Stories from RhyDin & The Rings

If it is 'Turtling" that we want to eliminate then you have to dissuade the Mindwhip/mage Bolt popularity. I brought this up with Vincent in IM's and we agree it's a fair point.

Mind Whip and Mage bolt are the Jab/Chop equivalent for DoM. And like Flip, Reflect is the only spell that truly beats both for a full point. It also beats Shield under the current matrix as Flip beats AB and LB.

I have sat back and watched recent duels and I see more Foul Fog, Fear Touch, and Displace than I see Shield and Armor. It is because of the Back to back MW/MB/MW like we see Jab/Chop/Jab that we have this.

I understand why Meteor Shower feels like it would make the most sense. It spanks Shield and Armor and Mage Bolt and Ties Mind Whip. Whereas Arctic Blast is beat by Mage Bolt and Mind Whip, Shield it takes a half and it beats Armor.

I recommended GF originally from the RP perspective and because it beats Armor, Foul Fog, and Fear Touch who's use is more popular than Shield and Armor.

Turtling and speed of the duel are related in my opinion. Which means AB or MS are the only solutions. I just do not see how GF is going to help out with either speed or turtle? And I guess we have watched different duels, because I have seen 2 shutouts in the last 2 weeks that involved the mb,mw,mb combo. If the final vote was for AB or MS then I would vote yes. If it was for RF or GF then my vote is no because I don't think it is going to have the impact of speeding up duels and giving apprentice's a viable spell to beat the turtle.

I have to acknowledge that I think the rules are fine as they are.

Lem DeAngelo wrote:I have seen 2 shutouts in the last 2 weeks that involved the mb,mw,mb combo. .

That's what I meant by MW/MB/MW popularity. It's because of this trend that we see turtling for the most part. Adding MS to the mix won't get rid of that. It only increase the odds of people using FF and DP more than they already do which is rather on the high side.

Adding Reflect to the basic list will cut down on the balls to the wall usage of the MW/MB/MW combo that creates the desire to turtle.

Artemus A. Kurgen wrote:
It also beats Shield under the current matrix as Flip beats AB and LB.

Just as a point of clarification, Flip and Legblock null; Flip does not beat Legblock.

Of course MW/MB/WB is popular! They're your basic offensive spells! Gee, maybe we need more DoS counters to TH, LC, and HC, since they're popular! Down with parries! They allow turtling! If your opponent is turtling, turtle back! Sooner or later you'll both discover you have to break out of turtle mode to score any points. DoM requires at least 5 points and a full point lead, which is difficult if you're stuck in turtle mode. You think turtling is bad now? You should have played with the "basic 6" (the basic 8 minus FF and FT for you youngsters).

Adding reflect as an apprentice spell? Are you kidding? We've already got shield and foul fog. Nobody seems to complain in DoS that a commoner can't score a full point on defense against a cut.

Adding GF as an apprentice spell? I'm against this. I believe it would lead to even more apprentice turtling. It is probably one of the best defensive spells overall, which should put it above apprentice level. This is the only spell I've ever really considered lobbying for tweaking, as at times I've considered it too good of a defensive spell. The only problem was that I wasn't comfortable with making the other spells more powerful by allowing them to hit this. As it is, GF at best gets an advantage, so in that respect it isn't a particularly powerful spell, and so I have let it sit as is.

Mana Wave? I didn't get the opportunity to learn its full interactions, but the mages of the time said it was similar to Arctic Blast, and it sucked. No one used it. Everyone used Dispel Magic, which at best, got you a half point, and at worst, provided a null round (which sounds an awful lot like "turtling"...) Oh, and you could only use one of the mage powers once per duel.

The "basic 8" as the youngsters call them now allow any apprentice to walk in and give a Mage a run for the money (now granted, it's a little harder if the Mage is using Nether Ray instead of Immo). I've dueled enough apprentices to know this, and if I can be beat by an apprentice, so can anyone else.

I think the WoL of 20 required to reach Mage status is still perfectly reasonable. Does it mean that everyone can make the rank of Mage quickly or not (It took Dansantes 2+ years of slowly working her way up as I recall) ? No, some people just don't have the feel for this type of dueling. For example, I suck at mainstream DoS, and have never made it past M@A rank there in 10 years of dueling off and on (by comparison, DoM took me about 5 or 6 weeks to make Mage, so some people can point and that and say that anything I say here is rubbish because I didn't have to wait for my rank. I just studied DoM for a few weeks and then dueled my butt off during the prime time AOL switched over to unlimited usage and the chat rooms were full). Rank is earned, and if takes someone a little longer to get it, then they hopefully should feel that much better about themselves when it is achieved.

Is the matrix perfectly balanced? Heck no! If I wanted to play perfectly balanced game, I'd roll dice, flip a coin, or play rock/paper/scissors (or perhaps mainstream DoS, where my win % is around 50%, compared to 66%ish for DoM and DoF). It has its interesting quirks, which leads to certain strategies to counter the quirks, which leads to further strategies to counter the counters, etc. You can't just blindly toss out spells and expect to win (unless you're dueling someone who's scouted you or knows your style and you're trying to mess them up...).

Magic

What a mindboggeling thing to behold, to watch, even when an apprentice calls up his very first, naturally imperfect, but nonetheless shimmering shield or equally as imperfect but overpoweringly stikny first foul fog. And how much more a thing of wonder and amazement when the arch mage, the currently best in competition of mages, calls up this enormous wall of flickering flames, so intimidating to see materialize from seemingly thin air. And how encouraging it is to see that novice's fog just snuff it out like it was no more challenging then the wee flame on the end of a match stick.

Magic

It should make all the sense that to learn how to work magic requires intensive study and a long term committment. That it should take longer to get all the runes, inflictions, minute gestures, concentration, and everything else that goes into the working of magic just right than it does to swing a sword, or swinging a fist and kicking at a shin.


The Challenge

If it was possible to get a degree in magic, one would have to learn a lot, perhaps even more than a specialist surgeon. Twelve to sixteen years of college, residency and whatnot, is what it takes for someone to become a brain surgeon. Granted, the drop out rate of medical classes is enormously high. I am glad to see that the drop out rate of DoM is much lower.

I feel that the intricacies of the DoM matrix perfectly reflects the RP aspects of magic. The matrix changes every time one learns a new spell and one uses a different matrix depending on what combination of spells one's opponent has in his or her arsenal. Yes, this is very complex. It requires that one learns the mechanics of 7! matrixes instead of just one with modifiers. This mages DoM a much greater challenge than DoS or DoF - in theory. To me DoF is the unmasterable mystery.


On adding a spell

There are perfectly good reasons previously existing spells were dropped or replaced. I do not see a benefit in recessitating a spell that was abndoned because it was a 'bad' spell. Adding a spell would also add to the complexity, adding more possible matrixes to get a feeling/understanding for. From the majority of the responses so far I read that adding more difficulty to the game is something not desired at this time.

On dropping a spell

A spell less would significantly lower the challenge learning DoM poses. Doing so, with or without lowering WoL to gain the highest possible rank, would make the entire thing that much easier, in theory. (I have to point out here that even though something should logically have one specific result or another does not necessarily translate that way into praxis.) There have been less spells in the past. The question should be was having the smaller spell list better or is the current spell list better?

On dropping WoL or a rank

While we're on repeating suggestions that have been voted down or decided against when they came up in years past, I miss the repeat of the suggestion to just lower the WoL required for gaining ranks from 2, 5, 10, 15, 20 to 2, 5, 8, 11, 15 or 2, 4, 7, 10, 15. In the great sheme of things, what difference does it really make to get to those rank barriers a week or two earlier, or if someone duels less frequently a month or two? In fifteen, ten or five years of dueling next to none. There would still be people that complain about it taking too long to gain the highest rank.
Dropping a rank and giving the current apprentices an advanced spell woukld effectively eliminate the apprentice rank. Dropping any of the inbetween ranks would make it to where no one could duel with all four advanced spells. I find both equally distasteful. And I fail to see how this would make participating in DoM any more desirable.


On 'turteling'

Defensive dueling is a style. This style requires patience and a certain level of skill in all three sports. It tends to be a style preferred by skilled duelists that enjoy spending time in a ring, enjoy RPing a defensive and well thought out style. More credit to those few who have mastered this style to actually get an above 50% winning record with it. People out for quick duels tend to go with offense more, and probably avoid dueling those known for a defensive style. I think it is a good thing for the matrix to allow a wide range of styles to develope.


On length of duels

Most DoM duels run eight to twelve rounds. Longer and shorter than that duels are rare. RP and none related issues have a far larger influence on time spent between spells sent to the caller than the additional seconds required to consider the possibilities of a few more matrix choices. Turning some 0/0 or 0.5/0.5 results into 1/1 results may make some duels a wee bit shorter. But I doubt that we'll see a significant change on average length of duels with that.


In addition

The eight apprentice spells are powerful. It is very possible to win duels against higher ranks with using just those eight spells, or even a select five or four of those eight spells. It is exciting to gain a new spell and to duel with it to see what it can do. That people in general lose a few duels with the use of the advanced spells at the cost of using the apprentice spells goes to show that.

It's human nature to rise to challenges, to seek challenges. Something that is easily obtained isn't worth having or at least is treassured far less when obtained.

Okay, this thread is becoming stagnant, and I don't want this dicussion to end up going unfinished.

Let me first say that the goal is not simply to make it easier for apprentices to beat high ranks. That is already completely and entirely possible.

The concern here is that a certain style of dueling may be overpowered in comparison to others. That means regardless of rank. We are talking about potential imbalances in the game that may give some people unfair advantages over others. That is what I want to discuss and look into. I was going to do some experiments with Lem, but we didn't get the opportunity the last couple times we tried.

There are a couple of things I want to address.

Wulfson wrote:If your opponent is turtling, turtle back! Sooner or later you'll both discover you have to break out of turtle mode to score any points. DoM requires at least 5 points and a full point lead, which is difficult if you're stuck in turtle mode.

Unless I've been wrong for the past year, which would really stink, the rule you're referring to is gone now. All you need to win in DoM is a full point lead by round 15. Which means turtling back is not an option.

Wulfson wrote:Everyone used Dispel Magic, which at best, got you a half point, and at worst, provided a null round (which sounds an awful lot like "turtling"...)

This is different from what Lem and I came up with... the Dispel we came up with would give up a full point to all offensive spells. But we're here to discuss options. If an additional spell is not a desired solution, then so be it. It's no skin off my back.

Topaz wrote:Defensive dueling is a style. This style requires patience and a certain level of skill in all three sports. It tends to be a style preferred by skilled duelists that enjoy spending time in a ring, enjoy RPing a defensive and well thought out style. More credit to those few who have mastered this style to actually get an above 50% winning record with it. People out for quick duels tend to go with offense more, and probably avoid dueling those known for a defensive style. I think it is a good thing for the matrix to allow a wide range of styles to develope.

Look, I'm all for allowing a wide variety of styles. I'm even open to defensive styles. But the concern here is that one style might give an unfair advantage over others, in that apprentices might not have a way to fight against it. Those with rank have AB, the best defensive neutralizer we have thus far. MS is a pretty decent one too. But apprentices have neither.

Wulfson wrote:Is the matrix perfectly balanced? Heck no! If I wanted to play perfectly balanced game, I'd roll dice, flip a coin, or play rock/paper/scissors (or perhaps mainstream DoS, where my win % is around 50%, compared to 66%ish for DoM and DoF). It has its interesting quirks, which leads to certain strategies to counter the quirks, which leads to further strategies to counter the counters, etc.

We're not tyring to make a perfectly balanced matrix; I agree that DoM should have its quirks and ways to get around them, because that is indeed what makes it interesting. A balanced matrix isn't necessary for the game itself to be balanced.

For example, DoF is the most unbalanced matrix we have due to Jab's ridiculous attacking potency. The only attack that beats it is Flip. But Flip is still there. If someone starts getting Jab-happy, you can punish them for it. Or maybe you can bait them into thinking you're Jab-happy and then kick them when they try to flip you. And even if your flip fails, and you think they're going to take advantage of it with a Jab, you can chop for a tie or defend for an advantage (or Fancy defend for a full point). Thus, even though the matrix isn't balanced, the game still is because of the things you can do with it.

At this point, I can't say that about DoM and be confident about it. I don't know that there are workable strategies for apprentices to use against those who are turtling, that would allow them to come back from a deficit and take the lead. That's what the discussion is here for, and the experiments I want to do with Lem. If there are workable strategies, you get to tell us about them, thus proving me wrong, which would make me pretty happy.

Will,

Just a couple things I wanted to respond to:

You said of course "MW, MB and WB" are popular!" We were discussing the power of MW, MB, MW (or MB, MW, MB) cast in 3 rounds against an apprentice, not WB. Don't know if that changes how you were reading into it, but we weren't discussing WB, just MB and MW.

Mana Wave - No one suggested adding it. It was just mentioned as a fun point of history. I brought up Dispel since some agreed that speed/turtling was a problem but did not want to drop Mage to 15 WoL. The only thing mine and Neo's version of Dispel had in common with the original spell was the name. Neo already explained our version of Dispel, and no one voiced agreement for adding it so I think it's a dead point anyway. Pretty sure no one suggested giving apprentices reflect either.Just MS, AB and Art said GF.

You said people should turtle back if they get turtled, and I would agree with that suggestion. However, what some of us are saying is that lower ranks basically can't turtle back when their opponent has MS or AB. Let's say I'm an apprentice and you're a sorcerer with MS. I used mind whip in round 7 and you didn't armor. In round 8 you can use armor and the best I can hope for is to fear touch you for the adv. Same thing with shield and wizard blades. After I wizard blade, you can safely use shield, and worst case lose an adv. Put 2 duelists against each other without MS or AB and the match crawls. I only spent one week as an apprentice and it sounds like you did too, so we did not experience this. Speaking for myself only on this next comment, (but I would guess there are more with this opinion) If I hear that a tournament is basic 8 only, then I am a little disappointed because I know I'm in for a long night.

And yes, and apprentice can give a mage a run for their money, but I bet if tested, the mages would win at least 7 out of 10 times. The apprentice would be -4 WoL and can look forward to zeroing out at the end of the cycle. We don't have enough flow of new duelists to keep the low ranks dueling each other to pick up a quick 2 WoL and get MS or AB. And what if they pick Reflection or GF? Getting to 5 is going to very difficult in this environment. It was not the case in popular years.

Topaz,

No doubt that you love the RP of magic. I do as well, but I love the game mechanics just as much. And I really do believe the game is too flawed due to the current population and the apprentice level matrix. Without MS and AB duelists are restricted to a long duel of trading null rounds and advances. There are reports of people not dueling in DoM because of the length of matches and turtling. Without a constant flow of new duelers, it's got to be difficult to try and gain ranks in this system because your high level opponents can turtle you (yes it can be beaten occasionally, but not often).

Adding a spell vs dropping - I think we've all hammered out that neither is the solution.

Dropping WoL and rank - I don't know if I follow you here? Look at the records from the past few years and there is an obvious wall in gaining ranks. We rarely have anyone make it to wizard. Art and Xanth are very skilled, and yet Art was stalled for a long time and Xanth is still stalled at magician/wizard. You said "in the great scheme of things, what difference does it really make to get those rank barriers a week or two earlier?" The problem is that right now people aren't gaining those ranks a week or two later, they aren't gaining them at all. And the reason could be speed of the match and turtling.

On the 2, 4, 7,10 15 suggestion. I'd be ok with trying that for a few cycles to see if it made an impact. If it did not, I'd suggest we try adding MS or AB to the apprentices for a few cycles and try that idea. There's nothing wrong with experimenting with good ideas to get the right formula.

I averaged the length of DoM duels for the month of February, and there were 79 duels and 853 rounds for an average length of 10.8 rounds. You mentioned that anything under 8 rounds or longer than 12 rounds was rare. Of the duels in February, 4 were under 8 rounds whereas 24 went 13-15 rounds. So 30% of our matches are longer than 12 rounds and 0.5% are under 8 rounds. Much more likely to get a long match as opposed to a fast match.

I think speed of dueling isn't so much about the spells but in how well the individuals understand the matrix and their own dueling instinct.

Any more, dueling isn't always about thinking of what spell to use next as against several I know what spell to use before the previous round is over. Against others, after I submit my movement I get a follow up thought that they're going to do the opposite of what I figured, and they usually do just that. This is a duelist's instinct, the subconcious urge to choose movements that simply feel right. That intuitive understanding of the matrix as a whole.

The only way to improve dueling instinct is simply to duel and master the matrix completely with a thorough knowledge of its complexities.

Let me again state my own personal belief that the length of duels needs no improvement. The fact that we're as fast as we are without modifiers is very good, IMO.

Neo Eternity wrote:Let me again state my own personal belief that the length of duels needs no improvement. The fact that we're as fast as we are without modifiers is very good, IMO.

However you want to switch up the spell roster to make duels faster, i.e. change their length, for truly new duelists.

Just weighing in here (with personal opinions; I don't have hard data to back up my sentiments, so my perceptions may be, in fact, incorrect):

To me, DoM seems the "slowest" of all the dueling games. By that, I mean the duels appear to last a long long time. I've had more 15-round ties than I'd care to admit, and personally, it's frustrating to have duels last that long over and over again. Maybe I've been unlucky in the grand scheme, and as evidenced by my TdR Tag Team match against Maranya & Lem, you can certainly lose 5 points in a hurry, but from where I sit the fast match is the exception and the long(er) matches are the norm.

As far as WoL's go, most of mine in DoM have come from tournament placements and while I don't duel DoM regularly, I've only gone up 2 WoL in the last twoish years. Again, a large part of that is due to irregular dueling - irregular dueling is due to me not really wanting to find myself in another 15 round tie or another lengthy duel, be it a win or a loss on my record. Are there fast matches in all 3 games? Yes. Are there long ones? Yes. To me, though, my perception is that DoM matches tend to last longer/progress more slowly than the other games.

That slow progression (be it due to intentional "turtling" or some other reason) is another frustrating part of DoM for me. There are just too many nickel-and-dime combinations that result in .5 points. There seems to be an abundance of defensive spells and/or ways to partially deflect spells that result in .5 points instead of a full point. The overall way the matrix is constructed, to allow for those .5 results, I believe contributes to longer duels overall.

Now, are longer duels a bad thing? Not necessarily - that's up to the players to decide for themselves. Would I personally mind some changes, especially if those changes lowered the average length of matches? No. I don't know if altering the matrix is the answer (because matrix changes are delicate and require a lot of testing to make sure things stay balanced, etc.). Lowering WoL requirements/eliminating a rank may or may not help; providing an extra spell to Apprentices may help, but may need some playtesting just to see if it makes an overall difference.

Again, I'm by no means a DoM expert and I don't have data to back up my feelings (Lem provided some information/data a few posts back that seems to support my perceptions, but perhaps a larger investigation is in order as his sampling may not reflect overall trends, but a recent spike in lengthier matches), so my experiences may not reflect the overall experiences of the dueling whole.

--Matt

I'm not entirely sure if this will kick up a nest of hornets, but I believe that anybody with more than 3 advanced rank spells shouldn't be allowed to use more than 2 per fight against lower ranked fighters, because I've seen a few spam Meteor Storm and Reflection just to be jerks.

I've been turtled before, and it's frustrating as heck, I think what could be done to discourage spell-spamming might be taking off half-points for more than 4 consecutive rounds of a MB-MW-MB-MW combo or something similar because of how cheap it seems sometimes, it just doesn't really seem fair to someone else out for a good time to just get their night ruined because someone wants to be mean and spam that stuff.

As for these old spell you guys've been talkin' about, I've never even heard of them. Dispel Magic does sound pretty good if it scores a full point against attack spells. I'd use it..

I'm all for any revisions to the game, because I really enjoy the DoM, as it's Yejix's best-played sport despite his dismal rankings at the moment.
Anything to preserve the spirit of the game and to send a big "LOL, NO" to spammers would be great.

Fear Touch and Wizard Blades work wonders against both MS and RF, just as a clarification. The matrix is more difficult to master, but it does in fact tend to favor the basic spells over the advanced, from what I've seen in practice. In a challenge situation, the higher-ranked dueler has to choose the advanced spells he or she will use to match the number available to the Keeper. To do the same in a regular day-to-day duel seems a bit strict.

My only matrix suggestion would be to tweak the dual advantages (like FF/FF) to be full point trades instead, but other than that, it's balanced well enough.