New Featured Game Mode Concept:
The Harrowing has come once again. The Wraiths' hungry howls can be heard under the full moon on Summoners' Rift. But this year, the real danger is on the Crystal Scar, where a strange malady has befallen the area's summoners. Slowly, as the full moon reaches its peak, ten of them rise from their hospital beds and begin their summoning rituals.
And on the Crystal Scar, ten champions rise, consumed by moon madness like their summoners.
Thirsting for blood.
It may be a little too late to finish this mode by the Harrowing, but I thought I'd post the idea up anyways.
This idea is a new twist on a FFA/multi-team Featured Game mode, using the existing Crystal Scar map with some modifications. It's designed to work in either a 5 player free for all or in 5 teams of 2 players each, with the last player or last team standing being the winners.
The key mechanic of this mode is that when you die, you don't respawn until the champion who kills you dies. This system doesn't have the problems of a traditional "last man standing" FFA because there's no incentive to camp in a corner. In the 1 player per team variant, for example, you must kill every other player at least once without dying in order to win.
At the beginning of the match, players start at level 6 with ~2500 gold (number can be adjusted as needed) and have 1:00 to buy items and level their skills. To prevent the game from snowballing too hard in favor of the first guy to get a kill, kills give no gold bonus; instead, they grant you however much XP you would require to go up one level. Additionally, you gain heavily increased gold per second, but cannot purchase items unless you are dead. Following the first wave of kills, whenever a player respawns when his original killer was killed, his opponent's level advantage will be (hopefully) balanced out by the respawner's item advantage.
In terms of the map, the entire Crystal Scar map is playable minus the normal spawn points, which are walled off. Towers and the Storm Shield cannot be captured, and Fog of War is in effect the same way it usually is on the Scar (where the outer rim and Storm Shield area are always visible and everything else is Fog of War). There are no dedicated spawn points other then the starting spawns; if you die and your killer is later killed, you respawn in the same place you died with whatever items you bought in the interim.
Duo Variation
So, the previous variation is already a barrel of laughs, right? People are running around killing each other, leveling up, and then getting killed by the next guy to turn the corner. Unfortunately, a few champions don't have a good time in this game mode:
That's no problem! Luckily for all of us, League can handle 10 players at once, and the Crystal Scar has 5 spawn points!
In Duo play, there are 5 teams of 2 players each instead of 5 individuals. All of the above mechanics and map/rule changes apply. Additionally, Assists now grant half a level's worth of XP (from whatever level you're at), and the game is won by the first team to kill all 8 opposing players (they don't need to kill each other).
TL;DR
- Crystal Scar (the Dominion map) with the normal spawn points walled off
- No capture events or minions
- 5 player FFA OR 2v2v2v2v2
- Turrets are used for spawns
- Kills grant 0 gold but automatically level up the killer
- Assists give a player half a level's worth of XP
- Quadrupled passive gold generation, items can only be bought while dead
- In FFA, first player to kill all other players in 1 life wins
- In Duo, first player to kill all other teams without both players being simultaneously dead wins
Please tell me what you think and if you see any potential problems, and I'll try to address them.
