Exactly my opinion!

The mode is nearly perfect and kamikaze makes absolutely sense such as when one hog has really bad weapons and is locked, but it's much too heavy.
My suggestion: 0-10 damage and no move! Only "peng!"

Btw: Thanks for the great game!

Good Morning everybody!

There is a third point, that would make "Highlander" more balanced, i think.
(Maybe that is something for every mode, where rounds don't end with use of weapon)

When Cake ist running or RC Plane is flying, time stops. That gives them double power!
If you have both of it, you can make about 150 dmg in 2 seconds easily.
After that there is enough time to use the weapons you got in consequence of the attacks.

Is it possible to change that in this mode? Can you keep time running?
And what do you think about 1.) and 2.) in the first posting?

No, having time continue to run could get EXTREMELY annoying at times, like say you have 3 seconds left, and you just launched your RC plane, and then your turn ends, you wouldn't have a chance to attack! That would not be fair.

Ok, but if you get limburger it is the same... At 3 seconds left, you can't use any weapon safley and with perfect damage - expect for these two.

But I know what you mean.

Maybe it is possible still stoping time, BUT to subtract 5-10 seconds after explosion of cake or plane!?

And what do you think about Kamikaze in Highlander?

Comment on kamikaze:

If you look at good highlander players' games, you'll notice that they almost never use kamikaze, unless they have an utterly useless hog. The rational behind this is that at some point, that hog will either be the last hog on their team, or it will be able to use its weapons.

About stopping time:

The point of turn time is to restrict the use of weapons. There's no point in not stopping time, because each of those weapons has their own timers that restrict their use. Of course, some of the point of highlander is to make suprehogs that can do a lot of damage in a short time.

Totally agreeee, a guy with an arplane has a lot of chances to get more than 1 hog, then 1 of them has an airplane, so in like 6 secs he can wipe a team. With cake at least you have to move around in some cases, but plane its the most unbalanced weapon in highlander.

Kamikaze is strong in Highlander, but it gives power to the weak und thus balance to the game.
I've seen games turned around because a weak hog killed the Highlander with kamikaze. I think it's a very important asset to balance the Highlander mode and should stay as it is.

Maybe this works.

About the plane: It's the most powerfull and unbalanced weapon in highlander. Start with a plane, kill 3 hogs, get their stuff and still have lots of time left...

WRT mines, mikade could just unlock the scheme.

Thanks for all your answers!

I see the exact opposite. For sure it depends on how much hogs and users are in the game...
Some of these cases I see (and sometimes i do that too...) in nearly every round:
-Hogs with weak weapons on bad positions -> Kamikaze on opponents
-Hogs with "medium" weapons, who failed but can make a lot of damage or a kill -> Kamikaze on opponents
-Sometimes it's worth for hogs with extradamage (44dmg with Kamikaze), which are able to attack 3-4 close hogs -> Kamikaze on opponents
-With low gravity you have the possibility, to kick more than one hog into water -> with Kamikaze!
-To prevent, an opponent is getting the weapons of your low health hog -> Kamikaze on opponents at end of his turn.
-Best hogs in game often are double-attacked by a "medium" hog with his one weapon and -> Kamikaze, if the strong one will be dead after that.

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Every round Kamikaze, Kamikaze, Kamikaze ;)- it is to dominant in Highlander.
If it is possible to reduce the damage (15 instead of 30) and range (half way should be enough) for this mode, it would be more balanced and the use of Kamikaze will be halved.

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You are right - if Kamikaze would be half powerfull! Kamikaze is too strong. It is a multifunctional weapon (see my list...) with huge damage. I often see moves of a hog with Kamikaze, that brings 2 kills and 60 or more damage. If you play with one opponent with 5 hogs each - it can be possible to finish in 3 turns only with Kamikaze.
Initially it was introduced to free trapped hogs.

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Yes, that's the easiest way! Good idea
But information about the available weapons, time, deathmatch, boxes (don't appear in HL) are all included in the script, I think. Don't know, if you can change it with schemes.

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MAYBE THERE IS A CODER, who can make a new script ("Highlander Balanced") with the these changes:
-reduce the damage (15 instead of 30) and range (half way) of Kamikaze
-time don't stop during use of cake or rcplane.
-random mines
-disable the combination of teleporter + weapons of F2 and F5 at start of game

Would be very cool, to test if this is better!

No, that is inherited from Default scheme which Highlander currently uses, apart from boxes, which are 0 because highlander sets the probabilities to 0.

In order for it not to do that, scripting would have to have access to the current probabilities, or else the ammo loadouts would have to be changed.

There is only one case where you have a valid point, and you have a dubious one as well. The instance where you have a low hp hog that will probably die on subsequent turns, and you don't have a 50% chance of killing it yourself, is valid. However, the hog should make an attempt to get itself into a position where it can be killed on your next turn; there's no point in losing those weps if you don't have to. Occasionally, it may be a good move to kamikaze a hog with bad weps that is isolated, but more likely than not, there's no point in kamikazeing; it will be able to attack at some point, and it may also be your last hog. Killing off my last hog is not how I'd like to spend my turn.

That's just about the only time you'd see it, though. Medium weapon hogs are better off waiting through until the next turn, because then the other hog wil have moved on. There's also no guarantee that it will be killed; the other hog may go for someone else instead, or have its turn ended when it takes damage before it can kill your hog.

I follow a simple rule of thumb: any kamikaze must inflict more damage to all the other teams than you take. If you have extra damage and there's a row of hogs, go for it; but if there's a lone hog which will be knocked into the water, it's a no-go.

That's exactly the point why Kamikaze adds so much balance to Highlander.

A typical ocassion: Highlander Hog kills various enemies, then teleports to a remote location. S.o. does a Kamikaze on him and the cards are shuffled again.

This sounds more like you just don't like Kamikaze and want to spoil others the fun. Kamikaze adds not just balance, but also strategy to Highlander...

This will just give power to the highlander and reduce the balance.

Maybe do so, but give every hog a weapon that enables it to kill the highlander even in remote locations without getting the weapons

Ah thanks, now I understand...

What do you think, how much time would it take to invest for an additional script with these changes below? And generally, is it possible?
I would realy like to test it...

-reduce the damage (15 instead of 30) and range (half way) of Kamikaze
-time don't stop during use of cake or rcplane.
-random mines
-disable the combination of teleporter + weapons of F2 and F5 at start of game

.

Why should I do that? Quite the opposite...!
I like HL very much, only some details are annoying. If it won't be changed, I still like it.
To make clear: Kamikaze is absolutly necessary, I'm not against it!

But I want to explain more detailed, maybe you'll understand my viewpoint:

At the beginning there only was the script "Highlander 0.2" of a coder.
The idea was that every user tries to create the strongest hog by killing others (that's why it was called highlander...) - to be "the one"!
Almost everybody was enthusiastic about this mode, except of the point, trapped hogs can't rescue themself and extratime was too powerfull.
This was improved in Version 09.17.
Now the mode has changed. You are no longer able to treat yourself for good playing.
It got a destruction-mode. You can't be happy about a strong hog, because next turn it is dead...

In my opinion this is a example Highlander got arcade-styled, not balanced! Like an arcade racing game: it doesn't matter, if you're the better one and lead - the distant one gets a boost to overtake...

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For all that reasons I argue for attenuating kamikaze.

Another idea is to introduce vampirism basically for every hog.
That would make kamikaze weaker over the course of a round.
But I don't think, that's the right way.

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And further argument for my other suggestion of not stopping time during use of cake and plane:
Extratime has been found to be too strong and was taken out of this mode.
But extratime is still included in this 2 weapons, that are strong enough without, if rounds doesn't end with weapon use.

Most of those are fairly complex to do (and I think bad ideas anyway) apart from Random Mines which would be available if the script config unlocked the scheme.

- range of kamikaze - can be changed in scripting by manipulating "health" of the attack. damage, no, unless the global damage modifier was added to script access or a hack was added to add back health. (don't think is a good idea though)
- time, could be done in scripting but would be complex (needing to alter the overall clock) and possibly buggy if done carelessly (not so much a bad idea, but a "meh" idea)
- adding a delay on teleportation is trivially easy. could also be done based on what weapons they have, but that's more about good play. teleporters are powerful, but I don't think a delay would help much, and good players can usually manage it anyway. everyone knows teleporters are powerful, so they tend to get immmediately targetted.

BTW, when I say bad idea. One of the virtues of mikade's The Specialists and Highlander scripts, is that they do not screw around with existing weapon function.

That allows players to extend their existing familiarity with how Hedgewars weapons work into the script.
The script adds new rules to play (like gaining weapons or different weapons for each hog). They do not change damage, range, time, whatever.

I think this sentence shows a pure truth and there is no point in changing properties of weapons via game scripts. It should be discussed in general but not in reference to game modes.

i would like to request a change to Highlander for the next release to allow players to add interesting modifiers such as low gravity, more wind, place hedgehogs etc.. or at least the ones that don't require significant change to the script. please

i find that sometimes, all or most of my hogs are on the edge of the map which can be a bit unfair. place hedgehogs would obviously spoil the fun of picking off easy hogs on the sides but it would still be nice to have as an option.

btw there is a bug that allows you to change scheme/weapons on a locked style. if you select Highlander and then select a map type, it unlocks.