Confessions of a Player fighting the world!

[SpectrumVixen]

When it comes to single-player, even against the good bots and the most devious of swarms of monsters on nightmare mode, the foulest maps and darkest dungeons, I'm the bee's knees.

But throw me into a deathmatch and I become the fodder and suddenly understand what it means to be the grunts I gun down and the ogres I hack to bits with axes. It doesn't matter that I've been quaking since I was ten and I'm still miscellaneous fodderling #2 or #3 on any given server I join, only marginally more dangerous than the nublet who picks up the game for the first time.

Anyone else feel me here? Suggestions, questions? Am I doomed to a life of singleplayer adventuring? WILL LASSIE GET BACK TO THE WELL IN TIME?! Find out!

[ninjamonkeyz]

i don't dm anymore, but u gotta know the map, forward and in reverse, pay attention to sounds, stay up top more.. distract them, shoot infront of them and not directly at them cause they are trying to dodge.. dominate the red armor and mega, and try to keep all the weapons to yourself. I suck at dm, maybe somebody else can give u some better advice. good luck.

[badaim]

Practice makes perfect, just play on the dm servers and you'll get the hang of it.

[Mr.Burns]

Hi Spectrum,

A lot of what Ninja said is true. Get to know the maps inside out, make as much use of splash damage as you can, avoid Polarite, keep your observations high, avoid Polarite, keep on the move to ensure you stock up with health and ammo and leave as little as possible for your opponent, avoid Polarite, Look in to writing a few binds you can use to enable you to switch to prefered weapons easily, watch out for pinch points on a map to ensure you don't get trapped, try not to do what your opponents will be expecting. etc. Oh and avoid Polarite,

Don't get deterred as not all players are so competitive and it could be a case of your server choice and / or timing. For example, sometimes i can join the bigfoot server and get repeatedly blasted to bits every few milliseconds and spend most of my time in pieces, whereas other times I can enjoy a reasonable game. It largely depends on who is on, how competitive they are, and their approach towards lesser skilled players.

I'm not sure how it works on the majority of US servers, mainly as kind American friend of mine once described it as "we wrote the book on screw you" , but some of the more helpful but equally highly skilled players, i.e. those that generally give you at least a chance to get going, that you might care to look out for in europe are Peg, Cortex, Sir Henry, Polarite (depends what mood he's in ), Jer, ORL and Cold amongst others. There are probably equally charitable players on the US servers.

It's even been known that when the more sporting players a) recognise that you are a new player and b) may be feeling generous, they will often try to help you out by doing little things like leave your ammo packs so that you can get back in to the game faster, they'll try not to chat/spawn-frag you and on occasions won't fire at you until you fire first indicating that you are ready for battle . Sporting or what?! I've even seen Peg switch to the Axe to give his opponents the best chance he could. As your skill improves these gestures will be withdrawn.

Sometimes it may help you to eyecam other more skilled players for a while to see the strategy and techniques they use and then try to develop your own style around that. Watch Polarite, Loaded1MBImage, Bong, Frenzy, Spooker and others. Learn how to move around more effectively by watching someone like Peg for while.

If you want to practice in a more realistic environment than playing against the Monsters try playing against a bot or two on your own. There are plenty of practice bots you can download or you can play on a prebuilt server using

connect bigfoot.quake1.net:26001 
addbot

The bots are usually a little more human like and can help to sharpen your skills.

You'll soon pick it up, just keep the faith


I hope this helps

Kind regards

Monty

[ninjamonkeyz]

a few more tips, headphones are a must have, its easier to tell left and right noises, bunny hop noises, and weapon/ammo/armor/mega/quad/pent.. etc. pick ups to know where somebody is on the map... avoid the minute weapons like the nail gun and shotgun for 1v1 dm .. 2v2 or more is alittle different.. there are plenty of dm'ers on here im sure they have alot better advice than i do..

[ninjamonkeyz]

another tip is when you pick up weapons or ammo for weapons or make any noise your opponent will know where you are... so you have to be discrete and very silent and strategic especially if you don't aim or ping good or both.. have to catch them off guard .. make some noises that will make them come out and look somewhere else for you... example on dm6 shoot the lg tunnel with the broomstick, and run hide somewhere so you can ambush somebody, like the hallway to the green armor, but dont pick up the ammo there, but switch to rocket launcher bounce them and set a nade or something for them to land on and switch back to rocket launcher and hit them again when they land then switch to shaft and push them back for the kill.. stuff like that.

[foq]

Game experience may change during online play.

In all seriousness, it's because you're playing against players that are just as good, or probably better than you are. Sure, you've mastered the Shambler Dance, but that trick doesn't work on real players, in fact, it will probably get you killed.

[ninjamonkeyz]

well im going to assume that the offline dm bots you have played against are either reaper or frog bots, frog bots are more strategic, but non human and cant react to trickery they have set waypoints and respond to your presence and to certain noises and go in a pattern always its easy to figure that out and rack up hella points on them in under 10 minutes of play even on nightmare settings... You have to think human when you play against humans even if those humans are using aim bots its not all about aim,, a good bit of it is, but strategy keeps you from dieing so much, and gets you some kills in as well.

[Phenom]

never stop moving, shooting rockets good, getting hit with rockets bad, and if you're Kimp... ping flood the enemy.

[Baker]

Players are into map control or guarding weapon/armor or hanging out a control point or controlling the Quad.

[MasterSplinter]

WinNuke.... FTW.