Looks like Gabriel just shredded the cheap veneer on your wall of text, and there is no substance behind it.

Just say that, because you look a lot sillier standing by your straw man argument.

I like your passion and your guile, but your heart is in the wrong place.  Mole shopper isn't even a top 3 strategic/tactical scheme.

So you attack others from behind their back? What a coward! I don't care what crap you type; you will never be man enough to challenge me in this scheme that you so call not top 3 strategic!

WTF-8

can we have any specific examples of those countless things discovered, so this wall of text doesn't look like empty talk?

The answer to this was already in my post when I said: “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.”
The level of the Mole players has risen so much with the more efficient strategies and tricks which are already revealed today that you can easily find many examples. I’m not taking my time finding examples because they’re way too apparent and obvious.

other than the obligatory piece of paper in form of mole's trajectory

I consider such a thing cheating as you are using materials that go beyond your hands, plus for the fact it removes your real skill of aiming the mole, using only what the game offers you. Same goes for the Laser Sight weapon in the game… if you’re going to use a physical ruler on your screen, then what is the purpose of having such a utility present in the game? That’s why I consider things like that cheating; you’re using more means than what the game gives you.

TheKomodo

Let's look at various definitions of the word strategic:

1.
relating to the identification of long-term or overall aims and interests and the means of achieving them.

2.
relating to the gaining of overall or long-term military advantage.

3.
helping to achieve a plan, for example in business or politics:

4.
used to provide military forces with an advantage:



If you truly understand each invididual word, and what they mean as a collective, then it's VERY surprising you claim Mole Shopper to be THE most strategic WA scheme, it's ignorant towards the definition of the word.

Nope, on the contrary: long-term strategy appears on the 2 first definitions of yours, and there is no other scheme that can be more long-term strategic than Mole, and that is undeniable since the more technical schemes, such as Intermediate, require short-term tactics since due to the fact you start the game already in the middle of the fight with all the worms exposed (they’re clearly closer to the Action game genre than Mole is). In Mole, you can take your time to advance carefully and even to set up ambushes, which I’m pretty sure it’s something you don’t really get to see in these more technical schemes (I might be wrong, but I highly doubt it considering the overall look of the schemes and since that ambushes are organized attacks that require certain elements and time to be prepared, hence naturally occupying a bigger spot in the long-term strategy side). Mole Shopper is much more about strategy, planning than performing the best possible attacks. I do understand the concept of “strategic”.

But I still don't see it as strategic as Elite/Intermediate because both these schemes share all that, with the added element of other skills/techniques/strategies.

You can’t really say they “share all that” because they’re very distinct from Mole. Just the fact that the worms start exposed already prevents you from doing many moves and tactics you’d do in Mole.
The thing is that the technical aspect of these schemes is more predominant, so this consequently ends up removing room for the strategic aspect, making it become secondary. It works like a scale (at least as far as WA goes); if you add too much technical aspect, the strategic aspect ends up being reduced and vice versa. You might not know, but killing the worms as fast/efficient as possible in Mole games has nothing to do with being good at it; it’s totally different from Intermediate, in which you gain advantage by simply looking for the most effective attacks possible on a regular basis. I know Intermediate has more than just that, such as putting worms to safety and other things, but the fast flow of the scheme granted by the exposure of your worms that forces you to fight right away already makes it more technical than strategic, whereas Mole is the very opposite.

Elite/Intermediate lack the luck factor that Mole Shopper has which is determined by crates, this is luck, you cannot argue that, whether or not it has a huge impact isn't as important as the fact that crates dictate a lot of your turns, which is luck/random, however this does actually add an extra element of skill/strategy which Elite/Intermediate doesn't have, because you have to be versatile and adapt to any situation, but the same goes for Elite/Intermediate, you have to be versatile and adapt to any situation and keep on top of things.

As I already explained, crate luck is a minor aspect in Mole Shopper, and like you said, you have to adapt to any situation. If you're unlucky with crates in Mole, you have infinite amount of girders to play defensively until you feel ready to decide to risk your worms' safety for a counter-attack. Also, having less worms or less HP doesn’t necessarily mean you’re losing.

However though, because Elite/Intermediate both have a static weapon selection, there is less chance of getting "the perfect weapon at the right time", which to me makes it less luck based than Mole Shopper, which makes the strategy more important.

The strategy you say resumes to short-term tactics to reduce your enemy worms number as fast/efficient as you can. It’s not like you have the time to think and focus about the very best route, taking the game as a whole.
And it's not because there are no crates in Intermediate that it automatically becomes more luck-based. The luck you might have in positions in Intermediate, on the other hand, is much more crucial than crates luck in Mole.
Like I said before, you guys shouldn't confuse crate luck with strategy in Mole; one thing has nothing to do with another since it's not like you can use everything you find in crates at any time. If your opponent plays with a better strategy than you, your crate luck won't mean a thing. I've lost count of how many times I finished off my opponents when they still had like x3 clusters and they died before they could use any. Plus, another funny thing is that you guys all talk as if anyone could perform the perfect game, as if you all already knew every single tactic in Mole and would always advance in the game with the most proper moves, which is the most important part of the scheme you must learn. Crate luck at this point doesn't even become relevant. Even if I lose a game due to my own mistakes, I never ever go with arguments like "ah, he had banana and that's why he won", because I know I'd have had my chance if I hadn't failed a move during the match. Noobs in Mole should be forbidden from talking about luck in crates until they actually understand the game as grandmasters, and by that I mean being capable of explaining their own reasoning for their move choice. Like I already said, the scheme is so rich in strategy and tricks that the biggest spread in the matches are granted much more from to the strategy utilized than from the luck on crates.

skunk3

Until fairly recently I have historically avoided this site like the plague because I hate the notion that only TUS enshrines the 'best' players.

Well said.

What I am saying here is that I doubt a Mole player of today with 2 years of experience would be able to easily defeat a Mole player of yesteryear with 2 years of experience.

Well, I have beaten players who play ages before I even started. Being a newer player or not, it doesn't make a difference. What makes the difference is the efficiency of the strategy you use. Some players learn faster than others, and there are also different playing styles among the players in Mole Shopper. Some are more aggressive, some are more defensive, some go more for crates etc; it all depends on the style that feels more convenient for them to play, and this is one of the aspects I like the most in Mole; it makes the game scenarios become even more variable and consequently enriches the scheme.

I also fail to understand how or why Mole supposedly requires a greater degree of tactical OR technical skill than any other scheme. Knowing when to hide, knowing how to chute, knowing how to best utilize a weapon and when, knowing how to darkside, etc.... these are all competencies shared by many other schemes. Mole isn't unique in this regard by any means.

If you're so sure about that, then why don't you bring your best Intermediate player to face the best Mole Shopper Player in Mole Shopper? That would be a way to confirm if what you're saying is true or not.

I will admit that my experience with the TUS Mole scheme is extremely limited, but TBH I don't even need to play a scheme to understand how it works. I've been playing Worms for so long that all I need to do is see the options/settings 'on paper' and I can, in my head, understand how the game will play. I also do not understand how you can dismiss the overall luck factor in the scheme.

Hahaha... funny contradiction of yours here when you say you don't understand how I can dismiss the overall luck factor right after saying “I can, in my head, understand how the game will play”. The answer is simple: you simply can’t! You can’t because you haven’t got the slightest idea of how the strategy in that game plays like. It’s just like getting a chess variant of which you only know the rules and start saying you know everything that is possible and what is not, how it will play etc… Anybody who creates a game won’t see everything right off the bat before even testing it (and even after playing a few times); that’s even common sense. And like I said, luck becomes irrelevant if you play with a more efficient strategy; it means nothing if you won’t be able to use it.

Where the crates drop and what they contain is random, and although it generally holds true that they will likely spawn in the biggest cave, that's not always the case. You can of course attempt to manipulate the map in such a way that you maximize crate drops that are accessable to you, but at the end of the day it is still wildly random.

Haha, interestingly funny to see the how the outsiders of the Mole World see it. They all immediately direct their minds to crates as if crates were the center of the universe. Well, what if I told you that crates aren’t everything? I have won many games in which my arsenal was x3 smaller than my opponent’s. The crate access might be random, but the victory access at the end of the day is not. Again, you might have the weapons, but you might not be able to use them. It’s no surprise that the terrain is all enclosed and there are unlimited girders. This scheme is indeed a masterpiece.

My estimation of Mole is that it almost invariably comes down to spawns, crate luck, and going all-out at sudden death for kills and/or depriving the other player of high ground and forcing them to drown. Everything else that occurs before that point is basically just crate hoarding and positioning, which, as I said, isn't exactly the epitome of tactical nor technical Worms gameplay.

OMG, man… you sure know how to waste people’s time. I shouldn’t even be writing things to you. I thought we were talking about the same thing now, but you’re so ignorant you keep standing there saying things as if you know them, but even if you did know them, it wouldn’t mean anything because you’re not talking about the right matter here. “Forcing them to drown”??? You even made me remind myself of this part of this AVGN episode here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6DtVHqyYts&t=10m46s).  What are you even talking about? That never happens! Oh, right… you’re thinking about HB Mole again, that noob scheme that water swallows all worms. Well, you’re going off the subject (again). I can only imagine how you deal with research and academic work. But anyway, you should AT LEAST watch a TUS mole match to see what it’s like so you can have a brainwash as to forget about that horrid HB scheme and get to know what you’re “trying” to talk about.
At least, considering what you said, you describes the noob HB scheme very accurately, good job.

I'll admit that I do not know how/why sometimes the mole digs backwards but I am sure that there's a simple explanation. Care to elucidate? Also, how does a mole do 200 damage? I've never seen that.

Mole digs in the direction that it’s going, so once it collides on a wall and you activate it, it digs backwards because it had already started going towards the reverse direction by the time you activate it. Yes, very simple explanation.
I said 200HP because that corresponds to a full health worm in TUS scheme. I said that just to emphasize that the Mole Bomb can also be used as a very precise projectile enough to make very accurate shots and plop worms, even in the narrowest possible spaces.


Many times during a match you’ll prefer using the simple Mole Bomb instead of a stronger weapon, even if you have a Banana Bomb, kinda like why Snake wields a knife along with his handgun in MGS3.

I was only attempting to argue that Mole isn't nearly as hardcore as some of you clearly think it is.

But it’s only logical that the ones who play it daily know infinitely more about it than someone like you who never plays it. What made you believe you could know more in the first place? It’s like you’re a plumber arguing with a doctor about medicine.

I contend that the random luck plays a much larger factor that ya'll will admit

Impossible. This scheme has already been dissect by Zalo. You’ll never be able to prove your untrue point. Plus if you ever tried showing us a replay of your game in which you want to prove in detail why luck there was a great factor, your lack of technical and strategic skills would make the luck become irrelevant; and if by any chance you become a very good Mole player, by that time you will already have realized that the scheme isn’t greatly about luck as you think now, and then your opinion about it will be a complete reversal.

that it doesn't take as much competency as certain other schemes, and that in general it's kind of noob bait. In AG I am constantly seeing noobs hosting and playing it, which says something.

The biggest problem that I see in this is that there is no way newcomers to mole can get to know the TUS scheme easily. I always like to meet new Mole players and show them the right mole path, which is to play TUS scheme instead, so I teach them how to load it in HB. I’ve always assumed that the standard HB scheme isn’t the TUS one just so that the game doesn’t take too long to finish and gets limited to some 20 minutes since a TUS scheme match may take x2 and sometimes even x3 as long, just like a chess match.

The main skill involved in Mole is quite simply just using the mole... making sure that it digs in exactly the way you want it to every time. That doesn't seem like a very difficult task to master compared to many of the other technical skills/competencies present within W:A as a whole. I am certain that if I actually gave a crap about Mole I could master the scheme in a relatively short period of time compared to what it would take to master something like roping, bng, elite, etc. As a matter of fact, this thread has inspired me to start playing more Mole games (with the updated TUS scheme) because I want to see first-hand if there is more to the scheme than I believe or if I am right after all.

This is inspiring to read. Go for it, Skunk, work hard and you’ll be a big one like us!

edit 1: I watched that replay file and even though my opponent got TWO select worms via crates, I still only lost because I killed myself with a cow that I thought would pass through a girder. To me it looked like it would work, but instead of going over the girder it dropped right below me and killed me. I was in control of the match pretty much the whole time even though the guy started with 3 of his worms at the top and I only had one.

At first, I had seen very useless moves in that match, so when I read this, I thought your analysis was hilarious, but watching the game closely now again, everything you say is true, even though it’s easily noticeable it’s possible to improve in lots of different aspects (and that’s just a old as hell game, I know). It’s not worth making an analysis of such a game due to the many obvious bad moves, so I’ll just comment on the things you said:

You are right, getting 2 Select Worms in a match is indeed lucky, but as you said yourself, you had control over the match mostly, and I’m sure you know it was possible to win there.

“I still only lost because I killed myself with a cow that I thought would pass through a girder. To me it looked like it would work, but instead of going over the girder it dropped right below me and killed me.”
You probably know this by today, but yeah, if you stand on the edge of a pixel, the cows fall under. It’s even a trick you can use in Mole. This is just a technical thing you learn about the game mechanics, so there’s no blaming the game here. But at that last turn, your victory wasn’t fully assured yet as the game would prolong. A draw was assured because you had Kamikaze and angle to hit his worm. Your best chance was at the flamethrower turn in which you failed to kill his worm due to a bad execution of it. He’d later attack you with holy and then he would be exposed to your Carpets.

“even though the guy started with 3 of his worms at the top and I only had one.”
That isn’t any big deal as you had 2 other worms ready to follow his when they open the top.

But I admire the fact you went to analyze it and tried doing what you could. Really, my respect for you has risen. This match wasn’t well played from both players (like I said, there were many undiscovered things about Mole at that time), but don’t feel bad about it about it (and yes, I believe you when you said you didn’t take it seriously); it’s an 8-year old match, and I’m sure you can do better today.

edit 2: I played a couple of Mole games today and although it was the HB scheme and not the TUS scheme, it was exactly as I remembered overall in terms of how it's played. I won both games too.

Nice, that’s a start. But trust me; there are too many luck factors in HB mole that makes a fair game impossible to be had in serious competition. These factors are Gold Banana Bomb, fast water rise, unlimited girder range and unpredictable super weapons like Concrete Donkey, Armageddon, Indian Nuclear Test, Earthquake etc. You won’t go anywhere playing HB scheme.

I reset my modem and the problem was solved. How to close this thread?

Magnus, we will not delete anything, the games are played. You starred, Tensei passes in 1/2 and will play with Sky-Girl, that's all.
Adjust your health and fight again.

Thanks, Darmin. Will do.

ZALO, why dont u set to set zero, my game with Magnus too?

Because there is only the need to erase the games you've had with the impostor. But look from the good side, SISO, you still have chance to advance by beating real Sniper and real Renan. You're still good to go.