Yet another SD discussion

Replays, screenshots and anything that can help players getting better
Dario
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Post by Dario »

Ha, nice Koras, I love to see people losing SD situations because of being careless.
It was possible to know (while playing that round) that if Kinslayer used less than 24 seconds of his last turn SD would not come in the next turn.

Right thing to do: make a turn of less than 24 seconds even if that means you can kill only one (or not even one) worm.
Wrong thing to do: spend more than 24 seconds and hope SD won't come next turn. Well, not completely wrong, but if you choose to aim the homing in the air far above the map then you can't really complain about it not hitting your target or hitting you.
KinslayeR
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Post by KinslayeR »

Yes Dario, u are right, and only one I had to do was thinking "omg I must finish my turn in 24 sec, whatever i will do i must just finish in 24 sec.." I dont say u are wrong, and i will not blame sd, coz i know it just happens, but still cant believe hammerfall plopped there :| a bit pissed me coz it was game about 2:1.. gg mablak
Antares
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Post by Antares »

Why don't u post all replay? Not only round 3...
Even my clock at morning sounds ''tac-tic'' instead of ''tic-tac''.
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Ramone
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Post by Ramone »

Dario wrote:Yes: count all the seconds used in each turn, knowing that hot-seat and retreat time do not count for the SD timer, only the turn-time.
...
So far nobody that I am aware of has managed to master this skill, more over almost nobody even knows that this skill is useful and completely underrates it's importance in rounds between two players with similar levels.
I don't get it, you just need a piece of paper and a pen (or a calculator) beside you to count those secs... That can do anyone, no need to "master that skill"...hm? I look at it as a level of professionalism of a player, not as a skill... But I'm even lazy to count ropes or worm-selects of an opponent, so I still vote for SD clock! :P
Joschi

Post by Joschi »

Tade wrote:
Yes man i remember that one. i will try to find that replay. 0 second every attack, 31 minute on the clock when we give up and decide to draw that game... And you passed :!:
Lol, at FTM always the player pass who reported this draw round.
Koras
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Post by Koras »

Joschi wrote:
Tade wrote:
Yes man i remember that one. i will try to find that replay. 0 second every attack, 31 minute on the clock when we give up and decide to draw that game... And you passed :!:
Lol, at FTM always the player pass who reported this draw round.
yeah U have to be fast:) like me 8)
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Post by Rafka »

not true, I remember 2 times when I draw and I reported twice but I didnt get through next round :]
Dario
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Post by Dario »

Ramone wrote:I don't get it, you just need a piece of paper and a pen (or a calculator) beside you to count those secs... That can do anyone
It's not that easy when you are really thinking about the game. If you play just as if it was a funner then yes, you can just stare at the clock and write down how many seconds were used in each turn, but when you are really concentrated in watching the map, checking small pixels to see what can or can not be done, think about what you are going to do in the next 3-4 turns... it really gets hard to do that at the same time you are paying attention to the clock.
After all if it was that easy everybody would be doing it ;).
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Ramone
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Post by Ramone »

Rafka wrote:but it there are often situations when there is 10 sec to SD........
So Rafka, do u use calculator or whatf...?
(sry for questioning, I'm just trying to understand this issue...)
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Post by Rafka »

No Ramone, it was an example :P but thats not the point of my post :)
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Post by Antares »

Joschi wrote:
Tade wrote:
Yes man i remember that one. i will try to find that replay. 0 second every attack, 31 minute on the clock when we give up and decide to draw that game... And you passed :!:
Lol, at FTM always the player pass who reported this draw round.
Nope... it's random. I did reported once and didn't go trough.
Even my clock at morning sounds ''tac-tic'' instead of ''tic-tac''.
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Ramone
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Post by Ramone »

Rafka wrote:No Ramone, it was an example :P but thats not the point of my post :)
So what's the conclusion?
As I see, if there was a SD clock on (or if u would use calculator) "SD luck" would be reduced to +/- 1 turn. The way it is now, u can only develop that skill in recognizing SD or u can rely on luck..
Funny thing is that if luck is not on our side we always blame it and curse it, and when it is - we never say a good word about it, rarely even mention it.. :wink:
Dario
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Post by Dario »

Indeed, turning on the SD clock would reduce the SD events to luck. In contrast, in the way it is now, luck is rarely the defining factor and instead of that the players professionalism/skill are what define who wins under most situations.
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Wriggler
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Post by Wriggler »

Dario wrote:Indeed, turning on the SD clock would reduce the SD events to luck. In contrast, in the way it is now, luck is rarely the defining factor and instead of that the players professionalism/skill are what define who wins under most situations.
If there was an SD clock, the better player would still win in most situations. SD clock wouldn't reduce SD events to luck in most situations (most 3v2, 2v2, 2v1). Rather, I'd say that, given that almost no one can accurately predict SD to within two turns, luck would play out in a different way than it does without SD clock. Still though, skill would beat out luck most of the time, just as it does now...

The question ultimately is: do people care enough about the "sd prediction skill" to develop it? I suspect not, even for most expert-level worms players... there are simply too many other things of greater importance vying for your attention in real-time games. I've known about it for some time... I'd just rather not play worms with a stopwatch... no fun in that, at least not for me, and I don't think I'd win any more games if I did pay attention to it, since I'd be paying less attention to other things.
Dario
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Post by Dario »

Wriggler wrote:If there was an SD clock, the better player would still win in most situations.
Might be true (although I don't think so).
Knowing that there is a random base in SD (in which exact turn it happens) I see SD clock as I would see an aim-bot for dyna/mine hats that would tell you the dispersion of the drop you are about to try. In such situation the success of a particular drop would be basically reduced to luck because you wouldn't need to know what are the possible outcomes, while without that aim-bot it's mostly the skill of the player at knowing the dispersion of each drop what matters the most. In that way, even if some drop-related skills (like seeing when it is useful and what you can use it for) would remain being as important as without such hypothetical aim-bot, a very important ability that you all use when you "feel" that the drop you are going to try has a high chance of being successful would stop being useful (nowadays the one who knows better the dispersion is able to make harder drops without missing).

In that aspect dyna hats and predicting SD are the exact same thing: there is some randomness that you just can not control (+-1 turn for SD ; all the possible trajectories of the worm under the same drop) and what matters the most is the ability of the players to learn when something is safe or not, without having a clock or an aim-bot telling you what are the odds.

Indeed, I don't think many players care about the SD predicting ability, but if you talk about the most expert-level worms players you should know that Johnmir, SirGorash and I started caring about it years ago (2004).

The fact that this ability is perceived as not really important compared to other things you have to do and think about during a game (I disagree on this, but I guess it's more about opinion and playing style) it is just one more of a very very very long list of rare skills that are rarely useful during a match. Such wide range of "minor abilities" players can develop or not (because of physical/mental limitations or just because of a personal choice) has two consequences that from my point of view make this scheme really beautiful:

-Even if you lack some "minor abilities" that other players have, you can develop other "minor abilities" of your own to compensate. This lets players develop unique ways of playing, each one develops certain "minor abilities" and not other abilities (because he chose not to, or because his physical/mental abilities won't let him) and it's precisely that infinite range of "minor abilities" what lets two players with radically different styles (you could make an Antares/Bytor contrast) have a similar level.

-That infinite number of "minor abilities" also means that there is always room for significant improvement. I am still struggling to get enough concentration to never miss a "first SD warning" sign and not let a single turn after that end without me knowing how much it lasted; at the same time I do all the other things I do during those last minutes of the game. And if I ever manage to do that I could go for the big fish and try to do the same during the whole game in order to have an almost perfect SD forecast. The same thing for a lot of "minor abilities" that I know are possible to learn (lg uzi, 50 damage with uzi from far away, shooting 2 worms with 1 arrow, indirect homings, nade jumping, individual air-strike missiles trajectory, -and I could go on forever-). Yes, they are minor abilities and might be only useful in one round out of 200, but there are so many of them that if you learn enough the improvement will be important.

Yes, it's definitely hard to pay enough attention to the SD time without paying less attention to other things, but maybe someone will learn how to do it: yet another minor ability.

------------------
:arrow: sum-up (because I definitely wrote that with too much detail)

SD clock can be compared to dynamite hats aim-bot
SD has intrinsic randomness (this turn or the next one) and dyna hats have intrinsic randomness (a lot of possible trajectories for the "same" hat, due to sub pixel alignment). An aim-bot that told you the possible outcomes of one dynamite hat would do the same thing the SD clock does by turning an ability/knowledge useless (knowing in which group of 2-3 turns SD will come // knowing the possible trajectories of the dyna hat)

Accurately SD predicting without paying less attention to other things in the game can be considered as a minor ability
Because it won't win you too many games.

Minor abilities add a lot to this scheme
Because they let players develop unique playing styles and be almost as good as someone with a very different style (Antares/Bytor) and because you will never know it all, giving room for improvement even if you've been playing this for 5 years.

and offtopic:
Because of the "minor abilities" reason is that I would LOVE having more real* special weapon options. More things to learn, more options for players to develop even more different playing styles.

*Granny, moles and sheep launcher are currently not real options because holy, cows, pigeons and flamethrower are a lot more useful under like 99% of the situations.
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