Proposing a new gamemode called trials.

Similair to the gauntlet, except level progression is permanent and the oponents are fixed.

While the gauntlet is based on making a durable team, the trials would be more about how well you can team build for ever stronger oponents and countering specific synergies with clever team compositions.

Perhaps certain levels would have special conditions like "hold out untill round 20 with a full team" or "beat the oponents in three turns" for say every 10 increments. (stage levels would not be tied to oponent levels.)

Only issue is people without KS/beta companions are at disadvantage.

Maybe you can acquire trial only mirrors through progressing on levels.

Also team composition would have all your familiars at their level available, same with your wolves.

You can use a companion as many times as you own it. And as many wolves as you own.

You would get a reward only once for a level.

And you can rematch older levels.

Ever increasing or challanging levels can be added down the line as old ones are figured out

I really like this idea, but I do wonder; what would be the use of rematching older levels if you only get rewards once?

Or would it be like you can get multiple tiers of rewards for example:

Tier 3 (best): you do it super fast and with all your teammates still alive

Tier 2 (medium): you only do it superfast but one or more of your teammates have died OR all your teammates survived but it took you very long.

Tier 1 (lowest): You did win, but you were not fast and not everyone on your team survived

And you can only get each of the tiers once, but if you only got to tier 1 on your first try you can rematch to try and get to tier 2 or 3?

And would you be able to change your team composition between each battle so that you can actually prepare for whats to come?

I was thinking that if I were to go through the trials to a high level, and say, I wanted to help out someone I'd be nice if I still had access to lowertiers to double-check what team team comps worked for that trial. But I like your idea of having an extra reason to retry older trials, just need to beat one to progress but you can return back to try for better.

And yes, the point would be that you always start off with a fresh team, as unlike in the gauntlet where it's an endurance team-building challenge, and unlike arena, where you try to make the best team of what's available but it's very difficult to adapt your team against a specific enemy on the fly, the trials would be more controlled. Think of it like puzzles you need to solve. Like how the bosses in the last areas worked, it was fun trying to find the perfect team to defeat them!

So you would see who you are facing, design your team, then watch em battle.

Rinse repeat.

Got it. I really like that team building aspect of your idea. Absolutely love it! Especially since the battle itself is automated, you lose a lot of that agency. Neither the arena nor the gauntlet really scratch that strategic/teambuilding itch for me. As you said, with the arena you have to make do with whatever is available to you. With the gauntlet, you have no idea what you are facing so you just have to build it for endurance and hope for the best. This would be the perfect solution to that. Plus I love puzzling, so some things that don't necessarily rely on raw strength but rather some witty synergy between certain wolves/companions and their abilities would be really neat.