Friendly duels and the training yard

The moment

Your friend swears their new gear makes them stronger than you. There's one way to find out: challenge them to a duel. Nobody has to lose a level, no gear gets left behind — just the bragging rights, and a story about who blinked first.

How a duel starts

• Right-click another player (or press E on their card with a crosshair or a pad) and choose Duel, or tap the sword icon on their card on the Players screen.
• They have to say yes. A challenge only reaches someone standing close by, and it expires if they don't answer.
• Duels only exist in worlds where fighting is set to Duels — the everyday default for Adventure, Explore and Survival worlds. In Cozy and Creative worlds fighting is off completely, so there's nothing to challenge. On the Hardcore preset, made for teens, everyone can already fight anyone, so there's no need to ask first.

Both gators get a "Duel! The first one knocked out loses" banner the moment the other agrees.

While it's on

• The duel ends the moment either gator is knocked out, gives up, walks far apart, or leaves the world.
• It's friendly sparring: losing a duel never costs you experience, even in a world where getting knocked out usually does — that penalty is handed straight back.
• The village is a safe zone: step inside it and no hit lands on either of you, duel or not. Take the fight out into the open first.

What you can do about it

• Say no. A duel only starts once both players agree — nobody can be dragged into one. If you'd rather no one fought at all, ask your world's host to pick Cozy or Creative, which turn fighting off world-wide (see Family safety features).
• Warm up first. Before you accept, or before you go looking for a fight at all, head to the training yard and see what your hits really do.
• Give up any time. A duel going badly isn't a loss you have to sit through — yield, and it's over.

The training yard

Every village keeps a training yard: a sandy ring with a low wooden fence and three straw dummies, close to the plaza. Hit a dummy with anything — a weapon swing, an ability, a thrown spell — and it shows the exact damage landing, plus how much you're doing per second over the last few hits.

• The dummy is as close to unbreakable as it gets: it never falls, and gives no experience for hitting it.
• Practising on it still trains your combat skills, at half the usual rate — every skill except magic, which the dummy doesn't train at all.
• It's the one place to test a new weapon, a fresh piece of gear, or an ability's real numbers before you carry them into a duel, a dragon fight, or anything that bites back.

Where next

• Family safety features — turning fighting off for the whole world, and the safety controls around it.
• Combat and elements — how a hit lands, crits, and reading an attack.
• The gear ladder — gear and powers worth trying on the dummy before you wear them into battle.
• Making friends — the friend you just duelled might be worth a gift too.