Champion suggestion
Basic idea:
The pros and cons of Champion status would remain intact, with the following exceptions:
- Dying will cost half the normal experience instead of none.
- Dying to another Champion will not remove Champion status.
- Champion status no longer conveys the right for anyone to attack you
- Both participants are immediately healed to full health and mana. All harmful afflictions are cleared.
- All third-party beneficial abilities targeting either participant immediately cease. This includes things like Defend and Bloodsworn. Persistent defences that do not require the active participation of another such as runes, blessings or bandages remain.
- Both participants become immune to any harmful or beneficial abilities that originate from anyone other than the opposing Champion or mobiles loyal to that champion. They become immune to the attacks of non-loyal mobiles as well.
- The participants become area-locked. They cannot leave the area for the duration of the duel by and means and all forms of long-range teleportation are forbidden to them.
All Champions would have access to a few unforceable commands:
- FORSAKE CHAMPION - Removes Champion status with no penalties. Not useable during a Champion duel.
- FORSAKE HONOUR - Ends current duel and strips the user of Champion status. Reinstatement must wait at least one in-game year.
- FORFEIT DUEL - Ends duel by suicide, leaving honour intact. Enemy Champion is attributed the kill and all benefits of victory.
The basic idea as outlined above is not without flaws. The following list contains important safeguards to limit potential abuse of this system:
- A Champion may not issue a challenge if they are below 2/3rds health or mana, paralysed, bound in any way, or if the target has grace. This is intended to stop anyone from issuing a challenge as a way to avoid death in teams.
- A Champion may not issue a challenge if they or their target currently stands in unwelcoming or enemied territory.
- A Champion may challenge another in their circle, but such a duel may never time out; as a gesture of trust that the privileges granted to dueling Champions will not be misused, any such duel involving those who are allies must end with nothing less than blood.
Implications on team combat:
It would be entirely possible during large-scale conflict for a Champion on one team to engage a Champion on the other in a solo duel, as long as that challenge was issued before they became damaged or afflicted enough to do so. This is intentional. Since the Champion system is entirely opt-in it is simple enough to make yourself immune to by using FORSAKE CHAMPION before important group fights, but the option to have one of your teammates tie up a valuable member of their team in solo combat while the rest of the two groups battle around them is a powerful tool that can add much depth of strategy to large battles.
Team combat is very chaotic, and it would be easy to miss a challenge issued to you in the midst of it. For this reason, those who know the Survival ability CombatFocus would automatically use it on their foe whenever a duel was initiated. If desired, COMBAT FOCUS OFF would work to end this.
Sample messages:
Declaring a challenge: "You cast your gaze towards Bob, who turns his head to meet your stare. A rush of excitement fills your limbs as you see your look of challenge mirrored in his eyes."
Receiving a challenge: "You feel an intense gaze fall upon you and feel a rush of excitement as you lock eyes with Bob."
Attempting to leave a duel in progress: "You turn to leave, but stop cold in your tracks; such cowardice is beneath you."
Attempting to attack a duelist: "You raise your hand to intervene, but a sudden sense of wrongness overwhelms you; you find your will to act has vanished."
Closing words:
Roleplay-wise, this system is based around a very simple definition of honour, but that isn't in an effort to restrict those who can participate. In order to reap the benefits of Champion status one must follow the rules while engaged in a duel, but no restrictions are placed upon them at any other time. In the eyes of this system, an assassin who uses Champion status as a weapon, obeying the rules merely because he wants the power that comes with it is no less worthy to be a Champion than the most honourable and noble of knights.
I left this idea as simple as possible while still being robust enough to work. There is plenty of room to build rewards or features on top of it, perhaps tied in with Sects system for those Champions who belong to one, or monthly rewards for those who earn the highest kill streaks.
Any and all feedback is welcomed, especially if it is constructive.
Comments
I'm down.
I am literally the only champion with a veil I'm aware of. I guess I'm sorry you've yet to kill me in any number of the teamfights I've been involved in?
Edit: Also sorry for ruining your Champion minigame immersion or whatever too.
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
the claims are stated - it's the world I've created
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
The problem with this is the problem with any system with forced 1v1s.
Somebody like Justus or Juran is going to walk up, area lock you with challenge, and then run you over with their artifact truck. Or somebody with a potent 1v1 timebomb duelist class is going to walk up and force you to strong-knight fight them.
They had an Aetherstorm event a long, long while back, that consisted of forced 1v1 duels in a 3x3 area, and this was the exact same problem with that, too. People generally don't want to participate in systems that include a requirement like "Oh, hey, any other participant can walk up and drag you into a unfleeable 1v1 regardless of the power/capability differential and regardless of what you happen to be doing at the time. I hope you didn't actually want to get hunting done, because you're just free points everytime you're outside your city and somebody who can kill you is bored."
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
I think the opt-in nature of Champion makes this a moot point, since being locked into a fight with someone who can kill you instead of just being able to flee to your city is the point. It's also a vast improvement over the current system, where you can go out hunting and get jumped by 3 people at once with no recourse.
Why is this dumb? I agree it could be an issue with how Champion currently is, but that is why I included a way to leave Champion instantly from anywhere. If you don't want to risk being forced into a duel at an inconvenient time then the solution is simple... don't opt in. Or do opt in, and quit when an important battle arises.
I suppose you could do exactly that (if you were above 2/3rds health and mana and unhindered), but I don't see that really being an issue. According to what I wrote if you drop Champion status mid-duel you can't get it again for a significant amount of time. If you look at the 'Safeguards' section, I listed a few restrictions to make this system way harder to abuse in teams, but if you think I missed something, please point it out.
We do have an arena dueling system, but that's a false argument. It's like saying that Shardfalls are an unnecessary mechanic to generate team conflict because there are team arena events. Currently, there are pretty much zero ways to spontaneously generate duel-like conflicts. While that might not be something you are personally interested in, there are others who are.
There's a significant difference between "Locking yourself into a fight with somebody who might kill you" and "Locking yourself into a 1v1 fight that you have absolutely not a single chance in hell of winning." The latter is an unavoidable consequence of any system like the one you describe, and it drops participation into the gutter.
Combine this with the fact that 1v1 balance often feels like a game of rock/scissors/paper even without artifacts being taken into consideration AND the fact that your Champion system is a liability in team combat, and you get a badly designed system.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
I get 1v1 fights pretty regularly, and I don't even try. Gurn has jumped me 1v1 which has proven to be a good opportunity to test trigger tracking, and Ziat tried to trap me in Caanae the other day and we had a good monk vs. mage duel that neither side won.
The game just doesn't have many true 'fighters' anymore, it has participants that get involved in things that benefit their city. Not many people care if they're seen as dueling gods, or master champions, or the best fighters in the game - they want to help their city and friends add notches to their belt in whatever competition is going on at the moment.
You might think 1v1 balance is a game of rock/scissors/paper and you might be right, but saying so makes it seem as if you are saying that it simply isn't something you enjoy doing. That's quite alright, this system isn't meant for you, if that is the case.
As for it being a liability in teams? You might see it as that, but I would personally see it as an enhancement. Something to make team combat more fun, and less about what it often seems to me, a weight of numbers deal. It gives commanders an extra thing to plan for/around, it gives duelists who don't enjoy team combat at all (I can't be the only one) something to actually enjoy doing.