Mystery Portal Discussion/Ideas

The Mystery Portal has been a welcome addition since it was added in GW2, with a few bumps along the way admittedly. While the current situation in GW2 is not what it could be with the more exciting modes not available and BfN’s not being any better, the original idea and implementation are great and I’d like to discuss how to make it work for the next game and some ideas I have for new modes that would be in the hall in our personal neighborhoods, and to discuss the current and older ones.

Current/Past game modes:

• Capture the Taco (or Taco Bandits): Would be made into a regular game mode and in the regular portal.
• Cats vs. Dinos: This mode wasn’t the most popular and the main reason people ask about it now is for the achievements they are missing in GW2. I’d not mind it coming back, but they’d have to spice it up a bit. Add more maps, better rewards, and so on.
• Soil Survivors: Like capture the taco, this mode would become a regular game mode in the regular portal.
• Get off my lawnathon: I don’t find these particularly exciting and I’d like the mystery portal to really shake things up more than these do.
• Boss Turf Takeover: This has potential but it ended up being a mess as players fight even their own teammates to get the boss for the challenges in BfN. This could work, but it would have to be reworked. There have been suggestions of making it so a boss spawns to help the losing team, bosses spawn for both teams-perhaps once per point to help out, or some other ideas.
• Boss Hunt: is a regular PvE mode that players can engage in via the PvE portal system I mention elsewhere. It’s a great addition and mode in GW2 and it needs to come back!
• Rando’s stuff: I actually don’t mind being a random character but many don’t like it from what I’ve seen. Rando Ops in Bfn generally saw people jumping off cliffs till they got the character they wanted, especially with character challenges to do (although I would make challenges/quests more generic and less specific to avoid that in the first place).
• Back-up in arms: Where you can only play support classes would not return as the class categories would be removed and limiting options doesn’t make the portals all that enticing.
• Battle Arena: I hadn’t put this in my multiplayer portal idea. It’s a decent game mode that could be a normal one, or perhaps only used here in the mystery portal. If it remains at 4v4 it would need its own slot in the regular multiplayer portal if it was a permanent mode, or it could be left just here in the mystery portal. It would need more than one map, but I really do enjoy this mode so one way or the other, it would be great to have again.
• Boss Team Vanquish: This could work and I actually did like this mode. With bosses counting as 3 vanquishes and teams working to protect their own or vanquish the enemy, it added a new dynamic to the game mode. It also spawned bosses for the team based on how well the enemy team was doing so worked better than the TT version.
• Collision Course: This one just doesn’t feel that good to play and I’m sure most people that I saw posting about it aren’t fans. Spicing up regular modes is good but limiting our choices just feels like the mode is less interesting rather than more.
• Cool Explosions Only: Gnome Bomb with restrictions rather than twists to the mode. Not very exciting and again, limited options makes the mode less fun instead of more.
• Double Trouble: Vanquish Confirmed with all damage doubled. While I’m indifferent to it, it at least doesn’t take choices away and could stay, although just doubling damage isn’t all that interesting.
• Garden Warfare: Gnome bomb with only the original 8 classes available. Since BfN lacks variants, this mode is another that just never felt great as the limitation is extreme here. And again, I feel that restrictions to a game mode make it less interesting and the mystery portal should be about fun and strange ways to play.
• Harm, Help, Hinder: Vanquish Confirmed with class limitations again. BfN has a lot of these and none are exactly awe inspiring.
• Lunchtime at the Lab: A GW2/BfN event that is team vanquish but with only Scientists and Chompers. While amusing, it’s a mess, and the actual game mode is just regular old TV, but you can only play 1 character per side. With BfN’s lack of variants it’s actually less fun than the GW2 version as well.
• My turf, my rules: Regular Turf Takeover with only 4 characters to choose from (2 per side). BfN has an awful lot of these and none are all that enjoyable.
• Oops! Too many players: Team Vanquish in the Funderdome. While having a regular mode in a normal map, albeit a different mode, doesn’t sound any better than some of the other modes in BfN, it’s actually quite fun as the map is very tight with larger teams, and plays really fast. Having other versions of the Funderdome (or next game idea for BA maps), would help, but this one was a surprise hit for me.
• Power Team Vanquish: Not a bad mode really. It adds a wrinkle to the most basic game mode. Didn’t play it much in BfN, but the idea of changing things up like this is cool. Maybe not make the person with the dog invincible but instead give them extra health, but I like portal modes that can use regular modes with a little spice.
• Space Nuts: Suburbination with only the 2 team characters. Not a fan of this one. I do love Space Cadet and Acorn and they are a kind of mirror of each other, but this mode never worked well.
• Suburbination Isolation: A kind of king of the hill mode. I actually had thought of something like this becoming a permanent mode. I recall this mode getting a lot of flak, but I didn’t mind it.
• The Reinforcements: Team Vanquish with only the original 6 new characters of BfN available. Tolerable but another limited mode, I don’t think it would be missed if we let it go.
• Up-close and impersonal: Snipers and brawlers only in regular team vanquish. Another mode that is just not all that interesting and can be cut.
• Battle of Accuracy: Team vanquish with only snipers. Not a fan of the idea and its very limited.
• License to Vanquish:  Camo Rangers and Agent Peas only in suburbination. Another mode that is too limited.
• Serve and Volley: While super limited as you can only as Chomp Things or Tennis Stars, the no overheat and crazy knockback do make it a bit more enjoyable than first glance would lead you to think. Better than expected but not amazing.
• Tactical team up: Healers and big characters only and everyone explodes when vanquished. I actually really like simply explode mode, as it’s fun to get in an opponent’s face and dare them to shoot you! With it being gnome bomb, you can get some very up fighting too. Teams are a bit too limited, but otherwise I rather enjoy it.
• To Heal or not to heal: I like this one I admit. While it cuts out the main healers on each side, the fact that you always heal nearby teammates and do more damage as you’re wounded adds a great decision-making routine to your tactics while playing team vanquish. Should you hang out by friends for mutual support, or separate to really clobber the enemy when you’re wounded? Good stuff!

Many of these could have further randomizers to spice them up, but I admit that adding super speed happened a bit too often, as it could really make matches a mess. Also, when Scaredy Shrooms had infinite ammo in some TT portals, like that Imp vs. Corn one, that was insane!

For new modes, I’d prefer things that were less just things like Team Vanquish with only 2 characters, and other stuff like that. I’d like to see brand new ways to play or more stuff like Suburbunation Isolation that take and existing mode but add some new twists.

So, without further ado, here is my first new mystery portal mode idea (feel free to post yours, and I’ll add to this in future most likely):

Vs Ops: “Uh oh! Looks like Crazy Dave and Doctor Zomboss had the same idea and placed a graveyard and a garden too close together! Wacky hijinks are sure to occur!”

Using the normal non-TT maps (ex: Chomp Town, Sandy Sands, Ruiny Ruins): A garden and a graveyard are placed far enough apart and with intervening terrain so they can’t see each other. Each team of 4 (zombies and plants) are trying to defend their objective while attacking their opponent’s, all while 5 waves of AI of each side attacks the other, with a special 3rd wave and bosses at the 5th, both of which would be mirrored so both sides have equivalent challenge and opportunity! Players can play how they like; they can decide whether to hang back and defend, attack the enemy, or a mix, all while dealing with hostile and friendly AI.

If one team has their garden/graveyard reduced to zero health, the other side wins immediately. Otherwise, the game ends when the last AI of the 5th wave is defeated or a timer expires (the timer is so people can’t cheese the last wave to mess up the scores), and then the final score is tallied, with the higher score winning. The score would be based on how much health your garden/graveyard has left, and how many times enemy players have been vanquished-you can revive teammates but not AI, and could use self-revives and team-retries if your garden/graveyard was still alive, but of course being vanquished that much would give a lot of points to the other team!

I wanted to bring back the 5 wave version of Ops from BfN but with a twist. I vastly prefer the regular 10 waves plus evacuation model from GW and GW2, but wanted something different and hopefully fun for a new portal mode and it needed to be faster so felt like this is a good fit. I felt that having Vs. be 10 waves and with evacuation might be too long for such a mode, but the BfN 5 wave format could fit very well and this was the perfect opportunity to bring it back, albeit in a limited fashion.