I think everyone running around with their pets is not the most optimal way to involve illuvials into the MMO. Especially considering how large they are. It is going to create too much clutter and take away our focus from gameplay. Might as well allow for more players in rather than all these pets running around with their flashy animations.
It's probably too late for any changes now, but I think it would be much better if each illuvial represents an ability/spell in the MMO.
Each spell would then have 3 levels/stages - that are taken from each stage of illuvial. Each level/stage of the spell takes the stats/tpi of it's respective illuvial.
We can then do different ability rotations this way. Finishing the full stage 1,2,3 rotation (always starts from the lowest one) of an ability and doing the full rotation grants you an element, depending on the type of ability/illuvial used.
Upon collecting enough elements throughout our rotations, we can summon an illuvial (any, based on what abilities we chose to use).
We can then incorporate all of our illuvials into the gameplay, rather than just a static one that follows us around, and summon different ones based on encounter needs and what our build is, temporarily.
It is also going to create an incentive to go after all illuvials, of all stages, and go after good tpi ones.
Considering the MMO will mainly be pve, a bit of p2w wouldn't be a problem.
This would also scale very well with https://discord.com/channels/760344898200666112/1436815138639446126
Thoughts?
