Modern (2012+) stock water blaster-only games

[isoaker]

While many here have access to either classic, more powerful water blasters or their modded and/or homemade creations, for others, such equipment are not as readily available as what can be found in stores as is.

If you were limited to using only what can be bought in stores, what water warfare games would you recommend playing?

As part of trying to get more interested in water warfare, part of it should be to get newcomers having as much fun with what's easily available at first, then get them hooked on what can be done with better equipment.

[HBWW]

To be honest, not a whole lot would change. We'd still be playing 1HS or 1HK (1HS is generally better) and people would still be able to play a lot of the other games too.

Assuming a mix of Nerf SS's and WW's are around, games like Hold the Line can work just as well; any games where staggered weapons are required or are an option. (Where one team has better blasters than the other, to offset some sort of advantage and/or to make any asymmetrical game more interesting.)

Some community games such as air pressure only or WW only would become a whole lot less meaningful though.

[DX]

Water Warriors vs Nerf SS, Team Soakfest :p

But, in all seriousness, I also don't see the gametypes changing that much. Changing the amount of players has much more of an effect than changing the soakers. However, I would focus more on objective games and less on hit based games, especially if it's mostly Nerf SS being wielded. CTF in particular has lots of potential here.

[marauder]

You could have some good fights with Colossi and Gorgons. I still like that we also had Vanquishers, Vindicators, and Blazers at MOAB. Spiced things up a bit.

[Nemesis]

even with beginners, i find one hit kills battles with one team defending something to be very fun. I do not like OHS as much because there is to much arguing over if you have been hit or not. I would just stick with air-pressure water warrriors, thats what i would use. At my house, one team usually defends the tree-house, while the other attacks trying to kill everyone. Get out the collosi, gorgons, hornets, and for me a Python 2!

[HBWW]

^ Good thing to bring up actually. In 1HK you only have to decide once for each player if they're hit or not. Although perhaps the "benefit" of that is not as much as I'm thinking. Either way, I prefer being able to play a mix of both, although with too many players or too large of a playing field, 1HK simply doesn't work.

[the oncoming storm]

2 flag CTF would be a nice start, allows for interest to be generated
1 flag CTF (ie attack defend) would also be a good way to start out
1HS this would really stir up local rivelrys that would need massive arsonals to support
1HK another way to cause rivalerys but needs more player (at least 20) to keep battles from being short

[marauder]

Either way, I prefer being able to play a mix of both, although with too many players or too large of a playing field, 1HK simply doesn't work.

Never had this problem with 30+ people. If we were playing a soakfest I think there'd be a lot of good options available right now, but for any kind of tag based game I'd definitely just stick with Gorgon rereleases and the original Colossus. Colossus 2 isn't bad, but you have to be careful cuz of that short shot time - as Scott learned all too well last war

[HBWW]

Perhaps I made that statement in too much haste after hearing the reasons for people abandoning 1HK. I never actually experienced either extreme myself (large playing field or many players) on 1HK, but after thinking about it and remembering some Counter-Strike games I've seen, large-player 1HK games can actually work out. I guess it depends how patient eliminated players are.

[marauder]

We always had ice cream and drinks back at my house so people either walked back to my house and hung out or grabbed a camera and started taking pictures of the battle. That's why I ended up with so many action shots from our wars, something we've been seriously missing from the community wars.

[HBWW]

You could have some good fights with Colossi and Gorgons. I still like that we also had Vanquishers, Vindicators, and Blazers at MOAB. Spiced things up a bit.

The BBT-mixup worked really well due to how closely they all perform, yet each blaster is unique enough in its own right; Vindicators and Gorgons are a fair match yet very unique from each other.

The pessimist compares BBT's to light CPS's, while the optimist compares them to XP's. Either way they occupy quite the middle ground between the two.

Unfortunately, the current landscape of available blasters is a lot less colorful. There's BBT's air pressure blasters, and then there's everything else. Unfortunately, none of the latter is competitive with the former.

In either case, it needs mentioning that in said hypothetical 2012+ blasters only games, water balloons become a lot more relevant. Less effective blasters means that water balloons are relatively more effective.

[SEAL]

I think such games would be kind of boring, but that's just me and I understand that not everybody can buy and/or make good blasters. Obviously, if your opponents' blasters suck, then the fact that yours also does is irrelevant. Still, it's a lot harder to hit someone with a small stream than it is with a thick CPS blast, which does change the game a tad. As for gametypes, I don't see why any of our current ones wouldn't work. Even with the smaller streams, it's still water warfare. I can see some assault/HTL-type games not working very well though; if we did those rooftop rounds at MOAB with Nerf blasters, the guy on the roof would be pretty much unreachable by streams, hahaha.

I personally don't have an issue with OHK; it's actually my group's gametype of choice. It does work better in smaller areas with smaller groups of people, but I think doing it for a long round would work as long as those eliminated have something to do (like if it were a neighborhood war, they could just go home). I'm actually going to schedule a few OHK games for Downpour this year, but likely on smaller scales.

[isoaker]

I think such games would be kind of boring, but that's just me and I understand that not everybody can buy and/or make good blasters. Obviously, if your opponents' blasters suck, then the fact that yours also does is irrelevant.

While I understand this viewpoint, this is pretty much the sort of thing we, as a community, need to avoid, lest we are becoming water blaster elitists or snobs. I'd rather have people enjoying any form of water fight than having it in its general view as a kiddie-type game.

I suppose I should have phrased the question a little differently, though. While all our game types should work regardless of the water blasters used, I wonder whether there is a particular subset of games that would be more enjoyable for stock water blaster-based games. OHK/OHS-type games should work here and the additional difficulty (?) in hitting an opponent would mean players would need to use different tactics than those using higher-powered blasters. The question mark is added since weaker blasters tend to require closer range combat which then makes hitting a target easier by virtue of being closer.

[HBWW]

The Infection game I came up with a while ago depends on a severe inbalance of blasters. Nerf SS would actually work for it if you can afford them.

Perhaps a good comparison here is with Airsoft; there are kids who run into the woods to shoot $30 springers, and then there are those who run milsim games a lot like military training activities with electric or gas powered replicas. We are the latter, and the kids with the Nerf SS's are the former, only difference being that the springers are half the price of the top of the line gas powered rifles, instead of 1/10th of the price.

As for the difficulty of making hits, you do have to consider the effects of low ranges on tactics. It would seem that all combat has to happen almost at sword combat range in order to get any hits with Nerf SS's, requiring perhaps slightly different player strategies and placing more emphasis on speed/movement.

For BBT, it falls somewhere in the middle between standard OHS and Nerf SS only OHS. The closer ranges than with standard CPS's has not had a huge effect on tactics, but the biggest change was not running out of water easily, thus being able to suppress more.

Not sure what else we can do in the way of gametypes. For common games like CTF or OHS, they can work almost as well with squirters as they do with high range/output CPS.

However, as I've found from hosting "light blasters only" (defined by me since I don't have enough of an armory to host AP or WW only) games, a fun mix of blasters is possible when range and mobility aren't the only thing that matter. I was duel wielding Max-D 3k's against someone with a Max-D 6k and we also had a Flash Flood in the mix. Games like these welcome blasters from anywhere, including literally almost all BBT's (or major ones) and old XP's. I'd draw the line at just under CPS 1000 performance, so the SS 300 and anything better than the Flash Flood would likely be prohibited. I need to draft some stricter definitions on what blaster classes are allowed, but having a limit only encourages everyone to try to bring their equipment to that limit. (i.e. Suddenly a CPS 1000 becomes acceptable if it has a custom, weaker PC, etc.) I guess in short, it has to be blasters that can be competitive (and not overpowering) against PR "pistol" class blasters.

I will try to host more of these "light blasters only" games, and that may give me a better idea of what games work well for 2012+ only blasters' games, because the performance range is very similar. However, the "2012+ only" category is heavily split into two distinct performance groups as pointed out earlier, and I will only be able to focus on the WW + HydroCannon group). Sure, I have the money to stock up on cheap, low performance piston pumpers and squirters, in order to simulate how a Nerf SS squirter game would go, but I don't find that to be worth my time; too boring and not enough variety. It's not about elitism or snobbery, it's about what's worth our time and money, and I think most of us do not want to waste that on the Nerf SS line even if it was under the guise of being an outreach effort. (The only exception would be to organize to attend Nerf SS events and play using our standard blasters, but do it in a way that doesn't result in bad PR. Heh, that abbreviation has two uses in the community now.)