Regarding dueling. It probably wouldnt work out in the open where people are doing DEs, just because of how the game works, but I am sure they can put in a dueling arena in a city or something for those that want to do it 1 vs 1. Have an Ascalonian fight club or something.
Slippery slope though - this could lead to having ranked arenas in this game. I'd rather leave that kind of "PvP in a bowl" to WoW, it's also source of the most whining and the most drastical class nerfs of the game.
I'm of the opinion that in a game with 8 classes, the smallest PvP group size should be 8 characters. That's doesn't mean each class will be represented every time, but it ensures enough diversity to not spawn the "FOTM class composition" syndrome that plagues WOW's 2vs2, 3vs3 and 5vs5 arenas.
You know, they could just make it in form of ranked minigame. Where you fight with "dueling" weapons (that have some basic attacks like Thursts, Slice, Hilt Bash, Parry, etc.) and set of pre determined utility skills that pretty much guarantee balanced combat without affecting the rest of the game. Seeing as how Keg Brawl works it would be perfectly doable from technical standpoint. I even think they mentioned at some there will be bar brawl like minigame with use of environmental wepaons like chairs of bottles possibly.
Problem is people don't really want to duel in fair environment. They want to duel people they can't loose again. Hence WoW's Goldshire was filled with 85's spamming duel at level 5s. They don't want it to be balanced, because hey, where's the fun in loosing.
I played BWE 2, pve only, and BWE3 WvW mostly. There isn't a duelling mechanism so don't be surprised if you get jumped out in WvW area trying to run duels. Personally, I started up the group in DAoC that went around raiding the 1v1 players that would hang out at the gates thinking they would be left alone. It's an mmo, they provide for small group battles and massive WvW battles. Play it the way it was meant to be played and enjoy the game. Otherwise you will probably not like it.
this i am unwilling to accept on faith and your word, as before. if you ever happen upon any sort of statistical evidence that you can post i would love to see that though. i'm not sure how you could prove such an assertion though given that there would most likely be mountains of data showing what you describe (unbalanced play) in any kind of experiment i can envision.
regardless, in lieau of evidence it is just an assumption, or an extrapolation from past experience.
either way, its always good to get the input of someone who has been playing online games as long or nearly as long as I.
It is actually factual that even the slightest bit of imbalance will definitely cause a difference in win ratios between two things.
I mean, there's a reason why white is the 'easier' side in chess, and in Go, going first is such a huge advantage that it's countered by several free points to the person who goes second.
The question is how big the actual imbalance will be. The more variables and more differences, the bigger it'll be, but of course as an MMORPG, there will always be nerfs and buffs and new things discovered and new counterbuilds, which adds enough complexity it's generally not a straight up case of 'oh, this is always better' unless the game balancing is actually poor.
I mean, you can look at any fighting games, just to see the various different characters are imbalanced, no matter how much they try to even them out. Luckily, the difference is usually not actually that bad.
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You know, they could just make it in form of ranked minigame. Where you fight with "dueling" weapons (that have some basic attacks like Thursts, Slice, Hilt Bash, Parry, etc.) and set of pre determined utility skills that pretty much guarantee balanced combat without affecting the rest of the game. Seeing as how Keg Brawl works it would be perfectly doable from technical standpoint. I even think they mentioned at some there will be bar brawl like minigame with use of environmental wepaons like chairs of bottles possibly.
Problem is people don't really want to duel in fair environment. They want to duel people they can't loose again. Hence WoW's Goldshire was filled with 85's spamming duel at level 5s. They don't want it to be balanced, because hey, where's the fun in loosing.
I played BWE 2, pve only, and BWE3 WvW mostly. There isn't a duelling mechanism so don't be surprised if you get jumped out in WvW area trying to run duels. Personally, I started up the group in DAoC that went around raiding the 1v1 players that would hang out at the gates thinking they would be left alone. It's an mmo, they provide for small group battles and massive WvW battles. Play it the way it was meant to be played and enjoy the game. Otherwise you will probably not like it.
It is actually factual that even the slightest bit of imbalance will definitely cause a difference in win ratios between two things.
I mean, there's a reason why white is the 'easier' side in chess, and in Go, going first is such a huge advantage that it's countered by several free points to the person who goes second.
The question is how big the actual imbalance will be. The more variables and more differences, the bigger it'll be, but of course as an MMORPG, there will always be nerfs and buffs and new things discovered and new counterbuilds, which adds enough complexity it's generally not a straight up case of 'oh, this is always better' unless the game balancing is actually poor.
I mean, you can look at any fighting games, just to see the various different characters are imbalanced, no matter how much they try to even them out. Luckily, the difference is usually not actually that bad.