a 1 month themed Battle Pass for special events like the IPL main event for example.

I'll add regarding the lack of Beyond d1sks that Council decided to remove the Beyond d1sks from the Battle Pass since there was currently no active wave and once a wave ends no more D1sks should be minted for that wave.

[vestal bluff]

I don't mind long battle pass duration if that means better cosmetic rewards

[wispy tinsel]

This is an excellent breakdown thank you.

To address the pricing concern. Its not that the value doesn't justify the cost, it absolutely does, I see it more as designed in reverse. Because of how sensitive audiences are to pricing, it should have been decided to be much lower <$20 preferably and then the rewards and stuff adjusted to suit that value.

I did see the problem you ran into where you cant split it in 3, or reduce it too much because of how valuable the NFT Battle Board is as a draw to the battle pass, defs made your life way more difficult. I didn't even think about the flat 20% discount and can see how thats causing some issues too, brutal.

I think the way you explained that Web 2 isn't the target for this and it would likely be greatly adjusted for after IPL is a fair strategy. This also aligns with the lack of a mobile build for me. When Mobile is released, $50 Battle Pass absolutely cannot be the norm and needs to be adjusted, but until then I can see the argument for pricing and structure as a 'temporary' measure.

[wispy tinsel]

Ohhh more lootboxes to fill the gaps would be sick. I'd even just remove the fuel entirely and do loot boxes, its far more exciting.

[wispy tinsel]

I think a voucher for a drone run could be pretty cool. Don't add heaps of them, maybe 1 or 2 in free track, and 5-10 in the premium track with 1 hyper one at the end.

Then eliminate fuel. Would be much more exciting and actually add earning opportunity for players through rng, despite value remaining identical.

[wispy tinsel]

Probably too much dev lift this late into the game but a comment made me think that a 3 tier system could have been pretty interesting. $15 or so for things like EXP Gain on Illuvials perks and some rewards and the extra daily challenge etc, and then an additional $15-20 for a boost on top of that of some kind, access to the battle board and larger rewards.

Food for thought for the future.

[wispy tinsel]

Further on this, I see it every day at work. At work our product managers decide pricing long before the features of a product, its look and feel or anything in-between. This is because if they over engineer it and try to compete against others with a higher price point there's too much risk, they just gonna lose.

Its highly constraining but this rings true for basically every industry where you are selling a product.

[sand karma]

When you take into account the fuel you get from completing the premium battle pass (2300ish) that's almost have the cost of the battle pass anyway. So while the initial $50 price tag is not going to be throw away money for many gamers it will give you almost half of that money back for the next battle pass. I don't see to many people realising this when they do there calculations.

Buuut that said, Scoriox is 100% right a shorter $10 battle pass is going to be sooo much more tempting for alot more gamers! Especially if they are in the running for leaderboard rewards etc, but maybe don't want to commit to 3months of competitive play!

Perhaps you could lock the higher tier cosmetics behind a quest or checkbox system that is only attainable if you purchase 3 x 1month battle passes in a row? This would also be a good way to keep people on the hook! Eg I bought 1 or 2 now I got to get the last 1

Monthly battlepass might also make the illuvium income more consistent rather than getting it all in 1 big hit every 3 months

[coarse quiver]

• I like the goal of Web3 as the target for this BP, Web2 in the future with a mobile release
• One thing that hasn't really been stressed is the ability to increase the value of your Illuvial assets via the XP increases. If I can increase a T5S2 high TPI (or similar) illuvial by 10 levels during the season, that will be worth more than the value of the BP alone. This is why a straight comparison to TFT isn't the same. But the sticker price is important, so in the future, duration will be key I think.
• For Web2, do a combination of fuel drops and autodrone vouchers as it will expose those who haven't done autodrones to that feature, but also give the flexibility to spend the fuel as desired when the new OW drops. I like the idea of getting stuff more often in the BP progression and fuel drops do that.
• Address the hours required as needed. I am not sure midcore is the sweet spot, but we should see how many folks complete the pass and adjust accordingly. If alot of folks don't complete it, that will add to a "I didn't get the value" feeling that hurts future purchases.

[wispy tinsel]

My point was that rewards giving back value is quite irrelevant, for those outside of this community at least. People see the $50 and that prevents them from even diving deeper into what that entails.

That's how I view it at least.

[wispy tinsel]

The hours is particularly tricky since I expect double XP weekends to be a frequent occurence. Do you cater for everyone outside of 'bonuses' or factor them in to the calculation?

Hard to say what the answer is there.

[arctic jungle]

Battle pass is way too expensive specially for casual players that plays only once or twice a week I don't see the value purchasing it knowing that I will for sure not be able to complete hours of play time required to get the rewards or whatever valueable items that comes with the battle pass. And if you like to target wide range of audience like poor countries and age groups including young adults or children that have limited money for games I suggest that the fair price for battles pass would be as low as $10 per month, $25 for 3 months, $40 for 6 months, $50 for 1 year.

FYI $50 is 2,750 pesos in Philippines that's like one week of hard earned money from working 8 hours a day 5 days a week so for sure this battle pass will be a big turn off in the countries like Philippines.

[gusty pulsar]

Personally I think 50$ for 3 months is a very fair price, especially when you see what the rewards actually are.
For some of us 50$ is nothing, while it's a lot of money upfront for lower income countries, so I agree with making the duration and payment 1 month. I would not lower the price from the ca. 15$ per month if you then also had to lower the rewards too.

I have not thought this through, but maybe there could be some idea in having 3 BPs. Free, basic and premium. The basic version, if constructed well, could serve as a good option for those who can pay maybe just 5$ per month, or people who simply cannot play enough during a month to complete the premium BP.

To still have a longer term incentive, that is also more expensive for the team, you could make a "season", consisting of eg. 3 months. Each month will have its individual rewards, but overlapping all 3 months battlepasses, there will also be a seasonal completion goal if you fulfill all 3 months, fx the battle board reward.

And another note. Please dont make dailies or streak goals, that require/force us to play every day (if the "penalty" for not being able to do this is too hard). It's one thing to do this in a game where you log in and play for 5 minutes, but having to do 1 hour of forced play every day is too much. Keep in mind many in the community are grown ups with families. This of course is a great way to create retention and to have people play often, but be very mindfull of how you implement this.

[gleaming crag]

tbh, i believe tournaments should be gated & the battle pass should be used as a free entry to illuvium tournaments - if you dont have a battle pass a ticket for entry should be availble for purchase.. I remember Dota2 had a similar thing going with the weekend battle cups a while back..

With pricing, monthly subscription would be better, this way people can test the waters and not be locked in.. you could even possibly offer deals for multiple month subscriptions..?

[lean reef]

I think most are already saying more or less the same thing....

The actual Battle Pass and how it looks to be working looks super cool!!

I personally think it is a fair price when looking at the value of the Battle Pass. it dose cost you 50$, but when you get the 5000 fuel, you will get the 750 bonus fuel. if you complete it you will get 2300 fuel in rewards, and it unlocks your leaderboard and raffle reward possibility. On top of that you get some cool cosmetics that also has a value, plus you can get XP for your illuvials.. so you could look at it as an "investment" as the next battle pass will cost you less than half. (if you save the fuel rewards)....

However, if you are new to Illuvium and are not familiar with the value of the pack and how everything works.... you will just see 50$ for a Battle Pass, and compare with other games, and perception is that this is super expensive, and could definitely turn some people away. so I think it would be better to get a lower price point, either by adding a different "tier" battle pass with less rewards... or lower the period, and target something closer to 8-10$ pr. month. (by also giving less fuel as rewards).

[sand karma]

100% on the not having to log in every day! This would be terrible considering how long a single game can take

[lucid oxide]

@deep hatch

Hi, this is just my opinion.
Previously, I often spent money on the Dota 2 Compendium because it offered rewards that were truly well-designed on another level. In other words, I paid because I got something incredible in return.

I want to feel motivated to spend money on the Battle Pass. Right now, there are literally zero valuable rewards in it.
I would be happy to spend my money if I could get something really beautiful and impressive.

So far, I see only two ways for the Battle Pass to succeed:

1. Make the game uncomfortable without it. As Quants suggested earlier — access to any tournaments only with a purchased Battle Pass.

2. Your art team starts creating truly beautiful skins — on a whole other level.

   • The drone damage effects are nice.
   • The earth and air effects we saw in trailers are beautiful.
   • The ranger skins — simply terrible.

So I would gladly start spending money if I either couldn’t access tournaments without it, or if my ranger started glowing like a Christmas tree.

Sorry if this sounds too critical, but this is honestly my opinion.
#1401866257761959956 message

[shadow geyser]

It would be an interesting idea if we had so many tournament players that we could afford to filter them out but I don't think that's the case yet

[jade breach]

What kind of XP gains? How much in BP?
In general levelling Illuvials is not an easy thing.
We were supposed to get training gyms for zero to help with levelling. But having some other realistic viable alternatives to levelling would be good for those of us that loathe OW grinding.

[deep hatch]

We're tackling 1. already through gating of ranked leaderboard rewards and the raffle. Gating tournament access at this stage doesn't make much sense to me as it's our main acquisition marketing strategy

2. is in the eye of the beholder so all good if it doesn't appeal to you.

Highly personally, I'm excited about the battleboard, the illuvitars and the drone blast. I think ranger skins are tough in an autobattler but agreed with you. Emotes aren't really my style either for example

[deep hatch]

Highly dependent on industry imo, if you're forced to compete on price and making a better product doesn't allow for a higher price you've picked a tough industry (game accessibility is one of those, but game LTV is not per se)

Very helpful thread so far, thanks community ❤️

[wispy tinsel]

Very true. But I don't think its a coincidence that basically every battle pass right now is $10. Most people play maybe 2 major game titles and really only have the time to heavily invest into 1 of them. So they compete hard on price maybe?

But yeah we aren't up against them just yet so probably not worth considering them as competition yet and its obviously easier to drop prices than to increase them. I do really hope for the next battle pass we see a considerable drop in pricing or general structure to accomodate.

[arctic jungle]

Illuvium is not even in the level with other fun games that has battle pass $10 a month or less. I feel like the illuvium battle pass plan is already pushing many players away. I hope they'll consider dropping the price to atleast keep same number of people playing illuvium 🙏

[jade breach]

Really? $50 is too much? It’s a 90 day BP right? So like 16.50/month?

Clash royahe BP is $13/month

Illuvium BP price seems fine… especially since there are ways to get fuel cheaper or even free from playing arena and offset some of the cost. I hope they don’t lower the price and cave ever.

[arctic jungle]

I totally understand your opinion it's hard to relate if you are a rich kid in high income rich country. Maybe give some low price trial options battle pass to attract wider range of audience that includes low income countries, young adults and kids

[naive nimbus]

there's a free pass
and lets not try to assume personal traits and objectivity of other people 🙂

[jade breach]

BP are traditionally two tier - free/premium

In this BP the free tier includes:

Free Track Rewards:

Tier 100: 25 Fuel Drop

Tier 150: 25 Fuel Drop

Tier 300: 50 Fuel Drop

Tier 500: 50 Fuel Drop

Tier 800: 50 Fuel Drop

Tier 1250: 50 Fuel Drop

Tier 1750: 50 Fuel Drop

Tier 2250: 50 Fuel Drop

that's 300 fuel there... get top 4 in several free to playranked Gauntlet games and you get another 500-1000 fuel over time

Participate in some events and get free fuel rewards... Datakingz and other sites offer rewards for engagement.

Point is, there are many ways to slowly earn that BP for free or the next one if you save up.

I think it's a bad idea to lower the price when there are many ways to reduce the cost or even get it free.

Not to mention silv2 and fuel crates that tend to offset fuel cost as well

[arctic jungle]

I'm not assuming I'm just sharing the facts but ya free battle pass sounds good I hope they deliver the products as they promised

[gentle hornet]

Datakingz and other sites ..name other sites thx @jade breach

[jade breach]

nice nitpik... it was moreso that there are ways to earn from other platforms besides illuvium

I played in the Levi tourney and won 10 bucks and I'm not great at arena
10 bucks = 1000+ fuel

just pointing out there are other ways

Otherwise what''s the alternative $20 battle pass? does the difference between a $20 BP and a $50 BP change player aquisition/retention that significantly?

[jade breach]

Also, I like the idea of a 90 day BP with better rewards than a 30 day BP with meh rewards. Is it the $50 number that's scary?
Is $15 prettier/month

Idk... I should prob not wade into these dialogs

[wispy tinsel]

When it comes to Web 2 audiences, $50 is the problem, duration is irrelevant. Someone would rather pay $10 3 times, than $30 once, its very simple.

But yes the Battle Pass is built around the Battle Board so rock and a hard place really. Defs could see a $30 BP working better in this specific instance, but might as well be $50 for this initial rollout.

[gentle hemlock]

i have been paying OTG battlepass $10/month. I dnt play the game anymore and i dnt even bother cancelling

price is relative. here in au, $10 is parking for one hour in the city. but $10 is prob a lot in LATAM or SEA

i also subscribe to 5 streaming services i rarel watch. battlepass or any subscription need to be cheap enough that people wont bother not cancelling. Like that gym membership u promise u will go to next week

[jade breach]

Just now diggin into testnet BP
yall gotta put more shit to spend money on in the shop 😄

Clash Royale has about 30 different wqys you can spend money... most of the things are for pay to win shit. There's so many monetization things you guys could do.

• XP creates $5, $10, $25
• Sell Illuvial bundles already leveled with guaranteed tpi minimum
• Sell emotes... not emote discs
• sell fuel in the fukkin shop
• sell beyond disks whe waves are going on

Any and everything that could be monetized even if you end up getting it free eventually still offer it for sale

[gentle hemlock]

selling more shits is important but whats more important is offering utility for those shits

[jade breach]

Ofc… all those things have utility

Some things don’t necessarily need utility… like emotes. A good emote will be sweet to have if it’s not easy to get. People wanna spam crying emotes or Lbozo emotes… so make it available!

[shadow geyser]

Selling illuvial bundles already leveled with guaranteed tpi minimum sounds dangerous if they aren't bought from the marketplace

[gentle hornet]

Sell XP crates (drag it on Illuvial to lvl him up)

Put some very good TPI S3 Illuvial (Reveal upon completion so you have the gamble feeling so loved by web3 gamers) as reward wen BP is completed.

And as mentioned by multiple people...lower the price and use the XX .99 marketing trick

[unique stream]

Council Update

Council has approved a new Battle Pass structure with less fuel being given in it and a lower upfront cost.

You can see the new structure below:

---

**Price: 3900 Fuel **

Rewards:
Free Track:
5: Thumbs Up Attipo Emote
10: Brightland Ranger Border
30: Battle Ready Lura - Illuvitar
70: Sleepy - Emote (Water Buffalo Stage 1 )
100: 10 Fuel Drop
150: 10 Fuel Drop
250: Battle Ready Loulura - Illuvitar
300: 10 Fuel Drop
500: 20 Fuel Drop
800: 20 Fuel Drop
1000: Battle Ready Malura - Illuvitar
1250: 25 Fuel Drop
1500: 25 Fuel Drop
1750: 50 Fuel Drop
2500: Brightland Steppes Ranger Skin
2250: 50 Fuel
3000: Arena Points Gain are Doubled

**Total Fuel earned: 220 (-230) **

Premium Track:
5: Got Milk - Emote (Water Buffalo Stage 2)
15: Brightland Strider Border
20: 20 Fuel Drop
30: Hyper Lura - Illuvitar
40: 20 Fuel Drop
50: Brightland Steppes Chopin Drone Skin
70: BrightlandsWrath Drone Blast
100: 25 Fuel Drop
120: Brightland Steppes Bach Drone Skin
150: 25 Fuel Drop
200: 50 Fuel Drop
250: Hyper Loulura - Illuvitar
300: 50 Fuel Drop
400: Brightland Steppes Hilde Drone Skin
500: 50 Fuel Drop
600: Brightland Steppes M0zart Drone Skin
800: 100 Fuel
1000: Hyper Malura - Illuvitar
1250: 100 Fuel Drop
1500: 200 Fuel
1750: 200 Fuel
2000: Emote D1SK
2250: 200 Fuel
2500: Brightland Steppes Overgrowth Battle Board

Total Fuel earned: 990 (-1210)

[wispy tinsel]

I subscribe to like a dozen AI related services like cursor and openai etc

[wispy tinsel]

This gets tricky surrounding refunds, but defs worth implementing asap

[finite berry]

it was implemented from the start