DoM4 Poll, Opinions, and Debate

[Neo Eternity]

Well, we had the alpha testing tournament, and it went really smoothly!

But now it's time to get down to brass tacks, and see what you, the people, think of it! That's what this thread is for. We have a poll for if you just want to leave your opinion and be on your way, and we can also talk more in-depth about the pros and cons of the new system and see what we can do to fix any flaws that may have popped up.

So don't hold back! Tell us what you think!

[Lem DeAngelo]

It's difficult for me to make an in-depth review since testing is still quite limited, but my first impression was that this was a positive change. I thought the opening of the 12X12 matrix (Advanced Spells) had the most positive impact. All ranks appeared to be on a more level playing field.

The duels were also fast paced and allowed time for multiple matches. My average duel length was 6 rounds among 3 duels, and I'd estimate those matches would have been an average of 9 rounds without focused spells. 6 rounds is quite fast, but I would be surprised if that was the average after a few more duels. I think I cast 7 focused spells and 5 of them hit, so that made a big impact on my duel length. One thing that often drew me to DoS and DoF was that I could typically get 3 matches in an hour due to faster matches and more opponents. Faster matches and a more level playing field (more opponents to choose from since no one is totally overpowered) could be a draw to players who grew frustrated trying to climb DoM's ranks.

From an old duelists point of view, I enjoyed the change of pace, slight change of strategy, and change of opponents. Under the current matrix, I feel as though I need to avoid dueling anyone under mage because I either have too much of an advantage if I use advanced spells, or I feel bored having to limit my spells and duel in the 8X8 basic matrix. 8X8 matches seem to take at least 11 rounds for me. Under this proposed change everyone should have a much better chance of winning regardless of rank. The focused spells do reward accurate prediction, but I don't think they totally overpower an opponent. If someone is in the zone and accurate enough to score 2-3 unanswered points, then the extra boost from the focused spells is just going to speed up the conclusion rather than being the dominant factor in victory.

Like I said though, I'd still need to see a bit more playtesting before totally signing off on it. However, if I had to make an opinion right now, I'd vote to implement because it was fun, fast, rewarded accurate strategy and allowed me to duel any rank without feeling restricted.

Do we have any stats on average duel length, amount of focuses used in each duel, how the focuses altered matches, etc?

[Neo Eternity]

We don't have any stats like that yet, but I can look over the logs and make them.

[MurOllavan]

So far the one thing I noticed was a sudden and dramatic increase in speed. I'm really hoping for more duels to get a better picture of what has changed.

And I'll add the actual tournament duels to my starter report. If we get all the matches recorded in one place it will expedite information collection.

[Winterborn]

I looked over the logs and it seems that there were some good effects and some not so good. Allowing an offensive spell to hit for 1.5 points seems too unbalancing, the average overall length of the duels in the tourney was six rounds and that is really fast. If you can win a duel in four rounds then you probably want to scale back a bit (1.5x4 = win).

Opening up the matrix is awesome, and I think allowing focus to be applied to defenses would give the upper ranks a nice advantage without pummeling the duels into speed racing.

[Sarah]

Tuesday night I was calling duels and I had a match go alllll the way to fifteen, which understandably is tiring... Yeah. But it was with the basic 8 and it ended in a victory. So wee...

The one thing I enjoyed about the focus is the shortened duels. I could also see others being interested in short duels because it doesn't impact rp time. I think with magic duels, less people are willing to be involved with them because of the time it takes and would rather their characters do something else.

I think with an open matrix and focuses more people may be drawn to magic because of the level playing field it offers to all duelists.

The one thing I did not enjoy is when it was 2-2.5 in a duel for me and then my opponent focused-- suddenly it was 2-4 because it was an offensive spell. To me it was kind of like too much of an advantage and made me feel as if I had little chance to recover. I'm not sure, but I think some others may feel that way as well.

[Neo Eternity]

Alright. I'm going to contribute some thoughts that I've gathered up.

Yep, duels are gonna be a lot faster. But consider Wizard vs. Wizard duels. They both have four focuses. And with the increased speed, you might as well focus-bomb each other since it's possible you might end up with unused focuses if you don't. Sure, not every focus is going to hit, but that kind of pressure is present right now. There is potential for some ridiculous stuff, but I don't presently know if things are as crazy as they seem. We won't know until public playtesting, because due to how crazy this looks, I actually don't want people fighting at Wizard for the ART. I have a proposed situation for if Wizard vs. Wizard is really as crazy as it seems, and it's basically to knock out one of the ranks, dropping Mage to 15 WoL and capping focuses at 3, which strikes me as a more reasonable number that will cause people to put more thought into their focus placement. If we do that, Magician will be the one to go since it doesn't sound fighterly.

Focus-bombing though, is probably not super effective as it might look. The actual likelihood of someone going 6-0 or even 4.5-0 completely unanswered and unblocked is, well, really low. Not every focus is going to hit; they're most likely going to get blocked at some point, and even without that, there are situations where attacks earn half points. And then you're out of focuses. Your opponent still has theirs, and they will most likely use theirs more intelligently, at points where they count more.

Eating a focused attack for 1.5 might feel overwhelming to some, but I don't think it's particularly more effective than attacking and ducking into a defense the very next round. It condenses what might transpire over two rounds into one, and it's certainly not insurmountable, especially if you have a focus yourself and can place it right. Don't get discouraged.

I noticed that some people are actually in favor of falling back to fancies if this falls through. That's not a bad idea. And it's actually still relevant to attacks; consider the implementation of fancies. They turn half points into full points. And DoM has situations where attacks earn half points. You could use fancies as insurance for attacks that could earn half points. But we can cross that bridge if we come to it.

We have gotten in touch with our FlashChat modification wizard! We will soon have our checkbox, which will allow us to playtest much easier. After the ART, I'll make a new release of Arbiter for the RDI DoM shift, and once all those pieces are in place and we have some opinions on the Focus ART, we can start public playtesting.

[MurOllavan]

Some thoughts on the speed issue. I do think it is extremely fast and somewhat lopsided for those that strike early. This imbalance is good, meaning it was part of the goals that gave rise to the idea in the first place.

Though I think 6-0 duels or duels going 4,5,6 rounds will be more common than stated above. I'm often been up or down 2 or 3 points quickly, at least in mage on mage duels and I can see already the focuses being used up quickly is obviously good strategy.

The ideas above were to limit to defense and remove magicians sending the cap to 3 foci.

I like the offensive mods. Nether Ray can't be focused and something like MS/AB/MB/WB can. This is a good source of parity for those going up against mages where there is still a move they don't have(very important one) and I think the duels might too slow without it. We do want speed, though perhaps not as blindingly quick as what we saw Monday.

I could see removing magician and capping at three. I'm not sure it really does much since 1pt,1.5x2 is 4-0 in 3 rounds anyway with only 2 mods. But it could help keep things in control and we might only need that little tweak.

I'd like to add another possible idea to the mix for blunting the sudden burst of speed if necessary. Make a rule that mods can't be used back to back. That might blunt the speed a little too much, but remember the DoM matrix wasn't created with modifiers so I think we have mods that are more powerful here than what some might be used to in the other sports.

Though I will say so far it looks good. Watching the mages+ duel lower ranks I think I saw some parity changes though I'm eager to test myself.

edit after reading Sarah's: I think 3.5 - 2 is pretty close to 4-2 in practical though perhaps not psychological terms At least since 3.5 is match point now anyway. Though I think having 3.5 being match point now will change things strategically in ways we haven't seen.

[Sarah]

The one thing I did not enjoy is when it was 2-2.5 in a duel for me and then my opponent focused-- suddenly it was 2-4 because it was an offensive spell. To me it was kind of like too much of an advantage and made me feel as if I had little chance to recover. I'm not sure, but I think some others may feel that way as well.

Mur you completely lost me because that's not what I said.

The score in the duel was 2-2.5.

A focused offensive spell was cast and the points went to 2-4 giving it match point in one round when the person was just at 2.5. It was kinda surprising to say the least and discouraging all the same. Sure I've seen people come back from that as a caller, but that sudden burst of a score isn't really comforting. You could have someone beat their opponent in 4 matches if they have all 3 focuses and hit just right. 1.5x3 = 4.5. I think by giving offensive spells so much boost with focus is a bit daunting and a little aggressive. Sure we want to speed up duels, but not to the point where the lower ranks don't stand a chance against more skilled opponents with 3 focuses.

[Rachael Blackthorne]

Technically, according to the rules, I was cheated out of a Focus to use because Rachael's Mentor was calling the tournament. She should have had three focuses to fully test out the rank versus rank parity, as she is a Neophyte. I don't know how the last match I fought would have turned out if I'd had access to one more focus to use.

However, a player can have access to all the focuses they are entitled to, but if they are facing someone who knows how they duel, the other person can easily beat the first person simply by deductive reasoning more than by relying on focuses. That I witnessed first hand.

[MurOllavan]

Sarah, my point was that if there wasn't a focus the score would have been 3.5 - 2. I was stating I don't see much difference when I'm down 3.5 - 2 or 4 - 2. In my view at that point I consider them both probable losses though my choices might be a little different due to score. And the match point isn't 4 anyway with this, it becomes 3.5 as long as opponent has at least one focus. I can understand the psychological effects, but I would think the same thing happens at 2-0 in DoF.

I haven't tested myself yet but my impression is the foci don't provide much of an advantage which is what we wanted. Aside from mage powers not being eligible, part of the point of making offense foci work is to help lower ranks. If I had two foci, allowing my offensive spellset like MS,AB,WB to be focused further lessens my opponent's mage power. In fact I seemed to notice mages staying away from using NR against a lower rank, with the old ruleset the exact opposite would be true.

I think more playtesting duels will help uncover the new dynamics of this. It is true though to remember that a more experienced player will use the foci better, but that's just a dueling truth in general. I also think it helps to remember what you would think the approximate odds of something happening before were while watching the playtesting. I was surprised at the Kersh/Vinny duel for example.

Rachael if you want you could make a thread proposing to change the Neophyte ruleset. We took DoF's watching idea in which dueling and calling are the two things that negate the benefit as watching is defined. Though I think calling is watching IC, so it makes less sense.

[Lem DeAngelo]

Here are some stats from the All Ranks Tournament where each duelist was allowed to use all 4 advanced spells and up to 3 focused spells.

Round 1
Total Duels: 4
Average Duel Length: 9 rounds

Ring 1 - 5-4 in 9 rounds. Each duelist used their 3 foci. Each duelist scored a total of 1 point from foci.

Ring 2: 5-4 in 8 rounds. Each duelist used their 3 foci. Each duelist scored a total of 1 point from foci.

Ring 3: 5.5-3 in 8 rounds. Each duelist used 1 focus. The winner gained 0.5 from a focused spell.

Ring 4: 6-4.5 in 12 rounds. Each duelist used their 3 foci. Each duelist scored a total of 0.5 point from foci.

Round 2
Total Duels: 4
Average Duel Length: 7.5 rounds

Ring 1: 5-2.5 in 8 rounds. The winner scored 0.5 from 1 focus, and their opponent used 2 foci that did not score.

Ring 2: 5.5-3 in 8 rounds. The winner used 2 foci but did not score from them. Their opponent used 3 foci and scored 0.5.

Ring 3: 5-0.5 in 5 rounds. The winner used all 3 foci and scored 1 point from them. Their opponent did not use any foci.

Ring 4: 5-4 in 9 rounds. Each duelist used their 3 foci. Each duelist scored a total of 1 point from foci.

Round 3
Total Duels: 3
Average Duel Length: 7 rounds

Ring 1: 5-4 in 8 rounds. Each duelist used their 3 foci. The winner gained 1.5 points and their opponent gained 1 point from foci.

Ring 2: 5.5-0.5 in 8 rounds. Each duelist used 1 focus. The winner gained 0.5 from a focused spell.

Ring 3: 5-1 in 5 rounds. Each duelist used 2 foci. The winner gained 1 foci point.

Final Round (combined finals)
Total Duels: 3
Average Duel Length: 7.6 Rounds

Ring 1: 5-2.5 in 7 rounds. Each duelist used their 3 foci. Each duelist scored a total of 1 point from foci.

Ring 2: 5-1.5 in 5 rounds. The winner scored 1 point with 2 foci, and their opponent used 3 foci but did not gain any foci points.

Ring 3: 5.5-2 in 11 rounds. The winner scored 0.5 with 2 foci, and their opponent used 3 foci but did not gain any points.

Average Duel Length for the night: 7.85 rounds.

[Angelica Rose]

That seems to the topic of conversation in the Lobby... Focus Bombing.

But it seems that the focuses do not have that big of an impact, because you still have to be able to outwit your opponent to get them off correctly.

[Shadowlord]

In the tournament, I didn't see any 'Focus Bombing', if I understand the term correctly. The reason I say this is that everyone had the same number of bombs, as it were. In any of the sports, the person with the most fancies/etc. does have an advantage, but that's a matter of rank. In my opinion, there still should be a benefit, even in a refurbished DoM, for having higher rank. Increased parity is a bonus, but complete parity between the ranks eliminates the motivation for gaining higher rank in the first place.

The main effect I saw of Focuses was an increase in duel speed, which in DoM's case is a good and necessary thing. The fact that a duel can be won in 4 rounds is strange, to say the least, but I see nothing wrong with it; it's just the reaction of an old dueler. The benefits of the new system far outweigh that quirk, in my opinion.

[Lem DeAngelo]

Speaking only of my humble opinion, it looks like the foci did not have much impact on overpowering a duelist because most duels resulted in each person scoring the same amount of foci points. If opponent A scored 1 point from foci, opponent B also scored 1 point from foci. So the foci met the objective of speeding up the duel. There were a few duels that ended 5-4 in 8-9 rounds where both duelists scored 1 foci point. Those duels would have been 10+ rounds without foci points since the score would have been 4-3 without them.

In the duels where the winner scored 1-1.5 foci points and their opponent did not score from foci, the score ended with an average of 5-1. So in that case it wasn't the foci that overpowered the duel, just that the winner was dueling near flawlessly. The score would have been 3.5 or 4 to 1 without foci, so the odds were that the winner would have won without foci.

I only used 5 foci in 4 matches because I felt like I needed to keep them in reserve in case I fell behind late in the match. During the practice tournament last week I felt as though I needed to use all 4 foci as quickly as possible to keep my opponent from having an opportunity to beat me 5-4 in 5-6 rounds by using all of their foci. Having a max of only 3 foci definitely kept me from focus bombing, so I tried to be more strategic with the ones I did use. I also wanted to see how well I could do when only using 1 focus in a duel where my opponents had 3 foci.

So based on the most recent trial, I'm currently leaning towards the opinion that a max of 3 foci may be preferred over 4 foci. An average duel length of 8 rounds sounds about right, and the range was 5-12 rounds so it's still quite possible for close matches to go 10+ rounds.