Battle Gauntlet: 2-3 way PVP
Okay guys, me and a good friend have spent a good couple of hours looking over a certain comment made by our fearless leader Yoshi-P. Mainly it was in an interview where Yoshida describes his want for a kind of 3-way pvp battle. While discussing this, we found a brand new way to combine PVE and PVP.
Now imagine, a cut scene begins. Players enter a large coliseum with their perspective Grand Companies in a group limited by 8 per team. Of course, a color aura is then decided for each team along with an announcer who starts the events and gets everybody pumped.
Now the teams will separate and be lowered into the dungeons below the coliseum into a room where they will have one minute to prepare. Then, a gate will open and reveal a random boss that will charge the team. The teams will fight until each boss is defeated.
When all bosses have been defeated, one random party member from each Company will be teleported up to the Arena above. There they will fight until one person is standing. The losers will be teleported into a waiting room, where from a screen they can watch the remaining event. The survivor is sent back to his team and another boss appears, the cycle begins anew.
This cycle is repeated until one team is left standing. As each team loses players , it'll become more difficult to defeat each boss. This will challenge players in both their PVP skills, and PVE. If a team survives the gauntlet battle they will be rewarded with prized loot scaled on the number of PVP battles won. The other teams will receive consolation based on the number of battles they survived.
At the end of all this there will be a cutscene at the end, showing the winning team and having the announcer name that game's MVP.
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Let explain a few things, such as our decision to exclude free companies. If we allow free companies to play, the possibility of farming becomes way too easy. In order to prevent this, team will fight each other at random and without the ability to communicate with their competitors. The entire idea of the Battle Gauntlet is for Fierce competition. The loot system is design to encourage teams to keep on fighting as long as they can, and for the winning team to kill as many as they can.
While participating in the 1vs1vs1 arena battle, it would be necessary to block out the name of your adversaries. This is to prevent possible familiarity between the players if they so happen to know each other by each other's first and last in-game name and to prevent possible troll attempts made by a sore looser.
There will be a standard rating system, to ensure each battle is competitive. Each team will lose points for a loss, and gain points for a win. There will be two ratings: one for the team and one for each player. This will allow teams to add or remove players as they see fit. Teams from each server will be considered for the match ups. The team leader should be able to decide whether to queue for 8v8 or 8v8v8. This also allows for bragging rights and possible achievements to be unlocked for vanity gear representing your grand company.
Each boss will be randomly chosen for each team, no team will have the same boss. This will ensure PVE players are constantly surprised and challenged.
We would like this content to remain competitive, and draw the most skilled players. Therefore, you must join a team to participate in a battle gauntlet. The main requirement being that all players be level 50 and be affiliated with the same grand company. There will also be an option to do practice battle gauntlets so that a team can hone its skill without hurting its rating.
Hopefully, as a happy consequence, this type of content will place more emphasis on the use of the Armory system's Class capabilities. Imagine a full fledged WHM competing against a well balanced CNJ.
It should also be noted that each boss battle is scaled so that it can be completed with 6 averagely geared players. Hopefully, this will allow each game to go at least two or three rounds before a winning team is decided.