Illuvi part 4 of 4. Skins rework.

[glossy vapor]

Posted on behalf of @upper timber

Until now crafting skins is something only paid land players can do, but since anyone can craft them and they have been crafted a lot, their prices are low and there is almost no demand so usually it's better to just burn the fuel. On the other hand, the company is selling at a fixed decent price skins that nobody else can sell and players are more interested to buy. I propose to change this so all skins are sold only by the company at the website for a fixed price. In each skin sale, the total profit will be split between the company and land owners.

Considering land owners were the ones initially supposed to craft skins and the need to rise land price, I believe something fair would be one of the following options:

Option 1: 50% of the profit for land owners and 50% for the company + DAO.
Option 2: 40% will always be kept by the company for development and maintenance of the game, 40% of the profit will be split among land owners and 20% of the profit will be split among DAO ILV stakers.

At the website each skin sale will show the amount of skins sold, so when anyone makes a purchase the amount of sales has to rise. Each skin sale will have a profit payment period. Every 2 or 6 or 12 months for example the profit from that skin sale will be split following the % of ownership and the sale count of that skin will reset.

For the skin rework is not necessary to have a public book of fuel purchases where to see (only) the date, hour and amount of all fuel purchases made at the website, and the total amount sold before it resets each week. But when possible it would be great to have this feature.

At the skin rework, all land players will be able to use scanner buildings to find skin numbers. Each number is one different skin that is or will be sold soon at the website. The skin number always has to be shown at the website in each land sale. Players will use the research lab buildings in their plots to research (each time) either a blue or a yellow digital blueprint. Those two colors will have a different meaning than they have now. In both cases the digital blueprints will keep the same skin number that was at the scanner when they researched it at the lab.

Tier 0 (free) land plots will produce only blue tier 0 blueprints. Paid land will produce both blue and yellow blueprints. Tier 1 land plots will produce tier 0, 1 and 2 blueprints. Tier 2 land plots will produce tier 0 to tier 3 blueprints. Tier 3 land plots will produce tier 0 to tier 4 blueprints. Tier 4 land plots will produce tier 0 to tier 5 blueprints. If in a distant future too many paid land are lost in inactive accounts, then land tier requirements for each tier blueprint may be lowered.

Scanners will have a different % of search success at its different levels (1 to 5). Research labs will have a way higher % of success at its different levels (1 to 5) because once a skin number is found at the scanner it won't disappear. It will only disappear if that skin sale ends and that skin is planned never to be sold ever again.

After getting digital blueprints inside land plots, players will have to mint all digital blueprints from plots tier 1 to 4 or they won't be valid, with the only exception of blue blueprints tier 0 that will remain only in digital and valid in this state. This way even if players sell their land they will keep their ERC-1155 stackable blockchain blueprints and if they want they can even put them for sale at the website. Blue blueprints tier 0 won't be minted because they are the only ones free land players can produce and this way the amount of blueprints at the market will be a lot lower. If there is no tech problem in having a lot of blockchain blueprints then blue tier 0 can also be minted.

Yellow blueprints will be the share of that player in the total % of profit given to land owners. If one tier 2 skin has 10k$ sales profit then 4k$ is for land owners. If all IZ players have 400 yellow blueprints of that tier 2 skin then a player with 3 yellow blueprints of that skin will recive 4000/400 = 10$ x 3 = 30$. Over time the total amount of yellow blueprints will rise. Each skin sold at the website has to say when profits will be distributed. If a skin is sold only for 1 year (time limited) it may say profit will be paid at 6 months period or 12. If the sale is not time limited also has to show a distribution period.

The company can sell as many skins as they want for as long as they want, but it will be better to have at least some time limited skin sales that will never be sold ever again. The reason is that when a item is discounted it becomes more rare over time and this usually makes it rise in value over time. For this reason players usually want to purchase this kind of items or skins before the sale ends. There could be a couple of seasonal skin sales per year, each for a limited time of 2 months. One in summer and one in Christmas for example.

Every year, in those 2 seasonal skin sales there will be 2 x 6 skins. Tier 0 to tier 5 skins (6 skins). And for each tier there will be 2 skins instead of one. The first skin will be the more common skin, for example a Christmas colored helmet with an ornamental Christmas item on it, or a seasonal suit with an ornamental seasonal item in one hand. The second skin will be a more rare skin, the same seasonal helmet or suit but with different colors. Same apply to drone skins, battle board skins, etc.

The common version of all tier skins will be sold at the website only for fuel. The higher the tier the higher the fuel price.
The rarer version or all tiers skins will be sold at the website in exchange for both an amount of fuel and 1 blockchain ERC-1155 blue blueprint of that skin (that has the skin number of that skin). The higher the tier the higher the fuel price.
If it's not possible to pay fuel and a ERC-1155 blueprint at the website due to technical reasons, then sell an item at the website for fuel and allow the player to use that item and the ERC-1155 blue blueprint inside Overworld to exchange them for the skin.

Digital blueprints can only be researched in research labs. Yellow blueprints tier 0 to 5 needs to be minted to become valid. Blue blueprints tier 1 to 5 needs to be minted to become valid.
The company will decide the success rate % at the research labs for blue blueprints, aiming at a balance between availability, so players can have and sell blue blueprints to other players, but also aiming that blue blueprints must be rare items, not common. When a time limited skin sale ends all ERC-1155 blue blueprints that have not been exchanged for the skin will become useless if that particular skin is never going to be sold again. Maybe there should be a way to remove only those useless blueprints or at some point they should be hidden at the player account.

Pros:

1. Paid land owners will be able to find new different skins (numbers) at the scanners, research and mint new blueprints over time. Even after maxing their plots there will be always another reason to keep playing different that just burning fuel.

2. Players of free plots will be able to find new different skins (numbers) at the scanners and research new blue blueprints tier 0 over time. It's not much but it's already a reason to play Illuvium zero free plots. Right now there is no economic reason to play free plots. If drone wars are also developed, that would be two reasons to play free land plots.

3. Crafting skins should become profitable for paid land owners. A lot more fuel will be used for crafting skins, less fuel will be burnt, rising the profit of those who keep burning fuel. Increasing land profit will likely rise land price.

Cons:

1. Making a rework means there is work to do which takes time and resources but skin rework was already something planned to be done.

2. The company gets a lower % of profit from skin sales but instead of getting it from part of the skin sales it will get it from all skin sales.

[hoary plank]

What a horrible idea. Allocating resources to this makes no sense, especially given how often we pivot. Are we not dizzy yet? The current skin-crafting system is actually solid, but like many other features, it’s been left to rot. It could have been a strong sink for Illuvials and a real way to create value.

Here’s why it doesn’t work right now:

1. There’s no meaningful VFX, and most skins look too similar.
2. We keep printing better looking skins in battle passes, which makes this feel like yet another asset that will be diluted into nothing.
3. There’s no demand driver at all, where the hell do I show off? Certainly not arena.

Instead of scrapping it entirely and spinning up another experiment that will likely fail, we should try improving what’s already there before abandoning it. This is the part that’s been missing for years: focusing on utility.

Why do people grind for the Fire Cape in RuneScape? Yes, it looks unique, but more importantly, it has strong stats in specific situations and it’s genuinely hard to obtain.
Some rough ideas:

Utility: Matching a ranger skin with a specific Illuvial in the MMO could grant (situational) bonuses like extra burn damage, faster health regen, movement speed, etc. Even gated access would be cool

Cosmetic: Give ranger skins the same level of VFX polish as Illuvials.

Achievement: Crafting a skin could require milestones like 100 kills, sacrificing 3 Illuvials, 5k Illuvial XP, and a blueprint. Remember that interoperability we all bought into?

Progression: You need to unlock the Rhamphy skin before you can farm Rhamphite bones, which are required to then later craft the Rhamphite skin.

This turns skins from disposable cosmetics into long-term value: something worth chasing, not just printing.

[marble mist]

I thought we should have scrapped the skin system a long time ago in favour of DAO owned model, so long as landowners receive a % of the revenue.

PUBG, Fortnite among many other make billions of dollars via skins. Replicating their proven models is a no brainer, why we would even attempt anything different still baffles me.

Users need to be excited about new skin releases, as well as being able to equip them as quickly and easily as possible.