Difference between revisions of "Roper"

Latest revision as of 23:12, 4 December 2023

	W:A replay: An example of a Roper game with Random00 and MonkeyIsland; taken from Worm Olympics
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Roper, or Pro Roper, also known as Proper in worms terminology, is a classic rope-based scheme in which each turn, the active player collects a health crate (usually curing a value significantly lower than a full damage bazooka attack), then attacks other teams with the given infinite weapons (bazooka, mine and grenade). Given the short turn time (commonly 15 seconds), skill with the use of the Ninja Rope is advantageous. The water level is set in a way that allows weapons to sink through the bottom border but worms remain standing on it, a setting known as Water drops. This makes it difficult to quickly use a mine or grenade on a worm standing on the bottom of the map, but bazookas still explode on impact.

Rules

Roper: Short turn time, twin island with border and health crate

WO icon

The following is a list of the most commonly-agreed rules for the roper scheme. Although variations and disagreements about rules occur sometimes, such conflicts have been historically much rarer in roper than in Shopper, with these common rules remaining agreed upon by the community at large since shortly after the release of Worms Armageddon.

• Bazooka first - Players must attack only with bazooka on the first turn.
• Attack From Rope (AFR) - Players must attack from a Ninja Rope (while attached or during rope-roll between attachments).
• Crate Before Attack (CBA) - Players must collect a health crate before attacking. After Sudden Death has begun and no crates remain available to collect, players must touch both walls instead (termed "Wall To Wall (W2W)" or "Touch Both Walls (TBW)"). A touch is defined either by the sprite overlapping or the collision mask colliding with a pixel in the side wall, depending on player agreement or competition rules.
• Kill The Leader (KTL) - Players must attack the team with the most health. Weapons may damage worms from other teams only if a worm from the leading team is also injured.

Variations

Modifications with relatively small detail changes to the scheme.

Worms 2 Roper

In Worms 2, Roper is played with some differences from W:A. The first is the Ninja Rope that has a higher acceleration than WA rope, so the turn time is 12 seconds. The terrain is destructible and the retreat time of the rope is 5 seconds (half than W:A). There is delay in all weapons for 1 turn and there is neither "Bazooka First" rule, nor maps with Water drops. Many "W2 Roper" players migrated to WA as a community that still play roper this way, using RubberWorm feature to simulate W2's Ninja Rope perfectly in W:A.

Zook and Rope (ZaR)

	W:A replay: An example of a ZaR Roper game with Nonentity and Csongi; taken from Worm Olympics
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Since early 2015 a TUS community called ZaR (Zook and Rope) is dedicated to play Roper without parachute and with bazooka only. The scheme has also elements of "W2 Roper". Players behind this variation/community: Kradie, sm0k and spleen17. Differences of the standard Roper:

• 2 worms per player
• Instant mines, including dud mines.
• Destructible terrain ON.
• No parachutes; bazooka and rope only.
• 12 second turns, 5 second retreat time
• fire-bombing is allowed (attack exploding the crates)
• mine-knocking (shooting at a mine so it falls on a player) is allowed without CBA, so long as the zook itself doesn't do any damage.
• no blocking

Variants

Creative modifications of the scheme.

Chamber Roper

Chamber Roper is a Roper variant by Red Wraith released on 27th December 2004. The scheme is basically a Roper (once it has unlimited grenades, mines, bazookas and a short turn time), but is played on maps very similar to Chamber Shopper ones and it has the W2W rule (touch the big walls on the extreme left and on the extreme right) from WxW. Neither has the scheme Fall Damage, nor crates. Also, no borders. The remaining rules are: ATL and AFR. The water level is zero. The scheme description does not specify so well the map requirements, but probably Chamber Shopper maps will work well with this scheme.

History

Roper was invented by Archmage in 1998 and initially earned the name Rope-a-dope. (source) It was based on an earlier 'Mine Game' scheme by Jerky, but with the indestructible border added, allowing faster roping, shorter turn times, and making Ropers a battle of killing one enemy worm slowly rather than blasting many worms off the islands and into the water. This made it essential to collect the health crate on every turn so that your opponent can't collect extra ones.

Competitive events

The scheme has featured consistently in competitions, appearing in every year of the Worm Olympics from when it started in 2006 to when it ended in 2016, and in cups and tournaments hosted on The Ultimate Site between 2009 and 2020.

External links

• Roper on Nanacide
• Water Drops explanation on SFX

	This article has a to-do list:
	add W2 Roper scheme