06. Fighting & Judging
02-26-2019, 01:16 PM
Tier 1 Fighting Guide
When entering a fight there are many things to consider, but in terms of what the judges look for, there are 5 basic categories you need to worry about. Clarity, Power-Playing, Defenses, Attacks and Injuries. This guide provides a definition for each category and addresses common issues within the categories so that players can learn how to maximize their points and know what to avoid when they have a character in a fight.
1. The single most important thing to keep in mind when your character is in a fight is to remember that the fight is in-character and that rude behavior out-of-character will not be tolerated by staff. Fights add intrigue to Ardent. You will win some, and you will lose some, but never take a fight personally.
2. The second most important thing to understand is that though our judges may vary slightly in style or severity our judges know how to tell the difference between victor and loser. Unless the scores were very close or you feel the judge was biased, please do not request a re-judge and please do not complain. You should never take a judging verdict personally. If you strongly believe that bias influenced the result of your fight you may request a re-judge, however, you must list wherever you believe points were unfairly deducted in each round and category. Judgments are final and judges are under no obligation to answer questions about the results of the judging. If you feel the judgment is unfair, you may bring it to the attention of staff, but harassment of judges will not be tolerated.
3. Please note that once a judge is assigned to your fight you cannot change your mind about whether you want that judge to judge your fight or not. So be clear in whom you may not want to judge your fight when you post a judgement request.
4. Please note, once you post your official fight (starting from round 1) you are unable to make edits to your post, else you risk being defaulted. If you made a coding error, or something small, you must first ask your opponent if they are okay with you editing the post to fix the error. Secondly, it is best to ask either a Tier 1 judge, or a staff member to oversee the edit. And be sure to leave an OOC note at the end of your post stating that you got approval from both a judge/staff member and your opponent.
Clarity
Clarity is one of the most important aspects when a fight is judged. If a post is clearly written it can prevent points being taken away for lacking defenses, ineffective attacks and power-playing. If you take your time to read through your reply before posting, it you can improve your attacks and defenses, improve the realism of your post, and re-think phrases in your post that may seem close to power-playing. A single proof-read can improve your post from good to well-thought out.
1. You should be clear about what your character is doing in his/her defenses and attacks, his/her position and his/her movements. Remember if your character is head on with another character, his/her left is on the opposite side of the other character. Also remember to use names, especially when your opponent is the same sex as your character.
2. You do not need to be extremely specific, in fact being too specific can lead to power-playing, but you need to be clear and concise. For example: "A attacked B." is much less clear than "A attacked B's leg." yet you can further improve this statement by writing "A attacked the middle of B's right foreleg." If your statement is extremely broad you, as in "A attacked B anywhere on his body" then you should expect to lose points for lack of clarity.
1. If you are confused you must talk to your opponent. If for some reason you cannot reach them then you should contact an upper level judge. Never, ever assume anything about your opponent's post if you are confused about. And never draw conclusions from talking to anyone who is not your opponent or a judge. Any comments in your posts that state "I was confused.", "I assumed this.", or "I was told by so and so to do this" will be ignored and you will have points taken away if your post is found to break Power-Playing rules.
Power-Playing
There is often a lot of confusion regarding what is considered power-playing and what is not considered power-playing. The severity of points taken away depends on how severe the infraction, but there are a couple of basic power-playing types to avoid.
The phrase "attempted" has become rather over used in fighting posts. It is necessary to note that regardless of how many times you use this phrase in your thread you can STILL power play. Please do not sass judges by underlining the word in your fighting threads. In fact, over use of this phrase often leads to power-playing.
Try not to assume anything about the other character. If you have trouble understanding your opponent's post do your best to contact that player. Do not ask other players for their interpretations nor rely on your own interpretations if you are confused.
Although it is good to give the other player the option to react to an attack, repeatedly using statements such as "If A's paw hits B's ear, then A will bite his face." can easily lead to power-playing and confusion. Let's say that the other player's first move lands differently than intended, you are now conflicted with whether or not you should ignore the following move. Please be clear and simple in your attacks and use a variety of phrases to describe them.
Multiple attacks are good to use in your fighting posts and this note is not meant to discourage them. However when a player uses too many consecutive attacks in their post it makes it difficult for the other player to react to all of them especially if these attacks are nested, as discussed above. Multiple attacks in a post can often be unrealistic within the time period they are made. They can also cause confusion for the other player. When incorporating multiple attacks in your post think 'complexity' and not 'multiplicity'. Using the same body part twice in the same post is generally too much. For instance, you should not use jaws twice, the same paw twice, etc.
1. These include landing complete attacks on the other player without allowing them a response, using unrealistic or overly powerful attacks, completely ignoring or dodging another player's attacks, impossible attacks/defenses, and assuming god-like characteristics for one's characters.
2. Another common power play is when a player does not assume damage for all of the attacks their opponent made in their last post. You must acknowledge damage for any attacks made in your opponent's most recent fighting post.
3. Something players should keep in mind is if their character constantly gets in fights, they will have unhealed wounds from old fights. These should be acknowledged in any future fights.
4. Another power play that often happens is when a character is stated as this: "A prepared and then closed the distance between himself and B". That assumes B did not move, which is an unfair power play. Make sure to give your opponent the room to react.
Defenses
Of all the other categories this is the one players lose the least amount of their points in. The defenses that judges look for are the ones a player uses to defend and to prepare their character in regards to impending attacks. However, defenses must be appropriate to your character's positioning and possible with whatever your character is doing, so they will be specific to each situation. Defensive actions should realistically accomplish the stated goal - a listed defense will not be valid if it would not actually work in the manner that was claimed.
You can dodge attacks within reason, but it has to be realistic and the majority of attacks should result in damage.
Attacks
This is the category that makes the difference between the winner and loser in a fight. Consequently it is rather difficult to get a perfect attack score. Of course categories that commonly have large point losses such as Power-Playing and Clarity have a large impact in fights, but point loss in these categories can be avoided. In the attack category the experience and intuition of the player is the only source of points.
1. The realism of an attack is important. When you are making an attack ask yourself whether or a not the attack is possible or efficient given the physicality of a wolf. Remember that the most dangerous part of a wolf is their jaws, that their limbs are for the most part stiff and less mobile, and that their claws are not as sharp as other species. Also make sure to ask yourself what is realistic in response to what is happening to your character and the time span you have in which to react.
This subject was briefly brought up earlier in the power-playing section. You will always get more points for a complex and concise attack move than for multiple, small attack moves. Using too many attack moves, as you must know already, can easily lead to confusion and power-playing. For example, "A bumped B with his chest while attempting to bite his face." is a better attack than "A attempted to bite B's face, then attempted to bite his neck, then attempted to kick him."
Injuries
The amount of points deducted for injuries are always round-based. Any damage your character takes in Round 2 will be deducted from your Round 2 judgement, this deduction does not carry on into your third round but any damage your character takes in Round 3 will be deducted from their Round 3 judgement. No points are deducted from either player in the first round. The amount of points deducted will vary depending on the severity of the injury. Note that bite wounds and attacks made to vulnerable areas will always result in more points being deducted.
1. It is your responsibility to respond to your opponent's attacks. You choose where they land exactly and what extent of damage that attack has done. A good idea is to simply classify damage as "light, moderate, or severe". Specifying functionality (i.e. if a leg could still bare weight or not) of the area is also good, as it helps gauge exactly what the wolf is still capable of.
2. Please be realistic with landings and extent of damage to avoid power-playing on your part. If you fail to acknowledge an attack from your opponent, your opponent is then allowed to assume where the attack that you ignored landed and the extent of damage that attack caused.
3. When countering attacks your opponent's attack should land within reason of where that attack was intended to hit. For example "A aimed for B's right forelimb." should result in damage somewhere on that limb. If you have attacks land in a dramatically different place than where they were intended you will lose points. Also make sure not to dramatically change the positioning of the fight in one post.
4. If your character made an attack in your last round that was not acknowledged by your opponent in their consecutive reply, then you may assume where that attack landed and the damage caused by the attack. However, please do not assume an unrealistic or unfair amount of damage to avoid power-playing.