Unified Hit/Point System - ^

[WaterWolf]

All that is true, I just prefer some kind of "health level" system. But preference varies from person to person though.

[SSCBen]

In my games, the front and back of the shirt being adequately wet is reason for elimination. Adequately wet is defined, by me, to be over half of the area wet. This works well to make the games long and fun because you can take a hit and still be around or not have to return to the base or the medic. You can take a hit in the same spot twice as well. Very interesting strategies exist obviously. The place to hit is the side.

Though, most of the time we play soakfest - everyone wins.

I'd also agree with WaterWolf on one-hit-kills type games. Those usually are short and boring in my experience (but with the right people, they can be good as Duxburian demonstrates). We did one or two of those games and simply concluded that they weren't much fun for most people, who we'd be trying to attract. In those games, you really do need a different type of water gun, one that shoots just enough fast enough and long enough to count as a kill. More would be a waste in my opinion. FPS games are no fun if you die from the first bullet. Water fights aren't either. A health-system would get my vote. Of course, this is just my opinion.

The best thing for a hit-system in my opinion would be color changing shirts though. If a shirt that changed color when wet existed, that'd be absolutely perfect. A type of reusable color-changing paper or cloth would also be very good. Of course, you'd have to watch your sweat, but with an external material hopefully your shirt would take the sweat first.

What sort of material changes color when wet? Does anyone know anything that changes color distinctly? Sponges that change color might also be a neat idea for a soak-level system.

[forestfighter7]

I agree with Duxbarian that in 1hk soaking matters. I have seen a friend try to put a fist sized blast on someone with a Gremlin(the Gremlin has approxametly 1x output). The person with a Gremlin shot him over, and over and never scored a point. Then the other person shot him with a cps 2100 and got a point (more) easily. Changing color shirts seem like a good Idea if you don't want to play 1hk



Edited By forestfighter7 on 1153013924

[DX]

I'd also agree with WaterWolf on one-hit-kills type games. Those usually are short and boring in my experience (but with the right people, they can be good as Duxburian demonstrates). We did one or two of those games and simply concluded that they weren't much fun for most people, who we'd be trying to attract. In those games, you really do need a different type of water gun, one that shoots just enough fast enough and long enough to count as a kill. More would be a waste in my opinion. FPS games are no fun if you die from the first bullet. Water fights aren't either. A health-system would get my vote. Of course, this is just my opinion.

Health may be more realistic, but in war you tend to die when shot in the chest or back. And dying from one shot is no big deal in 1HK Lives, because you take your 2 minute out and come back in with a fresh life. We also have a time limit [usually 2-3 hours] so every one of our wars would be the same length, regardless of the gametype. The time-based Lives games allow for more focus on score and less on dying. This also allows for situations you won't see in other game types, ones you only see when score is central.

We usually have a short soakfest at the end of each 1HK war. Once almost everyone [people tend to not go for me that often, wonder why? :p ] is soaked, then it's boring and the random soaking stops. My battle reports do not give our most intense battles nearly enough justice. But if we did not play 1HK Lives, interest would certainly drop. The local teams did not draw 43 people into water warfare with soakfests.

1HK guns do differ in some ways from soakfest guns. 1HK guns do need long range and fast stream speed in a compact package. Medium output is also standard, although high output can be extremely useful in the right situations. High output that moves fast is optimal for ambushing and attacking. However, in a soakfest, you don't need stream speed or even range that much. Guns can be huge, big backpacks are ideal, up the capacity! High output is essential. If you set my personal arsenal against this divide, you can see exactly why I mod what I mod and build what I build. My whole arsenal is optimized for 1HK, although almost all my guns work in soakfests, due to high output options, especially with the water cannons.

Before the fist-sized kill, we changed shirts when hit. However, that forced us to return to where we stashed said shirts, often not where the hit happened. This slowed down gameplay. Any "universal"-esque system would have to be reusable while not slowing down the game tempo. Game tempo can be extremely important in determining the outcome of a war. Color-changing shirts would work, except they would treat hits and accidental water the same way. Such as heavy sweat, falling into a brook, leaking water from a gun, etc. We took out our "suicide clauses" this season so that stuff doesn't count. In a relative system, you can do that, but in an objective system, there's little way to tell the difference.

[isoaker]

Lots of good points raised above. In light of everything, I'm starting to think that it's not so much about having a universal hit/point/scoring system, rather having a recommended scoring system depending on game-type being played.

Thinking about things further, perhaps Duxburian's point system actually works best for 1HK-Lives-based games whereas a soak-level vest/colour-change shirt would work in a Team FFA-elimination type game where players continue until their 'dry level' is used up. A tag-based system or the vest-system might be better suited for a last-man-standing game. And so on...

The device should complement the game style; the game should not have to cater to the limitations of a hit device. Duxburian's concerns about maintaining the rhythm of a game is very important.

I should also note that different games emphasize different aspects of soaking. However, as long as water blasters are being used in a fun, competitive way, it IS soaking, IMO.

[forestfighter7]

I doubt that soakerdom will ever have a universal point system. There's always going to be that guy who loves soak-fests, and the guy who loves 1hk elimination, and so-on with all the types of water warfare. :laugh:

[ZOCCOZ]

Afterall, without the soaking part, might aswell play Airsoft, Paintball, Nerf or Lazertag. Why else buy a soaker if you don't care about soakage and the other alternatives are available to you?

Are you suggesting that tactical warfare is an inferior version of "soaking?" Because if you are, you are treading in some very hot water. Playing for points is still "soaking" especially when nozzles under 5x tend not to be large enough to score fist-sized kills. In fact, the largest outputs in all soakerdom will be found this season in 1HK tactical warfare. If 1HK isn't soaking, then why are 1HK fighters building cannons capable of output over 100x, if 1HK isn't soaking, then what are doing for 3 hours each war, if 1HK isn't soaking, then all tactics and advances on the fighting frontier should be wiped off the slate. Let's return to your world of stock soakers and kids running around on lawns, shooting each other in the face from 5 ft away. If that's what "soaking" is, then I want no part of it.

Stream machines are inferior to the PVC Piston Pumper, a piston homemade with better range and output.

Playing for Points can be free. Nuff' Said.

No. What I am saying is that 1Hk with soakers is an inferior version of 1Hk Paintpball or 1HK Airsoft. imagine what tactics you can use if you can pop the oponent from 150 feet with projectiles he can't dodge.
Plus I am not realy talking about your point system, but rather the "you got hit and you are out" system, that some people use. Since adding points would get you soaked during the battle, I would not consider that inferior soaking. But if you get hit, and you have to watch the rest of the game till the next one starts, then better trade in your soaker for a paintball gun or a springer.

As for Homemade pistons being better, sure why wouldn't be a homemade better? Or when isn't a homemamde better than a retail model? No one is debating that.



Edited By ZOCCOZ on 1153021782

[WaterWolf]

Maybe we should stop arguing weather 1hk is better than a "health level" system. You can set up a poll, but its just a thing that varies from person to person.

[SSCBen]

Well, I'd like to say that I prefer the health-system with reincarnation. Anything with reincarnation too would be good, but I'd prefer the health-system. I wasn't aware of the "1HK lives" variation.

Or you could do a soakfest capture-the-flag type game. Those always are fun and long. We play that so if they get soaked while returning to their base with the opponent's flag, they must return to their base after returning the flag. Very fun. Only team scores would be available however.

[DX]

We've actually never done 1HK Elimination, and for obvious reasons. Lives has been our standard gametype since before I even came into local organized warfare. So we also only have team scores, never individual scores.

We have thought about trying a 1HK Lives CTF game, but never have for I-don't-know-why.

[SSCBen]

How about both combined? A lives game has points, but a team game also can. Capturing the flag will have to reward more points, and could potentially be done more than once. A flag capture will have to be weighted accordingly however. This will reward both individual and team effort.

[DX]

I never thought about it like that. Kill points and flag capture points? That would probably be more interesting than my original idea of only having flag captures count for points. Like in our scenario-based wars, where kills can be made, but points are only awarded for winning scenarios.

That would be one hell of a CTF game, with a very high score. However, flag captures would be more difficult, since getting hit on the way would count for something, therefore making both sides more cautious.