Standard Scheme Variants (Part 1: Competitive Ground Schemes)

[KoreanRedDragon]

Because there weren't enough things to agree on about Team17 already, I went and added another one that's been making me angry and confused over the past few years:

16. As it turns out, almost every modern Team17 scheme I come across these days has Blow Torch and Pneumatic Drill power set to 5 stars. Although I'm not sure, I think this may have its origins in either the 1Percent scheme that the #Team17 channel on WWP's WormNET used, or in some kind of official tournament scheme that Team17 (the company) had settled on around the time official rankings were taken down on WA... which then must have made sense for future leagues to keep, possibly because they liked the idea of these two utilities doing a bit more damage in situations where no useful weapons had yet been collected from crates. But I feel like there's a big problem with this, namely that the higher power setting makes both Torch and Drill knock a worm harder (farther away) than their 3 star counterparts, which in practice quite often means that the target worm gets damaged fewer times as a result, especially when torching. This is already weird enough on flat, open terrain and on slopes. But when you consider that it also makes it (almost?) impossible to trap a worm inside the torch tunnel that you're digging, which is otherwise a flashy play in other ground schemes such as Elite and Intermediate, I fear that there may just be too little logic and too many downsides to having the two F7 tools set to a power different to what players might be used to from other schemes. So, should we "standardise" their power to 3 stars, where all the rest of the weapons in the scheme are, and keep their knock power consistent with Elite and Intermediate? Back when I was first uploading these scheme proposals to TUS, I didn't even realise I may have been breaking tradition by having them at 3 stars, because that's just how my T17 scheme always was, it's what made sense to me. Am I alone in that? Hmmm.

Discuss.

[h3oCharles]

should torch and drill be used for attacking?

[KoreanRedDragon]

Sure, I don't see why not. If you think it's the best move available to you, you go for it, right? And at least sometimes, it is the best move, maybe even by far. As in any scheme that doesn't specifically forbid it as part of its design, there's nothing wrong with using all the tools available to you at any time.

But I don't think the 5 star Torch and Drill are even better than the 3 star ones for attacking... certainly they're not strictly better, better in every situation. So yeah, I don't think that reasoning for buffing their power holds much water. Maybe there are other reasons people can think of for doing it? Dunno, this whole thing is quite confusing for me.

[Senator]

It would make sense to make Torch and Drill 3 stars for the reasons you mentioned. The difference in damage is quite irrelevant. Longbow is another question.. There the change in damage would be more drastic. Longbow with 15 dmg arrows wouldn't even be the weakest weapon in the scheme, though. It's always useful in SD when worms are low HP.

While we are at it, I'll add lacoste's comments on T17 and Select Worms after a tournament we played.

I like the scheme, 7 girders were always too much even with limit, but selects make up for it adding some new degree to the scheme, making it something almost entirely new, focused more towards action with deeper planning. But I dont understand why nana and cows arent chanced equally like the rest of weapons - scheme isn't fair by it's nature, and there are plenty other weapons that devastate just as much (and cows are rather tricky in this scheme, so that's an even more unknown to me), plus it's not guaranted you will be less likely to chance nana in a crate (see my game vs VoK).

Islands only tourney next?
As for myself - while double-cavern layered map is somewhat fitting T17 and thanks to that this theme is actually being used, I believe the concept is outdated and is one of the main reasons why T17 is that problematic competetively. Even these 2 selects worms aren't completely fixing the state of the scheme, they even bring some other problems that I can notice but am still unsure about, that would require some long-term insight and testing by pros. But with the transition to island maps (perhaps just for testing for now) T17 could be different and selects would make much more sense.

Even these 2 selects worms aren't completely fixing the state of the scheme, they even bring some other problems that I can notice but am still unsure about, that would require some long-term insight and testing by pros. But with the transition to island maps (perhaps just for testing for now) T17 could be different and selects would make much more sense.

You mean when someone loses a worm before his first turn or something else? Why more sense? Remember selects have 4 turn delay.

No no. I'm not quite sure whats exactly wrong with having selects (maybe nothing), but it's heavily related to snowballing and turning the game one-sided during that mid-game phase, but again, changes like this needs to evolve over time.

As of islands and selects, I might be looking into it from the perspective of Intermediate player and it makes sense to have other means of saving yourself from easy setups for a kill, which isnt as easy in a tight cavern play. And it could bring even more dynamics to island t17. AND AGAIN, testing. Not saying either is correct, it's just the feeling.

[h3oCharles]

we'd need to look at power tables and see the actual differences and not just guess

also while we are talking about Team17 scheme we could add the no roofing, no rope knocking and disable glitches and all of that stuff but Korydex already made a thread about this

[KoreanRedDragon]

Right, I'm updating these proposed schemes with 3.8 rule enforcement once TUS starts handling v3 scheme files.

[Chicken23]

what does this thread do? put classic schemes we love in 3.8 patch so new players get exposed to them?

you should be allowed to attack with drill and torch and it should be 3 star in Team17..

big debate is unlimited riders vs 7 and create probabilities so there is a nice balance..., not TUS 2010 scheme