Dueling System: Amended 1.1a
I’ve been thinking about a dueling system in Elemental in part because the tactical battles sound like they are going to be cinematic and very dependant on customization. Based on what little knowledge is available right now I think Elemental would be a great game for some type of dueling system. The level of customization and physics alone in Elemental sounds like it would be tailor made for epic duels between Channelers.
What I had envisioned would be one of two systems either a totally random battle were the AI would control both Channelers and make use of special abilities, magic, and weapons with whoever was the most powerful winning or luckiest if it was a perfectly even duel perhaps a draw. The second which is what I would prefer is a simple combat interface were the player could select 5 abilities/spells to take into the duel each having a cool down timer after use or a finite number of uses. In addition to the abilities/spells there would be a general attack, defend, flee, and evade command for a total of 9 options the player could select in a duel.
The duel wouldn’t be real time it would be a cinematic turn based system were each player would have maybe 10 seconds to choose his move in multiplayer (single player would have no time limit) and click execute then depending on what the player chose, his stats, and equipment the computer would simulate a cinematic battle. This process would repeat until either one of the Channelers died or the flee option was used (although fleeing wouldn’t be 100% guaranteed). Perhaps you could even throw in an option to make the duel non-fatal. You could have non-fatal duels work just like the fatal duel system or you could have “mental duels” between Channelers on the astral plane.
In these mental duels the mind would be the only factor in the equation making a weaker and stronger Channeler no matter the power difference equal. Of course I would assume you couldn’t get a scar (but maybe knocked out) from a mental duel especially if it was meant to be non-fatal. For example if Superman had a duel against Lex Luther in the astral plane all of Superman’s physical powers would be null but he wouldn’t have to agree to some ridiculous rule of holding back to the point of handicapping himself, the outcome would be totally based on intelligence and strategy alone. It would also introduce a point system in non-fatal duels similar to fencing. A predefined number of rounds for the duel with the potential of 1 point per round would be set. Resulting in non-fatal duels being more like a match of chess (checkers?).
Now the question becomes when would you actually make use of this system in a game? I think there are several scenarios where this system would show its value.
1. Time sensitive multiplayer games where one of the defeat conditions is kill the enemy Channeler (Fatal)
2. Stalemate situation where neither opponent could gain a decisive victory over the other and the game could last infinitely. (Fatal)
3. If your opponent was all but defeated on some ridiculously large map and you didn’t want to waste time conquering everything and your opponent wanted a last ditch chance to win. (Fatal)
4. Fun: (duh) a player might want to fight someone without losing the game. (Non-fatal)
5. Resources: This is a bit more advanced but lets say in a multiplayer game with 8 people (two teams of four) Team 1 finds an Earth shard / Dragon / rarity and two team mates really want it rather than rolling dice or first come first server they could have a non-fatal duel to see who would get it. (Non-fatal)
6. Morale: non-fatal duels between allies / neutral governments could boost morale for the military and civilian populations for both sides similar to the Olympics. (Non-fatal)
7. Prizes: The player(s) could offer rewards for winners of a fatal/non-fatal duel this one relates to fun but could also be a part of diplomacy. (Fatal/Non-fatal)
8. Information: It sounds like it might be difficult to find out what path an opposing Channeler is taking if you have a non-fatal duel you could get a pretty good idea of what type of a Channeler they were. (Non-fatal)
9. Free form: Which is basically where two or more players would agree to some condition dependent on whether they win/lose a duel and then follow through on the agreement. (Fatal/Non-fatal)
10. Quests: the questing system could make great use of dueling both fatal and non-fatal for example; to get a dragon (or some other powerful sentient beast) to ally with you it could demand you prove yourself in battle against itself. (Fatal/Non-fatal)
Something to add was in MoM, it showed the wizard actually burst into the room of enemy wizards and banish them personally. I always tought this was awesome (when I first played the game it was pretty awesome as far as cut-scenes were concerned on a PC game in terms of graphics too)
(and later in life I discovered I got to see that one wizard woman's boobs when I killed her. Oh the delights we had before ESRB ).
Expanding on that into a whole fight would be cool.
It would be difficult not to make this unbalancing though. Since some of the main choices are how much of your essence you should invest in your heroes, your nation, your mana pool for superspells, and your own channelers advancement this option would have to be very carefully implemented in order to prevent giving an uber channeller who invests only in himself an overwhelming advantage as he goes around dueling all of his enemies who have invested their essence differently.
My definition of a duel is where both men agree to fight at a specific time at a specific place so if the player didn’t think he had a fair chance at beating his opponent he would simply decline the duel. If the player accepted the duel and realized he was out matched immediately he could attempt to flee the duel. As you’ll notice in my original post the duels wouldn’t necessarily have to be to the death they could just be till concession / knock out. If I had to guess I would say the hardest part of implementing such an idea would be the cinematic battles themselves rather than balancing magic, abilities, stats, and equipment.
If they're not to the death, then what's the point of having a duel in the first place? There would have to be a large benefit from winning a duel to risk your channeler's safety by bringing him out to meet up with an enemy channeler. And if there is a large benefit from winning duels, then it would provide an incentive to retain more of your channeler's essence, which would need to be balanced by something else.
Please refer to the last paragraph of my original post. I'm starting to get the distinct impression that perhaps some people didn't all that thoroughly read my original post .
*edit* A usage I neglected in my OP is that a dueling system as described above would also be good wholesome fun in my opinion.
I read your whole post the first time, and I just reread it, and my question still stands. All three of your scenarios where duels would be used require them to be to the death - they are all ways to eliminate players/end the game. A duel until knock-out/concession that results in the loser being eliminated from the game is a duel to the death in all but name.
So... What would be the point of having a duel that isn't to the death?
And please, don't think that I'm attacking you or anything. I think duels could be good in all three of the scenarios you mentioned at the end of your first post, if done right. But I honestly see no point in a duel that isn't to the death, but if you can come up with a good, reasonable consequence then all the better. That is the point of my question.
With a little bit of imagination I don't think it is hard to imagine how non-fatal duels could fit in to gameplay. Here are a few I was thinking about when I made my OP.
1. Fun: (duh) a player might want to fight someone without losing the game.
2. Resources: This is a bit more advanced but lets say in a multiplayer game with 8 people (two teams of four) Team 1 finds an Earth shard / Dragon / rarity and two team mates really want it rather than rolling dice or first come first server they could have a non-fatal duel to see who would get it.
3. Morale: non-fatal duels between allies / neutral governments could boost morale for the military and civilian populations for both sides similar to the Olympics.
4. Prizes: The player(s) could offer rewards for winners of a non-fatal duel this one relates to fun but could also be a part of diplomacy.
5. Information: It sounds like it might be difficult to find out what path an opposing Channeler is taking if you had a non-fatal duel you could get a pretty good idea of what type of a Channeler they were.
6. Free form: Which is basically where two or more players would agree to some condition dependent on wether they win/lose a duel and then follow through on the agreement.
Number 6 was originally my basis for having non-fatal duels and could be applied to a near infinite number of situations. My imagination tends to get overwhelmed with the endless possibilities that could be self-imposed by players and assumed concrete elaboration was unnecessary. Of course having the system mainly free form would also introduce the possibility of treachery with dishonest players which I find intriguing .
On word-use grounds, I have to agree with pigeonpigeon. It isn't a duel if it isn't to the death. But that's not to say that formal, non-lethal contests might not have a place in the game. Many real civilizations had ritualized combat that had could have real political effects without killing the participants. Penelope's suitors trying to win her by using Odysseus' bow and medieval European jousting come to mind.
Wait, what? There were boobs in that game? Where? Where?
It was an african wizard. She didn't wear a shirt.
Well in order to get this thread back on topic I’ve recently though of a new way non-fatal duels and dueling in general could be used in Elemental. Quests could make great use of dueling both fatal and non-fatal for example, to get a dragon (or some other powerful sentient beast) to ally with you it could demand you prove yourself in battle against itself. Granted the dragon would probably need to take it easy on you so as not to kill you but still that would be pretty cool. I have to admit including dragons and other magical creatures in the dueling system could be a bit tricky but would also add a lot of depth. This however would be largely dependant on how robust the actually quest system will be.
This thread has stayed in the back of my mind and kept making me remember all sorts of non-fatal dueling stuff, like those old German fencing clubs where you weren't really cool until you had a nice scar across your face somewhere. Making duels a class of quests seems brilliant to me, and I'd also like to see some integration with full battle mechanics so that under the right circumstances, opposing forces could choose to let their champions duel for the prize and all the regular troops get to live (or perhaps units on the losing side could be enslaved instead of killed).
I guess one reason I'm liking the duel notion more and more is that I *really* hope this game can have some 'honor mechanics' that both help to futz up any blunt military-maximizing strategies and, more importantly, add to the immersion factor.
If there is a honor mechanic, I'd want other wizards to treat you accordingly. If you have high honor, the wizards that don't nessicarily want to hulk smash everything in sight (the aggresive personalities are allowed to pick fights with others for no real reason) would notice who is the honorable wizard, and maybe be less anxious about when an army walks buy. Because he knows the other wizard is honorable and things like breaking a wizard pack without warning would lower that honor so the guy won't do it.
(This reminds me how much there had better be a 'you get off my land or I'll attack you' command that can be given to AI opponents)
Another important thing to consider when talking about duels is, are they balanced? Can they be balanced? From the information we have now, one of the most major decisions a player will make throughout the game is to maintain a powerful channeler or to spread out that power throughout your empire. Now, obviously a player who chooses to maintain a powerful channeler is going to have a significant advantage over a player who spreads out in a duel. So basically it boils down to this: can duels be implemented in such away that they just become yet another way for the player to achieve certain goals, yet not necessarily better or more necessary than any other way to achieve those same goals? If the answer is no, then duels should not be in the game unless there is some opposing feature that people who choose to spread out their channeler's power can take advantage of. If the answer is yes, then duels would be an interesting and engaging feature that I think I'd enjoy.
Honor mechanics would be nice, but I'm skeptical about applying it to duels. For example if a battle begins in which you have a significant advantage, and the opposing channeler (who is just as powerful as your own) challenges you to a dual to determine the fate of the armies, there should be no loss of honor in declining. My reticence is basically due to the fact that honor is often construed as stupidity - the need to accept any challenge posed to you. I really like the idea of an honor system, I'm just skeptical about applying it to duels specifically.
On the other hand I like landisaurus's idea of how honor could be used:
This would be very neat. It would reward you for not being a complete opportunist. I'm sure there will already be a diplomacy mechanic that would make other nations wary of your agreements if you make a habit of betraying your allies and such, but I'd like to see that incorporated into a more comprehensive honor system. One of the many potential benefits of being honorable is the example landisaurus gave in the above quote. Being dishonorable has its advantages, too - it allows you to be a complete opportunist at every turn, always doing what is best for you at any given time.
Going even farther, honor could be another type of alignment - resulting in 2 to 3 alignments, depending on whether Human vs. Fallen is the same as Good vs. Evil, which I hope isn't the case (so Good vs. Evil, Human vs. Fallen, Honorable vs. Dishonorable). Humans (Fallen) would be more likely to deal with other Humans (Fallen), Good (Evil) factions would be more likely to deal with other Good (Evil) factions, and Honorable (Dishonorable) factions would be more likely to deal with Honorable (Dishonorable) factions. Or, Dishonorable factions might even prefer dealing with Honorable ones (less likely to be stabbed in the back). Betraying or stabbing a dishonorable faction in the back should also not result in as high a loss of honor, though.
These could result in some pretty interesting alliances. The most cohesive ones would obviously be when all members match in all 3 categories, but it might not be so rare to see Evil and Honorable Humans and Fallen teaming up, or Good Humans teaming up despite their different attitudes toward honor. Likewise it would probably result in several significant groups instead of the usual 2 powerful alliances plus a handful of loners.
Oh yes. That was probably my single biggest gripe about GalCiv2. Those damn AI constructors building space stations near my planets . Frankly I'd like to see even more than just "get off my land or else." For one, you can propose something, you should also be able to propose its opposite - essentially allowing you to threaten other players more creatively. I'd also like to see a "Demilitarize our border or else," "Cancel your alliance with Player X, or our alliance is over," and even options for temporary or specific right of passage through territory.
For example, pretend there are 3 players, A, B and C in a row (so B is in the middle). Players A and B are at war. Player C wants to declare war on Player A. Player C asks Player B to allow army X to enter Player C's territory in order to attack Player A without having to go all the way around. Player B would be much more willing to risk allowing a foreign military into its territory if the agreement is only for certain specific, identified armies. Heck even the route could be specified in the agreement! And if Player C deviates from the route, Player B will open a diplomatic channel and ask what the heck is going on. If Player C doesn't move its army back to the agreed upon route, the agreement will be broken and Player C will lose honor.
Quoting GW Swicord, reply 13 like those old German fencing clubs where you weren't really cool until you had a nice scar across your face somewhere.
Hmm, permanent scaring of Channelers through the dueling system I hadn’t thought of that but it does sound very cool. Having your Channeler in some major duel against an arch-rival only to get the left side of your face burned off by a fireball or get your eye slashed with a magic sword and have to wear an eye patch. That would really add some personal and unique touches to Channelers and the dueling system.
Quoting pigeonpigeon, reply 15Another important thing to consider when talking about duels is, are they balanced? Can they be balanced? From the information we have now, one of the most major decisions a player will make throughout the game is to maintain a powerful channeler or to spread out that power throughout your empire. Now, obviously a player who chooses to maintain a powerful channeler is going to have a significant advantage over a player who spreads out in a duel. So basically it boils down to this: can duels be implemented in such away that they just become yet another way for the player to achieve certain goals, yet not necessarily better or more necessary than any other way to achieve those same goals? If the answer is no, then duels should not be in the game unless there is some opposing feature that people who choose to spread out their channeler's power can take advantage of. If the answer is yes, then duels would be an interesting and engaging feature that I think I'd enjoy.
Personally I don’t feel balancing would be that difficult as I stated before. In real life I don’t go out of my way to fight battles I can’t win unless I have to. I would assume common sense would balance the fatal dueling system for the most part where two Channelers that invest most of their essence = a good fight and two Channelers that kept most of their essence = a good fight with some shades of grey in-between. If this for some reason was unacceptable and you felt a Channeler who invested all or most of their essence needed a way to win a duel with a Channeler who kept all or most of their essence I would propose a special hero called a champion.
Similar to what GW Swicord suggested with the out come of a battle settled between two of the best soldiers from each army the champion would duel in place of the Channeler. The only problem with this is a champion would potentially need to be as powerful as a late game epic Channeler which sounds dubious to me and in fatal duels if the champion died I guess the Channeler would need to die as well. Of course there would be a few ways to get around that you could make the champion a hero that only duels and can’t lead armies or join any other kind of battle. The only thing the player would be able to do with a champion is customize armor, weapons, etc basic stuff like that. The last problem with the champion would be how to explain it given the world of Elemental which I’m drawing a blank on right now. You could maybe tie it in with shards or some kind of immortal super soldier left over from doomsday I don’t really know, I’ll have to give this some more thought.
Yeah I don't think the champion idea would work very well. For one, it's most likely that the channeler who spread out his power would be able to muster a stronger champion than the channeler who kept all his power to himself - so that would just reverse the problem. And if the champion had to fight the other channeler he'd probably have even less of a chance than his channeler master.
And honestly I don't see the balancing being a problem in fatal duels. Channelers who spread out their essence could just refuse duels, problem solved. The problem would be in the non-fatal duels that you suggested could be used to attain certain goodies (your examples were resources, morale, prizes, information, player/AI-determined terms, plus whatever anyone else's imaginations can come up with). An even bigger problem to balance would be if dueling is ever incorporated into quests.
Oh here I thought you meant in the fatal duels, a balancing problem with non-fatal duels didn’t even register as a possibility to me. Well in a non-fatal duel no one is going to be killed or injured (severely anyway) so I really don’t understand where your concern is coming from? Is your major concern attack X by essence keeping Channeler defeats essence invested Channeler in one hit or a situation like that and how would that be a bigger problem for the quest system?
No, my concern is that channelers who spread out their essence could be essentially (no pun intended ) locked out of potentially very rewarding duels, or even worse, they would be severely disadvantaged in any diplomatic or quest-related content that might involve duels. It would be a bigger problem in the quest system, because it would make essence-retaining channelers better at questing.
Keep in mind that I'm only opposed to that if there isn't some equally significant factor that channelers who spread out their essence can take advantage of that channelers who keep their essence cannot, at least not to the same extent.
Ok I think I understand where your coming from now. So in a non-fatal duel your assuming that a Channeler that kept all their essence would have an unfair advantage over a Channeler who invested essence thus potentially giving the first Channeler all the rewards from quests or diplomacy? Hmmm, I can think of two ways to address this.
Plan A; (what I thought originally) have non-fatal duels be set at a predetermined power level. For example, Player A is totally invested in essence which gives him a dueling strength of 1000 and Player B has kept all his essences which gives him a dueling strength of 10,000. Player A and Player B are dueling for some reward and agree to have a non-fatal duel. In a non-fatal duel the maximum dueling strength of the stronger Channeler could be set equal to the maximum dueling strength of the weaker opponent or set at some arbitrary value that would be universal for all non-fatal duels. This would result in a level playing field for all non-fatal duels in terms of attack strength although the stronger Channeler would still have an advantage in HP, speed, strength, etc I guess.
Plan B; (which I like more) introduce a point system in non-fatal duels similar to fencing. Then set a predefined number of rounds for the duel with the potential of 1 point per round. This way essence, HP, strength, speed, equipment, and anything else becomes irrelevant for a non-fatal duel. The only thing that would matter are the choices made by the players / AI making duels more like a match of chess (checkers?).
Super secret Plan C; give Channelers who invest their essence some undefined advantage that compensates for their lack of options in certain non-fatal dueling situations.
I really like plan b but I would still want the player to potentially get scars or knocked out. The only difference between Channlers under plan b would be stronger Channelers are less likely to get scars / knocked out if they lose and weaker Channelers are more likely to get scars / knocked out. This however would have no effect on the duel it self just post duel drama.
Plab B isn't bad. I really don't like Plan A, though, and Plan C is pretty vague . My only problem with B is that it doesn't really make much sense. If a super powerful channeler duels a weakling channeler (because he spread his essence out), the weakling one should have no chance whatsoever.
I mean, if superman were challenged by some regular dude to a fencing match with something important at stake, it would be absolutely moronic for superman to agree not to use his powers to win. It just rubs me the wrong way. The only way I can see myself liking an implementation like Plan B is if it really is more like a game of chess than an actual duel; a game of intelligence and strategy which doesn't depend on power. Making this fun but fairly quick might be rather difficult, though..
You have a point, which was hiding in the back of my mind while thinking of plan b. I kind of attempted to address it at the end of my post with the comment on scaring and knock outs. I can’t really think of a good explanation for why a stronger Channeler would hold back to such a degree that it would potentially cost him something important. That is very counterintuitive to anyone I would think. Of course maybe there are some features in Elemental that would make plan c more viable and the information just hasn’t been released.
The only explanation I can come up with right now for plan b would be to make it a “mental duel” like on the astral plane or ethereal plane. In this context the mind would be the only factor in the equation making a weaker and stronger Channeler no matter the power difference equal. Of course I would assume you couldn’t get a scar (but maybe knocked out) from a mental duel especially if it was meant to be non-fatal. To use your Superman example if Superman had a duel against Lex Luther in the astral plane all of Superman’s physical powers would be null and he wouldn’t have to agree to some ridiculous rule of holding back to the point of handicapping himself, the outcome would be totally based on intelligence and strategy alone. As for this potentially taking to long as I mentioned in my original post I would suspect a time limit (10 sec per turn) would be needed for any duel so they wouldn’t take unreasonably long amounts of time. So if an astral duel was 7 rounds and both players used the full 10 seconds to make a decision every turn + however long the cinematic battles would be per turn your looking at 2.33 minutes + 1 minute (approximately) for a total of something around 3.33 minutes for a non-fatal duel which sounds reasonable to me. The fatal duels would also be somewhere around this 3 – 4 minute mark I would guess.
Overall that could work out pretty nicely. One thing I'd like to point out is that this is first and foremost a 4X game. Put in any sort of time limit (especially one as short as 10 seconds) and there will be an uprising. Many people who play 4X games and TBS games in general don't like feeling rushed, and will be up in arms against any feature that could be construed as requiring twitch reactions. So there would have to be some other way to keep duels short.
I don’t think it would be possible to get around some sort of a time restriction on multiplayer games for duels or regular turns. Single player on the other hand you could totally remove any time restrictions. I probably should have included that distinction in my original idea.
man, this is getting to sound much more complex than I originally imagined.
My comment is just that the problem is that if you focus your essence or whatever at becoming a good duelist, either A:and can back out of the fights and other players will always back out of the duel because you have an advantage, or B: you can't back out of the duels, then it will be extremely cheap to do anything other than focus on dueling, since other players will force you into them anyway.
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