Updates for HB schemes:

[Magnus]

Yeah Sensei's scheme is better for competitive scenario but I only disagree with 3s fuse mines, it should be 2s.

I also agree that for competitive play, that is, 1x1, 2x2 etc, a fixed amount of time is better for the fuse, but for HB Shopper I was assuming we were talking about FFA games instead since that's what most people play there, and in games like that with lots of players, random fuse is better so that the first ones to play don't abuse it and leave the last ones without being able to perform this "extra damage".

[Senator]

Thanks Walrus for the explanation What about crates? They are totally fine in HB scheme but in a league scheme? Isn't it the same thing as crates in Inter? Walrus said we should aim for a Bo1 scheme for the league and then there's no place for crates. Round time could be also a bit longer if it's Bo1.

[Sensei]

Bo1 is a bit demotivating in aerial due to random placements and 2 big weapons on F5. If a player get bad hides, game could be determined right on the start. That's why I'm always hosting 2v2's not only with bo3, but also 3 worms per player. Just feels natural and no one ever saw it as something that needs to be changed. You should try it yourself and test. About crates, they're fun and nice addition in bo3, but if you decide to make it bo1 - they don't have place in aerial anymore. Imo, if this scheme will get that kind of changes, maybe hyst was a better choice to stick at. I thought aerial is added to refresh TUS a bit, not to make blatant copy of existent scheme and known lame tactics of telecowing and telecids.

@kaleu, why 2s fuse instead of 3? It's not that big of a change, but 3s gives you more variety to mine knocks and planned attacks. Not often you see someone get demolished by mines from map, and when they do, that's not easy to achieve. Any reason for 2s?

Sorry for not answering magnus. Your idea makes sense when it comes to ffa and if 3s mines are missused that much (didn't notice personally), random should stay.. But have in mind there are ppl that play 1v1,2v2 shoppers.. So 3s is far better option in that cases.

[Senator]

What does crates have to do with telecowing and telecids? I don't think we would go further than that. Removing crates won't make it a blatant copy of Hysteria. If it did, then Aerial already is like Hysteria most of the time.

[Sensei]

What does crates have to do with telecowing and telecids?

Nothing. I feel like bo3 doing more in preventing ppl to use telecows and telecids. Due to random placements, first game can be rough to 1 player. Then he's forced to jetcow to overcome losses. Small chances are that will happen next round tho, so players can have proper fight and in the end there's possible third match to determine winner.

Bo1 punches you in the face and sometimes there's no escape. Considering really fast pace of the scheme, I don't think it's necessary to do bo1 for leagues.. But whatever players prefer. I'll always ask opponents for bo3, no matter what's decided. Crates are just small portion of luck that could end game a bit quicker, which is not needed in bo1.

[HHC]

@Wally:
Random mines because 3 sec makes easy clearing with JP. The danger of encountering a 0 sec makes it less beneficial to clear your entire side of any mines b4 they can strike you. 0 sec mines also no, cause annoying with JP and too powerful for this scheme imo.

SD: SD is lame, in Elite and T17 as well, but it's really needed there to finish a game. Without that purpose it wouldn't be in, cause it sucks that in Elite you can lose a game that you were dominating simply because you get stuck on the wrong side of the map.
In Aerial SD is not needed. As the game progresses more and more land gets cleared with zooks and other weaps. I actually really love those late games in Aerial where you are flying through shards of lands, taunting the enemy to leave his hiding spot.
Bo3 also sucks ass. It sucks enough that inter has a mandatory Bo3, no other scheme should aspire to have the same. Every game should count, and Bo3 makes league games needlessly long. Even a long Aerial without SD takes shorter than a 3 seperate rounds wíth SD.

Petrols and mortars and uzi's are insignificant.

The above is why Aerial should stay as is in league games.
With hostingbuddy there's an additional reason not to change: you DONT want bo3 hb schemes + all the reasons why the scheme should be changed for leagues don't matter cause HB is primarily for fun games between casual players.

It would seriously upset me if the scheme gets changed. It's my baby, I love it. Every detail is just as I imagined it to be.

[Sensei]

Your baby is grown up now, HHC, time to let go.
Judging by Aerial games you played on TUS (7 games in last 20+ seasons) seems like you did indeed let it go...

These are not some ego driven changes I seek here. They can even put your name in front of new scheme, couldn't care less.
Just give active competitive ppl proper and permanent link for scheme that's updated and accepted by majority. End of story.

[HHC]

Judging by Aerial games you played on TUS (7 games in last 20+ seasons) seems like you did indeed let it go...

Bit of a low blow. Everyone knows I don't league much, if at all. I'm sure people know that I've played more than 7 games of this scheme in my life 

These are not some ego driven changes I seek here. They can even put your name in front of new scheme, couldn't care less.

How is that even remotely something that I would want?

Aerial is my invention, and I won't allow ppl to alter it when it's changes that I don't support, at all. Now of course, that's not something to enforce. But if you want to make an alternative scheme, treat it as such. Name it Aerial SD or Aerial-Sensei's or some shit like that, so that people will know it's not the same scheme that I created.

Naturally, considering I'm not in favour of your version, I will be against it being implemented as the TUS official scheme. But I'm willing to accept that if the majority of players want it so, but don't name it 'Aerial' then.
Changing it in HB is a definite no-go though. Cause that way I would lose both my own scheme being up there + it would almost surely end up with your version replacing my own scheme as standard, and original "Aerial", which it is not.

Just give active competitive ppl proper and permanent link for scheme that's updated and accepted by majority. End of story.

Who's the majority, you and Walrus?

[Sensei]

Name it Aerial SD or Aerial-Sensei's or some shit like that, so that people will know it's not the same scheme that I created.

It's called Aerial (Sudden Death) since the day changes were implemented.

Changing it in HB is a definite no-go though. Cause that way I would lose both my own scheme being up there

This is most childish and selfish line of text I've read around TUS forums in a while.

Who's the majority, you and Walrus?

Sure, only us 2.


Have it your way guys, I'm done fighting with windmills.
Hah, the irony! Windmills, Netherlands..

[HHC]

It's called Aerial (Sudden Death) since the day changes were implemented.

But once it's gonna go official, it's gonna be just 'Aerial', here on TUS as on WN.

This is most childish and selfish line of text I've read around TUS forums in a while.

I'm not gonna lose sleep over the matter, but I feel that I must stand up for my shit here.
I invented the scheme, fine-tuned it, plugged it by hosting tourneys and cups, plugged it some more, managed to get it added to free league on TUS and to complete the process, got it added to the game itself as a HB-scheme.

Have you invented an entire scheme/gametype in any game and managed to get it to be part of the game for everyone else?
I don't think so.. it's quite a feat, and something I worked hard for to achieve.
It's not a matter of life and death, but if you don't protect these things, then what is there to stand for? I highly doubt I'm gonna be send on a mission to the moon one day.. so yah..

Also, people here know I've been fighting against the tendency of "pro's" to strip down every scheme to its bare essentials as to make it more 'league-fit' (as in 'predictable raw skill contests') by removing any RNG elements (like crates.. or mine timers..). I'm not gonna accept it happening to my very own scheme, which for a large part was created just with all that in mind. Aerial is different than other schemes precisely because no single game is the same, there are general patterns, but every game has its own challenges and a different outcome. Sometimes you finish it within 10 turns with a donkey, sometimes you go an hour shooting dumb zooks at each other. And there's several strategies to choose from: girder blocking; tele cowing; bng-artillery; putting high pressure; destroy map with zooks, etc. Precisely that variance and unpredictability makes it fun and not-repetitive.

[TheWalrus]

I like the idea of aerial being Bo1, in a 2 pick league system Bo3 should be avoided whenever possible.  The random elements of placement don't create more variation than say t17, so I am okay with aerial having more elements of chance.  I would say my two biggest issues are getting superweapons in crates that immediately end the game e.g. sheep strike, banana bomb, ect.; and the random mines, assign the mines a fuse like every other competitive league scheme known to man. 

HHC, im surprised that in your testing you didnt realize that random mines were an issue.  You could say it is just sensei or I, but in reality, I've heard so many people complain about the random mines in the original scheme. 

The main problem as I see it is a Bo1 aerial right now involves quite a bit of luck because worms can be trapped, I played an aerial with dibz where all 4 of my worms spawned up top and two of his spawned below.  By the time he teleported one worm up and got of control a worm on top, i had almost already killed his two worms that started up top.  He had no chance to start the game any better than 2 worms down.  This is an extreme case, everything went wrong for dibz to be screwed so badly, it doesn't usually happen this way, but there is still a lot of luck involved.  Once you add in random mines and health crates and superweapons in crates, games can be turned even easier with a lucky break.  I've played many games with sensei, we are about equal ability, many games we've played have been determined by a weapon crate and nothing else. 

[Magnus]

Sorry for not answering magnus. Your idea makes sense when it comes to ffa and if 3s mines are missused that much (didn't notice personally), random should stay.. But have in mind there are ppl that play 1v1,2v2 shoppers.. So 3s is far better option in that cases.

I see. Well, but the thing is, you said this is for updating “HB” schemes, and considering most people play FFA in Shopper, would it really be a good idea to change it to a fixed time fuse? I mean, 1x1/2x2 Shoppers are probably mostly played among friends, although sometimes I do see them being hosted publicly. And if friends, they’re likely to have their scheme ready, and if they want a scheme for more serious competition, they’d use a league Shopper scheme or something. I just believe that it’s the majority of players who shouldn’t have the need to type any command to make a change, don’t you think?

[Senator]

@HHC

Mines: which one is worse, players taking a gamble to get out of a mine block or players being able to clear the map of mines (or utilize easier for extra damage..)? Rewarding for taking gambles is questionable imo.

SD: Walrus said SD is necessary because otherwise it's hard to make a comeback if you get unlucky placements. Do you disagree?

Crates: are random crate drops less decisive in Aerial than say in Intermediate or why do you think crates are fine in the league scheme? Remember HB scheme and league scheme don't have to be the same.

I think Aerial can stay in HB as it is. Perhaps add Sensei's scheme there too. MI can probably run a script to see which scheme majority is using in league matches. If there will be changes, I wouldn't mind having the original Aerial in Free league and the new scheme in Allround.. Call it Ariel or whatever.

[TheWalrus]

Also I don't think we should change the hostingbuddy's scheme, keep it as HHC's imo, my comments have been on the league scheme only

[HHC]

Mines: which one is worse, players taking a gamble to get out of a mine block or players being able to clear the map of mines (or utilize easier for extra damage..)? Rewarding for taking gambles is questionable imo.

I think the clearing part is worse. Because if you can easily clear the mines around you, there isn't really any point in having them at all?
There's nothing wrong with a 'gamble' element IMO. Because it forces you to make an extra decision: which mines are worth clearing even if I can blow myself up? A really, really pesky mine is still worth taking the risk, while other mines usually aren't and can be left alone. That's why I think the crates are also interesting. Quite often you have to choose between getting a crate and hoping for something good OR getting a good hide. Sometimes a suicide hide is still worth it if the crate is game winning (which it usually isn't).
Crates are an important element in luring players out of their hides and keeping the game dynamic.

I also stand by my wormy rule: if a game element doesn't BREAK the scheme, it's worth keeping. A completely stripped scheme like BnG has become is not something I find interesting and challenging to play anymore. That's why I'm in favour of keeping crates, mines, barrels and as many weaps in as possible.
I do agree that Donkey or Armageddon are O/P, but they happen only really rarely, and if you remove them, you also remove mine strike, mole strike and other funky weaps that are by no means O/P.

SD: Walrus said SD is necessary because otherwise it's hard to make a comeback if you get unlucky placements. Do you disagree?

I disagree yes. Aerial is a scheme in which you can still win 1vs4. Most games end up with players being on either side of the map shooting from a distance at each other. The player with fewer worms has an easier job hiding his worms and taking out enemies that take a few extra turns to make their move. I don't think Walrus wants SD to be a complete equalizer, like it sometimes is in Elite. To me that's punishing the player who has been dominating whole game (and this is most often because of their superior play and less often because of sheer placement luck).