Duels

Duels are Teldaria's way of settling a fight properly. You challenge another player, both of you pick what you are willing to lose, and the server drops you into a private arena where nothing you own is actually at risk except the stake you agreed to. Win and you take the whole pot. Lose — by dying, by running out of the arena, or by logging off mid-fight — and it all goes to your opponent.

Everything runs through one command, /tduel, and every player has access to it by default. Duel messages are tagged [tDuels] in chat. There is no ranked ladder, no rating and no matchmaking queue: you either challenge someone directly, or you post an open challenge to a board and wait for a taker. Your wins, losses, streaks and total winnings are tracked in a personal stats menu.

Starting a Duel

Type /tduel <player> to challenge someone who is online. The request is not sent straight away: you first pick the arena you want to fight in and a kit (or the No kit option), and only then does the challenge go out. When the other player accepts, you are both teleported to the arena you picked.

Your target gets a message with a clickable [Accept] chip, and the chip shows how long they have left to use it. They can also type /tduel accept themselves. If more than one person has challenged them, plain /tduel accept is refused and lists the names — they then have to specify with /tduel accept <player>.

Requests do not hang around forever. A request lapses after about 60 seconds, and you must wait 10 seconds between sending requests — spam it and you get "You're currently on cooldown for sending duel requests!" There is no command to decline a request; you either accept it or let it expire.

A challenge is refused outright if:

• You aim it at yourself.
• The target is already in a duel, or you are.
• The target has switched duel requests off (see Turning Duel Requests Off) — you get "That player has duels toggled off!"

Members of the same party are allowed to duel each other on Teldaria, and party friendly-fire protection is switched off for the length of the match so the hits actually land.

Choosing a Kit

The kit you pick in the challenge menu decides what both of you fight with. There is no forced default kit on Teldaria — the choice is always yours in the menu.

• A kit replaces both players' inventories completely for the match — every slot, armour and off-hand included. Your own gear is stored safely and handed back the moment the duel ends.
• No kit means you both fight with exactly what you are carrying.

TODO: list the duel kits available on the live server and what gear each one contains. Kits are created by staff from their own inventory, so they are not fixed in stone.

TODO: confirm whether any arena restricts which kits may be used in it.

The Stake Screen

Accepting a direct challenge opens a shared Duel stake window. Both players are looking at the same window at the same time, and every change one of you makes shows up instantly on the other's screen. The duel starts only when both players have clicked Ready.

Your two stakes are completely independent — they do not have to match. You can wager a pile of items against nothing at all if you like. Whoever wins collects both sides' money and both sides' items.

Staking Money

Money moves in fixed steps on the gold ingot in your half of the window — there is no way to type an exact amount, so wagers are built out of 100s and 1000s.

If you try to click Ready while your balance no longer covers your own money stake, you are blocked with "You can't afford your own money stake." The check is run again the instant the duel would start: if either side can no longer pay, the duel simply does not begin and nothing is taken from anyone.

TODO: check whether staff impose a wager cap — the duel system itself enforces no minimum and no maximum beyond what you can afford.

Staking Items

To add items you click the stacks in your own inventory while the stake window is open. What appears in the window is only a copy — your real items never leave your inventory while you are still setting up, so nothing is ever at risk until the fight actually begins. Each side has room for 20 stacks.

Ready, and Backing Out

Any change to either side's stake — money or items — instantly un-readies both players. Nobody can slip a change past you after you have already readied up.

Closing the stake window with ESC, or disconnecting while it is open, cancels the whole thing for both players and costs nothing at all. Your opponent's window closes too.

Open Challenges

If you do not have anyone specific in mind, post an open challenge with /tduel open [wager] [kit] and let someone come to you.

Open challenges work a little differently to direct ones:

• The wager is matched — both players stake the same amount of money.
• No items can be wagered this way; money only.
• The wager is optional and defaults to zero — plain /tduel open posts a friendly no-stakes challenge. If you name a wager you must be able to afford it when you post, but nothing is taken from you until somebody actually accepts.
• You can only have one open challenge at a time. Posting a new one replaces your old one.
• Your challenge disappears automatically when you log off, and you cannot accept your own.
• /tduel cancel takes your challenge down.

Browse everyone else's with /tduel list (or /tduel gui). The board shows each open challenger as a player head labelled with their kit and wager; clicking a head accepts that challenge and starts the duel immediately, so be sure before you click.

Watch the argument order. The hint printed on an empty challenge board reads /tduel open [kit] [wager], but the command actually takes the wager first: /tduel open [wager] [kit]. The /tduel help text has it right.

Inside the Arena

Duels are fought in arenas built by staff, and the challenger picks which one when sending the request. There is no warp to an arena; you are teleported there when the duel starts. Only one duel runs in an arena at a time, and the arena is claimed at the moment the duel actually starts — when both of you click Ready, or when an open challenge is accepted. If no arena is available then, the duel does not begin: "No duel arena is available right now."

When the duel starts you are teleported to your arena spawn and cleaned up so that both sides begin equal: all potion effects are removed, any fire on you is put out, your gamemode is set to Survival, hunger and saturation are filled, and your health is set to maximum.

Then comes a 10-second countdown. You are frozen in place for it (you can still look around) and neither player can deal damage. When it hits zero you both hear an anvil slam and see Fight!

A few things worth knowing once the fight is on:

• PvP between the two of you is forced on for the duration of the duel, party protection included.
• Leaving the arena is an instant forfeit. Step outside the boundary and your opponent wins on the spot. Arenas with proper corner bounds set by staff use those bounds; arenas without them fall back to a radius of 15 blocks from the arena centre.
• There is a 120-second time limit. A duel that runs past two minutes is cancelled with "The duel was cancelled because it lasted too long." — no winner, both stakes refunded, and a draw recorded for both of you.

TODO: document the arenas on the live server — where they are, how many there are, and therefore how many duels can run at once. Arena definitions are stored server-side rather than in a readable settings file.

What You Cannot Do During a Duel

While a duel is running you cannot:

• Open any container, ender chest, shop, backpack or trade menu.
• Click or drag anything in any inventory.
• Drop items, or pick items up off the ground.
• Interact with entities such as item frames, armour stands or villagers.

Swapping to your off-hand — shields, totems — still works normally.

Duel Timings and Limits

These are the values the live Teldaria server actually runs with.

How a Duel Ends

TODO: confirm what happens if both duellists disconnect at the same instant, and whether staff have a way to force-end a stuck duel.

What You Get Back

Duels are designed so that you never lose anything you did not deliberately wager.

• Dying in a duel drops nothing and costs no XP. Your items do not hit the ground, and your pre-duel inventory is put straight back after you respawn.
• At the end of every duel you are returned to exactly where you were and your pre-duel state is restored: inventory including armour and off-hand, location, health, hunger and XP. Potion effects you picked up during the duel do not carry out with you.
• Disconnecting or being kicked mid-duel counts as a loss. Your opponent wins and takes the pot; your own gear is waiting for you the next time you log in.
• If you are offline when a duel settles, your money is deposited anyway and any item winnings are handed to you the next time you join.
• If the server crashes or restarts during a duel, that duel is voided on the next startup. Both players get their own stake and their pre-duel inventory back, even if they were offline at the time.

Announcements

A duel with a stake on either side is announced to the whole server — "X defeated Y and won [Winnings]!" — with a hoverable [Winnings] chip listing the exact money amount and every item that changed hands.

A friendly duel with nothing staked on either side is not broadcast. Only players within 30 blocks of the arena see the result — "X has DEFEATED Y in a duel!" — so you can practise without the whole server watching.

Duel Stats

/tduel stats opens your personal duel record; /tduel stats <player> opens someone else's. Only players who are currently online can be looked up.

Two details worth remembering: a draw does not break your win streak, and "Money won" counts money only — items you won are not valued into that number, and your own refunded stakes never inflate it.

The duel system keeps no rating, ranked mode, matchmaking queue, spectator mode or best-of-three series. The personal record above is the only thing it tracks.

TODO: confirm whether duel wins feed into anything else on Teldaria — titles, quests, achievements, skills or a public leaderboard. Nothing beyond the stats above is tracked by the duel system itself.

Turning Duel Requests Off

Duel requests can be switched off from the Duel Requests toggle in /settings. With it off, anyone challenging you is told "That player has duels toggled off!" and the request never reaches you.

Commands

Every command below is available to all players.

Only /tduel is registered — there is no shorter /duel alias.

See Also

• Parties — grouping up with other players.
• Coin Flip — the other Teldaria wagering feature.
• Master Command List — every command on the server.
• Warps — getting around the world.