Yea sure. I'm game. Why are you not? Where's that fear?
Maybe a quick introduction could be in order before I start the actual text. I play on Fairbank here on .net and on the Swedish server Dakota. An extremely peaceful trading specced soldier on Fairbank and a ZMD dueler on Dakota. It's worth noticing that Swedish Dakota went from 0% to 10% in this update, and never had the update with 3%. There could also be some difference in attitude among the ZMD duelers on .net and .se which might make drive our opinions apart. It would of course have been more appropriate if I discussed this on the Swedish forums, but that forum is even more dead than this. First part of this text is about lumpy39us comment "1. Duel xp means that higher player level duelers can duel you" and the second part is more about the changes in general. Feel free to answer both parts.
Anyways, I completely agree with the point lumpy39us tried to make, but might have failed a little bit with. "1. Duel xp means that higher player level duelers can duel you" was to short of an explanation to describe the problem. If I look at my home town on Dakota I have a dueler that's in level 57 with a duel level of 119. This player were basically screwed. He loves to duel, but he gets his ass kicked by workers, questers and adventurers in dueling gear. Don't even get me started about duels against other duelers that just were 30-40 levels higher, but didn't duel as much and therefore didn't have as high duel level. The small story I told above pretty much explains why I chose to become a ZMD dueler. Was it because I was a coward? Didn't dare to face people that might be a little more powerful than I'm? No, absolutely not. I did it because I love to duel, and didn't want to repeatedly get crushed in a duel that I never actually had the slightest chance in. I've no problem what so ever with dueling other duelers of equal strength, they're probably my favorite type of duel since I actually have the chance to compare my strength with my equals and through that become stronger. ZMD dueling is simply a matter of survival, and I've to take that road to survive.
Over to the main changes this update brought to the game. For me there's three changes that have interested me the most, they're: "Duel motivation will never fall below 10%", "Players who have not initiated a duel in the past thirty days will be hidden from the dueling menu" and "Morticians will show an 'honor value' reflecting the skill of opponents you challenge". There's probably many that have been affected by the duel level limit on 450 for example, but I can't really say much about it since I'm not affected by it. I also think that most people think that it's a good changes, so there probably isn't much to discuss there.
The point of the first change (10% duel motivation minimum) was pretty clear. InnoGames wants to "gradually raise the duel level of zero motivation duelers on older worlds". The problem with this change is that it won't help particularly much in achieving this goal. Sure, it'll raise the duel level of ZMD duelers in the long run, but they'll still be able to keep it low by dueling people with a duel level lower than their own and this is also the first draw back of the change. InnoGames is effectively forcing ZMD duelers to duel players with a low duel level to keep their own duel level low. This will be a terrible blow to low level duelers (that duel for experience), questers, adventurers and so on. ZMD duelers will have to be cowards, forced by InnoGames. With 0% duel motivation we could pick and choose our target, it never mattered if the opponent had a duel level of 100 or 200, they all gave 0 experience when defeated.
The second change, hiding players that haven't dueled in 45 days from the duel screen for players with a duel motivation lower than 50%, is just lazy and an attempt by InnoGames to make it more uncomfortable for ZMD duelers. There's absolutely no point in doing this, other than just making it a little bit more tediously. I can still look through the saloon in a town to see how far it's to my opponents and challenge them through it. You're not saving many lives by doing this, just making lives worse. I would like to see this either removed, or implemented as a automation function.
The third change, honor value, is probably the most stupid change I've ever seen. Not only is it incredibly disturbing to have InnoGames and their code decide what's an honorable duel, it's also a very badly implemented system that can be exploited. Who are InnoGames to decide what's honorable and what's not? Is it honorable to duel the adventurer that knocked out my town member? Yes, it's. I don't give a whether or not they have placed their skill points on duel skills or have dueling gear. Harm my fellow citizens and you're dead. That's the honorable thing to do, and I don't like seeing InnoGames going around ting on things that I value dearly. I've dueled other duelers in a level pretty close to mine, and still gotten it registered as a dishonorable duel. I've also dueled people in full dueling gear, how should I know that they haven't placed their points on dueling skills? That should be their problem, not mine. It can also be exploited. I don't always know whether a person is a dueler or not, even questers often walks around in dueling gear. Now I can just find out by dueling them and see if I get a honorable or dishonorable duel. Well, at least if the system actually worked.
TL;DR: Most of the changes that this update brought with it will back fire. It'll not get better for the peaceful players, nor will it get better for the ZMD duelers. It's a bad update, for everyone. Honor system is probably the most idiotic thing I've experienced in a long time.