We need A PvP Rule Set

So after the Arena its obviously proven that if we are to have more PvP on this site we need fixes for it, currently in PvP a player doesn't have to state the exact time of their movement which means it then comes down to an admin trying to work out their intentions which isn't possible for PvP with a 48 hour or less countdown for posts because by that time the player would have needed to respond.

- For example we can't have any more of the above - "El drago instantly increased his flight pace towards the direction of Voodara at 25 m/s while maintaining the altitude of being 10 meters off of the ground. From the way El drago was paced and maintained his focus, he was in a tracking like flight, eyeing the opponent and making sure that he was paying attention to each and every move. When it comes to El drago's speed, he would Reach Voodara's position in about 2 seconds."

This is not a post that would be allowed anywhere that had any competative PvP using about 2 seconds is not an exact measurement of time, and then not stating if that was how long they moved for or would be on their pass etc.



- Secondly, Admins shouldn't be retconning the techniques of players, as seen in - "Crimson Warhead doesn't have a detonation option in its ability, so it can only detonate on contact and it never have contact with Lagi or El Drago. the Lightning God Blast has explosion radius of 12.5 meters and since nothing clashed against it since Voda only create disguise and stalagmite and also only dodged 5 meters, it hits him for A-Tier damage. Thus making Lagi come out as the winner."

If we observe a ability in questions text below - Upon exploding the arrowhead scatters an explosion of B tier fire that will set alight what it comes into contact with, a compound that keeps them burning even when in contact with water, its explosion radius is 15 metres and travels at 25 metres per second. with a flight distance of 25 metres before exploding.

No where does it state it explodes on contact thus that statement would be invalid.


Basicly the major issue with PvP currently is that players are allowed to get away with posting content which isn't suitable for a PvP contest and thus punishing the other player seems the wrong way too go if we are too ever host anything in the future that uses PvP.

What is sown and done is done but it has to be fixed for next time.

I do not disagree, however, any type of forum-based RP PvP will have contentions and issues with exact timing and whatnot, as players are not reacting in real-time. Much of it is left to the players to be reasonable in their actions and reactions to others. With truly competitive players, if it is not outlined 110% in the rules, they can and will find a way to twist the rules to their advantage.

All-in-all, if the players involved in the PvP are not mature enough to handle working together, both with each other and/or with staff, and are not experienced enough to be exactly precise with every single movement, motion, action, ability, etc, then a PvP system will have to be EXTREMELY specific and time-consuming.

If players truly want a more in-depth and laid out PvP system, staff will do what they can to meet these demands, though it is not a process that will evolve overnight. Any and all input from players regarding what, EXACTLY, they want to see or not see in a PvP system is welcome and will be considered. Given that you are wanting much stricter regulations, when making suggestions, please be very precise in what type of things you would like to see explained. Keep in mind, also, that as it is a forum-based RP and not real-time, then you may want to consider limiting the number of abilities a player can use in a post, so that everything can be responded to in a reasonable amount of time by the opposition.

Yea I plan to write out a whole suggestion after tommorw as ill have two days off work.

I'm against this entire idea, but because I don't have a solid argument...I'll just plead;

Please keep things as simple as possible. I beg you...as simple as possible. Whatever you think "simple" is at the moment, go simpler than that...and then some.

Personally, I'm against any sort of additional rules surrounding PVP right now. It's possible that Voda's suggestions to come might address some things that I hadn't considered, so I'll decide on whether or not I support those ideas once they are posted up. But for now, I'd like to respond to the current issue at hand with my many years of rp PvP experience guiding my input.

First and foremost, there is something very important I feel the need to point out to Voda.

First Quote:

Never, in my 10 years of rping(most of which was PvP focused) have I seen a site require exact timing of a character's movements. That being said, it has always been frowned upon to be highly vague or to have insufficient descriptions of your movements. The way that kind of behaviour is policed within a PvP community usually isn't to establish rules against it. Instead, other players find ways to leverage the lack of details in the opponent's post to their own favor.

Now, in the case of Lagi's post he wasn't so vague that you couldn't tell what he was doing or turn it against him too easily. However, I agree that he could have been more specific. If you, his opponent, found the post to be insufficient in the details department then you should not have responded to the post as it was.

The standard response to insufficient details in a post(if you aren't going to use it against the enemy in some way) is to contact the opponent and ask them to clarify. In the case of an official event like this, you would obviously contact the staff member overseeing the event as well, informing them that you are waiting on feedback from the opponent so you can ask for a grace period on your posting deadline.

Second Quote:

I understand where you are coming from, however I want to address this so you understand that there wasn't any retconning going on here. It is a classic case of varied interpretation.

The ability details do not specifically state that the attack detonates on contact, however it does not state the attack can be detonated in any other manner. It detonating on contact is a very fair assumption for someone reading the ability who is not well versed in your personal threads where you've established a "canon" of having fuses.

The REAL issue here in my opinion is when you were told during the approval process that having fuses on your ability was flavor text and that it should be removed.(If I remember right, you mentioned that this happened so I'll forego the searching to confirm it and just take you at your word.) It was an unfortunate mistake on the staff members part in my opinion(It was probably me lol epic fail if it was.) As that kind of detail is vital for making use of your abilities as intended.

Unfortunately, because the ability does not specifically state that it can be detonated in any way other than hitting a target, a misinterpretation of its intended use occurred. This is not a case of retconning, but rather the symptom of a problem that took place during the approval process.

FIGHT FOR YOUR FLAVOR TEXT PEOPLE! IT MATTERS!  

-ahem-

Third Quote:

Honestly, from my perspective you were more so the victim of ability issues than you were of unsuitable PvP posts. Yes, your opponent's post lacked detail, but you chose to reply to it anyways without confirming their movements. As a result you misinterpreted the opponent's actions as they intended it.

I think the staff member overseeing the event being new to combat rp and PvP rp in general probably didn't help things either. The final decision made might have been different(I know mine would have, I'd have let both you and Lagi take damage then continue the fight from a neutral point that favored neither along with a warning to both players >.>) But there aren't exactly armies of staff members well versed in PvP manning the fort. So while I do think it didn't help, there wasn't much to be done to prevent that issue it either. At least said staff member was able to get some experience. Hopefully they will learn from feedback and perform better in the future.

---

My final note will be my general thoughts on how we should approach PvP and not just at Voda.

The forum system is complex and built in such a way that positioning, speed, and movement are very important. More so than they are on most forums where some of these values are more vague and lack numerical solidity. That being said, the spirit of the system is that those values only exist in order to provide a more concrete decision when the winner of an exchange is unclear and a debate on the issue comes up.

PvP, and even general combat on the forum, was never intended to focus so heavily on the exact speeds and distances of players. The original adminship wanted a more casual approach where people had epic battles by taking hits with mitigated damage and countering. It is the reason why you can take A-tier damage to the face and come out of it with only a scratch(yes, this is possible within the system.)

I fear we've become too focused on nuking things with big AOE attacks in order to achieve a swift victory. I do it too against NPCs, so I'm not much of one to talk. But I feel that combat between players will be much more fun for all parties involved if we took a different approach to how we fight our battles.

If you had the patience to read this entire post, then I thank you for your time.

Yakuroro thank you for your comment.

-First Quote - Yes, but i find that with the current way of the fact we have limited time to respond and then in conjunction to viewing it to the content of peoples previous posts, it would be rather easy to mistake someones intentions i read through lagi's post 3 times, while i considered tactics while reading my belief came that as Lagi unlike in previous posts had stated himself stopping or hovering etc as he hadn't in this, I viewed it as his intention to continue movement as the mention of around 2 seconds I viewed as him reaching my position during his attack run, at which point he would drop his first attack to go towards my front side and then drop his second to attack towards my rear side.

Quote - 2

Yea i think ill end up readjusting all my abilities as nessassary, I would suggest adding a flavour text portion maybe even to the ability, that is retained within a spoiler ?

Quote - 3

Yaku with your higher level of forum PvP experience whereas mine is primarily from tabletop and more turn based side of it with a slight element of RP, though I know you don't have much time we could work together on writing up something for the members of the adminship that may need help ?

Thank you for your post Yaku.


My current considerations for PvP rules:

-Reduction of AoE damage versus Players by 1 tier (not including D tier)

-Mind-controlled/Directed abilities, only one may be controlled at a time if one is in the air and you release it to fully control the direction of the other it will continue on the path/vector of the point you changed. (The only exception for this is for Dominance Spec characters, whos beasts can control one and then they themselves if they have a magic tool or intelligence spec can control their ability)

-Wind-up Speed for Beasts, Beasts have a windup speed to their movements just like players do, this includes sudden changes in direction (maybe do a dice roll to see if you want a sudden direction change if you succeed and stay mounted etc ?).

-If you intend to stop at a point in your movement you must state it.

I would like to come in one more time to add a more specific request if/when making a PvP rule set;

Please don't rely on dice rolls. This is what I meant by "not simple enough" and not only that, but dice rolls aren't skill based.

But then would you suggest fully banning sudden turns of dominance mounts then zadi ?

Well, when I was full-body djinn equipped for the first time and tried to make a sudden stop, I was told that wasn't possible. Therefore, I don't think a mounted beast should be able to suddenly stop and turn at the same time. Physics also doesn't allow it...but hey.

Please explain how this suggestion makes sense:

-Reduction of AoE damage versus Players by 1 tier (not including D tier)

I am rather confused by the logic behind this. The size of an ability does not reduce its ability to deal damage or even make it easier to avoid. Plus, many players do not fully exercise the extent of their scale, especially at higher tiers, so, if anything, by reducing the area their ability is being extended in, by your suggestion, this would make it MORE powerful. So if someone cast an A-tier AoE in a 5m sphere, would it deal more damage than casting an A-tier AoE in a 15m sphere? Why would single target deal more damage than AoE?

but then surely an A tier direct attack should be even more deadly if we ran by that logic for it, an AoE can hit multiple targets and a direct only one.

I wasn't supporting your reason, Vodarara, I was asking if that was your logic behind it. And if that IS the logic, then shouldn't damage be calculated based on SCALE? That makes things infinitely more complicated.

Its far easier to do it just by tier rather than scale, surely the benefit of a higher tier would be the higher moldability too the scale of the AoE etc.

You still have not given me any LOGIC behind your reason that an AoE would deal LESS damage to a player than a single target ability. Something to support WHY you feel that would be more "balanced" or "fair"

Ariella Negri wrote:You still have not given me any LOGIC behind your reason that an AoE would deal LESS damage to a player than a single target ability. Something to support WHY you feel that would be more "balanced" or "fair"

Why because we consider that the fact well a amount attack is reduced and thusly it gains the ability to hit more targets.

Direct/Single attacks have their tier of damage and hit one target.

AoE can hit numerous targets and deals the same tier of damage, this makes no sense considering that amount deals reduced tiers of damage.

If an amount reduces its damage surely an area of effect would thusly see itself reduced in damage for its benefit.

The reason amount splits up the damage is because the effort of the ability is split into multiple individual targets. If you instead focus all of that effort into a single area, then you aren't dividing your effort. An AoE is simply an amplified direct target. Instead of targeting a person, you target an area, the same amount of effort is being put into it, players are simply taking advantage of the fact that more powerful abilities can have larger impacts (hence the concept behind having scale). Players must balance the fact that they might be able to hit more than one target with an AoE (assuming more than one is within range) while accepting the fact that you are much more likely to hit an ally or yourself with that ability.

If I shoot an arrow that explodes in a 10m diameter for B-tier damage, I am not putting any more or less effort in then if I were to shoot them directly with an arrow for B-tier damage. It is still a single arrow, a single effort, to deal damage. Instead of aiming at their chest, I might aim at their feet instead. But this is no more or less effort and I don't see why getting hit with an explosion at my feet would deal less damage than an arrow to my body.

But then an AoE arrow may be different in terms of weight or make up too a direct targetting weapon, they aren't one in the same and never will be, this is about balance and we have to look at the fact the majority of what people currently use is AoE, because its so brokenly powerful.

If i remember correctly it was one of the recent adminship that stated that if you use a direct attack/blocl on an AoE only you would be protected, not your allies etc.

If that is a rule you wish to have looked at, but what you are suggesting is to punish players for taking advantage of the scale mechanic as a whole... a mechanic that is intended to show that as you gain power, your abilities become, well... more powerful. And while Dex, in the case of most of your abilities, tends to favor more single targets (though many many people have taken advantage of the AoE capabilities, I understand your desire to remain true to what YOU feel is the core of the spec), in Int spec, most abilities do favor an AoE mechanic, as even single target abilities must list scale in the ability. So while your suggestion may seem more fair to one spec, it hinders another spec quite a bit.

Yaku with your higher level of forum PvP experience whereas mine is primarily from tabletop and more turn based side of it with a slight element of RP, though I know you don't have much time we could work together on writing up something for the members of the adminship that may need help?

I've considered the idea of a "combat systems" thread which might be long the lines of what you're asking about. But the challenge with that is the fact that there is a near unlimited number of complex subjects to cover. Distilling it all into a simple to understand chunk that isn't a massive wall of text is an enormous task. One which I'm not willing to tackle at this point in time. However, you're welcome to pm me questions should you have the courage to tackle the challenge on your own time.

-Reduction of AoE damage versus Players by 1 tier (not including D tier)

I'm somewhat in agreeance with Ari right now. The logic behind this just isn't there. The conversation moved towards the nerfing of AoE's in general, so I'll address some of the things brought up in that.

I love the idea of AoE damage dropping off the further you get from the center...but it adds way too much complexity to a system that is already so complex most members struggle with it. So I don't think that's the way to go.

The reason what Amount splitting is different from AoE splitting of damage is basically due to the fact that when you split the amount, the scale doesn't have to get split too.

-Mind-controlled/Directed abilities, only one may be controlled at a time if one is in the air and you release it to fully control the direction of the other it will continue on the path/vector of the point you changed. (The only exception for this is for Dominance Spec characters, whos beasts can control one and then they themselves if they have a magic tool or intelligence spec can control their ability)

Considering the complexity of commands one can give to the rukh, I don't think this limitation makes sense IC.

-Wind-up Speed for Beasts, Beasts have a windup speed to their movements just like players do, this includes sudden changes in direction (maybe do a dice roll to see if you want a sudden direction change if you succeed and stay mounted etc ?).

This, I would actually support. The building up of speed that is. Not the dice roll.

-If you intend to stop at a point in your movement you must state it.

The combat system is logic based. Judgements should be logic based in most cases where the hard system rules don't circumvent it. That being said, this is already kind of a thing. If you didn't mention stopping in your post in any way, it's fair to assume you kept going.

That being said, Lagi's post specifically stated that he travelled for a certain period of time. So he basically ended his post still moving forward, BUT, with his position still at a distance which would give him the opportunity to decide on whether or not he would stop or keep going in his next post.

This is why I think a "hard rule" on the matter would be a bad idea. Because sometimes, the context of a post is such that the player shouldn't need to say whether or not they stopped yet.

So far, I see one staunch supporter of adding an entire PvP system, one that says its unnecessary, and one that simply begs for the most simplistic approach possible.

At this time, I am leaning more towards Zadi's suggestion... Simple is better. PvP is uncommon on the forum to begin with and simplicity ensures that more players are able to understand and enjoy a system. This is not to say that Vodarara did not bring up very valid points, some of which are currently being discussed or will be discussed in the near future. These include:

-Beast movement: It is generally agreed right now that beasts go through the same movement transitions as humans, meaning they would not immediately be able to shoot off at 25 m/s unless there were an ability in play to encourage that.

-"Channeled" spells (freely controlled): It makes sense that if you are focused on controlling a single spell, you would not be able to do much else. This would also add a benefit to combination magics, especially any using life magic, as it can be used to track life signatures, meaning you would not need to channel the spell, simply give a command of "seek and destroy". This one will be brought up with staff soon.

Things that will not be considered:

-Outright nerfing AoE. I will not punish players for using a mechanic simply because you don't feel comfortable with it. If you wish to discuss the clashing rules of AoE vs single target, please put that in a new thread.

-Overly complex PvP systems.

The changes suggested and being discussed would not just be for PvP, they would be overall rulings and will be heavily discussed, but we do ask for patience... staff is still wrapping up one event, preparing for another, plus school, work, illness, etc... We DO acknowledge the concerns and understand them, but this is not a simple process and requires much discussion to determine the most balanced solutions. As we come up with more solid ideas, we will be polling players to get more input on specific topics.

No build ups for beasts, Objection. If any case, there is a wide range of customization for animal passives, you cannot take me, the only dominance beast user, and then use that to terminate the idea of mobility when not all Dominance beast users would take up the Gale movement perk. If they keep base speed, and you give a Walk/Jog/Run to an animal, its unrealistic. Here's an example, the cheetah.

The cheetah can accelerate from 0 to 96.6 km/h (60.0 mph) in under three seconds

There is a second pace of 1-2 seconds for each stage of Jog/Walk/ Run, animals do not follow that logic, it's better if you half their speed, the top it after 1/2 seconds. If you insist on going this route, no multiple stages of movement.

Channeled spells can be argued. There no sense of a focus rate if sustaining is only a double cast of the move in the context of detail. Casting the same move twice without a sustained effort, (Such as moving it around like a tractor beam, or igniting the electrons in the area from where it landed for a second explosion.) Is subjected to discussion, but attacks launches from the source, like the caster themselves is out of the question to negate the flexibility of following up because *You can't focus* That's a mistake, that makes no sense. If you aren't doing anything special with the move, it's the same move. If it's detailed that your follow-up is after the moves conclusion, unless the Pvp detail set up is in such a way that the opponent didn't change their positioning in any kind of way because of the amount of pressure of the move, sustaining shouldn't be so crippling.

Aoe doesn't deserve to be nerfed, period.

Everything else, i'll explain when the time comes if asked directly about it.