duelling ladder

[cavesomething]

I see from IRC that there was (and I missed ) a large duel on mf last night. This set me thinking. What about a duelling ladder?

This does /not/ normally require dm presence, what it requires is for a bot (sam maybe being useful for a change?) to monitor for
foo killed bar (duel) messages.

then keeping a ranking system.

something like.
everyone starts off at 1000 points.
when two players fight, the winner gets 50*(their_score+opponents_score)/their_score
points
the loser loses the same.

so, imagine two players with scores of 500 and 2000
if player with 500 points wins, they get
50*2500/500 = 250 points
opponent loses
250 points
new scores 750 and 1750

if player with 2500 points wins they get
62.5 points
opponent loses the same.
new scores
2562.5 and 437.5

So that everyone benefits the most from beating those above them, and lose out from losing to those below them.

To stop someone getting a high score and then leaving, the scores would also decrease by 0.5% a day. (meaning a loss of 10 points a day for a player with a score of 2000 - so they'd need to duel about once a week to maintain their scores.)

In order to prevent sockpuppetry, I think two steps can be taken;

a minimum level requirement, maybe level 50? (60?, 70?)- determined by the 'hiscore' command.
each duel between the same players to be worth only 90% of the previous one.
each duel between the same players where their previous duel was against each other to be worth only 50% of the previous one (to enforce variety of opponents and stop repeated killing of sock puppets - each that got to level 50 would be worth only 250-ish points).

Some of you may recognise this as being similar to freeciv's system, this was intentional. (I couldn't find the exact formulae used, but this seems reasonable.)

[Aaron]

there should be a lower level requirement or just classes...

its going to be tricky to balance it between not letting n00bs in, and keeping socks out.

but maybe an ameuteur ladder, anyone can be on it, but it does nothing except you can show your friends, and have a level requirment to SIGN UP for the highscore chart...

[cavesomething]

Understand that the motivation of this is to strengthen the elder game, not as something for low level players to do.

Crossfire has a problem with losing its older players, they either become dms, map, or leave, often some combination of these.

Something that has more of an air of exclusitivity to it may well help strengthen that more, by giving a feeling of having 'earned' the right to compete.

I don't by any means wish to suggest that duelling should be stopped by the lower level characters. In fact one other thing I would like to see would be finger necklaces, where a player could have the fingers of those that they killed threaded onto a named necklace whose title would reflect the count. eg 'that is cavetroll's necklace of 20 fingers' with a special map where you pay to have the extra fingers sewn on. (maybe increasing with each finger => more ways to reduce inflation).

This would provide the support for bragging that you want, whilst still having an elite ladder, where you know that anyone with any victories at all is very powerful.

[Aaron]

makes more sense now... good idea, do it.

[Mith]

I really like this idea, as long as the necklace does not replace a talisman/amulet
(set body parts to none and you're done)

[cavesomething]

well I was thinking that it would occupy the neck slot, and have only penalties associated with it (maybe -3 Cha?)

Bear in mind that what I am describing is not an item to wear normally, but something to equip so that the player can brag about how powerful he is.

It could also be an extra requirement to enter the ladder, lvl 80 and to have (but not give) a necklace of 20 fingers just to get in.

[Mith]

well I was thinking that it would occupy the neck slot, and have only penalties associated with it (maybe -3 Cha?)

Bear in mind that what I am describing is not an item to wear normally, but something to equip so that the player can brag about how powerful he is.

It could also be an extra requirement to enter the ladder, lvl 80 and to have (but not give) a necklace of 20 fingers just to get in.

nah! noone wants to battle a high lvl fireborn because noone wants to be roasted. hence the fireborn would never get the 20 fingers (unless he starts a sockpuppet)

by the way, i would prefer to be able to remove fingers from the necklace if one has to have 20 kills

and i want to be able to wear it together with an amulet, so do not neck slots please
mmm, how about a new skill: impose
when you impose an opponent, he'll be vulnerable for fear, slow and paralyse. you need the necklace to impose

[bort]

What about people +100 to fear?

[Aaron]

fear is fun!!!

go into the undead tc, and kill everything but a couple vamps. then take of whatever gives you fear protection, and you can surf on the fear. and it lets you move faster than you can run.

[Kaosu]

then keeping a ranking system.
something like.
everyone starts off at 1000 points.
when two players fight, the winner gets 50*(their_score+opponents_score)/their_score
points
the loser loses the same.
...
To stop someone getting a high score and then leaving, the scores would also decrease by 0.5% a day. (meaning a loss of 10 points a day for a player with a score of 2000 - so they'd need to duel about once a week to maintain their scores.)

Make sure they stay at 1000 points until their first duel, so people dont end up with lower starting scores because they weren't dueling. Alternatively there could be a timer (the infamous Graal comes to mind) where your score doesn't change but the higher the second number/timer, the longer it's been since you dueled. Maybe even move people to a different list and give them (Retired) if they go too long without dueling.

In order to prevent sockpuppetry, I think two steps can be taken;
a minimum level requirement, maybe level 50? (60?, 70?)- determined by the 'hiscore' command.
each duel between the same players to be worth only 90% of the previous one.
each duel between the same players where their previous duel was against each other to be worth only 50% of the previous one (to enforce variety of opponents and stop repeated killing of sock puppets - each that got to level 50 would be worth only 250-ish points).

How about adding to it how many people they've beaten/lost to, lowest leveled person and highest leveled person beaten, and average level of the people they beat. Possibly give someone (DMs?) the ability to take people off the list if they're abusing the system. Layout would be something like:

rank: playername score wins losses highestbeaten lowestbeaten average

so:
4: Kaosu 1100 16 12 96 54 78

which would allow people to see who you've dueled, maybe even something like 'duelrecord playername and you would see who they've fought and wins/losses to each.

Don't mean to make it more complicated than it needs to be, but it would give players a bit of knowledge on their opponents if they wish (and you could see if they're repeatedly beating the same low leveled opponent, without restricting who can and can't duel).