Guide to DM for new/non-DM'ers

[rcade]

hey guys
since i'm off work today and kind of a loser i thought i'd write up some tips for new/not-so-good at dm players to 1)help some of the newer players who have started dm'ing to get better team games for everyone and 2)attract some more new players from other mods to dm

most of it is all basic stuff, but could help save some frustration i think for new players and their teammates.. IMO a lot of non-dm'ers players can become really good because they have better aim (usually from playing CA), they just need a little strategy because they havn't been dm'ing for years like most of us

-- The first minute of the match --

Important Timings

In the first minute of the match, some timings you should remember (always play with the timer on) are that:
- Y.A will respawn around 19:40 (if you spawned at RL and came to Y.A, try to be on defensive mode until this time - your biggest threat will be quad SG coming with 150/100),
- RL will respawn around 19:30 (if you got 1st pent make sure you get this RL). Likewise, during the first 2 minutes or so of the match, people will be picking up the RL really fast usually, so you can expect the RL to also respawn around 18:59, 18:29, and probably even 17:59.
- the L.G and G.L will respawn anywhere from 19:22ish to 19:27ish (if you spawned SNG/RA side you should have enough time to grab maybe R.A or a megahealth beforehand)
- the next quad will come around 18:58ish.

Remember those times and use them based on your situation/whatever is most possible for you.

Spawns

Depending on where you spawn, some safe advice to follow is:

Yellow Armour Spawn – You can be first to get either quad or pent. I personally ALWAYS go for the quad because if you get pent so early then it will run out right when RL spawns and won’t be much benefit anyways. Also remember that you have to be quick when going to quad.

RL Spawn – You can go to either Y.A or R.A (from mound or thru Pent). Also, try to make sure that if you do get attacked and are about to die (especially by quad), you switch from RL to SG so you don’t give the enemy your weapon. This goes for the entire game really.

Lifts Spawn – You have a few options on when to get the pent. For keeping this simple, IMO the easiest/safest method IMO is to wait maybe 3-5 seconds, enough so that you can run over to Y.A, grab it just as it spawns around 19:40 and still have enough pent left over to get you in and out of R.L for the 19:30 spawn.

Make sure that if you get the 1st pent then you get the RL spawn at 19:30, don’t get caught up chasing somebody with SG around the map and have your pent run out.

When one team has control

Sometimes a match just falls into place and one team gets strong control early on. A few tips for this situation are:

-Avoid rushing without armor or at least a megahealth (although I am guilty of rushing, it leads to a lot of deaths/frustration for newer players)

-If you're trying to get from RA side to RL side, avoid blatantly running across the mound or jumping from Rotunda, especially around the :59 mark (thru out the game) because somebody will be waiting at quad and will just pick you off.

-IMO the best times to make a run for RL side is when you know quad is RA/SNG/Pent side or if quad just ran out. This way, if you have armor, you might take a hit or two but should be able to at the very least get into the water.

-SNG can be a really strong weapon, best situations to use it are in water, if you can catch the enemy in a straight line (i.e walking the ramps at RA), with quad, or if you have like 200/100 then try rushing someone up close - a lot of times they will kill themselves or panic.

- To add to that point, know when the next quad will spawn exactly and try to rush it with 200/100+ and an sng. Sometimes, if you know the exact second it will spawn, it's worth standing right on top of it and take a hit or two knowing you'll get it rather than focusing on fighting and moving away from it.

- If you're the only one with RL on your team and manage to kill someone, try to save their pak. That will change the control from 2 remaining enemy RLs vs 1 team Rl to 2 RLs vs 2 Rls.

The Discharge

I could have added this to the section above, because discharging can be a great way to change control of the game, but made a new one to emphasize it's importance.

- There are a lot of places you can catch the enemy with a discharge – anywhere on the lower bridge, if they jump up by the RL window, if you see them jumping basically anywhere in the air from upper to lower, and even by the entrance to mound. Another great discharge is a few seconds before pent is about to spawn, wait in the water tunnel sticking out a little bit, and when someone jumps down from pent window you’ll catch them in your discharge.

Likewise, when you have RL, avoid chasing people into the water unless you're sure of the LG status. Also, when you hear somebody just kind of floating and sticking their head out sometimes, chances are they are going to DC. Some tips to avoid being DC'd are: 1)when you walk on the upper bridge, stick to the wall. 2) don't jump when shooting from the RL box. 3) avoid basically any edges by the RL / Bridge area

Some other tips

-If you don’t have RL (and are not extremely good with LG) than any teammate with RL/or Quad should have priority on health/armour, regardless if you were waiting for it to spawn.

-You should save paks when possible, but if you are really low on health or getting attacked then sometimes it’s better to take the pak and run rather than letting the enemy grab the pak and end up killing you. If your teammate says in his binds he's on the way and is really close, sometimes I just leave the pak unguarded and go for health

-If you just saw somebody take an item, don't wait another 20-30 seconds there for it to spawn. Try to move around and atleast get some armor/amo/other weps while waiting for the main item to spawn. Remember armor spawns every 20 secs and weapons every 30 secs.

People with good aim but poor strat

A lot of players have really good aim but don't do that well in matches. IMO the best for players with really good aim but not a lot of strat is to try to maybe be a quad runner, or atleast help in controlling quad.

Altho it's one of the hardest positions to maintain, it revolves almost completely around whoever kills who near the spawn time. Therefore you could know when quad is going to spawn, get yourself armored up, and a few seconds or whenever before go over and fight whoever is there or is on there way there. Once you have quad, read your teammates binds and do a basic run of the map where you think the enemy might be.

If you try this strat, IMO it's better to hang out around RA while waiting for quad to spawn rather then YA/RL side, for 2 reasons - 1) RA has more armor/health, and 2) YA/RL is a heavy traffic area and you'll probably be hurt before you even get to quad.


----------
Important Sounds
Always listen to where sounds are coming from to get an idea where the enemy might be. A few classic sounds to listen for are:
- When you're at quad, you'll be able to hear the teleport at Pent Window -- if you do, wait a few secs and then start firing before they make it past the window.
- If you hear somebody take the RA and then hear the sound of the quake guy grunt, then chances are hes coming thru the RA Rotunda - Wait for the grunt before you fire so you can catch them by surprise. if you hear the Louder grunt where you lose a little health then he's probably going backhall and might come thru the teleport.
-Listen to the lifts. You should be able to tell what part of the lifts they are on (theirs 3 lifts with up/down sounds)
- If you heard someone at pent then heard the sound of water, then wait a bit and shoot from the upper bridge into the water tunnel
- If you're coming around Backhall from the RA, and you heard somebody take the megahealth, wait a bit without making a sound - chances are they will come across the backhall and you can catch them first with a surprise shot. If nobody comes around, then slowly creep up the stairs to SNG and you should be able to sneak up on them while they head towards lifts exit. You can also listen for the cells there.
- The ammo in the RA tunnel is a dead giveaway for people coming through there (some will try to wait a bit - if so, you can try going from the mound and catching them from behind)
- The item pickup/swimming sounds in water should give you an idea where the enemy is (if you hear the weapon pickup sound, then shoot LG or GL, if you hear 2 amos picked up really fast then shoot the corner where the cell/rockets are, if you hear a single amo pickup then shoot the cells infront of the GL)
- If you hear the grunt where you lose some health from a high fall, then they can only be at RA, Pent, or Mound area, and you should be able to tell which.

---

Some other Strategy tips

In this part I'll add some basic strats you can follow, altho once you get good/familiar you should realize any good dm'er adapts to the situation and doesn't follow any set strategy, so take all of this with a grain of salt.

- Normally, the first person who get's RL should be the one most capable of getting the next quad since they've had time to get armor'd up and there will be only one other person on the map with RL(and they have less time preparing). Once you get that quad you can often get into a groove and keep your team control of quad for a while.

- The person who gets 2nd RL is the 2nd most capable of getting the next Quad. If enemy got the 1st RL, then be prepared to fight someone at quad. If your teammate got RL, then you can choose to provide support at RL/YA for other teammates to get RL or go to RA - as Kathos mentioned, RA is safer but RL/YA is where you can really contribute to your team, and where the game is the funnest really

- When trying to control Quad, it's always easier to fight people off when you're at quad, rather than being the guy trying to come from pent window or from YA or Rotunda, because the guy at quad can get the first shot in nearly all instances. So try to get there first.

- Controlling the RL: IMO the most important area. Best advice is make use of timers here and watch your surroundings/be aware of your health. There's really 2 ways you can control the RL - 1) Have it timed so that you pick up every RL (and possibly LG) every 30 secs, or 2) Simply defend it from the bridge and keep the enemy from getting it. Either way, it's probably the funnest place to try and control because you're guaranteed a lot of traffic coming through.

- Also wanted to emphasize Naus's point about dying since I overlooked it. Definitely keep a track of 'killstats' so that you can see your deaths. If you find yourself dying too much, just slow down. Also use 'badstats' to determine how many RL's you have given up. Remember, in a 20 minute match, their could be maybe 25-30ish RL's depending on how fast people pick them up, in 4v4, that means only about 3-4 RL's on avg. per person, and in a 3v3 that's about 4-5 RL's on avg. per person. That's not alot so you don't want to give up any extra RL's to the enemy.

- Sometimes you'll find that your teammates are in a position where they have RL/armor and you don't. You can often support them if they are trying to get quad or something by being their lookout or distracting the enemy.

Added new edit in color. Okay that's about most of the stuff I can think of really. Anyone can feel free to add-on whatever they want. Hopefully this can help some people or attract some people who don't want to spend all the time learning some DM basics.

[kathos]

Good strat guide for the newer players. I definately recommend using it.

Everyone should have a bind showing Health/Amor and RL status. If your teammate is waiting for armor with SG and you have RL, let them know you have RL and need that armor. This will avoid any tention throughout the game.

Try saving paks when teammates need it. Use a SAVING PAK bind, use a PAK TAKEN bind and do not wait if no one is going to pick it up, just take it and continue playing.

I see a lot of CA players like to play RA side, mostly camp RA and get spawn kills. This helps your help a lot, but doesn't help YOU develop your DM skills much, try playing RL side, do not let the enemy pick up those RLs or YA. Help the player running Quad get that Quad.

[naustic]

One of the significant challenges that new/non-DM players face is high number of deaths each match. I would recommend you bind "killstats" and "quadstats" to your keyboard, so you can keep track of these stats throughout the game. Remember, you want to stay below the average deaths of your teammate's, if not stay consistent with their deaths. Here are three guidelines for you to remember to reduce your deaths:

1. Unless you have a really good reason to spawn immediately to get to a pack, please delay your respawn time by not pressing any buttons, and let quake respawn you automatically. This will reduce spawn deaths.

2. Unless you have armour or megahealth, don't rush for RL since you will be an easy target for a one RL hit death. Unless you know that RL is safe, it is risky to sit in the RL box with solely 100 health without any other weapons or armour.

3. If someone spams Enemy Quad or Enemy at Quad, refrain from using the teleport from backhall. This is another major cause of death. Enemy Quad will usually hang out around that area for easy frags.

[Grafh]

Tip: Don't try and take quad from me standing next to it when you got 100health and 0 armor and I got 100h and 200a. Thanks.

[Authentic]

Good guide. I'm trying to learn about DM, and you pretty much just answered MOST of my questions

[rcade]

hey Authentic / anybody else, feel free to post any questions you have about DM as well in here.

I'm also throwing up my config here incase somebody has absolutely no binds or wants to try something different



Some of the most important binds IMO are location/health/armor, RL status, and personally i also use a bind where i say the time and the item when i take something (using "took %l at %t), so if any teammates are paying attention then they know when that item will respawn, but some people find it annoying to press a key every time you pick up a major item. You should also make use of the Enemy quad at %t bind.

I have a bunch of Enemy at ___ binds that you'd really have to memorize to ever use them so that might not be for you, altho I think it's a great help to tell your team where the enemy is, and wish more players would do it (even a bind that says "I died at %l" is helpful to give an idea where the enemy is)

if you don't care about my binds or whatever you can still try the section of the config under //variable

and don't use my name! hah

i use qrack 1.90 so i don't know how it'll work in other clients/versions.

okay so i've given out most of my secrets and whatever i can think of, as well as my config, hopefully i don't get owned now by everyone haha
you'll have to rename the file to .cfg and use the command 'exec use8' (you might want to change your res or whatever)

edit --

this config doesn't have the RJ script in it
if you want to use it add this to the config (the script is binded to Q):


"alias +rj "cl_pitchspeed 20000;impulse 7;+lookdown;wait;wait;wait;wait;-lookdown;cl_pitchspeed 150;+jump;+attack"
alias -rj "-attack;-jump;force_centerview""


although in nearly all instances its better to rj yourself since you can gauge how much power/damage you do to yourself, this is helpful for those tricky rj's for newbs like me like from lifts to pent window

[Authentic]

get on dm.quaketx.com Im waiting all by my lonesome self;/

[Rampage]

I also basically feel that there are two important periods throughout the match that pretty much dictate if you're going to blow the other team out of the water.. the beginning when you can pad your lead by giving your a team a upper hand and controlling weapons / armor etc and the middle phase around the time when both sides are a bit more evened out with weapons..if you weather the storm through that middle phase the match is pretty much guaranteed from what I've witnessed so far..

I found yesterday in a match where I placed 3rd with the least deaths at 39 / 15 I was able to get off to a really quick start by grabbing the NG at RA, waiting for RA to respawn after my teammate took it and then going from there and racking up about 6-7 opening kills in a span of a minute using NG versus shotgunners.. this pretty much set the tone for me and gave me confidence throughout the match.. I realized the importance of beefing up on armor consistently so even if I only have shotgun I still give myself a reasonable chance to fight no matter the situation.. this also makes it easier when you're fighting to get a weapon as Retro mentioned.. I'm used to CTF where I can just control multiple things at once because of the hook speed but in DM you pretty much have to use whatever you can to gain even a little bit of advantage and avoid being killed.. if it means hiding out with an RL and low health until health spawns then do so..

[Grafh]

Quad- Respawns every 1 minute after its taken. So watch the clock when you hear the quad enemy or our quad annoucement or the noise of getting it. Also after quad wears off the next quad will be 30 seconds after, its best if you are armored up to hide until 5-10 secs the next quad shows.

Pent- Respawns every 5 mins after its taken. When jumping out the window switch to sg so you don't get dc'd and leave a rl pak around.

Eyes- Make sure you let your teammates know you have the eyes or enemy eyes, and say it more than once with !!!!OUR EYES!!! so we know for sure.

Ambush- There are many places you can surpise your opponent. At the mound ra tunnel entrance if you hide on the right side of it, you can let the enemy pass without being seen and shaft him in his anus, although the chances of a enemy going through there varies.

Sng boxes near the 200health, and 2 health boxes are: usually a enemy will go for that health to heal up, you can wait in that hiding spot for him to pass and shaft or sng him in his back, he can't use his rl because of the tight area and if he does he will kill himself and maybe you too =p

Rl entrance stairs- Hide in there with shaft and lay a beam into the enemy as he turns the cornor coming up the small stairs, you have the high ground so its the most advantage point imo.

SSG yellow armor- You can hide where the health is in the cornor and ssg a enemy as hes coming by or right at you. Also sometimes hiding where the YA is with SSG works if the enemy doesnt think of blasting in there.

RA top- This SNG ambush is popluar, hide at the top and wait for the enemy to come up then drop right in front of him and Push forward with your sng firing off like mad.

Teamwork-

Coming out of lifts when its safe- I've had this problem of getting ambushed dropping out of lifts. If you are around the lifts/sng area and see that it is clear please spam your loc so I can drop and not get shitted on by the enemy as im too scared to drop sometimes. One time i thought it was clear after waiting 20 secs and retro was there waiting to blast me.

Don't pick up ammno your teammate might need, im guilty of this cause they are so shiny =p

Water- If you and a teammate is in the water and he has more health and armor than you, then save the gl or lg for him. Always leave you teammate with a good weopon, dont take both the lg and gl, that is wastefull.

Save the armor and health for the guy with rl. And please freaking save the health and armor for the teammate with quad and rl/shaft/ssg. I can't count the times this was stolen right in front of me.


SPAWNS

Spawning at SNG from start- I usually get the sng, the nails to the left, then the mega health followed by the Red armor, then i wait for next quad and jump to it right as its about to spawn. Rush the rl enemy head on hoping he blast himself or your sng does the job. At the very least you will wear him down some and he will be forced to go heal/armor up at the ya where it could be dangerous for him.

Spawning at backhall- Get the RA and if your slick the eyes. Don't go for quad because you wont get it fast enough. Watch out for the sng guy coming for the ra.

Spawning at RL- I don't know the best stragedy here, I usually go to ya and take my chances with the quad man. Or can run towards mound/ra and he might drop on me there too along with other sg rushers. Someone let me know wtf to do =p

What to do with Quad when you are not in control:

Set up a defense at the rl/ya area so your teammates can get rl/shaft/gl and armor. (IMO)

What to do with quad when you are in control:

Wait around at quad and pick people off from the teleport, mound, etc

cover the ya/rl areas, beware of DC.
If you are the shit, you can go to ra and try to take out the desperate campers there, but beware they are in sniping position and are ready for you with 200 a and rls.

[Tremor]

Hey Rampage, Great thread idea!
Keep 'em coming.

[turtlevan]

Save packs. Kill a guy who has gl rl or lg, and make a bind that says:

Bind "p" "say_team Pack at %l"

you can bind any button, "p" is just an example.

When you frag a person who you think was using one of these powerful weapons, repeatedly press this bind to let your team know where a free gun and ammo is that is being protected.

Then watch how your team responds and read the recent obituaries. If one of your teammates just died, spam that bind to let them know to come get a free guarded gun.

If your team all has good weapons "GL, RL, LG" or they respond "Negative, no FU cant come!" then you must take the pack.

If it is time to take a powerup, dont wait and guard/save the pack, either leave it, or take it, and go assist the team with powerups.

Saving packs, as retro said, is essential to helping your team have the upper hand. If you have rl and 3 or 4 ppl just died in a gun fight say in ra or at mound, it's dumb to scoop up all 3 packs, when your team could get a rl or 2.

Also know that if you died in the fight, your team is likely saving packs, so your best bet is to go as fast as possible to that area to recover a pack, and get a free kill when the other team gets there too


So bottom line,

SAVE PACKS.

You will win every time like Dave says>>>

[davemiester]

another tip: WIN ALL THE FOKIN TIIIIIIIIME! like me

[foq]

Guide to DM3* for new/non-DM3*'ers

I can't believe the narrow-mindedness of this community. There are people out there who want to play more than just DM3. Writing up a strategy guide for DM3 is pointless at best when everyone has already broken DM3 down to atomic particles and there are no new players coming in.

[monoz]

My dm tip. Camp weapons and shields. The end.

[Spoon]

Here's a tip Foq, if there are people who want to play something other than DM3, then go talk to them instead of pursuing your own personal crusade. This thread was started with the intent of helping people adjust to DM, not a discussion about the merits of a certain map. Before you turn your sights on me, I like playing other maps. But if I don't feel like playing DM3, I just do something else besides quake. And that something else doesn't include crying on an internet forum (which is apparently your number one option).

TL;DR Foq just stfu