Agentred wrote:We are considering adding some twists, any ideas would be awesome.
Just brainstorming here, in the hope that there may be a few good ideas among the crap:
1) In matches with lots of spectators, give the spectators snowballs.
2) Add trapdoors which can be activated by switches or buttons. Place lava or a long drop below the trapdoors. The activators can be either spread throughout the arena for strategic use by combatants, or placed just outside of it so that a tournament official (i.e. you) can open and close them at regular intervals.
3) Add some vertical elements to the arenas to make for a king of the hill situation. Combatants rush in to try to claim the high ground, and potentially have an advantage over the competition if they prove capable of holding it. For extra fun, equip combatants with knockback swords and/or bows.
4) Boat-based combat. Place the arena in completely open ocean, in open ocean with set boundaries to keep the battle in one place, or in a water area with obstacles in it. Equip all combatants with bows. Note that bows can destroy boats; if an opponent's boat is destroyed, their movement is restricted to relatively slow swimming, which makes them an easier target.
5) Minecart-based combat. I'm imagining this as a sort of joust, with players starting on opposite ends of two adjacent parallel tracks. The tracks could be placed immediately adjacent to one another, in which case the combat would be sword-based. Alternatively, one or two spaces could be put in between to allow for bow-based combat. Fences (which can be shot over but not jumped over) could be placed along the median strip in the bow-based combat idea, to force fighting from a distance rather than leaving the minecarts to chase each other on foot.
6) Add dispensers with fire charges and/or arrows that can be activated by buttons within the arena. In the case of fire charges, the floor of the arena could be made of netherrack.
7) Gradually shrinking arena. Put the arena in the sky (high enough so that falling would be fatal) and make it covered in sand on top of a single layer of some other material. Pistons either below or next to the arena could pull out the bottom material, causing the sand to fall and the arena to shrink. This could be controlled by a tournament official, and could be done on a schedule (e.g. once per minute until the match ends).
8) Spleef. Only weapons: shovels and snowballs.
9) Maze of glass, so combatants can see but not necessarily reach each other. Additional possibility: combatants start with no supplies, but a number of chests (each containing a small amount of food and a weapon of varying strength) can be found throughout the maze [this would require the combatants to have realm access, so there would have to be some rule that breaking the glass is a DQ condition].
10) Combat occurs in the nether. Spectators may attack combatants... or vice versa.
11) Make a scavenger hunt of sorts. Similar to the glass maze in that combatants start without equipment but can find supplies and weapons in chests throughout the arena. Only in this case, the arena is all of Spawn City. Combatants start on opposite sides of the city, and supply-distributing volunteers give their stash to whichever combatant finds them first. Combatants could be told which buildings the supplies will be located in immediately before the match starts (i.e. not enough time to look it up on the forums) so those with better knowledge of major landmarks may be able to gather supplies more quickly. To centralize the combat a bit more, designate one place or coordinate where the combat is intended to occur... though the combatants can fight each other before going there, the first one to arrive is locked inside (i.e. no more supply gathering) but is given a bonus in the form of a powerful potion or weapon; players must balance the need to find adequate supplies with the need to get to the arena first.
12) Give the combatants ender pearls. It can be valuable to quickly escape from a losing battle, or to charge in to attack an unprepared opponent, or even just to flank the enemy in the middle of the battle. But are these tactical advantages worth 25% of your health bar?
13) Pigs. Saddles. Leaving your pig is an instant disqualification... which means the other player's pig is a valuable target.
The Greymarch has ended.
Keep it simple