I agree with Scott about nerfing the rope. Seems like a bad call to me. However, post-patch I'll mainly be in player matches, so at least it won't be forced on me.

BTW, did you really cut the forts turn time? Or were you just jerking Paul's chain ( as I would have, were I in your position )?

Nah, I can tell you now they cut the forts timer for sure. It's not just to wind me (and everyone else) up.

It was mentioned ages ago and I kicked off about it along with some others (but you know they don't listen). Also they left it out on purpose in the original list incase it all kicked off again about it.

I dunno why they force things through that players are against. Talk about going against the community.

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I wishthey could keep everyone happy by adding a Pro forts mode:

60sec timer (for us old strategy folks)
no parachutes
no health drops
no crate drops

Now that's a mans game - eliminate the element of luck apart from the starting placement.

I mean why does the normal game have a pro & standard mode and forts just have the one?

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BTW I just realised a huge bug that is not listed or mentioned in this thread. Thats the blowtorch cut-off randomly when used straight away. You get like 1sec of it and it cuts out. I've tried the work around of always blow torching up before down, but it doesn't always fix this glitch. It happens about once every dozen times (even more if not using the work-around) when using blow torch on top of land mainly at a certain angle/degree incline in the land.

It cuts out for no logical reason whatsoever. Very frustrating. surely this is an obvious one & just forgotten about.

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You know it's a shame that 99% of the Worms community don't know this place exists for interaction to back up all these claims that we do know exist.

Also a shame that even those who find the Team17 forums never get a response so don't hang around them.

Leaving nowhere for a decent community to interact or for you to realise how severe some bugs/glitches/problems/design features are due to it only being the same half dozen peeps trying to help you fix things.

I know you probably see it as us just being arseholes, a few peeps moaning about stuff for something to do... but we are actually just trying to help.

However it like banging your head against a brick wall at times... scrap that... make it ALWAYS!

I feel like such an idiot at times trying to explain things and feel like we who complain about obvious bugs are made to look as if we are just a select few who like to have a rant for the sake of it.

That's not the case.

We are not being fussy. These are proper problems.

Pro Forts is what we want for real. a real mans game

Ok a few points to make.

Notice that the comment on the rope is to make repeat swings 5 by default, so that means you can change it if you like in your games that you set up. The essence of Worms is not swinging around on a rope forever, traversing the whole landscape and picking up all the crates. The ninja rope as designed is to help the worm get out of dire situations and 5 repeat swings is more than enough. Would you like up to make Jetpack fuel infinite too?

Other issues/bugs mentioned in this thread are noted and we in our limited in house testing have not really come across those issues. The blowtorch problem was likely fixed when fixing some other collision based problem. But as I have said a few times already, we will be monitoring it very closely when the patch is released.

Parachutes in Forts. We discussed this at great length here but decided to keep them in because of the help this gives the player in getting around their own Fort.

Despite what you may think, we value highly those people who bring issues to our attention, you guys have had direct input into what needed fixing in the patch. Seriously where else can less than a dozen people influence what happens in a game?

As for any other changes made to game types such as Forts, we accept of course that people have their opinion but as pointed out by Paul, you are just a handful of people, it's very difficult to properly gauge things. So instead we rely upon our vast experience to balance things as we see fit. We have members of staff here who have been involved with every iteration of Worms and we value their input greatly, people who know the game inside out, so when they complain about how a scheme is not properly balanced, we do something about it.

That's the way it is. As already mentioned elsewhere (I loose track) we look forward to the patch coming out and any subsequent feedback. Sorry if this has come over a bit strong, but I needed to point out just how things work.

in over 200 games, I seen someone use their chute about twice on their own fort and about 100's time cross onto another fort. just my experience. maybe it was a fluke, anyhow so be it.

It is annoying and not in the spirit of the game, but in the end not hindering movement for yourself ranked as very important. Do you never equip a parachute before making a big jump that might cause fall damage? The parachute is a vital piece of equipment, I know I couldn't do without it. :)

well , without meaning to sound flippant , I don't do big dodgy jumps at the moment as I can't trust back flip to work , but all that is about to change with the patch. Maybe there is another solution, adding those Sentry guns to the start up weapons list perhaps ? that's a good idea isn't it, I am quite clever you know. Is it a lot of work to change around the start up weapons for forts ?

adam:
i like the idea of sentry guns preventing paratroopers in forts. maybe indestructible sentry guns in between both forts at water level. red teams sentry is near their own base, and blue teams sentry is near the blue base, to prevent accidental misfires on non-paratrooper worms (even though the sentry could be blocked by a girder, depending on how the girder placement distance changes). food for thought...

team17:
most (but not all) of my worms experience is from worms XBLA, and W2:A. in both of those games, so far, you get unlimited re-ropes per each rope use. im not saying its bad solely because its a change, just that im not fond of the idea of that change.

as far as getting 5 re-ropes by default, i play ranked matches the vast majority of the time, so that makes the 5 re-ropes pretty much a permanent fixture for me...i would imagine people playing custom game schemes in W2:A are actually in the small minority compared to the number of people that play using predetermined game schemes.

im sure ill live with it, but its really going to make the vertical landscapes tough (especially indoors) on pro. you only get two ropes...most players strategies involve getting all, or most, of your worms to the top of the map to take control of that area. in situation where 3 of one teams worms spawn at the top, and three of the other teams worms spawn at the very bottom (it happens very frequently), if you want anything resembling a chance at winning the game, you better not screw up on any of those 5 re-ropes to get to the top and do some damage...

it doesnt just strictly apply to that situation, it was just one example...either way, you guys put out the game, not me, so i dont really have any say here, im just offering my opinion (and voicing the opinion of the worms players i talk to on LIVE that dont post on facebook).

i would really like to know if there is some sort of indicator of how many re-ropes you have during your turn. it seems like it could really screw you up if you dont know what your count is, especially for the novice player.

also, im sure you guys would have mentioned it if you wanted to talk about it yet, but are there any plans for DLC, with or after the patch?

Ok, an update for you.

In Forts you only have 1 parachute now.

We tried sentry guns, seemed like a god idea but was easily broken by parachuting over and setting the gun up in the other players fort. Indestructible sentrys make the game too difficult, their range is actually quite big and with only 1 parachute, well hopefully people won't risk moving 1 worm only. (we will see)

With roping the commentary text tells you how many repeat swings you have, so hopefully we won't see people mess up too often. I do like the added pressure it adds though. :)

We are looking at DLC for after the patch, we want to make sure the game is stable before adding anything else, but be assured we are planning some great stuff for DLC.

cool, good to know about the rope counter and the dlc...thanks, mark.

added pressure...psh. jerk. ;)

if you could just go ahead and put the patch in my pocket, then, ill be on my way.

oh, and sorry to completely and absolutely beat a dead horse, but you guys never experienced the draw rematch game problems in testing? are you testing it directly over LIVE, or on a closed network? it really seems to be an issue with network communication that makes it happen (im hoping the NAT settings fix makes it go away completely).

We do test over LIVE and on a closed network but it's impossible to recreate every kind of setup, so yes we are hoping that the NAT settings fix will at least make this problem less likely and hopefully get rid of it all together.

thanks , Forts really is the best.

but would be better with no chutes. last I say on the subject. ....

I think I like Forts....cant wait to go first mind!

I dont like how easy it is to kill worms from the get-go....no idea how this could be aided...maybe increase the height of land or increase the surface area of land (reduce water) or even push the Forts further away from each other? I litterally start with 2 worms 50% of the time :(

need to lose the chutes to make forts , forts.

Any time frame on the release of the update? End of this month? October?

@ Simon - I have often thought the same and the only solution I could ever think about was on the 1st round you could only use defensive weapons (blowtorches, gurders etc) to get good posiitioning. But then thinking it through more I dunno if it would be a good idea or not.

On a completely different note, I'd like to see a twist on forts sudden death, where instead of the water raising, the forts get closer and crash in to each other. hehe, that be fun.

Thats a good shout I guess. Making only ropes, parachutes, blowtorches available for the first 2 rounds.

How about a toggle option for selecting Worms? Sometimes having 1 worm is a huge benefit which it shouldnt be.

@Simon, the tactical movement advantage gained as your number of worms decreases is, IMHO, a core mechanic of the game. "Worm Select" seemed to negate much of this mechanic and I personally think the game plays so much better without it.

So basically you get rinsed, loose 3 of your worms and then have the upper hand....

Fair.

you almost never have the upper hand when you only have one worm vs. their four worms...but if you plan accordingly, you can strategically take advantage of the turns, and yes, use that to your advantage. its very fair.

its kind of a "down, but not out" scenario, and to agree with andrew, i think that worm select is a feature i very much dislike.

you sound like a player who is used to having 1 worm...

Has the bug been fixed where if the other player quits the match it is not counted as a win sometimes?

It is a known bug and has been mentioned many times in the past. Rather annoying to say the least, what with quitters being a rampant problem in this game (which looks like it is not going to change, due to no simple measures by team17 to tackle it).

BTW I have no idea why sometimes when someone quits it counts as a win and why other times it does not.

Also when someone is abusive in a lobby it would be nice to be able to put them on your avoid list with bad reputation, but you can't as you have to play them 1st :(

i won 2 back to back but since they quit I dropped about 140 places on the leaderboard.

niiiiiiice

Worm select feature we do not need, it negates strategy and tactics..

I hope others quitting doesn't make you lose rank, or that will be the reason I keep magically dropping down even when on a streak of no loses.

You on about Trueskill or leaderboard position?

Leaderboard, which in turn affects Trueskill.

Ive had it with this game, I just need 2 more wins on crates for my full 200 achievements.

I feel your frustration.

I've only played the game once this week due to .. well too many things TBH, I've already talked about them all, so I'll not repeat myself (Seems I've already lost my voice anyway) & also I know Team17 is not doing anything about 50% of the stuff in the 1st patch. Plus, the way they are talking I can't really see a 2nd patch (much better to work on that DLC for the extra cash I suspect). Half the problems they reckon they have never even come across anyway. So I dunno how much they actually play over Xbox Live! compared to internal testing which is probably different IMHO.

My suspicion is that thay have completely over-stretched themself, taking on too many projects with a small team and it shows in there response to simple questions about bugs n glitches (read: we have not experienced this problem).

I wish I could get in contact with Andy Davidson to see what he thinks about it all. His legacy is being ruined from within Team17 who he entrusted, with this particular version atleast (I can't speak for the others on Wi, PC & Iphone).

Sorry Team17, you've brought out a great game (obviously, how can you go wrong with such a simple formula), however, with many uneeded bugs (what a cock up), half of which you don't seem to acknowledge even exist.

Also the biggest problem of quitters not being tackled at all. The one thing that puts peeps off this game the most (Why let them quit? - make them pull the plug out to quit atleast rather than visit dashboard, make the last turn count, name & shame them, show quit stat in lobby ANYTHING, or even better ALL). Unlike the bugs, which affect EVERYONE, so makes for an even playing field, the Quitter problem is rather one sided. Unless you suggest we all quit to get our revenge. But then that would just be silly and no one would end up playing it to start with.(also giving neg feedback does not mean you avoid them at all - it is useless - Anyway, half the time you can't even tell if they quit when timed right)

P.S.Does Martyn Brown from T17 read facebook and forum comments by any chance?

Sorry for my rant, just it is so frustrating playing such an addicitve game which is a pure gem and well established to see it glitched up so badly. Every single game both reminds you why you love the game so much, but also how buggy it is and frustrating it is to play at times. Yes, I'll wait for the 1st patch to "fix things", but no, I still think half the stuff will be bugged out as you don't even acknowledge half of the problems in the 1st place.


This is one of them games I hate to love.

^ wow, my posts always seem much harsher than I meant them to be when I read them back to myself at a later time. Oh,well, still true in principle. It's just because I care so God darn much though about the game, and so the passion turns to contempt at times when expressing emotions, as it could be the greatest game of all time, atleast in my books, if it was done correctly (bug free & less quitters)!

Yes I do read the forums when I get chance. Unfortunately I'm pretty busy running the studio to spend a lot of time with personal replies - that's not to say I don't care, quite the opposite.

Mark has been very patient reading your comments and trying to let you know what is happening & ongoing.

Fixing & testing a lot of issues takes quite a bit of time, wether you appreciate that or not.

And even if you consider the game to be simple, I can assure you that the combination of possible logic within the game makes it actually quite the opposite.

Work is going ahead on the title update and it's been the subject of much discussion internally. Testing is cumbersome as everything has to be double-checked and played online. We also have to be careful that fixing one aspect no longer makes something else fail.

You can have your own thoughts about what we do and how we go about it, but you simply cannot talk from a position of experience.

Everyone has their own thoughts about what should and shouldn't be done. No-one has the right to 'speak on behalf of everyone'.

For our part, it's a very difficult balance to provide the perfect gaming experience and whilst it has been regrettable that a number of issues exist in the original game, we are sorting these and other aspects out in order of what we consider priority - and that involves issues reported here and elsewhere. As it is, we've decided to drop the external testing unit which worked on this game simply because the testing job wasn't good enough, even if most of the issues were minor logic problems (otherwise Microsoft wouldn't approve it for release).

As for quitters, it's incredibly difficult to fix this and one of the only ways we can look at that is if the game runs on a server (which doesn't make a ton of sense for turn-based peer to peer play). This issue is prevalent in many games for exactly the same reasons in that people just quit out when losing - we don't control that and in many cases it's impossible for us to know if this was managed or for some technical reason.

MB.