BnG1. 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.
Elite1. 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.
Intermediate4. 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.
Team17I 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 powersThis 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 selectionWhere 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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