Duel Points Glitch

[Raa]

All of my duel points disappeared some days ago, and I thought they would come back, but they haven't yet! Another player told me that everyone is experiencing it; is that true? I'd like to know what's causing the problem.

Dankezizzle.

[LigH]

  You really care about something as useless as Duel Points?! 

  Sorry for telling my opinion about "duels in a roleplaying game".

[Raa]

Aye, I care, because I'd rather have the full enjoyment of PlaneShift, and something could be wrong with my game.

[Karyuu]

The DP system has been removed. It's an OOC number that means nothing at all - it doesn't even represent how good of a dueler you are. Many very good fighters have negative DPs, and many people have high DPs simply because they keep going after newbies or people much weaker than them. So we will have another system put in place, one that has been thought up by our Settings team.

[Raa]

So that explains it... Well, I was hoping to keep it there so I could remember how many people I've defeated in duels. I tend to forget things like that. 

[Rongar Elani]

One way of having some sort of dueling evaluation would be by adding some general statistics for dueling. How many duels had the person, how many did he win, how many did he loose? How many dp did he get/loose on average each fight (means, how strong were his opponents) ? I know that dp have been taken out because they were OOC and didn't tell much about the conditions of a player concerning dueling, but they could be re-added as one factor and together with the other statistics (total amount of duels and success-rate), form the base for the evaluation of a player. But instead of throwing out numbers, all these statistics could be reduced to one sentence, which could be added to the character evaluation.

Example: ABC had 1000 duels, won 750, lost 250 and got/lost 0.8 dp on average.

He had many duels, his successrate was 75%, and the dp he got/lost on average is quite high (considering that an equal opponent gives 1 dp). So the sentence could be something like:

ABC looks like an experienced combatant (<- states the total amount of duels), and his constitution implies that he did quite well (<- states the successrate), but still, the aura that surrounds him tells you, that there is no need to feel uncomfortable in his presence (<- states the strength of his opponents or in other words, how often he fought equal, weaker or stronger opponents).


To explain the three parts of the sentence above, another example: XYZ had 10 duels, won 2, lost 8, and got/lost 0.1 dp on average.

He didn't have many duels, his successrate isn't good. And he mostly tried opponents, much weaker than himself. The sentence for his evaluation could be something like:

XYZ looks like an unexperienced combatant, and the amount of scars on his face/hands/feet/whatever imply that he wasn't very successful, but still, the aura that surrounds him tells you, that you should be careful in his presence.

Whether or not you call evaluations OOC in the first place - and I know some players do - it could be one way to illustrate the dueling performance of players, including their general attitude towards dueling and their success. But anyway, it was just an idea, and when I saw there was a thread about the topic, I thought I'd share it with you in here, instead of opening a new one in the wishlist. Feel free to move it though.

[Karyuu]

Some food for thought for you guys -

...things which -might- be useful to know:

1. Whether a character has participated in many duels (or avoids PvP)
2. How often he/she wins; how often he/she loses.
3. What portion of victories were against serious challengers, or picking on people of low skill who can't properly defend themselves.
4. What portion of duels fought were "friendly" - training, tournaments, and such.
5. What portion of duels ended in death.
6. A character's malice: if a character kills someone, it may not always be malice - if the victor has a record of mostly friendly combat, and the loser a record of slaughtering, the victor may have stepped in (RP-wise) to defend someone or defeat a villain.
7. How skilled in combat they are (often victorious against difficult odds)

#2 is the only one you can read from the DP number.  We use it as an indication of #7, but it's proven to be a poor indication of that.  Some
characters are excellent duelists have negative points.

A good goal for us would be to have a system that takes as many of these list items into consideration as possible.

[Zan]

I'm glad that duel points are removed but before you insert a new system to track duels, I'd work on the duel mechanics themself.

If I go by Karyuu's list we'd need the ability to /spar instead of /duel. If we use two different commands the system can tell the difference between wanting to hurt/kill and wanting to train. Obviously sparring should never end in death, nor should winning grant any score. Training is not about winning or losing, it's about learning and usually you do that by facing much better opponents.

What we could also use is a way to end actual duels without killing the other person. Here a /disarm or /overpower command could be useful. These commands can be applied in a duel and have a high risk involved unless the one using them is far more skilled than their opponent. If the command succeeds you'll remove your opponent's weapons or disable them completely. If it fails, you'll take some serious damage.

Thirdly I'd like to see a way for bystanders to /intervene in duels and attack a dueling player without needing approval.

If we have all that and can create a duel point system that takes the skills and stats of both sides into account, then you can create a system that reflects the honor of a fighter as well as the skill.

[Quq Leque]

since duel points are not public knowledge i see no use of having them at all. unless you really really need to know if you've killed more often then you've been killed.

[Raa]

I like that /spar idea.

[zanzibar]

Aye, I care, because I'd rather have the full enjoyment of PlaneShift, and something could be wrong with my game.

Duel points got in the way of many people enjoying the game.  They were entirely OOC and they encouraged the development of a certain class of player that did nothing but /shout "Coward!" at passersby.

For the record, I had over 130 350 ONE MILLION duel points, so I know both sides of the argument.

[Rongar Elani]

Hum, I somehow doubt you had THAT many, since I know how difficult it was to gather 1000 I'm not calling you a liar though

Anyway, almost none of those who I met and fought in training sessions are like those you described. And when you usually speak about duelers, you'd also have to add me to that list, since I am well known for enjoying this part of the game But like I said, the general base of what you would call duelers are quite well known inside our little underground circle, and most of them are good roleplayers and do not behave like OOC bullies running around and wanting to prove that they are the uberdoodz of pwning, neither by performing OOC duels, nor by telling others. There are exceptions though, like anywhere else. But those I can count on five fingers, really.

[Xordan]

A system that I came up with will (hopefully) be added for the next release. It will no doubt need a bit of tweaking, but hopefully it'll be much nicer than the old one (no automatic killing of opponent for example).

[Rongar Elani]

(no automatic killing of opponent for example).

Huh? What does that mean? That duels are no longer restricted to result in death?

[Zan]

I like the sound of that