How about a new style PvP for vets? All the mechanics could be kept relatively the same, but you enter with your entire roster and your characters health resets after every match unless they’re downed. If your character is downed they are out of the tournament and can no longer be used (hope you have reserves). There is no points lost or gained on defense and points accumulated are directly tied to your opponents roster level. Want to beat up on a one or two star team? That’s fine but it won’t get you far, take on 3 maxed 4 stars and those points are going to be worthwhile but you better hope an unfriendly cascade doesn’t eliminate you.
I’d love having this style of PvP run as an alternative to normal PvP, let the newer players take that style over and let the advanced rosters play in their own form.
Obviously no point loss eliminates shields so I would suggest making this a buy-in tournament, since we know that revenue stream has to be replaced.
The functionality of the resetting HP could be the problem with this ever getting implemented though. My suggestion would be that any damage taken outside of the tournament carries into the tournament unless you heal using health packs, that way you can’t game the system to heal characters (unless your willing to take the risk of losing them by going in with depleted health). If your character is downed in the tournament normal health regeneration or health packs will be required outside of the tournament, they will simply be banned for the remainder of the tournament regardless of whether or not you heal them.
Obviously this a rough draft idea that would probably require a few tweaks, but I think it would be a solid foundation for a new end game for vets and something to strive for with newer players.
The biggest complaint I could see coming is that some vets may choose to dominate the old style PvP, but the incentives to do so would probably be drastically reduced due to far fewer points being available for progression rewards.
This thought actually got me excited about the prospect of a mode like this, so let me know what you think and what could be done to make it even better or if you hate the idea let me know why (please at least add some constructive criticism, don’t just say I hate it).