#More P2W = More Revenues

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feral jasper
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PROBLEM

Current Leviathan Vision

80% skill — 20% stats

Ideal Target Audience

  • Western gamers who dislike P2W
  • Pro-gamers with a medium budget ($500–$1500)
  • Whales

Basically: everyone.

Real Target Audience

  • Pro-gamers with a medium budget

But where are the whales and anti-P2W gamers?

Whales are selling their collections. Their top-tier Illuvials don’t feel powerful enough, so they move to other games like Lost Ark or Genshin Impact, happily spending there instead.

Anti-P2W gamers either play non-P2W games, or play P2W titles and complain online. Whether a mode is “slightly” or “heavily” P2W rarely changes their behavior.

In short: by trying to please everyone, we’re pleasing almost no one.
You can’t serve two opposing audiences in a single mode — especially when other modes already exist for non-P2W players.

As it stands, the real Leviathan audience is small and not particularly wealthy.

SOLUTION

New Leviathan Vision

80% stats — 20% skill

Target Audience

  • Whales

Leviathan should be unapologetically P2W — a high-stakes, prestige-driven arena for collectors who want their investment to matter.

As a side effect, non-whales might actually engage more once the playerbase grows, because their leveled or high-stat Illuvials will finally feel meaningful.
Small stat gaps — like a level 50 Atlas outperforming a level 40 — create a sense of pride and tangible progress, even for mid-tier players.

Western audiences often push back against P2W systems, but in markets like Korea, Japan, and China, P2W is normalized and even celebrated. A truly P2W Leviathan could expand into those markets naturally.

From a DAO perspective, a P2W Leviathan is simply more profitable. It taps into whales’ spending power and builds a clear revenue pillar.

trim merlin
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I agree that we should be unapologetically P2W but not to the point that someone who walks into the game never playing before picks up the top Illuvials and crushes everyone.
What it should look like is if I show up with my 99/100 TPI Level 60 Illuvials with my mediocre playing (I am normally +/- 20 points off 1200 for rank) I should be able to have a good battle against S1ckz if he had mediocre Illuvials with it being a toss up of who wins. So what would that look like percentage wise? Maybe 60/40 or 70/30 for stats? Or maybe I give myself too much credit and it is more 80/20.kektalik

I don't know. It should be play tested to see. But I am thumbs upping because even if I am not sure that percentage is correct the idea is.

We want the amazing players to find it worthwhile to put their winnings into playing in OW or buying Illuvials because they won't win if they don't spend money. They shouldn't be looking at these tournaments as just a way to make quick money every week to keep, it should be forcing them into investing so they will one day be able to keep the prize. On the other side, Illuvium should want me playing, not renting out my Illuvials because me renting out my Illuvials means that only one set is needed for two people instead of two sets being needed. We want me and those like me to spend money to try to make up for our lack of skill not just give up and go, "Well, I am never going to do well anyway so why bother."

shell oak
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Same thoughts as torial for me

I dont know the %, but its important to have stats and level feel meaningful

That being said i think its important to also keep minding the onboarding aspect of it

What will ultimately help is when we pivot for season 2 and finally have the rewards of our ecosystem be for the demand side!

forest hare
feral jasper
boreal cedar
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I’ve been saying this for a while " stats and levels need to matter more ", and data from across the industry supports that.

Right now, Leviathan feels like it’s tuned for 80% skill / 20% stats, which mainly rewards highly skilled players. But the audience that actually sustains P2W ecosystems namely collectors, casuals and whales spend for visible progression and power, not slight edges in strength.

Some quick inputs:

  • Less than 1% of players generate over 50% of revenue in P2W games. These whales spend because they feel their investment, not for an x% boost that is easely outplayed by skill.
  • Around 80% of paying players cite tangible power or faster progress as their main reason to spend.
  • Games like Genshin Impact and thrive because every upgrade feels impactful and creates prestige.

When perfect genetics or high levels barely change performance compared to good genetics and default levels, that audience loses interest and the DAO loses its possibly biggest revenue driver. Every improvement should be felt!

That’s why I fully support shifting Leviathan to 80% stats / 20% skill.
Let skill still play a role, but make Leviathan the prestige arena where investment, optimization, and collection truly matter.

And I’d go further:
Lift the level cap.
Let super-high-level Illuvials exist. It would:

  1. Create high-value, aspirational assets that draw attention.
  2. Increase marketplace volume and DAO fee revenue.
  3. Give both whales and mid-tier players long-term goals to chase.

Other modes already serve the skill-focused crowd. Leviathan can embrace its identity as the power-driven mode — where investment feels worth it, Illuvials feel valuable, and the economy thrives.

trim merlin
forest hare
boreal cedar
# forest hare And it's not like you can't reward f2p players in a p2w game. Just hand out fuel...

Yea, you could reward pretty much anyone with a bit of fuel, trying to onboard them into a paid experience, but unless there is a really big audience with also a good amount of f2p players, i feel they will have a really bad time. (but that's also the case right now or even with nerfed stats we had before)
But i don't think this is necessarily a bad thing to have especially since leviathan should express the strength of your collection.
And as mentioned above, there is already other modes to please the f2p audience and mmo is also said to be f2p.

viral shoal
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As long as there is a way for F2P/Low Spenders to achieve the same thing as a whale I don't see the issue.

Ex. I played Rise of Kingdoms and every day if you did the all of your daily quests you'd get 100 Gems (the premium currency). You could technically as a F2P/LowSpend player save those Gems for a Top Tier Hero and max out their skills. But it takes an absurd amount of time to do that and a lot of grinding events. But at least there is the OPTION to. You COULD do it and aren't LOCKED OUT from any content. I think with RoK you could almost max 1 Top Tier Hero every year as a F2P.

But what usually ends up happening then is that the Low Spend / F2P players get fed up with waiting and do one of two things. Either:

  • They get fed up with waiting and buy something to speed up the process.
  • Or they quit if they are purely F2P.
    The game doesn't truly lose anything if a F2P leaves the game and lack of patience draws out the spenders.
compact sparrow
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Awesome casting btw @viral shoal top quality stuff 👌

minor crescent
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what can i say))) haha)

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we had 100500 billion topics about it)))

viral shoal
# compact sparrow Awesome casting btw <@179432319252168705> top quality stuff 👌

Thank you and I know, it saddens me that it is but I know my mindset is very different than most here. I'm a traditional gamer and competitor. The only reason I know what Crypto is, is because of Illuvium and I'm used to either having to invest a lot of time or shortcut it with money to get progress. That I can reach the same progress as a whale with nothing being blocked. But it'll take FOREVER. I should be able to get amazing Illuvials F2P BUT it will take so long that it's not even funny. Finding one is tough. Let alone a whole team of them.

Ex. Say if you want to compete in a Leviathan tournament on the weekend and I'm just starting. There is no chance that I can grind hard enough and find a whole team in time. There's a good chance that if I grind for a WHOLE YEAR that I won't have a team good enough for Levithan. But the point is that I could technically do it if I wanted to and that's all I'm hoping for. But I understand that if I want to have a chance at winning now, I have to spend money. Options are there, everything is covered.

So I'm down with the stats being changed as long as I still can find good Illuvials if I put the time in to find them.

I thank you for the positivity on the casting Atlas_Love

compact sparrow
boreal cedar
# viral shoal As long as there is a way for F2P/Low Spenders to achieve the same thing as a wh...

I played RoK too also as a f2p. 🙂
And if you grinded hard, and showed some knowledge you definetly were able to get annoying for a whale.
But also there, the whale was able to show off, while you had 1 maxed out top tier hero and if you were really grinding hard another one with decent skill upgrades the whales just overrun you in the big battles either because they were more flexible, they had more heroes or simply because they could just throw in money to print troops. 😄

I'm super curious how the f2p approach turns out with the mmo. It could go very well in the direction you are thinking with the other post you did in here from what i remember out of townhalls and early thoughts of devs related to the new economy.

scarlet wing
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Thanks for the proposal. As mentioned in the Town Hall, we're working on some changes which will be proposed shortly

copper stream
# feral jasper **PROBLEM** **Current Leviathan Vision** 80% skill — 20% stats **Ideal Target...

Nice one. Those anti-P2W guys is not even capable to hold and support the ilv token to increase price.

Instead they keep selling ilv rewards to support their needs,

But whales can hold and support it. Specially if they enjoying and believe in it.

But the problem are some whales already hurt and already run away in this project.

And those anti-P2W players that favor before also run away and play other games.

scarlet wing
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Just know, if we do this, I will be the best Arena player

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But I will be poor

copper stream
scarlet wing