Schemes - TUS vs Newbs

[HHC]

Was looking at the HostingBuddy stats again: http://stats.worms2d.info/hbschemes.html

And yeah.. everyone already knew newbs were really only into shopper, but the numbers are quite worrisome.

Classic league schemes:
Shopper 43.7%
WxW 7.6%
TTRR 7.0%
Hysteria 4.3%
-----
BnG 0.51%
Team17 0.31%
Roper 0.27%
Elite 0.08%

More than half the games hosted on WN are shoppers or variations thereof (56,6% to be precise). But what's worrying is that all the classic worms schemes (BnG, Roper, Elite, Team17) are COMBINED hosted only 1.17% of the time. That's little more than 1 out of every 100 games. In case of Elite it's even only 1 out of 1250 games ()

Basically, these schemes are only played in TUS.
No newbie plays them anymore, not ever.

The odd thing is that the most unpopular of these, Elite, has long been considered the most popular in TUS. 

Actually, let's check the most popular schemes in TUS classic:
Hyst.  344 (19.44%) - 4.3%
TTRR   311 (17.57%) - 7.0%
WxW    275 (15.54%) - 7.6%
Roper  246 (13.90%) - 0.3%
Elite  212 (11.97%) - 0.1%
T17    164  (9.27%) - 0.3%
BnG    109  (6.16%) - 0.5%
Shop   109  (6.16%) -43.7%

These are the stats for this season (not the overall ones!). 1st number = games played, between brackets is the % of total and the percentage behind that is the HB-hosting percentages.

Noticable is that shopper, despite being, by overwhelming numbers, the most popular scheme on wormnet is the one least played here at TUS. On the other hand, the top three schemes in classic also perform well on wormnet (Hyst, wxw and TTRR), whereas the classic schemes (Roper, Elite, BnG, Team17) aren't played as much, but still one has to admit, far far more than in the HB-stats.

In TUS itself, veteran players are more inclined towards the classic set of schemes (duh?), while the new players (I checked this) tend to pick almost exclusively Shopper, WxW and sometimes Hyst or TTRR. (which is understandable, seeing as how the classic schemes are virtually never played outside TUS).

Other popular schemes that are popular HB-wise:
Normal 10.6%
Tower Race 8.4%
Mole Shop 3.6%
Fly Shop 2.8%
Supersheeper 2.1%
Pod Shopper 1.6%
Bow & Arrow 1.3%



I'm not sure why I got the idea to make this thread. I guess I suddenly became aware of these 'oddities'.

I like to hear what people's opinion is on these numbers.

It sure raises a lot of interesting points:
1) is there a future for the classic schemes?
2) why do schemes like wxw and shopper tend to fail when chosen as TRL schemes? Why did normal never get the place it deserves based on popularity?
3) is TUS noob-unfriendly? or do noobs simply abandon their fav schemes after getting in touch with more 'skillful'-ones?
4) there are a lot of noobs on wormnet who do not play for TUS, could something be done to get them here? Like a shopper-only league? Or would that fail?
5) does the same problem exist in other games? As in, modes played for fun being entirely different from those played for leagues?
6) I disagreed with Ropa when he said new players aren't nearly as skilled as the old generation. But yeah, it could be very true for the classic schemes.. which aren't played nearly as much anymore and thus naturally skill level drops and the amount of top players decreases by the day.
Can we do something to get more players involved or are these schemes just doomed to die out?
7) Viewing the cups that are being held right now.. it's pretty much scheme-madness there. Pretty much all are experimental schemes or free league ones. It's pretty sad that Ray has to host elite tourneys to still get people to play it and keep the spirit 'alive'. TEL is dead and Elite it seems... very close to.. 


So yeah people, opinions!

[HHC]

Btw, I'm not suggesting anything.. I made a case in the past to remove some schemes from the Classic league cause unpopular and what not. But yeah, looking at the numbers, that would be the end of Elite, BnG, Team17 ánd even Roper.

We need to face the fact that it's only us people at TUS who keep these schemes alive. And that even within TUS, these schemes are on the retreat as more and more veterans stop playing and more and more people turn their backs on them.

So yeah, i'm inclined to ring the


for these schemes.

[Ray]

I almost cried looking at this... Very big thumbs up to you HHC for putting this thread together and researching.

Each coin has two sides... With the arrival of HostingBuddy, many people got the chance to host games very easily. That's pretty much all for the bright side of that. Downside is that people never learn how to host, they miss out virtually everything that requires a little skill and knowledge, like downloading schemes, maps, you name it.

And people are lazy. Indeed, they are. If something is easy, like a Shopper game, just rope rope bumm bumm haha I'll go to bed. They are going to do that.

Now, the solution might be, first of all, a really easy website. This website, for it's older, more experienced users is okay, but for someone new, it's just horrible, they will always get lost and never learn. They need something that pushes them to the right direction and if they see that, even though it's more difficult, there is an upside, they are going to switch.

People have to see the upside, they don't see it at the moment, hence the drop in the schemes' popularity.

Back then, you needed to be good at BnG to play it, you had to actually do great shots, I don't know why I never thought of just throwing a grenade like bouncing everywhere, but I just never did. It's probably because of that filthy, no-good, disgusting abomination called Hysteria. Darkmaul taught me how to play BnG, I thank him to this day.

So many thoughts I have about this... I can't organize them. But I agree that WormNET today is pretty lame.

[M4Dbrat]

I actually changed my look at schemes after playing some TUS matches. Yeah, I liked Shopper variations greatly too, but now I got used to BnG, Roper and TTRR. Newbies prefer Shoppa because of dynamic rope-based gameplay, also they think that they actually play something megapowerful, if it has that set of rules and (no1 heard that BnG actually has even more rules though) and its average level of difficulty.

[Ray]

Yea, also a valid point, people who don't play online think of worms like the single player quick game thing it is. They don't know what's behind the doors...

As soon as they see a Shopper, it's so weird and funny and unbelieveable for them at the same time that they don't take that next step.

[Hussar]

TUS need some Tutorial for newcomers, with some presentations movies......... for example movies showing rules in each sheme and how they looks like, what maps are needs etc

and some basic leagues for noobs.......

TUS site is rly unreadable!!!!!!!!

am here past some about 3 years and i dont know yet all features.

[Peja]

 

i like this idea from berria, cause every wormer who tries searching for wa stuff will discover tus sooner or later ( at DENnis)

well the stats are no surprise, people who already discovered a bigger variety of schemes get tired of using hostingbuddy because its clumsy to host if you want to play on specific maps.

i think its good shopper is the must used scheme among newcomers. this means they have found out there is roping. maybe all this players are happy to play their shoppers and already found out there is more. not everyone is interested in a big  learning curve.

[Impossible]

if every1 will start making cool vids, this game will get popular again with alot of newcomers, and every scheme will have own fans. Thats such as minecraft who have OVER 9000 new vids everyday in u2b, and get popular by them :p

[nappy]

People who are enlighted enough to know about other schemes than shopper are usually able to configure hosting on their own (or via wormnat2, at least), so they don't use HostingBuddy. You also would never want to host something like elite with HB since you have a very limited map control.

So it's not clear stats.

[HHC]

That may be true nappy, but go on wormnet and see for yourself. Even the games without HB are shopper in at least half of the cases. It's been a while since I seen a guy host Elite that wasn't a TUS game. Same for Team17, Roper and BnG (although to a smaller extent).

[nappy]

Yeah I know. When v.31 was in development, I had a suggestion to put some useful links on the wormnet lobby screen, so people will eventually stumble upon them and learn something about schemes, hosting, etiquette and so on. Sadly, it wasn't done.

[DENnis]

I like to hear what people's opinion is on these numbers.

It sure raises a lot of interesting points:
1) is there a future for the classic schemes?
2) why do schemes like wxw and shopper tend to fail when chosen as TRL schemes? Why did normal never get the place it deserves based on popularity?
3) is TUS noob-unfriendly? or do noobs simply abandon their fav schemes after getting in touch with more 'skillful'-ones?
4) there are a lot of noobs on wormnet who do not play for TUS, could something be done to get them here? Like a shopper-only league? Or would that fail?
5) does the same problem exist in other games? As in, modes played for fun being entirely different from those played for leagues?
6) I disagreed with Ropa when he said new players aren't nearly as skilled as the old generation. But yeah, it could be very true for the classic schemes.. which aren't played nearly as much anymore and thus naturally skill level drops and the amount of top players decreases by the day.
Can we do something to get more players involved or are these schemes just doomed to die out?
7) Viewing the cups that are being held right now.. it's pretty much scheme-madness there. Pretty much all are experimental schemes or free league ones. It's pretty sad that Ray has to host elite tourneys to still get people to play it and keep the spirit 'alive'. TEL is dead and Elite it seems... very close to..  

So yeah people, opinions!

1)   Yes, because of TUS I started to play a lot of non rope games, too. Automatically I improve in more schemes. If you never play serious you'll get bored, because you won't improve enough and you can't test if your brain works good enough to win vs. pros if you really concentrate. Games with many tactic works good for serious games (and yes, not so good for funners, because u can't relax as much as in easy and funny schemes). To play more than only 2 or 3 / ur favourite schemes keeps WA alive.
2)   Statistics always lie But maybe because they are a bit overplayed and include too much luck to play them in TRL, where is only one scheme. Shoppergames have to be played failfree to have a chance to win because of skill. That1 who did 1 fail more loses the most times. But if both played failfree, that1 who had 1 turn more (so a whole attack more) wins almost every failfree game (Yes, I know there are very less games without fails which changed the game). But like I always said: Luck alone never decides a game, so the main problem is that the famous schemes r just overplayed + they r much more fun in funners.
3)   TUS isn't noobfriendly enough. When u r new here u r overstrained .. too many informations at 1 time and u don't know where to look to get the right information how the system works. There should be a little overview for noobs, like first steps how the system works: 1) Ask ,,tus any1?" in #AG, 2) There will be 2 games, first game is ur pick, second game the opponents pick. 3) Only the winner reports all replays to his victory of pick 1 or/and pick 2. Upload here (url). Then a Text: For more detailed information click here. (Nobody wanna read and search for hours to get that 3 main points.)
4)   Not only noobs do not play TUS. There r also many highly-skilled people who just hate LAMERS who let TUS look so bad. TUS looks like that to them: 1) TUS kills the fun because the most people only play for the victory there and don't care to have a good game with risky tries and freestyling. 2) Too much arguing and angry noobs/angry kids/haters who love to make a stressful and bad atmosphere. If the haters/dumb people can't enrage noobs they r not satisfied and try other things like faking and cheating. --- A shopperleague would be nice, especially with more skilled shopper variations like surf-, fly-, AttackFromAir- and the skill Trippleshopper, but like I alrdy said it won't help much, because it is so overplayed (and the variations too unknown ^^) + the main probleme there are people like Chelsea who noobbash the newbies 15-0. Things like that should be forbidden. Someone who just loses like 20 games in a row and more would give up sooner or later.
5)   The only other game I play is Motocross Madness 2 and there are only games for fun and to relax right now. A long time ago it was better, because there was a recorder which could record ur best lap and post it on a community site. The fungames (Stunttagging) didnt work for that. But for Stunttagging where tourneys years ago. At that recording and tourney days there were so much more activity. U just need serious games sometimes, new things and special events, too, to keep a game alive.
6)   Yeah, use the KTL rule: Kill the LAMERS ^^. Like I said if u always lose and there r no close and interesting games and people who think it is the most important thing to win as fast as possible instead of trying to have a good game where both can have fun, many people think theres no sense to play games wheres no or too less fun.
7)   And I think many people understand that the fun is the most important thing. More fun = more activity. For the most people it is the easiest way to have fast fun when they just play a funny shopper to relax. What do you prefer? Fast fun and relax or highly complicated things where u have to think a lot and where u have to have a good concentration to solve difficult problems? I like to think and I like to use my brain so I started to play many more schemes than just my favourites ones. To keep improving is always an important process in ur live. But: If you don't have enough fun and too less positiv situations in ur memory u don't want to do it again. You can't learn when there r lamers who kill the fun. To improve the activity: Be friendly, help noobs instead of kicking and insulting them and show why the scheme ,,XYZ" is FUN, too. To let ur opponent absolutely no chance kills the fun, makes a game boring and after some of that lame games the loser won't play this scheme until he finds a friendly and helpful wise guy, who know that a noob could be the pro of ,,tomorrow" if u let him have FUN while learning and improving!

Please read our FD Philosophy <3 - https://www.tus-wa.com/groups/FD/

[chakkman]

That may be true nappy, but go on wormnet and see for yourself. Even the games without HB are shopper in at least half of the cases. It's been a while since I seen a guy host Elite that wasn't a TUS game. Same for Team17, Roper and BnG (although to a smaller extent).

So? If people enjoy playing shoppa then they should be playing shoppa. It's not that we have to evangelize people to go the league way. I remember having quite enjoyed playing shoppa for fun back in the days. If you take a look at the most played schemes, you will find a lot of fun schemes, so let people have fun. No scheme fascism needed.

[Ray]

That may be true nappy, but go on wormnet and see for yourself. Even the games without HB are shopper in at least half of the cases. It's been a while since I seen a guy host Elite that wasn't a TUS game. Same for Team17, Roper and BnG (although to a smaller extent).

So? If people enjoy playing shoppa then they should be playing shoppa. It's not that we have to evangelize people to go the league way. I remember having quite enjoyed playing shoppa for fun back in the days. If you take a look at the most played schemes, you will find a lot of fun schemes, so let people have fun. No scheme fascism needed.

But then we will slowly die man, we do need new people in this community and we are not about to force everyone to go our way, it's about informing people about the existence and the fun of "our side".

[Aerox]

I'd say people who are not newbies are more likely to know how to find what port to open and do it than casuals.

That's a factor.