Asuraball Reimagined: Sandbox Sports

So, a new Beetle Racing League video just came out.

Every time that happens it reminds me both of how awesome it is and how painful it is. Awesome in its own right, what a creative use of existing mechanics and how nice to see it supported with small means. Painful because it reminds you of all those players that used to be involved with PvP events or how much less or less precise attention the PvP modes get overall. It also reminds us of all the nice creative things available in the Guild Hall.

That got me thinking. The obstacles in the Guild Hall. The Guild Hall Arena and how little it is used because it has PvP flagging with PvE physics and skill-splits. How the developers have mentioned that changing that isn't feasible due to the required time and resources. So with that mismatch of PvP and PvE, what can you do with that?

• Well, tonics and costumes only available in PvE
• The recent PvP skill-splits of damage and CC
• The three-way flagging system
• The obstacles available even in the GHA

All they would really need to spend heavy-asset development on would be to change the size (and shape) of the Arena. That may take some work but it isn't bound to be as troublesome as changing both the Arena and its physics or re-rolling all skill-splitting so the Arena becomes conducive to PvP. All the players need in the PvE physics is the obstacles to create crude rinks, pitches, courts and the like.

Everything else can simply be done through different tonics/costumes and their skill bars if the Arena is large enough the players themselves can create different fields of different sizes for different sports and frame them with obstacles.

The tonics could be different for different sports (hockey, football, tennis etc.) or different roles (goalkeepers, forwards etc.). Forwards could have single-target CC of different reach, Goalkeepers could have Lines of warding and more AoE cleave CC to make sure people wouldn't just pile on in the blue paint. Tennis could have different combinations of range and elevation to create tactics over a midfield obstacle serving as a net (lobs, chips, smashes etc.). Hockey could have more cleave and damage than football to recreate more use of "tackle" and downstate or injuries, etc.

Most intricates wouldn't need to be designed or coded. It is in the Guild Hall, players can create rulesets and police that themselves: They could referee when a tennis ball is deemed dead or how far from the goal a goalkeeper would be allowed to stray. That would make balance far less sensitive because the player events can decide on their own rules and combinations. What tonics are allowed where and how many of each.

The tonics could even be sold in the gemstore for monetization: Buy a new tonic, get access to a new sport. Even though I think it would be a bad idea to have too large of a barrier of entry, but they could easily be sold at LW episode rates or something. The Asuraball roots of it reminds me of Bloodbowl and that opens up a whole world of collections and different rulesets for players to apply at will over a longer perspective of time. It could easily just start with a simple 2-tonic hockey kit and then evolve into more- and more complex sports over time by simply adding more collectible tonics with different skill bars.

I think by monetizing it (as you noted above), something like that might be done.

Though despite being requested to make it bigger, really since it was introduced, nothing has changed.