I just had the most epic of duels with Boda Shandis, but due to the lite sub, it didn't frigging count. Very, very lame.

/me is one pissed off cookie.

Faille

Yeah it was a great fight and Faille deserves the points. If someone doesn't have the license requirements to duel then the duel shouldn't be able to be accepted.

They altered that so people couldn't make a newb alt and lose it's duel points to the desired ladder climber (go enter a search for "No Shame" on the duel page).

AND: allowing newbs to /duel lets them fight in their home nation's starting system, and lets them try dueling vets without fear of losing points to predatory ladder climbers.

Suggestion: add a /spar or /match command that does everything a /duel does (lifts friendly fire, turns the participants' radar blips blue in others' radar, immunity from faction loss, etc), but don't track points.

/spar invite "Boda Shandis"

"Faille Corvelle" asks to spar with you. type: /spar accept "Faille Corvelle" to begin the match, or /spar decline "Faille Corvelle" to decline.

/spar accept "Faille Corvelle"

THE MATCH HAS BEGUN!

Oh, I understand why the level limit is there, just pissed that there is no notification. A message saying something like:

"Boda Shandis" has challenged you to a duel (etc)" then, in a separate line:

"NOTE: As at least one duel participant has less than 4 Combat license, this duel will be unofficial, and your ratings will not change"

My initial post may have been something of a knee-jerk reaction, after such an epic duel.

Faille.

Yeah, it would be nice for the game to notify you that the match won't count before you start instead of after you finish.

Why suck the balls when it can suck the Corn Dog?

Also, maybe this should be in the suggestions forum :P

+1

Well, it was a whinge, at first. The suggestions came later.

I did say my initial post was reactive.

Faille.

I think more important than a /spar function would be for us to have a rolling week or month duel competition. The main problem with current scoring system is that people up the top do not deserve their position there by virtue of them obtaining it by repetitively dueling their or duel-fixing.

The simplest way to remove the incentive to do this is to make the rankings occur over a rolling week so that there really isn't any long term or permanent gain from fixing your duels and people will feel more relaxed about dueling because it will be a weekly or monthly thing rather than permanently there.

The simplest way to remove the incentive to do this is to make the rankings occur over a rolling week

Aren't the duel rankings based on the Elo ranking system? As I understand it, this system is supposed to close in on a player's "true" rating over time... the longer the better. Having the ratings reset every week would defeat this purpose.

As it stands, it's fairly easy to spot someone that has artificially boosted his/her ranking: I've only seen this twice in recollection, but when someone has 40-something wins against one other player named something like "No Shame", no losses, and no other duels, it's obvious what has happened. The minimum Combat license is a way to deter this by at least encouraging a player to pony up $10 if s/he is interested in building that façade or just wants the badge.

Personally, I don't really care if other players do this (I'm more interested in what my ranking represents if I duel many other players a few times each under reasonably fair circumstances), but the minimum Combat license seems like a good common-sense idea. Having a message alerting both players if the duel will not be ranked seems like a good idea, too.

Aye - its the same system used by chess and a lot of other two player competitions.
The ratings sytem isnt cheatable without the cooperation of a lot of people.
Those at the top did in fact earn it by defeating higher ranking players..
TRS is spouting nonsense.

Actually,in the not too distant past, there was player, Darth Sp0ck, who made it to the top 5 I believe. He had something around 40 wins all from the same player. And that was the only player he had dueled.

Aye and came to a screeching halt in his ladder climb. You can only game the system at the lower ranks. The only reason he made it to number 5 is the limited number of players involved.

The minimum Combat license is a way to deter this by at least encouraging a player to pony up $10 if s/he is interested in building that façade or just wants the badge.

Actually the level 4 minimum has been in place long before LITE subs. Perhaps that minimum was part of the decision to cap Lite Subs at 3, perhaps not.

The ratings sytem isnt cheatable without the cooperation of a lot of people.

Gee, that never occurs in this game, the system is obviously flawless!