Sect of Blades Problems

Lait

So let's say there's a person in the Sect of Blades that wins every duel they challenge or accept, period. I'm not singling anyone out, since there's multiple people that have been in this position over time. Due to the anonymity of sect challenges, and due to the fact that everyone in the sect can accept a challenge at any time, this means that there's a significant chance of a person being paired up with this totally undefeatable guy. It's driving players to actually ignore sect challenges and not challenge at all, because they know that that one guy that absolutely nobody can beat is going to accept and win. Since you don't gain marks for losing, and you don't gain experience by being defeated by someone over and over again whom you have no chance of besting, there is absolutely no incentive to sect challenge/sect accept when this one particular person is around, because everyone knows they are going to lose against this guy no matter what they do.

How do you solve this problem, and make it so that people can actually enjoy participating in Sect of Blades fights again without having to worry about one completely unstoppable guy accepting and winning every single challenge no matter what?

Lait

There's one option I can think of: track the win-lose ratio of each sect member and group them into ranks based upon how much they've won or lost. A lower rank can accept a challenge from a higher rank, but a higher rank cannot accept a challenge from a lower rank. Keep the anonymity, but only reveal the rank of the person that challenges, i.e. "(Sect): A challenge for a duel in the Sect of Blade's arena by a second-rank duelist has been issued." This way, anyone can fight a person better than or equal to them, but people who are already way better than the rest can't farm people who are less skilled for easy kills, and it makes it much more likely that people will be able to fight other people that match them skill-wise.

Draiman

You will effectively kill 1v1 pk for some of us with that system. 

Draiman

Another suggestion is to remove point loss in sect entirely, and instead just give 10 points for even participating in a fight.

Lait

Draiman said:

You will effectively kill 1v1 pk for some of us with that system. 

How so? This proposed system allows people who have similar kill/death ratios to fight each other, therefore guaranteeing that a person will be matched up with another person similar in skill. At the same time, a person who is not necessarily that skilled can still accept a challenge issued by a higher-skilled person, but it becomes a matter of consenting to it rather than being forced into a situation that they cannot win no matter what.

Zsadist

This would be far too abusable.

Let's take myself for example. I'm a good combatant. I'm not Draiman level, Akara level or even Lait level.... but I'm fairly well (and always getting better). If you're going to go based off of k/d ratio, and I want to feel like big badass and have guaranteed wins, I'll just challenge/accept and purposely lose each fight until my kills are nowhere near my deaths. Then I get to fight with people who are a) either starting out or b) have few kills compared to deaths and just farm the points in that way. Even by doing this, I'll gain far more points than I'll ever lose.


This has already been brought up, god knows how many times, and each argument always ends up being the same ending. The Sect is meant to give anonymity of fights while keeping any sort of negative conflict out of the general populace. If you don't want to fight, you don't have to accept. If you think it's someone you can't beat and don't feel like getting your ass handed to you on a silver platter, don't fight. I really don't feel like the Sect needs to change at all. It's fine with the way it is.

Draiman

There simply aren't enough people actively participating in Sect for a tiered system to work.

Frustrating as it is losing to one person over and over it's incentive to get better so you can eventually take them down. Even if it seems hopeless, improving some small thing every fight starts to really add up.

Winning, while fun, is a byproduct of PK and not the main reason to engage in it. When you get past the immediate reaction of rage/disappointment/whatever, losing is actually the most rewarding experience in the combat system as it gives you material to improve from.

Serrice

Draiman said:

Winning, while fun, is a byproduct of PK and not the main reason to engage in it.

I think in any competitive endeavor where there are stakes, winning is the only thing that matters, and it's the main reason that the competition even exists in the first place.

Lait

There is a point where personal skill stops being relevant. No matter how good you are at your class, no matter what tactics you use, there is going to be a point where someone is going to be able to defeat you 100% of the time. You don't learn anything from these losses because there is no way that you can improve your skill against them. The only answer to "What can I do to defeat this person?" becomes "Buy more artifacts", "Use a better class", or "Wait for the nerf", all of which are a problem that is out of a person's hands.

Personally, I don't want to have to spend hundreds of real dollars in order to gain an advantage over one particular person.

Lait

Zsadist said:

If you think it's someone you can't beat and don't feel like getting your unicorns handed to you on a silver platter, don't fight.

This is the problem. If someone is singularly dominating sect battles, nobody will fight, because they're expecting that person, who will defeat them. Your answer to "How do I have fun doing this thing" is "Don't do this thing because you suck," and that's bad.

Zsadist

Like Draiman said, review your fights. There is -always- something you can improve on. Try something you haven't tried before, play with your skills a little more, mess around with your curing order, figure out their patterns (if they have one).... there's always something to improve upon.

I have a shit ton of artifacts and yet you Lait, beat me almost every time. Artifacts don't equate to winning. They help, but they don't equal it.


Edit:

Most times, people co-ordinate with other Sect fighters when they want to fight someone on their tier or just someone who they don't mind losing/winning against. I've had a handful of people ask me to accept their Sect fight because they didn't want to fight you or Akara and they felt they had a better chance of a decent fight with me than with you. It's not a matter of "Don't fight because you suck", its a matter of "Don't do it if you aren't having fun."

PK is already slim as it is. Sect (at peak times) have 10 people. If you break it off into tiers, SOMEONE WILL get left out. And then its no fun for them because they can't fight anyone.

Draiman

The Aetolian community is not to the point where a persons skill has becomes irrelevant.

Edit: Teradrim being the exception. Shit is busted.

Haven

Is it just the bash mode route that's a problem with the class? Or is it something else? I remember @Feichin being boss mode with that class without using the bash mode.

Zsadist

Its just everyone says damage is too high, but the same argument could be made for monks. Conner used to be able to do 35% of my hp in a single combo, still could if he hadn't retired. But hurray for classleads and class nerfs /sarcasm/.


Additionally, I don't really feel bad for Lait. She still does win a fair amount of fights and most Sect people would say that they can't beat her. Draiman's back and he's kicking ass and taking names, like he always has. Same with Varel. There's always going to be someone better than you.

Rashar

If you're comparing monks with Teradrim in any sort of earnest fashion, I'm not certain you belong in any serious debate about class balance.

As much as I'd like to agree with @lait, I think @draiman is right. There just aren't enough fighters for a tiered system. The points are still valid, I just don't know what the answer is.

Fezzix

You can still duel people outside the sect arena and get sect points, albeit not as many. The risk of anonymity and possibly fighting someone you can't win against is the incentive for the extra points.

Zsadist

I'm not comparing the two classes together at all, except for they're damage output. That's the only thing about the two classes that I AM comparing.

And before you say they aren't comparable, I would suggest getting smacked by a Teradrim and then having a sdk/ucp/ucp done. The hp damage will be very similar.

Lait

Sdk/ucp/ucp, at least, can be partially parried by parrying head. With teradrim, you can't parry thanks to rattle: only the sand slice will be parried, but the main bulk of their attack (flail+golem strike) will go through.

Jensen

Can this be described as a predominantly sect problem or a predominantly teradrim problem...

Benedicto

It's predominantly an @Varel problem.

Nerf @Varel

Vaskar

It's a problem with any 1v1 system in a game like this, it can't really be helped. People always tend to go "Can't win so why bother?" and so the system ends up being just the handful of top-tier people bothering to participate. The little fish don't bother to play because they just keep getting stomped on by the bigger guys. In this case, a medium fish is upset that a bigger fish swam into her pond so she's suggesting ideas that will move him back out of it.

Jensen

Vaskar said:

It's a problem with any 1v1 system in a game like this, it can't really be helped. People always tend to go "Can't win so why bother?" and so the system ends up being just the handful of top-tier people bothering to participate. The little fish don't bother to play because they just keep getting stomped on by the bigger guys. In this case, a medium fish is upset that a bigger fish swam into her pond so she's suggesting ideas that will move him back out of it.

While there may be truth in that, people have been saying that about Aetolia PvP forever.  The argument always boils down to a discouraging disparity vs a reason to get better.

Illikaal

Honestly, the only advice I can give you is this. Stop thinking that people are better than you, even if they actually are. There isn't anything being done in this game that another person can't do, if they work at it. When you really sit there and think about it, there is absolutely no reason in the world that someone can possibly be "unbeatable" or so beyond your scope that you could never even step up to them.

I felt that way for a long time, being in old useless Duiran when there were no combatants. I never thought I'd be able to ever in my life beat big name fighters like Mazzion, Xarian, and whoever else instilled the fear of God into everyone at that time. So I rose to the challenge and became one. I had to take plenty of L's to get to the point that I got to, but once I got there, I was able to throw down with the best of them using a 100% manual offense and Citadel's curing. Of course those were different times and the fact that I was wrecking people using fully automated offenses with a manual one speaks volumes. The point is, anyone can climb the ladder with a few simple steps.

1. Believe in yourself. If you have trouble understanding this concept, watch anime.

2. As senpai @Ezalor always says: Log every single fight.

3. Another tip from senpai Ezalor: Read over your logs where you lost. Find out why you lost and make adjustments so that you don't make the same mistake again. As with any competitive video game, whoever makes the fewest mistakes often wins.

4. Don't get upset when you lose. Take it as a learning experience.

5. Believe in yourself again.

6. Dab on your enemies just to instill salt into their very existence after you obliterate them.

Jules

"Just believe in yourself" advice is so frustrating, although it's rare that someone flat out says it. Twice. Heh. I just....




The people who are "great" fighters do not really struggle as they're learning I don't think. There might be some bumps in the road, but it's mostly fairly smooth sailing, even when they're losing, which they might early on. And it's because they can always find a way forward pretty easily. If you're actually struggling, it's not a good sign - because this isn't a movie.


Logs really do help though, even with group fights, which are the only fights I care about. I definitely need help with a way forward a lot of the time though. If we're going to wait for me to reinvent the wheel we could be here awhile.

Haven

Jules said:

"Just believe in yourself" advice is so frustrating, although it's rare that someone flat out says it. Twice. Heh. I just.... The people who are "great" fighters do not really struggle as they're learning I don't think. There might be some bumps in the road, but it's mostly fairly smooth sailing, even when they're losing, which they might early on. And it's because they can always find a way forward pretty easily. If you're actually struggling, it's not a good sign - because this isn't a movie. Logs really do help though, even with group fights, which are the only fights I care about. I definitely need help with a way forward a lot of the time though. If we're going to wait for me to reinvent the wheel we could be here awhile.

What do you struggle with specifically? There are class and combat guides still on the forums that should help with understanding objectives. If it's coding, unless I'm mistaken, there's a dedicated team of players who can help with that. I don't remember the clan name but it's out there for anyone to join if you ask.

Jules

Personally, I struggle with coding and game mechanics in all of the games (and I am sort of spread out). I am just saying, not everyone is a natural at this stuff by any stretch, but some people are, and guess who is going to excel without seeming like they ever even broke a sweat?

I am not saying you can't improve. I have improved by miles, and hopefully will improve more, but there is basically just no comparison between me and a guy who just gets it.

Illikaal

I know it sounds silly but I'm so serious though. I didn't believe I could ever get even close to top tier. Nobody did.

I cannot begin to tell you how satisfying it was once I got there, and the very same people that told me I'd never be able to kill them refused to fight me because they didn't want to lose.

Jules

What changed though? Because the bit I didn't say was that, while someone like me or past-you is plodding along, it is not like the guys at the top are standing still waiting for us. Those guys definitely read logs too - and they're pretty good at figuring out what to fix in them or they wouldn't be where they are.

In short, we can and should strive to get better. Catching up is the part that is usually going to remain out of reach.

Jensen

They fall off, lose interest, stop fine tuning things, take breaks from the game, make new characters, change sides/classes, or their class can no longer go the route of did

Xenia

@Jules I can empathize with what you say about 'some players are naturally better than others' at this. I'm not a top tier combatant, at best I'm mid-tier. However I wouldn't say those top-tier folks don't break sweats, instead I'd say there's different mindset in how they approach the system. My biggest struggle is sometimes I run into mental roadblocks with me not wanting to think critically about the process of a fight or, I can't allocate the focus required to do so.

But, when I do make myself sit down, analyze and study the outcome of a fight, I always find at least one thing to improve on, and do. I think those who are better are people who are able to consistently make themselves focus and process this information. It's a mindset which requires diligence and being willing to spend mental resources equivocal to studying for school/work/whatever.

I've always been a little bit lazy and it's this laziness which keeps me where I am and probably keeps others where they are too. What I mean to say is the resources to understand the combat system in Aetolia are openly available to everyone, we just don't all have the same amount of time/mental energy to learn the system.

If you want to improve and don't know how, my suggestion is this:
Stop caring about winning or losing and instead PK just for the sake of PK. One of my struggles is keeping up with the pace of a fight. If I go a week or two without fighting, I will see a drastic decrease in this area. When this happens, I have to go through a readjustment period of spamming fights without trying to fix anything beyond getting used to the pacing and sequence of a fight. I do this until I am able to follow what's happening and then I start reading and looking over the logs to see what needs to be changed in my offense/defense.

Xenia

Double Post cut yeah >_>

For what it's worth, I like fighting @Varel for the opposite reason as everyone else: There's nothing to lose in losing to him because everyone thinks he's god-tier anyway. Afterwards, if I ask him something about the fight, he always gives his opinion and I gain new insights as I slowly continue to grow my knowledge of combat.