New Content Concept: Gold Saucer Battle Arena

[PangTong]

Just a fan concept for a new content addition to the Gold Saucer, inspired by the Gold Saucer's Battle Arena in FF7.

New Content: Gold Saucer Battle Arena
For 1-4 players
Levels 60 to Max

A new form of battle content where players test their skills against waves of enemies that get continuously stronger. Rewards increase with each wave cleared, and players are given the option to quit and keep their rewards, or keep going and risk losing it all for a higher payout.

Requirements:

- 1-4 players can participate, with no role restrictions. Same rules as Variant dungeons applies, players can choose up to two special actions each to bring with them. Normal raises are disabled, and the arena Raise action (if brought) is limited to 1 charge per player, per wave. Enemy HP scales based on number of players.

- The default syncing level is the current max level, but players can be synced down to multiples of 10 based on the lowest level member in their party, down to a minimum of 60. e.g. if a player in the party is level 73, all players will be synced down to level 70. Gear is also synced even at max level, so higher tiers of gear do not confer an advantage.

Gameplay:

- Players face a wave of enemies, which are randomized and can come in many different forms, including waves that just consist of a single boss. Waves generally last about 1.5-3 minutes.

- When a wave is cleared, the players are given a score which represents the rewards they will receive. They are then presented with four choices: Continue, continue with a debuff, quit and claim, or quit without claiming. To make a choice, all players in the party must stand in a circle representing either quit or continue, but they don't have to choose the SAME quit/continue choice. e.g. two players can choose to continue, and two can choose continue with debuffs, and they will all continue with their respective choices.

- Players who choose to quit will receive rewards proportional to their final score. Rewards include tomestones, MGP, and a new special currency called BP which can be exchanged for rewards unique to the Battle Arena. Tomestones and MGP rewards are always earned upon quitting, but BP can only be claimed once per week. Some players may wish to try to increase their BP payout by pushing their score higher on another run, and so are offered the option to quit without claiming BP.

Design:

- Every time the players choose to continue to the next wave, the enemies receive a stacking buff which slightly increases their damage dealt. The player's score accumulates with each wave cleared and each wave awards progressively more points. Current score is displayed on screen throughout the whole duty.

- At wave 5, enemies are swapped out for versions with slightly more difficult mechanics. E.g. larger AoEs, shorter cast times, or just more mechanics such as soaks, stacks, gazes, knockbacks, etc. This happens again at wave 10. The harder mechanics aren't seriously complex or difficult, more on the level of dungeon boss mechanics but they become faster and stronger.

- After 7 waves, all enemies gain an enrage timer based on their HP. If they are not killed within a certain time after spawning, they gain a buff which massively increases their damage dealt and reduces their damage taken, making them highly likely to wipe the party. This enrage timer is generous at first, but gets shorter and shorter with each successive wave after 7.

- If players wipe, all rewards are lost and they are kicked out of the arena. If a wave is cleared with any party members KO'd, they are revived at the end of the wave and are considered to have cleared.

- Players have 1 minute to decide whether or not to continue after each wave. If no consensus for continue/quit is reached in this time, those who decide to quit drop out, and those who decide to continue keep going, with the next waves scaled down for the remaining number of players. Those who do not choose anything within the time limit are defaulted as quitting without claiming.

- While deciding whether to continue or quit, player cooldown timers are paused.

Other mechanics:

- In addition to choosing to continue, players may also choose to continue with a randomized debuff. Players who choose this option must continue on all future waves with the debuff they receive, but in return receive a multiplier to their score on all future waves until the run is over. Additional debuffs can be added with each successive wave, further increasing the multiplying effect on score. These score multipliers only affect the score of those who choose to receive debuffs. Debuffs are random per-player and players cannot see the debuff they will receive in advance.

- Possible debuffs include:

• Poison - Player continuously takes minor damage over time while in battle. (Stackable up to 3).
• Heavy - Player's movement speed is reduced by 10%. (Stackable up to 3).
• Weakness - Player takes 10% additional damage from enemies. (Stackable up to 3). (Does not affect poison damage).
• Lv Down - Player's level is reduced by 2, denying them access to some job actions (Stackable up to 3). (Stats are not synced down so damage dealt is the same.)
• Paralysis - Player is momentarily stunned every 30 seconds while in combat. (Stackable up to 2, second stack makes it every 20 seconds).
• Sickness - Player receives 15% less healing from all sources. (Stackable up to 3).
• Confusion - Every 50 seconds in combat, for 5 seconds, player receives the spinning finger marker that only lets them move in the direction the hand is pointing. (Stackable up to 2, second stack increases debuff duration to 8 seconds.)
• Exhaustion - Prevents use of Sprint.

- Additionally, there is a chance for bonus objectives to appear at random during waves. These are similar to random events that happen inside treasure map dungeons. Successfully completing the objective applies a bonus to the score for that wave, which can also be affected by the debuff multiplier. There is no penalty for failing the objective.

Some examples of bonus objectives:

• A fast moving enemy appears and begins running around randomly. It must be killed before it runs away.
• Several enemies with numbers over their head appear. They must be killed in the order of the numbers.
• A short "test" phase occurs where a bunch of AoE mechanics occur mid-battle (while dealing with standard wave enemies). These extra mechanics do no damage, but the bonus is granted if they are all successfully resolved. Several variants.
• A very weak enemy with very low HP appears and moves around randomly for a while before leaving. Bonus is cleared if the enemy is not killed.
• Several piles of coins appear on the floor in random locations. An NPC runs around competing with the players to pick up the coins. Each pile picked up by the players grants a small bonus.

[UkcsAlias]

Rewards increase with each wave cleared, and players are given the option to quit and keep their rewards, or keep going and risk losing it all for a higher payout.

This is a problem system. Note that in treasure maps, the limit is still 5x taking such risk. And the only one deciding is the one who dug up that map. If its unlimited, some will always just continue (which means no gain for the others), or some will leave quickly to save rewards. And if everyone can decide, the first to chicken out will still be the deciding factor (once one leaves, you generaly dont want to continue as warming up in wave oriented modes is generaly a good thing to have).

I have played (and even mapped for) team fortress 2 MvM enough to know how players behave in such things. Its generaly a very hostile environment when playing with random people. And playing with friends makes it very restrictive towards players as most wont be able to play it then.

So on that, it MUST be a fixed wave system for rewards. And on that you can decide to grant rewards every 3rd wave. Which on that does enable a replacement player to join in, in attempt to get that reward. But usualy, it simply must be a completely seperate set of waves with a fixed end. Otherwise you get people dropping out at a certain section where they are usualy like 'the effort is not going to be worth the reward', and they just drop out repeatedly.

Also, for lvls, if its in the saucer, it must be level 60 content at max. Dont make f2ps unable to play these things (and on that, f2p will also make matchmaking easier for this). The higher the requirements, the less players. And this generaly means that if you want higher levels, that it must work using a seperate level system entirely. The f2p player base can boost at quite a lot of numbers, and since they are having less content, are generaly also more dedicated in the content they can play.

But still, this does give an opportunity, since if you can level in then duty itself, while playing, you could make the ability set work like a blue mage (except then with free selecting of abilities). And in that case, it doesnt matter if you are lvl 15 or 90. Since the level in the duty is then always resetted upon restarting. It will give that feeling of getting more and more powerful as well, which can be a very nice feature. Much better than the fixed 'you are level 70, and this content will always be like that'. At least with dynamic selecting of abilities you can decide to add in more with expansions, or patches, and you can even decide to remove some to spice up these things.

[PangTong]

Reflecting on it, I think forcing players to choose to quit to receive rewards is a bit harsh. So I think I would change it so that you keep your score even on a wipe, and the game records your highest score for the week and then you get rewards the following week based on that score. So you're free to just try as much as you like to push as high as you can.

Although I think it would be interesting if there was a score bonus for choosing to stop, like just a 25% boost to your final score. So rather than just pushing until you wipe, you would want to consider whether to quit now and take the bonus, or keep trying to push to increase your score and risk a wipe.