Brickwarping...

[2d spaceship gamer]

Brickwarping is probably the lamest and most annoying technique used by flaggers, however, it is so efficient that it often means the difference between victory and defeat, and thus used widely.

 

For those who don't know what brickwarping (bw-ing in short) is, it is getting close or on top of an enemy ship and laying a brick, which causes the ship to be warped to center.

 

Most commonly used by fast rushers against lancasters, to get rid of a turret.

 

Some would say that this is a valid technique, because it requires skill, can be avoided by keeping the lancaster at a distance or having 2 lancasters, and nothing stops the other team from using the same tactics. However, I find that it ruins a large part of the drive behind basing. Most BW victims are attackers, since defenders use bomblines and corners to hide behind, and not nearly as vulnerable to getting brickwarped. In addition, defenders have room to slowly move back if pushed, while attackers don't have that luxury, and, as well, have the increased risk of being flaked (and possibly bw-ed while at it too).

 

Getting a foothold of a base requires momentum, and it is just not fair when a team managed to punch through defenses, only to be brickwarped by a rocketing enemy. Forcing a team to have two lancasters means they have to sacrifice an attacking ship, giving their opponents even more advantage over the already easier task of defending. Keeping the lanc far behind also makes attacking much harder, because it's much slower, and they don't have the chance to put the pressure on the defending team which they need in order to break through.

 

This is made even more lame by the way antideath works, making a ship invisible for a few seconds, during which it is impossible to kill the ship, but nothing stops the ship from rocketing and bricking during those seconds. This pretty much makes ships with antideath able to take out an enemy lancaster, and thus end an entire team's assault, without any effort or much skill.

 

Bricks have a specific purpose, block an attack or trap an enemy ship. While it is not bad in itself to find new uses to existing things, because that's how tactics and countertactics develop, this particular case just goes over the line of both fairness and the dynamics of an attack. Lancasters have very high energy for a reason, and the reason is so they will not be removed easily. Bricking them destroys all point of that defense. A single guy cannot take out a lancaster with a few thors or a short spray of bullets, and neither should one guy with a brick/rocket/antideath be able to single-handedly and momentarily destroy the combined efforts of an entire team.

 

Since HS benefits from the scripting abilities of ASSS, why not just use it to annull the effects of brickwarping? Why not make a script that activates whenever it detects a ship being brickwarped, and when that happens, just warp the ship back to the nearest free spot near the brick. This would remove the effects of brickwarping, while not impeding on any other uses of bricks/rockets/antideath.

 

P.S. Quote of the day:

EvilDeed> hu$ STOP BWING

EvilDeed> ITS F****G LAME

nebulou> HE CANT HELP IT

nebulou> HIS DADDY BEAT HIM WITH BRICKS WHEN HE WAS LITTLE

[Deathmonger]

http://www.sesa.org/ceehi/pics/crying-baby.gif

 

Although I do agree that anti-death detracts from gameplay more than it adds. And the repeated reshipping for specials has been discussed elsewhere.

[11___________]

I hate brick warping, even though i use it. Because it works! I hate antideath also, so many cheap deaths from that. If i owned the zone, both of those would be gone

[2d spaceship gamer]

 

Although I do agree that anti-death detracts from gameplay more than it adds. And the repeated reshipping for specials has been discussed elsewhere.

 

Reshipping for specials, another lame, has indeed been mentioned repeatedly, and this is exactly why it was removed in the last update.

 

Learn to differentiate between arguing a point and being a crybaby, Sir.

[Sharpflame]

http://www.sesa.org/ceehi/pics/crying-baby.gif

 

Although I do agree that anti-death detracts from gameplay more than it adds. And the repeated reshipping for specials has been discussed elsewhere.

 

omfg i about did i roflcopter to ur quote....lmfao i cant quit laughing,im blaming u if i sufficate

[Evil Doom]

it is pretty funny... and there is no way to get id of Bwing... unless u take out bricks.... which will never happen

[Bomook]

I completely agree with you. I see brickwarping as an exploit. It wasn't an issue in SVS because bricks were rare and hard to come by, so if one person got brickwarped, big whoop. But in HS, where you're prized a brick with every death, in a base (especially if the victim had another life with antideath) a brick counts as instantly killing him twice, something much more effective than weapons, and that is why people use it. Even disregarding AD, bring able to brickwarp people in a base such as solo attackers or the enemy capship is way too cheap. I remember up until area5, I could occasionally solo a base if the defenders weren't too careful. Now that's impossible because they'll either block you, or most likely, BW you before you can do anything. Attacking even a lightly defended base absolutely requires a lancaster because you can't do anything solo, which makes both attacking and defending almost impossible (whereas long ago, it actually was possible).

 

Originally, I suggested making it so that brick tiles simply will not drop if they would normally drop over an enemy player, although I'm not sure if this is possible. I think this is the best solution.

 

At the very least though, I think when someone respawns with antideath, they should respawn with no items. As if antideath wasn't already game breaking in basing, currently all it does is promote more suiciding and item whoring during flag games, something that we should desperately be trying to curb. Personally, I still think that removing bricks probably would not be a good solution, as it would be removing a big part of the game.

[2d spaceship gamer]

Why not make a script that activates whenever it detects a ship being brickwarped, and when that happens, just warp the ship back to the nearest free spot near the brick. This would remove the effects of brickwarping, while not impeding on any other uses of bricks/rockets/antideath.

[Bomook]

Why not make a script that activates whenever it detects a ship being brickwarped, and when that happens, just warp the ship back to the nearest free spot near the brick. This would remove the effects of brickwarping, while not impeding on any other uses of bricks/rockets/antideath.

[Fat Cat]

Ahem, 1 time use bricks! Seriously though, it would still allow for brickwarping, but there would be a lot less of it going on since most people usually die on their way to the enemy lanc and count of antideath to kick in with the brick. And well, if you let an oppsing player get close enough to your lanc without killing him at least once then you deserve what you get

 

Mook just hates BrickWarp cuz D1 brainwashed him

[Bomook]

And well, if you let an oppsing player get close enough to your lanc without killing him at least once then you deserve what you get

This was very true in Area5 before the item whoring, when your bullets and bombs (i.e. weapons that are supposed to be used for killing) killed the opposing player, but it no longer applies. People constantly rocket forward in bases just so that they can lay bricks or brickwarp opponents. The only way to kill the 4 people rocketing at your lanc is to !@#$%^&* bursts yourself, and so the cycle repeats.

 

Mook just hates BrickWarp cuz D1 brainwashed him

lol I have nothing against the BrickWarp squad. I supported the fixing of the lag coma problem, didn't I? and I have nothing against my squad

 

Siaon asked me like 500 times to join Brickwarp when he started it, and I actually would have joined too, were I not already in another squad. It's just the principle of switching squads that I was not willing to do. It's like freq hopping

[»D1st0rt]

You can kill people while they are antideath-invisible. We did it a lot when we first tested it.

[Dr Brain]

Unfortunately, removing brick warping isn't a simple 5 minute kind of job. There are two approaches, neither of which is very appealing.

 

The first is to detect brick warps when they happen (which isn't easy; there's no brickwarp packet to listen for) and then warp the player back to the location (but not the exact location or they'll be warped again). And guess what happens if we guess the wrong spot to put them back at? They're suddenly in the flag room, or past the brick, or all kinds of bad spots.

 

The second is to not allow bricks to be dropped over players. It's entirely possible that this won't stop all brick warps, as a player moving fast with a small amount of lag will be inside the brick by the time he gets the packet. But there's a deeper problem besides that. What do you do about the brick that was never dropped? Do you prize it back to the player? Or do you just have them lose the brick? If you prize it back, then some people will use it to increase their bounty.

 

It's just not a simple thing to solve.

[shot_237]

I believe decreasing thrust power of rocket may solve rocket-brickwarp and rocket-shredder.

 

portal-brickwarp can be stopped with anti. though anti is rare for newbs and/or base attacking teams.

 

In some cases, brickwarping is much easier with horrible length of wide brick.

 

 

p.s.

brickwarp squad won't agree to anything that harms brickwarping

[Evil Doom]

The second is to not allow bricks to be dropped over players. It's entirely possible that this won't stop all brick warps, as a player moving fast with a small amount of lag will be inside the brick by the time he gets the packet. But there's a deeper problem besides that. What do you do about the brick that was never dropped? Do you prize it back to the player? Or do you just have them lose the brick? If you prize it back, then some people will use it to increase their bounty.

 

i like this idea more... but instead of prizeing the person an extra brick it was be their fault for trying to brickwarp in the first place so they would lose the brick... but ide say if this was made... have it tested and see if it helps basing or impossible to base since defenders can rep their enemy back and lay a brick as the enemy gets pushed back

 

no matter how people look at it, people will still find some weakness in basing... if not bricks then it's rep whoring... if not reps it's rocket bursting... and people are going to come on the forums saying how each one is lame

[Deathmonger]

If you want to discourage brickwarping, then losing the brick when you try to drop it on an enemy isn't unreasonable; same reasoning that applies to anti in the center.

[2d spaceship gamer]

Unfortunately, removing brick warping isn't a simple 5 minute kind of job. There are two approaches, neither of which is very appealing.

 

The first is to detect brick warps when they happen (which isn't easy; there's no brickwarp packet to listen for) and then warp the player back to the location (but not the exact location or they'll be warped again). And guess what happens if we guess the wrong spot to put them back at? They're suddenly in the flag room, or past the brick, or all kinds of bad spots.

 

The second is to not allow bricks to be dropped over players. It's entirely possible that this won't stop all brick warps, as a player moving fast with a small amount of lag will be inside the brick by the time he gets the packet. But there's a deeper problem besides that. What do you do about the brick that was never dropped? Do you prize it back to the player? Or do you just have them lose the brick? If you prize it back, then some people will use it to increase their bounty.

 

It's just not a simple thing to solve.

 

Then the following may be a solution that can solve the problem:

 

You already have "intelligent" bricks -- the brickcage, which can smartly change its own size in order to maximize its impact yet stay within the boundary of walls it was dropped between.

 

Make it so when a brick is dropped over a player, then all parts of it are deployed EXCEPT those that would cause the player to warp. The other parts would not be deployed at all (of course you can try intelligently having them warp AROUND the player but not on top of him, but this would increase the chance of judgement errors due to client lag).

 

This solution would make the brick not completely wasted (the parts not intersecting any player at moment of drop are still dropped), and thus no need to reprize it.

[2d spaceship gamer]

no matter how people look at it, people will still find some weakness in basing... if not bricks then it's rep whoring... if not reps it's rocket bursting... and people are going to come on the forums saying how each one is lame

 

That's not really an excuse. It's like saying that there's no point enforcing real-life laws because criminals will always find workarounds.

 

We had rep whoring, so we disable fast ship changes and remove the problem. We have brickwarping, so we try to come up with a solution (as in now). If rocket bursting is as serious a problem (which I don't think it is, because a lanc can survive most bursts), then we should find a way to solve that too.

 

Besides, we do not need to make exploiting completely and theoretically impossible -- we just need to make it so dam hard that it's not worth the benefit, and then people will stop it on their own.

[JoWie]

Another possible solution to reduce brickwarping:

 

Give bricks a reload time, if you lay a brick, it takes an X amount of minutes before it is reprized.

This could be done per spawn or always up to your max bricks, which means you can lay multiple bricks in a single death.

 

 

This is in between one time use bricks and the current state.

[Evil Doom]

hmmm that's not such a bad idea

 

so ur saying if i had double brick ide have to wait X minutes b4 i get them back weather i die or not

or i have to wait X minutes after i died and my bricks will get prized

 

but something tell me this wouldn't do that well... but idk.... i have mixed thoughts about this

[shot_237]

since defenders can rep their enemy back and lay a brick as the enemy gets pushed back

 

Sometimes the power of rocket lag overcomes the power of repels

[Bomook]

since defenders can rep their enemy back and lay a brick as the enemy gets pushed back

 

Sometimes the power of rocket lag overcomes the power of repels

That fact aside, brickwarping encourages rep and burst whoring, something that takes away all the skill and fun involved and basing, and something that we should desperately be trying to discourage.

[rootbear75]

Suggestion:

 

Fine someone $$$$ or EXP when they do this

[Evil Doom]

ya but fining some1 money or exp for using items alot ... will make people whine alot... and mods will have an even harder time

[rootbear75]

fining for brickwarping or whoring, not just using items