We have significantly changed the way we calculate Duel Stats, to try and enhance competitive dueling in the game while also keeping rankings within the realm of sanity.

- We are now scaling the K-factor by the duel rating. The original K-factor is still used between 1000 and 1999, allowing people to quickly gain (or lose) duel rating points. Between 2000 and 2399, half the original K-factor is now used, making making people ranked in that area less volatile in their changes (increases are slower, but so are decreases). Above 2400, the K-factor drops to 1/4 the original, further reducing volatility for the top-rated players. This slows the process of rank inflation, but still keeps relative ranks comparable between strong players.

- Combat Level 4 is now required to be rated in Duels. Players under that may participate in Duels, but will neither give nor receive any changes in rating. This is to allow new people a little breathing room to learn, and also to prevent trivial exploitation of duel rating by continually fighting trial account characters (still possible, just now more involved).

- Rating lower limit is now clamped to 900. This was done to allow people who have experienced many duel losses to recover more quickly if they desire, instead of bottoming out all the way to zero. At the same time, since continually defeating these opponents would not diminish as quickly (as the rating is now clamped), we had to artificially reduce the amount of ratings gain that could be accrued by defeating someone with a rating under 1000. So, there is now another special K-factor for situations where a person over 1000 defeats a person under 1000; in that case the K-factor is reduced to 1/2 of normal for the winning person of over-1000 rating. If a person under 1000 rating should win, their K-factor will be unchanged, so they will gain quickly. If two people under 1000 should Duel, their K-factor will also remain normal, allowing the usual fast gains and losses. People with a rating of 900 are no longer listed on the main Duel Ranking page, although they still show up under the individual wins/losses. Hopefully allowing people to recover from a losing streak more quickly will help increase dueling activity.

For more information, see the related thread.