Soakemore 2016

Discussion of past, present, and future water war events.
marauder
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Re: Soakemore 2016

Post by marauder » Thu May 19, 2016 1:53 pm

Two sided VIP sounds awesome! The balanced noobs vs vets round sounds great as well.

Now would be a good time to talk about expectations. Nothing ever goes exactly as planned, Scott is absolutely right.

However, penciling in approximate times helps to have a better idea of what to expect, and allows things to flow more smoothly. This allows us to see that we won't have enough time to play CTF Beach Landing, Two Team VIP, Second Unabalanced OHS, and 3 team OHK before 5.

If we know this ahead of the battle we can agree on what we want to play, rather than taking the extra time to try to organize 17 people and ask everyone what they want to play. I'm sure everyone here can remember a time where we really didn't play that much because of confusion over what we were going to play and when.

It's not that we are saying, "Ok, we have to play this round at exactly 2 pm," it's that we having a tentative plan helps us make real time decisions quicker and leaves people happier because we are fighting more and people aren't wandering around or trying to get a consensus on what we want to do next.

*edit current recommendations*

OHK Island opener (anything goes) 10:30 to 11:15
Seal votes - A) (7) Marauder, SEAL, Chief, Tiff, Danny, James, Gordan vs (8) Duxburian, Scott, Ben, CA99, Van, David, Kit, Mac

Unbalanced OHS (vets light, n00bs anything) 11:30 to Noon
I vote - Marauder, Duxburian, CA99, Tiff, Danny, +2 of Scott's friends vs Scott, SEAL, Chief, Van, + 2 of Scott's Friends (rivalry! Ben goes wherever he wants)

Multi flag OHS (anything goes) flags worth 4 points, hits worth 1. 12:15 to 12:45?
Seal votes - C) (7) Marauder, Scott, SEAL, Tiff, Danny, Van, Ben vs (8) Duxburian, Chief, CA99, David, Kit, Mac, Gordan, James


---Lunch 12:45 to 1:45

Long OHS (anything goes) 2 to 4
Seal votes - F) (6) Marauder, Duxburian, SEAL, Chief, Tiff, Ben vs (9) Scott, CA99, Van, David, Danny, Kit, Mac, Gordan, James

VIP round (medium, VIPs get 2000s) 1 4:15 to 4:40
?

3 team OHK (light guns) 4:50 until one team wins
My team - Marauder, Duxburian, Tiff (because that's really just 2 people)
SEAL wrote: 3-Team 1HK:
My team will be me (SEAL), Chief, and Scott. Bringing back dat SEALs team glory.
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Re: Soakemore 2016

Post by DX » Thu May 19, 2016 3:05 pm

David, Van, Danny, and I most likely will not arrive until midnight on Friday AT THE EARLIEST. It will be more like 2 AM. School schedules, traffic patterns, bridges, shunpiking, not meeting at Newark, it's all a clusterfuck. I'm ok with a late night drive, I'm designed for them, but it sucks for morning play. If I have everything pre-prepared before going to bed, and consume a giant breakfast, it might work.

Since I won't be able to play Fri or Sun nights, I'd really like for Sat night to be good...good rounds, not too much experimental. I'm not concerned with length of rounds either, it's quality that counts. At this point, the Labyrinth is what's making the whole event worth going to for me.

Personal prefs on teams:

OHK Island opener
I don't think any of the team options are balanced. Danny and Van are underweighed, Sam and David are overweighed, skewing the results to the left. All of the teams on the left should win, however, A would be the closest and the most interesting. That matchup looks like a contest of who could create the most offense and do the most damage before they get screwed.

My other comment on OHK is that it won't last 45 minutes. The island is not that large, judging by past results, it should be over in 10-20 min. It would be a good warm-up round, but I think we have time for another round in that slot.

Unbalanced OHS round
Looks like it will need to be unbalanced via soaker class.

Multi flag OHS
Again, none of these are balanced. A again is the only workable one. However, if hits don't count, A becomes a pretty good matchup. It's very similar to the Pandemonium CTF teams, and that was a terrific round.

Long OHS
Still got weight problems, and too much of the same people on the same sides.

VIP
Doesn't really need a time limit? Get their VIP yo.

3 team OHK
Team is good. If there are enough people, might as well keep adding teams, make it 4 or 5 team OHK. And, if we have 15 people, we can run the 5 teams. That could be really fun, and I'd vote to move that up earlier in the playlist.
marauder wrote:You have to explain things in terms that kids will understand, like videogames^ That's how I got Sam to stop using piston pumpers

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Re: Soakemore 2016

Post by marauder » Thu May 19, 2016 3:29 pm

With Rob's comments in mind, here are some additional team ideas (propose any you may have) -

G) (7) Marauder, Duxburian, Tiff, David, CA99, Ben, James vs (8) Scott, Chief, SEAL, Van, Danny, Kit, Mac, Gordan
H) (8) Marauder, CA99, Van, Ben, Danny, Tiff, David, James vs (7) Duxburian, Scott, Chief, SEAL, Kit, Mac, Gordan
I) (7) Marauder, Scott, Chief, Ben, Tiff, Danny, James vs (8) Duxburian, SEAL, CA99, David, Van, Kit, Mac, Gordan

Rob and SEAL both like A) for the OHK round - (7) Marauder, SEAL, Chief, Tiff, Danny, James, Gordan vs (8) Duxburian, Scott, Ben, CA99, Van, David, Kit, Mac

For 1HS + CTF SEAL likes D) (8) Marauder, Scott, CA99, Tiff, Danny, Van, Ben, James vs (7) Duxburian, Chief, SEAL, David, Kit, Mac, Gordan

and for long OHS SEAL likes F) (6) Marauder, Duxburian, SEAL, Chief, Tiff, Ben vs (9) Scott, CA99, Van, David, Danny, Kit, Mac, Gordan, James
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Re: Soakemore 2016

Post by scottthewaterwarrior » Thu May 19, 2016 4:14 pm

marauder wrote:With Rob's comments in mind, here are some additional team ideas (propose any you may have) -

G) (7) Marauder, Duxburian, Tiff, David, CA99, Ben, James vs (8) Scott, Chief, SEAL, Van, Danny, Kit, Mac, Gordan
H) (8) Marauder, CA99, Van, Ben, Danny, Tiff, David, James vs (7) Duxburian, Scott, Chief, SEAL, Kit, Mac, Gordan
I) (7) Marauder, Scott, Chief, Ben, Tiff, Danny, James vs (8) Duxburian, SEAL, CA99, David, Van, Kit, Mac, Gordan

Rob and SEAL both like A) for the OHK round - (7) Marauder, SEAL, Chief, Tiff, Danny, James, Gordan vs (8) Duxburian, Scott, Ben, CA99, Van, David, Kit, Mac

For 1HS + CTF SEAL likes D) (8) Marauder, Scott, CA99, Tiff, Danny, Van, Ben, James vs (7) Duxburian, Chief, SEAL, David, Kit, Mac, Gordan

and for long OHS SEAL likes F) (6) Marauder, Duxburian, SEAL, Chief, Tiff, Ben vs (9) Scott, CA99, Van, David, Danny, Kit, Mac, Gordan, James
I'm OK with your choices for OHK and 1HS + CTF, however choice F) for the long OHS is extremely unbalanced. It reminds me a bit of the OHS round from Pandemonium, where even when my team ambushed you guys, we still got wrecked. Marauder and Duxburian, along with Chief and SEAL, are natural battle partners, so having both pairs on the same team would be very hard to match. The other factor that needs to be taken into account is strategy, each team should have at least one member who is good at battle plans. While I enjoy strategy, I will be the first to admit that I am awful at it. I) sounds the best for long OHS, it turns out Marc is only available for Saturday night, so it would be even numbers and pretty even skill wise too. Marc probably can't stay with us until 3 or 4am ether, so his parents will probably pick him up at some point.

As for my local friends:
Marc has a lot of natural skill, and very mature for his age, but he's only 13 so he doesn't have much experience yet. Kit has only been to two local wars with me, so he has even less experience then Marc. My cousin James has some experience from my pre-community war days, but most of that was soakfests, he does play airsoft though. Gordan could almost be considered a vet at this point, he has been to almost all my local events, and I think this will be his second or third Soakemore too.
"If you are wet at the end of a water war, you are doing it wrong"
Van: "What happened?" SEAL: "Scott Happened"
Alex: "But the stream is cold." Me: "It's fine, my feet really hurt, now they're numb!"

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Re: Soakemore 2016

Post by Chupacabra » Thu May 19, 2016 6:35 pm

==[]======>Wow, this sounds awesome. How convenient that I can go to a water war right when I'm about to move ey? I'm really stoked about this water war. Specifically the "Sycamore island," sounds pretty cool. I never really fought on an island before, well unless you count the tiny one at "Pain," but that one so small that I really think of it as an island, more as a small patch of land that has a bridge. Anyways, moreover I'm really hyped about the "Labyrinth." This sounds like a great place to have a battle. Something, that i have noticed over the years, is with each War something new or fresh is brought to the table. lastly, I'm pretty stoked about the Carderock just hope navigating up the rocky terrain wont be difficult with the water guns. My only concern is that setting up each round will be very slow and or long as they always tend to be...does get you pumped though. Sounds like it's going to be a bunch of fun, see y'all their guys. Good luck;)
Last edited by Chupacabra on Thu May 19, 2016 6:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Chupacabra
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Re: Soakemore 2016

Post by Chupacabra » Thu May 19, 2016 6:37 pm

Daniel
On Da Chopping Block
==[]++++++++++++++>
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DavidTheDankEngine
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Re: Soakemore 2016

Post by DavidTheDankEngine » Thu May 19, 2016 7:27 pm

Duxburian wrote:...Sam and David are overweighed...
lol we're both bbws

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Re: Soakemore 2016

Post by SEAL » Thu May 19, 2016 9:24 pm

^Haha, where's cochise when you need him? I still have the morbid thought that he died in a car crash on the way to FF, due to how he just completely dropped off the map.

Coming up with teams is honestly my least favorite thing about organizing wars. I suck at it. With that said, I'll leave it up to the rest of you. Though my preferences from before still stand.

Alright, so now it's high time I went to bed. I'll post here tomorrow right before I leave.
~Hotel Oscar Golf~

We probably won't be back, but the legacy lives on.

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Re: Soakemore 2016

Post by scottthewaterwarrior » Thu May 19, 2016 10:09 pm

To anyone coming arriving after 11:00pm Friday, my parents will be asleep then, so please do not knock on the door, or ring the bell, just call/text me on my cell phone. You should all have it, but if not please PM me. And in case any of you get confused which number is my cell phone and which is my house, my cell number starts with 240, my house does not.

Chupacabra:
I doubt we will have time to fight at Carderock, it isn't that great anyway. The rock in the name is more like a 50 foot vertical cliff then something you can climb over. The rest of the park is mostly flat woodland without much ground cover. It is still an OK area to fight in, better then the constant hills or impassable underbrush of most parks in the area, it is just kind of plain compared to the battlefields in NY and CT. The parking lot is right in the middle though, even visible from where a lot of the fighting happens, so staging is very easy so long as we bring water with us.
Depending on how tired we are Sunday, we might have time to play a few rounds there.

I'm probably going to head to bed now, don't have the long drive the rest of you do, but I would still like to get some blasters fixed before Saturday. Drive safe everyone!
"If you are wet at the end of a water war, you are doing it wrong"
Van: "What happened?" SEAL: "Scott Happened"
Alex: "But the stream is cold." Me: "It's fine, my feet really hurt, now they're numb!"

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Re: Soakemore 2016

Post by DavidTheDankEngine » Thu May 19, 2016 11:04 pm

Do any of you guys have a QFD you'd be willing to sell?

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Re: Soakemore 2016

Post by SSCBen » Thu May 19, 2016 11:20 pm

Could someone make a sign and place it by the Sycamore Island parking? I think some Nerfers might stop by and this would help them.
chivesthechimp wrote:Do any of you guys have a QFD you'd be willing to sell?
I have a broken QFD that I might be willing to sell. The fix should be fairly simple. The hose attachment broke off, but I still have it. Epoxy putty should do the trick. Let me check with my brother first. I don't think we still have any blasters that can use it, but he might want it for other reasons.

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Re: Soakemore 2016

Post by SEAL » Fri May 20, 2016 5:59 am

Mornin' peeps! I'm getting ready to head out to pick up my brother; still on schedule. Scott, I'll text you if we're running late or what not.
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Re: Soakemore 2016

Post by scottthewaterwarrior » Fri May 20, 2016 9:49 am

SEAL wrote:Mornin' peeps! I'm getting ready to head out to pick up my brother; still on schedule. Scott, I'll text you if we're running late or what not.
Wait, SEAL has text messaging now? Isn't that like one of the signs of the apocalypse, along with me selling my PS2 and getting an iPhone? ;)
Soakemore is canceled, the world is ending! <-- Joke, just on the off chance anyone gets confused
SSCBen wrote:Could someone make a sign and place it by the Sycamore Island parking? I think some Nerfers might stop by and this would help them.
I'll see what I can do, not sure I want to be that specific (the island is members/guests of members only), but I can at least put up a sign saying "Soakemore Parking"


Oops, I forgot to post this this morning, lol!
"If you are wet at the end of a water war, you are doing it wrong"
Van: "What happened?" SEAL: "Scott Happened"
Alex: "But the stream is cold." Me: "It's fine, my feet really hurt, now they're numb!"

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Re: Soakemore 2016

Post by SSCBen » Fri May 20, 2016 1:50 pm

Also, forgot to mention earlier: marauder's proposed schedule looks good to me. I'd like to get started as early as possible, but if we have to delay a bit to accommodate Duxburian and anyone else who needs to sleep in a bit, that's okay. But we definitely should be there by noon!

As for the team choices, I can't comment much on them. My skill is average, so I'm not sure which team I'm put on matters much to the balance.

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Re: Soakemore 2016

Post by scottthewaterwarrior » Sat May 21, 2016 12:18 am

It would definitely be a good idea for people to meet at my house, I have pushed the whole schedule forward by an hour as I doubt we will even get up until 10 at this point. Rob and the others he is driving aren't even expected in until 4am, apparently he left really late to avoid traffic, at least that is what Van said. I've gotten a more exact schedule edited together for the day tomorrow, though some of my local friends bailed last minute, so we will have to remake the teams for some rounds.

#*)! *!&^$ing $*%* even when I try and stay on top of things, it still falls apart! :x
"If you are wet at the end of a water war, you are doing it wrong"
Van: "What happened?" SEAL: "Scott Happened"
Alex: "But the stream is cold." Me: "It's fine, my feet really hurt, now they're numb!"

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Re: Soakemore 2016

Post by SSCBen » Sat May 21, 2016 7:37 am

Okay, I am getting ready to leave around 9 am which should put me in Bethesda around 10 to 10:30, depending on the traffic and weather. See you all then.

Edit: Had to stop for fuel. ETA probably 10:30 am now.

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Re: Soakemore 2016

Post by scottthewaterwarrior » Sun May 22, 2016 1:28 pm

Yesterday was awesome everyone! We played at the island from about 11am-6pm and got a lot of great rounds in. Honestly the highlight for me was probably when I shot Chief with Marauders Monster XL, he had switched for my 10K so that he could chase the remaining enemies down during the VIP round. I could hardly hold the thing because it was so heavy, but Chief came out of the bushes almost directly in front of me, and I gave him both barrels.

Night wars went pretty well too, in the FFA OHS round Chief managed to find a way onto the roof, which was extremely OP as not only did he have crazy range and sight lines, but we couldn't even see him! It was the last round though, and it gave us a good laugh. We played from about 11pm-4am. In the destroy the objective round, where we had to knock down 3 bottles in the middle area, I managed to sneak in and shoot one down without them even noticing. Van: "What happened?" SEAL: "Scott happened!" I also got the VIP with about 3 minutes to go, I charged through their whole team, and then shot David. It was epic, as it was 5 on 1 and I killed everyone but Duxburian!
"If you are wet at the end of a water war, you are doing it wrong"
Van: "What happened?" SEAL: "Scott Happened"
Alex: "But the stream is cold." Me: "It's fine, my feet really hurt, now they're numb!"

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Re: Soakemore 2016

Post by SSCBen » Sun May 22, 2016 3:07 pm

Thanks for organizing this Scott. I had a great time even though I left earlier than I would have liked.

The night wars sound like they were great. I'm disappointed I couldn't go, but that's life.

marauder, some of your things were left in my box, and I put them on a couch in the house on the island. I forgot to mention this to you before I left, so I hope you got everything.

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Re: Soakemore 2016

Post by marauder » Sun May 22, 2016 4:49 pm

Thanks to everyone for coming out. This was one of the best wars I've ever been to. It was the only war I can think of that kept getting better with each round.

With that being said, I need to get some things off my chest. This war was kind of odd in that, it could seriously be the greatest war ever, but also have some serious flaws that need to be discussed.

The first round was extremely unbalanced.

Duxburian CPS 2000, SEAL CPS 1200, Van James CPS 10k, Chief Vanquisher, Chives XP 150?, HBWW Gargantua
vs
Marauder CPS 2000, Scott CPS 1000, Chupacabra CPS 1000, SSCBen XP 150, Tiff Blazer, Kit MD 6000, Gordon Vanquisher

When choosing teams in the future, let's not think of individual talent alone. Choose not only by talent but also by who fights well together, who has experience together, and who is good at tactics. Everyone on the opposing team had played together before. I had never met 3 of my teammates before today, and Tiffany is not really as serious as the rest of us. My second best player, possibly best and better than me talent wise, was Scott who plainly stated he was no tactician. The opposing team had Rob, Keith, and Van who all take the lead on tactics, and Brandon who has become more vocal about tactics as well. All of these players are more tactically minded than anyone I had on my team. Tiffany left the battle towards the end because she said she hit 2 people but they wouldn't take her seriously.

I'm not complaining for my own sake. If I lose every battle but it's competitive and we fight hard and have fun that's ok. What I don't want to see is all of the nonmembers and or less serious players on the same team. It's not as fun for them, and new players do not get the benefit of the doubt. I'm not crying foul play, we lost. The other team played well, and I think we did a good job with the pieces given, but in the future please consider team chemistry when picking teams, and also please give new players more leeway and consideration when they say they hit you.

Also, let's do a better job of having things planned out in the future. We spent a lot of time arguing about teams in the beginning, and then deciding on rounds. There are some negative things I could say about the Island staff as well, but I will write that up later when I have the time.

The good news is that things picked up with each new battle. Things got better and better and we even picked teams and decided on rounds quicker.

My consideration is even more for new players than for myself. Several less experienced people told me later that we stood around way too much in the beginning and argued or spent too much time deciding teams and rounds. Part of this is my fault - I wrote the games and teams down but left it in the car. But then again, no one else brought a list either. It was obviously frustrating to myself, Keith, and Brandon - maybe other vets? But some of the less experienced players were pretty upset by this. Next time, please take this into consideration.

Ok, negative comments aside. My next post will be very positive. I had so much fun. If we disagreed at the beginning, I'm not mad at you, and again, I am mostly concerned for the newer players. Will write more in depth later. See y'all next war.
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Re: Soakemore 2016

Post by HBWW » Sun May 22, 2016 10:04 pm

Without having predictable attendance, we can't plan teams and that's just how it works. Being able to come up with teams on the spot is a necessary capability of hosting these, especially with the rivalry no longer being in play. In the end, to maintain agile, we probably need the host to be decisive and call things out on the spot. We've had fairly average downtime; to reduce it we need either frozen/predictable attendance (not possible), or to have longer rounds (which require more planning, causing problems with the unpredictable attendance mentioned above), or for the war host to throw the hammer down on decisions sooner.

I think we did well for what we had. Everyone's super-busy outside the wars, the weather was not known until fairly recently before the games, and again, attendance can vary.
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