Hello,
I suppose that among all the PvP requested new modes, dueling has been in a good place! Being relatively new to PvP forums though, I don’t know what the ArenaNet position is about it. Can I expect it to be introduced some day, or, by game design, is this mode not supposed to happen?
If such a mode could be played, I’d like it to work as follows:
Rule 1: Winning By Kill
The first player to be dead loses the match. Classes have different down skills too, so it’s up to players to know how their opponent can fight when down, and respond appropriately (for instance regaining some health prior to going for the actual kill).
Rule 2: Winning By Points
If, at the end of the match, no contestant is dead, then the winner is to be determined by points. Each player starts with a total of zero point, then receives one point for each damage point received by his opponent.
The result of the game is determined as follows:
- If both players have received less than 10,805 points (the lowest nominal health pool at level 80), then the game is drawn. This rule aims at avoiding the abuse of hit-and-run strategies.
- If at least one player has received more than 10,805 points, then the player who has more points wins the game. Note that allocating points by damage received rather than damage inflicted lets us take into account damage done by pets, as well as falling damage.
- If both players have the exact same amount of points, then the game is drawn.
Rule 3: Rewards
Only winners receive a reward. Losers, or players drawing a match, do not receive any reward. This rule aims at making the players fight, rather than try and exploit the reward system.
Rule 4: Ranking
Players should be able to play free and ranked games. The rewards would change for each type of game, being much more interesting for ranked games.
Many good ranking systems exist in gaming. I like the one used in most Go servers:
- Players receive a rank ranging from 30-kyu to 1kyu to 1-dan to 9-dan, i.e. 39 possible ranks.
- You can go up or down a rank, depending on your actual wins / losses.
- The more you win/lose against an opponent of a similar rank, the more you get rooted to that rank. In other words, if you’re on a new rank and have, say, 5 consecutive wins, then you can move up to the next rank – but if you’ve already had 100 wins and losses at this rank, you’d need more than 5 wins to move up.
- Winning against an opponent with a higher rank can help you move up faster, but winning against an opponent with a lower rank yields a very low (to none) rank increase. The opposite also holds (i.e. don’t lose a ranked game against an opponent of a much lower rank, or you’ll get demoted).
Place and Time
For now, the Courtyard Map could be used for duels, and later some special maps could be designed. In any case, we need small maps, with no secondary objectives, with good management of line of sight and kiting options. Duels are about as much as hitting the opponents, as managing cool downs and using the terrain to gain some significant advantage.
The maximum duration of a game should be fixed by players. By default, it should be such as the skill with the maximum cool down can be used twice, but not too long to avoid abuse – something like 5 minutes looks fine.
Regards.