First things first, I love the IP. I missed the magic of L5R CCG over the years. I stopped playing because AEG broke the game. Now that it is alive again, I am a happier person.

That said, the dueling mechanics are a problem. Let me define it, expressly. In the game, one character challenges another character to a duel. The "players" each set a number on their honor dial. Next, both "players" reveal their honor dials. The "player" that bid the highest give the other "player" honor equaling the difference between the honor dials. The players then add the number they selected on the honor dial to the appropriate stat and the character with the highest total wins the duel. Then the players follow the text on the card that defines the duel resolution.

Here is the problem. Under these rules, the better duelist (character with the highest stat) almost always loses honor. Here is the formula:

1. Compare the character's dueling stat, (normally military stat) pick the lowest, designate this as "X".
2. Add 5 to the low stat, designate this as "Y": X + 5 = Y
3. Take other character's dueling stat, designate this as "Z"
4. Subtract "Z" from "Y", designate this as "N": Y - Z = N
5. Add 1 to N, designate this as "M": N + 1 = M
6. M is the number you put on the honor dial to have the character with the highest stat win the duel.
   • Note: If M is less than 1, choose 1 on the honor dial.

The character with the lowest stat just sets the dial to "1", and as long as the duel stat are within 5 of each other, the character with the lowest stat always GAINS HONOR AT THE EXPENSE OF THE BETTER DUELIST!!!

Now, I believe FFG's position on this is, "a character could use other methods to win the 'conflict' that the duelist has challenged them to" (ie Scorpion Clan members could use poison, Lion Clan could kick dirty in the opponent's eye, Crab Clan member could wait for the strike and then crack the weakling over the head with a War Fan...etc.) This next idea, I am expressing as if I were inside the game world... Dueling is a special thing, it has a definition. All duels are fights, but not all fights are duels. If an honorable SAMURAI challenges a person to a duel, that samurai is signifying a fight with VERY specific rules. These rules are so specific, it is rare to hear of someone seeing one, let alone actually FIGHTING one. A duelist, someone who has trained to duel, would not challenge someone to a duel in order to lose. THEY WENT THROUGH TRAINING IN ODER NOT TO LOSE!

Stepping out of the game world, the dueling mechanics are all wrong. The duels should be deadly, I mean, when a duel is triggered in the game, it should be just as threatening as "bow", "send home" or "discard"...after all, IT IS A DUEL! Someone is about to be hit with a KATANA! If a duel challenge is made and accepted, both parties are agreeing to the specific rules of the duel. If someone cheats, then they are a cheater and SHOULD LOOSE HONOR! The honorable duelist that followed the rules should not LOOSE honor because someone jerk-off with a sword CHEATED! To even have to articulate this idea feels ridiculous. DUELING IS BROKEN!

So, dueling is broken...how do you fix it. Here is the best way I came with, so far. Make dueling refusable, give the refusal a penalty but give losing the duel a larger penalty. As an example, "refusal: Bow" (this would represent the character saying, "I bow to your skill because I do not want to duel you") or "refusal: lose 2 honor" (this is the lose of honor by not acting honorably and risking your life over an issue for your clan). For examples of winning a duel: "loser bows, winner gains 3 honor" or "loser is killed, discard losing character". Under this format you can have duels for anything...even duels for honor, specifically. Plus, the better "honorable" duelist always wins and the loser is always penalized. This is what duels should be. And if you want to build in cheating, MAKE THE DARN CARD! You can make a card with two effects, one for dueling, one for normal play. But for the sake of the Kami's Blessings...DON'T penalize the winner of the duel.

Am I wrong?

Hey look, people complaining about dueling is back!

I agree with the idea that the sort of story of the duel doesn't really match the mechanics of a duel in the LCG, but I think the actual mechanic is cool, both balanced and deep.

The dueling mechanic is a mind game. The dial is how much you would give up to win. If you absolutely need to win a duel, bid 5 for sure. Or duel with the intention of losing for honor. Or consider that your opponent will bid one and counter appropriately.

Even in the story, some samurai duel knowing they will lose, or die on purpose so they don't suffer some other fate. Losing a duel can also be non-fatal. Some duels are just for ceremonial purposes. And in some circumstances, it can be dishonorable to win.

If you think you're going to win a duel, you can always bid 1 and not lose any honor. If you run contingency plan, you also gain some flexibility in how much you want to bid.

You only transfer honor based on the dial.

A character that is inherently better at dueling (I.e. Has a higher printed skill) does not need to bid as much, and can win the duel without having to lose honor.

In short, yes, I think you are wrong.

What FFG did with dueling is attempt to replicate the feel of how dueling is portrayed in Rokugan. It is not just a test of skill with a blade, but of honor. If you win the duel dishonorably then that can have repercussions as well.

Someone who is a superior duelist challenging someone inferior is somewhat dishonorable to begin with, so the initiater of the duel has more pressure to win, and win honorably. If you start with a higher stat you should always win the duel of you bid the max, however the person being dueled could choose to bid low and show just how dishonorable the initiater of the duel was by bullying someone of lower skill.

I think this design is much more representative of lore surrounding duels in Rokugan. In the old game the person with the higher stat almost never lost and the part about honor was simply ignored......in a game where honor was so important it was kind of a silly oversight but never really changed because the design was different.

There is nothing broken with dueling as is. There are only 3 duels in the game. There may likely be a duel in the future that is refusable at the cost of honor or fate or whatever. As it stands now dueling is much more exciting than it ever was in the CCG.

Not all duels are to the death in real life, in the setting or in the game. They could be dueling with blunt swords or just dueling to first blood. The bow on Duelist training could be a number of things including the character seeking medical attention from their non fatal wound. I like that they've left their options open for duels to be both military and political. The resulting effect can be anything, which is nice since the stakes for the duel doesn't just need to be about honor and the duelist's life. They could be fighting over the resolution to any particular issue. Also the it's nice that characters can be duelists and have dueling actions, but we also already have it established that an attachment can trigger a duel. I'm just waiting for the event card triggered duel.

My only issue with dueling right now is that the current system actually encourages bully dueling. Meaning the high stat duelist is encouraged by the rules to pick a low stat dueling partner, which is slightly unthematic.

I challenge your assumption that dueling is broken. I think the decisions involved in the current dueling system are awesome.

37 minutes ago, phillos said:

My only issue with dueling right now is that the current system actually encourages bully dueling. Meaning the high stat duelist is encouraged by the rules to pick a low stat dueling partner, which is slightly unthematic.

Yes and no. The only way to ensure you can both win the duel and not lose honor is to duel someone that is 5 skill points lower than you. However that is not really common at this point....unless you are looking at a champ dueling a scrub and it makes sense thematically that if a challenge took place the champion would effectively be untouchable without some serious shenanigans......like a 5 bid from the opponent and a couple modifiers....which would thematically mean the opponent did some shady stuff to win the duel and forfeit a good amount of honor.

My run on sentence crits you for 252463737.

Most duels are within 3 skill points and that leads to much more intense gameplay than what I experienced in the 20 years of the CCG. When I was staring down a Dragon duelist while sitting on only 4 honor I was feeling the pressure. Is he going to try and take out someone bigger? Is he going to bully a lowbie and try to bait out some honor loss? Is he bluffing and can I win the duel? Is that what he wants me to think? So much more enjoyable win or lose, than "Do you have the poison weapon or kharmic strike? No, I win" I love the new dueling mechanic and totally intend to play it a lot......when I'm not rocking the Shadowlands......er um I mean playing pONI......I mean Unicorn

The official fluff released so far has a duel - it is to first blood.

Also bear in mind not all duels will involve honor loss. For example, Duelist Training gives you the option to discard cards from your hand instead, which thematically would represent giving up underhanded, sneaky tactics to win. So thematically, the high bidder in those duels is acting honorably, rather than sacrificing honor to win.

Plus, this is just the core set. I'd be very surprised if dueling isn't expanded on with future cards. I mean, we don't even have political duels yet, and there's clearly plenty of design space to have them.

5 hours ago, player2902697 said:

First things first, I love the IP. I missed the magic of L5R CCG over the years. I stopped playing because AEG broke the game. Now that it is alive again, I am a happier person.

That said, the dueling mechanics are a problem. Let me define it, expressly. In the game, one character challenges another character to a duel. The "players" each set a number on their honor dial. Next, both "players" reveal their honor dials. The "player" that bid the highest give the other "player" honor equaling the difference between the honor dials. The players then add the number they selected on the honor dial to the appropriate stat and the character with the highest total wins the duel. Then the players follow the text on the card that defines the duel resolution.

Here is the problem. Under these rules, the better duelist (character with the highest stat) almost always loses honor. Here is the formula:

1. Compare the character's dueling stat, (normally military stat) pick the lowest, designate this as "X".
2. Add 5 to the low stat, designate this as "Y": X + 5 = Y
3. Take other character's dueling stat, designate this as "Z"
4. Subtract "Z" from "Y", designate this as "N": Y - Z = N
5. Add 1 to N, designate this as "M": N + 1 = M
6. M is the number you put on the honor dial to have the character with the highest stat win the duel.
   • Note: If M is less than 1, choose 1 on the honor dial.

The character with the lowest stat just sets the dial to "1", and as long as the duel stat are within 5 of each other, the character with the lowest stat always GAINS HONOR AT THE EXPENSE OF THE BETTER DUELIST!!!

Now, I believe FFG's position on this is, "a character could use other methods to win the 'conflict' that the duelist has challenged them to" (ie Scorpion Clan members could use poison, Lion Clan could kick dirty in the opponent's eye, Crab Clan member could wait for the strike and then crack the weakling over the head with a War Fan...etc.) This next idea, I am expressing as if I were inside the game world... Dueling is a special thing, it has a definition. All duels are fights, but not all fights are duels. If an honorable SAMURAI challenges a person to a duel, that samurai is signifying a fight with VERY specific rules. These rules are so specific, it is rare to hear of someone seeing one, let alone actually FIGHTING one. A duelist, someone who has trained to duel, would not challenge someone to a duel in order to lose. THEY WENT THROUGH TRAINING IN ODER NOT TO LOSE!

Stepping out of the game world, the dueling mechanics are all wrong. The duels should be deadly, I mean, when a duel is triggered in the game, it should be just as threatening as "bow", "send home" or "discard"...after all, IT IS A DUEL! Someone is about to be hit with a KATANA! If a duel challenge is made and accepted, both parties are agreeing to the specific rules of the duel. If someone cheats, then they are a cheater and SHOULD LOOSE HONOR! The honorable duelist that followed the rules should not LOOSE honor because someone jerk-off with a sword CHEATED! To even have to articulate this idea feels ridiculous. DUELING IS BROKEN!

So, dueling is broken...how do you fix it. Here is the best way I came with, so far. Make dueling refusable, give the refusal a penalty but give losing the duel a larger penalty. As an example, "refusal: Bow" (this would represent the character saying, "I bow to your skill because I do not want to duel you") or "refusal: lose 2 honor" (this is the lose of honor by not acting honorably and risking your life over an issue for your clan). For examples of winning a duel: "loser bows, winner gains 3 honor" or "loser is killed, discard losing character". Under this format you can have duels for anything...even duels for honor, specifically. Plus, the better "honorable" duelist always wins and the loser is always penalized. This is what duels should be. And if you want to build in cheating, MAKE THE DARN CARD! You can make a card with two effects, one for dueling, one for normal play. But for the sake of the Kami's Blessings...DON'T penalize the winner of the duel.

Am I wrong?

You are wrong.

Let C = Challenger Duel Stat

Let B = Challenger Bid on the Dial

Let T = Total stat of Challenger Character + Dial

Let X = Challenged Duel Stat

Let Y = Challenged Bid on the Dial

Let Z = Total Stat Challenged Character + Dial

1) When "players" reveal their honor bid, let the higher bid = H, and the lower bid = L.

2) H - L = the amount of honor that the "player" who bid higher must give the loser.

3) Compare T and Z. If T > Z the challenging "player" wins. If Z > T the challenged "player" wins. If T = Z neither wins.

If the player who is being challenged has lower stat for the duel and bids 1, they will only get honor IF the challenging player bid more than 1. It is a comparison only between the revealed dial number, not the total duel number. If the duel is only between the raw stats and both players bid just 1 then the character who is better wins. If the challenged player wants to risk honor to win they can. The challenging player can also risk honor to win.

The honor you risk is ABOVE the dueling stat of the character, so it is always about how much they are worried about their skill not being enough.

Let I = idontgiveaflyingflop

Let D = duelingisfine

Let O = onlyyouwouldwastemytimewiththisflop

Let N = neverevereverbothermewiththisflopagain

Let T = takethisflopsomeplaceelse

Let C = couldyoupleaseshutyercakehole

Let A = areyouequitedonecrying?

Let R = really?

Let E = everstopandthinkyoureoverreactingcuzyouare

I+D+O+N+T+C+A+R+E = please tell me more about why you don't like dueling.....go ahead, I'm listening.

Seriously I'd love to see a good reason about what's bad about dueling but I haven't heard one yet. The best one I've heard is "because" and if you just don't like it that's cool I can respect that. But you're gonna have to show me something tangible if you're going to convince me something is "wrong" or "broken" with dueling as is.

I've had just about enough of whiners screwing up things in this game that they don't like......cuz we all know that if it wasn't this, they would have a problem with something else. A Kimono on backwards, someone saying Banzai......the art is too honkey-fied.....whatever.

Enjoy the game for what it is and stop trying to make it what you want without any consideration for the rest of those around you.

42 minutes ago, shosuko said:

You are wrong.

Let C = Challenger Duel Stat

Let B = Challenger Bid on the Dial

Let T = Total stat of Challenger Character + Dial

Let X = Challenged Duel Stat

Let Y = Challenged Bid on the Dial

Let Z = Total Stat Challenged Character + Dial

1) When "players" reveal their honor bid, let the higher bid = H, and the lower bid = L.

2) H - L = the amount of honor that the "player" who bid higher must give the loser.

3) Compare T and Z. If T > Z the challenging "player" wins. If Z > T the challenged "player" wins. If T = Z neither wins.

If the player who is being challenged has lower stat for the duel and bids 1, they will only get honor IF the challenging player bid more than 1. It is a comparison only between the revealed dial number, not the total duel number. If the duel is only between the raw stats and both players bid just 1 then the character who is better wins. If the challenged player wants to risk honor to win they can. The challenging player can also risk honor to win.

The honor you risk is ABOVE the dueling stat of the character, so it is always about how much they are worried about their skill not being enough.

I did some math too......

1 hour ago, Ishi Tonu said:

*snip*

Have a Snickers.

Dueling mechanics has poker element into it.

Op is claiming what's called an optimal play depending on two initial conditions, which would result in 2 expected outcome. Generally it is correct.

The poker element comes in where you have to play a mind game of you know that I know that you know... to change your action to result in an unexpected outcome for your opponent.

I think that's a good mechanic that mimics the dueling of the old but with more at stake. Good improvement I would say, bad for some who doesn't know how to play the player

This thread displays only the best of the L5R community.

20 minutes ago, kiramode said:

This thread displays only the best of the L5R community.

These types of threads deserve only the best.

10 hours ago, player2902697 said:

Here is the formula:

1. Compare the character's dueling stat, (normally military stat) pick the lowest, designate this as "X".
2. Add 5 to the low stat, designate this as "Y": X + 5 = Y
3. Take other character's dueling stat, designate this as "Z"
4. Subtract "Z" from "Y", designate this as "N": Y - Z = N
5. Add 1 to N, designate this as "M": N + 1 = M
6. M is the number you put on the honor dial to have the character with the highest stat win the duel.
   • Note: If M is less than 1, choose 1 on the honor dial.

Am I wrong?

I can follow the variables, but the given values of 5 and 1 are complete nonsense. The only given in a duel is the character with the higher stat needs to sacrifice less honor to win. Some players will always bid low because honor is more important than winning something as minor as a duel or they are so skilled, they don't need to sacrifice their honor to win.

Your understanding of the honor bid and transfer of honor is wrong.

4 hours ago, shosuko said:

1) When "players" reveal their honor bid, let the higher bid = H, and the lower bid = L.

2) H - L = the amount of honor that the "player" who bid higher must give the loser...

The honor you risk is ABOVE the dueling stat of the character, so it is always about how much they are worried about their skill not being enough.

The only thing that determines the transfer of honor is the honor bid.

Comparing the sums of skill and honor bid determines which character wins the duel.

Sure... It is just me. The Duelist, the guy that trains to be good at duels, challenges another samurai to a duel a with the intention of losing...that's the way it should work.

(finishes taking all the crazy pills)

Seriously, if a challenge is made and accepted, those people are agreeing to a set of rules. Breaking the rules is DISHONORABLE. If FFG wants to build cheating into dueling, fine. MAKE THE CARD FOR IT! I built a deck for dueling. And with that deck, I can win most duels by selecting 5 on the dial. I made the duel challenge because I want the result of the duel, whether it is a bow, send-home, whatever... If I am the duelist, and I have the higher duel stat, am I not supposed to win? I want a certain amount of randomness in the dueling. I am not sure how to make it happen at the moment. But the honor loss is an extra penalty I am forced to pay, and that is on top of the cost of the card that has the duel on it. And if I am reading the posts correctly, because the other guy broke the rules and cheated....SO I HAVE TO LOSE HONOR WHEN THE OTHER GUY CHEATS...BUT I STILL WIN THE DUEL...

I can understand liking the poker element in the current duel mechanic and if it rewarded the winner and punished the loser, I might like it too. But what we have now is not dueling...call it something else. Like "Single Combat"..."Wrestling"...whatever.

I saw one or two people say something like, "If it was stat dependent, then the person with the lowest stat would always lose." And I can understand that. So, I give you, Connor McGegor and Floyd Mayweather. Connor is an MMA fighter. Pound for pound, one of the best fighters in the world. Floyd Mayweather is a boxer. Pound for pound, one of the best fighters in the world. When Connor, the mma fighter, stepped in the "BOXING" ring with Floyd, the boxer, guess what happened. Connor used a couple of strikes that were against the rules. He was warned. He stopped using those strikes, for fear of being penalized, and Connor fought like a boxer...And wouldn't you know it, he lost. He is still one of the best fighters in the world, but he is not a boxer. Dueling should be the same way. A non-duelist goes into a duel with a duelist, the non-duelist should be bloody. Why? Because he is not a duelist. Don't penalize the duelist for doing his job. That is all I am saying. The current dueling mechanic plays into the hands of dishonor decks. This is NOT balanced.

Now, I did see someone mention, "For a duelist to pick on non-duelists is bullying and dishonorable." But the whole game revolves around groups of characters fighting other characters. Bullying is already happening. The duel is supposed to be an honorable thing. The duelist that follows the rules and wins the duel should not be punished for the other guy cheating. And this example is an edge case, because in the majority of duels in real-life, the loser did not walk away to be "dishonored". He was dead. And normally, people that broke the rules of the duel got a bad reputation, if he lived. Which goes to my other point...duels should be deadly...someone is getting hit with a sword. Even in the duels that were to the "first blood", some of those people did not walk away from the duel. Because something long and sharp was sticking out of their spleen.

But if you thing I am wrong, fine. Built a dueling deck, grab your buddy that plays the scorpion dishonor deck. Play 10-20 games. Tell me how winning every duel turns out.

25 minutes ago, player2902697 said:

Sure... It is just me. The Duelist, the guy that trains to be good at duels, challenges another samurai to a duel a with the intention of losing...that's the way it should work.

(finishes taking all the crazy pills)

You mean like the official story that starts with an iaijutsu duel?

"Yogo Hiroue had suggested to his lord that it might be advantageous for them if Bayushi Gensato threw the fight."

https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/05/90/05909abe-a1f2-4721-8d21-9542cfa16fe5/l5r_in-the-garden-of-lies_part1compressed.pdf

1 hour ago, player2902697 said:

Sure... It is just me. The Duelist, the guy that trains to be good at duels, challenges another samurai to a duel a with the intention of losing...that's the way it should work.

(finishes taking all the crazy pills)

Seriously, if a challenge is made and accepted, those people are agreeing to a set of rules. Breaking the rules is DISHONORABLE. If FFG wants to build cheating into dueling, fine. MAKE THE CARD FOR IT! I built a deck for dueling. And with that deck, I can win most duels by selecting 5 on the dial. I made the duel challenge because I want the result of the duel, whether it is a bow, send-home, whatever... If I am the duelist, and I have the higher duel stat, am I not supposed to win? I want a certain amount of randomness in the dueling. I am not sure how to make it happen at the moment. But the honor loss is an extra penalty I am forced to pay, and that is on top of the cost of the card that has the duel on it. And if I am reading the posts correctly, because the other guy broke the rules and cheated....SO I HAVE TO LOSE HONOR WHEN THE OTHER GUY CHEATS...BUT I STILL WIN THE DUEL...

I can understand liking the poker element in the current duel mechanic and if it rewarded the winner and punished the loser, I might like it too. But what we have now is not dueling...call it something else. Like "Single Combat"..."Wrestling"...whatever.

I saw one or two people say something like, "If it was stat dependent, then the person with the lowest stat would always lose." And I can understand that. So, I give you, Connor McGegor and Floyd Mayweather. Connor is an MMA fighter. Pound for pound, one of the best fighters in the world. Floyd Mayweather is a boxer. Pound for pound, one of the best fighters in the world. When Connor, the mma fighter, stepped in the "BOXING" ring with Floyd, the boxer, guess what happened. Connor used a couple of strikes that were against the rules. He was warned. He stopped using those strikes, for fear of being penalized, and Connor fought like a boxer...And wouldn't you know it, he lost. He is still one of the best fighters in the world, but he is not a boxer. Dueling should be the same way. A non-duelist goes into a duel with a duelist, the non-duelist should be bloody. Why? Because he is not a duelist. Don't penalize the duelist for doing his job. That is all I am saying. The current dueling mechanic plays into the hands of dishonor decks. This is NOT balanced.

Now, I did see someone mention, "For a duelist to pick on non-duelists is bullying and dishonorable." But the whole game revolves around groups of characters fighting other characters. Bullying is already happening. The duel is supposed to be an honorable thing. The duelist that follows the rules and wins the duel should not be punished for the other guy cheating. And this example is an edge case, because in the majority of duels in real-life, the loser did not walk away to be "dishonored". He was dead. And normally, people that broke the rules of the duel got a bad reputation, if he lived. Which goes to my other point...duels should be deadly...someone is getting hit with a sword. Even in the duels that were to the "first blood", some of those people did not walk away from the duel. Because something long and sharp was sticking out of their spleen.

But if you thing I am wrong, fine. Built a dueling deck, grab your buddy that plays the scorpion dishonor deck. Play 10-20 games. Tell me how winning every duel turns out.

Again - don't think of it as "cheating" think about it as not trusting your skills, or being too aggresive. Dueling is an art. If you trust your skills, you bid a 1 - you aren't worried you lose. If you bid high you aren't trusting your skills. Bidding too high is just being aggressive, not skillful.

You can make as long a post as you want, but when those crazy pills wear off remember that L5R is a fiction, written by FFG - if they decided dragons were common pets they would be common pets.

I get a general sense from your first post you are frustrated because in order to ensure a win against another character you MUST risk losing honor. What fun is a duel if you are sure you will win? If someone is always bidding 1 against you, then just bid 1 against them. Until they see that you might not bid higher to ensure a win they won't bother trying, and will keep taking your honor. The moment you bid 1 and they bid enough to win, you take that honor back for being skillful even if they "won" through aggression.

When it comes down to it having a reserve is important. There is a scene in the Musashi trilogy in which Kojiro duels a samurai to show his skill to a lord and prospective employer. He wins the duel, but in doing so strikes too hard and injures his opponent - who is a vassal of the lord he is wanting to work for. For this reason he was not hired because he could not show reserve.

Ah, here is the clip of it. Kojiro knows he is more skillful but pushes too hard, thus causing offense. Kojiro knows it too, so he doesn't even stick around in the next scene. Imagine if you challenge someone to a duel, and its to first blood, or even just to first strike... yet you don't "pull your punches" so to speak and cut their arm off... Not cool bro. Not cool. (not cool == honor loss)

1 hour ago, player2902697 said:

I saw one or two people say something like, "If it was stat dependent, then the person with the lowest stat would always lose." And I can understand that. So, I give you, Connor McGegor and Floyd Mayweather. Connor is an MMA fighter. Pound for pound, one of the best fighters in the world. Floyd Mayweather is a boxer. Pound for pound, one of the best fighters in the world. When Connor, the mma fighter, stepped in the "BOXING" ring with Floyd, the boxer, guess what happened. Connor used a couple of strikes that were against the rules. He was warned. He stopped using those strikes, for fear of being penalized, and Connor fought like a boxer...And wouldn't you know it, he lost. He is still one of the best fighters in the world, but he is not a boxer. Dueling should be the same way. A non-duelist goes into a duel with a duelist, the non-duelist should be bloody. Why? Because he is not a duelist. Don't penalize the duelist for doing his job. That is all I am saying. The current dueling mechanic plays into the hands of dishonor decks. This is NOT balanced.

So to spin off of this, let's play your example according to how Dueling works in this game.

Connor and Floyd agree to a "duel" consisting of a boxing match. They agree to the rules of the duel (rules of boxing).

Floyd, as a boxer, had a high boxing stat. For sale of argument, we'll call it 5. Connor, as an MMA fighter, has a low boxing stat. Since there's some overlap between MMA and boxing, we'll call his boxing stat a 2. Nobody yell at me for the reality comparisons, please.

If we just compare stats, Floyd will win every time. He's better. If he bids 1 on his honor check (most honorable conduct), he scores 6. Connor has a chance to win if he breaks the rules. He can bid 5 on his honor check (least honorable conduct) and win the duel (boxing match) by breaking the rules of the duel (using illegal strikes, for example) by scoring 7. For doing so, he pays a penalty in honor (reputation) because he cheated. He used illegal maneuvers. Sure, he beat his opponent into a pulp. But he cheated. He suffers the consequences of cheating by losing honor.

The winner of the duel loses honor if he cheats (bids high). If he's so good that he doesn't need to cheat, he loses no honor. If Connor had a boxing stat of 1 and Floyd a boxing stat of 7, then Floyd has no reason to bid higher than 1. But if we go with the above stats (5 vs 2), then Floyd only loses honor if he uses illegal techniques to guarantee his victory over Connor, and only if Connor plays by the rules. If Connor bids 5, thinking he can win and not caring how he does it, Floyd can win by bidding 3 and still look good because he broke the rules less. But if Floyd bids 3 and Connor bids 1, Floyd cheated. Period. He loses honor. What people would see is Connor played by the rules in a duel where he was at a disadvantage, while Floyd made a choice to break the rules to guarantee his victory.

In dueling, the honor loss doesn't come from winning. It comes from breaking the rules. If both players bid the same, it's a straight stat comparison, and the better character wins. If one player chooses to bid high, in effect saying "hang the rules, I'm in this for victory and nothing else matters," they risk the loss of reputation (honor) that comes with acting outside the rules.

No way Sho. Nope, duels are always to the death no matter what, and a duelist always win and this whole half baked dueling system is garbage until they make it the way the OP wants it and we are all dumb for not seeing it that way.

I'm convinced. It was that whole Mcgregor v Mayweather bit that changed my mind. Too much straight up knowledge being dropped there to deny it any longer...........I hope he's got some more insights into how this game should be. I should go in and follow his stuff for sure.......so I just click ignore user to do that right? Yeah that seemed to do the trick. Now I'm getting best part of his posts.

2 hours ago, player2902697 said:

I saw one or two people say something like, "If it was stat dependent, then the person with the lowest stat would always lose." And I can understand that. So, I give you, Connor McGegor and Floyd Mayweather. Connor is an MMA fighter. Pound for pound, one of the best fighters in the world. Floyd Mayweather is a boxer. Pound for pound, one of the best fighters in the world. When Connor, the mma fighter, stepped in the "BOXING" ring with Floyd, the boxer, guess what happened. Connor used a couple of strikes that were against the rules. He was warned. He stopped using those strikes, for fear of being penalized, and Connor fought like a boxer...And wouldn't you know it, he lost. He is still one of the best fighters in the world, but he is not a boxer. Dueling should be the same way. A non-duelist goes into a duel with a duelist, the non-duelist should be bloody. Why? Because he is not a duelist. Don't penalize the duelist for doing his job. That is all I am saying. The current dueling mechanic plays into the hands of dishonor decks. This is NOT balanced.

So Mayweather was what...a can of fried spam? Chopped liver? The problem with your analogy (and maybe this is what you're really trying to get at) is that there's no such thing as a DUELING stat in this game. You have a MILITARY duel, or (hopefully, eventually) you have a POLITICAL duel. McGregor is an MMA fighter, not a boxer. Mayweather is a boxer, not an MMA fighter. A better analogy to the current state of the game would be saying McGregor's better skill value is political (MMA Fighting), and Mayweather's is military (Boxing). Mayweather fought McGregor in a military duel (Boxing match). McGregor wasn't as good and (as you so cleverly point out) stopped using illegal moves, and therefore his inferior skill led to him losing. Had he continued to use illegal moves (which could be thematically compared to a higher honor bid) he may have beaten Mayweather...but without some sort of underhanded/sneaky tactics, he really didn't stand a chance. Now, if this had been a political duel (MMA fighting), the tables would have been turned, because then the fight would have been based on McGregor's stronger skill rather than Mayweather's.

The duelist's skill at dueling is completely dependent on the skill type used for their duel. The duelist who has a higher skill value for that skill type will always have the straightforward advantage in the duel. Honor bidding represents what they are willing to risk beyond their natural skill in order to win the duel at any cost. If the duelist with higher natural skill also decides to bid more honor than their opponent, then they are showing desperation, or their opponent is deliberately throwing the duel to make the better duelist look bad for beating them so badly. As Daario puts it to Jorah Mormont in an episode of Game of Thrones, "I'm either the **** who killed an old man, or the **** who got killed by an old man."