1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Water warfare game types, ideas, rules, organization, etc.
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Re: 1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Post by scottthewaterwarrior » Thu Jul 21, 2011 10:35 pm

This topic has already been descussed a lot but I do have two ideas that were not mentioned.
1st I have an idea for the players can still battle for 1 second after they are shot, I think insted of counting it in seconds it should be played where both players are still alowed to fight but they are not allowed to pump, so they only have the water in your pressure chamber.
2nd for the idea on judging points depending on how experianced an openent was I think the points awarded should depend on how dry the player is, most likely the more dry players would be the more experianced ones.
I do agree with isoaker though, this is getting way too complicated, I would like to include my first idea if I ever try the game, but I dobt my friends, or maybe even me, could handle all the other rules.
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Re: 1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Post by HBWW » Fri Jul 22, 2011 1:09 am

mr. dude wrote:Again, to use both extremes, a squirt pistol shot should not count for the same as a firehose blast, but it should still count for something, and that's all I'm trying to achieve here.
IMO a squirt gun shouldn't count for anything. You don't bring a musket into a war with machine guns and assault rifles nor a knife to a gunfight, so why would you bring a squirt gun to a high-level water war?

As for settling disputes between who soaked who sooner, this just seems to handle the problem poorly. If player A sneaks up to B and shoots, but B takes about half a second to turn around and fire, A clearly attacked B first, A should receive the points and not B, but they both end up in the same state; a state of being hit lightly if you allow B to turn around and attack. If you don't, then it becomes a ghost chase where B tries to run away from the wrath of A who's attempting to get a full drenching in. To fix that, you need a rule that prohibits shooting someone when they're out, but that compounds one of the issues of 1hk already; reaction time. You need double the instances of quick reaction to comply with the rules; first for declaring who was hit first, second for not shooting at someone who's been eliminated.

I'd say the ideal solution to giving output more advantage would be agreed upon water amounts to determine a hit. It's still very subjective, but it's better to say, roughly, that a few droplets does not count while a high droplet count or solid stream does, than to add odd rules that are even more difficult to optimize and execute. The end result is that high range streams need to be shot from closer to a target, and higher output, shorter ranged streams are just as potent from the same effective/killing range.
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Re: 1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Post by atvan » Fri Jul 22, 2011 7:41 am

@scott- it can take a long time to empty a PC, espeecislly with dodging and tap shooting. Plus, PR guns and extra sidarms can bend theses rules. This rule also gives advantage to a CPS powered gun, du to the lack of drop off. AP users must choose between shot time and dropoff, neither of which are advantageous. I was kidding about the experience thing, but your thing wouldl not work because all people are equally wet when they are soaked. You could get the time in minutes into the game for points though.

The one second rule was originally only for the person who fired the shot, but if both people get hit, they can both shoot. It is not that hard to count to one.
DX wrote:In the neanderthal days of K-modding, people would lop off the whole PRV
Well, not that much soakage.
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Re: 1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Post by isoaker » Fri Jul 22, 2011 9:40 am

CA99 wrote:
mr. dude wrote:Again, to use both extremes, a squirt pistol shot should not count for the same as a firehose blast, but it should still count for something, and that's all I'm trying to achieve here.
IMO a squirt gun shouldn't count for anything. You don't bring a musket into a war with machine guns and assault rifles nor a knife to a gunfight, so why would you bring a squirt gun to a high-level water war?
In a real fight, while severely outclassed in general, a knife can still do some real damage if it makes contact. While a squirt pistol is also severely outclassed in larger water fights, that does not make it useless nor mean its small streams don't add up. While I wouldn't recommend using a squirt pistol against most pressurized water blasters, I wouldn't exclude them, especially when we're talking about a soakfest-based game. It just takes more squirts to achieve total soakage.

That being said, small hits like those from a squirt pistol or glancing shots perhaps may not result in a Player needing to respawn. Maybe for water blasters where the trigger is also the pump, hits from those type of blasters will not result in the hit Player needing to respawn. Glancing blows are a little harder to regulate.

Other rules like allowing a person to continue for 1 second/without pumping add to the complexity. Blasters like the Water Warriors Equalizer can empty their tank once being fully pressurized without needing additional pumping so that's not a good way to determine when someone needs to stop attacking if they've been hit.

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Re: 1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Post by scottthewaterwarrior » Fri Jul 22, 2011 2:10 pm

I have rethought my ideas after reading some of the replies, and, I think you guys are right, they wouldn't work to well; my Vindicator can shoot for at least 15 seconds on a single PC on a small nozzle so the first idea was defiantly bad. I still think that the second idea could work though, say 5 points for hitting some one who isn't wet yet, 3 points for hitting some one who is somewhat wet, and 1 point for hitting some one who is almost soaked, of coarse if you did soak them then you would get 10 points. I think that might work, it's hard to tell without actually trying it though.
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Re: 1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Post by atvan » Fri Jul 22, 2011 2:21 pm

That would not be good, imo because it is hard to define, making this even more sublective, and there would be a burst of score at the beginning, and at the end. The soaked score should be higher in relation so that ther is a definate climax.
DX wrote:In the neanderthal days of K-modding, people would lop off the whole PRV
Well, not that much soakage.
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Re: 1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Post by mr. dude » Fri Jul 22, 2011 3:05 pm

I was planning on making a big post, but I'll do that later.

@scott, the problem is that scorekeeping is already tough even without variable scores. My original idea of an inflexible "1 point per hit, 10 points per soak" is already more scorekeeping than the typical player will want to do. Add any variety to that, and it becomes a nightmare. It's a good idea for an FPS game, but in real life, even if we had referees and cameras to judge, it would be impossible.

As for the 1-second-rule discussion, I regret mentioning anything about that idea so early in the development process. We have a good, healthy debate going, but we're focusing on something so specific and trivial when we haven't even decided on an objective (yes, I want this to be collaborative).
Big post coming in a few hours, unless I get sidetracked.

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Re: 1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Post by atvan » Fri Jul 22, 2011 3:48 pm

This post is purely so you don't have to double post.
DX wrote:In the neanderthal days of K-modding, people would lop off the whole PRV
Well, not that much soakage.
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Re: 1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Post by mr. dude » Fri Jul 22, 2011 7:42 pm

Let's do this.
CA99 wrote: I'd say the ideal solution to giving output more advantage would be agreed upon water amounts to determine a hit. It's still very subjective, but it's better to say, roughly, that a few droplets does not count while a high droplet count or solid stream does, than to add odd rules that are even more difficult to optimize and execute. The end result is that high range streams need to be shot from closer to a target, and higher output, shorter ranged streams are just as potent from the same effective/killing range.
So you're suggesting a minimum-sized hit type approach (like DX's system)? The main problem I see with that is, while it does encourage higher output, it doesn't necessarily encourage other qualities that soakfests allow for, and it makes any lower output stream obsolete. How often have you seen DX say something like "you won't score many kills with a 4x"? Because I remember him saying that kind of thing many times, and I want to avoid the favouritism toward a certain type of soaker as much as possible (for example, in the 'hit of a certain size kills/scores/etc' system, riot blasts are rather pointless, and low-output but high-range streams aren't great). Having tried it a few times, it's challenging enough to use a mid-sized XP against a CPS, there's no need to handicap the XP user further with a minimum hit size.
However, the flip side is that you could get 'hits' from leaks in the soaker or mist, so there has to be a fine line. I do like the "solid stream" part of what you said though, a direct or almost direct hit from a stream would count. But again, that's getting into definitions before agreeing on a playing system.

Just for some perspective, I want to point out how different the definition of a good soaker becomes as you change the game type. I think we can all agree that a CPS12k is one of the better soakers for a 1HK game, good range, fast stream, etc. Well, last night, my friends and I decided to have a soakfest (at 4:00am :cps2700:), so we got my 2700, 12k, (Bl)Orca, and Gorgon. The 12k might have actually been the worst performer, and dare I say it, the Gorgon was possibly the best of the night. Although I'm usually a tap-pump guy, which means I tend to ignore shot time, I found myself holding the trigger down more often than I generally do, and my friends were all hosing each other down (though still somewhat trying to conserve). Whoever had the 12k had to repump too often, while the Gorgon had the best mix of output, range, shot time, and general power. While the CPSs are more powerful, it was too easy to get them while they were repumping. You don't get that kind of scenario in a 1HK game very often, the 12k user would reign supreme more often than not. The tactical diversity of a system where range+output+shot time are all key is fantastic.

So, going over the actual system again, we have as options:
-Scoring: I think the inconvenience comes down to high scores, not just scores. If it was a standard 1HS game, the scores would be manageable, but once you get into a scoreline like 57-43, it becomes easier to lose track.
-Elimination: I like the idea, best one yet I think, although a part of me wants a bit more to be done with the 1-hit part of the game, because it might lose the urgency if people decide that getting hit once isn't too big a deal.
-Special Objective: Something like CTF, protect the president, siege, etc. though those tend to get too anarchic in big games (siege is an exception, it only works in large groups).
-Other?

What I meant about elimination is that the 1-hit part might lose importance. In other games, like 1HK, you refuse to get hit because you're out of the game if you do, in 1HS a hit costs your team, but in soaked elimination all a hit does is take you out to refill. With that in mind, I might now be leaning toward a simple special objective, some kind of invasion game (each team starts in their camp, and if at any point your opponent has more players than you do in your camp, you lose). There is potentially large-scale counting involved, which might deter a new player, it's definitely not perfect yet (I'm counting on you guys to help me fix that), and it runs a very high risk of both teams being too afraid of attacking. On the other hand, this is a proven gametype for other hobbies (stole the idea from Warhammer :goofy:), it can call for a number of different qualities other than general skill with one's soaker, and it seems like it would retain the urgency and intensity I was missing.

So, there we have it, my third opinion change in 3 days. As usual, feedback is welcome.
If anyone's wondering, yes, I wrote this over a long while, hence the change in tone every now and again.

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Re: 1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Post by atvan » Fri Jul 22, 2011 8:03 pm

It di get kinda confusing, and you started to get contradictory, but the objectives sound good.
DX wrote:In the neanderthal days of K-modding, people would lop off the whole PRV
Well, not that much soakage.
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Re: 1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Post by mr. dude » Fri Jul 22, 2011 8:16 pm

Perhaps a paragraph summary will help :)
Paragraph 1: We don't want to limit the number of useful soakers there are.
Paragraph 2: Different game-types have different soaker needs.
Paragraph 3: What are our options?
Paragraph 4: The option that seems most fun to me at this moment.

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Re: 1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Post by atvan » Fri Jul 22, 2011 8:44 pm

I got your point, but the sumarry will be good for those who dislike blacks of text.
DX wrote:In the neanderthal days of K-modding, people would lop off the whole PRV
Well, not that much soakage.
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Re: 1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Post by mr. dude » Sat Jul 23, 2011 9:12 pm

I was browsing through the Wiki, this is similar to the original idea in terms of objectives.

Anyway, I was thinking about the invasion idea, and drafted up a mini ruleset:

-Objective: To outnumber opposition players in the opponent's camp. If at any point, a team has more players in the opposing team's camp than the opponent has, the game ends in favour of the invaders.
-Field Layout: Field should be rather large, minimum area equivalent to a football field I'd say, there is a camp at either end (opposite corners work nicely) of the field.
-And a Camp is...: A team's deployment area, or home-base if you will. Nothing special about it (it doesn't have to be a fortress or anything like that), its size varies depending on the number of players.
-Number of players: Minimum of four. No real maximum as long as there's sufficient space and officiating. Strict distribution between two teams.
-Hits: We're still working on defining hits, a player who has been hit must go to the respawn area (I was thinking each team's camp is that team's own respawn area, and respawning players don't count toward the total number of defenders) for a certain amount of time. A player who is soaked (majority of visible shirt is covered in water) is eliminated.
-Time limit: Not a timed game, but if after let's say 2 hours the game is still a stalemate, tie-breakers can be applied.

That's the basic idea, constructive criticism is welcome.

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Re: 1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Post by atvan » Sun Jul 24, 2011 3:48 pm

I don't like the more players thing. If the bases are hidden, and you find the enemy base first, you can just rush all your guys at it and get in before they hit you. Maybe, respawn shoud be a point maybe 10 seconds running from the base, and the invades must be the only ones in the base, maybe for a set amount of time. Respawn would be instant.
DX wrote:In the neanderthal days of K-modding, people would lop off the whole PRV
Well, not that much soakage.
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Re: 1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Post by HBWW » Sun Jul 24, 2011 4:04 pm

isoaker wrote: In a real fight, while severely outclassed in general, a knife can still do some real damage if it makes contact. While a squirt pistol is also severely outclassed in larger water fights, that does not make it useless nor mean its small streams don't add up. While I wouldn't recommend using a squirt pistol against most pressurized water blasters, I wouldn't exclude them, especially when we're talking about a soakfest-based game. It just takes more squirts to achieve total soakage.

That being said, small hits like those from a squirt pistol or glancing shots perhaps may not result in a Player needing to respawn. Maybe for water blasters where the trigger is also the pump, hits from those type of blasters will not result in the hit Player needing to respawn. Glancing blows are a little harder to regulate.

Other rules like allowing a person to continue for 1 second/without pumping add to the complexity. Blasters like the Water Warriors Equalizer can empty their tank once being fully pressurized without needing additional pumping so that's not a good way to determine when someone needs to stop attacking if they've been hit.

:cool:
The knife in a gunfight was a bad comparison, it's more like trying to throw tiny rocks at people who have fully loaded assault rifles and a machete. The average squirt gun holds only roughly 300mL and takes a VERY long time to empty that much water. A water bottle attack in comparison can empty 500mL or more at a target pretty quickly, and the effective range of such an attack is not significantly lower given how much faster it will soak.

That said, if a squirt gun is fired at and hits a target enough times, it may be considered a hit, but given that it takes about 30 seconds of continuous shooting to match the volume of a tap shot on a larger blaster, it's not worth bothering with at all.
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Re: 1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Post by marauder » Sun Jul 24, 2011 8:49 pm

Duuuuuudes this is way complex. Unless it's a soakfest, I just play that if you get directly hit you're out or you have to respawn. It avoids a lot of problems and complexities. But if we end up playing something like this at the war I'll join in and see how it goes.
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Re: 1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Post by mr. dude » Sun Jul 24, 2011 9:48 pm

@atvan, I think bases should be predetermined, so everyone knows where both bases are, ie there wouldn't be any problems with hidden bases. As for respawning, going back to your base is like restarting, and I like that. Doing something like forcing invaders to be the only ones in the base makes winning too difficult. This way, there's a chance of a full out siege, a pitched battle away from either base, a race to get to a base, scouting, traps, ambushes, etc. If your team is rushing at another team's base, you're running and they're standing, they should get more shots off than you.

@CA99, I was using extremes in my example, I'll try saying it a different way. An XP270's shot shouldn't be worth the same as a homemade's riot blast, but it should be worth something. However, because debates are a good mental excercise, soakage isn't purely based on output, spread matters a lot too. You can get someone pretty wet with a mist shot, and a FF/AB's riot blast is more effective at soaking than a regular 10x stream.

@Marauder, is it the whole concept of combining 1HK and soakfests that is complex? If so, then that's a problem. I recommend ignoring the entire first page because the tone has shifted multiple times since then :) Now I'm trying out the invasion idea, seeing the soakerdom community's opinion on it.

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Re: 1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Post by isoaker » Mon Jul 25, 2011 12:04 pm

@mr. dude: create a separate thread for your invasion ruleset. Mixing in a separate game into this thread will only add to the confusion.

That said, I think there must be some way to create some sort of soak-fest-based game into something that can be scored somehow. The biggest problem seems to be how to define a "hit". I'm wondering whether a hit should be defined a little differently.

Here's a question for the group: what is the smallest water blaster that, if hit by a full single shot, you feel would be acceptable as a hit? A full PC shot from a CPS1000 is surely a hit to members here, but how about a 1 second shot from a Super soaker XP215 (iSoaker output measured at 10.0 mL/sec (0.33 oz./sec)) or a single pump from a Super Soaker Rattler (~23mL (0.77oz)) or a Water Warriors Hydro Blast (~4 mL (0.13 fl.oz.) per pump)?

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Re: 1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Post by mr. dude » Mon Jul 25, 2011 2:08 pm

I see what you mean iSoak, but if history is anything to go by, someone will find a fatal flaw in the invasion idea and it will collapse after a few posts, leaving me to start another topic for my spinoff. That's a good way to clutter your board. I'll wait for us to iron some details out (like how to define a hit) before starting a new topic.

As for what counts as a hit, it's a tough question. By my standards (ambiguous as they are), if it's an obvious direct shot on target, I count it as a hit. Emptying a CPS1000's bladder onto the tree beside me, therefore resulting in some spray getting to me, should not count unless it's a significant amount of water that hits me. However, a perfectly aimed XP215 shot, as long as it's direct enough to be clearly felt by the receiver of the shot, should count. How you can put that into a simple (and relatively difficult to cheat) rule is beyond me, but that is my ideal hit rule.
Like I said in an earlier post, something like a 'fist-sized splash' limits players to a 5x or higher stream, and anything smaller than that would be small enough that a leak in one's soaker could result in a hit.

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Re: 1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

Post by isoaker » Mon Jul 25, 2011 2:38 pm

mr. dude wrote:I see what you mean iSoak, but if history is anything to go by, someone will find a fatal flaw in the invasion idea and it will collapse after a few posts, leaving me to start another topic for my spinoff. That's a good way to clutter your board. I'll wait for us to iron some details out (like how to define a hit) before starting a new topic.
I don't worry 'bout clutter as much as confusion. :goofy:
mr. dude wrote:As for what counts as a hit, it's a tough question. By my standards (ambiguous as they are), if it's an obvious direct shot on target, I count it as a hit. Emptying a CPS1000's bladder onto the tree beside me, therefore resulting in some spray getting to me, should not count unless it's a significant amount of water that hits me. However, a perfectly aimed XP215 shot, as long as it's direct enough to be clearly felt by the receiver of the shot, should count. How you can put that into a simple (and relatively difficult to cheat) rule is beyond me, but that is my ideal hit rule.
Like I said in an earlier post, something like a 'fist-sized splash' limits players to a 5x or higher stream, and anything smaller than that would be small enough that a leak in one's soaker could result in a hit.
I agree that the fist-sized hit favors larger blasters over small ones, but I also don't like the necessity of a direct hit for a soakfest-based game. While a direct hit requirement makes more sense for OHK and OHS games, if we're talking about a soakfest, the end objective is to soak other players, thus even indirect hits should be worthy, but there must be a minimum volume that most would find acceptable. The importance of splash damage became all too apparent to me the past few weeks playing with my son and water balloons. While he tended to throw balloons at the ground, were I too close to the impact zone, the amount of water that I got hit by would vary from negligible to rather extensive.

While not to discredit small arms, in a soakfest-based game, blasters with larger output really should be favored since they can deliver more water faster (and usually farther).

That said, I think all blaster types should be allowed, but perhaps some may not count as a hit regarding spawning purposes in a soakfest-based game. Thus, blasters shooting less than 2mL per shot/per second can be used, but shots from those only count towards wetting another Player, but won't require the hit Player to return to a respawning point. Larger blaster hits (or indirect hits that leave a sizeable splotch) end up counting as a hit.

I'd want to do some testing on how large a splotch 5mL to 10mL actually makes on various fabrics.

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