So, the majority of Gambit gameplay revolves around one goal: bank 75 motes and kill your Primeval first. For the time I've spent in Gambit, this has started to become a bit bland. The ability to invade and stall the enemy team's progress towards this goal is a neat wildcard, but I think it can be taken a few steps further to allow for more varied gameplay strategies and outcomes beyond the repetitive meta strategies that have developed up to this point.
An idea I thought might be a good way to spice up the gameplay would be to give teams the ability to attain a variety of offensive and/or defensive buffs for themselves (both PvP and PvE related), things like:
- [b][u]double invasion[/u][/b] (allow two team mates to invade at the same time)
- [b][u]portal blocking[/u][/b] (block enemy portal for a time)
- [b][u]invader signal flare[/u][/b] (when invaded, a signal flare shoots into the sky above invader)
- [b][u]mote theft[/u][/b] (when invading, you can rob up to 15 motes from enemy's Primeval bank)
- [b][u]backup motes[/u][/b] (motes aren't lost if you die, only lasts for one death)
- [b][u]team overshield[/u][/b] (grants an overshield to the team)
- [b][u]Primeval bank defenses[/u][/b] (bank emits arc damage for a time when enemy is detected)
Those are just some of my initial ideas, though I'm sure Bungie or the community could come up with some even more creative things to implement.
To activate these buffs, you'd have to deposit your motes, not into the main Primeval bank, but a separate bank located somewhere else on the map. Depending on how many buffs you want to allow for a team, there may be several of these banks scattered about the map. Once the required threshold is met, the buff would be activated.
Overall, the idea here is to give teams more ways to play the game so that the strategy to quickly bank 75 and burn the boss isn't the only way to go about winning. With some of these buffs, a team that sticks to that strategy might seriously suffer from one that is splitting their efforts between banking 75 for the Primeval, and double invasions.
Additionally, I've tried to think of some tradeoffs for some of these potential buffs as well, something to discourage spamming of any one buff so that the main goal of banking 75 is still in fact the MAIN objective, and choosing NOT to work towards it comes with a cost.
For instance, with:
- [b][u]Double Invasion[/u][/b]: Two players can invade, but doing so also spawns 2 glowing enemies for the other team. The idea here is that if the two invaders wipe the other team, then they're able to catch back up a bit by killing those glowing enemies that are worth more motes. Alternately, if the invaders fail to do much killing, then they've just given the enemy team a potential mote advantage.
- [b][u]Portal Blocking[/u][/b]: Essentially blocks enemy invasions for a set time (maybe 15, 30, and 45 seconds or something like that, depending on the # of motes deposited at once). If an enemy portal is active when the buff is triggered, it'll be disabled and then return after the duration. The tradeoff here is that activating a portal block also triggers a blocker on your own Primeval bank (Phalanx, Knight, or Ogre, again depending on the motes deposited), so, again, not something you'll want to spam, but instead use strategically.
- [b][u]Invader Signal Flare[/u][/b]: Flare shoots into the sky, signaling general location of enemy invader, but the invader is now invisible to radar.
- [b][u]Mote Theft[/u][/b]: As an invader, you can steal up to 15 motes (however much you have room to carry) from enemy team's Primeval bank. However, this action takes 5-7 seconds to accomplish, and if you die, the motes you had aren't just lost, they are subtracted from your own Primeval bank. Enemy team is also given textual and audible cues when a robbery is taking place, so, an attempt at stealing motes without killing anyone first would be highly risky.
- [b][u]Backup Motes[/u][/b]: On your next death, any motes you were carrying are returned to you. If you die from an invader, you'll lose half. I honestly don't think this one needs a tradeoff aspect to it.
- [b][u]Team Overshield[/u][/b]: Grants your team an overshield that stays active until taken down by damage. This is another one I don't think needs a tradeoff.
- [b][u]Primeval Bank Defenses[/u][/b]: Bank is equipped with an arc energy wave emitter that triggers when a blocker or enemy invader is detected. Lasts 30 seconds once triggered. Also one I don't feel needs a tradeoff.
As you might have noticed, all the buffs that have some sort of direct effect on the enemy team (basically, the PvP-related buffs) have a tradeoff of some kind, but the ones that don't have much, if any direct effect on the enemy team (basically PvE-related), don't have tradeoffs, as they're fairly minor. All of them however, would have a limitation on the # of times they can be activated.
One thing that could be an issue with this overall idea of adding buffs and more objectives to Gambit is that, if people have more things to bank motes for, then the primary goal of banking 75 and killing the Primeval is going to take longer to get to, thereby extending the total time spent playing a single round. People don't want to spend too much time playing one match, and there are already plenty of complaints about how much people hate having to play a 3rd tiebreaker round, SO, with that said, I had a couple of ideas to help alleviate that potential issue:
1) A portion of motes banked towards buffs are also deposited to the main Primeval bank.
2) Reduce Primeval bank requirement from 75 to something like 50 or 60.
3) Limitation on not only the # of times each single buff can be activated, but also the TOTAL # of buffs that can be activated. So, for example, I listed 7 buffs above - we could set a limit of 2 activations on each buff, but a total limit of 7 activations (allowing for each one to be activated once, if desired).
4) All/combination of 1-3.
Anyway, I know that was a long post so that's all I have for now. If you've made it this far, I'd love to know your thoughts and/or your own ideas! Feel free to suggest tweaks to anything I've posted - I tried to come up with things I thought would be fair and reasonable but there may certainly be things I didn't consider that could cause problems. Thanks for any and all feedback!
[spoiler]Moderator edit: This thread has been moved to #Feedback forum so that other Destiny players can weigh in. [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/139533839/0/0] See Cozmo's thread here[/url] for more information about the #Feedback tag and its uses.
Feel free to private message the moderator who moved your post, link to topic for further clarification about why this topic was moved.[/spoiler]
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I would like to see some “relics” thrown into the mix. The Aegis, Vex Craniums, Hive Swords, Siva Charges.. all that fun stuff.