1HK/Soakfest Ruleset

[mr. dude]

It's late and I need sleep, but I thought I should continue my invasion of every forum on the site
Here's the idea, and I remember suggesting something similar a few years ago, we combine 1HK with soakfests. It's very simple, and if we're looking to standardize a ruleset for an official version of water warfare, simple is the way to go I think.
I'll leave all the definitions up for discussion, I haven't even decided how to determine winners (scoring or elimination, scoring makes more sense to me), but here's the basic idea:
-If you get hit, you're out temporarily.
-If you're drenched, you're out for the rest of the round/game.
The rest of the rules would be built around that idea.

More to be updated after sleeps.

[isoaker]

So far, this seems to be a scoring game with elimination thrown in once a Player gets wet enough.

Two main problems:
- how soaked does one need to be to be considered eliminated? To be completely drenched is often a matter of opinion
- once a Player get rather wet, it will become harder to verify whether a hit counts for a point. e.g. If the Player's shirt front-side is already soaked (but the back isn't), does a solid shot on the front that cannot be seen since the shirt's front is already wet count for another point?

In general, I like the open-freestyle of play this game would allow. Just not sure how the above details should be worked out.

[atvan]

Hmm, sounds interesting. Along with the problems iSoaker noted, this gametype has several advantages. It brings shot time and output more into consideration. They become useful. JLSpaceMarine's gun would be ideal for this, or Doom's leftovers gun with a bigger nozzle. I might have to try this.

[marauder]

It sounds fun, but I am skeptical about complex games because they are difficult to implement in real life and leave lots of room for manipulating the rules.

[mr. dude]

Very good points so far, got me thinking so soon after waking up
@isoak, so far the only solution I can think of to those problems is the dependence on an honour system. If it feels like you got hit, then you got hit. Similarly, if you're arguing over whether or not you're soaked enough, you're soaked enough. A more cheaterproof solution needs a bit more thinking of course.
@atvan, that's what I was aiming for. I want any and all types of water dispensing devices to have a use.
@marauder, I agree, I would argue that this is simple, but I don't remember ever successfully pulling off a large-scale 1HK game with my friends, so who am I to talk?

I'll keep pondering...

[mr. dude]

Double posty bump!

I did some pondering, it really is simple (unless of course new complications arise).

It is a scoring/elimination game. The game ends when one team has been completely eliminated, and the team with more points wins.
Each 'hit' (again, help me define a hit) counts for a point. A player who has been hit must proceed to a respawning area, and from there count thirty seconds before re-entering play. Better respawning rules are needed. For small groups familliar with one another, an hono(u)r system could be used. Larger groups may need to use a hit indicator of some sort, such as a paper towel sash or a Soaker Tag (in which case it's not quite a 1 hit scores game).
When a player is soaked (modifying this site's definition, 90% of the visible shirt is covered in water. Count it to the last drop, of course . It means backpack users need fewer hits to count as soaked), (s)he is eliminated from the game and must exit the playing area. A 'soak' counts for ten points (or however many seems reasonable). Larger games may need a referee to determine what counts as a soak.
Scorekeeping is done vocally, shouting out score updates as they happen, but again, a referee may be required in larger games/games that include the guy who starts yelling out random numbers to confuse people.
This means a few things. One is that it's possible to have your entire team be eliminated but still win. Another, the soak might solve Marauder's LaserTag problem from his thread, where outnumbered and adventurous teams tend to score far more than their opponents. Putting that into a scenario, let's say you're outnumbered 5 to 1, you can realistically get 5 points, the other team can easily get 10.

There are still a number of problems, such as when do you stop shooting? Let's say you've got your WW Blazer ready and on the biggest nozzle (~8 second shot time I believe). You get an opponent, is it legal to hold the trigger down just to get them closer to 'soaked'? If two players shoot at almost the same time, one of them gets hit first while his/her stream is still in the air, by the time the second stream hits (assuming it's on target) does it count? Also, this still means a hit from an SS50 counts the same as a hit from a CPS1500
I guess a solution for the first two problems is to allow a post-hit duel period, so let's say for 5 seconds after a hit, both parties are permitted to shoot, but that does complicate things.

[atvan]

You should vary the number for a soaked to reflect the difference in team numbers. For example, if it is a 1v5 game, a soaked should be worth 7, if you use the rules I will explain next.

You can keep shooting someone after they have been hit, to get them closer to soak. You cannot pursue them though. If you soak somebody after they have hit but before they respawn, they are not counted as soaked until they are hit again. If they hav dried off some by then, good for them. You must soak somebody within 1 second of a hit to count it as a soak. This will prevent people who are trapped in a corner from having no choice but to die. The seven points I detailed earlier are so that the game is even, as that is a reasonable number for the defender. Lets say he manages to get three kills before he is hit, due to the fact that he has more targets. However, before he can respawn, he gets soaked. It is then entirely realistic that he could get two more hits before he gets hit again.

These rules could also be used to give a handicap in the game, say an experienced team gets 2 points per soak, but the other team gets 5.

Ten seems like way too much for a soak in an even game, because it would likely take about 10 hits to get to a soaked, so you could get 20 points off of one player, or more if you made sure to use tap shots. It would be entirely possible, then, to get 25 points from one enemy, not including soakage points, if you used a low output gun. 3 to 5 sound much better. This would be a high scoring game, especially with many people. It would be great for duels though.

[HBWW]

This is on the verge of being hit rules setup for a water warfare fps video game, just short of requiring players to be able to estimate the amount of water in mL that they've been hit with. I don't see it going far, and once a player is hit lightly, they're already out anyways and have no choice but to run to avoid being drenched while they're... well, eliminated already anyways.

[mr. dude]

Hence the extended shot allowance CA99, a single tap shot is enough to temporarily remove someone, but I think there should be an extra few seconds for both players to act in some way. It does sound more complicated than it should be, but I see this being more entertaining than just 1HK/S or Soakfest.

[atvan]

Like I said, you could limit the shooting to 1 second after the person is hit. Also, depending on the situation, you may want to soak the person as little as possible to avoid eliminating them, for you can keep scoring points of of them. You could soak them in 5 hits and get 10 points, or do it in 20 and get 25 points. This brings up the dilema of number advantage vs. more possible points. Depending on the situation, one choice would be better than the other. For example, if you manage to hit DX, keep shooting to get him out more quockly. On the other hand, if you hit Me_Soak_You's friend with the point break, keep it quick so you can farm points off him. :p

Edit: Mr. Dude ninjaed me. iSoaker gets his revenge. At least I said something different.

[mr. dude]

That was fast Atvan, I was just about to edit my post to reply to your earlier post
Anyway, of course the points could be varied, nothing is fixed, but I personally like that proportion where a soak counts for a lot more than a hit. If a soak was 5 or so points, then it's not a very significant accomplishment, 5 squirt pistol shots are not equivalent to a clean SuperCannon shot, to use an extreme example, but in terms of points they would be. Soaking an experienced player isn't an easy task, so it should be weighted as such.

This needs to be playtested.

[atvan]

The number should be changed based on the game. For more experienced players, 10-20 points would be good. However, it is not that hard to soak a standard player, which would be worth 7-10 points. A noob woud be worth 3-7 points.

In fact, you could make this gametype nice and complicated and make soakeages different based on the soaked and/or soaker(the one who soaks). Each person would have a number rating, say from 1 to 25. One is an unarmed person, 25 is DX (on his worst day :p). The soakage score is the soaked's rating minus the soaker's rating. If the soaker is a higher rating, the rating of the soaked is the points number. This would be so impossible to implement exept for in duels.

Duels seem to be best for this scoring type in general.

[isoaker]

This is morphing from a relatively easy game to play into one that requires more point tracking, gauging of the worthiness of a hit, etc. The simplicity of the initial idea is getting lost and will make the game that much harder to get casual players willing to try.

The more complicated, varying point level based on size and skill can still be discussed, but I want to see a simpler game remain as well.

How 'bout this in terms of being in line with the initial idea.

- Divide Players into teams (distribution can be even or based on apparent skill level) with each Team given a set respawning point (spread roughly equally from each other)
- Set a game duration time
- If you get hit (solid hit, but may or may not be fist-sized depending on preference), you're out temporarily and must return to a spawning point to rejoin the game.
-If you're drenched (upper body area), you're out for the rest of the round/game.
-Play continues until all, but one team is eliminated or time is up
-If time ends and no single Team is eliminated, scoring occurs based on percentage of Players per team remaining. Team with highest percent of Players remaining wins.

Still debating whether a Player who must respawn can still be attacked. I'm leaning towards yes since that would mean the attacker is getting farther away from his team's spawning point.

[mr. dude]

Rating players' skill is really subjective, as you say it would only be manageable in a duel (and even then there's a ton of work).
As I'm trying to think of/inspire a standardized system, it wouldn't be realistic to keep varying the scores. If the players have different skill levels, so be it. I among others dream of a day when we can have tournaments, that's the kind of thing I'm working for. Of course, in a friendly game, handicaps could be a good idea, but if we're trying to create a tournament-ready ruleset then a fixed scoring system seems better.
Not that this is tournament-ready by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm doing my best

[atvan]

I was kidding about the complicated scoring. I think that some sort of hit scoring is good. Also, a standard tee shirt would need to be required so soakage is not impossible on a certain user. The one second rule I mentioned earlier would provide a good balance. If you could just chase the out person, they would be running (or swimming?) ducks, not allowed to fire. Maybe if you had a really well organized game, the hit person could call duel. Play would freeze (at least locally) while the two players would duel. The first one to get hit is eliminated for the score of a hit, not an elimination. The player who originally made the hit still gets a point though. This would add a unique element to the to the game, despite being hard to implement. Would be perfect for an FPS game.

Edit: He did it again. iSoaker, I nominate mr. dude to get the first Soaker Ninja Award, for mastery of the ninjaed post.

[mr. dude]

Wow, totally missed isoak's post.
Scorekeeping is a hassle, especially in tight games, I'll agree with that. Last Man Standing was an option when I first thought of the idea, and it involves less bookkeeping, so it might by the way to go.
Ultimately, like I said, I want a collaborative effort to create a set of simple rules that we are all familliar with, so that if (when) we manage to create our soakerdom league, we have a standard gametype to use. Shouting out scores doesn't seem practical.
Actually, a great thing about isoaker's rules is that you don't have to decide whether you're drenched or not on the spot. Get to the respawn point, look at your shirt, and with an impressed but disappointed sigh realize that you're out, whereas with the scorkeeping method a snap decision must be made in the heat of battle.
Good job Isoaker, it's almost as if you've been thinking about this for a while

[HBWW]

As complicated as I've gotten with my own game ideas, none of them have required any scorekeeping more complicated than counting how many times a team wins a round, which is just as easy as counting captures in CTF.

Anyhow, all you're really asking for is a soakfest, or an elimination game where a hit is defined as "fully drenching". How the heck you're going to decide who became "completely drenched" first is beyond me. Nobody is going to be content with temporary elimination, and no one is going to like having to worry about keeping their shots under 1s. Obviously, one can simply abuse tap shots to get around the 1s rule.

All you're looking for here is limited lives elimination. Pretty simple.

What's next, a rule that says players have to slow down their movement progressively depending on how drenched they are?

[atvan]

The 1 second rule that I stated was: after a person is hit, the person who hit them has 1 second in which they are allowed to keep shooting the person who was hit, progressing them further towards total soakage.

[mr. dude]

The 2 main ideas behind that extra second or so rule are: 1) what atvan said, an extra chance to soak, and 2) to prevent disputes when 2 players shoot each other at approximately the same time, and having to decide which one was "dead" first (basically it's the specific and technical way of saying "they're both out". It's a detail that probably should have been mentioned at the end of the rule designing process as opposed to the beginning) It's a measure against a potential loophole, if someone gets hit, there's an extra second of combat before respawning begins. It's one of many possible solutions, it's just the most practical of the few I've thought up.

Like I said earlier CA99, I agree that scorekeeping is tedious, and I am strongly leaning toward the ruleset that Isoaker put up. The idea is indeed limited lives elimination, just without actually keeping count of lives. It's not as quick and fluke-prone as a standard 1HK game (where a game is won or lost in split seconds), nor is it as chaotic as a standard soakfest. Right now, output essentially doesn't matter in many 'competitive' games, I think it should. 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.

[atvan]

Well stated. I sort of tried this, btu nobody wanted to be or ever became fully soaked, so the last part didn't count. I takes a surprisingly large amount of hits to soak. The one second rule also allows for the person to react and call out hit, which proved useful in my war just now. I will post about that later.