Introduction
I have an idea which is either completely ridiculous or maybe actually interesting.
Prove me wrong, but there are two constant demands from LE players: a pet system and PvP elements. So how about we smash them together into one twisted abomination?
LE already has quite a lot of mobs and biomes that get mixed once a player moves into the Twisted Dream system. We have echo chains, arenas, and even insertable custom echoes now. Each mob—from trash to elites and bosses—has a stat table in the database that scales with corruption. More challenge means more rewards. What if we let players interact with this system and with other players by allowing them to customize one mob per character, and then let other players fight hordes of these min-maxed, buffed Nightmares to challenge each other?
The idea
Each mob has a certain tiny chance to drop a Chained Nightmare copy of itself, with slightly altered base stats—similar to base rolls and affixes on items.
Activating a Chained Nightmare allows the character to “bind” the Nightmare to themselves. Once bound, Nightmares can drop special runes that allow you to roll modifiers for that Nightmare in the form of buffs. These could simply increase or decrease stats, or, if expanded further, add or modify abilities and affinities (similar to how we modify skill damage).
Players can then enter Twisted Dreams or arenas that spawn these tweaked Nightmares, scaled with corruption, and earn tokens to further tweak their own creations. There could also be chests that drop items one corruption tier higher, since this type of encounter would generally be more challenging.
Chained Nightmares can drop from trash, elites, or even mini-bosses, but the higher the tier, the fewer bonuses they have—and the lower the chance that your Nightmare will spawn for other players.
The fun part
Your Nightmares compete with each other by damaging or killing players, tracked on a rating table. The idea is that the more optimized you are and the higher corruption you push, the better rolls you can get for the “pocket Nightmare” you unleash on other players. But if other players succeed, they get a chance to push corruption further and earn better rewards from higher tiers.
This allows players to work on their own builds while indirectly challenging other players at the same time. It also lets you constantly track how successful your Nightmare build is—players killed, damage dealt, number of times it spawns, success rate, and whether your Nightmare “revenged” you by killing the owner of a Nightmare that previously defeated you. We could even introduce separate leagues for different categories, such as trash Nightmares, elite Nightmares, and boss Nightmares, each with their own rankings and balance considerations.
I’m not sure whether players should get a kill-cam when their Nightmare succeeds, but revenge kills could be insanely fun. It would be especially satisfying to see your creation take down someone who previously beat you. And of course, downing an EHG employee or a popular streamer would be hilarious (yes, I’m talking about Aaron).
Core Mechanics:
- Chained Nightmares:
- Every mob (trash, elite, or mini-boss) has a chance to drop a Chained Nightmare, representing monster itself.
- Chained Nightmares have slightly randomized stats, similar to item base rolls and affixes. May be even with crafting potential.
- Binding & Customization:
- Activating a Chained Nightmare allows the player to “bind” the Nightmare to themselves.
- Bound Nightmares can be further customized using special runes that roll buffs or modify abilities and affinities. Or may be it can be special idols-like items that player equips or may be both.
- Modifiers can increase/decrease stats, add new skills, or alter existing ones (Just like new item corruption mechanics)
- Twisted Dream Echo Integration:
- Players can enter Twisted Dreams Echoes with their customized Nightmares.
- Nightmare difficulty scales with corruption.
- Chests may drop items one corruption tier above to reward the increased challenge.
- Asynchronous PvP Loop:
- Your customized Nightmares appear in other players’ Twisted Dreams trash as groups, elites in small groups and solo-minibosses, tracked via a performance dashboard:
- Players killed
- Damage dealt
- Success rate of encounters
- Number of times spawned
- Whether your Nightmare “revenged” you by killing the owner of a Nightmare that previously defeated you
- (?) Questionably, players can attempt “revenge kills” against Nightmares that previously defeated them or your Nightmare can revenge on player whose creation took a player down.
*5. Leagues & Rankings: - Separate leaderboards for common, elite, and boss Nightmares.
- Encourages competition and fosters meta builds for each category.
Final thoughts
I have both pros and cons for this kind of addition to the game, but this is just a raw idea. I’m not a developer, so there may be hidden problems, but I tried not to create entirely new mechanics and instead build concept on existing systems.
Basically, the player creates a custom buffed monster that can spawn in other players’ echoes, and then tracks its performance with those buffs—table against table. That’s it.
Will it be server-heavy or not? Will it break the game or just be lame? Can it be a new faction? No idea. Here it is in its current form.