Question of Curiosity

[G]

The purpose of SoA is to have you earn your right to challenge. To make it worth something.

You challenge for free, or don't lose the SoA, it's like "Oh well, I can just try again later." You can still easily get ten SoA if you want in the same cycle, if you're determined.

SoA places value on the challenge themselves.

[Max Blue]

I came up with the 20-30 duels per 6 months because you are allowed 4 challenges within that time frame. A shot from the hip chance to win is 50/50.


The value of the challenge is that you have a limited amount of them that you can issue over a certain period of time. And if you were issuing to the OL, you have even fewer.

A Show of Activity is showing that you are an active duelist. If they didn't get wiped, that doesn't mean you don't still have to keep up 10 duels over the past 6 months as a show of activity.

[Amaltea]

The SoA is more or less the same thing as the PWs, except it is easier. Before you needed 10 peer wins, that's 10 wins against 10 warlords. Now all you have to do is duel 10 times, doesn't matter rank or your opponent and wether if you win or lose. Yes, you will have to duel again 10 more times to challenge again during the same cycle. But for an active duelist who really wants a title, this won't be a problem. It is possible for an active duelist to gain up to 6 duels per weekend. That's already 24 duels in one month.

Why reward the casual duelist with two challenges and only needing 10 duels a cycle?

I don't think there is a problem with the SoA rules. I think the problem is in participation and/or the desire to challenge.

[PrlUnicorn]

Were peer wins wiped after Baronial challenges in the days when it took ten of them?

Or could a warlord who failed to succeed challenge again?

They were wiped.

Minor point on this. Some people use to stock pile peer wins until they were ready to challenge. Only the ones they actually presented for the record were wiped. I'm pretty sure those that weren't used for a specific challenge remained usable.

Maybe that's what Max was getting at, is it only 10 or 15 SoA duels, required for the given challenge, that drop off or all of them in the bank?

[G]

Were peer wins wiped after Baronial challenges in the days when it took ten of them?

Or could a warlord who failed to succeed challenge again?

They were wiped.

Minor point on this. Some people use to stock pile peer wins until they were ready to challenge. Only the ones they actually presented for the record were wiped. I'm pretty sure those that weren't used for a specific challenge remained usable.

No, they were wiped. I remember Drakewyn had somewhere between 50-70 unique Peer Wins she saved up over several years before challenging, and when she did, they were wiped. The stock piled peer wins were always wiped.

So if anyone's wondering, SoA's are wiped the same way.

[Rand alTan]

Why reward the casual duelist with two challenges and only needing 10 duels a cycle?

I think offering rewards to the casual duelist (I would argue that achieving Warlord status and getting 10 duels might actually be *more* than casual, but I don't have the data) might be a great way to get more interest in the sport? Which is what we all want?

I don't think there is a problem with the SoA rules. I think the problem is in participation and/or the desire to challenge.

Wouldn't offering rewards increase participation and thusly increase the desire to challenge?

I think what we have is a semantics problem. Max rightly points out that losing a challenge does not make a person any less active than they had been up to the point of challenge. Why then should they have to reprove their activity with another 10 duels?

Definitely semantics. They've proven activity. It's understandable to restrict immediate rechallenge, and getting 10 more duels in does that, but it can be frustrating, given the wording.

[G]

Why reward the casual duelist with two challenges and only needing 10 duels a cycle?

I think offering rewards to the casual duelist (I would argue that achieving Warlord status and getting 10 duels might actually be *more* than casual, but I don't have the data) might be a great way to get more interest in the sport? Which is what we all want?

Then how do we separate the non casual from casual? How do we stop non-casual from turning casual just so they can challenge?

I don't think there is a problem with the SoA rules. I think the problem is in participation and/or the desire to challenge.

Wouldn't offering rewards increase participation and thusly increase the desire to challenge?

We do. They're called Baronies. Also, see - Achievements.

I think what we have is a semantics problem. Max rightly points out that losing a challenge does not make a person any less active than they had been up to the point of challenge. Why then should they have to reprove their activity with another 10 duels?

Definitely semantics. They've proven activity. It's understandable to restrict immediate rechallenge, and getting 10 more duels in does that, but it can be frustrating, given the wording.

Because a challenge should be earned. I don't want to have to say "okay, here's your ten duels, oh, you only get one challenge a cycle." We've gone that route, and I'm not doing it again. Then, on the flip side, you get your ten duels, and you stop dueling. Again, that solves nothing.

In other words, get your ten duels, issue challenge. You lose that, get another ten duels, issue challenge.

That's not going to change.

[G]

Okay so, here's what I want to know. Cause what I'm getting from a lot of this is basically this.

How can I challenge without having to DO anything?

So, what my question is, is this.

You're going to HAVE to do something in order to challenge. What do YOU think it should be?

And no, you cannot just say "Give free challenge rights"

You're going to need to earn it.

Discuss.

[Max Blue]

I fail to see where anybody said they did not want to do *anything.* I think you're projecting frustration.


As I said, the ten duels over six months is fine with me, as long as it gets me the full reward of the rules. I would prefer the show of activity were not wiped after issuing a challenge.

If ten duels is all you are asking of people, and you repeatedly assure that it's "not that much" then it should be good enough to let a duelist have every aspect of the rules at their disposal. But the simple fact of the matter is you are only asking for ten duels as long as people are only asking for one challenge. If they want more, you want more, and that doesn't make sense for something simply called a show of activity.

[Capistrano]

There are two lens with which I look at the SoA.

1. I think it is fair to ask people to put in a certain number of duels before they are allowed to challenge. I don't really have an opinion right now on whether or not, after a challenge, those duels should be wiped clean and another 10 duels should be put in.

2. I do think, and I'll freely admit this is part of what put me out of commission for a while (that, and the crazy-busy nature of graduate school), that for some people, it felt a bit like work to spend the time dueling to get those 10 duels in so they could challenge. There are some people for whom the game itself, so to speak, is the primary attraction to the duels. I'm not one of those people. I like at least a soupçon of roleplaying and interaction within and outside the rings. I've been very happy to have that come back for Jay, and many thanks to all the players whose characters have interacted with him.

[Harris]

I fail to see where anybody said they did not want to do *anything.* I think you're projecting frustration.


As I said, the ten duels over six months is fine with me, as long as it gets me the full reward of the rules. I would prefer the show of activity were not wiped after issuing a challenge.

If ten duels is all you are asking of people, and you repeatedly assure that it's "not that much" then it should be good enough to let a duelist have every aspect of the rules at their disposal. But the simple fact of the matter is you are only asking for ten duels as long as people are only asking for one challenge. If they want more, you want more, and that doesn't make sense for something simply called a show of activity.

I understand this gripe, but the logic is strange to me. Challenges are always one at a time, from a character perspective. I don't know of anyone that thinks, "I'm going to challenge X amount of times this cycle". You challenge, you focus on that, and if you lose, then you look to challenge again. It's not a race. I don't know of anyone that sets a challenge timetable. It's a one at a time mindset, unless you plan on losing. This point is completely moot if you win your challenge. Because you're done. If you (general you) lose, then even with this system in place it's *entirely* up to you when you get to challenge again, based on getting another ten duels. You set the pace for that. If you're that intent on challenging again immediately, what's the problem with doing the work again? Peer Wins worked virtually the same way, except due to the difficulty there was no cyclic limit on how often one could challenge. You could challenge as fast as you could get the wins you needed.

To me, there is no issue about maximizing challenges. The point was brought up in the first post in this thread that there hasn't been a challenge recently anyway, so worrying now about the same person having the opportunity to challenge multiple times seems unnecessary when people aren't even challenging once. And the reasons for not challenging have proven to be varied and mostly unrelated to any rules restrictions. There are bigger fish to fry here, reasonably.

[Kalamere]

More numbers to take into consideration.

57 Warlords are currently on the standings (excludes OL and Barons).
28 have dueled in the current cycle.
15 have dueled at least 1 time other than their Madness duels.

15 is a pretty small number. If a few of those 15 are here in this thread saying they'd potentially like to challenge more but that the rules are prohibitive thereof, well, then maybe it's an argument worth listening to.

I personally feel that there should be some kind of lock down period between a lost challenge and when the person can challenge again. That said, maybe re-earning the SoA isn't the best way to accomplish it. As mentioned previously, I also tend to agree that it presents semantic challenges. Active is active, losing a challenge match shouldn't change that.

What if, instead, we either:

(a) Altered the rule to require at least X duels fought between challenges, separating the clause out of the SoA to remove the wording problem and also making X some lesser number. Maybe 5.

(b) Simply state a time frame. eg: A duelist may challenge for a barony twice per cycle, but no more often than once every 30 days. Inserting a mandatory month wait would meet the downtime I'd like to see, while also allowing a duelist to keep their activity rating in-tact both for the current cycle and into the next if applicable.

~Kal

[Jake]

If it's just a matter of semantics, then I think the only suggestion I'd make is change the name.

I don't think SOA as a term is particularly egregious, but if it's a sticking point it can always be renamed.

Most people don't seem to feel that getting 10 duels is that onerous. They just don't seem to like the idea of being perceived as inactive.

[MurOllavan]

I've been thinking about SoA(and noticing my own experience with part of rule 1 recently). I have a few suggestions.

Rule 1: If a WL loses their rank, the SoA is reset. How about considering say if they are 6 duels in let them start at 6 when they regain WL? Make them SoA duels while listed as WL on the standings. My guess is that this is seen as too hard for the standings work? Why wipe them out just because they lost their rank?

Rule 5: If someone leaves the match the whole duel can't be used. Why should the duelist that didn't abandon the fight lose their credit? How does this help at all?

These two rules don't seem to encourage activity and serve no identifiable purpose at least to me.

[G]

I've been thinking about SoA(and noticing my own experience with part of rule 1 recently). I have a few suggestions.

Rule 1: If a WL loses their rank, the SoA is reset. How about considering say if they are 6 duels in let them start at 6 when they regain WL? Make them SoA duels while listed as WL on the standings. My guess is that this is seen as too hard for the standings work? Why wipe them out just because they lost their rank?

Because non-warlords can't challenge.

Rule 5: If someone leaves the match the whole duel can't be used. Why should the duelist that didn't abandon the fight lose their credit? How does this help at all?

You're right. The remaining duelist(Who did not abandon the fight) should not be punished. When I can get to the file, I will edit the rule to reflect that. When I wrote that rule, it was written from the point of the one who got disconnected, left in the middle of the duel, etc. was the one who was trying to use it as a SoA. The one who stayed should not be punished.