Rules change proposal: Negative WoL

[Kalamere]

It takes work, focus, and effort (more often than not, at any rate) on behalf of the player. Getting a character to Warlord/Emerald/Mage+ isn't suppossed to be easy, but neither is it intended to be an insurmountable task.

Not picking on Matt, it's just a good entrance line. I want to re-iterate though that I don't think this makes the path to Warlord / Mage / Emerald an easy one. That's not even the point of the proposal.

Since DoS has standings available back to 2004 I'm able to scrape through them and throw some numbers together on this. I don't guarantee 100% accuracy because the script was sorta rushed, but I think it's close enough for posting purposes.

There are currently 43 characters between Swordsman and GrandMaster on the standings, not counting Wyh and Roderick who made Warlord this weekend. Of the 43, 4 GMs, 1 M@A and 1 Swordman have stats going back before the first xml standings sheet, so I have to discount them.

Of the 3 GMs: There would be no practical effect to the WoL change proposed.
Of the 5 M@A's: One duelist would see a +3 WoL increase, but would still be a M@A. (Myrlene).
Of the 30 Swordsman: 7 of them would see an increase in WoL.
* Maranya would gain +6 WoL and move up to M@A
* Nikthanas would gain +2 WoL, no ranking effect
* Porthos would gain +1 WoL and move up to M@A
* Rekeh would gain +1 WoL and move up to M@A
* Ria would gain +1 WoL, no ranking effect
* Stiles would gain +4 WoL and move up to M@A
* Zara would gain +3 WoL and move up to M@A

So.. the point is this. Of the 37 Duelists between Commoner and Warlord only 7 of them would see a real benefit of the change. Only 5 of them would see a rank increase. More importanly though, the only rank increase seen is from Swordsman to Master-at-Arms. Next to the first jump to Swordsman, this is the smallest jump possible. Nobody jumps more than 1 rank and zero people get the feared free ride to Warlord.

Trying to do this with the commoner list is daunting.. that's a lot of names. Dunno if I'll get around to it not. I think the above demonstrates what I'm getting at though.

[G]

So.. the point is this. Of the 37 Duelists between Commoner and Warlord only 7 of them would see a real benefit of the change. Only 5 of them would see a rank increase. More importanly though, the only rank increase seen is from Swordsman to Master-at-Arms. Next to the first jump to Swordsman, this is the smallest jump possible. Nobody jumps more than 1 rank and zero people get the feared free ride to Warlord.

Trying to do this with the commoner list is daunting.. that's a lot of names. Dunno if I'll get around to it not. I think the above demonstrates what I'm getting at though.

What this tells me is that it's not significant enough to warrant any changes to the current system.

[Scotty]

I'm still curious though. What changed? Why weren't you for this idea back in '98 when there were a great many of us struggling to make it out from the commoner rank? Why now?

But why ask? (I love you, you know this, so this is purely an intellectual question.)

Maybe it just came up and never occurred to anyone to think about it -- maybe it's a new idea. (I don't know, honestly -- maybe this was floated sooner and I just wasn't around.) Maybe it's born of time and perspective. Maybe it's just a lark. Maybe it's to see if there's another way to encourage more people not to quit, or to come out instead of waiting for the next cycle because they're so disheartened. Maybe it's just an idea put forth for discussion.

Why ask what changed, when '98 was over a decade ago and perspectives change over time? ::laughs:: I mean, I know I sure look at gaming differently than I did in '98.

[Kalamere]

I wasn't going to fight this, but the Devil's Advocate in me can't help help it.

G, the numbers are to demonstrate that there is no free ride to Warlord. That does not mean there's no effect... and maybe I should find the time to parse through the commoners to see how far is goes.

(a) The numbers don't capture the psychological effect of digging a massive LoW hole. I think there's an argument to be made that says if only 8 of the 37 Swordsman - GM's see a positive effect, it could mean that all the folks who found themselves in that commoner LoW hole gave up and stopped playing. It'll take a whole lot more scripting and number collection for me to put anything solid around this, so it's just idle speculation at this point. If it is the case though, then I'd venture to say it's worth solving.

(b) A 15% increase to the M@A rank wouldn't be a bad thing. Currently M@A and GM are the limbo of DoS. With some obvious few exceptions, you're either on your way to warlord here or headed back down to Swordsman / Commoner. 9 people total (again, not counting the 2 new warlords) sit in those ranks. I think it would be good to see a small increase to their number.

[Scotty]

Making rank comes down to player resolve. Period. There are more "helpers" for lower ranks than ever out there thanks to the rules and I personally don't understand why people are still scrambling to add more, as if the old tried and true method of simply dueling and winning is now apparently extremely difficult and a hump not worth getting over.

It's fantastic that there are so many great roleplay or OOC ideas that were brought to light in this thread, and I'm all in favor of pushing for the houses again. Quite frankly, there are a number of tactics available to everyone to gain rank. If an individual decides to ignore those tactics for whatever reason then it really gives me the feeling that they aren't that interested in making rank in the first place. If whatever you're doing isn't working then try something else. Making rank is up to each individual player and sitting around complaining that you can't do it doesn't mean the rules are broken by any stretch of the imagination.

Try harder.

I've tried to reply to this a dozen times. But pretty much the whole point Kalamere seemed to be making was:

It's essentially the hook. Keep the new folks engaged, don't make it too hard on them, and maybe they'll stick around for the long haul.

Our games tend to go in the exact opposite direction.

I'm pretty sure that railing people for not trying harder, or for 'complaining', or for not knowing every trick right off, isn't really going to solve the problem of getting more people involved on a long term basis. If you don't want to do that, by all means. Your game, your rules. But if you do, railing people who have clearly tried for getting discouraged does no good -- especially when people were asked to throw in their perspectives.

I'm about done, now. Thanks for an interesting discussion, folks.

[Napoleon Bonarat]

I'm still curious though. What changed? Why weren't you for this idea back in '98 when there were a great many of us struggling to make it out from the commoner rank? Why now?

That's a long time ago. I'm not even sure if the proposal ever came up. If it did, I'd probably have a similar opinion. Though arguably there were a lot more people back then and even more new blood so dueling within rank was a heck of a lot easier.

You also mentioned how you think people use to many fancies against the lower ranks. As someone who looks at a lot of logs, I don't see this happening in regular, non-tournament dueling. Again, this happened regularly pre-2004. Why is it now an issue when it's actually decreased greatly?

I didn't say that. I said something very specific about certain people who sneer at a commoner/glass looking to duel within rank but these same people are pretty mod happy when dueling lower ranks. This happens more in DoF than DoS to my recollection.

I've never expected nor asked anyone to duel me without them. I do think it's rude to use fancies under certain circumstances, but that's another topic.

[Harris]

Making rank comes down to player resolve. Period. There are more "helpers" for lower ranks than ever out there thanks to the rules and I personally don't understand why people are still scrambling to add more, as if the old tried and true method of simply dueling and winning is now apparently extremely difficult and a hump not worth getting over.

It's fantastic that there are so many great roleplay or OOC ideas that were brought to light in this thread, and I'm all in favor of pushing for the houses again. Quite frankly, there are a number of tactics available to everyone to gain rank. If an individual decides to ignore those tactics for whatever reason then it really gives me the feeling that they aren't that interested in making rank in the first place. If whatever you're doing isn't working then try something else. Making rank is up to each individual player and sitting around complaining that you can't do it doesn't mean the rules are broken by any stretch of the imagination.

Try harder.

I've tried to reply to this a dozen times. But pretty much the whole point Kalamere seemed to be making was:

It's essentially the hook. Keep the new folks engaged, don't make it too hard on them, and maybe they'll stick around for the long haul.

Our games tend to go in the exact opposite direction.

I'm pretty sure that railing people for not trying harder, or for 'complaining', or for not knowing every trick right off, isn't really going to solve the problem of getting more people involved on a long term basis. If you don't want to do that, by all means. Your game, your rules. But if you do, railing people who have clearly tried for getting discouraged does no good -- especially when people were asked to throw in their perspectives.

I'm about done, now. Thanks for an interesting discussion, folks.

If I'm "railing" anybody it's the people that have decided they want to make rank but refuse to utilize all the methods, tactics, and strategies that are already at their disposal to do so and have decided the best way for them to get a leg up is to have the rules changed to cater to their lack of individual resolve.

You don't keep going out for football if you spend all your time being clobbered into the field, you take up some other sport where you might actually stand a chance.

To use what you said to make my point. If you go out for football, get clobbered, do you go to the coach and ask him to tell the players to take it easy on you? You don't. You do one of two things. You try harder to get better and exhaust every resource you have to do so if you care so you can compete or you simply bail out and do something else. If a new player is willing to quit because of a bad weekend or a bad cycle, that's not something telling about them? There are humps to get over at every level. If the first hump a person hits causes them to quit is it a great idea for that same player to cruise up to the higher ranks? It's hard all around. We should be instilling new players with the resolve to get over humps and prepare them for the upper echelon. Getting people to stick around is fantastic for dueling, but not at the expense of not teaching them the value of what they're shooting for.

[Artemus Kurgen]

I think it has been said enough to set in. The only thing that actually stops a person from gaining rank is how bad the player wants it. The Power Dueling isn't meant for your main character. I have characters I probably only play once a cycle or every few months. I don't care about their dueling record so have no reason to show restraint in their dueling. At this point I'm pretty much agreeing with the points Harris has brought up along with G. Changing the rules to make getting 15 wins easier ony cheapens the damn rank. Of the 8-10 characters I have, Sylus and Artemus are the only ones that I call "duelists" and view themselves as competitors in the sports. The rest just do it as a means to pass the time and have a bit of pugilistic fun.

In the 70s educators got rid of grammar from English courses because students were losing interest in the subject. So they pushed reading and comprehension over knowing how to speak correctly and understand proper writing form. This thread is pretty much encouraging a similar thought. It's too hard so lets do away with a buffer. The long term effect is clear. More hurtful than helpful.

[Neo Eternity]

A point of clarification concerning the Ring of Klytus: it is not earned through a tournament. It is earned by dueling consistently well during regular dueling. It's a lot like the rankings Guill used to do for DoS. Whoever has the highest percentage in the top bracket wins the RoK, if they should choose to accept it. And it is currently not restricted to the lower ranks either, though it has absolutely no benefit to anyone Wizard or above.

In regards to Houses, one has been created, House deGorol, but neither Tormay nor I have pushed it very much lately. More houses would definitely be a good thing.

First, I agree with Kalamere's idea for the reasons he has stated. I think it should be easy to get your foot in the door to avoid those psychological blows, and to assure they'll keep playing. But I also think it should be hard to reach the top. Do I think that this will make it easy to reach the top? Nope. Implying that this change will give everyone a free ride to Warlord is a really flimsy slippery slope argument. In fact, it won't affect the rank climb much at all. It will still be as hard as it is to climb the ranks.

The only things I've heard from those who are not in favor of this change are slippery slope arguments, and people who don't want to fix what's not broken. How long has it been since you guys truly started out? Do you actually remember how difficult it was? I don't mean this as a personal attack on anyone, but I don't think some of you guys are even really trying to see this issue outside of your point of view, that being the view from the top. For a veteran to create a new character and raise him/her/it through the ranks is completely different than a totally new player trying to find his/her/its way.

Why is it such a bad thing to put a floor on the rankings to prevent new players from becoming discouraged and disheartened? We DO want activity, right? We DO want new blood, right? Like I said, it should be easy to get your foot in the door, because that's what makes new players want to keep playing, and then make it hard to get to the top so that they feel accomplished if/when they get there. Letting people fall into holes from the very start is directly adverse to this. Sure, there are resources to get better, but when your main character, the one you want to play as, is in a hole, motivation to use those resources may be a little low. Seriously, why is it such a bad thing? Maybe there's something I'm overlooking. Maybe something I missed. But do give me something better than a slippery slope argument or stubbornness, please.

[Kalamere]

You want a challenge? Go modless all the way. To my knowledge (which could be wrong), I'm the only person to ever have done that in any of the 3 sports, and I did it years and years and years ago.

Total tangent, but in DoS it was done by Ian MacKenzie back in '95. He went from Commoner to Warlord in one weekend, so never had the chance to earn fancies at another rank.

He's the only one I know of though.

[Artemus Kurgen]

A point of clarification concerning the Ring of Klytus: it is not earned through a tournament. It is earned by dueling consistently well during regular dueling. It's a lot like the rankings Guill used to do for DoS. Whoever has the highest percentage in the top bracket wins the RoK, if they should choose to accept it. And it is currently not restricted to the lower ranks either, though it has absolutely no benefit to anyone Wizard or above.

In regards to Houses, one has been created, House deGorol, but neither Tormay nor I have pushed it very much lately. More houses would definitely be a good thing.

First, I agree with Kalamere's idea for the reasons he has stated. I think it should be easy to get your foot in the door to avoid those psychological blows, and to assure they'll keep playing. But I also think it should be hard to reach the top. Do I think that this will make it easy to reach the top? Nope. Implying that this change will give everyone a free ride to Warlord is a really flimsy slippery slope argument. In fact, it won't affect the rank climb much at all. It will still be as hard as it is to climb the ranks.

The only things I've heard from those who are not in favor of this change are slippery slope arguments, and people who don't want to fix what's not broken. How long has it been since you guys truly started out? Do you actually remember how difficult it was? I don't mean this as a personal attack on anyone, but I don't think some of you guys are even really trying to see this issue outside of your point of view, that being the view from the top. For a veteran to create a new character and raise him/her/it through the ranks is completely different than a totally new player trying to find his/her/its way.

Why is it such a bad thing to put a floor on the rankings to prevent new players from becoming discouraged and disheartened? We DO want activity, right? We DO want new blood, right? Like I said, it should be easy to get your foot in the door, because that's what makes new players want to keep playing, and then make it hard to get to the top so that they feel accomplished if/when they get there. Letting people fall into holes from the very start is directly adverse to this. Sure, there are resources to get better, but when your main character, the one you want to play as, is in a hole, motivation to use those resources may be a little low. Seriously, why is it such a bad thing? Maybe there's something I'm overlooking. Maybe something I missed. But do give me something better than a slippery slope argument or stubbornness, please.

Why is it so bad? Easy. There are all ready multiple functions built into the game that help new comers advance, any more just waters it down more than is needed. Talon of Redwin, Ring of Klytus, Panther's Claw, All Ranks Tournament, Squire/Mentor program. It is one thing to offer tools that help the new players gain rank, it is another to entirely baby them and coddle the new players.

[Kalamere]

If I'm "railing" anybody it's the people that have decided they want to make rank but refuse to utilize all the methods, tactics, and
strategies that are already at their disposal to do so and have decided the best way for them to get a leg up is to have the rules changed to cater to their lack of individual resolve.

Just to be clear here, the people your referring to don't actually exist. The one that decided to ask for a rules change is me. I've already got 3 warlords and am sitting at 0-0 or higher with the other characters/sports I play anyway. If anything, I'm one of the few people who gets to think you and all the other warlords posting here had the easy climb up, since I did it under the original fancy rules.

Lets not turn this into a personal thing. I proposed this because I thought it might help the game hold onto some new blood, not because I've got some personal agenda I want to accomplish.

To use what you said to make my point. If you go out for football, get clobbered, do you go to the coach and ask him to tell the players to take it easy on you? You don't. You do one of two things. You try harder to get better and exhaust every resource you have to do so if you care so you can compete or you simply bail out and do something else

Maybe so.. but when the coach is no longer getting enough kids at tryouts to fill his roster he has to make a decision. Close up shop and send his few remaining athletes off to play soccer, or do something different. Are we there? No, I don't think so. I think there was a time when the game came damn close though.

At this point I'm pretty much agreeing with the points Harris has brought up along with G. Changing the rules to make getting 15 wins easier ony cheapens the damn rank.

I've already said this about half a dozen times, but once more can't hurt. The proposal is NOT to make 15 WoL easier. I threw out a ton of numbers attempting to show that it will not, in fact, make the climb to Warlord any faster than it currently is. The climb to swordsman or master-at-arms? Yeah, those might be easier.. but I don't think that's a bad thing.

[Harris]

If I'm "railing" anybody it's the people that have decided they want to make rank but refuse to utilize all the methods, tactics, and
strategies that are already at their disposal to do so and have decided the best way for them to get a leg up is to have the rules changed to cater to their lack of individual resolve.

Just to be clear here, the people your referring to don't actually exist. The one that decided to ask for a rules change is me. I've already got 3 warlords and am sitting at 0-0 or higher with the other characters/sports I play anyway. If anything, I'm one of the few people who gets to think you and all the other warlords posting here had the easy climb up, since I did it under the original fancy rules.

Lets not turn this into a personal thing. I proposed this because I thought it might help the game hold onto some new blood, not because I've got some personal agenda I want to accomplish.

It wasn't intended to be a personal jab at anyone. I didn't name names or point fingers. If those people don't exist then nobody is insulted, are they?

To use what you said to make my point. If you go out for football, get clobbered, do you go to the coach and ask him to tell the players to take it easy on you? You don't. You do one of two things. You try harder to get better and exhaust every resource you have to do so if you care so you can compete or you simply bail out and do something else

Maybe so.. but when the coach is no longer getting enough kids at tryouts to fill his roster he has to make a decision. Close up shop and send his few remaining athletes off to play soccer, or do something different. Are we there? No, I don't think so. I think there was a time when the game came damn close though.

As for that analogy, the coach isn't going to change the rules of football to fill out his roster if kids aren't showing up. Should he?

[Marc Franco]

I'm still curious though. What changed? Why weren't you for this idea back in '98 when there were a great many of us struggling to make it out from the commoner rank? Why now?

But why ask? (I love you, you know this, so this is purely an intellectual question.)

Maybe it just came up and never occurred to anyone to think about it -- maybe it's a new idea. (I don't know, honestly -- maybe this was floated sooner and I just wasn't around.) Maybe it's born of time and perspective. Maybe it's just a lark. Maybe it's to see if there's another way to encourage more people not to quit, or to come out instead of waiting for the next cycle because they're so disheartened. Maybe it's just an idea put forth for discussion.

Why ask what changed, when '98 was over a decade ago and perspectives change over time? ::laughs:: I mean, I know I sure look at gaming differently than I did in '98.

Well, that's what I want to know. I want to know the reasoning behind bringing it up now. I want to know what people think it will solve. I want to know why they think the measures that some of us have worked so hard on aren't enough. I want to know why.

Consider me the annoying toddler who asks "why?" after everything their parent says. It's not disrespectful. I just want to know the reasons.

[G]

I deleted my previous post cause it did seem like I was harping on "OOoh the climb to WL would be Easier!" which this whole thread is *not* really about.

Okay, it's not about the climb to WL.

The climb to swordsman or master-at-arms? Yeah, those might be easier.. but I don't think that's a bad thing.

Let's touch on this. Okay, I understand that you seem to be wanting the climb to the mid ranks to be easier. But why?

Swordsman/Jade is 2 WoL.
M@A and Ruby is 5 WoL
GM and Sapphire is 10 WoL.

Now, G is both a Warlord and Emerald. Dunno how he got to Emerald, but apparently what I've been told is winning more than losing helps. I maintain clerical error.

I also have 2 Jades. One is currently listed as a Glass, though.(FIX KTHX! )

Why does it need to be easier for me to get these ranks? What would I learn from this? Truth be told, I don't think I'd learn anything other than it wasn't that hard to get those ranks. As an Emerald, I *still* don't know how to use Feints, and I certainly do NOT know the matrix by heart. I've never used a feint except in the One challenge match I used one because it was funny to me to do so. In fact, I rarely use Fancies, as well.

Now, the above is just me. Just my experiences. I don't think I'd need a weekly/monthly zeroing out to assist me. My interest is going to be how much fun I have while dueling, whereever I'm dueling. It's a reason why I don't have more WLs. I only have fun on the two WLs I have. I recently(Last two cycles I think) had two commoners that I dueled with a few times, but it was the interest of the characters that put a temporary hold on dueling with them rather than the fact that they didn't advance in rank.

So, speaking from Experience of a duelist who has low ranking duelists, I don't see the need to change the rules in regards to zeroing out losses.