Anti-lock in BnG

[Senator]

I disabled the auto re-aim feature in the official scheme file for now. If the feature gets more support, we can perhaps enable it again.

Thanks Komo for bringing this up.

[TheKomodo]

*Fingers crossed we get that thing we were talking about*

Now just need to join a clan and miraculously make those active again. 

[Kaleu]

I disabled the auto re-aim feature in the official scheme file for now. If the feature gets more support, we can perhaps enable it again.

Thanks Komo for bringing this up.

Can you fix the scheme downloads when downloading the bundle of classic schemes? Especifically the Team17 scheme, right now it's downloading some other version.

[Senator]

Can you fix the scheme downloads when downloading the bundle of classic schemes? Especifically the Team17 scheme, right now it's downloading some other version.

It's fixed now by MI.

[Xrayez]

TL;DR: The anti-lock aim doesn't give advantage to notchers per se. Instead, this may be seen as disadvantage to non-notchers, yet this disadvantage is very subjective.

The anti-lock aim feature was introduced in W:A 3.8, around the time when this thread was opened. However, the notion of the scheme rule (enforced by players) is different from the scheme feature/option (enforced by the game), and this distinction is not clear in the OP.

The conclusion by the OP that "implementing this rule gives players who use notching to aim a HUGE advantage" is misleading and exaggerated. I don't see how this option can give advantage to notchers, because they can notch anyway, they can always go back to 90 degrees, with or without this option.

However, the addition of this option may be interpreted as giving disadvantage to non-notchers, but this disadvantage is very subjective. If you use visual aids, then restoring the aim is not difficult even with this option enabled. Moreover, my personal opinion is that those people who rely mostly on intuition won't even bother with having this option enabled, especially when this alleviates or even removes the need for the re-aim rule.

The misleading assumption and conclusion made this thread quite convoluted to follow, and due to this, it's likely that people in this thread weren't on the same page to begin with. These are important distinctions to take in mind when deciding whether to add this option to the scheme. Taking this into account, I don't see any substantial reason not to add this option to the BnG scheme, especially when some moderators and admins already felt like this is a no-brainer decision, so this explains the reason why they felt like this doesn't even deserve a discussion. I support having an open discussion in either case, mind you.

Not that this would change anything anyways, but I felt like I had to make this clear.

[TheKomodo]

Saying it's misleading and exaggerated is extremely ignorant. It is not misleading because it is the truth based on facts and experience.

I am talking from experience of way over 10,000 hours in BnG alone. I'm the only person in the entire history of the game who mastered both notching and instinctual BnG, as a league player and a trick shot player, in multiple Leagues with various rules and settings as well as different map styles. My BnG statistics are insane.

As much as it might look like it, I'm not saying this to brag, I'm saying to this make people understand that I am talking from a massive history of experience that nobody else in the history of this game comes close to having and I have the evidence and recorded statistics to back it up. So people can feel comfortable trusting me when I speak passionately about BnG, especially when I'm trying to help instinctual players!

I spent a lot of time writing factul reasons why Anti-Lock in BnG gives notchers a clear advantage.

If you genuinely understood notching, as in the method of aiming and shooting using math which means 100% of your shots you shoot will hit exactly where you want them to, non-notchers are even easier to beat with Anti-Lock in place.

I don't mind if your "opinion" is different and you write that you have opinions that differ, that's fine... You don't need to fully understand what you are talking about to have an opinion.

However, when you try and influence the decision other people might make by writing what I wrote is "misleading and exaggerated" as a fact without any evidence whatsoever to back that up. You're being ignorant and not helping anyone.

Of course you can't see how this option can give an advantage to notchers, because you haven't ever mastered it.

Notchers count out their angles from a vertical or horizontal position, they use math to make sure their attacks always hit, with almost every type of shot. Auto-Lock changes absolutely nothing for them when they just count out from vertical and horizontal positions anyway.

You cannot do this with instinctual aiming, you need to rely on being good enough to hit from instinctual practise alone, and if you miss, the ability and skill to re-adjust your shot. The error margin for doing this without notching is far greater than doing it with notching, it's not even close. You rely on it "looking accurate" rather than being 100% sure it IS accurate. It's even more of an advantage for people who may use macros or programs that aim for them!

I'm trying to help people who actually don't notch! If you want to use this against notchers go ahead, you'll get annihilated even faster lol.

[Xrayez]

You are being very dismissive about my opinion, especially when you put the word "opinion" in quotes. Whatever this is supposed to mean.

The one who will decide what is truth or not is not us, but readers of this thread. You can base your explanation on facts and experience, but they can still be misleading to the wider audience. That's how manipulative propaganda works, by the way. I don't imply that you do this on purpose, though.

Even then, I don't necessarily disagree with you here, no need to go all defensive. My message is more about your way of framing this problem. This requires logical reasoning applied to your conclusion only, and your conclusion is misleading and exaggerated, and I explained why. Therefore, I provided my perspective on how to untangle the unrevealed assumptions that are made in the OP, but I also covered the problem itself. However, if my explanation is not enough for you to understand, then read on.

I perfectly know what notching is, especially when you've defined this in the OP. Also, whether someone is able to notch is completely irrelevant to being able to understand what notching is all about. It's also absolutely not necessary to have an inordinate amount of playing hours to master notching just to understand what kind of advantage notchers have over non-notchers. Moreover, since we're talking about our experiences, I'm a game developer, and if you say that I didn't "genuinely understood notching", then you dismiss my own experience, expertise, and you frankly insult my intelligence this way. The hell, we're both in a2b community!


I hope you'll agree that notching is advantageous both with and without the anti-lock aim option. More so, you could actually have this kind of discussion even prior to introducing the anti-lock aim feature in W:A 3.8. I also totally agree that having notching skills is a huge advantage over non-notchers. But again, this advantage is huge only with respect to notching itself, and not the anti-lock aim feature. So, the way you labeled this advantage as "huge" with the addition of the anti-lock aim feature is in fact exaggerated, because this advantage has been there all the time.

Just to convey the idea. Here's the advantage that notchers have over non-notchers, using the 0-to-10 scale (I base this solely upon your conclusion, not mine):

• Without the anti-lock aim option enabled: 7/10.
• With the anti-lock aim option enabled: 8/10.

If you follow this scale, then clearly, notching is a much serious problem in BnG to talk about in the first place, but instead of addressing the anti-lock aim option, you fixate on the notching problem itself. Basically, you substitute the topic of discussion here, as if the problem is about the anti-lock aim option that creates a "huge" advantage for notchers, while in fact the problem is more about notching itself, which is already huge. I feel like what prompted you to create this thread was not about the fact that the anti-lock aim option was added to the scheme, but the fact that notching was already problematic aspect of BnG in the first place, and this addition was like the straw that broke camel's back for you.

Also, perhaps the way you framed this problem may signify that you have a personal issue with enabling the anti-lock aim option that would cause you to be at a disadvantage, perhaps for some specific shots that may be more challenging for you to perform that you have already mastered, but I can only guess here, you'd never tell this if you ever have a hidden agenda. Excuse me for not assuming positive intentions here, but given your reaction to my reply, I have to cover this possibility as well.

Let me reiterate: the anti-lock aim feature does not create a huge advantage for notchers. However, one can argue whether non-notchers are put at a disadvantage while having this option enabled, as they mostly rely on intuition. In contrast, the way you framed this problem implies that enabling the anti-lock feature gives a huge advantage to notchers, which is false. Do you understand this distinction? If not, feel free to ask questions. Otherwise, this will be my final reply to you in this thread.

Speaking of myself, as an instinctual player, I assert with confidence that the anti-lock aim feature doesn't impact my ability to use my intuition to adjust the shot in BnG, especially when there are enough of visual aids to help with this process. In fact, it only removes the need to constantly re-aim, as required by BnG rules. Less rules means more adoption of BnG by novices. Having more rules is always off-putting.

[TheKomodo]

You have completely missed the point Xrayez. You come here saying the things I said are "misleading" and "exaggerated" yet you haven't actually said anything factual which disproves anything I said. To say I am using manipulative propoganda is hilarious though. Considering I've mastered both techniques more than anyone else in the history of the game why on earth would I be trying to create an argument in my favour? What do I have to benefit when everything is already in my favour regardless what rules and settings anyone uses...

The window of advantage is greater when Anti-Lock is applied, as I explained why in the thread.

Notchers already have an advantage, with the addition of Anti-Lock, this advantage is increased. That's why they have a huge advantage, they can count out their shots every turn from reset angles by moving the cursor in 1 or 2 notch increments. When you play instinctually with Anti-Lock enabled, you've got to literally just guess every turn in most cases. It is much more challenging to instinctual players to bring their aim back to the place it was in the previous turn when it gets reset every turn.

Re-aim with Anti-Lock enabled introduces a higher margin of human error based on "what looks right" as opposed to notching which is counted out and has a much lower window of error.

We can prove this in a live match by doing the following...

Using notching:

Without Anti-Lock enabled - Do 20 shots notched at the exact same angle with full power, this can be done with various bazooka winds and grenades with max bounce and/or low gravity.
With Anti-Lock enabled - Do 20 shots notched at the exact same angle with full power, this can be done with various bazooka winds and grenades with max bounce and/or low gravity.

Using instinctual aiming:

Without Anti-Lock enabled - Do 20 shots aimed instinctively, re-aiming at the exact same angle with full power, this can be done with various bazooka winds and grenades with max bounce and/or low gravity.
With Anti-Lock enabled - Do 20 shots aimed instinctively, with your angle being reset every shot, at the exact same angle with full power, this can be done with various bazooka winds and grenades with max bounce and/or low gravity.

This becomes increasingly more challenging the further distance between worms.

I promise you, using notching I will not miss, any player who has mastered notching, will not miss. Though with Anti-Lock enabled it's much more challenging to get your aim back to where you shot the previous turn, this is where the margin of error comes in. This is where the huge advantage comes into play for notchers.

As far as I'm concerned everything you've wrote so far has zero substantial information whatsoever and does not disprove anything I've said so far in this thread.

[TheWalrus]

Honestly I don't know what this feature is or if I used the correct scheme for my cup game, let me know if ledan and I should replay our bng game komo

EDIT: wrong thread for this perhaps

IMO even if this thing makes you reaim and you can't use fingernail reaim, there are sprite cues that make reaiming not difficult, I think resetting the aim doesn't move the needle that much, especially for top players.  Those of us that play bng a bit have realized fingernail is pretty unnecessary to get the correct reaim.  There is literally a different sprite every 2 notches, so its easy to spot.

2ND EDIT: I actually read the thread this time, and a lot of what I said aligns with what komo said.  People who notch or have a lot of knowledge about how aiming works in bng would have an advantage.  It is really easy for me to reaim compared to someone else, given we both have to reset at turn end.  Also, you actually have more time to notch without having to do the useless "aim up and down to show opponent you have reaimed" thing.  With the amount of time I've poured into bng, I could have learned how to notch by now, and even had the dt paint document guidebook thing at one point, but I truly didn't want to put the time into something like that, as well as it seemed a little skeevy.

Honestly its really obvious when someone notches, and I really don't see it that much, but then again I haven't played much at all since 2019

[Xrayez]

Yes, as I said, I don't necessarily disagree with TheKomodo here, but the more I reply to him, the more he makes strawman arguments against what I said, being too defensive about what I said.

My intention was not to disprove what he said, but rather to clarify the difference between the following propositions:

• Anti-lock gives advantage to notchers.
• Anti-lock puts non-notchers (the guys who rely on intuition) at disadvantage.

This is a really important distinction to make if you want the discussion to be focused on the core problem, but TheKomodo apparently insists on the former proposition more than needed, which makes it look like the anti-lock feature is so evil when combined with notching, while notchers will always be notchers with or without this. I actually had to re-read the OP multiple times just to able to understand what TheKomodo really meant to say.

Instead, I suggested TheKomodo to focus on the latter proposition, which is the core problem which he attempts to uncover in this thread.

[TheKomodo]

As I said to you on Discord.

If a disadvantage is created for one side, it gives the other an advantage. So while Anti-Lock gives an effective disadvantage to non-notchers, it's the very see-saw effect that gives notchers the advantage.

You're not bringing anything new to the table, 6 of 1 - Half dozen of the other.

Everyone who knows what notching is already knows it would exist with or without Anti-Lock, that isn't the point, so you are wasting your time by mentioning this.

The mistake you are making is, seemingly, not seeing the bigger picture that if notching didn't exist, Anti-Lock wouldn't be an issue whatsoever. This is why it's directly related to making BnG worse for instinctual players because it gives notchers an advantage over non-notchers. It's the very point I've been making the entire time.

You accuse me of exaggerating and being misleading to people, then said I was using manipulative propaganda. You can't attack someone like that and expect them to just sit back and accept something that isn't true.

[nino]

why dont we just make it as simple as it can be? scream like devil and shoot the zook and throw the grenades !!

do you really think the putin´s army has time to notch ou anti-lock?? WAR is WAR!! lets talk serious here!!!   

[Xrayez]

If a disadvantage is created for one side, it gives the other an advantage. So while Anti-Lock gives an effective disadvantage to non-notchers, it's the very see-saw effect that gives notchers the advantage.

You're not bringing anything new to the table, 6 of 1 - Half dozen of the other.

What I wanted you to acknowledge is similar to what you just said. However, it is important to note that this distinction is significant as it can affect the direction of the discussion. If you had initially presented your point in this manner and maintained clarity throughout the conversation, I wouldn't need to bring this up. Additionally, if the distinction had been made clear from the beginning of the discussion, some of the participants, such as lalo, would not have felt confused.

[TheKomodo]

What I wanted you to acknowledge is similar to what you just said. However, it is important to note that this distinction is significant as it can affect the direction of the discussion. If you had initially presented your point in this manner and maintained clarity throughout the conversation, I wouldn't need to bring this up.

If that is case, why didn't you just ask me to clarify if you didn't understand it fully in the first place? What I said at the start still ties into what I said in the last few posts, nothing has changed.

It's not my fault you couldn't connect the dots.

Same story, different words. / Same destination, different path. / 6 of 1, half dozen of the other.

Additionally, if the distinction had been made clear from the beginning of the discussion, some of the participants, such as lalo, would not have felt confused.

lalo still understood what was going on, he just missed the "intended purpose".

[Xrayez]

What I wanted you to acknowledge is similar to what you just said. However, it is important to note that this distinction is significant as it can affect the direction of the discussion. If you had initially presented your point in this manner and maintained clarity throughout the conversation, I wouldn't need to bring this up.

If that is case, why didn't you just ask me to clarify if you didn't understand it fully in the first place? What I said at the start still ties into what I said in the last few posts, nothing has changed.

It's not my fault you couldn't connect the dots.

Your question is loaded. I did not say that I do not understand the problem. I managed to understand the problem on my own (before your first reply to me), although it was not without difficulty. As I said in my first reply in this thread, I felt like I had to clarify this, given the confusion of other participants, including my own confusion.

Also, remember when you said to me at Discord that it's impossible to understand something "fully"? (rhetorical question)

This is my final reply to you. Alas, I cannot prevent you from putting your words into my mouth, so if you feel like I'm in total opposition to you (even when I'm not, I still agree with most things that you've said), let's agree to disagree...