The Duel Arena was brought into RuneScape shortly after the end of the RS2 Beta. It was partially due to Jagex wanting to do something about players abusing the "Duel anywhere" option back in RuneScape Classic in order to get a free teleport to Lumbridge.[source needed] The introduction of the Home Teleport spell (and more recently the release of the Lodestone network), however, has removed the benefit from such a technique.
Location
Entering the arena grounds.File:Duel-ring.pngTeleport to the Duel Arena via the Ring of duelling.
The arena is located North-east of Al-Kharid. It is fenced off from the rest of the area. Players can also rub a Ring of duelling to teleport directly to the arena entrance. This saves on having to walk from far away, although using an Amulet of Glory to teleport to the Al-Kharid palace is another viable option along with the Lumbridge Home Teleport as it is close to the Duel Arena.
The main building is located along the northern fence of the arena. This is where the majority of players stay to challenge others. There are a good number of surgeons there that can heal a player when needed. There is also an altar in the eastern side of the building. The abilities to heal and recharge prayer are somewhat useless though, as when a player enters a duel, all statistics are restored to their normal levels. Outside the eastern side of the building are two bank chests as well as a banker. This banker, though, does not have the capability to return lent items. He can also sell rotten tomatoes to you for throwing at players. Immediately below, is the Head Registrar for Duel Tournaments.
To fight another player, players must right-click their intended opponent and select the "Challenge" option. This will tell that player that someone wishes to duel with them, and they accept by challenging that player in return.
To fight another player, players must right-click their intended opponent and select the "Challenge" option. The player must then select whether it is a friendly or staked duel. This will tell that player that someone wishes to duel with them, and they accept by challenging that player in return.
This will open the duelling options screen, which defines the parameters for the battle. The screen shows the name and combat level of the opponent, as well as what each player is offering up for a "bet", or a "stake". Free-to-play players can only bet up to 40000 coins or items worth up to 40000 coins. Pay-to-play players can bet limitless amount of money, or items in any value. Finally, there are 11 different options that can be turned on or off and are adjustable by either player. These are detailed as follows:
No Ranged: No ranging weaponry can be equipped during the battle.
No Melee: Players cannot engage in hand-to-hand combat, including bare fists/feet.
No Special Attacks: Special attacks cannot be used.(Members option only)
Fun Weapons: The only allowed Weapons are the Rubber chicken, Flowers, Mouse toy, and other items that have very negative combat bonuses. Bare fists are not allowed, nor are snowballs as they are not able to cause any damage.
No Forfeit: Players cannot escape the arena; the fight lasts until one player dies.
No Drinks: Players cannot drink anything that boosts stats, such as Potions. All stats that are boosted prior to the fight are reset to their default values once the fight begins. This is available on free servers as well, as a free player can obtain a Strength potion.
No Movement: Players can't move during the battle, and they start next to each other, which means they can still use melee.
Obstacles: The arena becomes like a mini-maze during the fight, also the fighting area is separated from the obstacle-free one.
Summoning Enabled: Players are allowed to summon during the battle. This is also separated from the obstacle-free and obstacle arena(s).(Members option only)
Some of the options can't be combined; for instance, having no ranged, melee, or magic makes it impossible to fight.
It is also possible to take equipped items off on this screen, rangers should be careful not to check off shield if they intend to use a bow.
When the battle begins, players are teleported into the arena itself with a 3-second countdown before the fighting actually begins. If "No Forfeit" was not checked off, players who are losing (or simply wish to end the duel early) can retreat through one of the trapdoors, ending the battle immediately. Anything staked is awarded to the other player. When a player's opponent has a weapon that is faster than the speed of a longsword (For example,Darts & Throwing knives set on Rapid), it is relatively difficult, if not impossible, to forfeit, as the screen to confirm "Yes", disappears when attacked.
After reciting "3-2-1-Fight!", the players run towards each other, ready to attack. A skull is shown in the bottom of the screen. This skull means that you are engaging in Player killing. There is a chance of rotten tomatoes, from Pelter's Veg Stall, being thrown at you by anyone in the audience. This will, however, cause no damage to either person duelling. When in the duel, you can only fight players with a yellow arrow above them, signalling they are your opponents. You can still click the "Fight" option for other players, but you are not allowed to fight them.
After the battle ends, players are transported back to the building beside the arena and all the stats are healed, along with fully recharged running energy (poison and stat-reducing effects are negated as well). Any ranged weapons that fell to the ground are automatically returned to the owner, if the ranger had no inventory space, the arrows would drop to the ground, ready to be picked up by the ranger only. If there was a stake, the victor claims the prize(s). When you die you only lose the items you staked.
Near the gate and outside the main building, are scoreboards, where players can view the last 50 battles on that server. The scoreboards show the combat levels of the combatants and who won the round. The scoreboard automatically updates every five minutes.
The results of the fights.
Watching a Duel
If you walk up the brown wood ramps leading up the Arena wall, you'll be in a network of walkways on top of the walls of the various Arena rooms. You can get a good view of the fights from up here. If you right click on a certain part of wall, you'll be given a "Lean on Wall" option. If you select it, you will get a close up view of the battles. You can exit this window by clicking the X in the smaller sub-window by the minimap. People who High Alch like to come here to watch the duels for entertainment. There is a bank for them to restock nearby.
A player watching the duels from the "Lean on" option. You can use the arrow keys to move the view.
Maxing
Many people use the duel arena to find their max hit. It helps if your opponent has a very low defence against the combat style you're using.
Tournaments was discontinued from RuneScape after an update.
On 20 November, 2007, Jagex added a new way of participating in the Duel Arena by adding a tournament mode. Up to 64 players can compete and the entry fee is based on the registrar the tournament is being held from; up to 1 million coins on register 5 for a 64 player tournament.
In the Tournament dungeon, 5 registrars hold 5 different tournaments with random rules varying on difficulties. The rules might include food or potion usage, healing between rounds and special attacks, although some rules never change.
All combat styles are always allowed (to discourage real world trading) and there are rarely ever obstacles. Additionally, winning or losing against a player will affect the winner's and loser's tournament rank. If a weak player loses against a high levelled player the tournament points won or lost won't be of much significance.
Tournaments are also restricted with a range of tournament ranks allowed; the tournament value depends on the set of rules and the rank range allowed. It also affects the players rank more or less at the end of the tournament respecting to its value.
On 20 October 2009, Jagex reworked the Duel Tournaments in response to player feedback asking for fairer fights. As a result, registrars are now assigned on entry to the waiting area based on a player's highest status in strength/range/magic. Although Jagex claims it is based on combat level, this can be easily disproven by the fact level 70s are assigned to registrar 5.
Each registrar now has a rank cap limit, incrementing in 500s; Registrar 1 has a rank cap of 1999, Registrar 4 has a cap of 3499, and Registrar 5 has no rank cap. Ranks are now secured at every 500 milestone. If a player has a rank of 1754, said player cannot fall below a rank of 1500.
Rewards have also been affected: first place in a tournament will only receive 80% of entry fees, and second place now receives 20%.
With the Wilderness & Free trade updates on 1 February 2011, the tournaments were removed from the game. Jagex has stated that it was not providing the service that players and Jagex wanted, and it was better to remove it overall.<ref>Mod Hohbein. "Wilderness & Free Trade Q&A". 02-Feb-2011 10:14:25. RuneScape Forums. *</ref>.
On 20 November2007, during the tournament update, Jagex set a limit of 3,000 gold (or items value thereof) per stake, per every 15 minutes, claiming that this would make Real world trading difficult. This move was heavily criticised by players, especially since it also hurt legitimate players. On 30 September2008, the limit was raised to 5,000 coins and 60,000 coins depending on quest points. For free-to-play, the limit was up to 10,000 coins. On 1 February2010, the trade limit was updated again. Friends with each other's names on the friends list for over 1 month will have their trade limit doubled when trading with each other, tripled if over 2 months, and quadrupled if over 3 months. However, the limit will reset if one accidentally removes the friend from their list.
However, Jagex has lifted the limit of dueling for members. All members can now again stake a limitless amount of money. All F2P duels encounter a limit of 40,000 coins.
Trivia
Setting ranged on, arrows off and movement off, the game was fooled and players stood facing each other unable to attack, making the duel never ending. It was also used as a scam, with a duel set to only ranged, movement off, and at the last second arrows off, one player used knives while the other player couldn't use a bow. This is no longer possible. However, as there are many ways to create this scenario, the situation itself can still occur.
Entering a duel with movement turned off between two melee players, one used the "fetch" interaction with a pet rock to be able to move, and could then range or mage their opponent to death. This is no longer possible.
"Snowball fights" are sometimes (but rarely) used as scams. Players would each stake items and set no melee, ranged, magic and fun weapons. The idea of this was that the opponent would eventually give up and forfeit, losing the stake. Setting no forfeit as well would make it time out.
Just under 25,000 players are ranked in the tournament hiscores because it requires 1800 or more points.
Both Ice amulet and the snow imp it summons are not allowed into duelling, though they actually have no effect in combat. They are from 2008 Christmas event. The snow imps are now unable to be summoned (after the 2008 Christmas event ended).
Talk to Fadli to buy rotten tomatoes at 1 gold piece each. Rotten tomatoes can only be thrown at people duelling in the arena. The rotten tomatoes won't do any damage and it will most likely miss the person you are aiming at.
The Duel Arena is the only F2P minigame that has no official world for free players.
Setting Summoning on and Obstacles on, you are told that familiars will get stuck. This could cause problems when doing Treasure Trails and using a meerkat familiar for the co-ordinates clue.
If you win enough matches you can upgrade a duellist's cap.
Glitches
There is a glitch when you are leaning on the walls outside the arena. If a player is standing next to you while you are leaning on the wall, you are able to do this glitch. You right click the player next to you and select challenge. Then you click the 'x' in the top right corner of the challenge box. You will now see that your player has turned to the other player but is still in the leaning position. If you do any emotes while in that position, then you might not finish your emote, or if there are item-related emotes (such as Idea) then you will continue to be in the position whilst the item appears.
File:Challenge glitch.pngA player having the ability to challenge another player outside the Duel Arena.There is a glitch where if a player has a slow connection and gets disconnected during a fight, then he would get a "Fight [Player Name]" option outside of duel arena. This is not a dangerous glitch as the player cannot fight any other players.
There is a glitch where if you do the dance emote and then accepts a challenge the game says "You cannot initiate a duel while wearing a/an (insert head gear)"
There was a glitch that allowed members to go in the Duel Arena when they logged on a free world, even though it was members-only at that time. A few weeks later, the Duel Arena also opened its doors for free players, which removed the glitch.
If you hold any noted item, it says you are not allowed certed items. This is what notes were back in RuneScape Classic. This is not a glitch, it's simply as used to prevent confusion as 'noted' items remain named the same as their 'un-noted' counterparts. (IE 'You cannot take the following item into the tournament as you won't need them: Lobster', would confuse players.)
There was a glitch where members could continuously stake 240,000 coins without the 15 minute wait during the trade limit period. This was done by having both players stake equal amounts (240,000 coins). After each duel, the 2 players could stake duel each other again for another 240,000 coins, without the 15 minute cooldown. This has been fixed.
