Honor in Balance

[Tremir]

This idea is a possible solution to the whole win/loss system, which is, at least in my opinion, severely broken.

At this time I have about 80 more losses then I have wins, and can gain honor from fighting about 1 third of the players I've seen.

It's clear that most players seek to get huge amounts of losses in order to be able to gain honor, which hurts people who try to stay balanced.

Since the game states that a player should strive for balance, I propose the following change:

Add a new stat to the game, called "imbalance". Imbalance is the absolute value of the difference between wins and losses:

If I have 100 wins and 50 losses, I have 50 imbalance

If I have 100 losses and 50 wins, I have 50 imbalance

etc.

Players will gain honor when fighting someone with a higher imbalance stat, and lose honor against payers with lower imbalance.

Thus, the closer you are to being balanced, the easier it is to gain honor

[Gchick]

Players will gain honor when fighting someone with a higher imbalance stat, and lose honor against payers with lower imbalance.

Thus, the closer you are to being balanced, the easier it is to gain honor

Wait, if they gain honor fighting someone that is imbalanced, that is players having more losses than wins, wouldn't it just promote having more losses? Because in the end, you fight to win, causing players that are already imbalanced to only become more imbalanced. How is that fixing anything?

[Glaistig]

I'm thinking the current system is pretty screwed as well.. but I don't really agree with this suggestion. The newcomers to MD or just one of the mp levels would find it hard to stay balanced initially, and with this, they would rapidly plummet in honor just trying to rebalance (get more wins). With this, they could hit the -500 mark pretty easily and thereafter be unable to get more exp to become better at winning.

[Gchick]

Im' thinking maybe something like a losing limit per day. I mean, from being attacked. If you attack and lose, well, tough luck.

But let's say for example you log out in front of the shop, and several people attack you causing you to gain 30 losses rapidly, one it hits 30, you can't be attacked for that day. You can only attack.

But then again, I guess it would be an unfair advantage as well.

Mmh..

[Tremir]

Wait, if they gain honor fighting someone that is imbalanced, that is players having more losses than wins, wouldn't it just promote having more losses? Because in the end, you fight to win, causing players that are already imbalanced to only become more imbalanced. How is that fixing anything?

How would it promote more losses?

You don't gain honor from fighting people with more losses then wins.

You gain honor from fighting people with a larger difference between their wins and losses then your difference.

So if you have a huge amount of losses, you'll start losing honor, and if yo have a huge amount of wins you'll start losing honor, but if they're balanced you'll be gaining honor against both the people with lots of losses AND people with lots of wins

I'll admit that my idea is flawed, and that people with a lot of losses will have a hard time getting back to balance, since they'll start losing honor, but the current system is completely broken, and SOMETHING needs to be changed

[Gchick]

How would it promote more losses?

You don't gain honor from fighting people with more losses then wins.

You gain honor from fighting people with a larger difference between their wins and losses then your difference.

So if you have a huge amount of losses, you'll start losing honor, and if yo have a huge amount of wins you'll start losing honor, but if they're balanced you'll be gaining honor against both the people with lots of losses AND people with lots of wins

I'll admit that my idea is flawed, and that people with a lot of losses will have a hard time getting back to balance, since they'll start losing honor, but the current system is completely broken, and SOMETHING needs to be changed

Because of the following:

1. Most people are imbalanced because of a higher amount of losses than wins, not vice versa (I still have yet to see someone complain about having too many wins)

2. By promoting attacking people with such a high imbalance (and such a high amount of losses) and beating them (because that's ultimately why we attack, or not? otherwise no honor gain) you support said imbalance. The reason for gaining negative honour was to help them recover, by discouraging people from attacking them. Now if people gain honour because they are imbalanced, then they never have a chance to recover.

3. aannd... I forgot my third point. I'll edit this when I remember.

[Glaistig]

I agree with Gchick.

Something has to change, yes, but it's not like this is a better system. I actually think it's a bit worse.

But it's good to hear suggestions.. I don't really have any. Hopefully this will spark further discussion.

[Tremir]

The reason for gaining negative honour was to help them recover, by discouraging people from attacking them. Now if people gain honour because they are imbalanced, then they never have a chance to recover.

I'll agree with that point.

However, the current system actively rewards those people with a high loss counter.

They're not even trying to recover, because by staying at a high loss counter makes it easier to gain honor.

The game urges you to have a balanced win/loss ratio, but the system encourages having far more losses then wins.

A player can't possibly stay balanced in this system, because he'll fall to negative honor, which will prevent him from attacking anyone who doesn't give positive honor.

And since he's balanced, he won't find anyone giving him positive honor and will have to start gathering losses.

[Gchick]

I'll agree with that point.

However, the current system actively rewards those people with a high loss counter.

They're not even trying to recover, because by staying at a high loss counter makes it easier to gain honor.

The game urges you to have a balanced win/loss ratio, but the system encourages having far more losses then wins.

A player can't possibly stay balanced in this system, because he'll fall to negative honor, which will prevent him from attacking anyone who doesn't give positive honor.

And since he's balanced, he won't find anyone giving him positive honor and will have to start gathering losses.

Exactly, that was my point. But what you proposed doesn't change that.

That just reminds me of something. Apparently wins that are "gray" don't count for the balance? That's also something that makes it really difficult to stay balanced.

[meiche]

I'm having the same problem, I have only 9 between my wins and losses, as a result there is only one person I have found who will give me positive honor. As a result though people find me great to pick on. Outside chasing some losses I really don't know how to fix this.

[zio joe]

It sounds to me like the "IMBALANCE" system would work better.

What you are promoting is a value closer to zero, since the lower score gains the positive honour.

Looking at cases...

Case 1:

A: 20 more losses than wins

B: balanced

A would lose 20 honour, B would gain 20 honour.

Case 2:

A: 20 more wins than losses

B: Balanced

A would lose 20 honour, B would gain 20 honour

Case 3:

A: 20 more wins than losses

B: 10 more wins than losses or 10 more losses than wins

A lose 10 honour, B gains 10 honour

Case 4

A: 20 more losses than wins

B: 10 more wins than losses or 10 more losses than wins

A lose 10, B gain 10

Now this is all good for B, promoting wins, except that as he wins more, he is in the same shoes as A and will soon be attacked and gain losses. Also, there's no telling whether A has a winning or losing record. I have often gotten into winning records, not as profitablefor honour, but fine for leveling up creatures. What is honour for anyways? Other than a number to compare with other people.

I think the problem lies in what happens when you attack a person and intentionally lose. I've been in story mode for about 5 days now so I can't remember for certain. I think if you lose to someone that would give you positive honour, you don't lose any honour, but if you attack and lose to someone that would give you negative honour, you do lose honour. If this was switched so that you purposely lose to people who have negative honour, but didn't lose honour in the process, they would be gaining wins, you would be gaining losses, and both would be approaching a balance.

Although, on that note, I think you should only gain/lose honour when you initiate the fight, since you can't help it if someone intentionally loses to you when you wouldn't have fought in the first place. It's not dishonourable to defend yourself against a weaker foe.

The current system definitely favours a losing record tho... Maybe the honour could be capped at some value as well, like 25 or 50 or something.

Just some ideas... btw, I'm Canadian, so I am spelling honour correctly for me

[Gchick]

Would that gain and win happen no matter if you attacked or have been attacked? If it only affects the attacker, it sounds pretty good.

I am still put off by the fact that only "green" wins count on the counter.

[Calyx of Isis]

I am still put off by the fact that only "green" wins count on the counter.

This is the second time you've referred to wins by a color ("grey" before). What are these colors?

[Glaistig]

From mp3 to mp4 there is a change in the combat system, requiring both players in a fight to be damaged 15% and the loser 35% more than the winner for the fight to count as a win in the balance counter for the victor, and the loser to be damaged 85% more than the winner for the fight to count as a loss in the balance counter for the loser. It's clearer when you look at the "Ballancing fights" (spelled that way) link under your counter.

When a fight counts as a win, it is called a "victory" and when a fight counts as a loss, it is called a "defeat." Otherwise, they will show up as "win" or "retreat" in the fight results. I believe when Gchick says green, he/she means a victory (it's green on the fight results page) and when he/she says gray, he/she means a win. To the best of my memory, wins still show up as green in the fight results page, but I'm not sure. My memory isn't the best, to say at the least.

[Gchick]

This is the second time you've referred to wins by a color ("grey" before). What are these colors?

You can get a win, and the page says it in gray script. So far has never counted towards wins in my ratio. And it can appear as "Victorious" in green, and counts towards the ratio.

[meiche]

Wouldn't it make more sense if people with balanced fight ratios got the bonus honor, rather than giving really good honor to someone else for attacking them?

[Glaistig]

The honor system was implemented in the first place to prevent people from targeting weaker players with a lot of losses, but as we know, it does far from that. My first thought was that your suggestion wouldn't stand in for the original purpose, because as long as a player stays balanced, he can still choose to target weak players, who would become imbalanced and have a hard time getting back to a balanced ratio.

However, as things are now, those weak players are usually more balanced than the advanced players. I like the idea because it would force players to stay balanced if they want honor.. maybe there can be some sort of dual-system, one to encourage players to stay balanced (the exp bonus was supposed to do that, but it doesn't offer enough incentive), and another to encourage players to target those of similar exp level or something of that sort.

[Calyx of Isis]

Wouldn't it make more sense if people with balanced fight ratios got the bonus honor, rather than giving really good honor to someone else for attacking them?

I like this. The question is how to make it work. We already know that XP bonuses to the player with the more balanced ritual. Does anyone know how this bonus is determined? It is definitely situational and takes into account the two rituals and current statistics.

So we are looking for something similar for Honor?

It occurs to me that part of the issue is Manu's definition of honor. It's supposed to be a reflection of player strength, but I think we all agree that it is not an estimate of strength at all. Among other thing it does nothing to reflect the creature levels of an opponent. I think some of the heuristics used to compute XP bonus should be applied to computing honor. I don't think any of these relatively simple formulas will really work without a true comparison of the relative strengths of the two rituals.

The existing definition of honor does not mean what Manu says it does. Raw differences between wins and losses do not reflect strength, especially in a system where keeping wins and losses close is a requirement.

There is another curious thing. Pushing your honor up is necessary for certain MD purchases and other in-game stuff. This definitely runs counter to the requirement that one maintain balance. It's clear that Manu wanted this duality where concurrent goals oppose each other. I suspect Manu wants to maintain this tension, so any adjustment to honor and victory-loss computation must take this into account.

I learned as an MP3 that there were ways I could run up my honor while maintaining my win-loss balance. The change in game mechanics that comes when you hit MP4 makes this more difficult, but not impossible.

In real world high honor (reputation) comes from either a long string of wins, or a few wins against apparently stronger opponents. I think this is what Manu wanted. However in real world, balancing wins and losses is not the goal. Most people will tell you more is learned from failures than from successes. A long string of success does nothing to teach what to do in crisis. Manu is trying to force us to learn this way. The only question is, has he set the bar too high and how to lower it and how close the victory-loss ratio has to be to one.

One last thought: The max XP boundary is another. My first character hit the ceiling at 64 wins. My second character hit the ceiling at 34 wins. No more growth is possible yet I must fight on. The lesson here, I was too smart about getting XP bonuses. Growing XP too fast is an issue for MP3 and MP4. We need to learn to check the urge towards rapid advancement. As a student of a tribal shaman my grandmother was always trying to get me to slow down. In game we have slow regen and other things that force us to slow down and THINK.

Sorry about the length of this; once I start writing the ideas just keep surfacing and evolving.

[Glaistig]

Manu never went into how much, specifically, the exp bonus for fighting with a balanced counter is.

Extra combat reward for players keeping their fights balanced. If you keep your won/lost fight difference lower than 20 fights you get much more Xp and combat reward, up to 200% more than usual. For those who don't know, in this game your goal is to keep that balance steady, not to win like crazy, this is very uncommon for most of you , and as new players find it dificult to win, older players find it much more dificult to lose. At later stages, some players do afford to keep winning, but thats only for very few of you, (6mil xp +)

He later announced that the bonus for skill gain was halved.

Originally, there was no exp bonus for being balanced. The main incentive was so that you would be able to attack others without fearing great loss of honor. While honor may not indicate strength (and when you refer to "honor," I assume you mean the amount of honor one player gets attacking another), I believe Manu thought originally that the players who would give the most honor penalty to others were those who are weak and cannot defend themselves or get many wins: those who theoretically would get the most losses. However, instead, players farmed losses to get more honor.

[Calyx of Isis]

@Glaistig: You understood me correctly. Thanks for supply the quote from Manu.

The thing that attracted me to MagicDuel was the requirement for balancing wins and losses. I hate PvP, but MagicDuel is a dream scenario for me. The other thing that hooked me were the principles, ideas that underlaid all the teaching I received while a student of a tribal shaman.

[Glaistig]

If the balancing concept is going to work, it's not going to be with the current system. Right now, there is no reason to keep a balance, really. While the skill multiplier looks good, it pales in comparison to the honor loss one would receive because everyone else has a worse balance.

It could work if a considerable amount of others managed to keep a balance, but that's not likely without some sort of encouragement. And by encouragement, I mean something the game system could offer, not words of those who want to keep a balance.

[Calyx of Isis]

If the balancing concept is going to work, it's not going to be with the current system. ...

It could work if a considerable amount of others managed to keep a balance, but that's not likely without some sort of encouragement. And by encouragement, I mean something the game system could offer...

I am in complete agreement.