Yace [yet another combat event]

[Bonifarzia]

Overview: Yace is a simple, nonlethal arena game where fighters queue up for some short duels. Anybody can participate free of charge and multiple times. The reward for each victory is one vial of Neoten blood [worth 1288 tria].

The following information will be available on a poster in the arena pit where the game will be held.

[Short OoC rules:]

• Do not use ranged attacks, armors, shields, familiars, buffs and health recovery during the fight.
• Important: Before a duel begins the health of both fighters is fully depleted.
• Please use bloody stance to keep the chance of blocking low.
• The /group mechanics are (ab)used as a simple queueing system.
• The first three slots of the group window always show the arbiter and the two current fighters.
• Defeated players are removed from and reinvited to the group.
• There is no predefined number of duels, the games keep going for as long as everyone is having fun.

[OoC description]

Imagine this poster (book item) contains a lengthy list of rules written in character. Those are not explicitly given here to keep things short and simple. In summary, The focus of the fights is on fairplay and agility, so many actions with a high risk of injuries are forbidden. The goal is to make the enemy stumble or fall without hurting each other too seriously. For this reason and to give newer players a chance, the character health is depleted such that very few hits - typically the first -will end the duel. The low health is just a trick to bend the mechanics, so please do not RP injuries or sickness unless there is another reason to do so.

The games are organized with the group window - just /tell Bonifarzia if you wish to get invited and enlisted. Once it is your turn, Boni will /challenge you. If you do not wish to play, please accept the challenge and /yield. In that case or if you are AFK, you will be removed from and reinvited to the group, so you can play again later. Once both fighters have entered the pit, Boni will deplete their health (defeat them) using a bow. This action is purely OoC and enforces fairly equal hit points. As soon as both fighters stand back up again, you can /challenge your opponent and start your duel. Please use bloody stance so the chance to block is kept low and does not depend that much on your weapon skills. The winner can then fetch a reward via /trade and fight for another round against a new challenger. The defeated player is removed from and reinvited to the group. You are free to decline the invitation and ask for another one any time later.

When you join the group and are waiting for your turn, you can lower your health such that it can be depleted later quickly. For this you can use /show glyph and hit the research button a few times without selecting any glyphs.

Player killing is absolutely unacceptable, so it is VERY IMPORTANT that you do not use any buffs like "electrotouch" - note that magic and ranged attacks are forbidden anyway, just like armors and shields. Robes are tolerated, unless someone tries to hide armor underneath. In that case, visible equipment on myplane can help. Potions for stamina recovery are okay, but please do not try to recover health with any sort of items or magic during the fight.

Casting spells or /challenges on the fighters during a duel is considered harassment, as it interrupts the flow of the game and the current round will have to be restarted. You can heal after a duel, but this is not quite necessary, as the health will be depleted again when the player wants to engage in another round later.


[I am new here - what do I need to get started?]

If you have read the rules and think this could be fun for you, then you are ready to go. Stats, skills and equipment should not be important for a game of yace, so new players are encouraged to give it a try. If your weapon/melee skill is very low, you may have problems hitting some opponents, but otherwise mostly your timing and tactics will matter.

Events

[Saturday, 16th of march, 22 GMT - event finished]
Champion of the first yace game is Caraick with an impressive number of 15 victories, followed by Hirene (8), Haraun and Firke (4 each). Lumi defeated three of the top players and wins a young talent award. Read the details of all 36 matches here.

[Saturday, 23rd of march, 22 GMT] -event finished
Special thanks to Daevaorn for moderating the second yace games, so I could focus on the administration of the rounds. We had another tournament packed with 30 rounds of action. Lumi dominated this time with 16 victories, winning nearly all of her rounds, followed by Potare and Dalos (each 5 victories). Read the details here.

Further events are to be announced here later.

Comment: This is yet another attempt to promote friendly duels in the arena, and as my last try failed quite miserably, I want to organize this one in a similar fashion as a previous fighting game, but with even simpler rules. Note that the idea is to give trainee fighters a fair chance to earn a few tria and have some dueling experience, while the seasoned warriors might find the event interesting to hone their [human] skills. EDIT: Special thanks to Sarva for updating the events.php so quickly.

[cdmoreland]

You might want to add the use/prohibition of enchanted weapons to the rules. They can add health. Also, crafted weapons are far superior to those purchased from npc's, but anyone can purchase crafted weapons if they so choose.

[Sen]

* Sen would gladly try this.

[Bonifarzia]

You might want to add the use/prohibition of enchanted weapons to the rules. They can add health.

Thanks for your feedback.
Right, technically, you can drain your health before the fight and then gain back some hitpoints with a pair of seds. In the above rules, I only want to enforce things I can check myself, and enforcing rules about regular vs. crafted vs. looted weapons is problematic. However, if I see in the group window that somebody does recover health during a duel, no matter by which means, that person will be dismissed from the group.
EDIT: I just changed the "do not use" rule accordingly. Also, some defensive buffs could be too powerful, so I added that point for now, unless some careful testing shows they pose no problem on unarmored characters with high light armor skills.

[cdmoreland]

I do hope that you mean that one must deplete their mana and not health- the DR awaits those with 0 health. But I don't even see the need to deplete mana as you can clearly see when someone casts any spell.

[LigH]

Failing magic research keeps reducing health by a factor, therefore it never goes below 1 HP, you will always heal enough before you can fail researching again...

[Sadie]

    I do hope that mana is the one to be depleted, not health.... How does one fight without any health??

Sanrai   

[Bonifarzia]

Failing magic research keeps reducing health by a factor, therefore it never goes below 1 HP, you will always heal enough before you can fail researching again...

This is exactly the behavior i want to (ab)use in order to have one-hit fights like here, but without the need of a judge to end the round and force somebody to /yield. My reasoning here is that with minimal health (a few hitpoints due to passive regeneration), players who are able to inflict large amounts of damage have no significant advantage.

[cdmoreland]

Then it is just a matter of who gets the first hit in. I fear you are doing the same as the last time. A fire dagger of the hammer will take someone down fast.

It would be strange that I can stand toe-to-toe with a Maulberlord and take him down with my sword, but a player with nowhere near my skill could kill me because he got the first hit in.

You won't see me in a situation like that.

[Bonifarzia]

[...] a player with nowhere near my skill could kill me because he got the first hit in.

You won't see me in a situation like that.

The idea is really to have friendly, nonlethal arena games. Killing people is a big no-go here and a reason for me to discard group fight modes.

Notice: If a group of at least three players is interested to try the game and catches me online, feel free to send me a /tell. I hesitate to announce a game as people are quite busy these days testing the wonderful new features and updates.

[Bonifarzia]

Just added a small section above ("What do I need to get started?").
I am still not sure about an official date and time for this, or whether a bunch of people might join in spontaneously.

[Bonifarzia]

*Triple-post-face-palm*

Just added a first time and date for a more or less spontaneous testing session. RP is what you make of it, and everyone is welcome to join in for some fun and friendly duels.

[Bonifarzia]

*quadruple-post-facepalm*

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who showed up during the yace event yesterday. I was pleased by the nice number of participants and surprised to see such a large crowd of spectators as well. The event lasted for two hours and was packed with 36 duels. Nobody was injured or killed, and the confusion about the rules was not as bad as i expected.

Second, the server went down very shortly after we finished, so I was very lucky this did not happen half an hour earlier or so. Six hours later, the problem remains, so it seems to be an issue of the host.

For those who missed the event, here is a summary of all matches.

Player	victories	rounds
Caraick	15	20
Hirene	8	16
Haraun	4	6
Firke	4	7
Lumi	3	6
Kiaerulf	2	7
Munital?	0	1
Zwoelf	0	1
Tamaris	0	2
Potare	0	3
Elementor	0	3

round	winner	opponent
1	Haraun	Lumi
2	Haraun	Hirene
3	Caraick	Haraun
4	Caraick	Potare
5	Caraick	Lumi
6	Hirene	Caraick
7	Haraun	Hirene
8	Haraun	Potare
9	Lumi	Haraun
10	Lumi	Caraick
11	Hirene	Lumi
12	Hirene	Kiaerulf
13	Hirene	Potare
14	Hirene	Caraick
15	Lumi	Hirene
16	Kiaerulf	Firke
17	Caraick	Kiaerulf
18	Caraick	Hirene
19	Caraick	Firke
20	Hirene	Caraick
21	Hirene	Kiaerulf
22	Caraick	Hirene
23	Caraick	Zwoelf
24	Caraick	Elementor
25	Caraick	Tamaris
26	Caraick	Kiaerulf
27	Caraick	Hirene
28	Caraick	Zwoelf
29	Caraick	Elementor
30	Caraick	Tamaris
31	Firke	Caraick
32	Firke	Hirene
33	Firke	Kiaerulf
34	Firke	Elementor
35	Hirene	Firke
36	Kiaerulf	Hirene

Champion of the first yace game is Caraick with an impressive number of 15 victories, followed by Hirene (8), Haraun and Firke (4 each). Lumi defeated three of the top players and wins a young talent award.

Feel free to post your suggestions for further times and dates. I am willing to host this game again monthly or even weekly, given that the interest of the players justifies that.

[potare]

Thanks Bonifarzia for the event heaps of fun

[LigH]

* Esanor bows in respect for Lumi

"Young Talent Award" ... the Way of the Hammer is proud of a respectable representative.

And Haraun wound certainly have had more victories if he had been able to stay longer.

Good work, Bonifarzia. The visitors had more fun with the short and often changing battles than with the neverending chaos of the Cup, I believe...