Yet another SD discussion

Replays, screenshots and anything that can help players getting better
Mablak
Posts: 263
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2008 2:10 am

Post by Mablak »

I have to say that despite the skill of counting seconds, it would be far better for intermediate to have a visible SD clock. The fact that someone could easily use a stopwatch without having to think about the SD time should be reason enough, a visible clock would nullify that form of cheating, which certainly gives the cheater a big advantage for SD games.

And like Dario said, there are tons of minor abilities, so giving up one shouldn't be a huge deal. And in any case, there will still be plenty of skill in planning for SD, just with no margin for error in knowing the time until SD.
Koras
NNN member
Posts: 2070
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2007 1:21 am
Location: Poland

Post by Koras »

The fact that someone could easily use a stopwatch without having to think about the SD time should be reason enough
Its not easy..... if someone really do it he just waste his concentrationa and he may loose before SD come :)
btw: we should make some beta schemme(with visable clock)and just test it.
I have nothing against SD its fine :) yesterday I draw round vs Terror because of SD (because of my stupidy*!) :lol:
User avatar
Wriggler
NNN member
Posts: 332
Joined: Wed Nov 28, 2007 12:15 am
Location: US of the MFing A
Contact:

Post by Wriggler »

Mablak wrote:The fact that someone could easily use a stopwatch without having to think about the SD time should be reason enough, a visible clock would nullify that form of cheating, which certainly gives the cheater a big advantage for SD games.
I wouldn't consider using a stopwatch cheating. I sometimes use pen and paper for worm order, ropes, and selects. The rules do not prohibit this.
Koras wrote: btw: we should make some beta schemme(with visable clock)and just test it.
Sounds good to try. T17-style sickness instead of 1hp worms would be good to try too.
Dario
NNN member
Posts: 1408
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2007 11:59 pm

Post by Dario »

I agree with Koras, it is not really easy.
Mablak wrote: And like Dario said, there are tons of minor abilities, so giving up one shouldn't be a huge deal.
Although might be a matter of perception, I don't see SD predicting as a minor ability since like 10% of the rounds I lose (just a wild guess) are because I failed to make a good SD prediction. And in many rounds it is obvious that if the loser had this "SD predicting" ability he wouldn't have lost, or at least not at that moment (Rafka's and Kinslayer's latest SD misshappens).
What makes it possible to consider it as a minor ability is the fact that it only becomes really useful during rounds that are played until SD, and a very agressive player can choose to play fast enough so that SD will rarely ever happen in one of his games. On the other hand another kind of player can make of that ability a very important one in his stock, because with his slow, careful and tactical way of playing a lot of the rounds he plays end up during SD. Even you said that "using a stop-watch certainly gives the cheater a big advantage for SD games" so I guess that you are well aware of how important this "minor ability" can become in the right hands.
Mablak wrote: The fact that someone could easily use a stopwatch without having to think about the SD time should be reason enough, a visible clock would nullify that form of cheating, which certainly gives the cheater a big advantage for SD games.
The fact that someone could easily use a ruler to aim with shotgun/bow should be reason enough, infinite laser-sights would nullify that form of cheating, which certainly gives the cheater a bigger advantage than a stop watch for SD would. That lets you compare it with another not-so-minor ability.
The fact that someone could easily use a ruler to measure kamikaze distance should be reason enough, we should let and teach players how to use a ruler for kamikaze so as to nullify that form of cheating, which gives the cheater a small advantage under some circumstances. That lets you compare it with a minor ability.

Besides that, It's just not fair to remove an ability just because most people are incapable of using it, it'd be like removing the flame-thrower and putting the mini-gun in it's place because almost nobody is good with the flame-thrower and using the mini-gun is easier.
Mablak
Posts: 263
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2008 2:10 am

Post by Mablak »

The thing is, for shotgun, if you have the time to use something like paper to aim then you can easily just use your hands, which is perfectly fine to me. I really don't think there are any other skills like SD timing that a cheater could gain such a big advantage from.

And don't get me wrong, I did mean to say second-counting would be an important skill, but getting rid of it really shouldn't matter that much considering it's too difficult to be effectively utilized by anyone, outside of looking at the 3:00-or-less warnings. Maybe I just say this because I have a mediocre memory, but I don't think anyone could really focus 100% on the game while keeping track of elapsed SD time in their head.

The main question is whether preventing potentially damaging cheating is worth denying the possibility of developing this skill, and I think it is. I mean it wouldn't surprise me in the least if some players already use a stopwatch, and to me even one such player in the league (maybe not now but who knows, say in the future) would be worth leveling the playing field.

But what Wriggler said disturbs me, isn't it an implicit rule that external tools aren't allowed? If so, it should be made explicit. If not, it seems I have utterly no reason not to use a stopwatch and paper to write names down. And I have to protest the difficulty of using a stopwatch, I'm going to try the method and see just how hard it is.
Dario
NNN member
Posts: 1408
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2007 11:59 pm

Post by Dario »

It is indeed nearly impossible to use a stop-watch/paper/calculator/memory to keep track of all the turn times since the beginning of the match and in fact I am sure that whoever does that (unless he has an incredible abilility, in which case he would deserve to win anyway) will almost never manage to win a game simply because he will be severely screwed. I know this because I tried it, it is impossible.
But after the first SD warning you can start doing it and it is not too complicated (nor too easy) and you can manage to know in which set of 3 turns SD will come in most rounds (that is by far more accurate than the standard wild guessing I see in most players). I know that because I do it when I am lucid enough. So it is more than a "possible skill", it is one of the skills in my inventory and it gives me some clear advantage when I am lucid enough to use it, so I will obviously be against removing it.

Then:
-if someone uses a stop watch during the whole turn, he won't manage to get any significant advantage out of that cheat, because he will be losing a lot of time and in many situations all the effort put into it will become useless if he misses one single turn ending. No significant advantage with the cheat if you use it since the beginning of the round.

-If someone uses a stop watch during the last 3 minutes of a match, it's not something a regular player couldn't do with some training. So still the cheater doesn't get a significant advantage out of using a stop-watch.

Besides that, there are far more possible ways of cheating in this scheme than you probably think (and I utterly refuse to reveal any of them to someone else than Deadcode or Cybershadow), each one of them could give you a small advantage, piling up into a big advantage. It is potentially damaging cheating and the only way to get rid of it would be simplifying the scheme so much that it'd be a battle-axe war (and you can still cheat on that).

Your hands won't give you the accuracy of a ruler, so the cheater still gets a significant advantage (we all know how important it is not to miss a shotgun).

I agree on not allowing any external tools (that includes software), but as an anti-cheating campaign I think that not even mentioning the possible ways of cheating is (in this community) by far more effective than saying "hey, this is how you can cheat, and it is not allowed". Things like writing down worms order and weapons give people a significant advantage, but the only way to prevent that from giving cheaters an advantage would be to force players to use "1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8" as their worm names and somehow be able to see in game the stock of your opponent. Although that would turn the ability to memorize those things useless.

Thumbs up to trying the stop-watch method; hopefully you will arrive to the same conclusion I did when using external tools seemed ok to me: just not worthy (in fact ruler for shotgun >> stop-watch for SD ;) )
User avatar
Wriggler
NNN member
Posts: 332
Joined: Wed Nov 28, 2007 12:15 am
Location: US of the MFing A
Contact:

Post by Wriggler »

Mablak wrote:But what Wriggler said disturbs me, isn't it an implicit rule that external tools aren't allowed? If so, it should be made explicit.
My definition of cheating is breaking the rules. Everything within the rules is not cheating. The problem with implicit rules is that what seems against the rules to some doesn't to others and vice-versa... it is too subjective a standard. That is why rules are explicit.

Also, rules should be enforceable. There is no practical way to enforce a "no external tools" rule, so there should be no rule against them since there would be no way to catch cheaters.

I recall many times in the past where we had discussions about people using measurement tools for shotgun, kamikazee, etc. I've never done that, not because I have a problem with it, but because it isn't helpful to me. I remember Dario, or maybe SirG saying that a kamikazee was exactly the length of a CD case on his monitor.

For myself, I write down R and S before every game and use slashes to represent up to 5 ropes and 3 selects. I used to write down worm order, but I've found it better to conceive of worm order spatially rather than by names, so I don't bother. None of this is cheating.
Mablak
Posts: 263
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2008 2:10 am

Post by Mablak »

Someone would kind of have to be an idiot not to realize that using external tools and writing names down helps, any kind of anti-cheating campaign couldn't possibly do much to prevent any decent player from cheating. But on the other hand, we could prevent people like, case in point, Wriggler from using that stuff if the rules were just made explicit, because there is understandably no such thing as implicit rules for some people. So it seems like mentioning the rules would be more effective than not mentioning them, which does little other than prevent newbies from learning about a method that, if they kept playing, they'd figure out anyway.

Also I really don't think there are that many ways to cheat at normal, certainly not something for every weapon, and nothing significant. Macro programs and x-speed are the main threat in schemes like roping and BnG, but here they really can't do much.
Dario
NNN member
Posts: 1408
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2007 11:59 pm

Post by Dario »

The cd case was me, now that you mention it I remember using the wwp cd case, back at wwp (woot, so many years ago) and considering it is you saying it then I obviously was still using the cd case when I started playing WA. So I kind of cheated my way to my first CWT gold medal, sad eh.
Mablak has a point about making them explicit in order to prevent honest players from using them, though Wriggler's point about not making explicit something that can't be enforced is true too. (now I am having an internal conflict xD).

About in which weapons its possible to cheat in ways as effective and useful (or more) as an hypothetical stop-watch for sd, I must say that at this moment I can think of at least 10 of them, mostly among the most used weapons. 10 weapons, many of them with more than one way of cheating, and I can see ways of using at least two cheats in every single round I play.
I've used some of them (wwp cd case for kami, ruler for shotgun/bow) and I did find them useful, more useful than a stop-watch for SD. So what stops me from using all these tools?, nothing external to me, just a matter of victory not meaning a thing if I know I cheated.
Koras
NNN member
Posts: 2070
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2007 1:21 am
Location: Poland

Post by Koras »

I agree with Dario, if someone want change SD here just because possibility of cheating his idea is dumb :) we can 'cheat' in many other ways so this one is not big deal.
Personally i dont wanna delate noting more since we dalated crates.
Rafka
NNN member
Posts: 543
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:31 pm
Contact:

Post by Rafka »

I would personally displace SD few minutes further (it would minimalize lucky endings).
TerRoR
NNN member
Posts: 362
Joined: Wed Dec 12, 2007 11:52 pm
Location: Holland

Post by TerRoR »

Ok, IMHO i think nothing should be changed because we are a intermediate clan.. we modified this scheme enough removing the crates, duds, cluster power. Just let it as it is.. if we change yet another thing on this scheme we will have no identity left guys.
User avatar
Kayz
NNN member
Posts: 1892
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2007 4:57 pm

Post by Kayz »

Totally agreeing with Crysis, just accept SD and stop whining...
[FaD] im pro jumper
[lNNNxDario] i see
Koras
NNN member
Posts: 2070
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2007 1:21 am
Location: Poland

Post by Koras »

BTW
Would be nice too add jet pack dealy(if its possible)like in orginal schemme.
User avatar
Kayz
NNN member
Posts: 1892
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2007 4:57 pm

Post by Kayz »

When I open all the modified Intermediate schemes I got with SchemeEddy, like the NNN-Inter, or the FTM-Inter, they all got the jetpack delay on 2, but it does not work in game.
[FaD] im pro jumper
[lNNNxDario] i see
Post Reply