Longer TNA Outline

This isn't a suggestion, obv. I like current TNA. However, the discord was going on about a longer-length TNA a few days ago and it gave me ~ideas~ so I hacked together the following outline:


Overall Notes
The Towers
Six large towers, three on each side, emerge from the Void Sea and jut nearly one hundred and fifty blocks in the air, flanking the floating arena of The Nameless. Upon the top of each structure is a massive blue orb. This structure, as well as the arena, are visible from every challenge and room in an open area, and focusing your crosshair upon one of the blue orbs outside of the final boss fight will begin dealing 100 points of true damage for every tick your crosshair remains upon them.

Void Holes
All void holes in TNA are, as always, one way.

The Map
The Blueshift Archipelago will be a mostly continuous location, with most open-air islands and the Nameless' platform visible from each other on the same map. Even the large interior rooms will be inside massive islands, though the constant teleporting in and out of most of them allows for some fudging of space. The Challenge Room islands will not be the only islands on the map, which can either be in the Void Sea or floating above it, but islands not described in the play-by-play below will be unvisitable set dressing.

Play-By-Play

Spoiler: Entrance

Challenge #1- Destroy Void Holes
As normal.

Challenge #2 - Hold Altar
As normal.

Buff Room #1
Room has an openable exit as well as a void hole. Any player entering the void hole will seal the first exit and vice versa.

Long TNA in this stage still mostly looks like normal TNA, though you do the first two rooms back-to-back before reaching the first buff room. At the end of this section, the raid path splits in half.

Spoiler: Middle Raid

Challenge #3A - Destroy Ranged Targets
Use the Void Hole exit from the buff room to reach this challenge. It has two distantly separated (read: outside range of at minimum warrior and assassin) islands in the grey sea of the void, and prevents movement spells from being used. On the entrance platform, weaker mobs will continuously spawn alongside the players, dealing low damage but having high knockback.

On the other island are three floating creatures moving back and forth. The creatures do not have too much health (~100k), but must be killed within 45s of entering the room. Upon their death, a bridge will rise out of the greywater to connect the two islands. There is a T3 loot chest hidden upon the second island. This challenge leads into Parkour Interlude #1.

Challenge #3B - Find Invisible Creatures
The entrance room to this challenge is directly attached to the buff room island, and is arrived at by opening Buff Room #1’s exit. Otherwise, the challenge is as normal. The final void hole will send players to Challenge #4B.

Parkour Interlude #1
Instead of a void hole, the exit from room #3A is an easier parkour challenge with checkpoints, mostly climbing vertically up onto a nearby floating island, 4A.

Challenge #4A - Punish Altar
Players arrive from from Parkour Interlude #1, or are teleported in by a void hole in Challenge #4.5B. This room is alike challenge #2, and a player selected at the beginning of the challenge must hold an altar for 1 minute against constantly spawning enemies. However, the hold space in this room is a marked 2x2 block space that lies flush with the ground. At the same time, any number of party members must ascend three short parkour challenges and return three void essences to the altar.

If the altar timer finishes before the essences are delivered, the challenge is failed. The entire challenge must also be completed within 1 minute and 30 seconds. Occasionally, a special mob known as the Abyssal Succor will spawn; Killing it and returning its Hadal Essence to the altar area will extend the duration allowed to complete the challenge by 15 seconds.

Upon completion of the room, two void holes will open, and upon any player entering a void hole the other will close. The first void hole leads to Challenge #4.5A, the other to Buff Room #2B.

Challenge #4B - Heal Wounded Creature
Arrived at from Challenge #3B. Players exit a void hole in the center of a long, linear room. On one side of the room is a mewling, dernic creature that at the beginning of the challenge is reduced to 50% health, and on the other side is a Deathknell Spider. The wounded creature loses health at an alarming rate, but can be healed by a player. The Deathknell Spider will slowly begin crossing the arena, and should it reach the creature will instantly kill it. Once the spider is dead, and the creature is at or above 90% health, the challenge is complete, and the creature will demolish a wall on its side of the arena to reveal an exit before rapidly withering to death.

On the far side of the wall is a T3 Loot Chest as well as two void holes. One leads to Challenge #4.5B, the other to Buff Room #2B.

Challenge #4.5A - Amalgam Petitioner
Bossfight. The Amalgam Petitioner are the largest mob residing on the Blueshift Archipelago, larger than the Nameless, and are a vaguely draconic stitched-together lump of dernic creatures. As for now, they reside upon an island on the edge of the area, waiting. The Petitioner have the following attributes:

Level 140
Melee AI, Moves Exceptionally Slowly, Medium Arena (~650-750 sq. m.), Dark Arena
10 Million HP
Damage: Water, Thunder
Defense: Fire, Air, Water, Thunder
Knockback Immunity, Blind Resist, no other immunities
Spells: Heavy Arrow Storm, Heavy Wave
Every ~40s, summons a Little One

The Amalgam Petitioner are infused with darkness, and the anathema of their existence causes the very ground upon which they walk to become poisoned and warped, blinding and doing a considerable amount of damage to any player who steps upon it. The Petitioner move very slowly, however, and the party is encouraged to as best they can lock it in place during the fight. The miasma disappears at the conclusion of the fight.

Once beaten, a miniature raid reward chest, not containing the same level of reward as the raid completion chest, will appear, as well as a void hole that will warp players to Buff Room #2B.

Challenge #4.5B: Latent Obsever
Bossfight. The void hole from Challenges #4B and #5A spit the player out at the bottom of a large (40+ blocks) spire sticking out of the greywater. Perched upon the spire is the Latent Observer, a massive, detached, floating eye. Not quite the eye of the beast itself, but enough of a sentry to keep the Blueshift Archipelago under the watchful eye of its master.

Atop the spire, the actual platform upon which a player can stand near the Observer is only six or so blocks across, and a player can easily fall off and need to climb back up. There are also small platforms a few blocks large floating around the Observer’s main platform. The Observer possesses the following attributes:

Level 140
Ranged AI, Stationary, Tiny Arena, Fall Hazard Arena
7.5 Million HP
Damage: Thunder, Air
Defense: Earth, Thunder, Water, Air
Full CCI (Immovable), Blind Resist

Spells: Push, Heavy Push, Heavy Arrow Storm

Upon death, the Observer will crack apart into a white bounce pad that will prompt the players to use it. The pad will launch the players extremely high into the sky, near The Nameless’ arena, and they will land on the first platform of Parkour Interlude #2.

Parkour Interlude #2
If the party arrives via the completion of Challenge #4.5B, a Miniature Raid Reward Chest, which will not contain the same level of reward as the full chest, will appear on the beginning island of Parkour Interlude #2. If the player arrives via the Skip Challenge, jumping across the parkour to this island, there will be no chest.

The beginning platform of this interlude has three exits: The first is a void hole, which leads to Buff Room #2B if the party has not completed Challenge #5A, or to Challenge #5B if they have. The second is a void hole on the other side of the platform, which will send players to Challenge #4A. If the party uses the second void hole, it will lock and be unable to be used again.

The final exit is the parkour itself, which leads in the direction of The Skip Challenge, a platform floating just outside the Nameless’ arena, a blue orb looming over it. The parkour itself should not be too difficult, but players should remember to avoid fixing their crosshair upon the orb. Failing the parkour will send the player back to the beginning.

The Skip Challenge
One of two entrances into the Nameless’ Arena, and by far the more difficult one. The Skip Challenge platform is right next to one of the Blue Orb Towers, and should the party destroy the tower they can pass into the Namless’ arena early.

However, a few things stand in their way: First, the Blue Orb (15m HP) has an incredibly high amount of hpr, regenerating 2.5m hp every second. Second, focusing their crosshair at it will continue to hurt the player for one hundred points of true damage each tick, as always. Finally, even if they're not looking at the orb, simply being on this platform so close to it will deal 600 points of true damage every second.

The Blue Orb has no attacks, however, and at any time the party may turn around and travel back across Parkour Interlude #2 to its starting island, or even fall and be teleported there.

Buff Room #2A
This room only has one entrance, via completing Challenge 4.5A, and only one exit, sending the party to Challenge #5A.

Buff Room #2B
There are three paths to enter this room:

• One exit of Challenge #4A
• One exit of Challenge #4B
• One of the void hole exits of challenge #4.5B, should the party not have cleared Challenge #5A

This room only has one exit, a void hole that sends players to Challenge #5B.

Where the vast bulk of the raid is held, as well as where it branches the widest. Players have the option of fighting two extra minibosses, one or both. Each will grant a smaller extra raid chest, but to do so will require a party knowing and planning their route through the raid. There is also an area that will allow parties to skip directly to The Nameless, but doing so requires beating an unfair challenge that's likely more difficult than the Nameless itself, as well as forsaking the one or even two Raid Buffs.

Spoiler: Endstages

Challenge #5A - Capture the Bulb
The challenge is as normal. Players enter via void hole from Buff Room #2A, and exit via a completed bulb. However, each of the three completed bulbs will send the party to one of three separate destinations. The same bulb will always send the party to the same place. From the viewpoint of the small hill:

• The left bulb will send the party to the Skip Challenge.
• The centre bulb will send the party to Challenge #4.5B, should they wish to fight both the Amalgam Petitioner and Latent Observer. If the party has already defeated the Observer, then this Bulb will either not appear or instead send the player to Buff Room #3, whichever is more mechanically feasible.
  
• The right bulb will send the party directly to Buff Room #3.

Challenge #5B - Defend the Giant Void Hole!
Players arrive to this challenge via void hole, either arriving from Buff Room #2A or, if they’ve completed Challenge #5A, the void hole on the beginning platform of Parkour Interlude #2. The room is as normal, and upon completion will send the party to Buff Room #3.

Buff Room #3
All paths coalesce back into one here, with players arriving either from Challenge #5A or #5B. The exit leads to Challenge #6.

Challenge #6 - Tree Altar Room
The room is as normal, though a T3 Loot Chest can be found within the Orange Grotto. Finished altar sends party to pre-boss room.

Pre-Boss Room
The normal small island with the steps and the pool at the top. The arena and its pillars loom overhead.

Final Boss - The Nameless Anomaly
No more barriers: Entities can now fall or be pushed off of the arena. For most this will simply kill them, but The Nameless falling off of the arena will instantly trigger a Watched phase. Better keep it from doing that.

Raid Reward Room
As normal. Congratulations on conquering the Blueshift Archipelago, and beating The Nameless Anomaly raid!

The endstage of the Raid finds the various paths players took through the Blueshift Archipelago coalescing back into a final push to the finish. With some minor tweaks to the final boss arena, the party completes the raid.

Bonus

Spoiler: Planning Sketch

The very rough sketch I used to put this together. Does not fully match the final product, but outlines most of it.

Spoiler: Sample Paths

The Speedrunner
Challenge 1 --> Challenge 2 --> Buff Room 1 --> Challenge 3b --> Challenge 4b --> Challenge 4.5b --> Parkour Interlude 2 --> The Skip Challenge --> Boss

The Sane Speedrunner
Challenge 1 --> Challenge 2 --> Buff Room 1 --> Challenge 3b --> Challenge 4b --> Buff Room 2a --> Challenge 5b --> Buff Room 3 --> Challenge 6 --> Boss

The Completionist
Challenge 1 --> Challenge 2 --> Buff Room 1 --> Challenge 3a --> Challenge 4a --> Challenge 4.5a --> Buff Room 2b --> Challenge 5a --> Challenge 4.5b --> Challenge 5b --> Buff Room 3--> Challenge 6 --> Boss

 

I feel like it would do better if the themeing fit more with the alien tropical island theme of the archipelago. Theres a lot of stuff like bridges and towers, when the only not natural (subjectively speaking, the whole place isnt natural) part of the entire archipelago is the carved stone tablet that the fight against The Nameless takes place on.
As opposed to a bridge, i'd do large roots that twist over the earth from one sand bank to the other. As opposed to towers I'd probably do the stumps of trees, with exposed glowing heartwood. I'm assuming the "Amalgam Petitioner" is meant to be the large serpent you can see in the Nameless fight twisting in and out of void holes, but if not, it'd probably be more thematically fitting.

I like the idea of having The Archipelago be an area you can explore, expanded further in a rework of the raid (though that probably wont ever happen) or as its own separate post-raid area.