PvEvP Mode Idea - Head to Head Index + Sanctuary Onslaught with Disruption effects.

[PunJ0hn]

So yesterday I was feeling a bit nostalgic for Maple Story and remembered one of the coolest game modes from it. 

Monster Carnival.

This was a PvEvP mode where (iirc) 8 players were placed into a large map separated by a thick wall. The goal is to outlast and overwhelm your opponents (iirc). Enemies would spawn normally on each side, and when killed, would award points to that team. The players could cash in their team's points to inflict debuffs on the opposing team, spawn powerful enemies to fight the other team, or even buff up the monsters that are sent over to the opponents with power/defense/speed or even flood them with a short period of high spawn rate. 

This was such an incredible mode for a MMO that revolved around screen clearing nukes being the norm on players. Kills per second mattered for levelling and grinding drops in Maple Story. Sound familiar to a game we all come here to talk about? Yeah, that's Warframe.

But how could this be implemented into Warframe? How could DE save time on development and do this as cheaply as possible? Hopefully by using systems already implemented into the game.  Well I have a couple ideas, and disregard any numbers I throw out since this is all off the dome for me.

•  Ideally this would use the Index game mode as a base. This would be a single instance of 4 players, using the Sanctuary Onslaught level design, where tilesets are separated by a huge distance but being in the same chunk. This would leave the mode being a 2v2 battle. This is to remove full party comp shenanigans, and not stress the matchmaking sessions. I don't have experience with raids, but 8 players would be rough to host I imagine.
•  The goal would be to exhaust the opposing team's revives. Each team would be given a total of 4 revives which are shared between the two players. Or two revives per player.
•  Enemies would drop tokens on death, maybe every fifth or tenth enemy to keep things from being bogged down. Just like the index, your health, shield, and energy maximums would be lowered (instead of draining) to at most 50% of the max value at highest stress. Players would not get extra points for depositing more at once. 
• A console located on the tile set can be interacted with to bring up a menu to redeem points banked for various effects. This will be covered by a rift-like dome, protecting the player while inside it for a brief period of time, so as to not be deleted while fiddling with a menu but not long enough to abuse. Maybe 5-10 seconds.
•  Unlike Conclave as a whole, you bring your entire loadout and mods, without being locked down to conclave only mods. However gear items (including gyromag equipped archguns) are still disabled, so no pads or specters.

Essentially this would be head to head Sanctuary Onslaught + Index

The goal is to overwhelm your opponent through enemy numbers and afflictions while defending and bolstering yourself as best you can.

So what do we do with the points? Here's some ideas of things that could be implemented. Any purchased effect would be temporary unless otherwise noted. Some modifiers already exist in the game as seen in the disruption gamemode or arbitrations.

Small buffs to players

•  Increased power strength. Increased movement speed. Energy regeneration 10-20/s. Cast animation speed increased. Weapon power increase. Armor / Health / Shield + Regeneration increase.

 Strong buffs to players 

• Increased shield gating invulnerability time / Shield recharge delay time reduction. Adaptation to damage types starting at 50% and capping at 99%. Infinite energy. Cleanse all opponent inflicted debuffs (limit 2 / match). Gain one revive permanently (limit 1 / match).

Small buffs to allied enemies 

•   Amp up enemy armor / health / shields by 50% / 100% (note : enemies that spawn shield drones should not apply shields to those who do not have shields like Grineer). Two random status immunities. Enemy speed increased (nova m. prime effect). Increase enemy level by 3% (stacking+permanent).

Strong buff to allied enemies 

• Eximus Stronghold (all enemies are cleared immediately without dropping points and replaced by eximus units). Shields applied to all enemies with gating (over shields applied to those with shields naturally). Complete status immunity. Nullifier Rush. Spawn Amalgam Demolyst to track and explode on a random opponent (very expensive). Spawn 1-2 random element rank 5 liches (very expensive). Spawn Lephantis / Hemocyte (very expensive).

Small debuffs to opponents 

•  Reduced power strength. Reduced weapon strength. Slow sprint + parkour speed (cold proc without cold status). Increased energy consumption. Turn off any equipped arcanes. Turn off any current abilities running on opponents.

Strong debuffs to opponents 

•  Remove all current running buffs. Remove shield gating. Friendly fire enabled (rad proc without the status). Ability usage turned off. No mod mode, like Grendel missions. Kill enemy companions instantly (skipping bleedout state and regenerations) to remove vacuum effects or stat stick / buffs they give (very expensive).

Using these buffs and debuffs tactically to overwhelm your opponent and cripple them at a key moment would be the strategy. Maybe making the mobs harder to kill and slowing down their token gain could give you the advantage? 

The prompting behind this idea is mainly due to not having any goal in the game. Why do we try to get more powerful in this game? To try and get better mods? Rivens? Do we get stronger to just farm faster to... get stronger? Why not put that investment into a mode where you can test your kit AND skill against others?

Okay, but aside from clout and the shiny syandana, what would actually draw people to this mode, and the conclave in general? Simple. Give a token(s) for winning a match in this mode to turn into Teshin for evergreen rewards in addition to the Conclave standing. Simple rewards like Endo / Ayatan Statues and Kuva are always useful, or maybe even a fully built Forma (just spitballing here). Cosmetic items are a given, but Dojo decorations / Trophies alongside orbiter decorations would be a nice draw as well.

What I think is important about this whole idea is that it has very little NEW content that would need to be created. The stat changing system exists in disruption, token system from index (repurposed for arby revives too), and tileset map separation from Sanctuary Onslaught. 

Thank your attending my Tenno Talk.

(I posted it here since nobody looks at conclave or recoils anytime they see it)