There have been some good points over the last few pages, but some other things I've read have made me a little frustrated and I feel like I have a bit to get off my chest.
I'm tired of hearing people saying they're going to be forced to duel against their wishes. You're not being forced into anything. The most assured way to remain protected from duels has existed since 2008 is still well and truly at your disposal. Being a member of a town has a list of advantages long enough that we're all capable of thinking of a dozen of them without me making a list here. It has always had one disadvantage: you are fair game for duellers.
The trade-off between being a member of a town and avoiding duels was an integral part of what made this game great. Inno stated countless times that there would be no way to opt out of duels without leaving town. Through a bug that went unnoticed, this hasn't been the case for the last couple of years (I know job KOs existed before that, but like I said earlier, they only became a major problem recently in the grand scheme of things) and as a result, people have grown accustomed to having everything their way.
If you joined a town as a worker or a fort fighter, you relied on your town's duellers to provide back up and protect you. You were also tasked with avoiding those duels yourself which could easily annoy a dueller as much as they could annoy you if you played it right. The town wars that resulted from duellers camping workers were far more exciting than any fort battle that I've seen since 2012, but they're now a completely extinct part of the game. You no longer see a group of 5+ duellers organising to raid a town at a particular server time, sharing reports and stances. You hardly see any activity in most towns' duel forums and there's hardly any banter or rivalry between towns or players that extends beyond a multi battle or a supposed imbalance in the fort fighting scene.
It was the major drawing point this game had that made it unique and it's been missing for years. You can claim that you're being forced to change your gameplay in a manner that you don't approve of, but what about the duellers of old who have been affected over a period of years and essentially gone without a huge chunk of the potential for enjoyment that they had initially?
Quite frankly, I'm sick of every update being instantly met with whining and threats to quit simply because players are unwilling to even attempt to adapt. And before I'm called out on this, I chose the word whining intentionally. I don't class complaints and whining as the same thing. Complaints, as long as they're constructive, are highly beneficial to the development of new updates. Whining is what I'm seeing from most posters here. If you made a valid point in opposition to the change, I'm probably not talking about you.
But this thread so far is a prime example of everything that is wrong with the general attitude of the vocal portion of the player base in terms of providing feedback. This update is huge. It has the potential to be the biggest thing since 2.0 as well as paving the way for future much-needed developments in terms of fixing the broken duel formula. The entire intent behind this update was to bring balance to the divide between duellers and non-duellers. 0 mot duelling is supposedly a workaround to avoid unintended penalties that come hand in hand with duelling "normally". It is these low level 0 mots that are the main culprits behind the camping of non-duellers. By removing the deterrents of exp duelling, we can assume that if 0 mot duellers chose that route for the reasons they claim that they did, high level duelling for experience should become the norm.
In response to this, duel protection from job KOs - which is an exploit no matter how you choose to look at it - is being removed. The only reason this bug has been allowed to remain in the game for so long is because of a recognised issue with 0 mot duelling that has been complained about by non-duellers countless times. Admittedly, I don't know if it will have the intended effect in its current state due to the amount of 0 mots who pretend they need targets but really like beating up on the weak. But at least the system is in place! It can be altered to add an additional incentive to abandon the 0 mot duelling route. The exact numbers can easily be changed, the motivation floor can be raised to 10% or higher, motivation can affect money below a certain point, and the list goes on. I sincerely thank the people who have contributed with ideas like this and who are truly interested in assisting the process of making this a well rounded update.
Job KOs were a flaw in the system. It's good to see that most players can admit that even if they will miss not being able to use them. Be grateful that you've had them at your disposal for this long and be grateful that at least an attempt at positive progress has been made. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion and I would be lying if I said I didn't expect a lot of heat in response to the job KO aspect of this update, but I wish people would look at the bigger picture. You can still avoid being duelled if you really want to. You don't get the benefits of being in a town without dealing with the consequences as well. Life doesn't work that way, neither does this game!
If players judged updates based on their merits rather than their own selfish desires, we could be so much more productive as a community. If we collaborated instead of arguing every time we have one of these discussion threads, who knows how the changes to the game may have been different over the last few years.
Anyway, I digress. Hopefully I've said everything that I wanted to say and won't need to rant again in this thread.
