Other gametypes

General questions and discussions on water warfare regarding tactics and strategies.
marauder
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Re: Other gametypes

Post by marauder » Wed Jul 03, 2013 9:02 pm

Duxburian wrote:I think tracking 5, 10 players is much, much easier than tracking 2. More players make more noise, more movements, take up more space in hiding, etc. 2 players that really don't want to be found can completely vanish.
That's what I was thinking, but perhaps he meant 5-10 players going all different directions, or tracking 5-10 players stats. CA99 can you clarify?

Duxburian wrote:All war-derived tactics have weaknesses in that for water wars, you want to fight, there are no civilians, there are no politicians, you don't die, you don't need to fund a campaign or provision it on a large scale, and so on.
I get what you're trying to say here, except that what you really mean is strategy, not tactics. Strategy is your overall gameplan, which in war is heavily dependent upon politics, economics, public opinion, etc. Tactics generally are not so concerned with those things, except for maybe situationally, such as if civilians are in the way. But, overall you are basically correct, we don't worry about those things. I tried to simply the differences between strategy and tactics (in water wars) in this article http://hydrowar.wordpress.com/2012/06/1 ... d-tactics/
Duxburian wrote:Nick approached engagements from an ancient angle, I approached them from a black powder angle, and both of our approaches had drawbacks. Ancient was more suited to line battles, but black powder was more suited to line battles with guns. Ancient had weaknesses in that it's too little range, and powder had weaknesses in that it's too much range.
Maybe Nick's problem was that he didn't go ancient enough. During the paleolithic era most attacks were made with throwing spears (with or without atlatls,) slings, blowguns, and simple (not compound or long) bows. :lol: ok I really don't know anything about stone age tactics, but it seems right in theory. I mean you have to arc your bow shots or spear throws with an atlatl right? In all seriousness, we take influences from lots of places, and military tactics definitely won't suffice on their own. What we do is something different altogether.
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SEAL wrote:If you ain't bloody and muddy by the end of the day, you went to a Nerf war.

HBWW
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Re: Other gametypes

Post by HBWW » Wed Jul 03, 2013 9:27 pm

What I meant is that there's fewer opponents to track. You are focused on just those two opposing players with less distractions, so are more likely to notice traces of them. If the same stealthy pair were sneaking about in a 5v5 game, they'd be more successful if the other 3 on the team are able to keep them distracted. Although DX is right that if the team clumps together and tries to be stealthy all at once, they're not going to do a great job since it only takes one weak link to reveal the position of the whole group.

I'm excited to see how the Downpour playing areas differ from the other places I've been to so far. Perhaps I may actually get my first legit ambush kill, hah! And perhaps it's way easier than I'm making it out to be, too, but my experiences so far have taught me well to never underestimate the capabilities of human senses. Thus, distraction is a great thing to make use of, and is how I made my plays at MOAB. At Soakemore, things changed since I played much more conservatively, and most of my kills there were more incidental, amidst fast action.

Back to the OP topic, I honestly don't think these games are that complicated, so long as they don't involve more than two categories of spawns. Spawn on 1HS rules or spawn at an objective your team controls. If we don't count kills, it keeps it simple.

As for bringing video games into water warfare, I have to say this happened more subconsciously and is not something I really intended. (Since, as we discussed above, water warfare is it's own thing, borrowing elements from so many other things out there.) It was more of a, "Hey, this game is pretty fun, I really want to see how to get it to work in water wars and whether I can produce a similar experience", than a, "Hey, video games are awesome, and water warfare parallels them so much, let's try to mash them together." Of course, intentions don't matter when the results don't deliver.

That said, I don't think that experimenting with some objective based games counts for that. CTF, a video game staple, already plays great in water wars, arguably better than it does in any video game. (Because honestly, flag running is less of a rush in these games, and more of a short period of those "move faster, damnit!" moments.) It's our only main game so far that actually forces players to run for their lives, driving up the action in a way other games don't do. I guess what we need to think about when considering new games is what they offer here.

I think a conquest/outpost game offers short shootouts at varying parts of the battlefield. It offers it's own kind of strategy and risks/rewards, and forces both teams to actually use the whole playing area at some point or another. Assault (or 1-sided SnD), or HTL offer a different kind of feel to the game, giving both teams distinct advantages and encouraging them to exploit them to the best of their ability. It may not be terribly mobile, unless you're playing something like 1-flag CTF, but I think it could work interestingly under the right conditions, meaning that both teams aren't just standing in a line in a standoff, with the attackers unable to take any chances.

1-flag CTF is also a very simple game. Set an attacker and defender spawn point, set time limits, set a timer, see who can CTF before the time runs out. Score on time remaining. No kills to count either.

DX, which games would you say you know definitely wouldn't work well for us? I've had very limited SnD games (I setup a variation of Assault SnD in my backyard. It was fun, but was only 2v2 and I would say it hasn't been proven yet as a great game.) I know about 1HK/1HS/CTF being proven and all, but what games have you tried and ruled out, under what conditions? (For example, I think we can agree that the beach landing at Soakemore didn't work well, regardless of the reasons, and that HTL at MOAB could've been more interesting.)


Edit: How's this for weird games?:
- VIP Soakfest: Both teams play a standard soakfest, and agree on one player on their team to designate as the VIP. This person is not known to the other team. If this VIP is hit, the entire team suddenly becomes vulnerable and goes to 1HK mode. The playing area would have to be limited properly to prevent the VIP from simply outrunning everyone else the whole time.
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