Rules change proposal: Negative WoL

[Red urThorne]

Personally I always found it best to hold off dueling upper ranks until you had your feet under you. You can get patterns by looking through the logs and writing down some of the other duels without getting the snot beat out of you.

Looking at the stats provided by Kalamere I don't see why people would be opposed to upping the times of resetting a negative record. Maybe not every week but I don't see how resetting once per month would harm the duels.

Yes you can bring in a throw away character to dig a hole. But why do that when you can begin to develop ties in the community with your chosen persona?

[Marc Franco]

Looking at the stats provided by Kalamere I don't see why people would be opposed to upping the times of resetting a negative record.

I think those of us that are against it have made the "why" pretty clear. We feel it waters down the game.

I don't want to talk for everybody but I think I can paraphrase the concerns down to a couple sentences. With all the changes that have already been made and with the added ways that lower ranks can participate (like the Talon, Panther's Claw, Klytus Ring, all rank tournaments, Overlord Grant, squires), we feel that there is enough to keep people involved in the game without making rash rules changes. The game has been changed enough over the last year and we need to wait and see where these changes take us before messing with it further.

[Marc Franco]

Well, the FAQs in there appear to be 3+ years old. At the very least an update is in order. Possibly consolidate aspects of the FAQs under one general "New Duelist FAQ" and place the link in a more prominent area, possibly beneath the "Getting Started" tab on the menu. There should be a "Tips" section as well, not just for gaming but for the roleplaying aspect too.

Agreed. Maybe adding in the DoF mentoring system as well? Is there a list kept of people willing to be mentors? I think that would be super beneficial.

I agree that houses would be an awesome idea and could really help bringing new players/characters into the fold as long as some of the houses were very visible and had very open enrollments. It would take a lot of effort from the players in charge of the house.

[Red urThorne]

I suppose I should have been more specific I don't see how it waters down anything after looking at the statistics provided by Kalamere.

I can understand waiting to see how more recent changes will effect the game before making new changes though.

[G]

Speaking as someone who hasn't said "watered down."

I think "watered down" is the wrong term to use, per se. It's obvious I don't like the idea so I won't get into those specifics too terribly much.

What I think, is that zeroing out the losses every week/month will "de-value" the effort of everyone who duels. It'll be easier by far to get rank, because you won't have a -4 WoL to recover from, or -10, and so on. You duel one night, lose twice, and say to yourself "Oh well, no reason to keep trying, I'll wait till next week cause I'll be starting fresh." There's no real effort involved. Sure, you could still lose your rank, but then you would get it back easily.

I like the once every month idea better than every week, but at that point, why bother with cycles? For the upper ranks? Then is it fair that only those with no WoL get a benefit? We clear their record every week, but no one elses? I don't like that idea either.

So we then decide to do it across the board, and everyones records get zeroed out at the end of the month. This opens up a great deal of other issues in regards to challenge rights, etc. It's not worth the aggravation or the bookkeeping, regardless of what the numbers show.

It's really not that hard to get two WoL. For the newer duelists, sure, they are going to have some difficulty at first. That's called the learning period. It's not a big deal because at the end of a cycle, you get to start new. If you've learned how to duel, you've a better chance. The more you learn, the better you'll be. If you stick to it, eventually you'll advance in rank. And you're going to Enjoy it more when you do.

It took me about 6 months to make warlord back in the mid-90's. That doesn't sound like a lot, to tell the truth, but at that period in time, it felt like an eternity. Why? Because of the amount of competition there was back then. I could get, alone, about 15 duels a night. I've done it. I've got it recorded on paper. If I followed certain rules, I could have advanced sooner, but I dueled because I loved the game, and the game was more important than the rank. When I made WL, I was absolutely Thrilled. RDI Helix called that match and at the end of the duel she made a note welcoming me to the rank of WL. I felt special, so I do it whenever someone I call for makes WL, ask Capistrano or Wyheree. I think I even called Marcus' advancement but I'm not sure.

That was just me telling a story. I randomly go off on tangents from time to time.

My point is, I feel my effort would be de-valued if I had no risk in the early going. I wouldn't have learned as much as I did battling my way through the ranks of commoners in 30+ duels a weekend. Competition is tougher now because there's fewer duelists compared to then, and let's face it, we're never going to see those numbers again unfortunately. I'd love to, but it's not feasible. And if we did, I'd still keep the cycles and zeroing out of records as is.

I consider changing the zeroing out of negative WoL every week/month to be unnecessary. Duel how you feel comfortable dueling, have fun, RP. There's tons to do. There'll be a Talon tournament after the next Warlord Tournament, there may be some squire tournaments. DoF and DoM have other low ranks goodies, too. There's enough bonuses for those below the rank of Warlord/Emerald/Mage(?), there's no need for something else. It's superfluous.

In closing, I hope that I've come across thoughtfully, I don't want to appear combative or all "grr grr" or anything.

[Red urThorne]

I think these talks are valuable no matter the outcome. Getting out new ideas and kicking them around brings out other good ideas... as was proven by this thread.

I've been pretty lucky with getting my characters to Warlord so this was never about making it easier on me, but rather seemed like something well worth exploring.

[Carley]

Tossing in my two cents from someone who isn't a veteran or on top by any means.

Working hard for rank and receiving it feels good. I earned it. I worked at it. I don't see why people are so against doing this. I feel that taking out losses even more than they're taken out now cheapens the high ranks, like others have expressed.

Even in swords, where I can't advance. I want to advance so bad there, believe me. So I'm working at it from time to time with Loxley. Who in the past was there with like 9 losses. Big hole, yeah? Now he's at 1 loss as I maintain even pretty well. This might not seem like a victory to anyone, but it is to me. When I advance in rank with him, even if it's slow and painful? I want to earn it.

After all, MMORPGs wouldn't *really* be fun if you had Tier 10 gear handed to you right off the bat would it? You, like everyone else, have to earn it. But in MMORPGs, there's fun stuff to do in the beginning besides just grinding. There's instances and raids for the lower leveled people.

So I think tournaments, FAQs, good stories, and fun things like that (which I think is being offered now?) should be enough to keep low ranked people around. If the high ranks and titles are easily earned (which admittedly they're not at the moment) then what's the point of even trying for them? There's no challenge. And I feel the duels should be about challenge.

TL;DR: Plz don't fix what isn't broken.

[Tasslehofl Momus]

Just to be mean...

DoS started on 2 month cycles, not 3. Change happened around.. uhh.. 97, I think.

Not that that changes anything now days.. just figured I'd throw it out there.

[Capistrano]

I felt special, so I do it whenever someone I call for makes WL, ask Capistrano or Wyheree

And I appreciated that, even if Jay did fall back down to Grand Master the next week.

And I will say, as someone who has gotten characters up to the highest non-challenge ranks in Fists and Swords, that although it took two years in both cases, in retrospect? It was totally worth it. It was hard as hell, yeah, but it's really quite an accomplishment and something that no one can take away from me, even if I lose a 1,000 duels after that. I may have complained about how steep the learning curve is, but the fact we're seeing a plethora of new Warlords lately suggests to me that it is not insurmountable.

[G]

Just to be mean...

DoS started on 2 month cycles, not 3. Change happened around.. uhh.. 97, I think.

Not that that changes anything now days.. just figured I'd throw it out there.

Also, looking at the early standings, Swordsman was granted at the moment you gained a win, but you didn't get any fancies for it. That one I found amusing.

[Napoleon Bonarat]

After all, MMORPGs wouldn't *really* be fun if you had Tier 10 gear handed to you right off the bat would it? You, like everyone else, have to earn it. But in MMORPGs, there's fun stuff to do in the beginning besides just grinding. There's instances and raids for the lower leveled people.

I'm gonna do one of those "back in my day we had it really hard" things. Back when the only MMORPG around was Everquest (OK, and griefer central Ultima Online, but that even makes my point more salient), I can tell you that starting out at level 1 with a rusty sword and torn tunic running around killing snakes was awful. The best part of any play session was when some high level character would give away gear they had outgrown.

This was back when dying meant you lost experience and in so doing, you could also lose your levels. A week's work could be gone in an instant.

This also meant that when you finally got one character up in level and decided to play another, it was even more boring, though maybe a little less death as you could pass down your gear to your twinks, making them a little tougher.

As more MMORPGs game around, they learned the lessons that made EQ so frustrating: no exp loss, better starting gear, and in DAOC, at least, if you got a character up to the highest level, you could create new characters starting at level 25. Everquest today even has a server that starts you out at level 50 with 51 Alternate Advancement points *and* all your spells, even those hard to get ones that you could only get from raiding or questing. So, while the low level game *today* is somewhat more fun than it was a few years ago, it still doesn't hold a candle to the end, high level game where you don't have to worry about grind and can instead just play the game.

All of the progress the games make to improve their own game or be better than the competition is done to retain or get new players. Yes, sometimes existing players get mad. They don't get some of the neat toys that are offered to new players. They get mad at how hard they had to work to get their levels and now it's so easy. But the point of the game isn't levels 1-50, *especially* if you've already got a character or two past those humps. I'd LOVE to play every class, but damn I hate that low level grind.

On our server, there was even an uberguild that controlled who got what content, thus always keeping them on top. Eventually the other guilds got sick of it and broke the calendar system and it got really cut throat. The uberguild was still the uberguild but they had other guilds breathing down their necks making their progression that much harder.

I guess I look at some of the people here as those uberguilds interested only in keeping the end game content (titles) to themselves, cycling them back and forth, taking turns and stacking up records. Nevermind that it's been so long since you had to start out at level 1 with a rusty sword and a torn tunic not a copper to your name and no idea who those other people around you are that you can't empathize.

EQ has changed a lot since those beginning days, and each new MMORPG that has come out since has improved the game so there's less tedium and holes to dig yourself out of. I think some of you are kidding yourselves when you talk about how good it feels to to "finally" achieve some goal and attribute that to a system that's not much better than fighting with a rusty sword. I think it's more honest to say you want it to stay the same because that's what you had to do and by god that's how everyone else should do it too.

tl;dr: MMORPGs evolved to make getting out of the lower levels easier once the newer player got the gist of the game play.

[Carley]

Well I can honestly say that I do take pride in when I earn something here, yes. Do I feel everyone else should have to earn it instead of having it handed to them on a silver platter? Honestly? Yes. In turn, does that mean I think I should have to earn Warlord as others have? Yes. It works both ways.

And if I'm going to speak honestly, if it's taking people years and years and years to achieve a rank in sport, I have to wonder if it's because of a broken system or if the player in question is just bad at that sport. Not everyone can be good at everything. Not everyone can write. Not everyone can draw. Not everyone can be computer savvy. Not everyone can perform brain surgery. Why are the duels any different? They aren't. Some of us are going to pick up things faster than others. It's a fact of life. Some of us just won't be able to pick certain things up at all.

If a person enjoys dueling, they should duel. If they become miserable with it because after years they can't gain rank and that's their MO? Perhaps that time would be better spent elsewhere or in a sport they can excel at, or even a sport they never bothered with in the first place.

In MMORPGs, I find myself miserable at the high levels doing all the uber stuff with uber guilds. Miserable. It's not fun for me much of the time. What's fun is starting out with my rusty sword to kill critters and feeling out my environment and exploring.

And another point, is I think that making high ranks easier to attain will have the opposite desired effect. We want people to show up, stick around, right? Well I think most of the activity is from the lower ranks who duel and vie for the top. Many warlords and barons and other assorted high ranks in the other sports become 'fat, lazy, cats' so to speak. They're comfortable, aren't going anywhere, so they're not inclined to show up often. So when you have more people get up there to that level, what is the incentive to duel at that point? Low ranks, like it or not, make the sports go 'round.

[Carley]

And if you wanna use the evolution of MMORPGs getting easier, okay, that's already in effect. Squire tournaments, anyone? The Talon perk of being able to compete in the WLT. Eventually we have to cap what we hand out to low ranks, IMO, because if we keep at it it just gets ridiculous and over saturated and then low ranks will have more perks and rewards than the high ranks, which should never, ever be the case.

[Napoleon Bonarat]

Your low level game in WoW today is fun because of the feedback from the agonized players of yesterday. Just remember that. I'd also argue that your high level game isn't fun because you didn't find a good guild fit. That happens a lot.

The fact is it's easier to win a duel if you have fancies/mods. It's also easier to win if your selection of others to duel don't have fancies at their disposal.

[G]

MMO's made things incredibly easy because they want you to waste your 15 bucks a month grinding out the same dungeons over and over to get l33t g34r and c00l dud3 weaponz. They made it easy to keep people greedy.

Honestly, comparing MMOs in those regards to RoH is a bad example because they're two entirely different styles. The closest you could claim is the PVP aspect. But, you don't get the l33t g34r by playing. You get mods. And, if you want to compare it, the only way to get the mods is to level up.

Beyond that, there's no comparison.