I didn’t know whether to put this in pt or ideas, so move if it needs to be somewhere else.
So, I think exaltation really is a good direction for RotMG, and while yes I made fun of several of the complainers in the main thread, I still don’t believe it’s perfect. The simply doing 150 dungeons to get the stat boost feels dull and a little rushed, so I though up a new system called trials.
Essentially they are permanently open dungeon portals found in a new room that is accessible from the vault by 8/8 characters, that is, the trial hall. Now even though the dungeons are always open, there is a fame cost to enter, not too much, however. The trial hall would have 3 tiers: stat tier, equipment tier, and class tier, which are the different exaltations. Once every trial has been completed, they can be redone for free without risk of death.
Tier 1: Stat tier
This would be a circle room with 8 dungeon portals, each portal has 0/10 and a stat’s name under it. Whenever you complete a trial, the number goes up by 1. Whenever you hit 10, you exalt that stat by 1 (up to 5) and it restarts to 0 with the portal increasing tier. The fame cost to enter would be X*100, where x is whatever tier that portal is, up to 500. The dungeon portal would be different for each tier, being a glands dungeon for t1, and an endgame dungeon for t5 (never O3), the dungeons would drop no loot or fame. The trials are as listed:
Speed Trial:
Dungeon change: boss is already dead
Challenge: Rush to the boss room and enter the exit portal before time runs out
Vit or Def trial (both are identical challenges, just different dungeons):
Dungeon change: bullets do 20% more damage (vit trial) or bullets move 25% faster but do 10% less damage (def trial)
Challenge: a certain time will be listed, whenever the dungeon is completed, your total time in-combat must be less than the listed time
Atk or Dex trial
Dungeon change: the dungeon is only a boss room and the boss has 25% more health, the boss now occasionally lobs a volley of weakening (Dex trial) or dazing (Atk trial) bombs that do no damage.
Challenge: kill the boss before the time limit runs out
Wis or Mana trials
Dungeon change: MP no longer regens and mheal doesn’t work (not even consumables), mana given by equipment is doubled (mana trial), ability cost is halved (mana trial) or reduced by an amount equal to your wisdom with a minimum of 15 (wis trial), a simple wismod is added to every ability that doesn’t have one (abilities that deal damage increase damage by 1:1 for every wis above 40, abilities that have a duration have the time increased by 1 second for every 10 wis above 40), dungeons generate linearly with an extra 3 rooms between spawn and boss and without deadends (like a spider cave)
Challenge: complete dungeon
Life trial
Dungeon change: HP no longer regens and heal doesn’t work (except through consumables, tomes and skulls do area damage in a nearby radius equal to the heal and paladins and priests inflict DoT to enemies instead of healing to allies to compensate), life given by equipment is doubled, defence given by equipment is halved, dungeons generate linearly with an extra 3 rooms between spawn and boss and without deadends (like a spider cave)
Challenge: complete dungeon
Those are the 8 separate stat trials, and I admit, life, wis, and mana are a little complicated, but that was what I could think of. The trials are designed to take more skill than dedication (though still a lot of dedication) and be aware, you can still die in the trials, though you won’t lose progress. Each one is designed to make specifically the stat in question more attractive to focus than the other 7, by increases your limited ability uses in mana or wis, by requiring rushing in spd, and so on. Of course, there are still more trials to be thought of (remember these aren’t complete, set in stone ideas, just a suggestion with an idea of what it might look like)
Trial hall tier 2: Equipment trials
These ones will be much harder. Tier 2 of the hall would be unlocked for a class when they finish the all the stat trials, and even then only the ability trial will be initially available (weapon unlocks after all of that weapon type is done, armor unlocks after all of that armor type, and ring unlocks after all of the classes have finished the stat trials)
The equipment trials will have 5 tiers as well (8 for rings), with the first 3 tiers costs 750 fame per attempt (all 8 tiers for rings) and the last 2 tiers costing 1500 fame per attempt (a lot I know, rings never cost 1500). The equipment trials will happen in the arena, with 5 waves per trial. Equipment trials are petless.
Ability trial (swarm survival)
When you enter the ability trial your weapons, armors, and rings stop functioning and provide 0 stats, you only get your ability.
The waves will be very specialized for every class to complement (i.e. a lot of melee chase enemies against archer and huntress) and abuse (i.e. enemies that attack when no one is around against rogues) each classes strengths and weaknesses. Each wave has a 90 second timer when it starts, and when timer hits 0, all enemies still alive immediately die, so it’s not about killing the enemies as much as it is about avoiding damage and surviving. On the last wave of every ability trial, an event boss spawns in the center of the arena (2 for tier 3 and 4, 3 for tier 5) alongside a swarm of enemies, the event boss will take DoT equal to 1/90th of it’s HP every turn (so that it shifts through phases, this does mean Ava could have all 4 special phases up at once since the damage ignores invulnerability, also some special notes, beehemoths spawn, and the broken hive, but never the living hive, and the beeheemoths instead take 1/30th a second, but only 1 at a time, so as to activate all phases, statues take 1/45th a second, but only one at time, hermit is always active, even if tentacles are alive). After the event boss dies, the trial is over
Weapon trial (combat)
Works like normal arena, but you get no pet, armor, ring, or ability, and the 5 waves are longer. You fight swarms of enemies and on the 5th wave you fight X number of stone guardians (where x is tier, there is now a green and yellow guardian, sword phase activates whenever only half of the guardians rounded down are alive) or fight O1 for tier 5, both fights still have basic enemies spawn alongside the boss fight. Once O1 or the guardians are dead, the trial is completed
Armor trial (boss survival)
This is the simplest one, there is a dungeon boss, he/she takes 1/300th damage every second, you only have armor, survive, on tiers 4 and 5 there are 2 bosses that take damage simultaneously.
Ring trial (greater stat trials)
The ring trial has 8 tiers, each just as difficult as the other, each tier is a stat, listed at the trial entrance, and has the same rules as the corresponding stat trials EXCEPT:
No matter what weapon you hold, it functions like a T14 of the same weapon type.
You don’t have an ability except for mana/wis where all abilities function as a T7 of the same ability type.
You don’t have armor.
The ring you wear can be any ring, the only restriction is that must increase the stat listed for the trial, if it doesn’t increase that stat, it acts as a T6 ring for that stat. (i.e. in the dex trial, a crown will still give 110 hp, 6 dex, 6 atk, but a Sourcestone will have the same stats as a T6 dex ring)
Those are the T2 trial hall trials, once a class has completed all of those, they gain access to the class trial
The class trial has only 1 tier
When you enter, you will appear in an arena with several obstacles in it themed in the appearance of a specific dungeon:
Cult: Necromancer
Void: Archer
Lost Halls: Paladin
Haunted Cemetary: Rogue
Oryx’s Sanctuary: Bard
Ocean Trench: Huntress
Magic Woods: Mystic
Wine Cellar: Knight
Oryx’s Castle: Priest
Shatters: Wizard
Mad Lab: Sorcerer
LoD: Warrior
Parasite Chambers: Assassin
Crystal Caverns: Ninja
Mountain Temple: Samurai
Davy Jones’ Locker: Trickster
On the other side of the arena is a default class skin of your class. 2 white bags over it appear pouring a (here’s where a little rng is involved) random white bag weapon and ability of the corresponding types onto the skin, which promptly turns into a solid black silhouette with red eyes. It has 30,000 hp (not much), defense equal to the classes base defense + top tier armor, and move speed equal to the classes base move speed. It has 2 attacks, one is an attack identical in damage and rate of fire to using a top tier weapon at 8/8 and the other attack is identical to using the white bag weapon it got at 8/8 making it a very lethal enemy. The attacks it uses have a 75% chance of being movement tracking and a 25% chance of attacking present position (to mix up the shot pattern and make it hard to deal with. It will chase you and try to stay the ideal distance to use the weapon (true range - 1 tile = distance it tries to stay from you, minimum of 0.5 tiles away). At 20,000 hp it begins to use it’s ability (50% chance of it using tiered, 50% of it using the white bag ut) every 5 seconds. The first time you ever defeat, it has a 100% chance of dropping the white bag items it had with a mystery skin for the corresponding class (it will never drop anything again). After defeating the class trial, you exalt to unlock a…
permanent passive ability.
A special secondary passive ability for that class permanently activates to make the classes even more unique, I don’t have ideas for every class, but an example would be that a fully exalted paladin’s passive ability might be: Vit and Wis regeneration is 25% more effective and is not slowed down by in-combat, or rogue’s could possibly be: As long as another player is within an enemies range, it will target the NEXT CLOSEST player instead of you, treating you as if you were invisible. If however, you are the only player within range, it will target you as normal.
Now this isn’t a fully complete suggestion, just a concept of something besides get sb on MBC 150 times to get +5 def, because that just feels low effort.
If you read all the way, sorry for the wall of text. Your opinions on this suggestion would be greatly appreciated.