Water Warfare Field Develpment

Development of the WaterWar.net League.
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Kody_Ballard
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Joined: Wed Jun 03, 2015 5:28 pm

Water Warfare Field Develpment

Post by Kody_Ballard » Wed Jun 03, 2015 6:07 pm

This Thread is Devoted to the creation of field designs optimized for Water Wars, all Designs must contain the following:
* Water Source(s)(Easily accessible for both sides without compromising player(s) Positioning Within Reason)
* Competitive Layout
* Fair For Both Sides(Does not Favor One Side/Team)
* Multiple Engagement Options
* Possible Themes(Optional)
* Optimized to the 30 - 50ft Range of Modern Water Weapons/Soakers
* Minimum of at Least 10v10 Engagements(Can Accommodate Higher # if Desired)
* Capable of Multiple Game Formats in addition to Standard Deathmatch Style
* A Mature Feel(Does Not Come Across as Childish or Immature[Were Trying to Nurture This Sport!!])

HBWW
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Re: Water Warfare Field Develpment

Post by HBWW » Wed Jun 03, 2015 6:24 pm

Attack and defend games have become quite popular, so asymmetric game setups do work for that.

Lots of items listed can be subjective, especially if discussing competitive field layouts.

Overall, it seems that we've adapted the game to finding good natural areas to play in. Abandoned structures can be good too. Natural water sources are often used if sufficiently clean. A dedicated field will simply not happen until someone with enough resources and devotion builds one on private land. A public, sanctioned field with liability insurance and all will simply not happen, period, unless the field is profitable and supports paintball and/or airsoft.
HydroBrawl Water Warfare

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Cochise

Re: Water Warfare Field Develpment

Post by Cochise » Thu Jun 04, 2015 10:29 am

How exactly would you tell if the field is balanced for both teams?

Also, the "optimized for 30-50ft fighting" is an excellent point that I haven't seen anyone else make. I think that is the most important point and that we as a community could or possibly should write an entire article on. My thoughts are that it's important to have a certain amount of cover and concealment that allows you to get within 30-50ft in order to attack without being seen, yet maneuverability isn't limited to having to smash through bushes/crawl around all day. This could include tactically placed small buildings such as sheds or man made barricades every 30 feet or so, or just lots of high grass (but yuck ticks!) and bushes and big trees.

HBWW
Posts: 4110
Joined: Tue Jul 11, 2006 7:12 pm
Location: MI
WWN League Team: Havoc

Re: Water Warfare Field Develpment

Post by HBWW » Thu Jun 04, 2015 10:54 am

^
My impression is a field with some sort of symmetry. The most common would be reflective symmetry (i.e. paintball's air bunker layouts), but some sort of point symmetry would actually be effective too and would actually be more fair if you account for consistent left/right handedness. (A field with reflective symmetry would still need to switch sides constantly to be truly fair on both teams.)

Of course, the alternative is to simply switch between rounds of attack and defend, or switch sides on a field that's close to being symmetrical, but not quite. (Think Blood Gulch from Halo.)

Overall, I wouldn't be that concerned about having the field balanced for both teams as it's a LOT of work to set something up that's perfectly balanced. Even when you have a field with point symmetry, there's other factors to be aware of such as subtle terrain variations (if it's not perfectly flat), the position of the sun, the wind direction, etc. It's easier to just swap sides and not even worry too much about how the field is balanced, and if the field is clearly unbalanced, then utilize the attack/defend format. (Which does require fine tuning to make more competitive, unlike more evenly balanced fields.)

Optimized for 30-50ft fighting is a very subjective standard. To some people, woods are already sufficiently optimized for 30-50ft fighting, you just have to use your skills and get in close. To those that disagree that that's optimized for fighting, they're not even playing this game.

Water wars have been fundamentally built on asymmetric field layouts due to the nature of the game. No one's going to pay for using a field when a decently playable option is around.
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marauder
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Re: Water Warfare Field Develpment

Post by marauder » Thu Jun 04, 2015 12:45 pm

Welcome to WWN Kody.

I think that it's best not to have perfect symmetry in a battlefield because that can lead to predictability. I'm actually going to use a video game reference here because I think it illustrates things well and it may be more relatable for some posters. In Age of Empires III whenever you load a particular map you know certain things about the map, for instance, if I play the Bayou map I know that the map will be swampy with cypress trees and variously scattered islands and supplies of wildlife, however, I do not know where the herds of deer will be or even where particular islands will be. The game mixes it up every time and the map is never perfectly linear. Each side has its own advantages and disadvantages that are even but not balanced.

I'm not sure if anyone remembers the show Deadliest Warrior, but it's kind of a similar analogy. No one wants to see Napoleon vs Wellington or French Knight vs English Knight. If the show was apples to apples it would get boring quickly. People wanted to see Viking vs Samurai and Spartan vs Ninja, skill vs skill but asymmetrical. Some of the most interesting fights in duelfest were when both guns had different advantages, e.g. the XP 150 has a high rate of fire, but the Colossus has superior range, or the XXP 275 has double barrels but the Gorgon is more powerful. Fighting with the XXP 275 against CPS blasters on the Hudson was difficult, but a lot of fun. Side note, but I have been guilty of going for more balanced games in the past with the all BBT rounds at MOAB, but part of that was just out of pure novelty as such a thing had never been done before.

I think that St. John's Woods was an incredible battlefield that exemplies 30-50ft fighting in a variety of circumstances and also allows for maneuver without easily being spotted. I regret that most of you never got to see the rest of the battlefield. There was a young pine forest that was easy to move through but also thick enough to hide troops at a distance. It bordered on an epic high grass field with scattered wild plumb bushes. The field was probably only slightly larger than a tennis court, which I think is a great size as it is big enough to sneak around but small enough to encourage battle.

Changes in topography are also important. Abrupt, but ultimately small, changes in terrain seem to encourage the best results, along with slightly rolling terrain. Abrupt, but ultimately small changes are like a rocky outcrop of about 5ft in height looking over a path. It's big enough to be critical but not so massive as to encourage an entire team to camp at the top of a hill. Similarly, stream embankments can be great place to hide and ambush, and streams themselves are great in that they form physical barriers. I find the best size streams are the ones that have several places that can be jumped but are large enough to inhibit crossing without a great amount of caution.

The battlefield that I am currently looking at around here has water on 4 sides, a large river (Neuse) to the south, Mark's Creek, which is about the size of the brook in Ridgewood, to the west, a smaller stream comprable to the one behind my house to the northwest, and a small marshy pond surrounded by trees to the northeast. The battlefield is mostly flat to gently rolling, but it has several instances of the abrupt but ultimately small changes that I was talking about, such as a 4-5 ft drop off from dense woods into the wide sandy shore of Mark's Creek, a 3 ft ditch that runs through the middle of the battlefield, more drop offs to the other creek and river, and a small depression on the northwest side of the battlefield. This depression is about 100 ft x 100 ft and is mostly open (but shaded due to the canopy of giant trees) compared to the dense woods surrounding it. The ground slopes up about 3-5 feet almost like a circular bowl on all sides of this depression and there are giant stumps and overturned trees in many strategic places around the depression. The changes in cover and height are enough to provide advantages and disadvantages but are not enough to allow hill camping.

I think that this discussion perhaps warrants us to put together some drawings of fantasy battlefields to get ideas. We have not even gotten into the discussion on buildings and manmade structures yet, which are also very important.

*side note* Some of the most intense battles have involved Rob vs me on opposite teams. Our styles are different but we have a lot in common as well which makes us incredibly complimentary. When you put us on opposite sides thing usually get very intense. The one exception being if we are just playing a one hit scores battle in a small semi open area as this does not allow for maneuver warfare and Rob usually ends up just trying to block me and the field does not allow for us to disappear and reattack, causing Rob and I to essentially cancel each other out. What other warriors are usually really dynamic against each other?
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