OMG You need a cookie, Amaru. Take one!

I have to say that I like the team nature of combat here. The spam is dreadful, I'll agree, but ultimately that's secondary. Fighting here is usually about something -- it is part of roleplay even though it often is against actually roleplaying.

And it points up another design thing about IRE in general and Lusternia even more, one I've nattered on about before. There's lots of mechanical things that encourage being part of a group instead of being a lone wolf, which is the opposite of many games' designs. Encouraging groups is encouraging roleplay opportunities and thus encouraging roleplay.

Now, I agree about needing hunting grounds on Prime for two reasons. First, hunting opportunities are way hugely skewed in favor of cities and against communes: they get elemental planes and Astral to hunt in. (So sure enough, the minute an area on Prime comes in that's good hunting, it's tightly linked in history to... a city. )

Second, I think the whole "PK off prime" thing is a mistake, particularly as things happening off prime become more and more important for the roleplay of our nations. Avenger Justice was a game feature, a selling point, and now Avechna has been so neutered by the "PK off prime" thing that he's just window dressing. So unless we change how PK changes on planes, people need a way out from between the Scylla of "just stay on prime if you don't like how much PK there is" and the Charybdis of "but everything's happening off-prime, all the good hunting is off-prime, all the activity is off-prime, all the money-making opportunities are off-prime...".

I guess this is a little bit of a hijack. Sorry, it all flowed together.

In Aetolia, team combat was as big of a deal as it is in Lusternia. Whereas there were always people who would fight 1-on-1, it really wasn't uncommon to find 10 people chasing you down (landmarking for example) the second (go go stupid rites, pathfinder, etc) you attacked someone.

That's true, but there was also a big "teamer" stigma there. I was working pretty hard to get the Sentinels to see "teamer" as a compliment before I left, but even there, it was an uphill battle. There's a little of that in Lusternia -- seems like every mental disease in any IRE game finds its way into any other -- but nowhere near as much. Teaming is the norm here.

Yay for teaming! In the Kharon, we viewed it as respect for our opponent's skills.

Its not that there is something wrong with teaming, its that there is never a solo fight. I love relying on allies as much as the next person but I mean ..there has to be a line.

Part of the problem is that PvP on the planes sucks. Astral PvP is a joke if you don't have a cubix, elemental PvP is stomping newbies, and ethereal PvP is who uses wisp better. No one is ever on the cosmic planes if they aren't making a pact.

Duels should be done in arena, that's the place.
It could be changed so everything is being used up just like outside of it (you'd have to outr herbs, refill pipes, you could run out of stuff). That would require restoring the character after the fight though, and I remember someone (Roark?) said there would be problems with implementing it.
Also, there could be an arena option of not restoring your status and inv after the spar, so it would have consequences - lost resources and exp (or gained), the only difference would be that you'd fight in limited area and noone could get involved.

And about spam reducing -

Meh, don't remind me, stupid Kharons in Achaea teamed me 3 to 1, claiming respect. And when I was a Mage, 3 Sorcerers teamed me as well. And Serpentlords have teamed me as well..I just realized Hashan was full of teamers.

The fact that the word "teaming" isn't part of Lusternia's vernacular says a lot if you ask me. There isn't even the expectation of a fair fight.

I enjoy my occasional duel with Amaru, as long as it's not too often, inquisition hurts.

We should design a special dueling spot, like what Matsuhama's temple arena gets used for in Achaea, to encourage duels. Couple rooms to run around in, like 6, one exit, and no way out untill forfeit is given, or one of the two dies..and people can watch, unlike in the arena.. on prime obviously, neutral territory.

Define fair.

I like that idea, perhaps taking that and making it into a mini-coloseum. All the rooms are monolithed and there are no exits until someone forfeits or dies. People can stand in the room and observed (under Divine Grace) but unable to communicate in anyway to the combatants, and also can perform ES and Diag to see the health/mana and status of the combatants without the combatants knowing.

I think the key to more 1v1 fighting is to have 1v1 conflicts, like perhaps inter-family and such where the cities and communes aren't involved, and the people who are could tell them it's personal and not to take part.

But that's all RP. Not to say it's bad at all. But you need the PLAYERS to work that out. Avenger was DESIGNED to allow this. Fewer suspects, more karma to curse. No suspects, were talking 75 karma. Not really worth it.

Ummm you mean like the midnight coliseum? or the Avenger Arena?, you know where you challenge someone to a duel?

He means more like psycombat. There's ONLY one room, NO exits.

Exactly like the arena, except the part where you actually die, use up herbs/potions and equipments, only 5 or 6 rooms total, and people could actually watch. So wait, no, not like the arena.

The thing about real duels, is when you kill your opponent, you gain exp, and the satisfaction of him losing exp, you don't get that in the arena.

You also can't spam smoking faeleaf or having everything permanently outrifted for easier curing, real combat is a huge difference to arena combat.