Now, i’m relatively new to the whole dueling scene but it seems there are so many ways to abuse it, some of which have been used against me. In my eyes these break duels and allow a player to cheat his way to a victory he otherwise wouldn’t have had.
One thing I have noticed more than anything else is people that dock up after realising they can’t win the fight - once accepting a duel if a longer range ship is kiting them it is a strategy to win the fight, and should be allowed. If your opponent hasn’t attacked he has the ability to dock up and switch ship and undock again - thus being fully repaired and possibly in a ship that wasn’t agreed on by the opponent when initiating the duel. In my opinion, a duel should indefinitely stop people from docking up.
A second area of abuse is the fact that the timer of the duel remains when one player is in a pod, although he can dock up. This means that that player has the remaining duel time to undock and engage for a second time, again with the opportunity to get into a bigger ship - where the enemy continues to have damage from the previous fight he won. The idea of a duel is to have a engagement limited between 2 people - a fair 1 versus 1 fight with agreed conditions when accepting the duel. A second ship isn’t specified there and shouldn’t be allowed in my opinion.
The third way to abuse the system seems to be used less, especially in larger hubs such as Jita as there is already a system put in place to avoid this - however I don’t think its enough. The use of logistics ships in a engagement that is supposed to be a 1 versus 1 shouldn’t be allowed period. It gives the person receiving the bonus’ a unfair advantage and if it was to be fixed i’d suggest making it so it simply doesn’t effect anyone in the duel. Let them use the buffs on them, but have it so it doesn’t affect them whatsoever.
These are just a few ways of abusing the system I have seen in the last few days and they seem to be used way too often. This is breaking a method of engagement in high-sec and needs some tweaks. This is just my opinion and i’m certain some others feel a similar way about it. If there are any other methods of using the system to one persons advantage that are known then surely it would be wise to fix them also, as I said, i’m fairly new to duels and this is just what I found within my first few days.
I kinda get the feeling you’re “relatively new” to Eve in general. You’ve got a pretty big opinion of what “Honor” means to Capsuleers.
There is only 1 mechanic that prevents you from docking, and that is a Weapons Timer. If you have recently activate an Aggressive module, then you cannot dock for 60 sec. If you wait out that timer, or you don’t shoot at all, then you’re free to dock. I don’t think they’re going to inflict a continuous Weapons Timer for the duration of a duel, but it would be possible without too much rewriting code.
There are no mechanics that prevent switching ships, unless you’re talking about switching ships in space. So creating some kind of limitation like that would take a whole lot of rewriting.
There are already measures in place to “prevent” logistics. Anyone repping either combatant becomes Suspect flagged, and a fair target to everyone. It’s up to you whether you want to stop shooting your opponent and switch to his healer. Or whether you want to deaggress and dock up since you’re probably going to lose.
You may want to give this a look over. These are the mechanics that are being implemented during a Duel.
CONCORD is responsible for making sure people don’t kill each other in High Sec. When you request a duel with someone, you are creating a tiny little popup that says “we both agree to waive CONCORD’s protection while we shoot at each other”.
What you’re proposing would need to be an entire Contract with all these stipulations. What ship(s) are each opponent allowed to bring? Are they allowed to dock up and swap? Are they allowed to have Logistical support? Should the fight stop at the Ship’s destruction, or should it continue on to the Pod kill? Etc, etc, etc.
I know about the timers from combat, and about the suspect timer upon a logistics helping, hence why I mentioned there already being mechanics in place to try and deter people from doing so - I don’t think you quite understood the point of the post.
When you accept a duel you agree to a fair 1 versus 1 fight, with no interruptions and nothing else to disrupt you whilst doing so. Now if you want to call the ability to dock up and either repair/change fits/change ship and then undock and re-engage your opponent without any penalty (when they still have their damaged and used ship) fair, then I guess its just me, but I really don’t think thats a fair mechanic to have in a 1 versus 1.
Using the same reference with the agreement on a 1 versus 1 limited engagement, I don’t think it is fair at all that regardless of these rules being stated, a 2nd pilot can intervene by using logistics on one of the pilots. Sure, they get suspect timer and from that you may choose to switch targets, but at that point they can then fight back, at which point, the whole “1 versus 1” idea sort of slides - it is clearly a 2 versus 1 engagement which isn’t what was agreed upon.
When it comes to the ships being switched, I only mean the idea of being able to dock up and switch, when you accept a duel you (in my opinion) should be checking what you’re fighting. After all, you don’t want to lose your shiny new Gila that cost you 800million ISK to someone flying around in some supercarrier. Due to this, you should be limited to the ship you agreed to duel in.
Now my opinions may not be shared by everyone, but I definitely think that some smaller changes will benefit everyone that duels (perhaps other than those that abuse these methods). I’m not asking for every single change to be made, only for some steps in the right direction. You agree upon a fight with a single capsuleer when they are flying a specific ship, and it should stay that way.
Its fine the way it is. When somebody doesnt follow the “honorable” rules of the duel you learn more about them than from talking to them for an hour. You learn who to deal with or not deal with.
I was not aware that there was a dueling scene in this game. I always thought of duels as a way to screw with people and add more green to the killboard.
The point of this isn’t that i’m not wanting to duel, they can be quite fun from time to time. What I am wanting is for there to be a fair engagement when dueling - I don’t mind losing a duel, after all I agreed to it when I was invited or when i invited someone to a duel. What does bother me is when people can take this engagement which is suppose to be fair and turns it into a massively 1 sided fight.
Theres more than just HEK, if you head to the planets in Jita you often find people running small duel tournaments. If you head to Minmatar space you tend to get a lot of places where people are actively dueling - given that you know where to look. Theres often wagers involved or a prize to the last man standing in a sort of knockout fashion. It can be quite fun, given that it is fair and people don’t have the ability to cheat like I mentioned in the OP.
Look never duel. Go to settings and check reject duel requests… It’s that easy. Your observed issues are the reasons people challenge you along with other ways to trick people.
Like when you are getting bumped and a Good Samaritan comes to your rescue and offers to web you into warp.
They turn “yellow” and are freely fired upon by anyone. Also, see above… will drastically cut down on this or make it easier to deal with by your “friends”.
… actually, you don’t. You just agree that the two of you can freely shoot at each other with no recourse from CONCORD.
Think about it this way… ( Picture a real duel of old, with swords ) … .did they duel in the middle of town? Nope, they found somewhere more private. Because they didn’t want to be distracted/interrupted; more-so after most cultures made such things against the law.
Forcing too many rules on this would not be in the spirit of the game. There is no situation in Eve where you can’t bring more friends or third parties can’t mess with you or your opponent - this is just how Eve works. It’s up to you to make sure a battle is fought by your rules. If your rules are strictly one on one with no tricks, that’s fine, but still up to you to enforce. You can for example invite your opponent into a fleet, and warp to a deep-space safespot before accepting the duel - that way you at least know there’s something fishy going on when your opponent drops fleet, and you have some time to react before the cavalry lands. Or you can bring friends that can jam out potential neutral logistics should that be necessary.
Maybe you can find moe people who are interested in this, and found a sort of “fight club”. That way you will for one have people willing to adhere to the rules as well as the manpower to enforce them.
The only problem with duels is the name. They are limited engagements, all they do is make it possible for two people to shoot each other without CONCORD intervention. This mainly confuses people coming from other games because there a duel is something different.
What they don’t do is isolate you from the rest of EVE as that would be massively abused immediately (believe me I already have the plans in the drawer for the day when CCP is stupid enough to not only get the name wrong but also the game mechanic)
So, should warp drives be disabled while dueling? Should the two combatants become completely invulnerable to everything else around them while the duel is active? Should ships explode if they get too far out of range of each other?
Havent you ever heard of the saying, alls fair in love and war? Well, people love to wage war, so both of them apply to this situation, and therefore everything is fair.
A while back, there was supposed to be a system called the DOJO implimented for 1v1, but that fell through as far as im aware.
But still, you shouldnt expect a fair fight, and thats the point and fun of EVE. Its a box of chocolates. Sometimes you get a chocolate covered C4 explosive. Sometimes, its just filled with cream. But you gotta bite down to see which you will get.
Enjoy the destruction! Enjoy the win, and the loss! Thats how to play EVE. If you feel like you were cheated, bring a friend next time and out-number him. Have 3-4 friends in tornadoes, and as soon as the logistics ship goes on suspect, blast him out of space. Bump him out of docking range while you fight.
Or think of it this way. He was using his alt, which means it really was a 1v1. There was only 1 player behind the characters. You are one person, he is one person. 1v1. Fair fight!
EvE is fair in that way that everybody gets the same chances and tools, which are well balanced btw. The game is not fair when it’s about using this tools in a player vs. player interaction. That’s the main selling point of EvE. IMO you have to like and embrace that in order to like the game.
Don’t rely on any mechanic, understand it in detail, and think about how you can use it best to win whatever you plan. It’s always good to have a plan for success. Most combat engagements are decided before they even start. It’s up to you to be the one knowing the outcome (and making sure the other does not).