There are two ways to fix this:
- A small wormkit module that ignores the 3.7.2.2 check
- A small program to patch the replays to 3.7.2.1 (single byte change).

Thanks for your reply, StepS. Both sound interesting, where could I get them? I looked at the WormKit page at worms2d.info, but couldn't find any of these there.

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?

I agree with your changes for the Shopper scheme, except for the mine fuse. It should still be random, otherwise whoever starts playing first will be able to make use of most of the mines, thus gaining this advantage of which the other players won't have later. If random, they'll think twice before risking touching any.

Oh, and another change needed for HB Shopper IMO is that the weapon retreat should be 5 seconds instead of 3 since there are also ground weapons to be used, and the spread from 3 to 10 seconds, when you can even get away with rope so much faster… having 5 seconds to get away on ground is the least you can do to make it more even. Adding more time than 5 seconds wouldn’t be interesting since you likely wouldn’t have much ground to retreat, and it’d be too much of a monotonous and non-dynamic retreat to wait for as far as the game works.

I also enjoy having Uzi and Skunk in crates in Shopper for more variety, but I wouldn’t mind not having them in Shopper. I know Skunk might generate more confusion in who’s leader because of the poison effect.

I’d also like to emphasize how important I think infinite Bazooka is in Shopper. I also always get baffled whenever I see a Shopper scheme made for a tournament, for example, in which there is no infinite Bazooka. It’s like, you have no standard weapon to do reasonable damage if you are unlucky, finding some very weak and ineffective weapon, so it turns out you end up with some dead turns during the matches. With infinite Bazooka, on the other hand, you have something to at least keep you steady in the killing race instead of just being helpless and letting your opponent crush you with a bigger weapon, allowing unnecessary luck to interfere in the game/scheme. Moreover, it allows you to choose whether to use the weapon you found in the crate or Bazooka according to the situation, providing more strategy in play.

The 40 seconds in big rr... I wouldn't see a problem if most Big RRs were played with Rubberworm's /ldet, which is how traditional Big RRs should be played so that all players are allowed to have the same turn time and not lose a game for having had unlucky turns in which make the timer stop (as in any real race). And this is how weaker players manage to beat stronger ones. The fact that one type of fall makes the timer end and another doesn't doesn't justify at all why that should be true; it’s basically just a technical limitation that has a fix. Plus, if you feel like speeding up your pacing, you are already risking falling more often, and hence giving your opponent more chances to catch up. Over the years, I lost count how many times I won a Big RR lamely just because my opponent, who was better, had bl in a few turns. Now I know one can say that falling isn't affected by luck in Big RR since it all comes down to the commands you insert with your fingers, but the fact of a player earning so much more time to outrun his opponent in the race (as a time bonus) is just plain stupid. It can even make the player who is winning slow their pace down just so they can rope safer since the time bonus already granted certain victory to some extent.
Another reason that makes /ldet more enjoyable is that it allows players to rope faster than their usual pace if they are seeking to improve their speed. If you try to do this in a game without /ldet, you are just likely to make your turn end, and then you’d just have to sit and watch the other players race instead of the game having let you play within your turn time limit. And of course, that also leads to a slower improvement from the players.

But since most players don't have rubber, what I tend to do is hosting with 35 seconds and no banana, and here's why: traditional Big RR is 30 secs + 10 secs of banana, so you'd initially think you have 40 seconds, but that's not entirely true. The extra 10 seconds you have won't allow you to keep racing if you fall from rope, so those are some “semi-10 seconds”, which is why I put that very in-between number, 35. And another reason for it is that having 40 seconds under a race scheme settings that might make you lose your turn from the very beginning is just way too much of a time bonus that you might give to your opponent(s). With 35 seconds, however, you won't race as little as you would with only 30 seconds, and you also wouldn't lose that much time if you fall, so the advantage you'd give to your opponent wouldn't be that huge.

What do you mean “no teleport in Big RR”, Sensei? There isn’t teleport already, unless you’re talking about the auto/manual initial placements option?

People like myself, Sensei, Sbaffo, pretty much everyone here actually, we've played this game for so long and know how all the weapons work, with various power settings.

Again, this kind of knowledge is irrelevant to comprehend Mole. We’re talking about Mole strategies here; not weapon usage in various power settings.

For people like us, knowing WA inside out, and learning Mole Shopper, is like learning how to paint, then being asked to do it with a different shape of brush...

Sure, and you don’t even need that many years of experience. But now you’re saying “learning Mole Shopper”. We were talking about “understanding the Mole strategies in depth” just a moment ago...

Honestly I see Mole Shopper as more repetitive than anything, it's mostly the same weapons being used.

LOL! That’s my words exactly for Intermediate. Always being restricted to the very same weaponry is just what made me get sick and tired of that scheme. In Mole, the weapon combination you pick always varies, and you also have more weapon variety.

In fact the only good things I saw Zalo do, isn't because Zalo is smart, because his opponents were dumb and not paying attention.

Seems like you need to see games with someone of his level or at least close to it.
And it’s also funny how you say that. You say it as if whenever you were watching Zalo play, you could detect every single mistake his opponents did. If you are so aware of these attention mistakes in the game, I guess you would never be ambushed in a game against Zalo, right? Here you talk just like skunk, as if everything there was so clear and easy to do...

He's even won a few games simply because of having a stronger weapon in his crates at the right moment, COUGH COUGH luck COUGH.

This depends on the game really, and also on his opponent’s move choices. Skunk got raped with 3 clusters in our game, but that was due to his bad playing, hence removing the possibility that I got lucky. It’s like I said before: noobs can’t complain about luck until they become grandmasters to actually become able to conclude that they did the best possible move choices, and they can’t technically fail too. If even then they lose to some luck factor, then we can talk about it.

Things like, opening up to force the other player to come to him, which they do, then they get killed, it's completely dumb, Zalo thinks he's a genius for this...

Here again you’re talking like skunk did before, talking very superfically about some... well, in this case in particular, I couldn’t even call it a tactic from the way you described it, but there are proper ways to do that, which then turns into one. Anyhow, the player on top might not be safe as you think if done properly. And also notice you’re analysing JUST this “tactic” (let’s call it that, whatever) by itself without any scenario in consideration... you just can’t do that. It’s not every time you’ll want to open up, along with many other moves in Mole which can bring you benefits in the game, but if used in the wrong moment, they turn into disadvantage. You can’t just analyse that one tactic, but take the entire game into consideration, otherwise there is no sense analysing it.

Zalo is not invincible, he actually loses a lot of games, just seems to win Bo5 a lot, and that's against noobs... No wonder he got scared of daina.

I agree he’s not invincible, even in bo5 considering our past. But you say against noobs? Where did you take that from?
Daina is light-years behind us. Stop joking on that!

Zalo did NOT run away because of the gif I posted, because worse things were already said before that gif and he still stuck around.

Who are you to say? He clearly said it was because of it. I think he’s just saturated of people who misunderstand his intentions if you asked me.

If you actually believe him Magnus, you must be a bigger fool than Zalo, think about it, I actually had nothing to do with the challenge that Zalo started, it was a game between Zalo & daina, they could easily host by themselves or let someone else stream, if Zalos problem was ONLY with me, then he would still play, but he used it as an excuse to avoid playing daina, anybody who defends him is a fool.

I would also have taken the gif as a friendly joke, but he didn’t. I never participated in these forums before, but it didn’t take long to realize how toxic things around here are. He might have just become intoxicated since it seems it’s not enough to have documentedly proved he’s n1 in a scheme with so many victories that there will be people who will just come by to degrade his achievements, saying “ah, that’s nothing”... Imagine you become n1 in a scheme and then someone said that to you. Not so cool, eh?
And yes, I do believe him, because from what I know very well from him, he takes evidential stuff a lot more into consideration than words. I’m even the opposite of him on that, but you like it or not, you can’t deny his Mole standings.

It's like me saying i'm the best in the world at saying hello to every single individual item in my house, just because nobody else wants to... Doesn't make me special or anything lol.

I wonder how many players you’re disrespecting with these words.

PS: I do not mean to offend skunk in any way just because I mentioned him here. I only made reference to him to show that Komodo did the same analysis mistakes. I noticed he’s actually a very nice guy who in fact took his effort trying to get the scheme, and I’m proud of him. But don’t worry, skunk, I’ll clear your view on it some day when I have more time, as I know exactly where you failed to recognize the worth in the scheme. I see you have future in Mole.

Well, see you guys after a couple of days.

Quote from: Magnus on July 26, 2018, 06:35 AM

An amateur isn't able to understand the depth of a chess game being played by a grandmaster just by watching it.

You don't see grandmaster turning his back on first opponent and running away.

Zalo wasn't afraid of Daina. You know very well he turned down the challenge for another reason. I'm not Zalo, so I'm not responsible for his acts, but he may do whatever he wants. I'm not here to judge his actions. Daina could practice as much as she wants and challenge me in 5 games that wouldn't make a difference.

Pls stop with glorifying this scheme. It's not even funny anymore. No one thinks that way except couple of you ppl.

Because there is a bunch of ignorants who only had a first glance on it and failed to notice its worth and potential, leaving the scheme unexplored.

Magnus, I watched the best Mole Shopper player play a dozen games, i'm quite happy with my judgement on how much luck is in the scheme thanks, your ability to judge luck is irrelevant to me.

I also have 19 years of experience with this game, i'm quite confident in what I say. (And yes, it's just a joke)

Your 19 years of experience with the game is irrelevant if professional Mole Shopper gameplay isn't included in that experience. Skunk said the same with his years of experience, and I could understand why he fails to comprehend the scheme when we played, something I still intend to explain when I have more time. It doesn't matter if you have 30 years of experience with math; you'll never be able to teach physics unless you learn IT instead of everything else! I'm also confident in what I say in regards to this scheme.

Really Komodo? Is your life this shitty you have nothing else to do other than endlessly hunting people down? This is a big backstabbing you did there; shame on you, man.
I still have a lot of things to say from those threads (to correct a bunch of inaccuracies); I just haven't got the time for that right now, but you keep saying crap you don't know:

Cuz mole's a luck scheme

This sentence shows just how little you know about Mole. You can ask any pro Mole player, and they will deny such a statement!