Intercessions?

[JewellRavenlock]

And that is why we need to strike a balance, because here is an uncomfortable truth: That new blood? It usually leaves, no matter what.

I think that may be going a bit far seeing as how a lot of the new blood around here does a lot of work: behind the scenes, calling, daily participation, joining in discussions where they run the risk of being insulted :)

[Anubis Karos]

Claire and Colin,

That was not a personal attack. It's just the basic pattern over the years.

[Andrea Anderson]

Duel at Dawn stuff.

Naw, son. We did it at dawn because it was an RP thing he wanted to do with Imp when Aurasts player first challenged using the Trick or Treat first come first serve challenge grants.

Plus we're both up at 6 AM, along with Harris most of the time, anyway and it felt like a better scene than doing it in the middle of the Arena during the middle of the night. It made the fight more personal. I wasn't expecting an intercession at all. It's like challenging G this past year. He'll fight you himself.

[Morgan le Fay]

Apple, I didn't imply anything about the Aurast/Nayun match being at 6 am being a bad thing or tricky.

Awkward (I think) asked if the intercession didn't happen because it was at 6 am (a good question). I just clarified that I did ask (as I do any other challenged), but assumed he didn't want intercession, regardless of what time the duel was scheduled for. But if he DID want it, I probably couldn't make 6 am.

My assumption was based on you two knowing each other and you being one who doesn't like intercessions and him being cool with that.

[Anubis Karos]

I really do hope I didn't insult anyone, it was just a basic pattern. For all I know, and for I really, really hope, no one reading this will disappear.

It also unfortunately submerged my point: Don't go overboard and completely alienate the people who have been here over the years and make sure that there is a "bottom".

[Harris]

In a sense I see the DoS system as promoting the idea of a fuller familiarity with the sport before challenging. And I don't think that's a bad thing. There are plenty of ranks to be gained, and milestones reached, before one ever really needs to jump into the challenge mix, and plenty of other games I play have such a structure, essentially forcing you to learn the game before, say, being able to kill the evil Arch-Lich of Doom or whatever.

And

What we are saying is that DOS is intentionally meant to have this level of complexity and changes have to be considered carefully because it upsets the balance elsewhere. And that it's not an OMG WE MUST FIX THIS NOW if the majority of the people complaining about this complexity have only been around for about a year (at most) or a few months.

I think these two points should be reiterated, the idea that the complexity of the sport is intentional and that it lends itself to forcing people to first become more familiar with the sport before they leap into it. Since several people have shared personal anecdotes, I'll do the same to try and lend some perspective.

When I first started, dueling houses were all the rage. And my sense at the time was that to be taken seriously and to have any chance at winning and/or holding a Barony, I had to be in a house. The politics at the time demanded it. So I got together with a few friends and we made our own house. This was not something in the rules mind you, this was simply part of the environment of the sport. A byproduct of the political system. It took me five years before I even challenged for a Barony, because I felt Harris needed some legitimate clout before breaking into the titled ranks of DoS specifically, something I didn't even consider when I was dueling in DoF.

That may be an extreme case, for sure, but that's the type of gravitas DoS is supposed to have in my mind. I was new and I wanted to be a part of this big, popular sport and realized that it was going to take more than *just* dueling to do that. Promoting RP is more of a continued driving force in the DoS rules than the rules of the other two sports.

As it's been stated before, some people are hardcore gamers and don't prefer the way DoS works. It doesn't mean DoS *needs* to change or that there's a problem. If you like first person shooters, but you prefer Halo over Call of Duty, there's no need to get CoD changed to suit you... just play Halo. Same concept here. If you (general) like how DoF works, well, DoF is there for you to compete in. Variety is the spice of life, and the sports require them just like anything else. It may take longer to learn the matrix of one, or the politics of the other, but it doesn't mean they're broken by any length.

[Awkward]

Morgan, Thanks for the clarification and explanation.

Mad props to the dueling at dawn crew. I liked the RP aspect of it and was disappointed I had to miss it.

[PrlUnicorn]

You know, this isn't the first time I've heard this from a new player, so I'd like some others to comment, maybe.

DoS is fine, it's a fun sport. But really, the intercession thing? I think it's a bad system. Why should I bother to challenge when, let's be real, I know someone's going to step in. To me, it can be great or it can be really, really lame. Sure, if there's an IC reason for someone to step in, that's great. But....I think it's a platform for other things. I know my stance is radical, but let me ask you this. Why does it exist in one sport, not the other two? Is it really called for? What purpose does it serve? I know it keeps me from challenging, because right now, there's no point. There would be an intercession within moments, so why bother? In that sense, it's keeping at least me from the sport. Does it keep anyone else from the sport? I'm just curious, so please feel free to comment.

So my question is this, really. What point does it serve and does it keep people from being interested in DoS or is it just me? New players, would you bother with a challenge knowing you'd have to fight an intercession? Or would that prevent you from challenging?

I, for one, am tired of the slow melding of the three sports into one with the rules changes being asked for to make them uniform. Each one should be unique in some manner and not pigeonholed into one set of rules. If we're going to take that route, why not have a single sport, same rules for all, have every night be Fight Night and let that be the standard of things?

It's not a bad system, it's a tradition that's been around for a couple of decades now. One of the points and perks of being a Loyal Baron to an Overlord is being able to request that intercession or to step in on the Overlord's behalf. Take away what makes Loyals different from Renegades and you might as well scrap the rules regarding them. Take away those rules, you might as well dump the Renegade alignment as well. Take away those and ... why exactly do we have Barons? They're an RP device, but in the rules they make decisions regarding challenges from time to time. Removing the perks is opening a door to less RP not more. If the perks are gone, what would be the point of Barons anymore other than a title stuck on the standings?

Just because you or your character isn't privy to the reasons for an intercession doesn't mean they don't exist.

Jake covered the history behind it.

Unlike Fists and Magic, the challenge system is designed to make results important to more than just the 2 people fighting for the title. Each title change is potentially meaningful, giving the Overlord more or less power; possibly giving the challenger's champion a title or at least a quick shot at one, etc. There are a lot of possibilities in the way things unfold.

In the last couple years I've think I've grown to like the game play of DoF more than DoS. Once I finally got around to understanding the matrix, I just like the way the duels play out more. Also, the Opals are interesting and open up a nice avenue for individual story telling. When it comes to the challenge system though, its just an entirely different animal. DoF challenges are almost always a one on one affair with no ramifications felt outside the individual challenge. Now and then somebody goes out of their way to write a bit of SL that makes their winning/losing of an opal important, but that's fairly rare and it takes a good deal of effort.

Every challenge in DoS has the potential to involve 4 people though and many can impact the other title holders as well, or others hoping to go after titles soon. Unaffiliated characters can often find themselves more interested in the outcome more quickly than if it's just a matter of me going for another opal to add to my collection.

Each has their place. I'd no sooner see DoF's opal system change than I would the DoS system. I personally find the DoS system a much more compelling avenue for driving community story telling though, whereas I think the others are more about individual accomplishment.

Kal, as usual, is eloquent in his explanations.

We saw a good example of the Overlord gaining power when Ellisa Morgan was Overlord. The rule regarding the need to gain a Renegade's permission to challenge is rarely implemented, but we saw it during her reign.

"But really, the intercession thing? I think it's a bad system."

An opinion. But not downright saying it should be done away with.

"I know my stance is radical, but let me ask you this. Why does it exist in one sport, not the other two? Is it really called for? What purpose does it serve?"

"In that sense, it's keeping at least me from the sport. Does it keep anyone else from the sport? I'm just curious, so please feel free to comment."

Follows into the true question / intent of the thread. All points lead up to the main topic. How newer players felt about the situation.

I believe some players are simply making their opinions known on why they believe removing it is a bad idea, nothing more, nothing less. Why is it in one sport and not the others? Maybe the better question is ... why do some people prefer to have the same rules across the board? To my knowledge, no one ever said that gaining rank and titles was supposed to be easy.

When I started out, I was not intimidated by the sport nor its rules. In fact, I looked forward to being good enough to have a character win a title. Eventually, I did. I was, however, somewhat intimidated by well established players that knew the ropes and that it was more that "just a sporting event." When it becomes more about numbers than anything else, the game, and that's what this is supposed to be, loses part of its heart and soul.

We're also only looking at one side of the coin. The balance to the OL's right to intercede is the renegade's right to step in on it. I do not believe 1 should be modified without the other.

This point stands out to me as of particular validity. How do you justify reducing the OL's influence/power and not doing the same to the Renegades? Which then begs the question, how do you effectively balance these opposing factors in a new system?

I like Intercession rules, personally. In the end, for me, they add a level of complexity I enjoy without forcing a best of three (being forced into which I don't like, in the other sports). When one is able to, through personal effort or effective politicking, get past the intercession and win, it generally adds to the sense of accomplishment thereby gained.

I do understand how it can be discouraging to some newer players, but simply because something is more difficult does not make it wrong or broken, necessarily.

As I wrote earlier in my own post (I'm reading the thread as I write) remove the perks of one, you might as well dump the other.

Now, if such a thing is going to drive a player away, I think that's a shame, but it's also a shame to fall into the trap of instant gratification.

Unfortunately, advances in technology have caused that mindset. People want things ten minutes ago. That's not how things always work. The lack of patience and rushing to the finish line is a whole other subject.

[Kalamere]

Maybe this is why I happen to enjoy the way Fists/Magic work. Should it be necessary for me to gain SoA in those sports, I'd understand the necessity or the showing of good faith for a duelist to present their activity before challenging for a title. In swords, to go through the process and potentially lose a challenge without ever having faced the person I'm challenging even after giving SoA- it's just mind numbing.

(emphasis mine)

Apple, tell me again how no one is saying the intercession system should be scrapped. This is the same comment I've been hearing grumblings of the last few months or so and I don't quite see how one reads that and comes away with any other understanding.

It's also sad to think that getting a minimum of 25 duels in Swords is considered instant gratification.

Sorry to say, but I think it is.

It's just a different mindset that I have trouble getting my own thoughts wrapped around. Also, very weird for me to be on this side of a "it's too hard" debate. Anyway though, the idea of a duelist thinking they should be able to challenge the very week they make top rank is foreign to me. That the SoA is burdensome because now you have to get 10 duels in while guarding that rank you just got, just as foreign. Granted the rules allow for it and I would never ask that they be changed, but to just jump instantly at the titles like that never sits well with me. I always felt there should be a "paying your dues" period. A month at top rank or getting up to 20+ WoL before going after the titles. I understand that is just me and gives me no right to force it on others, but it's an opinion that greatly colors my thoughts when talking about the ease with which titles can be gained.

The baronies and overlordship are the DoS end game content. But they're more than that as well. They're a new game unto themselves. Apple drew the analogy to WoW and other modern games. Though I agree it isn't the greatest match, there are some similarities. The game makers have made it easier and easier to get to the end game content. So have we here in the dueling games, as Morgan mentioned. Just because you've reached top level though, doesn't give you an instant shot at that baddest of the instances. You're level 90 (or whatever WoW caps at now), but now you have to go gear up. Totally doable and still relatively easy, but it is a second stage in the process. Your game focus changes from leveling to gearing. Even if you're staying within the PvP system you have to pay dues there to get the gear. You may have hit max level, but you're sure as hell not ready to be listed in the top 10% of players yet.

Unfortunately, the WoW comparison lends itself poorly to DoS title mechanics. I use it there because I think there's a similarity in the stages of progression, but it also has the downside of re-enforcing the concept of sport titles as the next individual progression. Making Baron just the next rank to shoot for after gaining Warlord. In many ways, I think that's what Opal is today. Maybe that's not an entirely unfair way to view it, but it is not the end-all-be-all of what those titles are there for. First and foremost, Baron was created to be an RP device. All the politics and the complicated rules around challenges within DoS are RP devices.

The really important thing, to me, in regard to the RP device aspect of all this is that I believe it works. I have many vivid memories of DoS challenges past and the stories that unfolded around them. I have very few of those for DoF.

All of that said, and as usual this has gone on too long, I do get the frustration of losing the SoA and having to regain it. Teagan posted a link earlier to a previous thread around SoA. I don't think it would be a terrible idea to take another look at that system and see if changes there could make the challenge loss a little less onerous. I wouldn't mind, for example, getting rid of the need to regain SoA and instead letting it ride while instituting a 30 day waiting period between challenges.

[Napoleon Bonarat]

I don't think it would be a terrible idea to take another look at that system and see if changes there could make the challenge loss a little less onerous. I wouldn't mind, for example, getting rid of the need to regain SoA and instead letting it ride while instituting a 30 day waiting period between challenges.

I still like that it's 2 baron challenges per cycle, 1 OL challenge.

So I think that rule should stay in place.

But I agree that SOA doesn't really do anything, especially since they don't even need to be wins. You want a title but you can't even show your *winning* bona fides? Ugh.

Maybe just having dueled since the last challenge, similar to how we have the WLT, is good enough, but stil keep it at 2/character for baron, 2/character for OL.

And if we do this, no more intercession-free challenges. It really irks me to see these given out at all since it totally ignores the RP element of the DOS challenge system that was crafted and honed for two decades. I implore G to rethink these prizes regardless of SOA as it sacrifices RP and general excitiment around DOS challenges.

[Hope]

I'm a little tired of these discussions due to the fact that not once have I ever complained on these forums that something was simply not EASYenough for me. I'm not out for EASY, if I were out for EASY I wouldn't have lost 7 out of 8 challenges in Fists and remained active on the standings.

I'm not sure if I'm being trolled right now or if I'm being ambiguous in what I'm saying? Let me reiterate my point one more time so that you can stop drawing incorrect assumptions.

to go through the process and potentially lose a challenge without ever having faced the person I'm challenging even after giving SoA- it's just mind numbing.

This. This right here. Kalamere where did I say I want to remove intercessions? Where did I say the system should be scrapped? To me personally, the idea of getting through the minor hoops of WL/SoA to earn a challenge (without the tools of instant gratification, grants, being used as a champion) only to lose to someone not defending, is just not something I agree with in principle. I disagree with the system. Never did I say to destroy it, not once.

I entered this thread to hopefully share some of my personal perspectives. In my time in the community intercessions have been a REAL thing that regardless of the intentions or politics have kept me away from the sport. That's my prerogative to choose and I figured I'd just try and make it a tangible thought or give it an identity in the thread. I don't know how things translated into an entitlement fest where my disagreement = gimme gimme gimme. I dislike the instant gratifications of the sport, or any for that matter. I don't like OL grants or any grants period. I don't like the fact that a commoner can become a baron or an overlord- they completely bypass the things you're all advocating right NOW. How are they okay? I'm curious as to where this line gets drawn.

Jake I'm sorry for paraphrasing in a response to you but I never once complained about the path being too easy. Apparently it's come across that way but that's not at the core of my disagreement with the sport, or any way related to me. I'm down for the grinds, I'm down for the roleplay and I love a good event just like everyone else. I personally don't like intercessions and I guess that it shrinking my sandbox is completely fine in this case, but a one duel regulation on the entrance to a Diamond Quest is absurd.

[Kalamere]

But I agree that SOA doesn't really do anything, especially since they don't even need to be wins. You want a title but you can't even show your *winning* bona fides? Ugh.

I'm not entirely sure how you mean this, but taking it at face value, I disagree. SoA proves activity. It establishes that to earn the right to challenge, you must be an active duelist.

I would agree that re-earning SoA due to losing a challenge doesn't do anything, since the person has already proved their activity. It harkens back to the peer win system and earning your shot via bona fides, which (at least in my mind) wasn't really so much the point of SoA. As implemented, the re-earn is a hurdle to jump that effectively inserts a time delay between challenges. I thinks there's a reasonable argument that says just use SoA for a raw activity measure and make the time delay an actual measurable amount of time so as to remove the grind aspect.

That, of course, is also not the topic of the thread and I apologize if it's derailing. I just thought that if the need to re-earn after a lost challenge was one of the issues with the general topic of intercessions, then perhaps it ought to be re-examined.

I'm not sure if I'm being trolled right now or if I'm being ambiguous in what I'm saying?

You're not being trolled. That's not my style and I apologize if it comes off that way. Also, given the giant bold "EASY" stuff, I'll admit I phrased things poorly. When I stated I'm not used to being on this side of a "it's too hard" argument, I meant more that I'm usually on the side of the more casual player in these types of discussions. What we have here, in actuality, doesn't really lend itself to the casual player on either side.

Despite your continued saying that you're not arguing to get rid of the intercession rules, I have trouble reading the actual words you've put down as anything but that. Either way though, you and others fall to the realm of making this a strictly individual achievement; one on one between you and the person being challenged. I get that other things (e.g.: a hurdle like needing 20 SoA or 10 WINS) have been proposed as ways to get the direct shot w/o intercession and, with those in mind, it would be unfair of me to characterize the argument as a plea to make things easier.

In the end, we obviously have different opinions on the intercession rules, but my intent had not been to troll or insult you.

[Morgan le Fay]

But I agree that SOA doesn't really do anything, especially since they don't even need to be wins. You want a title but you can't even show your *winning* bona fides? Ugh.

I'm not entirely sure how you mean this, but taking it at face value, I disagree. SoA proves activity. It establishes that to earn the right to challenge, you must be an active duelist.

I would agree that re-earning SoA due to losing a challenge doesn't do anything, since the person has already proved their activity. It harkens back to the peer win system and earning your shot via bona fides, which (at least in my mind) wasn't really so much the point of SoA. As implemented, the re-earn is a hurdle to jump that effectively inserts a time delay between challenges. I thinks there's a reasonable argument that says just use SoA for a raw activity measure and make the time delay an actual measurable amount of time so as to remove the grind aspect.

All right. OK. Yeah, re-earning SOA doesn't do anything. Even if they lost the challenge, it still shows they are active. I support the second challenge (if choosing to go after another baron) can be 30 days later without having to get 10 more new duels.

This still holds to the 2 baron challenges per cycle per character and 1 OL challenge per cycle per character.

[Andrea Anderson]

Edit: Saw Queen replied to the post. So to not open old wounds, going to delete this.

[Kalamere]

Not to nitpick, because I do love stats, but that's 13 OL intercessions out of how many challenges to Loyal Barons, not including IC free challenges? Just so there's a clear context.

This goes back to June 14th, 2012, the beginning of Ellisa Morgan's reign as the 88th Overlord.

There have been 31 challenges to Loyal Barons, 7 of which were intercession free so 24 challenges to be considered for what you've asked.

13 of those 24 saw intercessions (54%).

6 of those 13 saw a renegade baron get involved (46%).

In 4 of the 7 cases where no renegade stepped in, there were no renegade barons (all during Teagan's reign as the 94th Overlord).

In two of the remaining 3 cases where there was no renegade involvement, the only renegade baron was Kheldar and the barons being challenged were Matt in one case and myself in the other. The 3 of us were on the same Hydra team and this was during Hydra season, so likely explains why he abstained.

The only case I see where I'm a little surprised no renegade stepped in was Aurast's challenge to Matt after winning the 2013 Madness tournament. There were 3 renegades at the time and none of them got in Rand's way.

No attempt to make a point with any of this just now. I post it simply because you asked.