Pre Note
Here is the original reddit post I wrote up: [https://www.reddit.com/r/RotMG/comments/db3ywo/new_arena_game_mode_wip/] it might look prettier since I took time to format it there and I am new to Realmeye forums.
Note I will be working on this actively both on reddit and here, adding images, clarifying text, putting in your suggestions, that sort of stuff.
Anyways, here is the idea:
So I heard about the ideas to revamp the Arena mode, and wanted to give my ideas for how to do that. I am going to be loosely basing my idea off of the game mode Gambit from Destiny 2, except, of course, no direct pvp.
Note: This is not a fleshed out idea in any sense of the word, I am still figuring out how to balance classes, items, etc. That being said, all the numbers I give below are not set in stone, they can be subject to change since I have not given much thought into their balancing. It is going to take a long time, and if anyone is interested in offering help or commenting ideas at all, that would be greatly appreciated (you will be credited w/ the work in my final post providing a proper road map on how this game mode should work at testing).
I have no timeline, I am literally a HS student that just likes RotMG. I will be posting updates to here, and maybe somewhere else I don’t really know yet. TL;DR at the bottom, without further ado…
How the game works:
This Arena game mode brings together elements of PvE and player competition together, and may help provide that extra content to make guilds more than just Guill and a place to pop keys.
- From start to finish this is how I envision a game of “Arena” two teams face off, they chose classes, and all get ready at the same time.
- A map is chosen for them to play on (probably going to be a dungeon boss room), and each team is transported to identical copies.
- The goal of the game is to beat the boss that is associated with that map, first team to do so, wins.
- There are two phases in the game, described below
Payload phase and Boss Phase.
In this run through I am choosing the Fungal Cavern/Crystal Cavern as my example map that players will fight on.
The Payload Phase:
The payload phase precedes the boss phase. You must successfully guide the payload to the end of its course to start the boss phase. In this example, you have a drill as your payload.
At the edge of the map, it starts digging in a straight line (much like the actual dungeon itself) to other rooms. I envision three checkpoints before the actual boss phase starts.
The drill is always digging, but so is your opponents. So, to interfere with their payload, you send enemies to their map that incapacitate the drill. To send enemies you deposit tokens you collect from fighting monsters that spawn around the map. Depending on the enemy’s tier, the more tokens they drop. I plan on creating two map layouts with completed enemy tables soon, I will post that when it is finished here below in edits. But for now, a quick example: killing one red mushroom soldier gives one token, while killing one red mushroom keeper grants five tokens.
The most tokens you may deposit is 20, let’s say. You can only deposit tokens in your drill (the payload) while it is running. If you die before depositing those tokens, they are lost, and cannot be recovered. If you deposit those tokens, however, an enemy wave will spawn in the center of the map and move to take over your opponents’ drill and stop it from running. Depositing 20 tokens at once sends a max tier wave of enemies.
Until those enemies are cleared out, the drill is not digging, letting the other team get ahead to the boss fight quicker. It is important to note that if your team’s drill is stopped for any reason, including: the boss fight, a checkpoint encounter, or the other team has stopped it with their own wave of enemies, you cannot deposit your tokens. So, strategizing and coordinating with your team when to put in your tokens will be crucial. I also plan on mapping out the enemy waves associated with token values. (I.E: 1 token deposited = 1 small enemy, 20 tokens deposited = 3 large enemies supported by a swarm of small minions).
At 25%, 50%, and 75% of the way before the boss phase, there will be mini boss fights or checkpoint encounters. These stop the drill. All focus must be put on clearing this obstacle, or else the other team will catch up. Note that the enemy team is still allowed to send enemies to your map to make it more dangerous and harder for you to clear that boss/encounter.
After the miniature bosses are cleared out of the way, each member of your team receives a temporary speed boost to get back around the map and recover a bit from the checkpoint.
Finally, once the drill has breached the boss phase layer, all members must focus on it to kill it. The members of your team all need to be inside of the boss room to begin the fight. Once the fight has begun, if the other team has not yet reached the 3rd checkpoint, their entire team gets stat buffs until they catch up (I.E: speedy, vit + 20, etc.) It is also important to know that you cannot send any more waves of enemies to your opponents, but they can send reinforcements to the boss in two forms: additional enemies (although they will be weaker than the previous ones they could send), or just heal the boss you are fighting.
Boss Phase:
It is pretty much what it sounds like, this phase needs some more creative work to make it more interesting I think, but most of that will be in the actual design of bosses and their own individual phases and how they interact with reinforcements from the other team.
My original idea was to have a rotating list of bosses and their own respective phases, so that this game mode isn’t played into oblivion and people lose interest because the boss fights are repetitive and boring. I do not know how feasible this will be, since DECA would need to provide constant maintenance to create new, exciting encounters, which just isn’t possible given all other projects that require their attention.
The focus of this game mode is still the payload phase, PvE, and indirect PvP competition with the other team. The boss phase is just to add that final hint of Realm of the Mad God, and feel like you are conducting a raid against the clock.
As time goes on, I will add bosses to this post, but for now, assume that the boss fight will just be the respective dungeon’s boss in the realm. It could also be as simple as having multiple realm events at once, like: Cube God, Pentaract, Skull Shrine (absolute swarm mayhem), or having a Ghost Ship and Hermit God in the same place.
Mechanics and Game Play:
Respawning is going to be a very hotly debated topic I believe. To get this to be juuust right so that everything is balanced will take a while, but here are my initial ideas:
- Both teams initially start in safe spawn rooms.
- They respawn in said spawn rooms, but only after waiting for some time and completing some course
- Said obstacle course, in my eyes, will merely be going through a small maze to reach the end/exit. This may have added lore benefits, since you could be taken to an underworld, and you go through a randomly selected trial to retrieve your soul from a spooky dude. I don’t know, that isn’t the focus of this post, but lore is cool. I will be posting more ideas about lore in the coming months I think.
- The reason I chose a maze, or some course that isn’t just waiting for a timer to go off, is because this directly benefits classes with high speed: ninjas, tricksters, rogues, etc. They get to respawn faster, so dying is not as big a deal.
- Add different respawn mechanics during the boss fight: I think there should also be a more severe punishment for dying during the boss fight if the other team is far behind, that way they can catch up quicker and make games tighter/more exciting.
- There will also be penalties for dying. Some ideas include: enemy team gets temporary stat buff depending on which class died (this can also help balance classes, so the punishment for a knight dying is more severe than that of a necromancer), your pet is taken away for a temporary time, etc. All things that limit your effectiveness as a member of your team in achieving your goals to kill the boss first.
- As with the current arena game mode, you will not lose gear when you die. However, I am considering adding some temporary punishment to gear, have not figured this out yet, would love to hear ideas!
Note: I believe that some of these mechanics listed above should be toggle-able from game to game, such as the catch up mechanics. It may not be for everyone, and it will allow more variety between games.
Balances to make all classes meta, or at least viable, will be challenging. I mean, seriously, why would you ever play as a rogue if there is nothing to rush in this game mode? I plan on adding more ideas, but until this gets play tested (which may never happen, or if it does it would take a really long time to get this put together) we may never know what works, what doesn’t, and if any classes I assume to be not viable/OP are actually the opposite. Anyways, some ideas are:
- reduce effectiveness of some melee/strong damage characters abilities (I.E: warrior helm does not speedy, paladin seal no longer has wis mod, QoT doesn’t daze)
- add a banning item phase before the actual map starts (this creates more strategy in the game and requires coordination between members of a team, but may be difficult to pull off since there are just so many items in this game)
Interface is something I have absolutely no clue how to pull off. I have no knowledge of realm’s code, and do not know how DECA will pull this off if they decide to take on this game mode. However, what I can provide are ideas on what things should be implemented.
- I think there should be a queue of sorts in the Arena. Basically, you enter a waiting area with your guildmates through the guild hall and queue up to play against another team. I have yet to figure out if this game mode should be allowed to do 1 v 1 and 50 v 50’s, or only have a few select modes of 3v3, 5v5, and 15v15 (one person can play each class).
- Beforehand you decide your settings so you get into a game with other people that want similar rules.
- If you want to direct challenge another guild, you have some code that each party can copy&paste into their waiting area.
- Add a roster to the guild hall, so that you can designate teams of players and move them around. This could also possibly help create quick queuing so people don’t have to wait for another guild to match up.
- I have yet to figure out how people will all join a game, maybe there will be a portal that spawns in the guild hall, or maybe you are presented with a pop-up asking you if you want to join a game. There are pros/cons to both sides, input would be appreciated greatly.
Note: I do not know yet if there should be a global leaderboard for wins and losses, or if there should be a built in tournament system, or if this game mode will have seasons like Challenger Mode. Any thoughts would be appreciated because I am at an absolute loss here.
- In the actual game, there would likely need to be an interface showing your tokens (or they could be picked up I guess), your progress to reaching the boss (and the enemies progress), and who on your team is currently dead.
Note: One of my first interface tasks will be to create a mock up of the UI while playing this game mode.
Rewards need to be decided. If there are official DECA sponsored tournaments, I think it would make sense to get some rewards. Like:
- An exclusive guild hall skin (as someone on the discord wanted in feedback I believe)
- a guild title that can be seen when people hover over a guildmate’s name
- gold/ST chests/etc. (I am leaning away from this idea for rewards, since it feels boring and overused)
- A special quest from the Tinkerer that gives other rewards (rotatable list of rewards from this quest is a benefit)
- A rare quest that sometimes drops from the boss fight (gives incentive to replay to get this quest). Like in Gambit in Destiny 2, this rare quest would be the only way you could get access to a certain, rare item. (I have yet to decide what this item could be, but an initial though is that it could be a weapon that does greatly in this game mode only, and is mediocre outside of it. Again, ideas are welcome to help fill in these gaps)
- if enough tournaments are won and your guild places itself as a strong force in the community, you can get placed into a high level tournament (I guess I am literally describing a world tournament, but hey). If you win that you must get some super exclusive prize I feel. I don’t know what that would be, DECA would probably decide, but it would be cool.
If you have any more ideas for rewards, please share them. I feel that there is a lot of potential here.
Final Note:
Thank you so much to those that are passionate and interested enough in this project that you read this far.
It is important to know that I do NOT expect much progress to be made with this idea for a while. I know that DECA is up to their waist in major projects (thank you DECA), but I heard that a “back burner” project is to revamp the Arena game mode on their discord server. I wanted to get ahead and get this idea out there, so that if they do decide to revamp the Arena game mode, this could be a completed (or at least well done) post/project that included sprites, maps, tables, rewards, mechanics, interfaces, etc.
I am going to keep working on this idea in my free time (although this will prove difficult for the next few months because college applications and all). I encourage anyone and everyone that read this far to add their own ideas to this post, make your own sprites, be creative. This is not something I want to be a solo project. I want the community to pitch in and help, change my ideas around, tinker with enemy tables and spawn rates yourself. I am reaching out my hand, because the only thing I want is for this idea to be liked and agreed upon by the community so that DECA may one day begin the process of coding this.
Again, thank you.
TL;DR:
I want to incorporate a competitive Arena game mode that focuses on PvE and boss fighting. I have no idea how to concisely put this, but here is my attempt:
- PvE, fight enemies to stop the other team’s payload from reaching the boss
- once you reach the boss, kill it first to win the game.
Honestly, if you are interested in just the overarching game and not the small things, read the Payload Phase section only, it covers most of everything for the large ideas in this game mode I believe.
I will try adding more stuff here in my next edit to this post, but for now I am super tired and need to work on school stuffs.
Edits and Additions
None so far…
Ramble I didn’t know where else to put, gonna fix this later but I wanna sleep right now
Thinking about changing the token system. Maybe there should be a bank instead of tokens held on each person. Then, one person can coordinate when to send in waves of enemies, also deciding the tier of that wave and how many waves. Maybe the more tokens you hold in your bank, the faster your drill works as well. Gives that risk vs reward idea this game mode goes after