Improving the Arena

[Rilla]

i think some kind of thread/format where people can instigate normal, quick exhibiton matches whith whoever they choose could be useful to those who dont want to wait for a tournament to begin

...Interest Check.

[Bloodbayne]

...Interest Check.

//Facepalm\\

[makiaka]

Etiquette is the word you're looking for. I think.

A few things.



Can you elaborate? Are you saying that it is powerplaying to ban healing, or that healing is overpowered? And be it the former or the latter, why would that be?



Do you think you could expand on this, or explain it in more depth? Again, it's kind of hard to understand what you're trying to convey. Are you saying that skill and intelligence or other traits that aren't derived solely from power of some sort (be it physical, magical, technological, etc) aren't accounted for, or that the combination of certain concepts become too powerful.. or that people don't play with weaknesses?



While I agree, I will play the devil's advocate: not everybody likes to NOT be 100 percent badass 100 percent of the time. Are their avenues of escapism less valid than yours or mine? Are you - or I - in a position to make that call? Are they not allowed to have their fun, same as you or I or any other member of the forum?



How so? What metrics - if any - are you using to determine this? What standard are you using, and why are you in a position to deem what is "better" or "worse"? For example: how long have you been participating in these sort of roleplays? Have you done so elsewhere - say, offsite - that might provide a comparison/contrast to illuminate potential issues within this particular community?



And... you are in a position to judge this how, exactly? What combat experience do you have? Have you ever been in a fist fight? A boxing match? An MMA match? Did you wrestle in high school or college? Have you ever been knifed or sucker punched or had the shit kicked out of you by three or four people? What allows you to make judgment calls about who is "truer to combat", and from what authority does this judgment come from?

Have you also ever considered playing completely realistically is not intrinsic to roleplaying, or to everyone's definitions of fun? And how are we defining "realistic" - are we talking no magic, no high technology, just pure humans? Do we try to follow the laws of physics to a T? What about stylization, or suspension of disbelief, or fantasy?

And do you have any proof or evidence to go with what you're discussing, or are you just shooting vague accusations in the dark without any real hard evidence to support your claims?

Barring experience, authority, or even evidence, do you even have any reasoning to supplement any statements you've made?



Perhaps you ought to do the same - somewhere in your post, there might be a pretty rational idea on things like fairness and proper player ettiquette, but it seems to be twisted up with some notions of "stop liking what I don't like."

Also, no offense, but for the sake of clarity you may want to consider being more articulate. You can roleplay however you want, but when it comes to discussing an even remotely abstract concept, it really pays to be clear and concise when you try to convey ideas or concepts. Again, no offense, and not meaning to come across as condescending. But you can't really expect people to have a meaningful dialog if no ideas are being clearly conveyed. If you want people to "look at themselves long and hard", perhaps you ought to actually.. convey ideas and an explanation of why they ought to, instead of just telling them to as if you've got some authority or claim to knowing better than they do?

i can't multi qoute

so i'll answer.

That one statement i meant that well a persons skill or intelligence takes no part in the character only raw power, because people are so used to bad r-ping on the arena from everyone that they had to establish these rules (sorry about that last one was on ds)

I'm saying there should be better moderation then simply you can't do this. Rather then you can't do this you can only do this to minute degrees or things of the like. Like if you banned blood magic(which is one of the things i see, and is a all time favorite of some players) instead just ban control over your opponents body with blood magic This seems like a lot of laziness to me.


By saying advanced players do this more then free players, although in personal experience it's true because well things made by free rpers lack in rules from what I've seen they do not overemphasize them. I was simply trying to avoid the fact that some asshole was gonna come on here and blame free rp-ers are the reason we have to do all this because there to stupid to be fair. Which is another major problem with people bashing on lower skill rpers. The arena tends to be more exclusive to advanced r-pers then anyone not because they like it the most, but because well they tend to scare others away by trolling there threads and things of the like. This is starting to get better with a few people i know saying "Stfu bro." but still is a reason a lot of free and some casual r-pers don't take place in tournaments.

The 100% thing is true i was just saying there is no casualty about the Arena anymore more in some sections then other. It's more about winning then making a good story now a days.

The first thing was jibbirish I am sorry I also had a ton of mountain dew and combined all my statements after into one really retarded sentence.

People I know, and try to invite, are scared to join the arena simply because of some of these facts.

[Darth]

i can't multi qoute

so i'll answer.

In order to multi-quote all you have to do is type quote and /quote in brackets [], bookending the particular portion of a post that you wish to quote and respond to.

That one statement i meant that well a persons skill or intelligence takes no part in the character only raw power, because people are so used to bad r-ping on the arena from everyone that they had to establish these rules (sorry about that last one was on ds)

And you know this for a fact? You can definitively prove that every fight - and by extension, every participant - us reliant on character power, rather than skill or intelligence? How have you come to this conclusion? What evidence or reasoning do you have to support it. Simply saying "this is how it is" means nothing. I can say that the sky is purple and President Reagan came from the moon, but that doesn't make it true.

Nor is this the reason why the rules are established. As I already explained, the rules of a fight are decided upon either by the tournament they're participating in, or, more often, by the participants themselves. It has nothing to do with perceived skill or lack thereof; it has to do with whether or not they, personally, believe the abilities to be fair in the context of their own fight. For example, two people fighting in semi-realistic melee with relatively low-power characters isn't going to allow a power in that can destroy an entire planet; it doesn't fit into the fight and would make it unfair.

I'm saying there should be better moderation then simply you can't do this. Rather then you can't do this you can only do this to minute degrees or things of the like. Like if you banned blood magic(which is one of the things i see, and is a all time favorite of some players) instead just ban control over your opponents body with blood magic This seems like a lot of laziness to me.

It has nothing to do with moderation; whatever moderators oversee Arena don't set the rules. The players set the rules in each individual fight, and any two players can set whatever rules they like. So no, there doesn't need to be moderation. If you want to let someone use blood magic, then you don't ban it. Same with healing. Same with ANY power. It's up to the individual players to set their own rules for their fights. Again, has nothing to do with laziness, it has to do with what they want in their fight, or what they find enjoyable. If they don't find something enjoyable, they have the right to not deal with it.

By saying advanced players do this more then free players, although in personal experience it's true because well things made by free rpers lack in rules from what I've seen they do not overemphasize them. I was simply trying to avoid the fact that some asshole was gonna come on here and blame free rp-ers are the reason we have to do all this because there to stupid to be fair. Which is another major problem with people bashing on lower skill rpers. The arena tends to be more exclusive to advanced r-pers then anyone not because they like it the most, but because well they tend to scare others away by trolling there threads and things of the like. This is starting to get better with a few people i know saying "Stfu bro." but still is a reason a lot of free and some casual r-pers don't take place in tournaments.

So.. you're pre-emptively attacking another group of players to avoid having your own group of players attacked for doing the same thing? That's kind of hypocritical to be like "Well, I have no basis for this statement, but I'm going to accuse a bunch of people of it because I don't want them to accuse me of it." Players of any writing or skill level are liable to cheat - it has nothing to do with how they write or play, but what sort of player they are. I've also not seen a lot of trolling being done in the Arena, although admittedly I don't come here as often as I used to nor do I check every thread. If someone is trolling or bashing other players, why aren't you reporting them for it?

The 100% thing is true i was just saying there is no casualty about the Arena anymore more in some sections then other. It's more about winning then making a good story now a days.

Again: aside from there being no evidence or reasoning, who are you to decide what is or isn't fun or a good story? Are you an authority on that? Isn't it subjective? If people enjoy being competitive, that's their right. If you don't like it, don't play with them - it's not your place to tell them they're wrong for finding something fun simply because you don't find it fun.

I'll also point out that it's not true, simply on the basis that it's far too broad of a generalization for it to be true, nevermind that if I wanted to I could easily dig up fights that are contrary to that statement and ergo would prove it wrong. Blanket statements and vast generalizations tend to be false on the basis that they don't - and cannot - account for everybody or everything. There will always be exceptions, and exceptions disprove the generalization.

The first thing was jibbirish I am sorry I also had a ton of mountain dew and combined all my statements after into one really retarded sentence.

People I know, and try to invite, are scared to join the arena simply because of some of these facts.

None of this is fact. All you've posted is your opinion - and that's fine. But don't confuse the two; just because you think it or say it doesn't make it so.

[Skallagrim]

Makiaka, you know if you invite people to the arena to spar and fight with, they don't have to fight other people. There are many small groups of people who enjoy fighting one another in what ever fashion suits them. Not everyone here writes T1 style fights. In fact if you look there are many, many casual type fights ongoing in various threads, and even some tournaments.

I understand that it would be intimidating to come here if it were indeed just fighters who wrote long paragraphs with exact martial strokes or hand to hand actions with force multipliers and precise trauma descriptions, it is not. There are not that many fighters who extend themselves to realism like that, or even want to. Most are here to enjoy squaring off and having at it with like minded fighters, in the style and complexity they find entertaining.

[Nartivus]

I’m not sure what anyone else would think of this its just a idea or if has already been thought of it. With this it helps people wanting to improve and want to become better. The chance of these ideas are good because the arena tab in it self its like a academy there is already people teaching and helping other people. Although both of my ideas could take some time to set up.

I haven’t read the entire thread of course but what about this,

A ranked combat system. Beginner, intermediate, Above average, Advanced, Veteran and Grand Masters.
A system not base on just who many fights someone has won but the quality of those fights as well. I’ve seen similar ideas on other forms in the past. One would sign up as a competitor and after each win they post they have won they thread they fought in a judge would check it out and grade the matched based on skill shown within the fight. This could just mean they won a match and are just higher up within there tier or could move up. With this have it integrated within the roleplayerguild site like on their profiles being able to say veteran combatant as their title. It would give people a want to be recognized as fighter. Have in the arena tab of the thread on how to join if you want to compete and so on. And with now there are mentors within the site many are learning to improve so this would all promote people to actively more spar with one another.

Second idea, Battle island. Have different terrains such as mountains, forest and so and within each branch there is a ranking system that anyone can challenge anyone for their ranking up say tenth. You would have to be rank ten to fight ninth, ninth to fight eight, eight to fight seventh so and so forth. Meaning everyone would have to work there way up to claim being that skilled. And once you have been everyone you are the king or queen of that terrain. Also with this people putting on there profile to be seen like a title rank seventh in Battle island. It may attract people to say hey I’m take a crack at it.

[Alphakoka]

The problem with that other than time is to have someone to be the overall "GM". There were similar ideas thrown around in the past but they all failed for the same reason, the "GM"(s), for one reason or another, became absent for prolonged period of time.

[Nartivus]

AH never thought about in that way, but a valid point none the less.