I wasn’t going to get in the middle of this discussion as I have more important things to deal with, but I just couldn’t keep quiet after reading such ridiculous, nonsensible untruth:
you are alone in your passion on TUS, most of your games are noob bashing because pretty much nobody even takes Mole Shopper seriously except you, and I had the same problem in BnG, I lacked world class competition on a daily basis, there were some great players but they weren't active enough
You are wrong; there have been and there still are many pro Mole Shopper players out there. Also, you can’t take just TUS leagues into consideration as there are players who don’t participate in them. Some play only cups/tournaments, and others don’t even use TUS at all, even very pro players, as I’ve found some of them in the depths of WormNET. Such skilled players that make you wonder questions like "how come you're not at TUS?" "how come you don't participate in tournaments/cups?" I even like calling these players "Molers of the Shadows". Anyway, it's not that players don't care to play Mole Shopper seriously. They sure do; what they don't give a spit about is playing on TUS leagues, that's all, mainly the pro Mole players of today, so don’t look just at the TUS leaderboards. You can have a better notion of the best players if you take a look at the recent cups, even though, they're not all there. And they do play Mole daily because I know them and see them every day; they’re constantly trying to get better as they can, and even after 3 cups, no one managed to defeat Zalo. And no, before anyone makes any false accusations, I’m not any Zalo fanboy, not even close to that; I’m just saying facts.
Obviously mole is going to be more strategic than, say, roper or shopper (because there isn't a ton of strategy involved in those schemes), but I think it is debatable as to whether it is any more or less strategic than T17 (I'd say they are about the same in terms of skill level), and it is most definitely far less strategic than Intermediate, Elite, Darkside, Strategic, etc.
If Mole is more strategic and tactical than say, Intermediate or Elite, then wouldn't that dominant player also dominate those schemes as well?
No, because they’re more technical than strategic. I explain more below:
First of all, the reason that the level of the Mole players has risen dramatically is because of Zalo's great influence, and I know I’m not the only one who would say this. He played Mole Shopper so much that he discovered pretty much everything about it, so many other players learned from his games, although sure, that's not to say he didn't learn a thing or two from other players; this is something that happens naturally to everyone when playing with different players, and then you can always learn something new from some of them; that's partially called “experience”. The time when you played that Mole Shopper tournament in 2012, Skunk, was when nobody had discovered even HALF of everything that was possible in Mole if you asked me, and that includes strategy, tactics, tricks, weapon usage, proper hides and battle patterns. Seriously, just compare the games from these old cups/tournaments to the recent ones. You’ll see an immense level difference. The ones that understand how mole works literally “laugh” at how noobish games from old cups were.
I can understand exactly how Zalo sees mole, it is the "Chess of Worms" like he says, and I can explain why he says it and calls it the most strategic scheme, although it depends a lot on your concept of "strategic" in order to find your proper answer. Comparing Mole Shopper to Team 17, Elite, Intermediate and other schemes like that, the main difference is that in Mole, you start off with your worms all sealed up underneath the land. This means that you can't start off the game like you can in, say, Intermediate and go plopping/killing the worms that are placed at the nearest hazards or the ones that are piled. In intermediate, taken as the counterpart example, it requires a lot more "technical skill" and fast thinking to do the right moves, so you don’t have to strategize as much because the worms are already all there; you mostly just have to go for the most effective attack you can in the turns. Technical skill is the opposite of tactical skill. Of course that when you are making a move in Intermediate, you are also using your tactics, but what counts more in that scheme is the technical skill, the best usage you can do with your limited weapons. Failing your technical moves in Intermediate is a lot more crucial than in Mole, because what counts more in Mole when it comes to mistakes are your tactical ones. If you failed a move that prevented your plan from developing, then you made a big mistake, whereas if you didn’t hit the worm very well with your weapon, it won’t be as bad. The reason that the technical mistakes don't count as much is that Mole Shopper is probably the only scheme that it's much more about knowing "what to do" (strategy - tactical skill) as opposed to knowing "how to do" (attacks - technical skill). And this is why we find Mole Shopper to be such a "rich" scheme in comparison to others. You have no idea how many different scenarios there are in this scheme. When you start playing mole, you need to learn how to deal with every one of them. For every situation, there is a proper way to deal with, whether it being counter-attacking, invading or simply developing your game, and it's a rich scheme because of that - it takes lots and lots of games of experience for you to uncover all of those scenarios, and this is where top players outrun others, this is how Zalo got his “level spread” amongst most players. Like I said, Mole is more about knowing "what to do", so this means you can find 3 bananas in crates and end up losing the game without having had the opportunity to use a single one. You won't even be able to make an attacking move if your opponent outruns you big time in strategy. So to conclude what I explain here when Zalo stated Mole to be the most strategic scheme, in the sense that it involves much more tactical skill as opposed to technical skill, he is damn right, because these other battle-type, non-rope based schemes don’t have this aspect of having the worms starting in sealed up positions away from hazards (the exposed starting positions in Intermediate is something I call a great luck factor on the other hand), which allows you to develop your game strategically safe. Putting it that way, which is how I understand “strategic”, I can definitely agree that Mole Shopper is the most strategic scheme. If, however, your concept of “strategic” follows something else other than this tactical/technical dichotomy, then you understand “strategic” differently than us, even though the concept looks very clear to me.
Oh, and just so you don’t go saying I didn’t mention anything about luck, it’s because I’m so used to playing Mole that it’s something that I have as such a minor aspect that I don’t even think much about since a good strategy helps you get around it if you’re unlucky and also since the scheme is very rich in terms of level spread due to the enormous room for improvement granted from the different skills you must develop in order to become a good player (strategy, tactics, tricks, weapon usage, proper hides, battle patterns etc). It’s also worth mentioning that certain luck factors are manipulable with knowledge and skill, and you also have to know how to risk with a measure of safety, which is a nice feature since skill overcomes luck there. Sure there is a good number of variables, but a match in which the winner is decided by sheer luck is like 5% at most out of all games. If it was much higher than that like you’re saying, Zalo would have never won all those previous cups and league matches. It’s way more common to lose a match if your opponent made a better game than you or if you made mistakes than if your opponent got lucky in whatever way. And notice that even the best players may make a mistake, and a single mistake is enough to lose an entire match.
Mole shopper is no more difficult to play at a decent level than any other scheme. It is incredibly basic
Even though the Mole Bomb is the standard weapon in this scheme, you would be surprised if you knew all the tricks and moves you can do with it. A normal mole shot only takes 36HP, but it can take 200HP if you are not careful. And it’s not just used in attacks; it works as a tool as well on things you must do “right” in order to be successful in the game. A “basic player”, like you say, who already masters ground playing would spend a very hard time trying to get the Mole Bomb working for them, because it’s pretty much the only scheme you would want to use that weapon, and you will need to use it many, many times, and every turn counts. Basic players won’t even understand why sometimes the mole digs backwards when they play the scheme. Plus it takes some practice to be able to use it however you want. Needing to use the Mole Bomb in so many turns during a match, any “basic player” would be quickly doomed before a player who knows how to use it, so the only place you’ll be able to use your general scheme skills would be at the bottom of a pit.
I've played plenty of mole shoppers, so it's not like I don't know the scheme and how it is played. I'm not ignorant and lacking the super duper moleshop secrets to winning. Hiding, stealing, invading, chuting, etc... all of this stuff is present in many other schemes.
Where are your best games, Skunk? This is the only Mole Shopper game from you registered on TUS:
https://www.tus-wa.com/tournaments/game-108602/If this is how good you are at Mole, you know pretty much nothing about it. This game clearly shows you not only have no sense of strategy but you also don’t know how to play it at all. Moreover, this only Mole game registered of yours was played on Dmitry’s scheme (AKA HB scheme), and it was even an older version of the scheme, as I could notice that Mole Bomb power was weaker than it is today. This might explain why you have such a twisted point of view of the scheme as I also don’t really expect you to have played more Mole games, considering how little you demonstrate to know about Mole Shopper. You seem to only remember pre-historic Mole Shopper games.
That sentence… “I'm not ignorant and lacking the super duper moleshop secrets to winning”.
Wow, this is advanced stuff you’re talking here. It seems you really know so much about Mole, I’m so impressed… for someone who doesn’t even play the scheme to say such a thing… Why can’t I believe you? I mean, it’s just funny that you mentioned “super duper moleshop secrets” when there are actually a big number of them. You wouldn’t know even half of what’s possible to do with the Mole Bomb.
“Hiding, stealing, invading, chuting, etc... all of this stuff is present in many other schemes.”
Yes, but they don’t happen exactly the same way. For example, once I was introducing Mole Shopper to a friend, and he had gone for a bad hide. I told him that was a bad hide, and he said it was an Intermediate hide. And this totally makes sense since the choice of your hides is directly related to the weapons you want to protect yourself from. The weapon selection among these schemes is different, including their power, as well as the terrain shape. You sure bring the skills you have from the schemes you play into the new ones to you, but they won’t all work the same way.
Mole Shopper is a joke, my friend. It is basically a noob version of regular shopper in which you don't even need rope skills
This would be true only if the worms all started in a same open area.
There's a reason why it is so popular amongst noobs... because it is very easy to play and almost anyone has a chance of winning, especially in 4-6 player games.
Please, Skunk, don’t say the same mistake twice. You were already told before that no one is talking about HB mole FFAs. Those are sure lottery, yes.
I was talking about funner moles at first, and you're talking about ranked mole games.
It doesn’t matter if it’s funner or ranked, what matters is which Mole Shopper scheme is being played. Anyway, what I answered you above also apply to TUS Mole scheme.
(because I've never played a ranked match, why in the f@#! would I want to?)
You don’t need to play a ranked match to play on a pro Mole Shopper scheme. In fact, most matches aren’t ranked because nobody (or almost no one) cares about TUS leagues stats today anymore pretty much, because the fun comes from the game itself. They just don’t feel the need to register their games at TUS leagues because there is no reason to, but they’re still playing out there. Just because TUS league Mole games aren’t being played much today, it doesn’t mean that pro Mole matches aren’t happening in WormNET.
Your record, to me, only signifies that you participated in a bunch of Asbest style ranked noob bashing and that not too many other players actually take ranked mole seriously because only 4 players out of 244 had a total number of games played in the triple digits, with yours being more than double the total of the next player with the most total games played.
Zalo’s played more Mole games than anyone else, yes, but number of games played doesn’t necessarily mean skill. There are more skilled players than what the TUS league numbers show.
Ostensibly the only real difference between a funner mole and a ranked mole is gonna be the starting placement. My guess was correct.
I couldda swore that it said something about placing worms in holes to start.
The scheme description hasn’t been rewritten after Ramone’s last edit on the scheme, on which I’m assuming he must have changed to random placement upon request during some old Mole cup on November 19, 2008. It seems you really just remember the scheme back at that time, the time when there was still so much to discover about it. Not knowing that Mole Shopper has never been played with manual placement ever since somewhen in 2008 (10 years ago) just shows your only point here is to keep saying crap about what you do not know.
TBH I was only thinking of starting inventory and basic settings, not about stuff like gold banana (I pretend it doesn't exist) and whatnot.
That’s only in HB scheme, forget about it.
I don't need to be a director to critique a film, nor do I need to be a chef to critique a dish.
I’m sorry, but Mole is different. You do need to understand the scheme very well in order to have a plausible opinion about it. Unless you can understand what a good and what a bad move is in Mole and explain the existing strategy behind the moves in the matches, you can’t evaluate how strategic the scheme actually is since you can’t understand how it works. I was noob in Mole one day too as everyone else, and I can tell how much of the strategy I couldn’t see and the moves that I should have made that I didn’t for not knowing the right priorities. Mole Shopper is really very similar to chess: a person who has just learned the rules isn’t capable of having a deep analysis of a match between two grandmasters. And trust me, I also didn't like Mole at first, but later on, it clicked to me what was so marvelous about it.
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and the only game I can win is shoppa with CPU1