It's me again, back with another awful, terrible idea.
I have this concept of asymmetrical gameplay, where a player can play as a primal or raid boss and fight other players 4v1 or 8v1. Since it's technically PvP, morale will play a role here. Or at least, I think it should.
Playing as a boss will include the following mechanics:
- As the primal, the player must make the tactical decision of changing their phases. Phase changing will of course lead to more powerful abilities. However, the incentive to not just skip straight to the last phase is that the more time you spend in the lesser phases, the more powerful you are in your final phase. Also, a phase-change is also an attack, so it can be used to throw enemies off guard and kill them.
- The primal will also have a choice of phase changes. What type of phase will lead to your ultimate? An add phase like Ramuh? Or a 'heart' phase like Titan? The choices you make here will affect your endgame, as they dictate what abilities are available to you in the final phase.
- Tanks will use a psuedo-enmity system so that not only will they be relevant in this content, they will be important, but could possibly make them the most difficult role in this content. The way it works is that their traditional enmity attacks will instead add a set amount of 'points' to the target. When these points reach a total of 12, the boss will not be allowed to directly attack anyone else except the tank for 10s. For example, Skull Sunder applies 1 point, and Butcher's Block applies 2. You would need to perform the combo four times to 'aggro' the boss. However, boss players will have some skills that can ignore force targeting to counter this mechanic, and may even have an ability to clear or resist the effect. Another counter to this function is that the boss player can choose a passive that will give certain skills the ability to apply vulnerability debuffs.
- The way a boss player wins is by tripping up the adventurers and being as unpredictable as possible. In PvE, content is designed to be beaten by memorizing the fight from beginning to end; the bosses will never deviate from their pattern. As a boss player, your goal is to wipe the team of adventurers using every tool possible. You'll be able to do things like using crimson cyclone and plumes at the same time. Each of your skills are customizable for different effects. Maybe you'll put points into plumes to increase the number of enemies they target, or perhaps you will increase the size of crimson cyclones so that they are harder to dodge. Most of your skills are off-GCD, so a lot of them will be able to be used in tandem. However, even though many skills do not share cooldowns, they will have casting requirements, and because they are indeed off-cooldown, skilled players will probably be able to counter said attack by figuring out your cooldowns and the way you use them.
- As the previous point suggested, bosses are customizable. Ranging from the casting speed of certain skills, to a wide variety of resistances and passive bonuses, such as resistance to stun or silence, or the the ability to gain a stack of haste for any fool who fails to dodge your plume.
- Players will have tier 3 limit breaks, and bosses will have enrages. If the battle lasts for an extended period of time, someone is going to win.