I’ve made three big, well thought out suggestions so far. Bounties are a revamp to Side Quests, Guilds are a revamp to PvP, and the 7 bosses an alternative for the First Ones. Now, the only major area left is the main map exploration. So let’s do this.
When I first suggested bounties, I framed them as the update that exploration needed. But, reading back, I see how limited they are. While they would add a lot to exploration, I still have a feeling that they would get metagamed to death, like side quests were in Hunter Island, with guides available and locations memorized. And that doesn’t really count as exploration. Thus, I have a few more ideas to make people actually have to explore in order to progress in certain fields.
Island legendaries
As of current, there is only one legendary available in the wild, and the few SE’s available are somewhat lackluster. So, adding more seems to make sense to me. These are split into three categories.
- Mainstay legendaries
There are one of these on each island, and their locations are randomized. This way, people would have to look around to find them. The central island would have an Earth legendary, the desert island would have fire, the tropical islands would have air, the frost island would have water, the Timber Island already has dark, and the cursed island would have holy. All of these would be about the same rarity as Noxar. You could find their general area using the rare monster flags. These should all be around C-D tier in general and/or pvp(depending on which one you catch) - Rare Legendaries
These would have set locations, but would be very rare. Like, as rare as the hatchlings and starters in Hunter Island. This means that, even if you looked up where they were, you would still have to do a lot of grinding to get them. These would be around C-B tier in the tier list - Event legendaries
These would be like rare legendaries, but only available under certain real life or in-game circumstances. For example, there could be one that is only available between midnight and one o’clock, some that can only be found on the Summer and Winter solstices, etc. Others might only be available after completing certain achievements or achieving certain rankings in events. Due to how absurdly rare these have the potential to be, these could be B-S tier on the tier list. I can see some of the rarest only being obtainable once, then never again, so adding some kind of system to balance out rng would be important.
These work because they would be hard to get. As such, they would work more as a fallback for unlucky people or a task for dedicated grinders than a reliable way to progress faster.
Dungeons
So, dungeons right now aren’t exactly interesting. Sure, the dungeon challenge is nice, but it is really just a prolonged series of increasingly difficult battles, with the whole dungeon thing being little more than a gimmick. So, I propose two other dungeons that could be more interesting.
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Normal dungeons
Before we go off the deep end, let’s look at normal dungeons for a moment. I propose that they would have more complex, maze-like designs, and have multiple floors with hidden prizes similar to friend chests. This would make them worth exploring for more than the occasional epic. -
Infinite dungeon
Like the dungeon challenge, but with no checkpoints or end, and a much more gradual difficulty curve. You just keep on going and see how far you get. The dungeons could be generated so that they would require strategy to try to solve while conserving you monsters’ hp as much as possible. There would obviously be exploits using infinite healing moves, but it’s an interesting concept regardless. You could get some kind of reward every 10 floors, like some de-aging fruit, and a golden egg at increasing intervals(say, N^2+3, where N is how many eggs you have already gotten from the infinite dungeons. So the first egg would be on floor 3, then floor 4, then 7, then 12, etc.). That way, it would start fast, but soon become incredibly slow. You wouldn’t get any repeat rewards, so if you got to level 100 and died, you would have to go all the way down to floor 103 before you got another egg, and floor 110 if you wanted another fruit. -
The Labyrinth
This is my personal favorite idea, period. An endless, procedurally generated maze. I can’t code, but I have some ideas for how the generation could work. Basically, you start in a small room with four exits. Pathways would be randomly generated branching outward, and rooms could be attached at random intervals. Each room would have four exits. Some of them would be connected to the the entrance indirectly, whereas some would only accessible via that room. You would have a minimap in the corner, so you would never accidentally double back or return to the start. The hallways would contain relatively weak monsters, and the rooms would contain stronger ones. However, monsters would get harder the further out you go. My absolute dream would be if the entire thing was based on some kind of seed, so that even though it was infinite, it would be the same for everyone every time, and we could actually try to map it out. The rooms would work from different presets, and each one would either contain a gauntlet(where you have to fight a battle to earn a small prize, like a gem, or the prizes from the friend chest), a boon(where you got something to help you progress through the labyrinth, such as a monster revive or heal, a stat boost, or some kind of special boost, like all of your monsters healing 25% of their health after each battle), or, finally, a room could contain a challenge(where you have to do something very specific and difficult to earn a huge prize or boon). Gauntlets would get more and more difficult each time you entered, so you couldn’t just use them to grind prizes forever. I have a lot more ideas, but this description must end eventually. Ask me if you want the full uncut version.
I like these idea because they not only update dungeons normally, making them a bit more interesting, but also add two challenges that could be both competitive(trying the go the deepest or the farthest), and cooperative(mapping out the Labyrinth, building the best teams, etc).
Secrets
This is a broad category for things that could be hidden across the map. They could be found in set locations, random locations, in dungeons, in the Labyrinth, in the infinite dungeon, in regular dungeons, after trainer battles, after catching a monster, in events(see event legendaries), etc. They could be friend chests, eggs, silver, or treasure chests, which contain a random combination of all of those. They could even be lore related, like getting some mysterious slip of paper after battling that archeologist on the Cursed Island. What matters is that people would be encouraged to explore every nook and cranny of the map to see what they can find.
Hidden Bosses
With all of this added exploration, it almost seems too easy. Anyone with a good team and a decent strategy could steamroll through the islands with no trouble and find all of the secrets that it holds. Or so it seems. Appearing in caves, random spots, set spots, the certain floors of the infinite dungeon, certain rooms in the labyrinth, and during certain events(see event legendaries for details), these would be very challenging. They could be high health monsters, skilled trainers, or some combination of the two. The important part is that they are challenging. For example, you could have four dragons(maybe the wyrms), each with 50000 hp, and a passive that makes it so that they cannot take more than 10% of their hp per attack. That idea obviously needs refining, but it is the kind of thing that I am trying to get at. Upon completion, these bosses would give you a golden egg. Bosses would only appear on random spots on the main map after you beat the island, so they won’t interfere if you are just trying to finish the story. This idea is only really interesting if the bosses are implemented alongside the other features. Otherwise, they wouldn’t really be anything other than a challenge for bored endgame players.
If nothing else, I hope that these give you an idea of what Neo monsters could have been, in some parallel dimension. These are some of my favorite ideas for Neo, and I hope to see them some day, in some game. To anyone who is interested, I have more in-depth descriptions for each of these ideas, as well as some idea which I didn’t mention at all, and I would be more than happy to share them with you.
lets hope its nothing too long so we would read it 