We all know how PvE has three difficulty scales, and hopefully most of us know how incredibly unbalanced (at least tier three) lockdown is. I suggest we create a similar difficulty system for lockdown.
There are three modes: normal, advanced, and elite.
Normal mode is the lockdown we all dream of - UV's are gone, damage is lowered all around, and it's basically a fair game that welcomes newcomers, and lets them try out loadouts and tactics. Perhaps even allowing a player to create a loadout in the spawn room (yes, that sounds terrible, but we're promoting learning for this difficulty). Energy revives are removed, and the respawn timer speeds up for teams that have players disconnect.
It costs 100 crowns to enter, and you receive 140 crowns if your team wins (with a similar scaling factor as the current lockdown has for players that leave).
Advanced mode is basically what we have now. Energy revives, UV's, standard damage, great stuff. Much like PvE's advanced mode, this is the same game as before in difficulty and payout.
Elite mode is where the game gets interesting. With a 400 crown entry fee, you already know this will be harder. Elite mode has all the perks of advanced mode, but adds monster families to player armor. Yes, your armor will put you into a monster family based upon your defenses and status resistances. More details on that after I cover the rest of elite mode. Defensive armors get an increased defense while offensive armors retain their current stats. Offensive armors are classified by having weapon or player bonuses separate from their defense.
Entry fee is 400 crowns and winning gives you 500 crowns back and 3 krogmo coins. Losing still only gives you one.
Now adding monster families to lockdown creates a complete shift in gameplay. Players are now weak and resistant to damage types, and should be wary of their armors. Having elemental defense classifies you as either a gremlin or a beast, and the statuses the armor resists acts as a factor as well. Curse, poison and shadow resistance would be linked to the undead class. Fire, shock and elemental resistance would fall under the gremlin class. If the player has no special defenses, then they are not classified as a monster family, and follows the same rules from advanced difficulty. Family bonuses would prove useful in PvP, and having a balanced arsenal becomes a necessity. Normal damage weapons would also find a very helpful niche.
Feel free to add to or refine my ideas further!
Iidesu way to integrate the difficulty system into Lockdown in a way that satisfies everyone. +1
Shikashi! I don't think the entry fee should differ based on difficulty, rather the payout should. This gives more incentive to play on higher difficulties, without being punishing right off the bat (that's what the actual difficulties is for, right?) Losing should give the same rewards on any difficulty though, so that people don't just "do elite" without actually being good just to get more krogmos. How about if Elite mode takes two Krogmos to enter? People who are playing Elite are often those who play Lockdown like crazy anyway, and probably have a tonne saved up. (Or you could have the krogmos "pool" like the crowns do, and people can "gamble" in more krogmos at the start of the match to increase the pool size)
Your payout system crown-wise is slightly off, don'tcha think? 100 to 140 is a 40% increase (70% left of your original crowns after one loss, one win), while 400 to 500 is only 20% (60% left of your original crowns after one loss, one win)