Page 1 of The Army of Wimps Speaks (long)

Okay -- so I suppose it`s time to respond to all of the whining that has been taking place over my terrible, terrible indiscretions...

Since it all began with wac77, I`ll start there as well. No, wac, I am not a "whimp" (nor am I a "wimp" with the correct spelling either) -- I am simply someone who was curious about this game -- played through a few gremlins and then started tinkering to see what worked best. I have both balls -- don`t need to grow any of those -- I also have a brain and the ability to use it -- thus I don`t challenge grems who have 5X the strength as I do. Didn`t do it before the rule change -- and I certainly don`t do it now when you stand to get 4 or 5 times the points as I do. Apparently I was not the only one who didn`t challenge you -- as you were a pensioner at the time of your initial slam and I was somewhere near mid-life -- I didn`t pass you based upon points from my little army alone -- I had plenty of challenges from others as well. Like so many before (myself included on numerous occasions), you chose to become a high strength grem and when a bunch of high stam/dex grems came to town, they didn`t challenge you -- I`ve been in that boat and it`s not fun -- but again -- Sugar Ray Leonard didn`t run around picking fights with Muhammad Ali, now did he?!

Now recordbreaker -- you claim I am a hypocrite because USNA_88 called you out for picking on weaklings -- the challenge I called you out on was one in which your "Episode_II" had stats of (75/3249/3040) and was middle aged challenged my Bill III who was a baby with stats (69/203/182). I ask you to support your claim of my hypocracy -- find a fight where I challenged someone with 15X less stamina and dex than my own. I didn`t even refuse that ridiculous challenge (thread). In almost every case, my challenges were given to others who had followed my path of high stam/dex -- yes, most were below me because they didn`t have their own army -- but almost all of them had higher strength stats than the 1800 that my top-4 carried (and I`ll talk more about that later). The day that I sent you 4 challenges was a day before I read all the trash in the forums about my wimps. I challenged you because you were somewhere in the low 3000s in strength and the little predictor said that I could beat you -- no other reason. When you then used the 725 points that you got from my 4 challenges and the 4 times you challenged me back to apply solely to your strength, you lost my challenges. Sorry -- I`ll use my challenges on other grems where I get 90 and they get 70 -- that keeps them happy -- and makes me happy as well. Why in the world would I chose to challenge someone who is WAY stronger so that HE gets 100 and I get 40??? You want those numbers -- you challenge me -- I won`t refuse -- but I`m not giving those points away on my challenges.

Wulfs -- how in the world can you tell me that our grems were in the same league?? Don`t pick on guys who are using the same tactics as you are -- pick on me -- the one with 5000+ strength -- ok -- sure -- let me show how stupid I really am!! Give me a break! The only thing I will say for you is that when you did challenge me, you at least didn`t use "Hit Harder" every time so I was able to at least win a few round before having my head taken off.

Now on to the general stuff...

I have no aspirations of sitting atop the all-time board -- in fact, I will certainly ask RJS to remove my grems from the list immediately upon their deaths. IMO, the top of the all-time list is already quite tainted -- I mean, c`mon -- I`m cheating the system with 7 grems -- Steamboat averaged over 40 fights a day -- there was some discussion of this -- thread-- and sarah pointed out to one owner that as your grem gets older, it tends to get more challenges as it moves up -- not the case for ole` steamboat -- nope -- he had 39 fights his very first day -- mostly from other grems created on March 3rd as well!! But he is the king -- and I am the goat -- so be it -- I couldn`t care any less.

My reasons for doing this were as follows...

- after the initial rule change, I was caught with a high stam/dex grem and was giving away massive points to all the bullies -- I started getting refusals from other regulars, so I started refusing myself -- and boy did I take a pounding for that -- my daughter plays 3 of the grems and I didn`t like the language -- so I terminated my grems and left the game (August 6th I left -- August 3rd was the first of the changes).

- I`ve been watching for the last two months and was amazed that everyone`s reaction to the new rules was to simply create a high strength grem (and many even-attribute grems) -- for the last two months, everyone was knocking the snot out of each other and most fights were ending in 5-10 rounds and no one was taking advantage of the HUGE amount of new points that came with the rule change. When RJS added the 5 points per round won rule on Sept 29th, the amount of points available went from HUGE to OBSCENE! Yet, almost no one took advantage of it -- still beating the crap out of each other and getting very low gains.

I watched as first the eggman (with Rod Hull) and then Andiroo (with Deep Thought) started up the ladder with high stam/dex grems -- they were getting the snot kicked out of them but they were accumulating some decent points as well. Until these two, not a single grem created since the first rule change had cracked the top 50 -- NOT ONE. As with most things in life, 1 small voice can`t do much to change the thinking of the masses -- so I decided that since we were again sitting at somewhere around 30-35 active players, I would bring my army back to the field -- the primary intention was only to show everyone that low strength grems were still the most advantageous grems to build. I really enjoyed broadwayblue`s thread about making a new all-time best gremlin list because it was so easy now to run them over -- so easy that in several months, no one had figured it out. Now, since someone was showing that low strength grems got lots of points, it was now a sin. I also enjoyed his comment about how hard it was for the others to earn that spot -- go back through steamboats fight record -- he had 39 fights on his first day of life -- and averaged 48 per day for 28 days -- now look at the majority of his opponents -- all owned by owners who only ever had 1 gremlin. It may have been hard for him -- but only because he was tending to so many grems!


So, my overall theory is that the rule change did very little for really changing the game itself -- before the change, I argued on several occasions that the actual fight code seemed pretty solid -- the reason everyone tended to use low strength is because everyone else was -- and it was the easiest way to be successful. On one of my high strength attempts to buck the system, I said that I thought high strength grems were given a little too much of a damage advantage -- and that I thought it was bad for the game as a whole because as soon as someone accumulated some strength, no one wanted to challenge them because the scales tipped way too far to the other side. In my current experiment, I have found that this is SOOOOOO true -- high strength certainly rules the fight code. I kept my top 4 around 1800 strength for the first two weeks or so -- and it simply amazed me how many times I would lose fights consistently to grems who had 2200 or 2400 strengths -- my advantages in stamina and dex were almost always 20 or 30% better -- sometimes 50-100% better -- but still, that simple 4-600 advantage in strength was allowing consistent wins -- I`d call them upsets but it was more of a rule than an exception. I also concluded that the only use for dexterity is as a storage place for strength points -- built up high enough, your dex can be turned into strength (via `hit harder`) and still allow you to receive challenges. I`ve consistently lost fights where my relative stats were -400 strength, +2300 stam, and +2300 dex -- consistently LOST -- despite being only 400 lower (say 2900 to 3300) in strength, my damage was limited to ~500 per hit while the opponent was making 1000-1500 hits -- from the BEGINNING! My 8900 to 6700 advantage in dexterity meant absolutely nothing -- I never won two consecutive rounds -- and My stamina remained higher than the opponents through the first 9 rounds. It seems that as soon as a high dex grem gets hit (which is almost always at least once in the first four rounds), he loses any advantage of dexterity.

Okay -- enough -- if anyone is still reading -- and honestly, the only one who I really want to get this far is RJS -- I did this little experiment only to illustrate that the fight code hands WAYYYY too much of a bias to high strength -- and because of this, choosing high strength will result in many wins -- but very few challenges when a grem gets big enough. I think that if this advantage was brought under control, players could choose any tactic and have equal success. Right now -- if you want a top spot, you have to go dex/stam -- if you want a ton of wins but no challenges when you get too tough, you go strength. I know that your response will be `there aren`t enough players to justify doing that work` -- my only response would be that maybe there would be more players if the game weren`t so predictable that it becomes boring. I started playing the game because I was curious -- but it only took me to my second grem to reach the top spot in the league -- it was easy to figure out how to succeed. Then I messed with other tactics and attribute loads -- and quickly realized that there was only one way to be successful -- and that was to follow the masses. Give us some variety, RJS!!!

And really, RJS -- I am a software tester by profession and so I have just been tinkering because it`s in my nature -- please remove my grems from the all-time list when they die (let me have my fun till then!!) so that I don`t tarnish the list.

I was calling you out looking for some additional challenges. Nothing more, nothing less. I tried to get under your skin but it didn`t work. I think you are taking this a little too serious (my calling out, that is). Keep in mind that all of my trash talking was not laced with profanity or any little clever inuendos.

If I really cared about your comments about me previous grem, I would have spoken up then. Though, I did think that your comparison to bonus was a little uncalled for.

I really don`t have the time to research your matches to find a 15x difference in any stat. I`m sure you`ve made some lopsided challenges regardless of the mathematical differences. I know I have. I just don`t go on the board and complain about it. I take my beating and move on.

I don`t agree with your stance on the strength issue since you have been ramping up your strength on most of your grems in the past few days. Based on how you have been building your grems so far, why would you now add strength? Why not stay the course on the original experiment? For that matter, the only way I could compete with you was to add strength. You seem like a strategist, so you should appreciate my counter tactics in an effort to beat you. In my opinion, your move towards strength lately is a counter to fend off a stronger grem.

Anyway, jack them up and if I am still alive by the time your think you can knock me out, I`d love to go nose to nose.

This item was edited on Saturday, 22nd October 2005, 00:16

Sorry, one other question I have...

Based on your magnaminous gesture to have your grems removed from the alltime list....

Why would you care how many points you won in any given match? If these are experiments, it shouldn`t matter.

In any event, it`s all good. I`m just curious as to the reasoning :)

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Keep in mind that all of my trash talking was not laced with profanity or any little clever inuendos.

No, you didn`t and I appreciate that (for the sake of my little one who sometimes ventures into the forum looking for her grems` names).

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I tried to get under your skin but it didn`t work.

Sure it did -- but understand that I was trying to accumulate enough points to beat you while maintaining low strength (and thus still get challenges from others).

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Though, I did think that your comparison to bonus was a little uncalled for.

Fair enough -- I apologize for that reference -- though I was still pretty new at the time and Bonus was the only one who would refuse anyone who could beat him and then challenge someone way down the list. I was just ticked at the time that you came after me while I was so young -- now I`d gladly accept the 3 points because points are so hard to get with a newborn.

Quote:
I`m sure you`ve made some lopsided challenges regardless of the mathematical differences. I know I have. I just don`t go on the board and complain about it. I take my beating and move on.

And that has been my policy this time around -- still no refusals (I can`t remember for sure but I actually may have refused bonus a few times -- but that really doesn`t count -- that`s all on principle and I`ve recently even accepted his and then gone `hit harder`).

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I don`t agree with your stance on the strength issue since you have been ramping up your strength on most of your grems in the past few days. Based on how you have been building your grems so far, why would you now add strength?

Um -- I`m adding strength to a few of my grems because well, there is a certain grem who keeps whining about not getting challenges -- and I like to win (but allowing the other fella to benefit too) -- so I`m loading a few of them up so you have someone to clobber. The bias to stam/dex was to move up quickly -- nothing more -- I wanted to be at the top quickly so that I would be challenged by all the steroid guys -- build enough stam/dex to stay ahead of them etc and further prove my point -- but my experiment worked a little too well and almost everyone followed the lead and went to stam/dex -- and now I`m on top of all of them. You are correct -- the move to strength is an effort to make you shut up!!! ;) :D

Anyway -- just wanted to ensure everyone knew that I wasn`t evil (well, mostly not anyway) and that I was just trying a few things out. There are some really great people on here and I enjoy fighting you all and reading your posts. I`ve had most of my fun now -- how about if I just open them all up and start challenging everyone else -- no inter-army challenges from here on out -- (unless recordbreaker starts thumping me too badly and I need to bulk one or two of them up a bit!!).

I`ve argued against the stupidity of using difference in strength as part of the damage calculation several times in the past, but it keeps falling on deaf ears.

Glad someone else finally agrees with me

Damage should be based on straight strength and not some convoluted formula where you do more damage because of how much stronger you are.

I really don`t know what the formula is for damage but here are my thoughts.

I`ve noticed lately that if you tag your opponent with damage at or greater than 2000 pts in any given punch, the opposing grem becomes disorientated. This is regardless of how much health remains. At this point, the opposing grem normally misses you for the next 2 rounds. If you are lucky, you can cause major damage at this point, provided your grem connects. After those 2 rounds, the opposing grem seems to snap out of it. Very similar to boxing and that punch that comes out of nowhere, stunning the opponent, and causing a flurry of additional punches thereafter. It`s not always the case, it`s happened enough that I`ve noticed it.

I would think (and I could be wrong) that health and dex should factor into the ability to "take" a punch. Health would factor the reaction to the hit. Dex should factor into your ability to take or roll with the punch thus helping to mimize the damage. In other words, if your grem is caught flat footed, the damage would be much more severe than if your grem was moving away from the punch when it lands.

However, this does seem to be the case when one grem swings misses and the other grem connects on the counter punch. As far as I am concerned this is pretty acurate Vs a real fight as the grem that missed is basically walking into a punch.

Under my theory, take Jaws Vs Bill. I have double the strength, he has double the health, and double the dex. With his dex, he should take the punch better and his health should help maintain the after effects of taking the blow. This should help even out the match. Problem is that this is not happening right now. I`m shelling him with major damage of 2K almost every time I connect. I know it was only a movie, but Rocky was able to take a beating and still stand. It was all based on his ability to take a punch. Then again, this is only a game, so the comparison is fair.

Real ale, I have to disagree with you in regards to strength Vs strength. For example, if Mike Tyson hit Lance Armstrong, he`s go down like a sack of potatoes with one punch. Now Lance is in great shape. He has better speed and endurance than Tyson but Tyson`s strength would overwhelm Armstrong. Lance`s only hope would be his ability to move out of the way and not take the punch directly. If he doesn`t, he`s on the floor. At least that`s I how would apply it to this situation.

Perhaps, I am questioning things that are already in place or have already been argued. Sorry if this stuff is old hat. I`ve never really paid much attention to the nuts and bolts but lamplighter is making me look at this game in another way.

Anyway...lamplighter...thanks for the challenges. You really don`t have to change your plans with your "army" just send a challenge from one or two of your grems once in a while! :D

This item was edited on Saturday, 22nd October 2005, 14:56