Dear Bungie, Iron Banner floats my boat. I enjoy the gear, the bounties, the challenge, and the "elite" mystique of it all. Unfortunately, this has been the only community event on Destiny for quite some time (over a year, it seems, since the single running of Queen's Wrath). Destiny is my favorite FPS (read: game) right now, but I have to admit that it has been getting a bit monotonous. I'm hoping that I can do my part in improving Destiny by offering you with a few serious, practical suggestions for new community events. The more events we come up with, the more events we can run, and the more of that "new game" excitement we can reinject into Destiny. It is my hope that you will seriously consider some of these. The first of these is detailed below. *** [u][b]TRIALS OF THE NINE[/b][/u] [b]Objective Statement:[/b] Xur, the Agent of the Nine, is the bearer of exotic weapons, armor, and engrams to the Guardians of the Tower. Trials of the Nine seeks to allow Destiny players an arena in which to make use of their hard-won exotics, more than one at a time. Trials of the Nine should be accessible to all guardians, via sliding level scale (more details below), but provides the greatest rewards to high-level guardians playing in challenging, high-level situations. [b][u]General[/u][/b] Trials of the Nine is a PvE event (fulfills Destiny's need for a PvE community event). Trials of the Nine is a directional, timed, completion-based game mode in which a fire team of up to 6 guardians lay waste to waves of enemies. Combat will take place in pre-existing, tactically interesting areas (read: areas with cover and verticality). Trials of the Nine IS NOT a survival mode. Trials of the Nine is scalable, both in terms of level and number of players; the possible rewards for completing a Trial of the Nine depend upon both (level and # of players). Trials of the Nine offers rewards with practical use: both equipment and non-equipment based. [b][u]Details[/u][/b] [i]Trials of the Nine is directional.[/i] In order to create interesting tactical situations against which a team of guardians must respond (read: producing the same hectic orders, calls, and adrenaline rushes as in a raid), the spawn points of enemies are directly opposite from the start point of the guardians. Enemies do not spawn behind guardians, nor to the side, but always in front. For each Trials of the Nine it will be necessary to introduce some amount of new enemy AI so that groups of enemies take advantage of the terrain present to gain position on guardians. To achieve this enemy units are coded into distinct "squads" with specific roles. Envision this: a pack of thralls will move to the edge of the arena and attempt to flank guardians by getting around to their side or rear, rather than running mindlessly forward to their deaths. Meanwhile, acolytes would move up the middle of the map to engage in typical combat as meat in the grinder, supported by a core of sword-bearing knights and an ogre. From a distance, from atop roofs perhaps, knights with hive boomers would provide artillery-like support. New enemy AI will take advantage of "formations" to produce singular tactical challenges with each new iteration of Trials of the Nine. [i]Trials of the Nine is timed... Trials of the Nine IS NOT a survival mode.[/i] In typical survival modes or modes where the objective is to kill every enemy, players are often allowed to sit back and camp at their leisure, pitching tents, making smores, and using their Icebreakers to pick off enemies one at a time. In Trials of the Nine, the pressure to perform, to advance, must ALWAYS be on the guardians. Enemy forces will take cover, will hold their position if tactically advantageous (read: holding flankers in position until guardians advance to a position where they can be taken in the side), will retreat to draw guardians into a trap, and will make camping generally painful for guardians. Still, in the completion-based mode (every enemy must be killed), some will still prefer to camp back and snipe all day. This IS NOT the point of Trials of the Nine. Trials of the Nine is your chance to match up against elite groups of enemies and prove your prowess. To this end, completion of each wave is timed and the rewards that guardians receive will be based upon their overall time of completion. Long time periods provide little or no rewards, while short time periods provide the greatest. This ensures that the pressure is on the guardians to constantly advance forward and vary their tactics in a race against the clock. There will be no wipe time. If you want to go through Trials of the Nine at a snail's pace, feel free, but know that you're highly unlikely to receive any rewards. [i]Trials of the Nine is completion-based.[/i] In Destiny there are currently a lot of areas/missions that you can simply sprint through without having to kill any or only very few of the enemies present. This will not be possible in Trials of the Nine. During each wave, guardians MUST kill EVERY enemy in order to advance to the next wave. This encourages guardians to gauge the strength of their foes and "sweep and clear" once enemy numbers have diminished to a certain level. Additionally, guardians will NOT be able to simply kill a single enemy in order to end the wave (as in missions like "Siege of the Warmind," where players must only kill The Might of Crota ogre in order to complete the mission). Rewards are not given for partial runs or for checkpoints as in raids. [i]Trials of the Nine is scalable.[/i] This is optional. If scalable play is not implemented then enemies in Trials of the Nine should be lvl 32, increasing to level 34 over 3 waves. Otherwise rewards should be dependent upon the levels and number of players: although some rewards will be included in the loot table at all levels and fire team sizes, others will be achievable only with a full 6-man team of level 32s. There are two ways in which the Trial can be scaled: A) by increasing the number of enemies or B) by increasing the health of the enemies [AKA increasing the number of majors]. Furthermore let's acknowledge that there will always be some "centerpiece" enemy of the wave. Whether this is some new iteration of Sardok, Raksis, or Phogoth I leave up to Bungie. But I do suggest that these centerpieces receive the bonuses normally received for "Kill the Target" public events (read: increased shield strength and reduced shield recharge time). [i]Trials of the Nine offers standard (loot) and non-standard rewards.[/i] Getting a new piece of gear is great, but for the hardcore Destiny addict who already has (nearly) every exotic, these rewards may sour over time. Let's give them something new! Exotic and legendary gear (also strange coins, ascendant materials) is still definitely on the menu, but rewards from Trials of the Nine will also include non-standard rewards. Here are a few ideas: 1. A one-time, consumable XP bonus. Can be transferred between characters. Enables the leveling of alt chars and new equipment. 2. A one-time, consumable rep bonus. Rep points are applicable to a player's faction of choice via a simple pop-up menu that appears upon use of the item. 3. A special emblem (you guys probably already thought of this. XD) 4. Special class items: in the case of the Hunter, how about a player-equippable adaptation of the Stranger's cloak? Or the cloak which appears in the well-known cover of the Destiny6 game. For Warlocks, how about a mark which encompasses the whole upper and fore-arm, igniting the 'lock's entire left arm in glorious light? And for Titans.... well have to admit I haven't any idea about that and Titan is what I main, rofl. [i]Trials of the Nine offers guardians an arena in which to fight the most difficult of enemies while wearing their most powerful equipment.[/i] Trials of the Nine, which will be very difficult (maybe even more so then raids, since it will be a test of pure prowess), softens the blow by allowing guardians a unique opportunity. Tired of only wearing one exotic at a time? When playing Trials of the Nine guardians are allowed to wear as many (read: all) of the exotics they own as they have long desired. This change of the norm will have to come with protections to prevent exploiting by fiendish players. 1) Guardians receive a 60 second grace period at the beginning of each Trial of the Nine in order to equip their exotics as they wish. 2) The game server records what gear each guardian was wearing when they connected to the server and forces them to equip that gear once more at the end of the Trial. In this way, we can hopefully prevent certain exploits that might arise. *** This is a short, if incomplete, description of the sort of PvE event I would like to see in Destiny. One major question remains: should guardians be able to run the Trial multiple times during the week and receive rewards? I say sure, but reduce the chance that they will receive high-level rewards (or any at all) with each successive run Bungie, please consider this, PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE. Yours truly, iBuilt