Totally feeling that hit a minute later...
Hit taking is the most obvious place where mistakes happen. It's why trying to proactively communicate is so important as it can defuse a bad situation before it happens. That having been said from time to time a person just has so much adrenaline going through them that when they say they didn't feel a thing they aren't lying even though someone hit them with more then sufficient force for it to be a good swing. Sometimes after you walk away from a fight you'll feel a sting that wasn't there before. This tends to be a good sign that someone, at some point, killed you. If you notice RIGHT after a fight is over, do the good thing, tell them they're alive, call your shot late and try again the next round. If you notice the shot and the round is over, go talk to to the person who you think landed that hit and apologize, tell them it was good and it just took you a while to notice. If that person is dead a while back, or you don't know when you got hit just drop dead on the spot, at the very least that means you aren't tipping the tides of the battle as a corpse. Mistakes happen and that's just the reality of it all. If you find that this happens to you often though, it might be time to spend some time working on your shot taking so that you're more aware of the shots you get hit with. Once you have a bad reputation for shrugging hits its difficult to reverse that trend even if you've become honorable in the interim. As a general rule it takes about 2 weeks of time to change a perception with people you fight with all the time of good behavior to erase a bad reputation, and that's 2 weeks of consistently doing everything right. If you aren't perfect or people don't fight with you as often it can take much longer.
Right to the face...
Face shots happen and are unfortunate. Sometimes they happen even when you take perfectly safe swings. While those may not be your fault you should still endeavor to handle them graciously by taking a step back and ensuring your opponent is okay before you keep unloading swings on them. Sometimes though face shots are TOTALLY your fault. You were the guy who took a 12 to 6 with a glaive and maybe you were aiming for a shoulder but it came right down on their dome. Maybe you were throwing a shot with a blue for a shoulder pick and you hit them in the side of the head. Maybe you were throwing a shot on a fighter coming up behind you. Whatever the case is, if you've thrown a shot that your opponent in no way drove into their head the above becomes even more true. Take a step back, make sure they're okay and then DON'T THROW THAT SHOT AGAIN. I cannot count the number of times that a person has thrown an unsafe swing to either my, or some other fighters face, only to then throw the EXACT same swing multiple more times, often leading to multiple more head shots. If you find that a particular shot is often hitting people in the face then it's time to stop throwing that swing. Take some time to learn with a pell, practice the shot in slow motion, and then when you do go to try to throw that shot on other fighters again throw it without much force until you're positive you can control it. That way at least if you make a mistake again you aren't trucking a person right in the face.
Miscommunication
Sometimes you haven't made any real mistakes, but you've communicated something in a way that is confusing. You've called armor multiple times without specifying the target location so that people know you aren't cheating, you've called "good" to refer to a shot but not to say dead and they are confused, or you've taken a moment to think about a shot and a person has confused this with you being dead. Whatever it happens to be just make sure that you fix that miscommunication before continuing to fight. If a person thinks you're dead because of your miscommunication make sure you let them know you're alive before hitting them in the back. This is different from backing someone. If they know that you're alive and you've simply gotten behind them without them noticing that's a totally legit kill. This is in the case where a person was aggressing on you and they've backed off because they think you're dead, either because you've backed off or because you are displaying a dead person's behavior (like weapon on head) and THEN you hit them in the back. What you communicate to that individual with that bad communication/bad behavior is that they should simply wail on you until you call dead, and generally speaking no one wants to be hit repeatedly after they've already died. So! If you appear dead and then step back in for whatever reason just let them know. If you're wearing armor and someone steps up to fight you, tell them the state of your armor and where it is so they aren't confused when you call it. If you get hit in your armor make sure you call not just armor but also which piece is broken.
It's not the mistakes that matter...
Perception is infinitely more important then reality. What a person thinks is the case will ultimately determine how they behave much more then the truth of what actually unfolded. When a person's perceptions don't match reality that's when there tends to be problems. If you can communicate to a person what happened that will often change their perception of reality which may be enough to fix whatever aggravation they are feeling. Failing that, if a person believes (correctly or not) that you made a mistake, and you can be gracious about it that may also alleviate their aggravation. This is one of those things where it's less about what happened and more about how it's handled. Being friendly, owning up to mistakes, and keeping to a positive attitude will make the game more fun for everyone because there will always be mistakes.
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