My argument has always been early game and mid game in hysteria is absolutely meaningless... The last time there was a big hysteria thread, I told people to look at Komo's recent hysteria replays, and my point was proven... No matter what you do early and mid game, you gain very little, if not any, advantage... doesn't that seem whack for a scheme that's supposed to be "strategic" and "skillful?" Look at the majority of hysteria games, it's almost always a 1v1... For a scheme where the goal is to KILL the enemy team's worms, how come in hysteria there's no benefit and sometimes a disadvantage to killing the first 3 worms? There's no advantage to killing your opponents worms... in a scheme where the goal is to kill your opponents worms.
My other point from the old hysteria thread - the 1 second turn time highly limits creativity and move choice... there's only so much you can do in 1 second, which is why the game usually turns into a 1v1 bng fest because what else are you going to do? The 1 second turn time also restricts you from protecting your own worms, which is why rotation rape can be abused...
The scheme basically forces behavior and limits creativity... if it didn't, why do so many hysterias play out the same way?? Answer me that. Think about it. If your opponent kills his own worm, it's now 3v4... Here are your options:
1. You can kill one of your own worms next time to prevent him from dealing mass amounts of damage over a course of turns through rotation rape.
2. You can try to move all your worms close together for protection, although mathematically if he were to still pile you, he'd come out on top in terms of damage dealt.
3. You can choose to just go with the flow and not really make any counter move, but if you do this, you'll get rotation raped.
Those are your three options; of course very special and unique options may arise occasionally. But look, the enemy lost a worm, the goal is to eliminate all his worms, so how come something that's supposed to build towards a goal just creates a disadvantage for yourself?
Let's look at option 3. When playing hysteria casually, this is the option most people take, and that's why hysteria being played more casually and for fun would be a better place for it. As soon as a worm dies, you don't see people starting to knock their own worms off or pile close in one little area of the map for the entire game... they just stay put and try to do fun stuff. The scheme doesn't force your behavior when you play it casually with nothing at stake.
Bottom line: When you're playing hysteria as a high stakes games, everyone's moves are forced because of they don't react in the traditional way, they are just going to take tons of damage and lose. DO NOT MISTAKE THIS AS BEING A TACTICAL ASPECT OF THE GAME. Remember, an enemy worm died (an event that is supposed to push you to victory because it works towards the goal of killing all their worms) but it forces your hand, if not you get raped... that's a clear sign of a broken scheme, I don't know how much clearer it can get.
Think about it like you were just creating the hysteria scheme. What are your goals for a scheme that has 1 second turn time? Why is it called hysteria? The goals are to kill all the enemy team worms, it's called hysteria because it's supposed to be hectic and crazy because you only have 1 second to attack... does anyone dispute that? The goal is to kill enemy worms, but there's no incentive to actually do that; it's called hysteria because it's supposed to be crazy, but all the games play out the same way, with the exact couple of tactics used every time with no creativity or thought... The goals of the scheme have not been met, IT'S NOT WORTHY OF BEING PLAYED COMPETITIVELY... Take worms and hysteria out of the picture and just look at game design philosophically - Your game goals you had in mind are not being met and/or are being met with negative, unintentional repercussions.
Yes, it's true that hysteria has some strategy; HOWEVER, it's a problem when you HAVE to use the SAME strategy every time or else you'll simply lose. It leaves no room for variety, and I don't know how anyone can argue this - the proof is in thousands of hysteria replays where the same shit happens every game.
It basically boils down to a 1v1 pussy fest where you can win simply by a fluke lucky shot; after all, you only get 1 second to aim, a lot of the times it's going to be a luckyshotGG nade or petrol that wins you the game... don't deny it, it's happened to damn near everyone probably more than once... is that what we really want as a competitive league scheme? Because to me, that sounds very uncreative, very low skill cap, boring, and unreliable to determine who is best at the game. A scheme like Aerial (a balanced Aerial scheme), which I believe had the same intended game design goals as hysteria, is a much better demonstrator of a scheme that fixes everything wrong with competitive hysteria and turns it into a dynamic, strategic, and skillful scheme worthy of the classic league.
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