The Ultimate Site of Worms Armageddon
Worms: Armageddon => General discussion => Topic started by: KoreanRedDragon on September 05, 2014, 08:07 PM
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What's this and why?
I believe that one of the most important aspects of keeping competitive Worms Armageddon alive and thriving for generations to come is for our community to agree on standard variations of the game types that appear commonly in serious play, whether in leagues, tournaments, challenges or even random casual games in #AnythingGoes. For aspiring new players and returning old ones to feel motivated to continue honing their skills, it really helps if they're able to easily find out precisely what scheme file they're supposed to be using when practicing each scheme, what sort of maps they're supposed to be practicing on, what standard rules they're expected to follow, whether the scheme works only as 1v1/2v2 or in a free for all setting too, etc. This of course doesn't mean that nobody should ever host a game on WormNET using a scheme file or a set of rules that differs from what the community has agreed on, only that their modifications to the core should be explained in relation to what the standard is, making life easier for everyone involved.
How are we going to do this?
To that end, I have decided to come up with an overview of all the competitively played schemes, so that we can gradually fill things in as we agree on them and always know what still needs to be looked at. This information is listed in the Modes, Maps and Rules sections under each scheme title, with all three of these sections very much still open for debate; think of their current contents as just my personal best guesses, don't take something being present or not present there as a sign that the matter has already been decided. I'll upload the scheme files themselves onto TUS so everyone can easily see the individual settings as they are being discussed, or download them and give the proposed standard schemes a try. For each scheme, a link will be provided in the Scheme file section and the files will then be periodically updated to reflect community opinion on what the standard schemes should look like. To help get the ball rolling, I have also attempted to list most of the historical disagreements that have kept this standardisation from happening sooner in the Pointers for discussion section under each scheme, then spiced the section up with some suggestions for improvements and simplifications. Note that these are biased toward how I would personally handle each individual detail, but at least some attempt has already been made to represent general community opinion too, which will only become truly apparent through active debate in replies here. And perhaps elsewhere, if we decide to advertise this attempt at scheme standardisation on Reddit, Steam and a potential new T17 forum. It's of course going to be almost impossible to get the entire WA community to agree on every little aspect of every scheme, but that doesn't mean that the situation can't be improved at all. We can keep this project going for as long as it takes, there's no need to rush any decisions or ever stop debating the proposed standards. As long as this platform for discussion exists, it will at the very least serve as a way for interested players or league staff to measure the current atmosphere in the WA community regarding these matters.
Where are we going with all this and how to help?
If we do end up coming up with a solid set of standard schemes, if community leagues do start adopting the resulting scheme files and rulesets, that's great. But the primary focus and ultimate goal of this project is supposed to be more far-reaching than that. What we want is to eventually end up with something so widely accepted that the WA developers will be able to confidently include it with the game via an update, even base the mythical 4.x version's ranked play around these standardised scheme variants. That's the plan, and the way in which we attempt to agree on these issues should reflect it. Let's get as many people as possible to look at this and state their opinions, really ensure that we're doing our best for the future of the game. Only through compromise, through seeking solutions that benefit everyone, that aren't rejected by any particular group of players, can we hope to achieve a truly long term effect and settle these questions once and for all.
Feel free to not only share your views (and the views of any of your friends who might be too shy to speak up for themselves) regarding the scheme files, scheme rules, map recommendations and so on, but also to propose new dilemmas that you think need to be addressed or talked about. If you believe the format of how we're handling this in the first place could be improved, let me know too and I'll do my best to edit the post with your suggestions in mind. Remember, nothing is set in stone, we can flexibly evolve the process of seeking consensus over time as the attitude of the community shifts, or in case future WA updates change the landscape of what we have to work with (new scheme format with togglable rules is on the horizon). With that out of the way, let's get to work!
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BnG (Bazooka & Grenades)
Modes
1v1 (1 worm per player); Best of 1
2v2 (1 worm per player); Best of 1
Maps
Edited random maps (double layer cavern preset with just the top removed to make it into a full width island map; example (http://krd.clansfx.co.uk/dump/35da71d7237b001202ef9cce4380cc20/screen0198.png)).
*Ideally, terrain objects are reseeded until there's at least 3 usable hides on each half of the map.
*Unless agreed on beforehand, avoid terrain textures with extremely jagged grass such as -Farm, Jungle, Medieval, Sports and Tribal.
Rules
Stay on your half of the map.
*To avoid arguments regarding where the middle is, it can be approximately marked in the map editor before the game with a line or a little hole; example (http://krd.clansfx.co.uk/dump/a253204b02fa3787387b3a01e0cb407a/screen0199.png).
Reaim before every shot.
*Aiming the crosshair all the way up or all the way down before taking your shot is sufficient.
No darksiding.
*Darksiding is hiding your worm in a position where it's impossible for your opponent(s) to hit you with a grenade and at the same time impossible for you to hit your opponent(s) with a grenade.
No sitters.
*Sitters are Grenades that stop moving completely before they explode.
No telecide.
*Teleciding is the act of achieving grave explosion damage on an enemy worm by teleporting your worm above them and having it die from fall damage.
Scheme file
https://www.tus-wa.com/schemes/scheme-1476/
Pointers for discussion
1. Should worm health be set to 250 in 1v1 matches? Between highly skilled players, on slightly more open maps, I feel games can be over very quickly with only 200 health; the additional 50 health makes it take roughly two solid hits more before a worm loses all health, which feels about right to me. For 2v2 matches, 200 health per worm is fine.
2. Should there be rules preventing straight Bazooka shots and the use of Shotgun to damage enemy worms? I feel it's cleaner not to have them because these things can very easily be countered by hiding intelligently and only agreeing to play on at least somewhat complex (not completely flat) maps. It's also somewhat optimistic to hope that everyone's personal definition of what a straight Bazooka shot is would be the same, and I'm not sure an objective definition is even possible to put forward. Can it be and what would it sound like, in terms that the game could enforce on its own, objectively?
3. Should Blow Torch, Girder and Pneumatic Drill be part of the scheme? Having infinite Fire Punch, Shotgun and Teleport seems to replace these in most real life situations almost completely, while keeping scheme rules simpler (no grey area Girder rules, fewer darksiding situations). Currently, only infinite Blow Torch remains in the scheme, largely for reasons of tradition, but I guess it doesn't break anything if the darksiding rule is kept simple and easy to agree on. Torch tunnels are kind of fun to try and aim into (and out of) as well, so I'm inclined to keep Blow Torch in there.
4. Should TestStuff's circular aiming be part of the scheme? Why did TUS start enforcing it for BnG? I find it breaks my normal way of aiming completely so that I have to rely on notching more because of it, not less. Without going into the details of notching, isn't that the opposite of the desired effect? Not to mention that with the current implementation of it, fall damage is actually easier to achieve, making it very hard for players with 10+ years of BnG experience to estimate shot damage, while adding no positive effects that I can think of. TestStuff really has no place in BnG, I feel.
5. Anything else?
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Hysteria
Modes
1v1 (8 worms per player); Best of 1
2v2 (4 worms per player); Best of 1
Maps
Unedited random maps (any island or cavern preset; example1 (http://krd.clansfx.co.uk/dump/23f4c371750cbb230930f51670baf6ac/screen0201.png), example2 (http://krd.clansfx.co.uk/dump/338274ce1e9698b5758fd17ccea83295/screen0200.png)).
*Ideally, maps should be complex enough so that both sides have the opportunity to attain meaningfully valuable hides (on island maps these would usually be high ground hides that aren't entirely exposed to Bazooka attacks from the sides).
*Any terrain texture is fine. Bridges are fine too.
Rules
No climbing on top of the indestructible border when playing on cavern maps.
*Worms Knowledge Base calls this roofing: http://worms2d.info/Roofing
No skipwalking.
*See here for an explanation of what skipwalking and flipwalking are: http://worms2d.info/Skipwalking
Scheme file
https://www.tus-wa.com/schemes/scheme-1477/
Pointers for discussion
1. Why has TUS Hysteria devolved into being played with only 4 or even 3 worms a side? Has anyone ever really thought about this and explained it? Forum thread links please!
2. Is 12 randomly placed Mines too much and should we stick to the old variant with only 8 of them? I find that on complex island maps with 8 worms a side, the early game is more meaningful with slightly more than 8 randomly placed hazards, but 16 has proven too much for competitive play because it usually means that every placement spot available after the worms have spawned is filled with mines; this is particularly unwelcome on simpler maps.
3. Is a round time of 10 seconds working out well in competitive Hysteria? I remember scheme variants that used 7 or 5 seconds instead, but never felt that it made a meaningful enough difference to warrant using a different Hysteria scheme file for competitive play. 10s is fine by me because as far as darksiding and side zooking are concerned, a lot more depends on the map that's being played on anyway. If you're going to force sudden death, you're going to be able to do it either way.
4. What happened to random worm order in Hysteria? Has anyone ever tested it thoroughly in 1v1 matches (preferably with more than 4 worms a side) and what were their findings?
5. Anything else?
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Elite
Modes
1v1 (4 worms per player); Best of 1
2v2 (2 worms per player); Best of 1
Maps
Unedited random maps (any island or cavern preset is generally fine, but highly complex maps are almost a must, so using the double island (top right) and closed cave (bottom left) presets with carefully reseeded objects is the most common; example1 (http://krd.clansfx.co.uk/dump/967cdc186ad28947e09f1831e822a362/screen0202.png), example2 (http://krd.clansfx.co.uk/dump/3d809d5414485c06df4694196b1808b5/screen0206.png)).
*Any terrain texture is fine. No, really. Only playing on Fruit and sometimes Cheese is lame and boring for spectators. Bridges are fine too.
Rules
No rope knocking (includes Bungee knocks).
*Competitive games are hosted in #PartyTime or via Direct IP to avoid accidental knocks.
No climbing on top of the indestructible border when playing on cavern maps.
*Worms Knowledge Base calls this roofing: http://worms2d.info/Roofing
No skipwalking.
*See here for an explanation of what skipwalking and flipwalking are: http://worms2d.info/Skipwalking
No bypassing the Longbow and Baseball Bat angle restrictions.
*The Open Intermediate League's rules section calls this "bow/bat/rope angle modifications". Worms Knowledge Base refers to it as "Vertical Longbow and Baseball Bat": http://worms2d.info/Vertical_Longbow_and_Baseball_Bat
Scheme file
https://www.tus-wa.com/schemes/scheme-1478/
Pointers for discussion
1. Should Elite be best of 2 or 3 like Intermediate is? I think one reason it began to be played on stupidly edited maps is that people perhaps felt that being the first to place your worm offered a tangible advantage (I'm sure it doesn't in the grand scheme of things) to the player who gets to start, so making the scheme Bo2/Bo3 would address that fear even better than playing on maps that are 95% terrain. If at the same time, those maps were abolished and forgotten about and Elite became a random map scheme again, average round time would likely decrease a little too, so playing two rounds instead of a single one wouldn't be too bad, time wise.
2. Considering what has happened to the Elite scheme in the past, should edited random maps be accepted at all? If yes, should there be some kind of a threshold for how much editing is allowed? How could such a threshold be defined in such a way that tastefully edited maps were still clearly fine, but monstrosities consisting of 95% terrain and two layers of grass and objects were not?
3. Should the power of Mortar (commonly at 3 stars of power in modern schemes) and Cluster Bomb (commonly at 1 star) be standardised with what they are in the league varaint of the Intermediate scheme (both at 2 stars) or left as they are? Having this be the same between the two ground schemes could make it easier for players to stay in top shape at both of them at the same time, but some people may be too used to being able to (almost) kill 100 health worms with Mortar and grave damage in Elite, and thus be unable to adapt to the change. Cluster Bomb, on the other hand, would be fine at 2 stars of power rather than the current 1 either way, I think. It's used extremely rarely as it is.
4. Does the floating weapon glitch need to be forbidden in Elite, Intermediate and possibly also Team17? The way I see it, it's not really a glitch, it's just one of the instances where players have figured out how to place weapons that normally explode on impact on top of a worm so gently that it doesn't count as a heavy enough collision to cause them to explode. If it happened by accident under different circumstances, would it still count as breaking scheme rules? It's a pretty tricky situation.
5. Does jumping after using Pneumatic Drill and Teleport (during the game, not when initially placing your worms) really have to be forbidden in Elite/Intermediate/Team17? I never really thought of it as a glitch, it's just that the game gives you 0.02s of retreat time after using them, and by mashing a jump key hard, you can get it to sometimes happen. It's probably true that cheaters could write a script that would help them do it more easily, but such cheating is obviously against the rules of any self-respecting competition, so should we really let that spoil this difficult to achieve trick for the rest of us? I really kinda like that it's there.
6. Is anyone at all in favour of reintroducing crates or rope knocking into Elite? No? Didn't think so!
7. Anything else?
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Intermediate
Modes
1v1 (8 worms per player); Best of 3 (Bo2 in competition where draws are accepted, Bo5 in very important/prestigeous competition)
2v2 (4 worms per player); Best of 3 (Bo2 in competition where draws are accepted, Bo5 in very important/prestigeous competition)
Maps
Unedited random maps (any island or cavern preset is fine, but highly complex maps are desirable, so reseeding the objects manually can be a good idea; example1 (http://krd.clansfx.co.uk/dump/71202f9a55bd2e4266f2977aea18ee6f/screen0207.png), example2 (http://krd.clansfx.co.uk/dump/6a892d82f590a614440be58c02e1fe9c/screen0209.png)).
*In Bo3 matches, it's common practice to play the first two rounds on island maps, then the deciding round in a cave. The important thing is that neither side gets first turn on island maps more times than the other side.
*In Bo5 matches of great importance, it's common practice to play the first two rounds on cave maps, the second two on islands, then the deciding round in a cave again. The important thing is that neither side gets first turn on island maps more times than the other side.
Any terrain texture is fine. Bridges are fine too.
Rules
No climbing on top of the indestructible border when playing on cavern maps.
*Worms Knowledge Base calls this roofing: http://worms2d.info/Roofing
No skipwalking.
*See here for an explanation of what skipwalking and flipwalking are: http://worms2d.info/Skipwalking
No bypassing the Longbow and Baseball Bat angle restrictions.
*The Open Intermediate League's rules section calls this "bow/bat/rope angle modifications". Worms Knowledge Base refers to it as "Vertical Longbow and Baseball Bat": http://worms2d.info/Vertical_Longbow_and_Baseball_Bat
No using Bungee from Jetpack.
*See here for an explanation of how this glitch is performed: http://worms2d.info/Bungee_from_Jet_Pack
Scheme file
https://www.tus-wa.com/schemes/scheme-1479/
Pointers for discussion
1. Instead of simply making Elite players adapt to the Intermediate scheme's powers for Mortar and Cluster Bomb, we could also seek compromise. Elite could have its Cluster Bomb upgraded to 2 stars of power (like it is in Intermediate), while Intermediate could have its Mortar upgraded to 3 stars of power (bringing it to currently common Elite levels). Not only would this be a middle ground for both Elite and Intermediate specialists (neither of whom understandably want to see changes to only their preferred scheme), it would also keep the weapon power levels between the two schemes consistent. But on the other hand, both weapons would then be upgraded, one in each scheme, and as a result they'd probably see a little more use in competitive play. Considering how rarely they're used, though, that might be a good thing? On the other hand, Mortar at 3 stars of power shot directly down at a worm, in combination with grave explosion damage, can kill a perfectly healthy (100 HP) target worm, which a lot of newer and Intermediate players might consider straight up overpowered.
2. Does the floating weapon glitch need to be forbidden in Elite, Intermediate and possibly also Team17? The way I see it, it's not really a glitch, it's just one of the instances where players have figured out how to place weapons that normally explode on impact on top of a worm so gently that it doesn't count as a heavy enough collision to cause them to explode. If it happened by accident under different circumstances, would it still count as breaking scheme rules? It's a pretty tricky situation.
3. Does jumping after using Pneumatic Drill and Teleport (during the game, not when initially placing your worms) really have to be forbidden in Elite/Intermediate/Team17? I never really thought of it as a glitch, it's just that the game gives you 0.02s of retreat time after using them, and by mashing a jump key hard, you can get it to sometimes happen. It's probably true that cheaters could write a script that would help them do it more easily, but such cheating is obviously against the rules of any self-respecting competition, so should we really let that spoil this difficult to achieve trick for the rest of us? I really kinda like that it's there.
4. Is there anyone left who prefers 0 turns of Jetpack delay instead of the currently widespread variant with 2 turns of delay on this utility? The reason players from the NNN clan and their league got used to 0 delay was that many updates ago, WA didn't allow you to keep the delay on utilities in custom schemes, so when they powered down the Mortar/Cluster Bomb and took the crates out of the intrinsic [ Intermediate ] scheme to create their "luckless" variant, they had no choice but to change the Jetpack delay to 0 turns. When the WA update arrived that made it possible to set utility delay in custom schemes, the NNN/ONL community decided to vote about whether to go back to the 2 turns of delay or keep playing with 0 in a forum poll, but I'm not really sure what the results of that were. I do know that both Darío and I were hugely in favour of going back to 2 turns of delay at the time, though. It doesn't really make sense to me not to do it, the scheme was obviously designed with this delay in mind, but it'd be interesting to hear the reasoning behind making the delay 0 turns instead of 2. I guess first turn mine pushes can be pretty cool, but that's a pretty clear advantage to whoever gets first turn, so I'm not at all convinced it'd be a net positive change.
5. Anything else? This competitive Intermediate variant without crates and with the slightly powered down Mortar and Cluster Bomb is probably just about perfect the way it is now, I feel.
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Team17
Modes
1v1 (4 worms per player); Best of 1
2v2 (2 worms per player); Best of 1
Maps
Unedited random maps (any island or cavern preset is generally fine, but highly complex maps with a lot of closed-off areas are preferable, with the double layer cavern preset being by far the most common, although the scheme works on island maps well too; example1 (http://krd.clansfx.co.uk/dump/3544bd1eb59530608a7886e89dd07ebf/screen0212.png), example2 (http://krd.clansfx.co.uk/dump/e68c88c92054fbbdfdec45940eacbf93/screen0211.png))
*Any terrain texture is fine. Bridges are great!
Rules
No rope knocking (includes Bungee knocks).
*Competitive games are hosted in #PartyTime or via Direct IP to avoid accidental knocks.
No climbing on top of the indestructible border when playing on cavern maps.
*Worms Knowledge Base calls this roofing: http://worms2d.info/Roofing
No skipwalking.
*See here for an explanation of what skipwalking and flipwalking are: http://worms2d.info/Skipwalking
No bypassing the Longbow and Baseball Bat angle restrictions.
*The Open Intermediate League's rules section calls this "bow/bat/rope angle modifications". Worms Knowledge Base refers to it as "Vertical Longbow and Baseball Bat": http://worms2d.info/Vertical_Longbow_and_Baseball_Bat
Scheme file
https://www.tus-wa.com/schemes/scheme-1480/
Pointers for discussion
1. Should Team17 have any hot seat time? Some old schemes used to have 10 seconds of it, Lex for example feels that it's a good idea to have it, but I think that at least since the times of the CL2K league, competitive variants of the scheme have had no hot seat time. I personally like it this way because it gives players who are quick to think (or are able to do the thinking during their opponent's turn) and quick to make their moves (in so doing preventing their opponent from getting a lot of thinking time during them) a deserved advantage. But there's also an argument to be made that T17 is a naturally slow, tactical scheme and that having enough time to think about what to do during your turns, so that you can utilise all 45 seconds of them optimally, may be preferable.
2. Should the starting hazard objects be half oil barrels and half mines instead of all oil barrels like most players are used to today? Half mines and half barrels used to be the case a very long time ago in some people's Team17 schemes, but seems to have fallen out of favour for no particularly good reason. It was supposedly changed to all barrels so that initial placement couldn't screw you over as badly, but I feel that's counterbalanced by the additional skill and decision making when you're faced with the opportunity of going for a Firepunch/Dragonball-onto-mine move early on, sometimes favouring that even over picking up a crate. It makes early games more diverse and cooler to watch; van and I certainly prefer things this way, with half mines and half barrels!
3. Is the water rise rate during sudden death set in stone in competitive play? There used to be a lot of variance between people's Team17 schemes 10+ years ago, but to me it seems that the community has settled on the middle setting (20 pixels) in recent times. I think this is probably fine and doesn't need changing, but there are probably still players out there who have the water set to rise more slowly in their schemes. Anyone care to explain why that would be an improvement?
4. Would making the round time (the time before sudden death hits) slightly longer make Team17 early game more relevant and the endgame more fair and interesting? Would making the round time 12 instead of the current 10 minutes act as a replacement for making the water rise more slowly once sudden death does hit (so that we might keep that at the current setting)? By extending the time before sudden death this way, we would make it more likely for high damage weapons to be picked up in early and mid game, and those are the best motivation for players to attack rather than turtle and hoard homing weapons for sudden death. In the long run, player habits could change to take this into account, and we could be left with cavern Team17 that's more interesting on the whole.
5. For the longest time, crate probability in Team17 was left to the players to deal with as best they could, with every available weapon having equal probability to show up in a crate (super weapon quirks notwithstanding). I think it was in the First Blood league that Mad Cows had their probability lowered from 3 to 2, simply because getting them in batches of 3 made them too destructive. But this was totally fine by me. It's when people started trying to "balance" individual weapons according to their "usefulness" that things went to hell and now nobody knows what sort of distribution of weapons can be expected from crates anymore. Can we just go back to giving all weapons, including things like air strikes, a probability of 3 (and maybe keep 2 for Mad Cows) again? Please?
6. The power of Mortar (currently 3 stars) and Cluster Bomb (currently 1 star) make very little sense. If one isn't overpowered at a power of 3, why does the other have to be nerfed all the way down to power 1? Just because you get 3 Cluster Bombs in every crate? Isn't Team17 supposed to have all the weapons at standard power so that the knowledge players gain from playing this scheme translates well to WA in general and gets them used to the default behaviour of (almost) every weapon in the game? Alternatively, if we want to keep Cluster Bomb power lower than the standard 3, why not at least synchronise it with that of Elite and Intermediate (probably 2 stars of power) then? At least that would be neat and tidy.
7. Longbow power is a hot point of contention. Most Team17 players these days are extremely used to each Longbow arrow doing 50 damage, but to those (newer players included) who see Longbow as more of a utility weapon rather than a high damage one, this is very confusing. Apart from the 5 star Ninja Rope, Longbow is the only thing in the scheme that's grossly overpowered compared to what a reasonable person might naturally expect, so should it be brought in line with everything else and reduced to the standard 15 damage per arrow? Deadcode thinks that would make it too weak and has therefore had it set to 5 stars of power in his Team17 scheme, making each arrow do 30 damage. Now what do we do? I think I'd probably prefer 15 damage (because then every weapon in the scheme could be made the standard 3 stars of power), but I can live with 30 damage as well. Arrows doing 50 damage each definitely feels a bit insane, but it is how it's always been...
8. Team17 has historically been played with infinite Girders, but the worst case scenario is pretty ugly with that variant. In competitive play, some players literally Girder blocked every single turn until sudden death, and as their opponent, there really was very little you could do about it. The norm these days does seem to be 7 Girders a side, it feels enough for practically every play style except that single dirty one, still allows for a healthy dose of darksiding and so far, it feels nicely balanced. Since this is a change that was introduced back in 2006 or so, there has been plenty of time to find flaws, but so far, the community seems to agree that 7 is a good number. I would keep it this way for competitive games and allow infinite Girders only in funners.
9. Speaking of Girders, should they perhaps appear in crates as well in the 7 Girder variant of the scheme? This way, a player intent on darksiding could specifically look for them, then carry out the evil darkside plan of blocking almost every turn, but they'd have to get lucky or pick a lot of crates up in order to never run out of Girders. At least they'd have to work for it this way, which is still an improvement over infinite Girders, I guess. Apart from the urge to have all the weapons in the game available from crates in the Team17 scheme, I don't really see a pressing need to introduce this change, but it might be interesting to try anyway. Realistically though, people would probably just rage whenever they picked up Girders from a crate.
10. Why is Kamikaze not part of the Team17 scheme as a weapon that you can collect from crates? Should it be? What's the worst that could happen? Again, adding it would mostly only satisfy the requirement that every weapon should be available from crates in this scheme, but I guess Kamikaze would also be a really powerful finisher during sudden death. We definitely lack those in cavern map Team17...
11. Should stockpiling perhaps be set so that you keep your weapons (and get a set of new ones, including the 5 star Ninja Rope and 7 fresh Girders) between rounds and in case of a draw? Team17 is a single round scheme, sure, but in competition where draws are handled by playing a new round instead of reporting the draw, this positive stockpiling could change things a great deal and certainly speed the potential second round after draws up a lot, plus perhaps be more fair because your good crate collecting habits from the previous round would carry over and give you an edge in the rematch. On the other hand, some players might feel that if the first round was a draw, the rematch should reset everything and be played as a completely new game, no advantage to either player.
12. Does anyone still want to argue in favour of reintroducing Worm Select into the Team17 scheme as a utility that you start with? The old variant of the scheme (called 1Percent) gave each player two Worm Selects, which obviously made sudden death very different. But apart from Ropa, I don't think I've seen anyone else show genuine signs of interest in going back to this in recent years...
13. Does the floating weapon glitch need to be forbidden in Elite, Intermediate and possibly also Team17? The way I see it, it's not really a glitch, it's just one of the instances where players have figured out how to place weapons that normally explode on impact on top of a worm so gently that it doesn't count as a heavy enough collision to cause them to explode. If it happened by accident under different circumstances, would it still count as breaking scheme rules? It's a pretty tricky situation.
14. Does jumping after using Pneumatic Drill and Teleport (during the game, not when initially placing your worms) really have to be forbidden in Elite/Intermediate/Team17? I never really thought of it as a glitch, it's just that the game gives you 0.02s of retreat time after using them, and by mashing a jump key hard, you can get it to sometimes happen. It's probably true that cheaters could write a script that would help them do it more easily, but such cheating is obviously against the rules of any self-respecting competition, so should we really let that spoil this difficult to achieve trick for the rest of us? I really kinda like that it's there.
15. There are probably at least a few players out there who perhaps feel that rope and/or bungee knocking wouldn't be such a bad idea in Team17. While I personally feel that it's unlikely that this change would get wide enough acceptance now to make it into a standard variation of the scheme, it's a good idea to keep our options open, so I'm adding this bullet point here anyway.
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.
17. Holy crap, there's so much to try and agree on regarding Team17. Here's a relatively short summary of a long IRC discussion from a while back, in case anyone wants to get into the individual reasons behind coste's/Deadcode's/van's/my opinions on some of these proposed changes:
http://krd.clansfx.co.uk/dump/189761deb541c04408f974973bb6e79d/00000061.txt
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Oh yeah, we're doing ground schemes only first, so we don't overwhelm ourselves and so the discussion is hopefully a little less messy and impossible to keep up with; a new topic for the roping side of things will follow at a later time. If someone who's more into the traditionally non-league schemes like Abnormal and Battle Race and Bungee Race and BnA and Darts and Fort and Mole Shopper and Super Sheep Race and Walk For Weapons and so on wants to open debate on the standard variants of those too, feel free to use this post as a template for it. But let's do competitive ground schemes only in this topic, alright?
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I'll reserve a longer reply for tomorrow.
If we are to keep worms competitive, I say we return to "grass roots".
From your list I would personally scrap Intermediate and Hysteria.
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Yeah I will reply later too I am so tired right now
If we are to keep worms competitive, I say we return to "grass roots".
Why would going backwards help us go forward?
We need something new, something fresh and exciting, take some experience and inspiration from the past and use it for something new!
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Hysteria
[...]
Rules
No skipwalking.
*See here for an explanation of what skipwalking and flipwalking are: http://worms2d.info/Skipwalking
I don't understand the need for this rule, when it's much easier to use the jetpack anyway. Unless you removed the jetpack (we can't see your scheme files if you keep them private).
Pointers for discussion
[...]
3. Is a round time of 10 seconds working out well in competitive Hysteria? I remember scheme variants that used 7 or 5 seconds instead, but never felt that it made a meaningful enough difference to warrant using a different Hysteria scheme file for competitive play. 10s is fine by me because as far as darksiding and side zooking are concerned, a lot more depends on the map that's being played on anyway. If you're going to force sudden death, you're going to be able to do it either way.
4. What happened to random worm order in Hysteria? Has anyone ever tested it thoroughly in 1v1 matches (preferably with more than 4 worms a side) and what were their findings?
I hosted 2 cups with random turn order hysteria (https://www.tus-wa.com/schemes/scheme-448/) as well as reduced SD time:
Cup 1 (https://www.tus-wa.com/cups/cup-125/)
Cup 2 (https://www.tus-wa.com/cups/cup-263/)
Take a look at some of the games, to see if the entertainment is an improvement over regular hysteria. I felt it was the case for my games.
I feel we don't need 10 seconds, because most players can do their thing in the second they get just fine. I for one haven't played a game where sd was started cause of mistakes alone, except when someone in the game doesn't know hysteria. If you make it 5 seconds, sd can be a legitimate tactic, whereas right now, you give your opponent a lot of time to mash you to bits.
edix: considering the length of your posts, are you going to edit in important thoughts/brain farts in the original posts?
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If we are to keep worms competitive, I say we return to "grass roots".
From your list I would personally scrap Intermediate and Hysteria.
But Intermediate is the most competitive of them all (maybe on par with elite, its arguable, but for sure more interesting to watch).
I will try to drop something here tomorrow
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I'm sure Normal No Noobs would have something nasty to say about the suggestion of Intermediate being dropped! :-\
Otherwise, good thread. Finding universal standards for the basic schemes is a worthy task. :)
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I'll reserve a longer reply for tomorrow.
If we are to keep worms competitive, I say we return to "grass roots".
From your list I would personally scrap Intermediate and Hysteria.
Well, Intermediate and Hysteria are de facto schemes that are played competitively in our current community. They're part of very mainstream leagues, they see tournament play, a lot of casual play and for many new players, they're the first contact with online (and later competitive) play. These were roughly my objective reasons for considering a scheme to be within the scope of what this project is about. Another reason would perhaps be that both of these schemes actually serve as a starting point for the creation of new schemes and scheme variants, so standardising them could also have other, more subtle positive effects in the long run. My less objective reasons would include the fact that Inter has seen the most streaming with commentary, which has to be just about the most brilliant way of promoting the game; I loved every minute of those CWT streams. :-[
If a specific community league wants to make a statement by not supporting a scheme or by using a heavily modified variant of it, that's fine, but I do think the current status of these two schemes warrants their inclusion and hopefully standardisation via discussion in this thread. Remember, the goal here isn't really to determine which of the schemes are worthy of competitive play, it's to come up with optimal variants of them regardless of that, so that individual leagues (or WA devs for 4.x's ranked play) can then make an informed decision regarding whether what the community considers standard is good enough for them. If it isn't, at least they have a base upon which to build their own variant, more suitable to their needs. If that's still not good enough, they can not include the scheme in their league/competition. But by having the community agree on standard scheme variants, I do think we'll be making these decisions easier and quicker, again resulting in a healthier, more active competitive playing field.
Hysteria
[...]
Rules
No skipwalking.
*See here for an explanation of what skipwalking and flipwalking are: http://worms2d.info/Skipwalking
I don't understand the need for this rule, when it's much easier to use the jetpack anyway. Unless you removed the jetpack (we can't see your scheme files if you keep them private).
I put that rule there just in case, for completion and so we don't forget about it. I do think that skipwalking, if we agree that it should be forbidden in other ground schemes, has to probably be forbidden in Hysteria too, just to avoid situations where a player might (however unreasonably) consider themselves cheated out of their victory because their opponent skipwalked (or tried to). When the game itself gives us the ability to allow or disallow skipwalking via a scheme setting, we'll have to decide whether to check that box in the scheme editor or not either way, so we might as well try to agree one way or the other now, right?
Made the scheme files public now!
Pointers for discussion
[...]
3. Is a round time of 10 seconds working out well in competitive Hysteria? I remember scheme variants that used 7 or 5 seconds instead, but never felt that it made a meaningful enough difference to warrant using a different Hysteria scheme file for competitive play. 10s is fine by me because as far as darksiding and side zooking are concerned, a lot more depends on the map that's being played on anyway. If you're going to force sudden death, you're going to be able to do it either way.
4. What happened to random worm order in Hysteria? Has anyone ever tested it thoroughly in 1v1 matches (preferably with more than 4 worms a side) and what were their findings?
I hosted 2 cups with random turn order hysteria (https://www.tus-wa.com/schemes/scheme-448/) as well as reduced SD time:
Cup 1 (https://www.tus-wa.com/cups/cup-125/)
Cup 2 (https://www.tus-wa.com/cups/cup-263/)
Take a look at some of the games, to see if the entertainment is an improvement over regular hysteria. I felt it was the case for my games.
I feel we don't need 10 seconds, because most players can do their thing in the second they get just fine. I for one haven't played a game where sd was started cause of mistakes alone, except when someone in the game doesn't know hysteria. If you make it 5 seconds, sd can be a legitimate tactic, whereas right now, you give your opponent a lot of time to mash you to bits.
edix: considering the length of your posts, are you going to edit in important thoughts/brain farts in the original posts?
Sweet, I'll have a look at those cups and so should everyone else interested in Hyst.
As far as 5/7/10 second round time is concerned, one argument for keeping it 10 seconds would be that if we don't, we're likely introducing the need for hosts to keep two variants of the scheme at hand, one for competitive play and one for random #AG games with newbies to the scheme. I do still play a fair share of the latter and it's not uncommon for the more experienced players in my games to get a little annoyed when the water starts rising prematurely because of missed turns, making the outcome of free for all rounds a little too random even for casual play. And that's with 10 second round time; 5 seconds would make things even worse, especially on complex maps where worm damage doesn't necessarily happen every turn to begin with. On the other hand, having to switch between 5s and 10s round time schemes might not be too bad...
Edix: I was going to keep adding bullet points to the Pointers for discussion sections under each scheme as they come up in this thread so that the top posts serve as an overview of everything that remains to be agreed on. Likewise for the Rules sections as we agree on whether some rules can be omitted or need to be added. I'll mention the changes I make to the top posts in a reply too, so that it's more obvious to those who had already read the thread. Good enough?
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Might be better to have own topic for each scheme discussion, or?
As for Team17:
15. There are probably at least a few players out there who perhaps feel that rope knocking wouldn't be such a bad idea in Team17.
I would consider allowing bungee knocks. According to http://worms2d.info/Team17_(scheme) :
Team17 is classically played with two rules:
No roofing
No rope knocking (Bungee knocks don't count).
Why is bungee knocking forbidden these days? If it was allowed, we would see some nifty moves by bungee specialists. Nothing wrong with that? I understand why rope knocking is forbidden, for it's easy to execute and you can't really avoid getting knocked. Bungee knocks you can avoid with positioning.
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Hm, well, the reason Bungee knocking isn't allowed in schemes where Ninja Rope knocking isn't allowed is that historically, WormNet channels that had it disabled (the ones without the Scheme=Pf parameter) had it disabled for both types of knocks. It's currently impossible to systemically forbid one type of knocking but allow the other, although this is something that will likely be made possible in the future, when the WA scheme format is updated next time.
To me, it does make sense to disallow both types of knocking in Team17, especially in competition that supports the Intermediate scheme as well (currently no such competition exists that I'm aware of, save for I guess TFL), so that the two are further differentiated from each other. One scheme is then focused on sheer strategy more clearly (T17), while the other's focus on technical skill gets to be better pronounced (Inter). On the other hand, I'm definitely a sucker for a good Bungee knock as well and very much enjoy watching cool moves performed with the utility. But one could argue that even with knocking out of the picture, there's still room for some very cool Bungee shenanigans in Team17. Dropping off a cliff to pick up a crate, swinging back onto the ledge you were attached to or bouncing to the other side of a cave, then carrying out an attack with the weapon you had just picked up is one such impressive example.
Does the scheme need to allow more than that? Maybe, and I do agree that this is a valid topic for discussion. Although using WKB scheme articles as justification might not be a great idea, many of them are either outdated or plain inconsistent with the sources that they claim to be based upon. I know because it gives me a grey hair every time I look at them and see how much work there's still to be done...
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After reading this thread, the other thread that ended up talking about schemes, and all the other threads complaining and/or discussing variations of other schemes...
I have to ask the question, what makes a WA scheme league worthy and who gets to decide that?
It seems to me that before TuS introduced Free League, you would only have the choice of playing a TINY % of all available WA schemes competitively to earn respect in the popular website based WA community (WACL/WL/FB/TuS).
We started off with only BnG, Roper & Elite. Over the years only schemes that show close resemblance to these 3 schemes were added to the main leagues, TTRR, T17, WxW, Shopper, Hysteria.
I feel like we are stuck in a comfort zone, competitive gaming has MUCH more to offer than these few oldschool schemes:
Abnormal & Intermediate are both popular competitive schemes which show both use of tactical skill and technical skill.
Kaos is another popular free league scheme which shows great tactical & technical skills.
Of course everyone is going to push for their favourite schemes, and schemes they are passionate about, well for me it's Darts:
Darts is a scheme that takes minutes to learn but patience and time to master!
It's an exceptionally competitive game like TTRR that has no luck factor*, it's all about being consistent, especially in official matches when under pressure.
The cherry on top for Darts is most maps require different throwing styles, maps have unique rules which make it more interesting & challenging, many of the different maps look & feel beautiful to play on.
*Granted, there are a few maps which because of the design are somewhat luck based, but this is only a small handful out of the full set of Darts maps, also take note there is an official TFL Darts Map pack which should be used when playing TFL games, this map pack does not include the "luck based" maps.
These maps that are luck based were the 1st maps to be made for this scheme, over the past 3 years we have updated the general Darts rules and honed our ability to make exceptional maps that avoid any luck and focus entirely on skill!
Most players who make Darts maps pass them onto the dS community to test and edit before being released on TuS / WMDB and the results are always excellent!
All maps made or edited by the dS community presently are extremely solid in design & playability relying solely on skill/consistency to beat your opponents!
The only downside to Darts and generally the only thing I see people complain about is having to place 8 worms at the starting position, however if and when WA 4.x comes out, there will be no waiting time as we will have auto placement.
Even with the manual placement of 16 worms* in both 1v1 & 2v2 games still take less than 10 minutes (averaging on 5-8 minutes per game).
*1v1 - 8 worms each.
2v2 - 4 worms each.
Darts is also the most played Free League scheme, it might not be super compared to the popularity of Classic schemes but for the community of players who enjoy Darts that's a great thing! I've seen more and more players hosting/joining Darts through their own hosts or with Hostingbuddy, it's always a hugely successful scheme in Worm Olympics as well.
Obviously this scheme has nothing to offer for those who solely enjoy tactical games, but for those who enjoy technical skill this game is one of the best WA has to offer. I realize there are those out there who won't even give this scheme a chance because it has absolutely nothing to do with Classic schemes that players are used to, but with an evergrowing community of maps, unique rules & players it's a great time to get into this scheme!
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Can you let this thread serve its purpose and go to the other one and make that one about Komo/Darts if you please?
OP was pretty clear:
Oh yeah, we're doing ground schemes only first, so we don't overwhelm ourselves
Thanks
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BnG
1. Should worm health be set to 250 in 1v1 matches? Between highly skilled players, on slightly more open maps, I feel games can be over very quickly with only 200 health; the additional 50 health makes it take roughly two solid hits more before a worm loses all health, which feels about right to me. For 2v2 matches, 200 health per worm is fine.
This one is simple. There is a number of players who are able to finish a round of BnG very quickly, but how many of them? The standard scheme variant should be satysfying for both sides, veterans and mediocre/newbie players, especialy considering the fact that the scheme would possibly target random people at WormNet's ranked play one day. Time has shown that even if a round of BnG can last 5-10minutes on average between scheme specialists, it can also last uncomparably longer between people not specialised with the scheme. And we know that there is not too many bng scheme specialists anyway. Also, BnG doesnt look slow/fast in comparision to other schemes on average, and remember that a game of RR lasts much shorter, no matter if you are good or bad at it. On top of that, some people simply get frustrated playing BnG and being unable to hit eachother - while its not a good excuse for old players, new players might find having to play even longer BnG as a waste of time (50hp difference can be too huge for them).
2. Should there be rules preventing straight Bazooka shots and the use of Shotgun to damage enemy worms? I feel it's cleaner not to have them because these things can very easily be countered by hiding intelligently and only agreeing to play on at least somewhat complex (not completely flat) maps. It's also somewhat optimistic to hope that everyone's personal definition of what a straight Bazooka shot is would be the same, and I'm not sure an objective definition is even possible to put forward. Can it be and what would it sound like, in terms that the game could enforce on its own, objectively?
I dont like the idea of overly complicating BnG rules, so it might be a good idea to not include these at all. But imagine a situation like this: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/43525724/straightshot.PNG That, imo, isnt the spirit of BnG. However the problem is that not every zook aimed straight can fall under this category, for example a zook that does a gentle curve, shooting an opponent's worm who is standing way below your worm's level is legit. So i'd say that rule needs a better explanation, but still even the best written rule will have a loophole that eventually people will take advantage of, sooner or later, not necessarly often.
3. Should Blow Torch, Girder and Pneumatic Drill be part of the scheme? Having infinite Fire Punch, Shotgun and Teleport seems to replace these in most real life situations almost completely, while keeping scheme rules simpler (no grey area Girder rules, fewer darksiding situations). Currently, only infinite Blow Torch remains in the scheme, largely for reasons of tradition, but I guess it doesn't break anything if the darksiding rule is kept simple and easy to agree on. Torch tunnels are kind of fun to try and aim into (and out of) as well, so I'm inclined to keep Blow Torch in there.
I have no problems with Blow Torch, it can even make the game even more interesting as there are more fancy passages for grenade to bounce through. Drill can be useful in a situation where you can be easily pushed down to a ditch, so using it will put your opponent in advantage anyway. Also I dont see it being abused - if you dig yourself too deep, you wont be able to hit eachother with a grenade. Teleport can be used for similar purposes as well. Girders are completely gamebreaking though. It should be taken down long ago. The most basic example is that sometimes part of bng is about making your opponent run out of hides, so even if someone uses a girder for bounce, later into the game it WILL be used as an additional hide or obstacle, no question about it, even if not done on purpose. The shot which should normally hit you will hit girder. You push your opponent under a girder and then what. There is only 1 map and it shouldnt be modifed in anyway, other than weapons.
4. Should TestStuff's circular aiming be part of the scheme? Why did TUS start enforcing it for BnG? I find it breaks my normal way of aiming completely so that I have to rely on notching more because of it, not less. Without going into the details of notching, isn't that the opposite of the desired effect? Not to mention that with the current implementation of it, fall damage is actually easier to achieve, making it very hard for players with 10+ years of BnG experience to estimate shot damage, while adding no positive effects that I can think of. TestStuff really has no place in BnG, I feel.
Definitely no place in BnG.
Elite
1. Should Elite be best of 2 or 3 like Intermediate is? I think one reason it began to be played on stupidly edited maps is that people perhaps felt that being the first to place your worm offered a tangible advantage (I'm sure it doesn't in the grand scheme of things) to the player who gets to start, so making the scheme Bo2/Bo3 would address that fear even better than playing on maps that are 95% terrain. If at the same time, those maps were abolished and forgotten about and Elite became a random map scheme again, average round time would likely decrease a little too, so playing two rounds instead of a single one wouldn't be too bad, time wise.
Elite is the best example of a scheme fitting for bo1. There is no advantage of starting first/second other than weapon delays. There are just as many ways to take advantage of starting first as there are in starting second, its all up to player's mind.
4. Does the floating weapon glitch need to be forbidden in Elite, Intermediate and possibly also Team17? The way I see it, it's not really a glitch, it's just one of the instances where players have figured out how to place weapons that normally explode on impact on top of a worm so gently that it doesn't count as a heavy enough collision to cause them to explode. If it happened by accident under different circumstances, would it still count as breaking scheme rules? It's a pretty tricky situation.
I dont see how it can be unfair towards oppoent to use it, so whatever.
5. Does jumping after using Pneumatic Drill and Teleport (during the game, not when initially placing your worms) really have to be forbidden in Elite/Intermediate/Team17? I never really thought of it as a glitch, it's just that the game gives you 0.02s of retreat time after using them, and by mashing a jump key hard, you can get it to sometimes happen. It's probably true that cheaters could write a script that would help them do it more easily, but such cheating is obviously against the rules of any self-respecting competition, so should we really let that spoil this difficult to achieve trick for the rest of us? I really kinda like that it's there.
The nature of Drill/Teleport is that you arent supposed to perform any action after using it, so yes, it should stay forbidden.
Intermediate
4. Anything else? This competitive Intermediate variant without crates and with the slightly powered down Mortar and Cluster Bomb is probably just about perfect the way it is now, I feel.
Intermediate is perfect as it is.
Team17
I feel like this scheme has way too many flaws right now to discuss them in 1 topic together with the other schemes. Also i didnt really have the pleasure to play around with other variations other than additional hazard objects, that is +mines, so my knowledge is limited.
Cluster/Mortar powers
This one is quite overall about all the schemes at once so i will just go with it separately. I actually dont know the story about why it was decided to set Cluster to power 1 and Mortar to power 3 in Elite. The idea of Clustering a worm beneath is to punish bad hide. Power 1 cluster does up to 60 average damage on a scalpel (object in a Hospital themed map) while power 2 cluster does about 70 damage. Now i might sound a bit biased towards Intermediate, as i favor it over anything else, but ~70 damage for a "perfect" cluster feels like the most ideal value objectively speaking, similar to dynamite. In a not so perfect placement scenario it will still do about 60 damage, while doing barely 50 with power 1 cluster is clearly not enough for a punish, even if it still makes you able to kill 51 hp worm without big explosive like a dynamite. I havent tested power 1 too much, but im pretty sure it is possible to do even less than 50 with every shard hitting the worm, so why would i gamble. Gambling is bad, there is enough randomness in Worms, even in Elite. If my opponent decided to reveal himself that easily, he should get punished. Speaking about randomness, how do you feel if your full hp, well secured worm just got killed by mortar-suicide? It makes no sense, no weapon should be as powerfull when you have a few of them in backpack, which already has enough of deadly weapons in it. The only thing that worries me when it comes to mortar power other than 3 is the crater size. Power 3 is useful for digging purposes, less power not really. What would be ideal for us is if crater size at power 2 stood the same as at the power of 3, but damage cap was decreased. Anyway, as for today, i dont think Intermediate people would go for overpowered mortar, or in this case underpowered cluster punisher, but i can only speak for myself. The question is, would Elite vets agree to have both of them at power 2? Other than that, KRD already said that it is very important for every scheme to have the same power values (except Team17 for crate balancing purposes or other gimmicky schemes like Mole/Kaos).
Map selection
Where do i start.
Since we are discussing the officialy accepted competitive side of things, whats more important than being fair in the first place. Its not fair to pick whatever map you fancy, taking advantage of a situation where your opponent doesnt know, doesnt realise or doesnt care what he is going to play. It doesnt help that today's standards are edited maps no matter what is played on it, but mainly elite, and people are okay with it, some even prefer it over the randomly generated maps, or even worse, they find random maps to be somewhere between unfair / without hide / too simple and they hate it, while its only them at fault for not generating a map complex enough or playing like shit, ignoring the fact that how the map is played goes both ways, to you and to your opponent. These maps, with the addition of multiple themes on top of eachother, is the most clueless idea that ever happened to competitive Worms, and its scary that people have accepted it. Also whats with the thinking that every elite game played on island should come to an end in SD, after most of the map has already been sinked. Situations like these should be at least uncommon, but then its also up to a player if hes good/fast enough to finish before it, so cant blame anyone who has to replay a map because of a draw. How about entertainment for spectators? These maps dont even look good nor serious, they only represent how silly the competetive community of WA has to be. Now what about agreements? I mean if boths players fancy edited maps, be it slightly or overly edited ones? Then nothing will change. It will still be widely accepted and wont be treated as wrongdoing. So ideally, in the future, map editor should be smart enough to propose a good, random map for a ranked play, at the same time showing it in realtime in the preview. Thats the only fair way of solving map selection in ground schemes, so for now it should be up to players to preview a map or just accept it and play like they used to, just being assured that the map shape is legit. The same goes to BnG maps, just for now with the exception of converting Team17 map into it, as there is no other, better way. Oh and different map themes should be encouraged somehow. In short, there should be 1 type of accepted, playable map, which is random shape proposed by the game, equal for everyone, not as many shape variants as shapes of heads crafting them. D'oh.
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Elite is the best example of a scheme fitting for bo1. There is no advantage of starting first/second other than weapon delays.
I see no objetive absolute advantage of going second.
But going first gives you the option to take the best hide in the map (which can become the 2nd best or even worst hide in the map in two turns, but still, we're talking absolutes here), and do more damage over the course of the game.
Just because Elite allows you to lose your advantage in a turn by turn basis, with leads being very subjective and changing a lot between players, it doesn't mean you don't get an advantage by going first, even if that advantage can change as quick as in a turn.
I dont see how it can be unfair towards oppoent to use it, so whatever.
The nature of Drill/Teleport is that you arent supposed to perform any action after using it, so yes, it should stay forbidden.
I feel you're contradicting yourself here. Petrol's nature is that they explode in contact. They can't be dropped and be exploded on a timer.
However, I'd allow both them to stay in the game. Because the game allows both to happen by nature and they're not close to being game-breaking in any way, in fact, it's questionable they're ever useful.
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I dont see how it can be unfair towards oppoent to use it, so whatever.
The nature of Drill/Teleport is that you arent supposed to perform any action after using it, so yes, it should stay forbidden.
I feel you're contradicting yourself here. Petrol's nature is that they explode in contact. They can't be dropped and be exploded on a timer.
However, I'd allow both them to stay in the game. Because the game allows both to happen by nature and they're not close to being game-breaking in any way, in fact, it's questionable they're ever useful.
Teleport to jump can be useful in a situation where you have no other utilties / no way to run to your opponent and you are able to teleport/jump and knock him into water, for example. Same about the drill, just feels like its harder to time it properly.
The floating weapon glitch is indeed questionable if its useful in any way, thats why i choose to be neutral. Unless its possible to find a tricky and reliable way of using it, but i doubt it. Anyway, just so you know, im not a big fan of this mechanic for how it looks and how to trigger it.
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able to teleport/jump and knock him into water, for example.
I don't think it's unbalanced then. If you manage to put your worm in said position it's a bad play, considering the amount of weapons that could knock you off.
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able to teleport/jump and knock him into water, for example.
I don't think it's unbalanced then. If you manage to put your worm in said position it's a bad play, considering the amount of weapons that could knock you off.
Not if you carefully observe map/opponent's moves and count his utilties, so this is the only play that might finish you. Better to avoid situation like this by forbidding, even if its very unlikely to happen, and certainly not what its supposed to do.
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BnG (Bazooka & Grenades)
No darksiding.
*Darksiding is hiding your worm in a position where it's impossible for your opponent(s) to hit you with a grenade and at the same time impossible for you to hit your opponent(s) with a grenade.
I would just add a word: "direct" nade. It's too easy to stay hidden and use bank nades for whole game. Opponent should be able to hit you with a direct nade otherwise it would be too difficult to hit the one who decided to hide.
1. Should worm health be set to 250 in 1v1 matches? Between highly skilled players, on slightly more open maps, I feel games can be over very quickly with only 200 health; the additional 50 health makes it take roughly two solid hits more before a worm loses all health, which feels about right to me. For 2v2 matches, 200 health per worm is fine.
I agree with lacoste here. A lot of players doesn't like this scheme, I would avoid stretch their suffering.
2. Should there be rules preventing straight Bazooka shots and the use of Shotgun to damage enemy worms? I feel it's cleaner not to have them because these things can very easily be countered by hiding intelligently and only agreeing to play on at least somewhat complex (not completely flat) maps. It's also somewhat optimistic to hope that everyone's personal definition of what a straight Bazooka shot is would be the same, and I'm not sure an objective definition is even possible to put forward. Can it be and what would it sound like, in terms that the game could enforce on its own, objectively?
In this case I feel that these shots should be allowed. It's up to your opponent to hide in a place where he can't be hit by these forbidden lame shots. Too many rules risk to ruin this scheme.
3. Should Blow Torch, Girder and Pneumatic Drill be part of the scheme? Having infinite Fire Punch, Shotgun and Teleport seems to replace these in most real life situations almost completely, while keeping scheme rules simpler (no grey area Girder rules, fewer darksiding situations). Currently, only infinite Blow Torch remains in the scheme, largely for reasons of tradition, but I guess it doesn't break anything if the darksiding rule is kept simple and easy to agree on. Torch tunnels are kind of fun to try and aim into (and out of) as well, so I'm inclined to keep Blow Torch in there.
Remove girder and keep drill, shotgun, torch and punch, I kinda like them in game.
Hysteria
Modes
1v1 (8 worms per player); Best of 1
2v2 (4 worms per player); Best of 1
8 worms are far too much, it's too chaotic and even more it incentives to suicide worms, We must try to make this behavior disadvantageous. Adding more worms doesn't help. I think that 4 worms are enough.
Maps
Unedited random maps (any island or cavern preset; example1 (http://krd.clansfx.co.uk/dump/23f4c371750cbb230930f51670baf6ac/screen0201.png), example2 (http://krd.clansfx.co.uk/dump/338274ce1e9698b5758fd17ccea83295/screen0200.png)).
*Ideally, maps should be complex enough so that both sides have the opportunity to attain meaningfully valuable hides (on island maps these would usually be high ground hides that aren't entirely exposed to Bazooka attacks from the sides).
*Any terrain texture is fine. Bridges are fine too.
Hysteria can't be played in a cavern, players like to use bazooka, grenades not just flying with jetpack and drop mines. It would limit too much the game and especially many players would choose these maps against those who have good skills in bng
2. Is 12 randomly placed Mines too much and should we stick to the old variant with only 8 of them? I find that on complex island maps with 8 worms a side, the early game is more meaningful with slightly more than 8 randomly placed hazards, but 16 has proven too much for competitive play because it usually means that every placement spot available after the worms have spawned is filled with mines; this is particularly unwelcome on simpler maps.
In case we will decide to play with 8 worms per team it is necessary to increase the number of mines but as I said, I would keep 4 worms and 8 mines.
4. What happened to random worm order in Hysteria? Has anyone ever tested it thoroughly in 1v1 matches (preferably with more than 4 worms a side) and what were their findings?
Randomsteria is really a good alternative to Hysteria because it makes inconvenient to suicide their worms and it is more difficult to play on the opponent's turns (you know telecow, jetpackcow) but the luck factor is much higher and WA doesn't like this word especially if it is played competitively. We should discuss more about this point because it's very important.
Elite
Maps
Unedited random maps (any island or cavern preset is generally fine, but highly complex maps are almost a must, so using the double island (top right) and closed cave (bottom left) presets with carefully reseeded objects is the most common; example1 (http://krd.clansfx.co.uk/dump/967cdc186ad28947e09f1831e822a362/screen0202.png), example2 (http://krd.clansfx.co.uk/dump/3d809d5414485c06df4694196b1808b5/screen0206.png)).
*Any terrain texture is fine. No, really. Only playing on Fruit and sometimes Cheese is lame and boring for spectators. Bridges are fine too.
I prefer playing Elite on edited maps but I am willing to play in any map except caverns. When a game is hosted players must agree on the map before light up so I don't see the problem. We just need to find the right balance in complexity because we aren't playing mole shopper or Intermediate, this is Elite.
Same for terrain texture except the hell theme. That one should be forbidden from every scheme because it prevents to see properly the map because of his fake black.
1. Should Elite be best of 2 or 3 like Intermediate is? I think one reason it began to be played on stupidly edited maps is that people perhaps felt that being the first to place your worm offered a tangible advantage (I'm sure it doesn't in the grand scheme of things) to the player who gets to start, so making the scheme Bo2/Bo3 would address that fear even better than playing on maps that are 95% terrain. If at the same time, those maps were abolished and forgotten about and Elite became a random map scheme again, average round time would likely decrease a little too, so playing two rounds instead of a single one wouldn't be too bad, time wise.
Elite has always been Bo1 and I would keep it as it is and I add that edited map help to reduce this little advantage. Players doesn't like spending too much time for a match and Bo3 can also mean an hour of game if no draws occur => scheme loses popularity.
3. Should the power of Mortar (commonly at 3 stars of power in modern schemes) and Cluster Bomb (commonly at 1 star) be standardised with what they are in the league varaint of the Intermediate scheme (both at 2 stars) or left as they are? Having this the same between the two ground schemes could make it easier for players to stay in top shape at both of them at the same time, but some people may be too used to being able to (almost) kill 100 health worms with Mortar and grave damage in Elite, and thus be unable to adapt to the change. Cluster Bomb, on the other hand, would be fine at 2 stars of power rather than the current 1 either way, I think. It's used extremely rarely as it is.
I totally agree with lacoste about this point.
5. Does jumping after using Pneumatic Drill and Teleport (during the game, not when initially placing your worms) really have to be forbidden in Elite/Intermediate/Team17? I never really thought of it as a glitch, it's just that the game gives you 0.02s of retreat time after using them, and by mashing a jump key hard, you can get it to sometimes happen. It's probably true that cheaters could write a script that would help them do it more easily, but such cheating is obviously against the rules of any self-respecting competition, so should we really let that spoil this difficult to achieve trick for the rest of us? I really kinda like that it's there.
In this case I agree with KRD, it is part of the game and I would keep it in every scheme. It's very hard to perform so, why not ? In Hysteria I try to use this trick everytime I teleport badly my worm or if I need to jump away from a mine (to damage an enemy worm) and sometimes it worked. I assure you that is a real satisfaction
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I agree with Casso on the cavern thing about hysteria.
You could just hide on a side, then wait for SD.
Easy tie for 1v1.
It should be played with 6 worms in 1v1 and 3 worms 2v2 (6 per team). 8 worms makes it too long, and makes turn advantage even easier to abuse of.
BnG should not allow hides that can't hit be directly with a nade because... well there are some hides that can't be hit at all... and you can still bank nades.
Elite should allow edited maps, but not saved maps.
Well that's my opinion. :P
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For BnG, I have a suggestion to come with a reasonable initial HP amount.
How many spot-on attacks are necessary to kill a worm? Let's suppose the most common damage a Bazooka does when hitting the worm directly is 44hp. Let's also suppose that a Grenade hitting a worm spot-on normally causes 43hp. (The damages are debatable, even provable, so this simplification is just to introduce my suggestion.)
I propose the initial BnG HP is equal to a combined sum of a multiple of the maximum non-fd damages you can achieve with a direct bazooka/grenade hit. For example: If you hit three perfect bazookas and two perfect grenades, you would cause 2 * 44hp + 2 * 43hp = 174hp of damage. If we use 174 as a starting HP for every worm, this would mean it would have to receive four perfect attacks in order to die.
You can come with different starting HP using different multiples. I.e. three bazooka hits instead of two would result in 218hp. Or if you change the damages, the result also changes.
TL;DR instead of arbitrarily sticking with 200 or 250, figure out how much damage grenades and bazookas usually do when landing a direct hit, and then multiply the damages by a number of required hits and add both results to get the starting HP.
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Elite (...) I am willing to play in any map except caverns.
Why? Because it's different from banking shots ad infinitum then using SS? Because it introduces new Super Weapons? New tactics?
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Elite (...) I am willing to play in any map except caverns.
Why? Because it's different from banking shots ad infinitum then using SS? Because it introduces new Super Weapons? New tactics?
barman hosted a Cave Elite cup: https://www.tus-wa.com/cups/cup-652 and I watched at least 20 replays. These maps help a lot who always plays in defense without ever attack because there are only 2 ropes and it's very hard to reach the enemy worm. With this kind of maps 70% of the game is played during the sudden death that is a real lottery because the aim isn't to kill your opponent, but to stay hidden and try not to drown before him.
In an open map this rarely happens because it's much easier to use rope or attack with air strike, napalm, homing, bazooka, petrols, grenades...
Just look these replays and you'll understand what I'm talking about:
https://www.tus-wa.com/cups/game-168151/
In my opinion Elite is the scheme that works best. I would avoid to make changes that might ruin it.
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Elite (...) I am willing to play in any map except caverns.
Why? Because it's different from banking shots ad infinitum then using SS? Because it introduces new Super Weapons? New tactics?
barman hosted a Cave Elite cup: https://www.tus-wa.com/cups/cup-652 and I watched at least 20 replays. These maps help a lot who always plays in defense without ever attack because there are only 2 ropes and it's very hard to reach the enemy worm. With this kind of maps 70% of the game is played during the sudden death that is a real lottery because the aim isn't to kill your opponent, but to stay hidden and try not to drown before him.
In an open map this rarely happens because it's much easier to use rope or attack with air strike, napalm, homing, bazooka, petrols, grenades...
Just look these replays and you'll understand what I'm talking about:
https://www.tus-wa.com/cups/game-168151/
In my opinion Elite is the scheme that works best. I would avoid to make changes that might ruin it.
Small sample size. People that are used to open maps and this is their first of one of the first contacts with cave elite.
The only reason SD camping is a thing in T17 is because infinite girders. If someone SD camps in Elite it's your own bad weapon management.
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Excellent posts, coste & Casso! I think that's the sort of feedback we want a lot more of. If others start doing it like you guys did, it really might be a good idea to split this into one forum topic per scheme, and keep a central topic for discussing things related to more than one scheme as well as the decision process itself. But I guess then we'd need a separate subforum for the project, so we don't spam the main WA one with 10+ threads and potentially have some of the less popular scheme discussions get lost among other threads. We can look into doing that a little later, I guess, so far the thread has been pretty nicely readable in my opinion.
Pertaining to the cave map disagreement, I think it's sensible to point out that Elite and even BnG (an artillery scheme like Hysteria) used to be played on cavern maps all the time a long time ago and definitely worked, the community simply moved away from it for the same reasons it moved away from playing on all the rest of the terrain textures. That is, as part of the general simplification of all the schemes, so that the top players had to deal with a lesser amount of variety and didn't have to master both the aggressive lightside tactics as well as defensive darkside tactics (largely relying on BnG skill on island maps) to be considered competent at the entire Elite (or Hysteria) scheme. Even though I have personally seen both of them work great in caves, I'll definitely have a look at those tournament replays sometime soon too, but I think ropa does very likely have a point when he says that many of the players involved just couldn't have been used to the idea anymore and so played suboptimally from a strategic point of view. Now, I'm sure the argument could be made that if these schemes continue to only be played on island maps, that standardises things more and in a way, makes competitive play more approachable. But it does come at the cost of shunning the type of player who would perhaps otherwise be able to win at Hysteria and Elite in a way that relies on BnG skill a lot less; losing that variety is probably pretty bad from the perspective of new players as well as spectators of high level competitive WA.
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Hysteria
4. What happened to random worm order in Hysteria? Has anyone ever tested it thoroughly in 1v1 matches (preferably with more than 4 worms a side) and what were their findings?
Randomsteria is really a good alternative to Hysteria because it makes inconvenient to suicide their worms and it is more difficult to play on the opponent's turns (you know telecow, jetpackcow) but the luck factor is much higher and WA doesn't like this word especially if it is played competitively. We should discuss more about this point because it's very important.
Luck factor really isn't higher with randomsteria - unless you try to pile your way to victory. Your worm positions simply all need to be good. If you have a worm in a useless position, then that worm truly becomes a reliability now.
Random turn order isn't completely random - if you have 4 worms, then the next 4 turns will be randomized, but all your worms get their turn. After that is completed, a new batch of turns is decided in exactly the same way - all worms get their turns, but the order in which this happens is randomized.
This means there's still a way to abuse turn order with certain success, but it takes more effort from the person wanting to employ it and can only be used when there's a big advantage in amount of worms (percentage wise). Therefore the importance of this tactic is much more downplayed, especially in the early game. Makes telecide a much less favourable tactic, too.
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Random turn order isn't completely random - if you have 4 worms, then the next 4 turns will be randomized, but all your worms get their turn. After that is completed, a new batch of turns is decided in exactly the right way - all worms get their turns, but the order in which this happens is randomized.
I didn't know about it, I thought that worms were chosen at random each turn with the risk that some of them couldn't never attack, this is why I talked about luck. At this point I have nothing against this variant and I guess that we can try to play with this scheme if it helps to reduce the abuse of turn order.
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1. Should worm health be set to 250 in 1v1 matches? Between highly skilled players, on slightly more open maps, I feel games can be over very quickly with only 200 health; the additional 50 health makes it take roughly two solid hits more before a worm loses all health, which feels about right to me. For 2v2 matches, 200 health per worm is fine.
4. Should TestStuff's circular aiming be part of the scheme? Why did TUS start enforcing it for BnG? I find it breaks my normal way of aiming completely so that I have to rely on notching more because of it, not less. Without going into the details of notching, isn't that the opposite of the desired effect? Not to mention that with the current implementation of it, fall damage is actually easier to achieve, making it very hard for players with 10+ years of BnG experience to estimate shot damage, while adding no positive effects that I can think of. TestStuff really has no place in BnG, I feel.
1. Well, I would make two BnG schemes. The first one is the classic one. The second one would be oriented for more skillful players (bazooka and grenade power would have 1-2 stars each, 200-250hp, or let it be 200hp). Either scheme is picked on agreement of both sides
4. I don't understand how TS makes you want to notch ;D with /ts on, it is surely harder to achieve full power shot
making it very hard for players with 10+ years of BnG experience to estimate shot damage
But as we can see, those players hardly ever play any leagues nowadays, ehehe. It is matter of habit and familiarity with the scheme, newbies wouldn't even understand all your arguements about /ts "problem" (Hmm, so I'm newbie then)
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TS is already a problem because of fall damage being all the time (meaning it's soooo easy to get perfect hits to deal near 50 points of damage instead of 44-45). I wonder why this even stayed in TUS's BnG for so long.
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4. Should TestStuff's circular aiming be part of the scheme? Why did TUS start enforcing it for BnG? I find it breaks my normal way of aiming completely so that I have to rely on notching more because of it, not less. Without going into the details of notching, isn't that the opposite of the desired effect? Not to mention that with the current implementation of it, fall damage is actually easier to achieve, making it very hard for players with 10+ years of BnG experience to estimate shot damage, while adding no positive effects that I can think of. TestStuff really has no place in BnG, I feel
with /ts on, it is surely harder to achieve full power shot
Talking about the full power shot and the 90° zook shot, TS is fine for me.... But what the hell, when a player inexperienced on BnG makes you a grenade shot bouncing everywhere and hit you -53 hp damage because the FD, It's just disgusting...
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Due to lack of time I'm going to answer each main post separately, for now, let's start with BnG.
2. Should there be rules preventing straight Bazooka shots and the use of Shotgun to damage enemy worms? I feel it's cleaner not to have them because these things can very easily be countered by hiding intelligently and only agreeing to play on at least somewhat complex (not completely flat) maps. It's also somewhat optimistic to hope that everyone's personal definition of what a straight Bazooka shot is would be the same, and I'm not sure an objective definition is even possible to put forward. Can it be and what would it sound like, in terms that the game could enforce on its own, objectively?
I think the usage of Shotgun to damage your opponent sounds very weird. At least to me. The name is Bazooka and Grenades. I see very little situations where that could be used, but still, that shouldn't be allowed.
In case straight Bazooka shots rise to be a problem - although I think that rule was only included for so long due to tradition - then the aim of the Bazooka could be limited the same way Ninja Rope is in Elite, if that's even possible. Otherwise I don't think that should be an issue.
3. Should Blow Torch, Girder and Pneumatic Drill be part of the scheme? Having infinite Fire Punch, Shotgun and Teleport seems to replace these in most real life situations almost completely, while keeping scheme rules simpler (no grey area Girder rules, fewer darksiding situations). Currently, only infinite Blow Torch remains in the scheme, largely for reasons of tradition, but I guess it doesn't break anything if the darksiding rule is kept simple and easy to agree on. Torch tunnels are kind of fun to try and aim into (and out of) as well, so I'm inclined to keep Blow Torch in there.
I find Blow Torch useable often, even with infinite amount of Teleports. Girders should be removed for the above mentioned reasons.
4. Should TestStuff's circular aiming be part of the scheme? Why did TUS start enforcing it for BnG? I find it breaks my normal way of aiming completely so that I have to rely on notching more because of it, not less. Without going into the details of notching, isn't that the opposite of the desired effect? Not to mention that with the current implementation of it, fall damage is actually easier to achieve, making it very hard for players with 10+ years of BnG experience to estimate shot damage, while adding no positive effects that I can think of. TestStuff really has no place in BnG, I feel.
Hell no! I believe that was included to prevent players from notching. I think you should much rather learn how to notch and then use that skill wisely to predict other, non full power shots. Full power shots are not suitable for everything, although with a windless turn, you can inflict quite a lot of damage with the Bazooka easily. Still, I personally vote no TestStuff.
BnG
1. Should worm health be set to 250 in 1v1 matches? Between highly skilled players, on slightly more open maps, I feel games can be over very quickly with only 200 health; the additional 50 health makes it take roughly two solid hits more before a worm loses all health, which feels about right to me. For 2v2 matches, 200 health per worm is fine.
This one is simple. There is a number of players who are able to finish a round of BnG very quickly, but how many of them? The standard scheme variant should be satysfying for both sides, veterans and mediocre/newbie players, especialy considering the fact that the scheme would possibly target random people at WormNet's ranked play one day. Time has shown that even if a round of BnG can last 5-10minutes on average between scheme specialists, it can also last uncomparably longer between people not specialised with the scheme. And we know that there is not too many bng scheme specialists anyway. Also, BnG doesnt look slow/fast in comparision to other schemes on average, and remember that a game of RR lasts much shorter, no matter if you are good or bad at it. On top of that, some people simply get frustrated playing BnG and being unable to hit eachother - while its not a good excuse for old players, new players might find having to play even longer BnG as a waste of time (50hp difference can be too huge for them).
Thanks for writing my thoughts down! Agreed. ;)
2. Should there be rules preventing straight Bazooka shots and the use of Shotgun to damage enemy worms? I feel it's cleaner not to have them because these things can very easily be countered by hiding intelligently and only agreeing to play on at least somewhat complex (not completely flat) maps. It's also somewhat optimistic to hope that everyone's personal definition of what a straight Bazooka shot is would be the same, and I'm not sure an objective definition is even possible to put forward. Can it be and what would it sound like, in terms that the game could enforce on its own, objectively?
I dont like the idea of overly complicating BnG rules, so it might be a good idea to not include these at all. But imagine a situation like this: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/43525724/straightshot.PNG That, imo, isnt the spirit of BnG. However the problem is that not every zook aimed straight can fall under this category, for example a zook that does a gentle curve, shooting an opponent's worm who is standing way below your worm's level is legit. So i'd say that rule needs a better explanation, but still even the best written rule will have a loophole that eventually people will take advantage of, sooner or later, not necessarly often.
Perhaps a rule that clearly defines what a straight shot is and limits it's usage to situations where there wind is opposite to the shot's direction could do the trick, without overcomplicating, as you pointed out.
3. Should Blow Torch, Girder and Pneumatic Drill be part of the scheme? Having infinite Fire Punch, Shotgun and Teleport seems to replace these in most real life situations almost completely, while keeping scheme rules simpler (no grey area Girder rules, fewer darksiding situations). Currently, only infinite Blow Torch remains in the scheme, largely for reasons of tradition, but I guess it doesn't break anything if the darksiding rule is kept simple and easy to agree on. Torch tunnels are kind of fun to try and aim into (and out of) as well, so I'm inclined to keep Blow Torch in there.
I have no problems with Blow Torch, it can even make the game even more interesting as there are more fancy passages for grenade to bounce through. Drill can be useful in a situation where you can be easily pushed down to a ditch, so using it will put your opponent in advantage anyway. Also I dont see it being abused - if you dig yourself too deep, you wont be able to hit eachother with a grenade. Teleport can be used for similar purposes as well. Girders are completely gamebreaking though. It should be taken down long ago. The most basic example is that sometimes part of bng is about making your opponent run out of hides, so even if someone uses a girder for bounce, later into the game it WILL be used as an additional hide or obstacle, no question about it, even if not done on purpose. The shot which should normally hit you will hit girder. You push your opponent under a girder and then what. There is only 1 map and it shouldnt be modifed in anyway, other than weapons.
Completely agreed.
Sorry if some points I missed in this thread. I also think that maybe reorganizing these discussions into separate topics for each scheme would help this keep less mad. :)
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Notchers can notch any shot guys.
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Well, allowing straight bazooka shots isnt the end of the world, thats for sure. If it was allowed for the sake of having nice and clean bng rules, without complications, id totally back it up. I dont see a big deal in having a bit different approach to how you play, where you hide and what should you expect from opponent in a given situation, that would only make things not that simple. Plus, considering new players, that only makes more sense. Why would you spend so much time on teaching them what shot is considered legit, or confuse them saying that 1 thing is lame and the other is not. The more i think about it the more im in favor, really. Long time no bng.
About TS: I dont know which genius came up with this idea, circular aiming doesnt do anything other than annoy you. If your single keyboard taps are good enough to notch, they are also good enough to just turn your worm around and then go back to position 0 with 1 or 2 taps. The power thing, on the other hand, forces you to play worms differently, unlike any other scheme. Just a confusion with a silly mechanic. Feels desperate to use it just to disallow easy full power, lol.
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The point of using /ts features is to encourage people to use intuition rather than logic. (Logical things are: measuring angles with number of taps, notching). Put away all the logical techniques, and you'll get gameplay where one can have fun and not doing math :D /ts isn't perfectly implemented though, agreed
People who use logic will have to do a bit of work, while skills based on intuition require just a single will :)
But yeah, most people use logic (I hardly ever use it (in W:A)). If /ts gets removed, that would be really sad news
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Why wasn't b2b consulted about a change in Bng?
There was your one chance at making actual good use of the communities feature, TUS, and you let us all down.
edit: sorry if they were, I really don't know; if they were, I strongly recommend putting Komo back in charge because those muppets need an actual leader
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Okay so since it seems like BnG is the main focus of debate right now, I'll try to flesh out my views on the specifics of it some more, get them added to the pool of opinions.
This one is simple. There is a number of players who are able to finish a round of BnG very quickly, but how many of them? The standard scheme variant should be satysfying for both sides, veterans and mediocre/newbie players, especialy considering the fact that the scheme would possibly target random people at WormNet's ranked play one day. Time has shown that even if a round of BnG can last 5-10minutes on average between scheme specialists, it can also last uncomparably longer between people not specialised with the scheme. And we know that there is not too many bng scheme specialists anyway. Also, BnG doesnt look slow/fast in comparision to other schemes on average, and remember that a game of RR lasts much shorter, no matter if you are good or bad at it. On top of that, some people simply get frustrated playing BnG and being unable to hit eachother - while its not a good excuse for old players, new players might find having to play even longer BnG as a waste of time (50hp difference can be too huge for them).
I agree with lacoste here. A lot of players doesn't like this scheme, I would avoid stretch their suffering.
Some relevant chat from IRC on this topic (I think it's fairly readable, didn't really feel the need to retype it):
<OutofOrder> but honestly, something that concerns me for choosing anything above 200 is the lack of consideration for the non bng'ers
<OutofOrder> i'd say most players would like to play shorter games, not longer ones
<OutofOrder> every single hp you add will extend the average game time
<KRD> That's only true if you assume identical playstyles.
<KRD> More HP could also encourage players to play more boldly, hiding in almost impossible to hit hides less of the time.
<KRD> Such a playstyle is, I think, more viable if getting hit for 40+ damage once isn't the end of the world.
<KRD> But anyway, there's a bunch of other factors that determine average round length.
<OutofOrder> playstyles are irrelevant to what i said. statistically, games are bound to last longer in average with each additional health point
<KRD> Um, no they aren't irrelevant, not if the HP increase changes the way people play the scheme.
<KRD> *After* the HP change takes place and results in a shift in playstyles, then sure, lowering it back down to 200 would temporarily reduce game length again.
<KRD> Before people would again get used to playing the scheme in a more darkside way, i.e. what they consider optimal under those circumstances.
<OutofOrder> so you're saying that with higher initial HP, people are going to forget they're losing health as the game goes on?
<OutofOrder> mind you, if they lose health, they'll be like they just started a lower-initial-hp game
<KRD> No, not necessarily.
<KRD> If the game is *started* with the players hidden in more lightside hides, by the time they get down to 200 HP each, the map will be more open as a result of terrain damage.
<KRD> And the totally darkside hides will less likely still be available.
<KRD> I'm not saying average round time would necessarily go down if we started playing with 250 HP right now, mind you.
<KRD> Only that it wouldn't necessarily increase linearly with the starting health increase.
<KRD> Especially combined with the other changes that are being proposed for BnG (like playing on maps that aren't completely flat stretches of trees and floating dots).
<KRD> And I think we should, for now, compare round length time between BnG as it is today and what we would end up with after the whole standardisation process.
<KRD> If it's not drastically increased as a result of the standardisation, there's probably nothing to worry about.
<OutofOrder> so you're saying, screw people who don't want longer games
<KRD> Only the ones who don't want them for false reasons.
<KRD> Like reading on a forum that BnG is boring.
* Wyv|work has joined #worms
<OutofOrder> Wyv: longer BnG games or shorter BnG games?
<KRD> Decide now!
<Wyv|work> longer
<KRD> Win.
<KRD> Good game, well played.
<OutofOrder> KRD just PM'ed you
<OutofOrder> confess
<KRD> No re.
<KRD> I'd say it's probably good enough to aim this competitive scheme standardisation at the type of player who actually wants to play these schemes competitively.
<KRD> If a scheme is appropriate for that type of player, complete newbies will eventually follow.
<KRD> If we continue on the path of everyone just wanting BnG games to end as soon as possible so they can play real competitive schemes, we're dooming BnG to failure.
<KRD> Intermediate gets more fun and more intense the longer it lasts.
<KRD> And such long games of it reward different sets of skills (for example focus and consistency) in the top Intermediate players, they broaden the definition of what it means to be good at the scheme.
<KRD> So to sacrifice that variety because TUS forums say BnG lasts too long as it is would be premature, I feel.
<KRD> Especially since (like in Hysteria) their beliefs are based on playing the scheme ALL WRONG.
Where do I get this crazy idea that people would start picking early game hides that aren't as darksidey and offer more than just one or two shots if health values in BnG were increased? Well, I'm judging mainly by myself here, I definitely feel like I can go on the offensive and try to aggressively push my opponent around or destroy the hides on their side of the map (and so try to gain a decisive early advantage) if I have slightly more room for comeback thanks to the 250 starting health in the scheme I've been using. Incidentally, this more open style of play also lets me handle (heavily) notching opponents better because of the increased variety of hides (and thus both vertical and horizontal distances between my worm's and my opponent's worm's position) that I feel comfortable taking. So yeah, I just don't feel that this is a black & white thing, that BnG would only get longer and more boring with more starting health. Like in most cases we've touched upon so far, there's potential positives and negatives, and we'll have to figure out which ones outweigh the other. I'm totally up for some 1v1 BnG with 250 health worms if anyone wants to try it out in practice, though. Beep me on WormNet!
I would just add a word: "direct" nade. It's too easy to stay hidden and use bank nades for whole game. Opponent should be able to hit you with a direct nade otherwise it would be too difficult to hit the one who decided to hide.
BnG should not allow hides that can't hit be directly with a nade because... well there are some hides that can't be hit at all... and you can still bank nades.
Is it really that much of a problem that hides exist which allow relatively easy bank shots, while worms in them can only be reached through harder bounce shots? I find that it's because players are so used to considering such evil bank hides "lame" that they often don't even bother to try and bounce their shots into them or use zooks to destroy them (perhaps first teleporting to a safe hide where they can't be hit with a banked nade easily). Throughout the years, this has definitely been a legit part of BnG and I do feel a little bad that in so many cases, this aspect of the scheme has disappeared. Shouldn't finding (or destroying if you're the opponent) these hides be part of what defines a highly skilled BnG player?
On a related note, hasn't the single biggest problem that BnG has faced during the TUS era been the paranoia surrounding notching, with many players completely discouraged to even practice the scheme because they hear of this mythical system of aiming that's essentially like having an aimbot? If that has been the case (and I think it has, to a totally unreasonable degree compared to previous WA leagues), do we really want to make the single most effective tactical approach against a notching opponent, good hides that require bounce shots from both players for substantial damage to be done, illegal? Can we really say that we're doing everything in our power to make BnG a relevant competitive scheme again, but at the same time make it mandatory for everyone to always stay in a hide where notched 4s or 5s LG grenades stand a great chance of hitting them in the face? BnG loses so much if we take away the creativity of hiding well, and on the other hand the efficiency of destroying the best hides on the enemy side of the map... :'(
I have no problems with Blow Torch, it can even make the game even more interesting as there are more fancy passages for grenade to bounce through. Drill can be useful in a situation where you can be easily pushed down to a ditch, so using it will put your opponent in advantage anyway. Also I dont see it being abused - if you dig yourself too deep, you wont be able to hit eachother with a grenade. Teleport can be used for similar purposes as well. Girders are completely gamebreaking though. It should be taken down long ago. The most basic example is that sometimes part of bng is about making your opponent run out of hides, so even if someone uses a girder for bounce, later into the game it WILL be used as an additional hide or obstacle, no question about it, even if not done on purpose. The shot which should normally hit you will hit girder. You push your opponent under a girder and then what. There is only 1 map and it shouldnt be modifed in anyway, other than weapons.
I agree with these assessments, although I guess I do feel that keeping Pneumatic Drill in the scheme risks confusing players even more than having Blow Torch and Shotgun in there. In the grand scheme of things, it might be cleaner and simpler to leave it out, but it's true that it really doesn't bother me at all when it's there. I just practically never use it myself.
And yeah, having Girder rules has never ever worked in BnG, they're just too muddy and impossible to consistently follow. But the solution of giving players a single Girder (maybe two in 2v2 games) and then having no restrictions on its use is also a mildly interesting one to me, I can't think of too many real problems regarding it. Except perhaps that in 2v2 games, the closest enemy worms could sometimes Girder block each other, which would look totally idiotic in streamed pro competition with commentary. But I guess a future WA update could restrict Girder use to only your team's half of the map, similar to how the game will someday be able to restrict where you can and can't teleport to. But until then, I do think it's probably safer to simply not have them in the scheme at all.
I think the usage of Shotgun to damage your opponent sounds very weird. At least to me. The name is Bazooka and Grenades. I see very little situations where that could be used, but still, that shouldn't be allowed.
Right, the scheme is called BnG, but to a new player, would it be less intuitive that the scheme includes a weapon that isn't mentioned in its name... or that the weapon is there, but when after a thousand games they finally get to use it on an enemy worm because of something extraordinary that happened to make the shot possible, their Shotgun simply does no damage because WA 4.x says you can only use this weapon to dig? As a newer player, I'd be pretty pissed off if that happened to me, I think. :P
In case straight Bazooka shots rise to be a problem - although I think that rule was only included for so long due to tradition - then the aim of the Bazooka could be limited the same way Ninja Rope is in Elite, if that's even possible. Otherwise I don't think that should be an issue.
While I think such a solution would be sufficiently simple (if not exactly intuitive), would it even come close to covering 50% of the cases where straight Bazookas are an option? In practice, in a situation where two enemy worms are eyeing each other with nothing between them, this would only prevent the one with a higher hide from straight zooking, while the worm with the lower hide would even be encouraged to do it. I'm not sure that'd be an improvement at all, so I'm still leaning toward simply allowing straight zooks myself. It even encourages people to hide smartly, which is totally a bonus in my book!
Perhaps a rule that clearly defines what a straight shot is and limits it's usage to situations where there wind is opposite to the shot's direction could do the trick, without overcomplicating, as you pointed out.
That sounds really complicated to me for a solution that doesn't want to overcomplicate things, hehe. What would the clear definition sound like? Is it something that WA 4.x could translate into other languages without the meaning getting almost totally lost? Dunno, I'm really still not convinced that straight zooks are bad, much less bad enough to warrant jumping through hoops like these. But maybe a single scheme league like a2b could get away with something like this...
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Can we really say that we're doing everything in our power to make BnG a relevant competitive scheme again, but at the same time make it mandatory for everyone to always stay in a hide where notched 4s or 5s LG grenades stand a great chance of hitting them in the face? BnG loses so much if we take away the creativity of hiding well, and on the other hand the efficiency of destroying the best hides on the enemy side of the map...
This. Everyone who thinks that adding TS, filling a flat map with trees and dots is limiting notchers and nothing better can be done should read it again. Theres much more to bng than just 3 types of a grenade and 4 types of wind. Predicting all kind of bounces with or without low gravity is the best part of bng which needs time to learn, theres barely a situation where its impossible for both players to hit themselfes, unless its obvious darkside, like hiding in a closed spot.
And yeah, having Girder rules has never ever worked in BnG, they're just too muddy and impossible to consistently follow. But the solution of giving players a single Girder (maybe two in 2v2 games) and then having no restrictions on its use is also a mildly interesting one to me
This is a whole different story then and indeed looks interesting. We should talk about it more.
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Intermediate
4. Anything else?
Talk about jetpack delay 2 or 0, OIL and TNL SD variants.
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Talk about jetpack delay 2 or 0, OIL and TNL SD variants.
Wasnt SD health reduction a long forgotten drama? Havent seen anyone complaining about it since like 2 years, at least. And was it ever a thing for jetpack on 0 delay vs 2? Well, maybe at first when we newschoolers were sceptical about the change or we had hard time adopting "new", but it allways was supposed to have delay, just the scheme didnt allow it. Anyway as for me, i now like the delay on jetpack; while in theory it reduced the possibilities on turn 1, the majority of the matches were consisting of early jetpacks, which in the long run were making matches less interesting.
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Some ppl still love 0 delay. xd
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Ah yeah, I forgot about that 0/2 turns of Jetpack delay thing. I'll add it to the Intermediate post. How's this?
4. Is there anyone left who prefers 0 turns of Jetpack delay instead of the currently widespread variant with 2 turns of delay on this utility? The reason players from the NNN clan and their league got used to 0 delay was that many updates ago, WA didn't allow you to keep the delay on utilities in custom schemes, so when they powered down the Mortar/Cluster Bomb and took the crates out of the intrinsic [ Intermediate ] scheme to create their "luckless" variant, they had no choice but to change the Jetpack delay to 0 turns. When the WA update arrived that made it possible to set utility delay in custom schemes, the NNN/ONL community decided to vote about whether to go back to the 2 turns of delay or keep playing with 0 in a forum poll, but I'm not really sure what the results of that were. I do know that both Darío and I were hugely in favour of going back to 2 turns of delay at the time, though. It doesn't really make sense to me not to do it, the scheme was obviously designed with this delay in mind, but it'd be interesting to hear the reasoning behind making the delay 0 turns instead of 2. I guess first turn mine pushes can be pretty cool, but that's a pretty clear advantage to whoever gets first turn, so I'm not at all convinced it'd be a net positive change.
If there's anyone around who still genuinely wants to get rid of the HP reduction on sudden death in Intermediate, speak up and I'll add that in there too. But I think that's maybe borderline not worth discussing, it would change the scheme so, so much, and be very hard to convince the general community about. Also, Inter is the only scheme that actively discourages playing for SD because it's so reliant on luck, so I'd feel really bad about destroying that uniqueness (compared to other competitively played ground schemes).
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I just went over the posts at the top again and made some minor text fixes, nothing important. Posting this just in case someone notices the edits and wonders if anything important was added. It wasn't. :P
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My 2 cents.
BnG: 200hp seems okay for 1v1 but 2v2 with 200hp each worm is too much. Around 150'ish on 2v2 games seems more reasonable.
Elite: I would like to add 5 seconds of hot-seat time.
T17: I do encourage everyone to try the "roofless t17" mod with super weapons off as it adds _a lot_ more of tactical variency and reduces draws to almost minimium.
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BnG: 200hp seems okay for 1v1 but 2v2 with 200hp each worm is too much. Around 150'ish on 2v2 games seems more reasonable.
Sure why not, although I prefer 200hp I think it would make the experience less painful for those who think 2v2 is too long :) And I guess 2 clans or 4 players who enjoy BnG can still play the 2v2 with 200 hp :)
Elite: I would like to add 5 seconds of hot-seat time.
I like this idea, Elite is awesome for fast paced planning and decision making, and trying to execute those ideas etc, I love the idea of having 5 seconds just to take a breath or have a drink of juice, take a puff of a cig etc before taking your turn, but that's just me lol, not sure other people like the idea of having extra time to think.
Why I like using 15s hot-seat time in Roper so you can plan your moves with hard crates, I got that from Mablak.
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Elite: I would like to add 5 seconds of hot-seat time.
^ this
Pretty much every scheme has to have some hotseat time, to show wind direction and power before forcing anyone to begin their turn, and to give a chance to unminimize without losing turn time. It's disappointing noone else has realized this yet.
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Elite: I would like to add 5 seconds of hot-seat time.
^ this
Pretty much every scheme has to have some hotseat time, to show wind direction and power before forcing anyone to begin their turn, and to give a chance to unminimize without losing turn time. It's disappointing noone else has realized this yet.
You are cute
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Elite: I would like to add 5 seconds of hot-seat time.
^ this
Pretty much every scheme has to have some hotseat time, to show wind direction and power before forcing anyone to begin their turn, and to give a chance to unminimize without losing turn time. It's disappointing noone else has realized this yet.
actually id say the opposite, id like to see 1 sec or 0 sec hotseat time for every scheme, i hate waiting
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Hotseat time is interruptable.
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Hotseat time is interruptable.
Kapow! Owned :D
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Hotseat time is interruptable.
Only as long as you're the actual player.
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Yeah elite is all about fast thinking and moving but there are instances that make the game more "fair" for both if 5s of hot-seat is active.
Seeing the wind before making a turn is one and another example would be that, opponent makes an attack involving napalm/barrel destruction and the path you were supposed to just walk and go attack turns into a mess of pixelpoxels so you could really use the 5s thinking time and observe the path/wind. Or if opponent attacks and you bounce around unluckily and need more thinking time which you couldn't have prepared for etc.
5s aint a lot but yeah I think it would make of better games.
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Hotseat time is interruptable.
Only as long as you're the actual player.
To be quite frank, it's a turn based game, waiting is inevitable, I love Wally, but the dude plays BR, like, one of the longest waiting games ever, and he used to sit for hours on end playing Warmers waiting for other players to finish their turns, I find it funny(and ridiculous) he said he hates waiting lol, but then again I ain't psychic so he must have his reasons.
For me the pros are what has already been said, the con is, I kinda like having to think on your feet, but if I had to choose between the 2, for me it would be add 5s hot-seat time for Elite.
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I love Wally, but the dude plays BR, like, one of the longest waiting games ever,
(https://images.gamurs.com/9110defb-38f5-428d-971f-84b4df6dad52.jpg)
Owned too!
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To be quite frank, it's a turn based game, waiting is inevitable, I love Wally, but the dude plays BR, like, one of the longest waiting games ever
BR is 25sec/5sec hotseat, faster than anything but roper and elite
I'm not saying it's the most riveting thing ever, but at least it isnt completely pointless like 30/15 sec hotseat in wxw
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Sorry Walrus, I was being stupid, I mean when you play 1v1v1v1v1v1 BR stuff, you are waiting very long between turns.
I'm easy either way, i'm too open lol.
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Is this project still alive?
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It's always alive! As long as anyone has any thoughts on how to push competitive schemes to be more competitive or to simplify them so they're easier to get into competitively, I'm all ears and will be adding stuff to the posts at the top.
Hot seat time in Elite and Team17 is an interesting dilemma to me. On the one hand, it does feel nice to be able to see the wind and have a bit of time to plan your turn ahead right before it starts... but on the other, we've historically seen the top players at these schemes handle zero hot seat time very well, doing their planning during enemy turns or, in case of drastic changes to the map or to worm positions, as they're beginning their turn, usually while walking/jumping in the general direction of where they knew they wanted to go. So far, you guys have touched on the reasons why giving players 5s of hot seat time would make Elite more comfortable for players, but I do think it comes at the cost of slightly reducing the skill ceiling of the scheme. Sure, generally speaking, more thinking time probably results in more impressive turns on average, but the very best Elite turns of all time have been so impressive because we knew that all the thinking and planning had to have come either during the opponent's turn or while the turn was being taken. So, whatever impressiveness is gained by giving players more planning time is lost by the knowledge that they were given more time to think (i.e. essentially playing an easier variant of the scheme); the two pretty much cancel each other out and I feel like comfort is maybe not enough of a reason on its own to mess with a scheme setting that has survived for ~15 years in competitive play. It feels dangerous in the sense that perhaps someday in the future, when Elite is being played at a ridiculously high level, someone will suggest reducing turn time from 20 to 15 seconds to compensate for this and to again increase the skill ceiling of the scheme, and then we're all going to have to go through the cycle of getting used to new settings again, which is exactly the sort of thing a standardisation effort like this wants to keep from happening too often.
Another reason why I feel we should maybe stick with 0s of hot seat time in Elite is that this is something that's always served as a kind of separator between Elite and Intermediate. In Intermediate, the extra planning time you're given before each turn serves to push the scheme in an even more cerebral direction, where your physical skill and dexterity are secondary to your long term strategy and the careful decision making of when to risk it and when to play it safe. In Elite on the other hand, it's always been an intended part of the experience that being really fast to think and act, as well as really efficient with your walking/jumping/roping/attacking should give you so much of an advantage that huge comebacks always remain a possibility, as long as you're skilled enough to pull them off. By bringing the two schemes closer together in how much thinking time you're given in them, that line becomes a bit more blurred... but I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing? Still, I think in a league or other competition that supports both schemes at the same time, having them be more diverse is probably better than them being more similar. After all, it's this diversity of required skill sets that sets competitive WA apart from most other multiplayer games.
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Team17
Pointers for discussion
1. Should Team17 have any hot seat time? Some old schemes used to have 10 seconds of it, Lex for example feels that it's a good idea to have it, but I think that at least since the times of the CL2K league, competitive variants of the scheme have had no hot seat time. I personally like it this way because it gives players who are quick to think (or are able to do the thinking during their opponent's turn) and quick to make their moves (in so doing preventing their opponent from getting a lot of thinking time during them) a deserved advantage. But there's also an argument to be made that T17 is a naturally slow, tactical scheme and that having enough time to think about what to do during your turns, so that you can utilise all 45 seconds of them optimally, may be preferable.
The less downtime, the better. T17 games are quite long and slow paced so we shouldn't make them any longer unless it's really necessary.
2. Should the starting hazard objects be half oil barrels and half mines instead of all oil barrels like most players are used to today? Half mines and half barrels used to be the case a very long time ago in some people's Team17 schemes, but seems to have fallen out of favour for no particularly good reason. It was supposedly changed to all barrels so that initial placement couldn't screw you over as badly, but I feel that's counterbalanced by the additional skill and decision making when you're faced with the opportunity of going for a Firepunch/Dragonball-onto-mine move early on, sometimes favouring that even over picking up a crate. It makes early games more diverse and cooler to watch; van and I certainly prefer things this way, with half mines and half barrels!
No because that increases the chance of plop/kill on the first turn of the game (which you can do nothing about).
4. Would making the round time (the time before sudden death hits) slightly longer make Team17 early game more relevant and the endgame more fair and interesting? Would making the round time 12 instead of the current 10 minutes act as a replacement for making the water rise more slowly once sudden death does hit (so that we might keep that at the current setting)? By extending the time before sudden death this way, we would make it more likely for high damage weapons to be picked up in early and mid game, and those are the best motivation for players to attack rather than turtle and hoard homing weapons for sudden death. In the long run, player habits could change to take this into account, and we could be left with cavern Team17 that's more interesting on the whole.
In dual layer cavern maps the problem is that you can darkside quite easily to the point you need homing weapons. In TUS scheme homing weapons have a low probability (1,2%) and there are games where neither player gets any homing weapon. This results in many draws. Longer round time would make darksiding more difficult and players would be less dependent on homing weapons. Better have some minutes longer game than a draw? This is not a problem in open island maps, though, but nobody plays in island maps these days. Some guys (including me) have been playing in dual layer cavern maps without the indestructible border as Free mentioned. Longer round time isn't needed there either.
5. For the longest time, crate probability in Team17 was left to the players to deal with as best they could, with every available weapon having equal probability to show up in a crate (super weapon quirks notwithstanding). I think it was in the First Blood league that Mad Cows had their probability lowered from 3 to 2, simply because getting them in batches of 3 made them too destructive. But this was totally fine by me. It's when people started trying to "balance" individual weapons according to their "usefulness" that things went to hell and now nobody knows what sort of distribution of weapons can be expected from crates anymore. Can we just go back to giving all weapons, including things like air strikes, a probability of 3 (and maybe keep 2 for Mad Cows) again? Please?
Banana Bomb is like a super weapon and it should be as rare. If homing weapons are given a high probability, we will see both players camping at the sides of the map and shooting their 3 or 4 homings. Do we want to see games like that? I would increase the chance of homing weapons slightly from TUS scheme, though, to prevent draws.
5 - all other weapons (4,1%)
4 - Mad Cow (3,3%)
2 - Homing Missile, Homing Pigeon, Aqua Sheep, Air Strike, Napalm Strike (1,7%)
1 - Banana Bomb (0,8%)
Or 4 (4,1%), 3 (3,0%), 2 (2,0%) and 1 (1,0%).
With TUS scheme you know it gives lots of Dynas, Holys, Bows, Miniguns etc. With equal probabilities it's random. You see people taking stupid gambles like teleporting with a 75 HP worm next to the opponent and getting rewarded. With TUS scheme it's probable that the opponent has the weapon to kill you. Still, I prefer equal probabilities (for most weapons) because it makes games more interesting as you see more different weapons being used and also defensive moves when you get shit from crates. TUS scheme makes games too "boom boom".
btw, is T17 really supposed to be played in island maps with super weapons (Armageddon etc) enabled?
7. Longbow power is a hot point of contention. Most Team17 players these days are extremely used to each Longbow arrow doing 50 damage, but to those (newer players included) who see Longbow as more of a utility weapon rather than a high damage one, this is very confusing. Apart from the 5 star Ninja Rope, Longbow is the only thing in the scheme that's grossly overpowered compared to what a reasonable person might naturally expect, so should it be brought in line with everything else and reduced to the standard 15 damage per arrow? Deadcode thinks that would make it too weak and has therefore had it set to 5 stars of power in his Team17 scheme, making each arrow do 30 damage. Now what do we do? I think I'd probably prefer 15 damage (because then every weapon in the scheme could be made the standard 3 stars of power), but I can live with 30 damage as well. Arrows doing 50 damage each definitely feels a bit insane, but it is how it's always been...
In Shopper it's 15 damage but there's no infinite Fire Punch / Dragon Ball. T17 has still worse weapons than 15 damage Longbow (Handgun for example). I suppose they just wanted to add some unique things to the scheme.. like aqua upgrade. I'd say change it to 15 for the sake of standardization or leave it as it is (a unique thing of T17). Making it 5 stars sounds like a weird compromise. Just put Longbow upgrade on or off.
10. Why is Kamikaze not part of the Team17 scheme as a weapon that you can collect from crates? Should it be? What's the worst that could happen? Again, adding it would mostly only satisfy the requirement that every weapon should be available from crates in this scheme, but I guess Kamikaze would also be a really powerful finisher during sudden death. We definitely lack those in cavern map Team17...
I guess the worst that could happen is a draw. Other than that, I don't see why it shouldn't be included since the scheme already has Suicide Bomber. You should just give it a low probability. I mean what are you supposed to do with 3-4 kamikazes? ;D
11. Should stockpiling perhaps be set so that you keep your weapons (and get a set of new ones, including the 5 star Ninja Rope and 7 fresh Girders) between rounds and in case of a draw? Team17 is a single round scheme, sure, but in competition where draws are handled by playing a new round instead of reporting the draw, this positive stockpiling could change things a great deal and certainly speed the potential second round after draws up a lot, plus perhaps be more fair because your good crate collecting habits from the previous round would carry over and give you an edge in the rematch. On the other hand, some players might feel that if the first round was a draw, the rematch should reset everything and be played as a completely new game, no advantage to either player.
Stockpiling might encourage playing for a draw and saving weapons for the next round - not a good thing. At least you should put 1 turn delay to every weapon so that you can't plop a worm on the first turn of the rematch.
12. Does anyone still want to argue in favour of reintroducing Worm Select into the Team17 scheme as a utility that you start with? The old variant of the scheme (called 1Percent) gave each player two Worm Selects, which obviously made sudden death very different. But apart from Ropa, I don't think I've seen anyone else show genuine signs of interest in going back to this in recent years...
Worm Select makes darksiding more difficult but at the same time it encourages darksiding because it prevents you from utilizing turn order. It makes also comebacks harder, which is not necessarily a good thing. Sometimes you are behind because the opponent killed your full HP worm with a Super Banana Bomb, for example. Having turn order advantage in SD balances this. I have never played T17 with Worm Selects included, though. *waiting for ropa's response*
15. There are probably at least a few players out there who perhaps feel that rope and/or bungee knocking wouldn't be such a bad idea in Team17. While I personally feel that it's unlikely that this change would get wide enough acceptance now to make it into a standard variation of the scheme, it's a good idea to keep our options open, so I'm adding this bullet point here anyway.
The less rules, the better. We need to ask if "no rope knocking" is really necessary. Players who are not aware of the rules can break this rule easily. I'd say either remove "no rope knocking" from both Team17 and Elite for the sake of simplification or leave it in both.
btw, are you going to open similar thread for rope schemes anytime soon? :P
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10. Why is Kamikaze not part of the Team17 scheme? Should it be? What's the worst that could happen?
I guess the worst that could happen is a draw. Other than that, I don't see why it shouldn't be included since the scheme already has Suicide Bomber. You should just give it a low probability. I mean what are you supposed to do with 3-4 kamikazes? ;D
I think he meant outside of crates, I've always thought you should have 1x kamikaze by default at start of match, it is an effective anti-turtling weapon
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Oh, no, I definitely mean available from crates; perhaps that needs to be clarified up there, then. Adding more always-available weapons to the T17 scheme feels quite unnecessary to me, it's just that the notable omission of Kamikaze from crates has always bothered me a bit, never knew why Team17 (the company) specifically decided not to have it in there... when everything else is, and has to be played around!
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Oh, no, I definitely mean available from crates; perhaps that needs to be clarified up there, then. Adding more always-available weapons to the T17 scheme feels quite unnecessary to me, it's just that the notable omission of Kamikaze from crates has always bothered me a bit, never knew why Team17 (the company) specifically decided not to have it in there... when everything else is, and has to be played around!
seems like a complete waste to have another pickup that kills your own worms like suicide bomber, but to each his own
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Oh, no, I definitely mean available from crates; perhaps that needs to be clarified up there, then. Adding more always-available weapons to the T17 scheme feels quite unnecessary to me, it's just that the notable omission of Kamikaze from crates has always bothered me a bit, never knew why Team17 (the company) specifically decided not to have it in there... when everything else is, and has to be played around!
seems like a complete waste to have another pickup that kills your own worms like suicide bomber, but to each his own
It's VERY useful in Elite from time to time, I don't know if it's in Intermediate, never really looked at the scheme but if it is, it's obviously useful.
I'd imagine it can be used in similar fashion, getting rid of a low HP worm, to do damage to a worm and possibly kill, possibly even hit multiple worms, or push them, or kill them...
Or did I miss something?
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Pro scheme rules are missing...
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I just cut some text from the quotes to make my post shorter. KRD was talking about Kamikaze in crates.
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Oh, no, I definitely mean available from crates; perhaps that needs to be clarified up there, then. Adding more always-available weapons to the T17 scheme feels quite unnecessary to me, it's just that the notable omission of Kamikaze from crates has always bothered me a bit, never knew why Team17 (the company) specifically decided not to have it in there... when everything else is, and has to be played around!
seems like a complete waste to have another pickup that kills your own worms like suicide bomber, but to each his own
It's VERY useful in Elite from time to time, I don't know if it's in Intermediate, never really looked at the scheme but if it is, it's obviously useful.
I'd imagine it can be used in similar fashion, getting rid of a low HP worm, to do damage to a worm and possibly kill, possibly even hit multiple worms, or push them, or kill them...
Or did I miss something?
yeah , i wanted it to be a standard weapon by default in t17 like the rest of the f4 row, not a weapon found in crates
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BnG
1. Should worm health be set to 250 in 1v1 matches?
I think it might depend on player's preference. BnG Marathon anyone?
2. Should there be rules preventing straight Bazooka shots and the use of Shotgun to damage enemy worms?
Damage via Shotgun is a big no for me, it should be only used for digging.
By 'straight' I mean couple things:
1. Shot directly upwards (0 degress)
It shouldn't be overused, since it is easily recreatable.
2. Direct attack on an enemy w/o huge use of wind
This should be forbidden
3. Should Blow Torch, Girder and Pneumatic Drill be part of the scheme?
I don't see anything wrong with Torch/Drill if accompanied with the Darksiding rule.
Girder is a complicated thing. Maybe delay it to 15, just so it's forced for the endgame? Maybe the Darksiding rule will nerf it. I'm honestly not sure.
Hysteria
1. Why has TUS Hysteria devolved into being played with only 4 or even 3 worms a side?
Make it more fast paced? That's my idea. I mostly saw 4 per player/team
2. Is 12 randomly placed Mines too much and should we stick to the old variant with only 8 of them?
I've been experimenting around and 12 for default-sized island is a bit too much, but 8 is too few. Maybe 10?
3. Is a round time of 10 seconds working out well in competitive Hysteria?
Depends on players. But if we're talking competetive, 5 secs is a must IMO.
4. What happened to random worm order in Hysteria?
I don't think I saw it in TUS, possibly give it more unpredictability, which here is useless.
Elite... or should I say - e1337 - cuz I'm leet!
1. Should Elite be best of 2 or 3 like Intermediate is?
nope.avi
2. Considering what has happened to the Elite scheme in the past, should edited random maps be accepted at all?
Don't go overboard and I think we're good.
3. Should the power of Mortar and Cluster Bomb be standardised with what they are in the league varaint of the Intermediate scheme or left as they are?
Do both 2
4. Does the floating weapon glitch need to be forbidden in Elite, Intermediate and possibly also Team17?
explain plz
5. Does jumping after using Pneumatic Drill and Teleport really have to be forbidden in Elite/Intermediate/Team17?
Yup
6. Is anyone at all in favour of reintroducing crates or rope knocking into Elite?
That's a no for me too.
Normal
1. (blablablabla mortar and cluster) If casual, go for 3 on both, if ranked do 2
2. Does the floating weapon glitch need to be forbidden in Elite, Intermediate and possibly also Team17?
Explain plz
3. Does jumping after using Pneumatic Drill and Teleport really have to be forbidden in Elite/Intermediate/Team17?
forbidden plz
4. Is there anyone left who prefers 0 turns of Jetpack delay instead of the currently widespread variant with 2 turns of delay on this utility?
Where the heck this came from?! Keep it retro, 2 delay on jettie
Team17
1. Should Team17 have any hot seat time?
Since we're starting with lots of turn time IMO (45) and select on start, I don't think so
2. Should the starting hazard objects be half oil barrels and half mines instead of all oil barrels like most players are used to today?
Mines would be too much rng for what is it now, since we can still get mines from crates (I think)
3. Is the water rise rate during sudden death set in stone in competitive play?
Not that I'm aware of. It's 20 px/turn for what I remember.
4. Would making the round time (the time before sudden death hits) slightly longer make Team17 early game more relevant and the endgame more fair and interesting?
Depends on players. One would have a slow-paced tactic, other one would be a crazy eco rush b terro on CS:GO :P
5. (blablablala cr8%) We would have to get into some massive math and balancing. I don't think this is going to be an easy thing to deal with.
6. (blablablala mortar and cluster) Cluster 2, Mortar 3
7. (blablablala Longbow) Longbow at 50dmg is indeed OP. 4-shots and "Bye bye!". Nerfing it to 30dmg is a subject to talk about. Anyone made a Cup with this change? If so, what the participants thought?
8. (blablablala inf girders) This one is pretty disgusting, 7 girders per side is very well thought, cuz inf would open sooooooooooo maaaaaaany possiblilities with darksiding and aggresive blocking it would smell like Checkers.
9. (Girder in crates) I don't think so, but if the majority says opposite, try playing around with percentages and maybe something good may happen about this.
10. Why is Kamikaze not part of the Team17 scheme as a weapon that you can collect from crates?
I say Kamikaze is like triple torch at the cost of a worm. It's too OP in a default-sized caverns where one tunnel can change the entire game.
11. Should stockpiling perhaps be set so that you keep your weapons between rounds and in case of a draw?
Rematch is a rematch, I don't think players should start with a handicap
12. Does anyone still want to argue in favour of reintroducing Worm Select into the Team17 scheme as a utility that you start with?
Worm Select used well can cause the enemy to flip their table as it goes to the tactic, so no
13. (blablablala Floating Weapon Glitch) explain plz
14. (blablablala drill jump) forbidden plz
15. (Rope/Bungee knock) Rope knock forbidden for sure, for Bungee it is questionable, as Senator said.
16. TL;DR plz
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Seems like this topic is getting some popularity, so I'll add my 2 cents as well.
BnG
I'll be a bit sentimental here. :)
Even with the current amount of rules, it's a shitty feeling when I'm trying to play it the way I like (you could say "with style") and I'm getting beaten with "cheap", "uninspired" shots and rollers.
I think, most of those who like BnG, think of it as "the gentleman's game".
Imagining the variant with even less rules, where all "cheapness" is allowed makes me think we need more rules, not less. It makes me think even removing it from the classic league would be better than letting "cheapness" take over.
At first glance, at least. Because all is not what it seems.
I like to think that BnG is about the creativity of utilizing your very limited options. And, while their goal is to prevent "cheapness", rules also limit creativity. Both in the sense of the shots (normal 5s grenades, for example) and in the sense of playing style (expecting each other to use a wide variety of shots).
Maybe I (we?) should start differentiating between funners and competitive BnG, and this thread is about the latter.
In competitive BnG, there shouldn't be such thing as "cheap", to begin with. Anything that's not forbidden is a part of the game and should be reckoned with, unless you prevent it by pushing and hiding.
These are the rules I'd have:
- reaim (aim vertically up or down at the start of your turn)
- only bazookas and grenades can be used for attacking
- random double cavern maps with the top part removed
These rules I'm not sure about:
- stay on your half of the map - because it's a bit vague
- no sitters - also, a bit vague (can't really measure .25 sec (or anything) live in the game)
- no 1s grenade attack - it actually isn't that easy and hardly ever useful anyway
- no straight bazooka shots - if your position allows it, you're probably doing something wrong
- no defensive girder - I'm generally not sure about girder(s) in BnG
These rules I would remove:
- 5s only with lg or max bounce - this is just a weird way trying to enforce the no sitter rule, while doing more harm
- no darksiding - why not hide well, if you can? destroying hides can be part of the game
Weapon options (other than the obvious):
- teleport
- shotgun
- blowtorch
- pneumatic drill
- fire punch
I'd suggest to have infinite of all of these, as skipping a turn of attack is enough of a trade anyway.
I'm not sure about girder, maybe let's keep the one for now, but the "no defensive girder" rule is a bit vague...
Team17
I wouldn't add hotseat time.
I wouldn't add infinite girders (endgame can get bad enough already).
I don't think keeping weapons for next round in case of a draw would be fair.
Having mines could be an interesting addition, though.
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BnG should go no rules ijn TUS games except for:
You need always maintain distance - no closer than 1/3 in 1v1 and 1/4 in 2v2; keeps people from teleporting their worm upon the opponent's worm and breaking the scheme, creating a stalemate.
No darksiding - keeps players from hiding in an unhittable spot and relying on zooks and the spacing rule
Then nothing is cheap
I still prefer a2b rules though, but those wouldn't work on TUS, people are too tryhard here
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I'm happy with whatever BnG rules, I love them all :D
Edit: Actually want to reply to some of Pranks text:
Even with the current amount of rules, it's a shitty feeling when I'm trying to play it the way I like (you could say "with style") and I'm getting beaten with "cheap", "uninspired" shots and rollers.
I remember feeling the same, and don't even remember how I was able to change my perspective, but I feel better for accepting it and appreciating all styles now :)
I like to think that BnG is about the creativity of utilizing your very limited options. And, while their goal is to prevent "cheapness", rules also limit creativity. Both in the sense of the shots (normal 5s grenades, for example) and in the sense of playing style (expecting each other to use a wide variety of shots).
That's why a2b was so special <3
These rules I'm not sure about:
- stay on your half of the map - because it's a bit vague
- no sitters - also, a bit vague (can't really measure .25 sec (or anything) live in the game)
- no 1s grenade attack - it actually isn't that easy and hardly ever useful anyway
- no straight bazooka shots - if your position allows it, you're probably doing something wrong
- no defensive girder - I'm generally not sure about girder(s) in BnG
These rules I would remove:
- 5s only with lg or max bounce - this is just a weird way trying to enforce the no sitter rule, while doing more harm
- no darksiding - why not hide well, if you can? destroying hides can be part of the game
Stay on your half of the map, agreed, I don't think there should be a distance limit as long as you are on YOUR half, that's purely opinion though.
You can't measure .24s in the game but you can take measures to make sure you can both finish peacefully and check afterwards.
1s is funny, it's not that it's lame, it's just, derpy lol.
We say no straight bazooka shots, but really why do we have this rule, this rule existed when BnG was played on that map with the |_| shaped cups, which totally makes sense, but in this day and age, there is no need for it, people shoot very high wind zooks with such small power that it's pretty much the same thing anyway don't you think?
Defensive girders, speaking personally, is the best thing since SG, it's made SO many games way more interesting near end game :)
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Hysteria
4. What happened to random worm order in Hysteria?
I don't think I saw it in TUS, possibly give it more unpredictability, which here is useless.
Looks like someone didn't read the discussion on random turn order!
Random turn order isn't completely random - if you have 4 worms, then the next 4 turns will be randomized, but all your worms get their turn. After that is completed, a new batch of turns is decided in exactly the same way - all worms get their turns, but the order in which this happens is randomized.
Also, KRD, you mentioned you'd check out the cups I linked to, but appear to not have followed through on that :o
I held a poll afterwards about what people would prefer, I think it was half wanted to keep original, the others wanted random turn order. The people who generally oppose random turn order, I feel, didn't really understand how random turn order works, though. They keep saying it makes the scheme all luck, which certainly is not the case. It merely makes early suicide very unappealing, which was kind of the point of that experiment to begin with (and early suicide tactics is what makes a lot of people hate hysteria)
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You need always maintain distance - no closer than 1/3 in 1v1 and 1/4 in 2v2; keeps people from teleporting their worm upon the opponent's worm and breaking the scheme, creating a stalemate.
No darksiding - keeps players from hiding in an unhittable spot and relying on zooks and the spacing rule
Then nothing is cheap
Stay on your half of the map, agreed, I don't think there should be a distance limit as long as you are on YOUR half, that's purely opinion though.
Defensive girders, speaking personally, is the best thing since SG, it's made SO many games way more interesting near end game :)
So it looks like some sort of distance rule is in agreement. My ony concern is what I already said before (in a way):
I would, if possible, avoid conflicts that can be solved post-game only. Also, what should the punishment be, if someone deals damage from too close?
By the way, I prefer the distance rule over the stay-on-your-half one.
Darksiding is another question. I think if we get rid of the sitter rule and 5s restrictions, relying on zooks is not a huge advantage anymore (as if it ever was).
If we get rid of the darkside rule, defensive girder could be allowed, too.
What do you think about:
- map restriction (following the path of REM (https://www.tus-wa.com/groups/REM/));
- adding firepunch (we already had it in b2b in most of our funners and maybe a2b games too);
- restricting all attacks to zooks and nades?
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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. :P
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should torch and drill be used for attacking?
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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.
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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. :P
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.
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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
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Right, I'm updating these proposed schemes with 3.8 rule enforcement once TUS starts handling v3 scheme files.
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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 ::)