How we Duel

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
1

I have a suggestion for changing the duelling mechanics so that it generates more content, and also so that it more closely resembles real life.

You all probably know how duelling worked in real life, back when it was a thing. Rich and deluded sons of wealthy families would get all worked up about what folks thought of them, and the chance to impress some female would generally be enough for folks to bet their lives on a matter of honour.

Duelling was hugely popular, and it had to be banned because all the jumped up little princes were blowing themselves away to impress jumped up little princesses. The elderly folks were horrified by the carnage, so they banned it.

We have the opposite problem, with our duelling. We don’t have enough of it. We have the jumped up little princes (goons et al), and also the jumped up little princesses to impress. (Jita local, killboardz). So why doesn’t duelling attract more carnage? What are we doing wrong?

I’ve been giving the vexing issue some thought. Do you all remember what happened in the playground, when two guys were going to fight after school?

Maybe this is only for the older guys. The new wave snowflakes probably don’t fight after school, they just go on twitter and snark at each others hair style and have a group cry with their metro friends. Or, you know, maybe that’s harsh. Whatever.

The point is, when boys would fight after school, EVERYONE knew about it, and EVERYONE contributed to the fight. To make sure it would happen.

For a start, if you were one of the guys having an argument, other kids would come up to you and encourage you to fight by telling you that the other guy said your mum blows goats. They would tell you that the other guy said you dad blows your uncle for money to by cheap wine/ Kids would tell the other guy the same thing. Everyone would make sure a small disagreement became a matter of great honour. Everybody did their bit to make sure the fight happened.

And then the time and place was always set in advance. After school, maybe at lunch time, at the fighting place. Far from teachers, and all the kids would form a ring around the combatants, to get a good look at the fight and to offer helpful advice, like “Kick him in the nuts”, and “Show him who is the uncle rapist. Twist his nipples.” and so forth.

My point is, once you started towards a fight with another kid, everyone would assist you to get the duel happening. It was always the most exciting thing to happen that day.

I wonder if CCP could change the mechanic so we had a similar thing?

If duals could be “thrown down” against other players, where they lose massive standing across all factions if they chicken out, that would be a thing. Think about that. If another player offers you a dual, and you don’t fight, your NPC standing goes right down. Because you are a massive pussy, and everyone knows it.

But if you turn up and cop a beating, well you might not get a reputation as a great fighter, but you would get respect for courage.

Everyone likes watching the fat kid get a beating, and it is doubly awesome when he manages to land a couple of punches on the way down. It fairly makes a person think there is hope in life, even for the fat kid.

So the mechanics should seriously punish folks who run from duels.

At the same time, duels should be 1v1. Always. I mean, this is real life. All the kids who formed the circle, they would NEVER tolerate other folks getting involved.

And to be fair, this blob mentality is a cancer in eve. I think a lot of folks don’t bother getting fitted for combat because they suspect a blob will arrive mid fight and kill both combatants. I know that the duels mechanic does allow high sec combat with no interference, but I think the mechanics should amplify this feature and make it basically impossible for asshats to profit from interfering. So if someone breaks duelling etiquette, they should go straight to -8 standing across the board, and they can suck on that and HTFU.

The other thing we should be able to do is bet on duels, and also put money in the kitty for the winner. If everyone puts in a few million, and the winner gets the loot, suddenly duelling becomes a profession. So maybe you can only “throw down” on someone if you put 50 million ask in the kitty to start the prize pool going. Folks should only be able to watch the duel (form the ring of spectators) if they contribute a set amount (perhaps few million isk).

I would totally spend a few million isk tom watch a 1v1 duel between guys who genuinely hate each other and want to win. Not to watch corp friends test fits, but real, ass fracturing PVP, with egos on the line, and the princesses of killboardz watching and battering their pretty eyes lashes at the display of foolishness violence.

Duels should also be recorded by CCP and published, so that the shame or glory can be relieved. If the duelling space (by the sun, perhaps) is properly set up, it ought to be possible to record at least some third party perspectives for the record.

This is an important feature. If you are going up against someone hard core, and you think you will be beaten like a gypsies drum, and then you WIN somehow, the you want to rewatch that. You want all your corp to watch that. You want his corp to watch that. You will sub for a whole year if you win a fight like that (I did).

In the good old days, there was always a field somewhere, or some special spot, where the quality went to duel. There were always seconds, and there was always a protocol to start the combat. Ten paces, turn and fire. In our scenario, i guess it could be move away from each other until 10km apart, then engage.

Weapons were always chosen by the party who was challenged, which is something we should retain. If you are going to throw down against some schmuck, you have to fight him in his best fit.

Anyway, that is the basic idea. If we can make duelling more realistic, by making the social consequences a big deal and getting everyone involved, we would have a lot of potential for evenly matched PVP content.

The fat feeble in this game are always crowing that the blob ganking combat is “realistic”, and there is some truth to that claim. Ambush is a viable combat method in war.

But duelling is also highly realistic, and the current game mechanics don’t allow the human psychology to manifest the pointless glory of the schoolyard at the current time.

That, comrades, is an enduring disgrace on this fine game, and this worthy community of brats.

Let’s blame CCP Falcon until he fixes the situation.

2

What you described is basically lowsec, nullsec and wormhole based wars.

Duels are fights with training wheels on. If you want more aggression, there are plenty of places to go.

There’s about to be a large war in the north west. Just go get into it.

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3

That is the problem, yes.

I don’t think you comprehend the post I made, because I was described 1v1 combat (but not training), while you are describing blobs with lag. (Eve “wars”)

4

Take your training wheels off and get out of highsec.

If you want 1v1, the existing duel mechanic already provides that.

If you want more people involved, go fight.

Bets can already happen, 1 person to 1 person. Wider then that, CCP only recently banned games of chance (ie. including betting on the outcome of fights other than direct player to player wager).

As for comprehend, your OP is too full of fluff and not enough substance. No need to talk about princes and princesses and old style duels. It serves no purpose explaining what you want. So maybe if you want people to read all of your post, be more concise to begin with.

5

I stopped reading shortly after the fat kid. Skimmed something about standings and bets…

Standings? ■■■■ no. They should only ever be used with npc interactions. That’s it.

Bets? Nice idea, but how’s it going to work? Given duels last mere seconds, Who gets to bet? How do they bet? Who decides if they can bet?

6

I could reply to you, but that would interrupt your glorious journey to literacy and respect.

Tanks for your feedback, it is much appreciated.

7

If another player offers you a dual, and you don’t fight, your NPC standing goes right down.

I’ve scanned through your post and didn’t see a ything adressing this. As it appears to be fundamental to your idea, it’s the only point i actually need to address.

With such a mechanic, i would personally be responsible for hundreds of people losing out on content dependent on faction standing. In a day’s time! And I’m just one guy! Are you aware, that your idea would lead to a sudden exodus of a lot of people, consequentially killing the game?

Are you a holeysheet alt?

8

I don’t follow your reasoning. Are so SCARY and AWESOME that all the weak little men would flee from fighting you?

It might be a comprehension issue. Note the words “and you don’t fight”.

In English, this means “and you do not choose to fight”. It doesn’t mean "and you lose to yellow parasol, who is so SCARY and AWESOME at PVP that I shall have to go and lie down to compose my swiftly beating heart.

Or I am missing you point here?

The idea is to provide a way to flush the care bears out of their holes. In this way, folks who want to keep a reputation as a real capsular would need to abandon their fear of losing ships, and at least fight.

They wouldn’t need to win, but they would need to undock and fight.

9

You definitely sound like him.

Anyhow, what does your reply change about that? Of course they won’t fight. Masses of people will refuse duels, just like they already do. Most people don’t trust random duel invites and they first need to be turned off, which means a lot of unaware people will suffer serious hits in their faction standing.

Anyone who wants to fight doesn’t turn them off. Anyone who doesn’t want to fight will not accept your duel request and turn off the feature. Anyone who does not accept, will automatically suffer from loss of faction standing for no better reason than not participating in some random person’s duel request.

The point: hundreds of people will perpetually spam duel requests anywhere and the vast majority of people will quit, because there’s a mechanic that forces them to act according to the will of someone else.

This would cause an exodus. Your idea screams hate, with way too much ego and self interest behind it. Your posts show nothing but “ME BIG BADASS” and your idea boils down to an easy way for you to make fun of people who you think are beneath you.

Sure, they might be! Still, what about the guy who asks for a feature that allows him to punish those who he obviously hates, with a single click? From this perspective you are the weak person, asking for an easymode button for your personal amusement.

Good Luck ® finding actually rational people supporting this.

PS: What you want (getting rid of carebears) takes years. Forcing sudden cultural change on a community literally kills it, so this idea is not an option.

1 Like
10

I think you are over thinking it.

I am not the bad ass pvp guy. Check my stats, I’m a total citizen.

You’ve also missed the bit where the aggressor has to put down 50 million.

I would love for folks to give me a chance to win 50 million in a straight up 1v1, even if i lost.

Anyway, it would be one way to make the game a pvp space ship shooter, and get the folks out of the stations and into moderately fair combat.

I know it’s radical, for EVE, to be forced to fight, but that doesn’t mean it is unrealistic, or that it is unlike other games.

11

Yeah, look, this right be true. Who knows? Anyway I don’t want to get rid of care bears. I want them coaxed out of their burrows. So we can bring the glory of the fiery crucible to their worlds.

I include myself. I’ve become a total bear since leaving FW. Just could not be bothered dealing with vast amount of time combat takes to prepare for.

Maybe hard core bears could stay pacifists. We could designate certain scientific corps to be immune to duelling throw downs.

12

Read it.
Not a fan.
Dueling is illegal in modern militaries and civil law for a reason.

And then there’s this:

So… 50 mil to ensure that a freighter pilot can no longer pilot in a section(s) of space… or, if the pilot accepts the duel, free reign to take down a freighter with a single dessie?

All my nopes.

–Gadget Just Says No to Code Duello

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13

Again, if the freighter pilot takes the duel he suffers no standing loss, or if he belongs to a care bear NPC corp then he can ignore it.

I was mostly thinking of FW, where you have all these folks who’re into PVP but most of them spend most of their time docked up, and legitimately worried abut being blobbed.

Look, you guys, you know that monkeys can read books, right?

They just don’t understand them.

14

Difference between monkeys and humans?

Humans can easily figure out how to take rules from here, where they are intended, and use them over there, where they mess things up for others.

Monkeys just do things.

–Gadget is a Meat Popscicle

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15

You said two things,

  1. You want dueling to be 1:1 so it’s fair
  2. You want dueling to be more like real life

so…you think realistic fighting is ever fair? oh honey…

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16

Why yes, I too want the ability to declare a “duel” against anyone I want to gank and give them a standings penalty if they refuse to let me. This is a brilliant idea and should totally be added to EVE.

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17

We need a one thousand line bad idea thread.

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18

i’m still working on trying to hit the haracter limitmwith my excessively long posts.

bring it. :smiling_imp:

19

Don’t honey me, you wretched faux badger. I am not your honey.

Lookit, duelling is a fact of history. For whatever reasons, the vibrant young men of established families thought it best to have 1v1 duels that were cloaked in all kinds of fairness.

They tore each other to pieces in “fair” combat.

I’m not saying this should have been. I’m pointing out that it was, in fact.

Now, restrain yourself and lie down.

This business of station sitting has no honour to it.

20

Well, yeah.

After all, why would anyone care if their standings took a hit because they are too much of a limp wrist to fight in space ships in a … SPACE SHIP FIGHTIN’ GAME.

If you don’t care about the combat, why care about the standings?

As for realism, you really put the fear of god into your enemy by calling a challenge 1v1 a “gank”.

How do you think your real world standing holds up after that display of courage?