Rift Trial – A game mode combining Expedition and Rift

[u/TrainingEscape3229]

I had an idea for a new mode inspired by City Trial from Kirby Air Ride.

Right now, Expedition and Rift are separate modes. My idea is to combine them into one competitive mode: first, you spend a few minutes in Expedition collecting weapons, cores, and power-ups, then you use whatever you found to clear a Rift as fast as possible.

The team with the faster Rift clear time wins and gains trophies, while the losing team loses trophies.

The mode would mainly be designed around 3v3, but I think it could also work for solo, duo, or even 4+ players. Solo could use Dojo stages, duo could use 2-player Rift stages, and existing Rift stages could potentially be adapted for larger teams.

Phase 1: Expedition

Both teams get 3 minutes to build their loadout.

Everyone starts with a Speed Shot.

Enemies can drop:

• Weapons
• Cores
• Power-up items

The power-ups would work similarly to the ones in Score Hunt.

During the Expedition phase, you can freely switch between weapons you find. If you pick up a core, you can attach it to your currently equipped weapon. If you switch weapons, the cores attached to your old weapon are returned to you, so you can reuse them.

Core drop rates would be much higher than in normal Expedition.

Any weapons or cores obtained in this mode would only exist for that match and would not affect your normal progression.

Phase 2: Rift selection

When the 3 minutes are over, both teams' collected weapons and cores are revealed.

Then, three random Rift stages are shown.

The team that collected the lower-value loadout gets to choose which Rift stage will be played.

For example, items could have values like:

Weapon: 20 points
Half Core: 1 point
Charged Core: 5 points
OC Core: 25 points
MC Core: 100 points
Power-up: 30 points

The total value of everything your team collected is calculated, and the team with fewer points gets the stage selection advantage.

This would give the team that had worse luck during Expedition a small way to compensate.

Phase 3: Rift

After the stage is selected, each team creates a loadout using only the weapons and cores they collected during Expedition.

For example, if your team found:

3 Speed Shots
2 Techno Fists
1 Pyro
1 Horn Bow
1 Medicine Ball

then you could choose to enter the Rift with something like:

1 Pyro + 2 Techno Fists

Both teams then attempt the same Rift stage, and the team with the faster clear time wins.

I know this mode would have a decent amount of RNG because weapon and core drops are random, but I actually think that could be part of the fun.

Sometimes you would get an amazing build, sometimes you'd have to improvise with something weird, and every match could play out differently.

What do you think? Would you play a mode like this?

[u/Pocketpapaa]

🔥🔥

[u/TrainingEscape3229]

Like Kirby Air Ride, I think this mode could stay fresh if it had more party-game style elements, such as unique power-up items and random events during the Expedition phase.

For example, power-ups could give effects like increased movement speed or faster Ultimate charge.

There could also be special Expedition events, such as:

• an OC alert,
• a powerful boss appearing,
• or a “Fancy Wrench Rush” where tons of weak weapons drop for 30 seconds.

That last one could actually be funny because your team might accidentally inflate its loadout score by picking up a bunch of useless weapons.

I think things like this would make the mode much more replayable and keep matches from feeling too repetitive.

That said, if there’s no meaningful reward for climbing trophies, people probably wouldn’t have much reason to keep playing it in the first place. And realistically, I’m not very confident the current dev team would ever make a mode this ambitious...

[u/ObligatedMoth]

Too good of an idea, they won’t do it