DDW, PW, Protection, Hiding and Training

[Algernon]

On the anti-duellist complaints...

*Sigh*  Well, I've gone DDW twice.  Tried it out when it was introduced, and recently I had to do it again because it was either that or unsub.  ("Fine by us!"  say the big kids...)

No doubt, it puts a crimp in the style for some of the "big kids" who feel this wussifies Avalon.  For most of the time I've been in Avalon, I've had several very big fish take their turns squashing my character's efforts to learn and grow, for whatever exp/items/entertainment they could get out of it.  At the merest suggestion that they could let up a little bit on the bullying and repeated slayings so a new guy can actually learn and have a little fun, many of the "big kids" begin to wail about coddling. 

Like others who were shamed for using the DDW option, I have also heard numerous variations on this theme: "When I was a youngster I had [insert famous legendary brutal bully here] bashing me all the way down to newborn status and I'm still around so that means sadistic repeated slayings are good for you, and how dare you interfere with my right to be a [legendary brutal bully] in my own right, and censoring my right to express myself by wiping new players out until they unsubscribe!"

Okay, that's a very liberal paraphrase.   

I dread defending DDW status against those who have made their minds up and are angry about not having those easy kills available to them.  I'll just say that while DDW, I did city work, studied logs, fought challenges, and made an earnest effort to become competent at surviving in Avalon.  That said, when my DDW status dropped today, I was jumped within minutes.  Minutes.  By a bigger player who killed me very quickly.  *Sigh.*

It's ironic that some of those who are upset about DDW status reliably demonstrate why it was brought about in the first place.  Or so it seems to me.  That's all, I've said my peace about it. 

[Meerkat]

I am upset about DDW, because it allows people to choose their invulnerability. A duellist can attack you in your own city, assuming they are enemied to the city, but as soon as things start to go south for them (or when equal numbers arrive), they flee the city and are immediately invulnerable again.

Actions have reactions; they have consequences. If you perform an action, expect to get a reaction, and to suffer the consequences of them.

As far as the situation you spoke of, Algernon, about "insert legendary bully here", I believe that is in part a valid statement. I would not be where I am today if I wasn't forced to it by bullies when I was young in Avalon. However, back then there was some sort of honorable restraint. You could honestly claim "Please, give me a break", and you would get a break. Bullies today don't seem to be doing that. Sadly, it seems to increase rather than decrease their hostile activities toward you. Sadism is alive and well in Avalon, and it bothers me. Even my worst and most rabid haters can not honestly say that I've been sadistic or outright bullied the young. Neither has Narissa, or any of the other "Big, bad, evil baddies" that I've heard the most complaining about, with a very few exceptions.

[Furion]

I personally don't like the duellist status, and think if you're going to be a fighter, be a fighter all the time, not when it suits you...But, having said that, I see why some people would opt for that option when confronted by repeated slayings by people that they are hardly even a speed bump to.

However, I personally do not mind getting slayed by people who are 4x my size, as long as afterwards, they give you a few friendly pointers, so even when you do get killed in about 10 seconds, at least you have something to work on. Plus, as Narissa and some others have pointed out to me, competent enemies are in their best interests.

If you can just walk around killing all your enemies without having to really work at it, I don't see how it could be fun, and in the end, thats really what Avalon should be about: having fun.

[Algernon]

I am upset about DDW, because it allows people to choose their invulnerability. A duellist can attack you in your own city, assuming they are enemied to the city, but as soon as things start to go south for them (or when equal numbers arrive), they flee the city and are immediately invulnerable again.

Since I opened my mouth in defense of DDW somewhat, fairness demands I acknowledge this point and say, that does kind of suck. 

[Narissa]

My issue with DDW, PW, the Dragon, temple-idling (before lesson changes), DP-panning, etc etc etc is that you get generations of people raised (cough Eloire) who suddenly end up with max skills and absolutely no competence with them. These people then go on to train kids (usually obsessively), and the kids aren't even getting a choice, usually, of rejecting to work towards competence, because the people teaching them are pretty unaware of how their skills work - how well can you test, when you need to issue a challenge or wait until new year to try something out? Or, even worse, why bother testing? You're safe and protected and you're completely safe (we can't even brew them anymore, which kept them on a MODICUM of alertness), so why do you need to learn how yarl is cured?

I wish I was exaggerating, but I'm not. For example - several notorious "crackerjack novice aides" from a certain northern city were trying to help a newbie with his city quest - you know, the infamous jegga quest. They didn't even know the cures (yes, there are several!) for it. I just went *facepalm* no wonder the kids are afraid to leave the city walls...

For me, yeah, the big issue is really just that bad habits and poor training and whatnot is being passed on to kids, which means that things spiral downwards towards bad combat and clueluess denizens in the realm, eventually. This means, in the long run, that I'm not getting new enemies, my old enemies get discouraged by not having citizens to fight next to them, things get boring overall!

It also means that my kids, both Thakrian fighters and newbie Thieves, have few people to either fight and learn from, or work on stealing from. The pool of potentials is just getting smaller, and that makes people antsy, restless, bored and less likely to login.

My issue isn't so much with DDW, it's with the mindset that created it. Anyone who was in the gang of Parrian or Thakrian fighters from the era of Krillisa's warfare campaigns knows what I'm talking about - Castigere's temple as "the office," nonstop idling there, people afraid to leave except in groups, and the usually only to be herded to dreamweavers... During that time, it was ok - we still had Pahn, Dunccan, Finbar, Gandalph, etc, a whole bunch of older fighters to spar with...but people always come and go, and the usual emerging young fighters never emerged, which has led us to Sprindale of today...

So, yeah rambling. Guess my point of this is that I miss all my old enemies.

[Uwoiame]

on the duellist topic, 2 illustrations of why i dont like them:
1. I admit not being a very talented fighter, but I've always been 'out there'. The repeated slayings by people like Pahn, Dunccan, Finbar, [legendary brutal bully] were compensated by me killing the lesser people standing around them. With lesser I don't mean the very small or much smaller than me, but those that you could call the sub-top - the people with the skills but with little to no talent (like me basically). It balanced things for me (even tho it resulted in the [legendary brutal bully] chasing me more), and I am sure others worked on the same principle. Look at Avalon like a food chain, with the difference that the little rabbits of avalon can work themselves up to being big bad wolves if they have that ambition.
What I see these days is that the brand of players that were my prey are no longer available and only my predators have stayed.

2. Then there is the brand of players that are masters at antagonising others with the sharpness of their tongue, without having any fighting skills to support that. These people get more and more means of hiding in safety while verbally irritating their enemies. The day I found Rajj sitting at Hellespont Square, hiding behind duellist, sitting there as if he owned the place, that is the day I typed unsubscribe.

[Every Seer in Avalon]

It looks like duelist status is here to stay (Facepalms all already, folks). Maybe an adequate tweaking would be to only allow pacifist and duelist status after you've been playing a month or two? Unless you are a self-important, loudmouthed upstart, it really isn't hard to avoid trouble at that stage, and no one has any business being a baby pw. It screws you over for life.

[Bowdyn]

My biggest problem with duellist is Uwo and Narissa's point about hiding behind it.  It should be size capped... or done away with. It DOES have the potential to allow youngsters to learn on their own terms, so that i would list as a potential benefit... if used correctly. The issue is not using it as intended. taking ddw and NOT challenging. Narissa is right when she says people lose the need to learn because they're not under any threat. Nothing in avalon made me better at surviving than getting jumped.

it should be size capped to prevent people from hiding behind it, and to prevent it propogating the useless people with big skills and no ability... just my thoughts.

[Algernon]

This is why I almost unsubbed.

I found myself getting jumped, repeatedly, but not getting information - in fact, some rather elementary information - from friend OR foe.

Finally, I recruited help from a city enemy, which got me the information but felt rather OOC.

By definition, this makes me "useless" - high skills, not much competency with them.  Well sorry.

Doesn't feel much like a game; certainly isn't fun.  IC rivalries aside, the OOC dynamic can be a bit a nasty.  If nothing else, duellist status - by keeping me around as a subscriber - has provided Avalon a bit of income it would have lost.

[Bowdyn]

Alge (a fun shortening of your name i think i'm going to use now),

I didn't mean to imply that you were viewed as useless. Actually I see you challenging, I see you fighting, and I get the feeling that you're actually trying to learn. Those I was labelling as useless would be those of all ULT skills, never fighting, knowing they suck at it, and never bothering to change that fact. I was that way as a prophet ages ago, but then again... look at my resources.

To elaborate on the size-cap idea for duellist status... I would suggest anyone who is top-peers, most certainly should NOT be allowed on the ddw. if you haven't learned by the time you're that big, a crash course will do you some good. further i think a good time for trial by fire might even be halfway to top peers, or 3/4 or something like that.

As for your own statement regarding lack of help from friend and foe. I think this is a deeper problem that runs in the heart of a couple of the cities in avalon. Elders of those cities that DON'T fight, and DO hide, and make all manner of excuses to stay out of action can't possibly hope to tutor their young in any effective manner. As such, it's good to recognize them as early as possible, and just not even bother asking them.  So you have to talk to your enemies about tactics? This isn't ooc I don't think.  As narissa has said, having competent enemies is in one's own best interest. I cannot fathom any IC reason Thakria and Mercinae would ever heal the rift that lies between them and causes all the hostility, so why wouldn't they want to help you put up more of a fight, so to speak?

Just a thought. You're not useless as long as you try... it's once you give up...

[Algernon]

Thanks, and understood.  Actually, I liked your post and didn't feel accused by you in particular.

The issue of training is a good one, worthy of a thread, and might start a new one since we've gone so far afield of Esprii's topic.  (Sorry, sorry...)

When I became "Head Tutor" of the mages (another recent innovation in the land), after I stopped laughing at the irony of it, I began to notice that not all mages had the same amount of information or the same quality information.  Some mages (mainly me!) didn't even the same amount/quality information as non-mages.  So within the guild I've been trying to foster a culture where useful information is shared openly.

As part of this, with all the talk in another thread about settings and what/how much to hand out, it seems like the best education would be to help people learn to think effectively so that they are comfortable writing their own code and know the basics on how to do it.  Someone could email me all of their settings, but that would not help me think and respond effectively (which is the point Narissa has expressed more than once).  So training involves a little more time and direction.

I could write more but I don't want to hijack the thread... 

[Narissa]

New topic, feel free to continue the discussion!

[Bowdyn]

Good, because I was going to say that the other thread was pretty much hijacked as it was. Thanks Nari.

Anyway, a perfect example of the problem with ddw and deeper a problem with some of the cities at their very core occurred just the other night. Apprentice Cavalier Therion logs in, says hi and defs up. Then looks around for someone to fight. Upon asking every single one of his ddw peers and being turned down for whatever comedy of excuses they could provide... He gets fed up and leaves. If they weren't ddw he could have jumped them. Sure maybe this assaults your goodly nature and desire for peace and happiness. But getting jumped by a peer is NOT the same as being jumped by (insert legendary bad ass here). You know you're their size. You know with the right training you could take them. Thus you come out motivated and geared towards getting better.

[Algernon]

Recent defender of DDW agrees with Bowdyn on this one, too.

[Narissa]

To be fair, I'm to blame for half the excuses being given. I told some people I trained some advice I, myself, was given when I was going through some nasty non-stop death days (you know, where you get so discouraged, you just throw yourself onto Threap's sword?). Demosthenes scolded me and told me the "health rank" system, a rather good rule of thumb:

Below 1k: Fight people you know you can beat (that way you can get above 1k!)
1k-1220 or so: Fight people that might be a bit of a challenge for you
1300ish: You've got excess health, so splash it around and fight those crazy tough fights

Now, this is entirely just a rough guideline. There are always going to be situations where fighting is either more important than anything else, or, hey, you just really want to! Also, it's really only meant for people who are near to top size, as a way to make sure they don't fall into that habit of dying way too much because they are having a bad day. It helps nudge them to go out and bash, which not only gives them decent health to work with, it'll also help clear their head.

Newbies and smallish people aren't always going to have high health, and they don't NEED health that high - they aren't facing 360+ damage stabs or 40% jj damage. For some reason, someone's passed on what I said, kinda, to the merc DDW kids, without really elaborating, and it's turned into: "I'm not allowed to fight unless I have 1k health."

So, yeah, Merc, go fix them?