11 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

@Ultimatecalibur So a slightly buffed Striking as Air? I dunno how this could change the duel "meta" especially since it would be affected by Center. And a reserved dice ain't that hot when compared with what you can do with Center.

Centered actually doesn't do that much if you fail to guess the stance they will use right which causes the duels to stall out until Center stops being spammed or enough "hits" occur that someone is compromised.

Focus would allow participants to "build" a successful roll over several rounds that can beat Center or unsure a successful Provoke at the cost of creating an opening that the other participant can use. Having a +2 or Higher TN vs. Attacks/+1 TN vs Schemes for an Air Center isn't going to stop them from building the 4+ success Action they need to beat you.

I dunno but betting a Stance for Focus would be super-easy: either Air to prevent getting struck or Void to avoid getting Strife'd.

And even if you can dodge the bets, we are still back to a mega-boring and looooooong race of one side spamming Center while the other spamming Focus.

I somehow like this idea, but... Wouldn't this Focus action just delay the duel one more round ?

If I understand it correctly, the dice you've set aside will replace rolled dice on your next test. So, how will that test be improved ?

It's better to go with [attack ; attack] or [Provoke ; attack], than [Focus ; attack].

It works with Striking as Air, because it's an optional spending of opportunities.
You make a good attack, and you get to keep a nice symbol that you will already have on your next attack.

But here, this Focus IS your action for the round. If you do it, you are not doing anything else.
All you are doing is rolling dice now that you will not roll later.

Maybe if it was added as an option to Provoke ? Reduce TN and reserve dice ?

2 hours ago, Exarkfr said:

I somehow like this idea, but... Wouldn't this Focus action just delay the duel one more round ?

If I understand it correctly, the dice you've set aside will replace rolled dice on your next test. So, how will that test be improved ?

It's better to go with [attack ; attack] or [Provoke ; attack], than [Focus ; attack].

Considering that [attack; attack] is going to be against a TN 4+ (or TN 5+/6+ if in Air stance) if the target is Centered and you are also opening yourself to counters from Crescent Moon Style doing so might actually make you lose the duel rather than win it.

Provoke is a TN 3 action (TN 4/5 if the target is in Air stance) and the Provoke needs to succeed to reduce the TN of your next action. If you fail your Provoke you ended up wasting your turn worse than if you had Focused.

[Focus; attack] isn't going to do much but [Focus; Provoke; attack] is likely an effective strategy.

2 hours ago, Exarkfr said:

It works with Striking as Air, because it's an optional spending of opportunities.
You make a good attack, and you get to keep a nice symbol that you will already have on your next attack.

Striking as Air works to let you reserve dice for your next turn Martial Arts even if you fail a Martial Arts roll and you can still use the reserved dice even if you change stance.

You can reserve Success+Strife, Explosion+Strife or Opportunity+Strife for a next turn Fire Martial Arts roll even if you drop the die to avoid getting the Strife this round.

2 hours ago, Exarkfr said:

But here, this Focus IS your action for the round. If you do it, you are not doing anything else.
All you are doing is rolling dice now that you will not roll later.

It is an easy TN roll a 1 rather than the harder TN of other actions. It is in giving you a "pre"roll (a reroll before your action) because you can reserve not only the dice you keep but the dice you dropped.

If you do not think Provoking or attacking on the current round will be effective Focusing to give a better chance next turn might be a more effective action.

10 hours ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

Sounds like the major problem with duels is due to the current mechanics of the Center action leading to stalled duels. If both participants play conservatively (not making any bids for initiative) and are unlucky (not successfully guessing at their opponents stance) you get an infinitely long duel as both participants "defend" with center in an attempt to force finishing blows.

I wonder if a automatic strife increase at the end of each round, allowing successful Provokes to increase the target's Strife, and adding a new "basic" duel action would help fix the problems.

Would this be a reasonable addition that might help make duels faster?

What I think would make duels faster would be to remove the rounds, and have the duel be a more ritualistic system that takes players through a bid, a stance selection, and an augmentation which serves as a type of rock / paper / scissors to add tension, and then the rolls which determine who hit first and resolve the duel one way or the other at that point.

8 hours ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

Centered actually doesn't do that much if you fail to guess the stance they will use right which causes the duels to stall out until Center stops being spammed or enough "hits" occur that someone is compromised.

Focus would allow participants to "build" a successful roll over several rounds that can beat Center or unsure a successful Provoke at the cost of creating an opening that the other participant can use. Having a +2 or Higher TN vs. Attacks/+1 TN vs Schemes for an Air Center isn't going to stop them from building the 4+ success Action they need to beat you.

Centered does a lot because it is TN 1 to gain +2 TN bonus to defense +1 additional bonus per success. 2 Success on Center stance is +3 TN to be hit. This is a lot of defense even if you don't guess right. If you get 4 success that is +5 TN! Super impressive!!

Meanwhile Provoke is a TN 3 to reduce your opponent's defense by 1 with an additional 1 reduction per success. 2 success completely fails this check, 4 success clears a paltry 2 TN from the opponent...

A system should never allow defense to outstrip offense by such a margin. It kills the tension and turns it into a turtle fest. This is severely problematic, no matter what happens spamming defense should never be so strong.

Even if you carry over your successes you still have a formidable TN to overcome to hit the opponent, and while you're doing that you aren't defending which means your opponent could just attack you...

As I stated above - I prefer to remove the rounds all together. That just begs for long, boring bouts.

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What I think would work best is to have players bid strife to add to initiative, then have them pick their stance in secret and reveal that together. Then they will roll in initiative order an attack against each other. The stances do not give standard stance bonus or opportunities, it only effects the TN to hit and the stat the character rolls their attack with. I believe the elemental ring goes like this - Water > Fire > Air > Earth > Water. They get a TN bonus based on whether or not the player chose a stance which counters their opponent. Void has no bonus or penalty so a duelist can favor this to reduce the "unknown" factor to make duels rely more on skill at the cost of dumping xp into void which is less useful for other things.

And that's it - bidding high for initiative is stressed as the highest initiative has the first opportunity to strike. Bid too high and you might cap out your Composure triggering a Fatal Blow from your opponent, or be limited in dice selection to avoid such a thing. I think the bid of strife and stance being secret, and being more impactful can create more tension than 10 rounds of queuing dice for the perfect cut because you NEED a perfect cut to even hit your opponent...

32 minutes ago, shosuko said:

Centered does a lot because it is TN 1 to gain +2 TN bonus to defense +1 additional bonus per success. 2 Success on Center stance is +3 TN to be hit. This is a lot of defense even if you don't guess right. If you get 4 success that is +5 TN! Super impressive!!

Boosting TNs to be hit doesn't do anything to advance the duel. That is why Center spamming tends to stall out duels.

The only effects that Center has that can potentially advance the duel are to prevent your opponent from being in a stance you do not want them in so you can make an effective attack next turn and possibly inflicting strife if you predict your opponents stance.

Center is basically an "I do nothing to advance the duel and hinder your ability to advance the duel" action. My suggested action of Focus and the existing Provoke action both allow for some advancement of the duel.

1 hour ago, shosuko said:

Meanwhile Provoke is a TN 3 to reduce your opponent's defense by 1 with an additional 1 reduction per success. 2 success completely fails this check, 4 success clears a paltry 2 TN from the opponent...

A system should never allow defense to outstrip offense by such a margin. It kills the tension and turns it into a turtle fest. This is severely problematic, no matter what happens spamming defense should never be so strong.

True but even if Provoke and Center gave equivalent benefits Center would still stall duels instead of advancing them.

1 hour ago, shosuko said:

Even if you carry over your successes you still have a formidable TN to overcome to hit the opponent, and while you're doing that you aren't defending which means your opponent could just attack you...

Which would then be having the duel advance. Either your opponent takes advantage of your opening or you advance towards a position that lets you beat them.

39 minutes ago, shosuko said:

As I stated above - I prefer to remove the rounds all together. That just begs for long, boring bouts.

----------------------

What I think would work best is to have players bid strife to add to initiative, then have them pick their stance in secret and reveal that together. Then they will roll in initiative order an attack against each other. The stances do not give standard stance bonus or opportunities, it only effects the TN to hit and the stat the character rolls their attack with. I believe the elemental ring goes like this - Water > Fire > Air > Earth > Water. They get a TN bonus based on whether or not the player chose a stance which counters their opponent. Void has no bonus or penalty so a duelist can favor this to reduce the "unknown" factor to make duels rely more on skill at the cost of dumping xp into void which is less useful for other things.

And that's it - bidding high for initiative is stressed as the highest initiative has the first opportunity to strike. Bid too high and you might cap out your Composure triggering a Fatal Blow from your opponent, or be limited in dice selection to avoid such a thing. I think the bid of strife and stance being secret, and being more impactful can create more tension than 10 rounds of queuing dice for the perfect cut because you NEED a perfect cut to even hit your opponent...

Your suggestions work for One strike Iaijutsu duels but are ineffective for any other type of duel. Unlike previous editions of L5R the dueling rules are not just for Iaijutsu. They are supposed to cover a much wider variety of 1v1 combat.

Your Focus action and Provoke both work until the end of next round. With only one action per round, you can't Focus-Provoke-attack with both boosting the attack. Focus would only affect Provoke.

Plus, it doesn't matter that Focus is only difficulty 1. The point is that the dice you will NOT roll on your next action might have been better than the dice you reserved.

Now, if Focus did not reduce the number of rolled dice on the next action, and allowed you to swap some of those with the ones you reserved, yes, it would improve your roll.

Edit.

Also, note that Striking as Air works alongside Provoke to setup an attack (or another Provoke, depending on the result of the first), even if you can't meet the TN (as the same skill will be used.)

Shosuko, Center has been toned down. Now, it's "only" +1 for success, and an extra +1 per 2 bonus.

17 hours ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

True but even if Provoke and Center gave equivalent benefits Center would still stall duels instead of advancing them.

Typically you want offensive actions to be better than defensive actions or a game turns into a turtle fest - this is true for all games. There has to be something gained in attacking, and duels fail to do that as currently designed.

17 hours ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

Your suggestions work for One strike Iaijutsu duels but are ineffective for any other type of duel. Unlike previous editions of L5R the dueling rules are not just for Iaijutsu. They are supposed to cover a much wider variety of 1v1 combat.

Depends on your narrative interpretation - what it does is it resolves the duel. It doesn't have to be iaijutsu to be done quickly. Two people can face of with spears and resolve it as quickly and decisively.

21 hours ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

Your suggestions work for One strike Iaijutsu duels but are ineffective for any other type of duel. Unlike previous editions of L5R the dueling rules are not just for Iaijutsu . They are supposed to cover a much wider variety of 1v1 combat.

This is not a good thing IMHO.

You are taking a important part of the setting and trying to generalize it.

It took 4 editions to get Iaijutsu duels to a point were they felt, both dangerous and engaging.

Here they are like everything else in this game designed to be for the most part generic.

The major issues in any game is generalization.

Look what happened with investigation.

While you sometimes need to simplify rules, as they can get a bit over complicated.

When you start to generalize you start to take away what is unique about it.

Iaijutsu duels are quite different then Taryu-jiai duels, and Taryu-jiai duels are different then a one-on-one skirmish.

So they should be handled in 3 unique ways. To do otherwise takes away what is unique about it.

P.S.

AEG tried making all duels (Iaijutsu, Taryu-jiai, courtier, etc) the same at one point.

Not sure if it was 2nd or 3rd, but anyway most players hated it.

So they gave each a different system.

On 12/5/2017 at 10:03 PM, Ultimatecalibur said:

. Unlike previous editions of L5R the dueling rules are not just for Iaijutsu. They are supposed to cover a much wider variety of 1v1 combat.

3rd used the one set of base duel mechanics with slight tweaks for a variety of dueling styles as well. Including art duels. This one isn't as broad.

On 12/6/2017 at 4:53 AM, shosuko said:

Centered does a lot because it is TN 1 to gain +2 TN bonus to defense +1 additional bonus per success. 2 Success on Center stance is +3 TN to be hit. This is a lot of defense even if you don't guess right. If you get 4 success that is +5 TN! Super impressive!!

Per 2 bonus successes. Beta update, page 8:

Quote

If you succeed, increase the TN of the next Attack check targeting you by 1, plus 1 for every 2 bonus successes. This effect persists until the beginning of your next turn.

I'd like duels to resolve faster, too, but the two actions are now at least equivalent in TN manipulation:

3 successes with Center gives you TN+2, 3 successes with provoke gives you TN-2, and runaway explosive successes with provoke lower the TN faster than Centre increases it.

However, Center still has the strife-dump ability, which provoke doesn't and it has the even more brutal effect that if you guessed right, your opponent must choose a different stance - pushing them off their rank 4 ring to a rank 3 one is good whether you 'force' them off and give them strife or they guess what you picked and choose a weaker ring because of it.

I'd still agree that Center (Air), giving you probably TN+2 to be hit (at least 1 for center, and at least for air stance) , and reserving a die or two for the follow-on strike seems the best plan.

So from the new update it seem they are admitting that the duel system doesn't work and they don't know how to fix it yet.

At least this is progress, as they are admitting flaws in the game, but we will have to wait to see what they do now.

Latest update - 3.1 - is up, and does NOT include any further changes to duels. In fact, it's just updating the previews.

20 minutes ago, AK_Aramis said:

Latest update - 3.1 - is up, and does NOT include any further changes to duels. In fact, it's just updating the previews.

If you were responding to what I said you did not read the email.

If you are just providing info then ignore this post.

1 hour ago, tenchi2a said:

If you were responding to what I said you did not read the email.

If you are just providing info then ignore this post.

No, you missed the subtext ... This week, nothing new for us. (Excepting the Tea Ceremony.)

And major disappointment in no changes.

18 minutes ago, AK_Aramis said:

No, you missed the subtext ... This week, nothing new for us. (Excepting the Tea Ceremony.)

OK

Quote

And major disappointment in no changes.

I would be more disappointed if it was some half-@$$ fix or name change.

The fact that they are admitting its busted and work to fix it shows a change from the everything is fine if we change the name attitude they have had until now.

3 hours ago, tenchi2a said:

So from the new update it seem they are admitting that the duel system doesn't work and they don't know how to fix it yet.

My read of the email says that they do have some ideas on how to fix things.

The survey helped them identify 2 major problems: to many rolls versus the number of choice points and lack of things those not in the duel to do during a duel.

To fix these problems they might end up removing the rolls from options such as Center and build scenes where characters can interact around and interfere with duels.

7 minutes ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

My read of the email says that they do have some ideas on how to fix things.

The survey helped them identify 2 major problems: to many rolls versus the number of choice points and lack of things those not in the duel to do during a duel.

To fix these problems they might end up removing the rolls from options such as Center and build scenes where characters can interact around and interfere with duels.

I got that they have an idea of what is wrong, but no clear cut way to fix it within the current design.

If they wanted my advice I would suggest dropping all the pick this or that and roll and take a good look at the 4th ed duel system.

It could probably be fit into this system with only a few minor changes.

and since they own the IP they might as well use it.

11 minutes ago, tenchi2a said:

I got that they have an idea of what is wrong, but no clear cut way to fix it within the current design.

If they wanted my advice I would suggest dropping all the pick this or that and roll and take a good look at the 4th ed duel system.

It could probably be fit into this system with only a few minor changes.

and since they own the IP they might as well use it.

I think a lot of 4th ed could be tweaked to use the new dice and thought process. Would probably keep the number of dice more reasonable.

On 12/7/2017 at 0:56 AM, AK_Aramis said:

3rd used the one set of base duel mechanics with slight tweaks for a variety of dueling styles as well. Including art duels. This one isn't as broad.

The 3rd edition dueling rules are built completely around a one strike "first to blink" system.

The current system is actually very broad. There are very few changes that need to be done to have a duel between archers, spearmen, shugenja or even asymetrical 1v1 conflicts such as archer vs swordsman. I've actually though about how to easily adapt the dueling/clash rules to represent a back and forth debate between two courtiers, games of go/shogi and artistic competitions.

2 hours ago, tenchi2a said:

If they wanted my advice I would suggest dropping all the pick this or that and roll and take a good look at the 4th ed duel system.

The 4e duel system is incredibly simplistic with no actual tactical choices and only really works for one-strike Iaijutsu duels.

In 4e pretty much every effective duelist was build the same way doing the same things. High Air, high Void, get School Techniques and Kata that boost your own rolls/penalize your opponent.

4e style "Assess, Focus, Strike" should be a viable method of dueling (and should likely be the standard Kakita way to duel) but it shouldn't be the only method.

4e dueling was terrible. It offered 0 player choice and could be basically run by an app, because all that was to it was literally rolling dice and seeing what happens. It was slow, uninvested, and didn't really offer anything interesting, plus it was a minigame entirely removed from how anything else about the game worked.

3 hours ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

The 4e duel system is incredibly simplistic

This is where they should take the good look. Simplicity is key: it allows for fast conflict resolution, clear courses of action, and a lot of possibility for diverse yet roughly equal choices. Note that the basic rules allow tons of choices from the get-go via Opportunities, so even if you implement the 4ed duel system 1:1, we would still end up with a lot more tactical (and even strategic!) choices simply because Opportunities exist.

Not really. Opportunities do not do that and simplicity is not key.

If an almost direct port was done you'd have:

1. Assess: TN 2 Martial Arts (Melee) Air check to find out stats.
2. Focus: Opposed Martial Arts (Melee) Void check that gives out free success or opportunity dice based on differences between rolls.
3. Strike: Martial Arts (Melee) check to hit. Opportunities and Successes gained from the Focus would be spent here.

There is nothing really tactical or strategic in there in comparison to strategies like the following that should be possible in this version:

• Focus then winning Strike. (Kakita Style)
• Dodge/defend and then counter attack. (Bend like a Reed)
• Taunt or Intimidate opponent until he/she compromises and then Yields the field or falls victim to a finishing blow. (The Noritoshi/Jimen Emerald Championship duel in old L5R)
• Attack aggressively until opponent falls. (Matsu Style)
• Endure non-winning attacks until you can inflict your own winning blow. (Crab Style)
• Feint to create an opening or feign a false opening and then win with the follow up attack. (Bayushi Style)

Dueling right now does have problems (to many rolls, to long, nothing to do for other when not in the duel) but going back Assess/Focus/Strike is not a good way to fix those problems