New Difficulty Mode Suggestion: (Chaos)

[Saraide]

Adding randomized effects to increase the fight's difficulty would be introducing mechanical changes to an already existing fight. This already happens to a certain extent in the EX/Savage versions of existing NM 8-man encounters. Not necessarily random, but adding additional mechanics not present in the NM fights.

What the Gold Saucer colosseum did was take existing monsters in the world of FFVII and introduce handicaps to the player. Things such as breaking their materia, weapon, armor, etc. In a sense, we have this as well in Deep Dungeon content which also handicaps players by taking away their natural regen, abilities, making the enemies stronger, and so forth.

However, I still like your idea and I think something like a boss rush mode wherein players face random bosses that could essentially be just about any encounter currently in the game that introduces a random handicap that stacks with the handicap from the previous round. You can also give each boss an enrage timer to increase the stakes of each encounter. The handicaps can be anything from level reduction, DoT infliction with increasing potency, stat breaks (ilv reduction), movement speed reduction (making it more difficult to escape enemy telegraphs and positioning, removing items like pots and tinkers, taking away raise, among other things.

Rewards would have to be pretty good that increase in value as the rounds progress and get more difficult due to the handicaps. It would be interesting to let players know what they will win should they succeed so they can make the collective decision to continue, or walk away with their current rewards. If they fail though, they lose everything and get a consolation prize akin to a fete present that more often than not turns into something like a token that can be accumulated and traded to a NPC for an item of their choice that is still somewhat useful.

This could be a new type of treasure map instance. I like this. Make it happen SE.

I dont think people should be punished for trying and failing. IMO games/gamemodes like this function well and are engaging when you can enter at any time and when you keep rewards/unlocks even if you do fail. We should encourage people to try and go beyond their abilities in a game mode like that.