Would duels be more interesting if you just used your dial bid and didn't get to add a stat to it?

I keep thinking about this and the only reason I can see for adding stats is so that you can initiate duels you cannot lose. Which then just turns them into actions with extra steps. But those actions then get to have their power level inflated because of the illusion that they could be lost.

3 minutes ago, Uramov said:

Would duels be more interesting if you just used your dial bid and didn't get to add a stat to it?

I keep thinking about this and the only reason I can see for adding stats is so that you can initiate duels you cannot lose. Which then just turns them into actions with extra steps. But those actions then get to have their power level inflated because of the illusion that they could be lost.

The flaw with that option is you take a duel from a playable action to why would I waste the time.

8 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

The flaw with that option is you take a duel from a playable action to why would I waste the time.

Isn't it only a flaw because the potential honour transfer isn't more interesting and relevant?

Ensuring duels are a guaranteed win takes setup, planning, resources. Assuming neither of us have played attachments or additional actions on our participants, my character has to have a stat 5 higher than yours. If that's the case, then mine is probably a Clan Champ, already a considerable Fate investment over whoever I'm challenging. Add on to that the inherent cost of the duel itself - the potential honor cost of obtaining it, and the tempo cost of playing it. If it's a Policy Debate, it's even eaten up my Restricted slot. And for what? A bow? Dishonor? How many other, easier ways are there to achieve that same effect without the rigmarole of the duel?

Now, to guarantee winning vs an equally-costed character means playing other cards to increase my stat, while hoping you don't also do the same. This costs even more cards, fate, tempo.

If you think of a duel as saying "Target a character with [stat] 5 lower than your character..." then the duels themselves become pretty lack-luster. I absolutely agree, they're much more interesting when there's a risk. Which is why, when I duel, I make sure I CAN lose. Then question then becomes, do you want to give me all that honor just to win the duel? At least, that's how I play. Can't speak for others.

16 minutes ago, Uramov said:

Isn't it only a flaw because the potential honour transfer isn't more interesting and relevant?

No its unplayable because I'm ceding potential tempo to my opponent for no reason when I could normally achieve the same result without the risk. If you make duels a complete risk you kill the logical reason to consider playing them. It would be like saying lets discard the whole compare military or political strength of conflict resolution and just decide it on a dial bid.

I'd recommend listening to the Jade Throne Podcast where Tyler discussed a bit of the design around dueling.

It's a much more tricky design issue when it comes to a duel. You want and attractive enough effect from the duel that people are willing to risk bidding higher to win, but, you can't go to far with it because if the effect is too good then you end up with no actual dueling taking place because the person is not going to leave the effect to chance and will build a stat-stick that is unbeatable. This generally leads to the duel effects getting toned down and falling somewhere in the realm of average. But when someone builds a competitive deck they usually aren't looking for average, they want as many bomb as possible.

It was the same issue in old5r. It's doubtful that it will ever be solved, but, at least with the dueling rules getting cleaned up and more duels being added we are likely to see more games where dueling actually matters and players start taking more risks to win the duels. If the meta moves away from the bid 5 meta, this also helps because it now allows people to use their honor for higher duel bids. I'm happy to wait and see how things change after CotE comes out. I suspect dueling will be much more exciting, as will honor bids.

3 hours ago, Schmoozies said:

No its unplayable because I'm ceding potential tempo to my opponent for no reason when I could normally achieve the same result without the risk. If you make duels a complete risk you kill the logical reason to consider playing them. It would be like saying lets discard the whole compare military or political strength of conflict resolution and just decide it on a dial bid.

This. A thousand times this is what makes it unplayable. Why play a duel that could have no effect or backfire when I could play another card that achieves the same result and carries no risk. Making duels riskier or more exciting would mean duels would never see competitive play. That's something many of the game's fans couldn't stomach (myself included) as duelling is a fundamental part of our clan's identity.

The risk of duelling now as in Old5R is in the deck restrictions and tempo hits you take manoeuvring your character into a place where they can bully duel. It takes normally several actions to get into such a position and your opponent can interact with your tower unit to limit your duelling potential or ability to duel.

I can't recall who to credit the comment to but I was amazed (in a positive way) by the poster that said they use Kakita Kaezin with the intention to lose: send him to the conflict, trigger his ability and bid one, get the honor from his opponent (or win and send his opponent's/his other characters home to win the battle). I found this way more interesting than "bully dueling". If he wins: great. If he loses: I get the honor and crush you with my fate hand next turn. I'd like more cards like this- win/win, with options.

3 hours ago, HirumaShigure said:

I can't recall who to credit the comment to but I was amazed (in a positive way) by the poster that said they use Kakita Kaezin with the intention to lose: send him to the conflict, trigger his ability and bid one, get the honor from his opponent (or win and send his opponent's/his other characters home to win the battle). I found this way more interesting than "bully dueling". If he wins: great. If he loses: I get the honor and crush you with my fate hand next turn. I'd like more cards like this- win/win, with options.

Maybe in my Crane deck on FiverngsDB? Just for win with honor

7 hours ago, HirumaShigure said:

I can't recall who to credit the comment to but I was amazed (in a positive way) by the poster that said they use Kakita Kaezin with the intention to lose: send him to the conflict, trigger his ability and bid one, get the honor from his opponent (or win and send his opponent's/his other characters home to win the battle). I found this way more interesting than "bully dueling". If he wins: great. If he loses: I get the honor and crush you with my fate hand next turn. I'd like more cards like this- win/win, with options.

The Dragon Challenger card does this as well allowing him to strip negative attachments from himself as the initiator of the duel always chooses it's effect.

But as for Kaezin I predict when the crane dueling honour deck arrives with the crane pack people will be calling him non-interactive and op because of how people always react to passive win conditions. Either he wins and probably saves the province advancing your win condition or (because you will normally initate his duel when you think you can win if both bid 1) gives you some honour advancing your win condition. I think the only reason he is regarded as unplayable now is that the traditional crane honour rocket is not really a thing yet.

14 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

I'd recommend listening to the Jade Throne Podcast where Tyler discussed a bit of the design around dueling.

It's a much more tricky design issue when it comes to a duel. You want and attractive enough effect from the duel that people are willing to risk bidding higher to win, but, you can't go to far with it because if the effect is too good then you end up with no actual dueling taking place because the person is not going to leave the effect to chance and will build a stat-stick that is unbeatable. This generally leads to the duel effects getting toned down and falling somewhere in the realm of average. But when someone builds a competitive deck they usually aren't looking for average, they want as many bomb as possible.

It was the same issue in old5r. It's doubtful that it will ever be solved, but, at least with the dueling rules getting cleaned up and more duels being added we are likely to see more games where dueling actually matters and players start taking more risks to win the duels. If the meta moves away from the bid 5 meta, this also helps because it now allows people to use their honor for higher duel bids. I'm happy to wait and see how things change after CotE comes out. I suspect dueling will be much more exciting, as will honor bids.

Yeah I like the part when he speaks to being too risk-averse. In Scorpion there's definitely an argument to make to bidding higher on duels to win them, as we have many effects that turn on. Insolent Rival even has a built in mechanic for that and we are good at recouping or not dying to the honor loss.