"Light" versus "Medium" versus "Heavy"

[isoaker]

From the challenge it appears to be to define a "Light Blaster" based on the lack of agreement in the "Light Blasters Only" Rules thread, it got me wondering if "light" is tricky to define, what are members' thoughts on "Medium" and "Heavy"?

From my own look at water blaster weight statistics, there were some patterns in the weights measured. While my old article put a lower cut-off at 400g, looking at the blaster grouping again, the lower weight should have been set at 420g to include the Storm 750 and Water Warriors Stinger. For very light, pistol-type blasters, a simple cutoff weight of 420g (~14oz) seems to work well. However, "light blasters" seem to fall somewhere in the range of 400g to 1000g dry weight and there are less than 30 water blaster models in the iSoaker.com database that weigh in above 1500g (~50oz).

For sake of reference, the Super Soaker CPS 1000 weighs in at 1100g. Do members classify the CPS 1000 as a Medium or Heavy water blaster? Is "Heavy" reserved for blasters capable of pushing out a 10x or more stream? Or 8.5x or more?

Assuming we were in general agreement on how we measured things (or even within the error between our measurements), what are your thoughts on what statistics are representative for a water blaster to be classified as a "Medium" or as a "Heavy" water blaster?

[SEAL]

Again, I don't go by numbers so much. Basically, if a blaster is noticeably more powerful than a 1000/1200/2100, it's "heavy", and if it's noticeably more powerful than like a 150 or something, it's "medium". Anything else is "light". (For me anyway.) I still prefer to group blasters by power instead of size/weight, because power matters a lot more.

[HBWW]

I think we've gone more by arbitrary battle practicality factors than just weight. Duelfests have played a considerable role here from what I understand, and the combat performances are consistent, accounting for user skill by swapping blasters and replaying, and seeing if the same blaster wins.

I consider CPS 1000 above the light-medium category, at least the one that maxes out around the Flash Flood performance area. The "medium" used in community wars is different, and covers all the smaller CPS line blasters, with the 1500 and above being off limits.

What matters in the end is being able to get good game balance without crushing workshop creativity, nor without encouraging modders to work specifically to dumb rules. We don't do this often, the light/medium primaries rule is only for balance and variety in games.

[isoaker]

I concur with the notion of preferring to use performance and battle practicality factors as opposed to simply raw weight, but for pistol-sized water blasters, weight seems to work well.

What I'm curious is where people tend to draw the line.

Back when I started Aquatechnology, since I thought then that the CPS line was here to stay, I considered XPs and XXPs as light, the CPS 1000 and CPS 1500 as medium, and CPS 2000+ as heavy. These days, I'd still keep the CPS 1000 as a medium, but probably categorize the CPS 1500 as a heavy (since it can push a 10x stream). I'd also push the larger of the air-pressure blasters into the medium category as well (e.g. XXP275 and XP250). I'd still lean towards considering the XP150 the upper limit of "light", but am definitely not completely satisfied by my own classifications. Thus, am looking for other members' thoughts.

[marauder]

What matters in the end is being able to get good game balance without crushing workshop creativity, nor without encouraging modders to work specifically to dumb rules. We don't do this often, the light/medium primaries rule is only for balance and variety in games.

This, and also to spice things up so that people don't use the same guns every round, which I guess you covered in "variety."

I concur with the notion of preferring to use performance and battle practicality factors as opposed to simply raw weight, but for pistol-sized water blasters, weight seems to work well.

What I'm curious is where people tend to draw the line.

Back when I started Aquatechnology, since I thought then that the CPS line was here to stay, I considered XPs and XXPs as light, the CPS 1000 and CPS 1500 as medium, and CPS 2000+ as heavy. These days, I'd still keep the CPS 1000 as a medium, but probably categorize the CPS 1500 as a heavy (since it can push a 10x stream). I'd also push the larger of the air-pressure blasters into the medium category as well (e.g. XXP275 and XP250). I'd still lean towards considering the XP150 the upper limit of "light", but am definitely not completely satisfied by my own classifications. Thus, am looking for other members' thoughts.

Sounds about right. My current lineup the past 2 years has pretty much been -
Heavy - CPS 2000
Medium - Gorgon
Light - SS 100 mk2

[isoaker]

Hmm.. maybe the question isn't phrased to get a clear enough answer. How about this:
What blaster is the most powerful one that you would still consider as "light"?
What blaster is the most powerful one that you would still consider as "medium"?
Heavy would be anything above the most powerful "medium" one.

Thoughts?

[marauder]

I've never had a really clearly defined idea of this in my head. It was always more about what blasters were available. For example, at the first frozen fury we had "pistol" rounds but allowed Max D 4000s and Defenders. Not sure if everyone would agree that "pistol" best describes those blasters, but we wanted to have a few rounds with guns around that size/power. Not every gun in that class is equally powerful. The Storms didn't shoot particularly far, but again we weren't trying to achieve perfect equality in power, and it would have been very difficult to have achieved it even if we tried since every gun is unique.

In our light primaries rounds people have used Vindicators, 1200s, Gorgons, etc. I can see where this would be better defined as medium, but some of us just called it light at the time. It worked, in my opinion.

We've also had plenty of anything goes rounds full of 2000s, 2500s, etc. but some people still end up using smaller blasters. Sometimes they are even successful with them. As SEAL stated, he has still proved to be a difficult match at times when using his 270 against CPS blasters, and Tony wasn't completely outmatched when using the Python 2 vs CPS 1200s, etc.

Sometimes we like to mix it up. I enjoyed the mismatch round where all of the veterans had to use XPs and everyone else got to use whatever blaster they wanted. I've also advocated giving the most experienced players smaller blasters and giving the least experienced players the more powerful ones. We have adopted this (though not wholeheartedly) on a few occasions. My favorite, however, is chaos style weapons selection. At MOAB you had to run for boxes hidden in the woods, which contained various blasters. I prefer this style since it makes people have to adapt to whatever gets thrown their way, adds an element of urgency to the game, and proves more dynamic. When everyone is using the same blaster (more or less) things get too stagnant in my opinion. Our more dynamic games have been when there was more variety. I'm not saying we arm half the combatants with CPS 2000s and the other half with Max D 2000s, but having a good mix up from Python 2s to CPS 2000s, or Python 2s down to Max D 2000s for instance, can make things more interesting. The same goes with throwing in blasters of different technologies, e.g. Splashzookas and Stream Machines. It makes the game more dynamic.

[HBWW]

That depends. In the light primaries discussion, I originally intended to take things up to the Flash Flood and Orca, but it seems that the FF is too powerful, and with that, I would also blacklist the Orca due to its capacity. (Even though that's irrelevant to power; I'm not focusing on power but on competitiveness.)

With that said, it looks like we're starting to agree on something over the last community wars I've been to, so to answer your question based on that:
Light: Colossus, XP150
Medium: CPS 10k/12k/21k, 4100, possibly Gorgon.

Not sure if we'd allow the crazy K-mods of the past, but I would probably allow them as long as they're not mine lol. That would put the most powerful medium allowed at that of the 95 balloon 21k, which rivals a CPS 2000, yet the 1500 and larger blasters are blacklisted. We'd probably have to restrict nozzle mods to balance, or require all K-mods to keep their PRV. This has never been a problem in community wars because most of us don't want to break our blasters.

We don't have a "heavy" definition yet. "Heavy" to us is anything goes, because anything heavier than that is not battle practical. The only concern at this area is safety. WBL's aren't regulated much, and I don't know if we have bans on the SuperCannon II. People are dropping these types of homemades anyway since they're not practical. Either way, it's a matter of safety at that point, not game balance.

[DX]

I have several personal classes, mostly based on a proprietary mixture of performance, size, and duel observations over time.

Top Level Primary
Primary
Medium Primary
Light Primary
Secondary
Pistol

A "top level primary" is a primary that outperforms. As of now, the CPS 2000 and SS 300 are the only things on the list, although heavy K-mods and powerful homemades could also make the list. Basically, if it breaks the 50ft mark and is effective in wars, it joins the cool kids club. Moving things based on modding is a slippery slope, so I only do this for soakers that can hit 50ft and only for this subclass.

"Primaries" are what normally get used in Anything Goes rounds. Examples include the CPS 1500, 1700, 2000, 2500, 2700, 3000, 3200, MX, MXL, SS 300, etc. The 4100, Gorgon, and Vindicator are questionably up here, but are also competitive with the soakers in the next level down.

"Medium Primaries" are the same things used in Medium rounds. Examples include the CPS 1000, 1200, 2100, 4100, Zooka, FF, PPB, SS 100, XP 250, XXP 275, Gorgon, Vindicator, Blazer, Orca, etc.

"Light Primaries" are still primaries in that they are the main and often only soaker a player uses in those kinds of rounds. Veterans in mismatch rounds, defenses in objective rounds, and playing areas lacking water sources are the main reasons for this class. Examples include the XP 150, 270, 310, Colossus/2, Python/2, Max-D 6000, and all that stuff I listed for proposal in the other thread.

"Secondaries" are larger than pistols, but smaller or weaker than the best light primaries. They are sometimes carried as backup. Examples include the XP 55, 70, 75, SS 50, 60, Max-D 5000, WW Wasp, etc.

"Pistols" are a type of secondary that is distinctively small. They are often carried as backup. In Frozen Fury, the Defender was the largest pistol allowed, but in hindsight it probably could have been a secondary. I would leave the Max-D 4000 down here, making it and the SS Liquidator the top pistols.


Like others, I have no real "heavy" tier, these are mostly based on how a soaker performs against other soakers in wars. This is why the Gorgon in particular has done a lot of floating between being a full primary and being a medium one. It would be interesting if someone goes through the things in the classes that most of us seem to share (pistols, light, medium, anything above medium) and looks for patterns, what stats they have in common. It may be easier to analyze all the allowed soakers in that class for shared parameters, rather than setting arbitrary boundaries and then allowing soakers if they fit in those boundaries. It sounds like iSoaker's pistol class is pretty well set no matter which approach you use, but light and medium are kind of up in the air.

[the oncoming storm]

The only loophole I see in DX's system is my modified SL 1000 that hits mid 40's. Which almost but not quite fits light primary, secondary, and pistol classes.

[DX]

It would be a light primary, because it's more useful than a secondary and larger than a pistol.

[isoaker]

Duxburian's classification scheme is more-or-less a more granular look at the original light-medium-"heavy" with "Primary" substituted for "Heavy".


Primary
--Top Level Primary (really just a subset of Primary - best-of-the-best
Medium Primary
Light Primary
-- Secondary (blasters here are blasters that really could be "primary" in smaller-scale battles. A "Light Primary" could be used as a backup to a Medium or Primary.
-- Pistol (sub-set again, perhaps even a subset of the "Secondary" set)

Not that any of the divisions above are problematic. However, more divisions means more definitions are needed in order to allow someone to determine where a blaster they wish to use falls under.

[the oncoming storm]

DX's system is great, even if a little harder to classify things in. Should we start fighting over class designations using DX's standards?

[SEAL]

DX's classes are fine, though I don't think there is a need to have anything lower than the Light Primary class. I mean, most light primaries are competitive with one another until you get down to like SS 50 level, and I don't think we're having rounds like that any time soon, are we?

[DX]

The subclasses (TLP, secondary, pistol) are mainly to help users search for future reviews. If they search for "Light Primary" and everything below is in that category, the results returned would be overwhelming. For Community War purposes, there is no reason to dip below Light Primary. We really only need 3 classes for wars (anything goes, medium, light) and I think they've been more or less ok so far.

[SEAL]

Ah, gotcha. In that case, I'm cool with it. We should make up a list for future wars.

[HBWW]

I too, like DX's system. We've been effectively using it for community wars and have had no problems so far. A lot of questionable cases are easy to put in context. In other words, if someone brings an oddball blaster, it has to be put in context with what everyone else is using for the game. General consensus on the spot has worked for any of these situations.

[marauder]

This is kind of an old discussion, but after putting together my ebay guide and updating all my reviews to include price information I revisited this a little bit. In some ways, the best solution for wars is always a white list by the host, but this helps a little, and I'm thinking of putting together some articles and or questionares for y'all involving this. A lot of time has passed by since the previous discussions, so please consider this and chime in with any recent developments in league wars, non league wars/battles, and duels. Thanks!

Heavy: MXL, SS 300, CPS 3200/3000, CPS 2700, CPS 2500, CPS 1500, Monster X. Any blaster with a 10x nozzle or larger capable of shooting 11.5m/38ft or further on 10x or higher.

Medium: CPS 4100, SC Big Trouble, CPS 1200, CPS 1000, CPS 2100, Gorgon, Vindicator, XXP 275, XP 250. Any blaster with a 4-8.5x nozzle capable of shooting 11.5m/38 ft or further on 4-8.5x plus the 275.

Light: XP 150, XP 310, MD 6000, Colossus, Colossus 2, Lightning, Blazer, Tiger Shark...basically anything else... I'm guessing that guns like the 270, XP 95, etc. are closer to this class than the 150 or Colossus is to the medium class, so after careful consideration I think that this all fits into one category and it's not until you go below the MD 4000 or Defender that you really fall out of this. We need to test the Blazer, and maybe the Lighting in some duels. They may be closer to medium. The Splashzooka and XP Pool Pumper Blaster also need to be tested to see where they fall. They both have 2.5x nozzles, but with near 40ft range and much higher RoF than a Colossus or Colossus 2 they may fall into the medium category. It may also be useful to test a stock MD 6000. I am shocked with how many are on ebay. So many Max Ds. I guess people just don't use them as much as we do!

[SEAL]

The only time anyone ever used a Zook in a community war was Soakemore '13. It was in a medium weapons round, and if I remember right it did pretty well, so I'd probably put it in with the mediums. The Vanquisher (and maybe the Blazer as well?) is tougher to place. It's been used in light and medium rounds, and it can easily hold its own in the latter. Then again, I don't think it completely dominates in light weapons rounds either, so I don't know. I'd leave the stock MD 6000 in the light class; it's similar to the 150 in my experience.

Otherwise, I don't have much to say. That looks pretty good.

[the oncoming storm]

yep I agree with seal. it sounds about right.