Anti-lock in BnG

[TheKomodo]

Kai, I disagree about bng having a lower skill ceiling, if we are talking about notching, obviously yes, if we are talking learning everything naturally, hell no.

Plus, correct me if I am wrong, not trying to be rude but I don't think you ever took bng to the extent some other people did, I know you were a great league player but from what I saw you only ever learned the more basic and common shots, and a few simple trick shots like floorbanks.

For me personally, roping came easier than bng did if you are physically capable, I done drumming in school so I had pretty fast reactions hence why at my peak my double handed scrolling was f**king ridiculous, although I suck at them both schemes now, at the highest level bng requires pixel perfect accuracy for many shots, pushing players to specific spots, purposely and strategically destroying land, proper rotation and variation of shots, most roping just needs to be accurate enough, if you mess up a trick you can usually save it because in general roping is a bit loose and has a bit of leeway, there is more room for error, there is a limit in rope schemes because once you are so good, being better than that won't make a difference, paths are determined and because maps are either too easy or too hard.

Plus, as fun as I find roping and as much as I love it, it is indeed incredibly straight-forward to the point you don't even have to think at all, if you put in the time practising it eventually becomes 2nd nature like breathing, but that's why I love it so much, it's the most competitive type of scheme in my opinion because of how much practise it requires to remain constant in, pretty much all other schemes require more of a great memory as the physical tasks are easy enough to execute.

With bng, at least for me, there was always that excitement of getting the perfect shot off every single turn and achieving perfect games, trying to guess correctly of what my opponent was going to do, what shots are they good at, what shots are they bad at, how can I trick them into using specific angles and shots I know they aren't good at, and much much more.

That's just my opinion by the way, i'm not stating this as a fact or something anyone has to agree with, it's one of the reasons why I got into bng because at the time i'd seen everything you could do with rope, but I had never seen anyone doing the things I(and others) eventually done with bng before.

Anyway, I reckon the highest skill ceiling is probably schemes like Elite and Intermediate as those require strategic thinking and you are constantly trying to outsmart your opponent, with bng and rope/ttrr/bigrr/wxw it's all physical and eventually becomes 2nd nature because of the limitations of the scheme, Elite in my opinion is the ultimate chess scheme, I wish Elite would become the most popular strategic scheme again.

Anyway, the point of this post I suppose is this is the best f**king game of all time because of everything it has to offer, there is a scheme that will suit everyone.

Plus you know me, I like to talk about things I like lol.

Edit - Plus, if these new game physics DeadCode was talking about are actually implemented, BnG will become impossible to notch in and i'll be ALL over that! So that's kinda my personal dream in Worms Armageddon atm, hoping that day actually happens and I live to see it! Even if i'm a 60 year old fart i'll make the biggest comeback you've ever seen!

[Anubis]

Nah, I had all the shots you could think of notched to perfection, written down, just that it happened way before notching was famous. I already notched BnG in WWP and even knew the slight difference in gravity compared to W:A. I remember notching in iP, SacKem, MASH, ToP clans. Around 2004 is when I discovered BnG is an easily solved math problem. xD

My old screen had 100s of numbers written on the sides for all the angles and easy access. In fact I took it further than most, to extremes I don't think anyone did. I simply stopped BnG before notching was even that known.

[TheKomodo]

Yeah but can you prove it?

[Anubis]

Ask yourself what I have to gain from saying "I knew how to notch as early as 2004"? What would my motive even be? Bragging rights? For a game I stopped playing and consider dead?

How do you want me to provide proof? I couldn't even prove that I was a good roper from that time.

[h3oCharles]

shouldn't we just make a tourney with all of these settings just like Island T17 and see how people behave?

[TheKomodo]

It just doesn't add up to me Kai... I'm not calling you a liar dude, i'm just asking you to try and prove it, because i'm actually that interested, don't you think i'd love to have an accurate depiction of the history of the scheme I was addicted to for over 10 years?

Replays were initiated on the 9th of February, 2004.

I started playing BnG in 2004, I literally sat in AG for years, 8+ hours a day(even when working, only taking the odd day here and there for mates and dates), and playing everyone who was online, i'd work, bng, sleep, repeat, but for many years I didn't have a job and playing 16+ hours a day for me was a regular occurance as I didn't want to do anything else apart from play Clanners and do Tournaments and practise with friends, I genuinely have 10k+ hours of experience playing BnG alone, probably even closer to 15k between 2004-2019.

Yes, i'm a lonely nerd that spent most of my his adult life playing BnG, and although I wish I could have that same passion for something else now, i'm still grateful for having that amount of passion for something for so long in my life.

Anyway, when I started playing BnG, to my experience, nobody, except GiT, were using low gravity for their shots, they are the reason I started using them, and I started using them successfully in league matches, and that's a massive reason why it started becoming a standard thing.

Eldarworm, from EiF, was one of the best BnG players around at the time, and he was the first person I enjoyed BnG with before playing with M3ntal, he told me stories about the best players who were around at the time, especially Psydome, who unfortunately I never had the pleasure of playing with, he showed me BnG on the map with weird cups as well, I thought it was boring but yeah I played it.

Unless you done all this in private on your own and kept it a secret, if you knew how to notch "all the shots you could think of notched to perfection", i'm sure at least a handful of people would have mentioned it, there would be evidence in the form of replays somewhere.

Nobody gets THAT good at something, even notching, without it becoming a big deal and people talking about it, especially back in those days when it was like witchcraft.

Your name always comes up when we talk about who the best Warmer player ever was, because you are definitely in the top 3 in my opinion, you always were and always will be one of my best friends on WA from that ERA of Worms, we spent countless hours around at some point between 2001-2004 playing Warmers.

There are still a bunch of people, even active now, who know and recognize your roping skills, and can openly vouch for you, if you don't have replays or statistics or anything, surely you know a few people who could vouch for you?

Otherwise i'd have to just believe you, and to be honest, that seems sketchy to me.

I'm actually begging you to prove me wrong, please! It would genuinely fascinate me and make my day!

[LilScrappy94]

I hard vouch anubis on warmers 

[Anubis]

There's not much to do other than hoping someone has replays from 16 years ago, I certainly have none and I don't really expect anyone from that era to read this, let alone have replays of BnG saved for whatever reason. al2cane, dw33b would be the best persons to ask because I was in the best BnG clan at that time SACKEM, if you know how to contact them then feel free to do so. The only wormer I still have contact with, besides TUS ppl, are DarK and ropa. DarK could confirm I knew how to notch when I joined him in sCa, which would be 2005 or something?

Another wormer that met me at home IRL was Rebel, from BkM clan, he saw my monitor that was filled with numbers I had written down on the edge and bottom of the screen. Haven't spoken/seen him in a decade tho. I understand that it might sound unbelievable to you, but just like KB modding I kept it a secret for a long time, having that edge was immense. Not many highly competitive people spoil their secrets, I am not claiming to be the first ever notcher, but I knew and used it way before Mablak and barman appeared to notch. Also, I figured out the 5,9,13,16 etc. animations fairly early which meant my notching seemed "normal" because I didn't need to count every single notch. I checked distance and then saw the number, let's say 10, on the bottom of the screen. I would move to 9 and then add one notch. Doesn't look too suspicious.

You are right in that regard that I didn't notch all the fancy LG shots at the beginning, mostly because most bng schemes didn't even have LG to begin with. LG was not always a staple of the scheme it got popular later down the line.

If you can find a BnG replay 2004+ onwards of me BnGin' I am 100% certain you would see me counting notches.

Btw Komo, now I know how you feel when certain people claimed you never were good at roping lol. It sucks that some things will just be lost in time and can't really be proven. But it is what it is. In the end only our memories will have the truth.

[TheKomodo]

Ahhh al2cane! That is the other name I was thinking of! He was sound, great player, also !3amf was in my opinion the greatest freestyle BnG player of that early era, that guy pretty much single handedly inspired me to become a trickshot player.

I actually heard about you using numbers and stuff, and I always knew you were a good notcher in a league match style, I actually recall quite a number of people using the "steps" technique, and yeah, if you are claiming to be one of the 1st players to figure out your basic league shots via notching, sure, I already knew that 

When you said you can notch every shot I can think of it made me automatically think, naaaaaaaaah that is well exaggerated and would never believe it for a few reasons.

First reason being, I have never saw you, or heard anyone else talk about you doing any kind of complex trick shot, and although they are all technically mathematically possible, they are incredibly far too complex to be useful in a game, you would simply run out of time calculating these in your head.

Second reason being, if you know how to notch double/triple and quadruple banks with 100% accuracy, which then go on to do single or multiple called in advance bounces like backbounce, transfer, bank, bunnyhop etc, I would be impressed more than anything I have ever been impressed by in this game, ever.

However, I would actually put money on it that you do not, and if you do, heck, I would personally consider you the greatest mathematical genius this game has ever seen, simply being able to recognize the exact distance that kind of shot uses based on your position, where each bounce will touch, and actually do it all mathematically with 100% accuracy would literally be genius and I think you would be the only person to ever achieve this.

Those are the kind of shots some of the amazing players in b2b were able to do instinctually, and often enough on 1st attempt.

You are talking about not just calculating and firing direct shots, using at maxiumum, 1 bounce off the wall or the floor using the distance between each notch, you are talking about being able to measure and calculate the distance between any physical land in multiple bounces and the angles they would take after each bounce knowing exactly where the next bounce would go, and knowing exactly where a variation of aims would eventually land, then feeding that information into a chart or whatever, which would then feed you back how many notches to use and what power to use.

I actually believe nobody can notch these types of shots, at least not in 15 seconds, because the way they become available in terms of physical parameters, shape and distance affects each bounce dramatically, you would need some sort of measuring tool or the best and most reliable set of eyes humanity has ever seen.

This is all based on you saying, these exact words -  "all the shots you could think of notched to perfection" - you are literally saying you know how to notch absolutely anything.

Also, thanks for taking this seriously, it is fun to talk about this stuff 

[Anubis]

Yeah, I suppose to me every possible shot was more in line with shots that actually make sense in a serious match, lol. Not 3 banks and 2 bounces with lg. That is in fact impossible to notch.

Things I could notch were: 3 sec, 4sec fp, 4sec lg, 5sec lg, 4sec lg ground bounce, 5sec lg ground bounce, 3sec wall bounce, 4sec wall bounce lg, bazooka from 0-9 winds both directions. Bazooka lg 0-5 both directions (6-9 didn't make a lot of practical sense). So it was a broad range but not literally every shot that you could do, to me that was basically every shot you will ever need in a match.

[TheKomodo]

Yeah, you missed a fair few there, but yeah, that seems normal

[TheWalrus]

Yeah, I suppose to me every possible shot was more in line with shots that actually make sense in a serious match, lol. Not 3 banks and 2 bounces with lg. That is in fact impossible to notch.

Things I could notch were: 3 sec, 4sec fp, 4sec lg, 5sec lg, 4sec lg ground bounce, 5sec lg ground bounce, 3sec wall bounce, 4sec wall bounce lg, bazooka from 0-9 winds both directions. Bazooka lg 0-5 both directions (6-9 didn't make a lot of practical sense). So it was a broad range but not literally every shot that you could do, to me that was basically every shot you will ever need in a match.

i respect your hustle but that much notching just sounds boring

My add could never handle that

My take is let the notchers notch, the rest of us can just play, not like we are losing out on cash prizes.  If people want to play the game that way let them.

[GrO]

My take is let the notchers notch, the rest of us can just play, not like we are losing out on cash prizes.  If people want to play the game that way let them.

...well said - some people just need a perspective and chill

[Anubis]

Yeah, I suppose to me every possible shot was more in line with shots that actually make sense in a serious match, lol. Not 3 banks and 2 bounces with lg. That is in fact impossible to notch.

Things I could notch were: 3 sec, 4sec fp, 4sec lg, 5sec lg, 4sec lg ground bounce, 5sec lg ground bounce, 3sec wall bounce, 4sec wall bounce lg, bazooka from 0-9 winds both directions. Bazooka lg 0-5 both directions (6-9 didn't make a lot of practical sense). So it was a broad range but not literally every shot that you could do, to me that was basically every shot you will ever need in a match.

i respect your hustle but that much notching just sounds boring

My add could never handle that

My take is let the notchers notch, the rest of us can just play, not like we are losing out on cash prizes.  If people want to play the game that way let them.

BnG was never a very fun scheme for me to begin with, it was entirely a requirement to play for clanners, similar to elite. My passion, as you are aware was always roping. I learned the other schemes out of necessity because of my competitive drive. The fun in BnG was based on winning rather than playing.

[TheKomodo]

My take is let the notchers notch, the rest of us can just play, not like we are losing out on cash prizes.  If people want to play the game that way let them.

I mean, yes, you are absolutely 100% correct really, and that's pretty much what happened, and that's pretty much why bng is dead, I notice a number of people who used to argue against notching now seem to support it, do you know how depressing that is?

It reminds me of my old job when people were doing dodgy things and if you complain about it you are literally told "That's just the way it is", do you know how soulcrushing it feels when people literally give up like that when it's something you really care about?

Look at it from another perspective?

Imagine if the entirety of worms was as predictable as bng is when you are notching, imagine you don't just play the game naturally, instead of roping, players are programming TAS bots to take their turns, how long do you think it would take before that got boring?

My problem hasn't even ever been that notching exists, or people even knowing how to do it, it's that notching and non-notching should be considered different matchups, kinda like how in speedrunning you have Any% and Glitchless categories, but the problem is people found ways around it being visually obvious they are notching and there are a lot of things they can do which are impossible to tell if they are actually using mathematics to play.

You know what, that was pretty much my whole problem with school education system in the first place, they took the fun out of learning things in a way that works for you naturally and forced you to do it one way that suits them.