BattleMaster Community
BattleMaster => Locals => East Island => Topic started by: DeVerci on October 10, 2017, 08:39:56 PM
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How long until someone sends out a duel request? That's a staple of big battles on Battlemaster!
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How long until someone sends out a duel request? That's a staple of big battles on Battlemaster!
Never quite got that. It's rediculous and usually only done by one or two chars with good SF and I've rarely seem them accepted.
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Never quite got that. It's rediculous and usually only done by one or two chars with good SF and I've rarely seem them accepted.
I never understood why hedge knights think they have the street cred to challenge kings and generals to single combat.
Like, who even are you? lol
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I never understood why hedge knights think they have the street cred to challenge kings and generals to single combat.
Like, who even are you? lol
"I am the most honorable knight of all, and you are evil and rude and I want my 10 minutes of fame by dueling you with the offchance of killing you and becoming a hero" - Random knight
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There's no hedge knight player characters in BM. Going by the only definition of the term I could find, which seems to come from GoT and refers to an unlanded knight; all knights in BM have estates.
The noble characters in BM are the creme de la creme of noble society, the most known of all nobility. There are no 'unknown' player characters. Information about them is collected and distributed throughout society/BattleMaster. Unlike those nameless NPC nobility. If duels were meant to be restricted to between certain ranks, we would do so, so perhaps there is a good reason they are not?
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There's no hedge knight player characters in BM. Going by the only definition of the term I could find, which seems to come from GoT and refers to an unlanded knight; all knights in BM have estates.
The noble characters in BM are the creme de la creme of noble society, the most known of all nobility. There are no 'unknown' player characters. Information about them is collected and distributed throughout society/BattleMaster. Unlike those nameless NPC nobility. If duels were meant to be restricted to between certain ranks, we would do so, so perhaps there is a good reason they are not?
To be fair though, it's perfectly possible to have noble characters in game who don't have any estates. Sure they should be able to challenge any other noble to a duel but why on earth should they expect the other person to accept?
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"I am the most honorable knight of all, and you are evil and rude and I want my 10 minutes of fame by dueling you with the offchance of killing you and becoming a hero" - Random knight
XD Actually tho
The noble characters in BM are the creme de la creme of noble society, the most known of all nobility. There are no 'unknown' player characters.
Well, going off of that, I am pretty confident it's generally understood that here's creme and then there's crème ;D
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I'm not suggesting one has to accept, there's a reason its a two-way decision. But dismissing them because 'who are you?' is much different than saying 'you are below my station' if thats applicable, or 'this is not a good time, im leading a battle tomorrow, lets do this later', or 'your family is too dishonourable for me to engage in', or 'i owe your uncle a blood debt, so until i honour that familial debt, i refuse to kill his nephew', or 'the judge says duels are illegal and i follow the law', or 'my religion does not approve of this duel', or 'i ate an orange, and a frog told me to refuse your duel', or 'you have refused to swear fealty to the noble hierarchy and thus i do not consider you worthy of dueling until you do so', or 'you challenge everyone to a duel for the slightest prevarication, ill not be the strawman you vent yourself upon, go attack an actual strawman' et cetera.
Estateless nobles are relatively rare amongst our creme de la creme of nobility, and estateless nobles usually lack the gold income to fund swordskill (unless they had done so previously). Point is that the player characters are the top nobility that are elligible and worthy enough to become lords, dukes, councillors, or rulers, whether they actually do so or not. Dismissing them as a nobody smacks of treating those eligible, worthy nobility as less than they are. And *that* should get a duel request. ;) Viva la revolucion de nobilitie unlanded contra nobilitie royal!
I agree that there is an imbalance of swordskill and rank within BM, particularly with ex-advy nobility, and some use that to be overly aggressive in duel challenges.
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I kind of agree with JV here. I believe stepping up the ladder is one of the great appeals of BM and the ladder is pretty big for that purpose. Someone at the bottom could of course shout to someone on top "Hey, let's duel!", but he should honestly expect response somewhere along the line of "Sure, come up here where I am, I'll wait."
I've seen like 4 duel challanges, out of which 3 became duels. Personally I barely ever got to employ some of my sick burns to turn down duel challanges, and I have lots of those (burns, not challanges). :-X
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There's no hedge knight player characters in BM. Going by the only definition of the term I could find, which seems to come from GoT and refers to an unlanded knight; all knights in BM have estates.
The noble characters in BM are the creme de la creme of noble society, the most known of all nobility. There are no 'unknown' player characters. Information about them is collected and distributed throughout society/BattleMaster. Unlike those nameless NPC nobility. If duels were meant to be restricted to between certain ranks, we would do so, so perhaps there is a good reason they are not?
There are always justifications for rejecting duels - especially with long-established characters where the loss can be painful. But let's be honest, every time a character turns down a duel it makes them a little less noble and a little more craven. And that diminishes the game.
One of my favourite characters Aednadh was killed in a stupid, pointless duel against a loud-mouthed noble of little standing. It sucked. But it's also been the basis for subsequent role-plays and enriched family lore no end. There's also the fame point as a consolation the first time your character gets killed in a duel.
Perhaps it's time all characters were made mortal. Force the lot of them to have skin in the game :)
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Much as I would like to see everyone mortal, we're never going to force that on characters that weren't created with that in mind again.
I do have on my TODO list to add a checkbox allowing any character to opt into mortality.
As for rejecting duels, I understand where you're coming from, but I have seen so many duel challenges that were both totally frivolous/spurious and to the death. Why the hell should I risk the life of my character—who has not spent months training sword skill—just because some rando I've never seen before who happens to be in the same region wants me to?
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There are always justifications for rejecting duels
Someone didn't read what I wrote in that quote, or the subsequent post where I listed numerous justifications. My point was merely regarding considering other player characters as 'nobodies/hedge knights'. Nowhere in that quote did I suggest there is no reason to ever reject a duel.
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Duels don't happen enough in BM, in my opinion, because people preserve their characters to such an extent. Some characters I've seen to live to 120-130 years old.
Anyways I don't agree with JV's view that ...that here's creme and then there's crème
We all started as Knights and it's not like your character gets stronger with every title or position they gain. They are still human with the same capabilities as a Knight. It's only your status that has changed (and it's all in your head). Some players don't have the extra hours per-day to invest into this game to keep up with the responsibilities required for demanding positions, such as realm council, or are able to keep their titles due to lack of time. So they remain as Lords or Knights for majority if not all of their character's life. I don't think it's fair that you dismiss these player's character in such a demeaning way when this is a game and not their life.
More so, I would think that it would be extremely embarrassing and cowardly for Kings and Generals to shy away from duels every time they pop up. Especially from Knights. A King scared of a Knight? What a Milksop. I understand they don't want to lose their character but there are duels that stop at first blood (someone gets wounded but no one will die unless you're a Hero). On top of this is was common for Lords, Kings, Queens, or anyone with a hand of power to have a Champion fight on their behalf. Perhaps rather than dismiss the duel, have the Knight issue the duel to your Champion? If they are unwilling to fight anyone but you then I would see that as folly.
That's all I have to say.
P.S. I've been contemplating creating a guild designed around enticing more duels to be fought across the continent. Not to the death just to first blood. With all this chatter I may get it jump started sooner rather than later!
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If you want more duels to happen maybe they should rely less on your swordfighting skill. Instead every duelists should have an equal chance and make it completely based on the stance option you choose, essentially making it a rock paper scissor game. Maybe instead of choosing just one, maybe make it a three round and the first one to win two becoming a winner or something. Or you can still have it as one round thing like now.
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Or make all skills passively grow with age, so that the guy who has led men into a thousand battle isn't on the same footing as the guy who just began his career. Pass it off as passive training, and have it cap at, say, 32. +2% per year to all skills until then, making it so that all old established characters have a flat 30% skill advantage over characters who were just created. Those who want to reach elite skills can still use the normal means to boost it quicker and further.
Or use battles instead of age for the same effect.
Really, just about anything to help experienced characters that don't visit academies a skill level that is more reflective of what it should be.
Then, you'd see more of these high ranking nobles accept duel challenges.
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Or make all skills passively grow with age, so that the guy who has led men into a thousand battle isn't on the same footing as the guy who just began his career. Pass it off as passive training, and have it cap at, say, 32. +2% per year to all skills until then, making it so that all old established characters have a flat 30% skill advantage over characters who were just created. Those who want to reach elite skills can still use the normal means to boost it quicker and further.
Or use battles instead of age for the same effect.
Really, just about anything to help experienced characters that don't visit academies a skill level that is more reflective of what it should be.
Then, you'd see more of these high ranking nobles accept duel challenges.
Actually that is an interesting idea. Make skills grow with age until they become too old. Maybe until 40, you gain skill constantly up to 50% then 40 to 60 you stay at w/e skill you have now then after 60 your skills decline except maybe a couple ones that shouldn't be affected by age until you go senile.
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There haven't been duels to first blood for years. Specifically because folks created a guild for dueling to first blood. Dueling isn't for sport, but for honour. There *are* duels to surrender and death. And there *are* training matches.
Many of the suggestions for duels already exist. There is a huge amount of random chance in duels. If your skill is even somewhat near another, it should make a difference, say 20% difference or so (I'm estimating after not having looked at that code in years). So unless you've got 15% vs 75% skill characters in a duel, there's a chance the less skilled character defeats the more skilled character. Again, its been quite some time since I looked at the code, but I vaguely recall there's a few 'rounds' behind-scene.
You do gain swordfighting, leadership, and jousting skill in battle, dependent upon your unit type. Perhaps it needs tweaked. That seems a reasonable suggestion if someone wishes to champion a change. Skills decrease with age, starting at age 35, I think. I think the decrease increases with your age, but again, haven't looked at that code in quite awhile.
There was a five year period where swordfighting gains were not increasing due to battles, but that was fixed two years ago now.
This topic should probably be split.
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Topic has been split. And on the subject of duels, one was just fought in Obia'Syela on BT between to feuding characters (both Marshals...hehehe). But it was simply done to surrender as it was more a matter of conflict/pride than the need to kill another noble. I think if you do it this way, duels can happen a lot more often.
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Someone didn't read what I wrote in that quote, or the subsequent post where I listed numerous justifications. My point was merely regarding considering other player characters as 'nobodies/hedge knights'. Nowhere in that quote did I suggest there is no reason to ever reject a duel.
Neither did I beyond the obvious: not wanting to be killed. No one wants to be killed. That doesn't mean that rejecting duels should be the norm. There's plenty of scope for interesting game mechanics as a reward or penalty: honour; unit morale and cohesion; region morale, control and loyalty. Only a subtle effect at first amplifying with each successive duel declined.