New dueling system and what it means

http://blog.the-west.net/index.php/2011/10/new-duel-system-set-to-be-activated/

Wed
5
Oct

New duel system set to be activated



Version 1.33 is not far away from release now, and we’ve received some important news: the new duel formula is planned for activation! The exact formulas have always been shrouded in secrecy and this revision will be no different, however we have been informed of the basic changes. According to the developers the formula is more a series of tweaks than a new invention, with the following skills expected to be balanced:
Stronger: Aim, Dodge
Weaker: Appearance, Tactics, Toughness, Reflex
These changes should favour “traditional” ranged duellers with high aiming, shooting and dodging in exchange for appearance and tactics taking a hit. (Perhaps that is favourable where “split skills” for challenging and defending are no longer as influential…) Resistance duellers and dedicated charisma builds may feel a pinch though, arguably not a bad thing in terms of game balance.




Tip of the day: your stance greatly affects your aiming and dodging ability!




Now just for a second forgetting the rest of the duel changes .... WHAT THE HECK IS THAT TIP SAYING ???

Well ill make it clear to what i think it says and what ive found to be true already ..... its more about total guess work where you aim or dodge than ever before....

All it says to me is...... If you guess correct with reasonable aim youll hit if you guess wrong with reasonable dodge youll get hit ..... which means dueling just got totally stupid and all about guesswork and luck ..... well whoop dee doo now all average players can win duels... pathetic.

Seems to me no one wants any pure or very good dueling players in this game anymore ... its beyond belief that an average job build or fort build should even be able to have an equal chance in duels ... thats what duelers give up ... jobs and fort performance for the duel...

You make this game all about average players you just lost a significant section of your customer base.....

I get there are tweaks needed but honesty ....

Tip of the day: your stance greatly affects your aiming and dodging ability!


Roll the dice and hope you guessed correctly.... Are you fracking kidding me ?

well, this is mainly a response to the ubiquitous resist build, so if you're already a good dueler, you should have no problem with this change

rice farmer said:

well, this is mainly a response to the ubiquitous resist build, so if you're already a good dueler, you should have no problem with this change

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Rubbish you obviously dont duel enough or understand how it works... forget the resist its the silliest build in the game and for noobs and a piece of cake to pawn, sorry all you good resist builds out there but honestly you know what im talking about.

Any dueler worth his salt will now realise its a toss of the coin and hope you guessed correct on spots.... congrats for making there just one worthwhile dueling build that will excel and when they meet each other itll all come down to pure luck woopee.

im not jumping the gun because they already released this before and pretended it wasnt turned on ... i can assure you it was...

Anyways as usual a half baked idea that ruins most dueling builds bar one... nice one goober devs you just made the game completely uninteresting for dueling variation.

Before reports came out, I went out of my way (and so did many of my townies) to provide report details so we could work together and educate ourselves on other people's stances. This dramatically increased our wins, so it's not mere guesswork, it's teamwork and it's paying attention to your reports so the next time you duel the same person in an hour or more, you'll smack them right and hard.

Anyway, you haven't seen how the change affects play, you're just assuming the worst (like you often like to do you friggin' naysaying evil-monger!). From those I chatted with who have seen and tested, it's a welcome improvement.

But what do I know, right?

I want to mention another thing that's been nagging me about your arguments here, Victor, regarding the upcoming change. Both Aim and Dodging do not play into "any" jobs.

Hellstromm said:

Before reports came out, I went out of my way (and so did many of my townies) to provide report details so we could work together and educate ourselves on other people's stances. This dramatically increased our wins, so it's not mere guesswork, it's teamwork and it's paying attention to your reports so the next time you duel the same person in an hour or more, you'll smack them right and hard.

Anyway, you haven't seen how the change affects play, you're just assuming the worst (like you often like to do you friggin' naysaying evil-monger!). From those I chatted with who have seen and tested, it's a welcome improvement.

But what do I know, right?

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OK im gonna take a deep breathe here, where dueling is concerned im pretty clued up as to how it works...

What you have just said is in effect....... me and some townies got together went out and tag teamed and shared duel reports to use the dodge and aim spots to their best advantage........ Well excuse me Hells but i was doing this 3 years ago in private chat .. big deal tag teaming as you know has always been a piece of cake.... But

Your trying to advocate hit and miss pure chance dueling to be offset by going out in a gang ???? come on thats ridiculous if thats supposed to be an improvement... ...

The other defense you use is adjust and duel them in an hour... again whats the big deal here its always been that way it wouldn't even do you any good at all unless the target is offline ... try tag teaming me anyplace if im online and see what happens ...... the only difference is now a tactics dueler will get hit if you figure out the right stance again ??? thats lame if tactics are no longer useful...

Im commenting now because in the last update they nerfed Charisma and Appearance and said otherwise. I know the difference it made and provided along with others plenty of examples.... So im not shouting before the affects are applied .... I know whats changed already.

Yaknow who you guys needed to chat to and give feedback ? the real duelers on this game thats who, The infinitys, the Judge R beans the kingjamesg, the Neos the Realms or deceit, Kalips, Copenhagens, Hulinganus, The constitutions, and many many more that are all out there in the list and known to all across worlds .... you have the best available to test who would probably give x10 better feedback than ( and dont take this the wrong way ) average at best duelers you probably used if asked.

The ones you have chatted to i will bet are bothered about the resist build mostly.. and thats not what i made this thread about....

I will guarantee a huge huge % if given the free repsec will all go Dex shooter Dodgers ..... and why not ? theres no point doing anything else ( by the infos own admission )

I can be vocal and scathing but also supportive when it merits it.... honestly hellstromm are you really going to try and defend this change under the banner of "get some mates to tell you where to dodge /aim etc or duel offliners to get a win"... you and I both know this idea of balancing things is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy off base ....

What happens to the individual dueler now ? does he walk around preying on offliners all the time or play the game of chance on stance, where is the fun in that ???

If id have started this game and all there were to choose from were shooters fair enough but after 4 years to basically reduce the duel build to just one effective option for people who know how to spec is absolutely ridiculous

Hellstromm said:

I want to mention another thing that's been nagging me about your arguments here, Victor, regarding the upcoming change. Both Aim and Dodging do not play into "any" jobs.

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So what ? they also only favor one build only ... m8 i know how it goes i already have the Dex/shooter dodger .... it was and always has been, the most effective, the strongest and resist killing build there is. only now its gonna be easy to drop off some shooting and add it to aim or dodge

Hells All i do on this game is duel i care not for questing or fort builds or jobbing or collecting. I will change every single one of my toons to Dex/Dodge ( half already are anyway )and im ready for it so for me its a no biggie .... im not here about me cos ill continue to rape and pillage regardless. Im here about the fact the dueling builds just came down to just the one..... and thats not good for anyone or innos bottom line.

Victor Kruger said:

Your trying to advocate hit and miss pure chance dueling to be offset by going out in a gang ???? come on thats ridiculous if thats supposed to be an improvement... ...

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Why do you always distort what I say? I'm saying that "stances" was an issue before and it still is, with the means to determining stances being trial and adjustment. It is not mere guesswork.

As to the rest of your post, poppycock. Tactics was a problem because it made Soldiers way too unbalanced, so it needed to be addressed (although a more effective address would be to counterbalance the soldier tactics by giving Gunslingers an equal appearance bonus). With tactics being nerfed, they naturally had to nerf appearance. Those who wish to focus on dueling will have to forego the benefits of taking a run on higher paying / better item / more xp jobs (points in aim and dodging not being applied to any jobs and thus a straight loss to point impact on such).

Wow, someone takes games way too seriously...

Like Hellstromm said, how are you going to knock it until you've tried it? You can say all you want, type giant paragraphs, but you dont really know how it'll effect the game until it happens.

Hellstromm said:

Why do you always distort what I say? I'm saying that "stances" was an issue before and it still is, with the means to determining stances being trial and adjustment. It is not mere guesswork.

As to the rest of your post, poppycock. Tactics was a problem because it made Soldiers way too unbalanced, so it needed to be addressed (although a more effective address would be to counterbalance the soldier tactics by giving Gunslingers an equal appearance bonus). With tactics being nerfed, they naturally had to nerf appearance. Those who wish to focus on dueling will have to forego the benefits of taking a run on higher paying / better item / more xp jobs (points in aim and dodging not being applied to any jobs and thus a straight loss to point impact on such).

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Not trying to distort anything honeypie, all that was needed was to either take away the soldier tactic bonus or negate it exactly as you say & reduce resist by an amount or increased the effectiveness of aim/dodge .... m8 ive always forgone the luxery of jobs etc im exactly careless of anything other than dueling... dude you really think its going to be fun building a dueling build for anyone with an understanding of whats really effective ? is gonna go.. duhhhh i think ill look at resistance or the crazy app guy that intimidates the heck out of you or that real hardass leave them alonne defensive Tactic shooter who just wants to be left alone ... or else.... sorry but its going to do nothing but help ruin the game in a very short time for dueling players.... boo hoo.... meh if you cant see it then you never understood dueling well enough

The thing with stances makes dueling more realistic.....it doesn't make sense if I duck but still get hit in the head.....unless they have insane aim or my dodge sucks.....you know

Victor Kruger said:

Not trying to distort anything honeypie

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Lol, nice work Vic. The last line of the blog post, a mere addition to contribute my personal initial observations, somehow managed to become bold red and highlight of a dedicated thread. As Lord Melnkor has aptly pointed out: being as "great" a dueller as you are under the old system doesn't make you a fortune teller of the new one, you'll have to wait and test the tweaks for yourself before passing judgement.

Understand that no-where in the code has there been any programming made to increase the effectiveness of your stance. It is only a logical conclusion that since correctly selecting your stance offers a percentage aim/dodge bonus, this bonus would be more influential. However without knowing the new "general curve" of these skills, or even to which degree they have been enhanced, you cannot to know what extent this bonus has been modified.

As Hellstromm pointed out, selecting your stance correctly is not merely guess work but a matter of coordination and cooperation between a town. In effect, this will reward active players like yourself. Merely copying stats from a publicly available guide is not the answer, never has been and never will be; reward will instead be granted for not only a clever strategy but clever tactics, smart play or whatever you wish to call it. Let it be said that this is not only for attackers coordination - an online dueller such as yourself swapping stances is also a form of tactics. Take Hellstromm for example standing at my location seemingly challenging me in duel: I would note to aim for the hands (general trend he has) and never duck but rather lean left or right, depending upon the most recent reports from others. Irrespective of his current stance, I at least know he has a strategy and can use this to minimise any potential hits, even if not entirely evade.

You're also assuming that the tweaks made will be so lopsided we'll go full swing of the pendulum: all resistance builds will immediately be infeasible. (A load of crap really, even during this resistance dominated era "smart" players can still successfully maintain a non-resistance build.) Even were this assumption true, we already know that resistance was the "evolution" so to speak against high damage shooting builds, almost the perfect counter. Were shooting builds to instantaneously create a similar era of domination, why would it too not develop the Achilles' heel? Suddenly two of the three most influential skills would lie in one attribute: dodging and reflex; chuck in some aim and shooting/vigor then you're seemingly good to go. (Although, of course, testing will be required since I too am a mere mortal without the power to foretell the future.)

As to the conspiracies of some unannounced change in 1.32: blah blah blah

I think that STANCE trick has already introduced in 1.32 update but developers and admins hid it.

Probably the West community was tested before developers build the duel simulator.

It is not fair to close petition to reverse 1.32 dueling thread!

I am not a child to be treated in this way! I want to hear an explanation!

To come after a month to us with new explanations is embarrassing.


After 1.32 update, my build is like:400 - dodge
300 - tactic (premium)

and I tested enough to see how it works in 1.32 duel system.

Meh, another whiner. Warrigal, your njubness is apparent by the first line of your post. Stances have had pretty much the same impact on the game since day one.

Warrigal said:

I think that STANCE trick has already introduced in 1.32 update but developers and admins hid it.

Probably the West community was tested before developers build the duel simulator.

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Yeah, it must be one big conspiracy against the community!

Warrigal said:

It is not fair to close petition to reverse 1.32 dueling thread!

I am not a child to be treated in this way! I want to hear an explanation!

To come after a month to us with new explanations is embarrassing.

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The only thing that was embarrassing, was the amount of whining that went on in that thread. And you are doing a great job in getting this thread ending up the same way. All you do is make a lot of noise and not give one fact or even a shred of evidence.

Warrigal said:

After 1.32 update, my build is like:400 - dodge
300 - tactic (premium)

and I tested enough to see how it works in 1.32 duel system.

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Great, then you should be prepared.

Didn't actually plan to jump into this, however...

rice farmer said:

The thing with stances makes dueling more realistic.....it doesn't make sense if I duck but still get hit in the head.....unless they have insane aim or my dodge sucks.....you know

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They didn't have insane aim. That was happening because of the old (appearance-tactics)*aim formula. Now instead of * there is +.
And that is an awsome change. Whoever is trying to say this change in the formula sucks is out of his mind.

Hellstromm said:

Both Aim and Dodging do not play into "any" jobs.

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And you can't know their value a player has by just browsing rankings. Another huge plus for the new system as other skills used in duels are browsable and allow you to respec to beat anyone since in old system dodging was almost completely irrelevant skill.

The old system is bad. It's so bad that a huge number of players don't want to duel at all. And it's so bad that it can't be "badder". If the new system is a conspiracy because it already looks better than the old one, I can only bless all conspirators.

Wow. I feel truly honored to have been mentioned with some of the best duelers that I have come across. But Victor, let us just see how this new change pans out. Who knows, may be a great addition.

All you have said about duel system in 1.32 update:

Because developers replaces "*" with "+" in duel formula, stance enter fully in duel equation. Impact of stance becomes significantly!

Duel system was not changed in 1.32.
The change, although planned, was suspended till thorough testing gets finished on beta worlds. That's why we're getting it within the update 1.33. In a few days.

announcement from beta worlds



The testing of the new duel system is done for now.
All changed settings due to the test has been reseted to default.

IMPORTANT:

tsigas said:

The testing of the new duel system is done for now.

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That's for beta only. And since we have some real quality testers there... It resulted in w1.de is still testing the whole thing and another small problem emerged - which will be or is already fixed today:
http://translate.google.hr/translat...he-west.de/showthread.php?p=607662#post607662

tsigas said:

All changed settings due to the test has been reseted to default.

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Yes, full respec on beta is not free any more.