UPDATE: Battle to the Death (Duels)

[Mooncalf]

The PVP battle system (AKA "engage" mode, AKA "to the death" AKA "a duel") is now live and running. It uses the same code as the gauntlet / NPC battles, but it's potentially to the death. Here's how it works:

First of all, you'll need to make sure that you check your battle tactics. There's a new option, "at which point do you attempt to flee from other characters (avoid battles to the death)?" If you set it to "as soon as possible" you will always run immediately from a challenge to the death. This is your way of opting out of 1 on 1 fights to the death, or auto-turning down challenges.

If, however, both combatants don't have it set to "as soon as possible", then a gauntlet style battle will commence. Only, this time, all wounds stick, and the loser (unless they escape) will be sent to the SR / hospital as if they were killed in skirmish attacks.

To initiate a duel to the death, go to your "more commands" page. The option will only appear if you recognise one of the people in your square. You cannot attack random strangers with this option; you must first have their identity, even if both combatants are the same race.

Like with skirmishes, you'll only be able to attack once per day (or unless the person moves first). Also, the defender in a duel challenge will always automatically run to a new location UNLESS they have their tactics set up to always turn down battles to the death. This is to stop gangs of people taking turns trying to fight somebody to the death until one is successful, but it also makes sure you don't auto move to a new location, if you're just set to turn down duels anyway. To clarify on this: if you're dueled, you will always move to a random, public location (not outside), UNLESS either you die, or you've got your battle tactics up to always avoid PVP battles. If you run mid-way through battle, if you kill your opponent, or if the battle ends in a stalemate, you will spawn elsewhere. The attacker, however, never auto-moves elsewhere, as they are online.

A few more things to note:
- You only get wounds from physical damage. Powers used in PVP battles are just to wear the opponent down so you have a chance of killing them, and do not give lasting wounds as things stand.
- The gauntlet will never give wounds, even if you use "battle to the death" while in the gauntlet area instead of "spar".
- You will not lose anima in these fights. This might change in future, however.
- Duels are the main focus of the PVP battle system in Path. Skirmishing was always intended to merely be a literal skirmish, and as such it will soon be altered slightly to reflect the hit-and-run nature of that option. Don't worry, you'll still be able to kill people with skirmish attacks, but I'll reveal more about this soon.

tothepain.jpg

[Mooncalf]

A few updates / changes on this system:

- Setting your character to flee ASAP from PVP challenges will now cause the attacker to default to a skirmish attack instead of a battle to the death. So if you're set to reject all duels to the death, your attacker will attempt a skirmish automatically instead.

- An intentional skirmish attack will be more successful (more chance to hit) than one which happened purely because your target fled.

- If you are set to flee from PVP challenges ASAP, then you will always flee to another location. This just makes sense, because how could you flee from a battle to the death without fleeing the area?

- However! Defenders in duels to the death now have a slight advantage of their attackers, if the defender is offline. This is because they aren't around to protect themselves, and so it's only fair that they get a slight boost to their stats to compensate for this. If the defender has been online in the past 15 minutes, however, there will be no special advantage given to them.

- Duels no longer give crits to pure blooded humans (because if they did, the human would realistically be dead).

- To kill a classed human (paladin, etc) or a vampire in a duel you now need to crit them while they are at 0 blood, as with skirmishing.

- You can choose to cripple people in PVP duels just as you would in skirmish fights. This is done in the same way as before (through your battle tactics page). Crippling a target will give them massive wounds and make them basically useless in all forms of PVP for 7 days, but will not kill them.


These changes were made with realism and fairness in mind, and also to better integrate the dueling system with the skirmishing system so that they don't feel too much like two entirely separate systems. There will be 2 new "modes" (like sentry mode or retaliation mode) coming soon which will further add to the PVP side of things, and make fighting more interesting.