Blood Games

[Team Kaos]

Since being back for a couple weeks. I've begun to enjoy the Blood Games, a month long fight fest to see who has the best current fighter. very cool...Well done Nate...
My glads have held there own for the most part, they have not dominated nor have they looked the fool. However today, i took a look at the coming matchups for tomorrow and saw I have a match-up between Solstice and Anger Rising and I said.."wow. that sucks. I am guaranteed a loss."
Then as any manager would think, that has the ability to control his stable's destiny, "who should win and who should lose?" and "hey, this is a great chance at getting a valuable kill." A chance that could swing his points by 9 with a win and kill, and rocket either glad up the rankings into a possible 2nd place.

With the top 50 so cluttered with the same 10-15 managers or so (I don't know all the newer stables that each manager controls these days just yet) I cannot believe that this does not happen on a daily basis.

I am not saying that certain managers do or do not fix their fights, but when there is an opportunity to help yourself, I believe most will take that opportunity.

So my question is..."Is it a ok for teammates to fight each other in the Blood Games? And to a greater extent, is it OK for brother stables to fight each other.?"

I just see this as a fix du jour ...and likely already happening with the multitude of same stable and same manager fighters fighting each other.

Has this been addressed yet? I cannot be the first to think of this. Especially when such large awards and achievement bonuses are being given out for the winner each month.

[sevenseas]

Today Bigger Buzz fought Snot Rocket, and yesterday Bigger Buzz fought Silver Back, all 3 of which are in my Seven Seas stable...I didn't bother to fix the fights (I should have), but this is the first month I've been pitted against gladiators from my own stable. I don't know if it was just by chance that it hasn't happened before or if Nate did that so glads of the same stable can't protect each other.

I hate being forced to swallow a loss like that, but like you stated Kaos... it may be helpful.

I don't like it so much when brother stables fight either, but i see that more as as a known risk from running multiple stables.

[Dainoji]

This was actually addressed over a year ago, and looking back through the thread you had some thoughts to share which were basically, shame on the manager who does that.

http://forum.pitofwar.com/showthread.php?627-Looks-like-we-have-our-first-Don-King!&highlight=high+places

For those who don't care to read the thread the summary is - It's considering cheating to fix the fight, so don't do it.

[Prinny]

Ive had my glads fight eachother alot of time since the BG's began and no matter what rank they are I don't predetermine the fights even though I easilly could.
In my opinion indeed the loss is incredibly annoying however it also offers a rare chance to see my own gladiators fight eachother which normally can't happen which makes it awesome ;)
Besides I can figure out which gladiator will win before the fights stands anyway, Yukimaru Almaz vs Asatsuo for example will most likely be a win for Yukimaru unless Asatsuo gets lucky. it's also fun to let your gladiators go at it against eachother without any equipment at all (given you have enough spots to store both glads equipment)

[Team Kaos]

This was actually addressed over a year ago, and looking back through the thread you had some thoughts to share which were basically, shame on the manager who does that

So it seems. Don't really recall it, but there it is. Hard to remember a year ago. But at least I had the same mindset...I'm not much of a flip flopper...or at least I like to believe so.

Well, let's just hope that all managers have a Boy Scouts honor to do the right thing.

[sevenseas]

perhaps the boy scouts honor system could be used to give us the "deeper" skills we want from the other specialties at the change over...meaning : no skill requirements, just be honest and pick your skills....if you are found to be un-honest.... you lose your out-of-specialty skills and start over...paying this time.:o

[Cynaidh]

Its my opinion and maybe its not the popular opinion but their your glads, your their manager, if you want one of them to take a dive then do it, its called strategy.

And honestly how would anyone know if you took your say Rage and put his strategy on 1 - 1 parry-bash, he would lose but if he normally used bash no one could tell the difference by reading the fight anyways.

Just saying its possible.

[sevenseas]

I agree Cyn, I see nothing "dirty" about choosing who will lose those matches....if glads from the same stable cannot fight each other in BG matches then they are protecting each other and you get the "Narol" effect and no matter how you cut it some one isn't happy...

[Nate]

It's pretty simple really, the Blood Games are a tournament where the spirit is for the best gladiator to win given whatever format is being used. There are already other areas of the game where your own gladiators can not fight each other. It is no different than say the Olympics where in most sports countries enter more than one team and those teams often compete against each other (and knock each other out). Does cheating happen in the Olympics? Yes. Is is right? No. Is it strategy? Sometimes. Is it ethical? No, as it violates what the Olympics represents. Just go check out some youtube clips of China and South Korea both trying to lose the match in Badminton as it gave them an advantage to lose. It was pretty disgusting and as a result both teams were thrown out of the Olympics. In-game lore-wise the Blood Games are meant to be a tournament to honor the Blood Gods. Do you think they would look favorably on your gladiators knowing you spoiled their sacred tournament?

In a past life I was a competitive athlete in multiple sports and hobbies and had my phase of win at all costs regardless of the rules. Bend the rules as much as you can and if you break them just don't get caught. Then I realized if you play with that mind set you didn't really win, every win in your mind will have an asterisk by it. Am I naive to think everyone will play by the rules? No, but I do not think taking a dive happens often. We have a great community here and I believe everyone wants to do the right thing for the game, not only for themselves.

What it comes down to is does everyone want me to spend my time making new cool new content for the game or policing it? If cheating becomes a problem I can tell you right now that not only will we not get a lot of new content but we'll lose content and I don't think that is something anyone wants. The last thing most players want to do is play and compete in a game rife with cheating. I've actually had a lot of cool ideas like allowing gambling on the fights with Jimmy the Squid setting the odds based on your gladiator's past performance but that is open to so much cheating that it would tempt even the most honest among us so sadly that is a very cool addition that has been set aside. Eventually I'll figure out a way to get that into the game! ;)

As I mentioned earlier I think we have an awesome community who in general want to do what is best for the game which is a good thing as I don't have the time or resources to police the game 24/7/365 so I've always just asked the players to be like Fonzi and what's Fonzi like? Fonzi is cool. :cool: In the future if you have a chance to take a dive, I'm asking you not to. It's better for the game and it'll count as your good deed for the day!

Good luck in the Pits!

-Nate-

[sevenseas]

Easy enough, I think we are all mostly adults here...no problem....like Fonzie:cool:

[Narol]

Nate, to be honest, I hate cheaters and I don't think self-policing will work in that case...

Just look at the pit fights and how some people avoid fighting in the arena just to keep their glads low level (but doing all the tavern runs to get a max of skill points while getting very few xp at the same time) so they can score a lot of easy wins in the pit fight ?

This had happened for months and nothing changed, when it would have been easy to fix it just by raising seriously the xp you get from tavern runs to make them comparable to 1/2 arena fight...

Personnally I hate that and have quite given up fighting in such rigged pit fights that take lots of time for rarely any decent result...

[Prinny]

Well my Yukimaru and Laharl are matched up against eachother today and I took off all of their equipment and truth be told Laharl has an actual chance this way seeing as their health is about the same but Laharl has Last Stand which gives him a boost to that health making his higher and Yukimaru not having a fully completed 10-10 build. It's going to be fun to see the 2 of them go at eachother like this^^

And that's a shame Laharl lost, I was rooting for him :(