I was wondering if one of the devs would mind breaking down how the duel scores are calculated. I've always wondered, and have been surprised by its behavior at times, so I figured I'd ask.

It still doesn't work quite like stated. If you /duel someone with a lot lower rating than you and lose? You will lose quite a bit of rating than /duel'ing someone close to your own mark. I know the thread said they updated this in 2010, but really. Also /duel'ing someone close to your own mark doesn't yield that many points, but /duel'ing someone many levels below can sometime yield more.

So thanks draugath, but that post is not the truth behind /duel'ing.

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To OP

Dueling works like this:

if you have a high duel rating "nobody cares"
if you have a highish duel rating "nobody cares"
if you have a middile kind of duel rating "nobody cares"
if you have a middle-to-low duel rating "guess what?"

Shall I tell you why nobody cares? Because people usually only /duel in this game when they are sure of a win. Or at least hopeful of one. Nobody /duels in this game when they are both good at it. If there is any fear of a loss, people just step down and say "well, fuck you, it's B8 anyway, lets just fight!"

then GF! The /duel system has always been flawed, because you are all pussies.

Maybe if high ranking duelists had some small/minor advantage like being able to make their ion blasters blue, or neutrons pink, or something, ANYTHING! Then maybe people would do it. But as it stands, there is no reason to be the best /duel'ist(s) in the game except for braggin rights. And guess what? You got it, "nobody cares!".

So thanks draugath, but that post is not the truth behind /duel'ing.

Um, it's a pretty fixed statistical model. Yes, you definitely lose rating if you lose to someone lower vs someone close to your mark (that's.. how it's supposed to work). All my post from 2010 says is that we stepped the K-factor so that effect would be lessened after you cross certain achievement thresholds.

If someone has some outright criticism with the duel rating system, that's fine, make a Suggestions post or something. But I think the 2010 thread is still accurate.

We do definitely need to tie it into other features of the game. One more thing I've had planned forever, that's never seen the light of day.

Well, I hoping for a very detailed answer as to how to works. Only then would I feel comfortable making a suggestion to change it. But from what I've noticed I think it does need a bit of change.

Well, it's ELO with a K-factor. There are some other really-old posts that go into more detail that's specific to us.

I can't really pull out our specific implementation right now.