Schemes.
Ok, now I'll explain my point of view with more detail.
Have you ever played a game that you play several minigames of one major game? Humm... Perhaps Mario Party? WarioWare? Ok, but now think that the community can create new minigames, with custom settings, levels and rules and the game is still played online after 20 years with several game modes that were played with the hype of their time and changed when new ideas and features appeared.
As a game maintained by community all this time, without a big company investing on it with updates everyweek, that's very impressive in my point of view, specially thinking that the game still doesn't have a solution to the
and not many new scheme features were added until now (just think that it's 2021 and it is still not possible to choose the ammo of a weapon in a crate that Worms 2 could do).
It's not only about schemes because this game has many custom things the community contributes, soundbanks, maps, sofwares, etc. Also, many players play this game for more than 20 years only playing the same very old schemes without even caring about quality of life new features added to the game like the ability to disable forbidden glitches or tricks of a scheme (people prefer to write the rules and hope people respect), so, maybe I'm wrong, maybe few people like me and some others who really like schemes.
I still think many people don't see that this game should be seen as a platform to the community create stuff to play new things that constantly are changing and evolving and not focus so much on the competition of only one single game mode or the same small group of old game modes. People here can die discussing about WormOrder and competitive scenario where the essencials of this game is hosting a new idea you had to try with a friend and people have fun playing that new idea that changes the way you think, the tactics, etc. It's more complicated to do that when you can't host and the only games people play are the same old schemes, because they only care about stats and league points and discuss for details and don't like to play with any modifications to the original scheme.
I agree that it's hard to create something new that is so good that becomes a hype and everybody wants to try it and play it. But that's more difficult when there's not so many features being implemented to the game, you have to rely on rules and the available settings and dedicate time creating specific maps of a new idea (that may receive "unimaginative" tag as it is an expected routine)
I think the essentials of this game is not focused so much on competition, but on new game modes and freedom to players create anything they want and feel like they are
mini-game designers or that there are thousands of interesting options to try and addapt since the tactics change on each scheme.
I agree that it's natural to become a better play on a scheme you like and want to find good players to play serious with, but that requires a bigger community where you have more people who also like to play that specific scheme (in a game you have many other options) with you. The main uniqueness of this game (it's neache) is this creativity platform for new ideas and game modes and that's what should be focused by developers and the community in my opinion. I admire competitive scenario of WA since it is a sport and is nice to take things seriously. I admire this website, all other league website that are still alive or even those that fade away with time. I admire the map platforms, file platforms, map platforms.
I like to compare Worms with some other games. I like to compare with the Mario Hacks community where people simply play the same major game (Super Mario World) with all it's avant garde mechanics that even the original game didn't explored all of them so well as the hacks do. Even more, there's not only new levels being created, but new features like the one called _Motor Skills_ if I remember correctly that you can change normal jump (woth B) to spiral jump (with A) in mid-air. Or maybe the R/L fearure where you able/disable blocks that are available during the hole level (that requires lots of reflexes from players). And many other creative ones like being able to hit a clock and make objects stop/freeze in mid-air for some seconds. There are many new features being implemented on the new hacks made by the community where players enjoy playing and trying them. They make they think and add new tactics and gameplay possibilities.
I like to remind League of Legends players that the famous game mode ARAM (All Random, All Mid) was created by the community of the game. Few people used to host custom games (without playing on the regular Matchmaking platform) and ARAM was created by these people who enjoyed playing randomly a game that has a lot of luck and it is not very balanced since many Champions had advantanges there and many disadvantages. There are many people who play ARAM seriously even today, I know people who always wanted ranked league system in ARAM, a game mode that was officially implemented in the main game by the developers, because the community wanted this. All the other game modes of league of legends were created by the developers and not by the community, many of them weren't successful and were removed from the game (only appearing in some moments of the year as a nostalgic experience).
Maybe if Legends of Legends had more space for the community creativity as Worms Armageddon is essentially doing all this time, maybe more interesting game variants would be created and played by the community. League of Legends devs sometimes create game modes that the community like, for example: URF game mode where all the cooldowns are removed and you can use your ultimate and other spells all the time. People loved that, but it is hard to balance since some characters are way too OP there and it is not so competitive as the main game is. Maybe this different game modes are bad for who like playing seriously the main game mode, because people are playing those game modes instead the main "scheme". But the different game modes is what make people have fun playing with new tactics and possibilities, don't caring so much about competitive scenario and more with the
fun of the new game mode. The game becomes more alive when people don't get tired of playing the same game mode, the same stuff all the time.
There's also that variant called TFT - Team Fight Tactics or something like that, but that's a game mode they copied from other game. This game mode was also implemented in Harthstone as another name and different settings adapted to Harthstone universe (I forgot the name).
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