Basic basics or: What i wish someone told me half a year ago

[ozark sphinx]

thanks a lot!!! this helped me so much.

[esteel]

Glad it helped. And by the way this is also included in Nexuiz.. check Nexuiz/Docs/basics.html

[Bundy]

Oh, I miss one factor for playing. Sure, it is more a guide for 1v1, but it works in any other game (2v2 or 3v3 CTF), too. It might sound funny for most, but I feel always that psychology is a big part in games, especially when two opponents fight each other where both are even in skills/aiming. I try to explain what I am talking about:

First of all, you wont be able to play very good if you got troubles at home, with family, girlfriend, friends, money or you are just tired. Those are all things which makes it hard to play your best game, even if you dont realise it.

Secondly, if you feel that there is something wrong with your mouse/keyboard/screen or any other thing, dont play before you fixed it. It will only annoy you and make you play worse then you can!

If you feel great and want to frag some, it is time to join a game. I am a big fan of 1v1 and 2v2 games. The outcome of these games have a lot to do with your own play. If you are one, who cant take big beats, these can be very disappointing.

The start: It is very important to know the maps and where you start at. At the start (startspawn) you have to know, what is the best way to run at right now. If you have to think about that, you are allready to slow. This is a thing, which have to be a instant thing like taking the light out of your pocket when you want to smoke a cigarette. Hopefully you were faster as your opponent and that way, you grabbed more/better items. Now you are in advanatage and finally kill your enemy. This first frag doesnt mean you win, but it is the "first blood". It let your opponent realise, that this will be a tough game and that he got a disadvantage allready. If you are now able to keep the pressure on your opponent, it is very easy to break him. He will get angry and you push him around even more. Many people hate that point and will come to the conclusion that it is useless to go on. Now they start to play crap.

Midgame: Depending how strong you played till now, the game is very easy allready. If you were able to spawnfrag the opponent(s) and let them nearly no item left to come back, they will get in there head "it is over, so senseless just to try". Big fault for them, but a easy win for you. At worst you should have about the same amount of frags like him. This helps a lot to let the opponents heart beat faster then it should. Most are very nervous when the midgame starts (~7-8 minute mark) and the end of the game is open. A fragrun of 4-5 frags can now decide everything. If people cant play under pressure, they have a big problem in those games. Starting spawnpoints can be VERY lucky and hurt most, when you are allready in bad position fragwise. Most forgot now allready that there is (nearly) always a chance to come back. They just have to addapt there play to yours ...

Lategame: The game is nearly over and you have a fragadvantage. All you have to do is backwarding (just run away and hit him a bit from save distance) to not die. He have to do kills, but you dont let him. Most people dont know how much this hurts. He want to fight now, but he cant cause you just run. That way he gets more aggressive and does huge mistakes, just to get the frag (and mostly fail and die). Dependend on the time left, you are forced to play hyperaggressive. But normally I try to play my game when there are 3 minutes left and start a fragrun when its time (kill him once, grap one armor and now make a lot of pressure). If you dont use the right moment to play more aggressive for a last comeback, it is over.

I hope this is a bit readable (yeah, my english is just bad). I hope this help some people to play at the game. Sure, it wont make a nub to a pro. But you will often enough fight opponents with equal skill and then you should never forget that you only have to break him. Sometimes a weird strategy with aweful camping can do this job.

Never lose control about yourself. If you dont hit (hitting is tough when you get hit all time and dont got any armor), try to keep your head free of this stuff. Go on and take your chances.

[k0jak]

Couldn't of said it better myself, from years of TDM experience through UT / ut2k3 and ut2k4 i watched demo's and learnt a few little tricks from players, applied it to my own game and got better..i'd do everything you said in that guide, and it's nice that you split it up into 3 parts of a match, before i used to be very aggressive without too much care on armour control depending on opponent, now i tend to control the map rather then going for spawnkills constantly, tends to give me a lot more consistant games but i make less kills, however against an even / better opponent this is better.

[nifrek]

Very nice stuff Bundy.

Some things I could add about duels:

My aim is very bad, so the only way for me to beat better players in duels is to "figure them out". If you play smart you can beat more skilled players than yourself. Some players instinctively react the same way in many situations, so it's up to you to not get caught by their tricks. Most people use the same routes over and over when they're in control of the map (yes, even the best players) when running around and picking up items, or when you kill them, when they respawn they'll try to get their hands on their favorite weapon first, so you have to try to be a step ahead all the time. It always depends on current status of items (when are they going to respawn?), but it might be a good idea to run and get the good weapons as soon as you kill your opponent, as the weapons respawn every 15 seconds. That's 15 seconds where they're stuck with shotgun or a weapon they're less confortable with.

Some players are VERY fast, and one of the reason they are fast is that they know the map very well and know the fastest routes to items and weapons. Always keep track of armor/mh pickups as well as the best weapons, TIME them even if you're not the one picking them up, listen to the sounds. Eventually you'll figure out their routes and you can sneak up on them and spam rockets to their faces as they're coming at 100 miles an hour, try to cut them off.

If you just got spawnfragged a few times and you finally respawn somewhere safe, DON'T pickup every single item you see! You don't need 900 ammo for shotgun! Remember that things happen very fast, you don't need 200 cells if you don't have a weapon for it or at least lot of health/armor because you won't have time to use them even if you get a weapon, you'll most probably get in a fight and either get killed or kill before you run out of ammo. So start picking up items when you know you have a chance of beating your opponent. When you pickup an item, your opponent hears you and if he knows the map well he'll instantly know where you are and what might be your next move. It's sometimes even a bad idea to pickup items like health if you're unarmed. Before you do, make sure you know where you opponent is, so you know that you have time to get away from there if he comes hunting you.

Than again, if you're in a fight and hit your opponent in the face with 2 rockets before you die, this might be your chance at a comeback, it's risky depending on how good he is, but you might be able to finish him off with shotgun when you respawn. So you can go on a suicide mission even if you have no chance to live just to hurt him a lot, get a chance to finish them off when you respawn. So all situations are different, think of it as a game of chess, and all the possibilities you have, sometimes you have to make some sacrifices.

Never underestimate your opponent even if you're leading by a few frags, because if he's smart he can figure YOU out. Sometimes the frag count is misleading. It might be 10-5 for you but if he's keeping his calm and is studying you, you can be surprised by the outcome. If you get caught/killed a few times in the same area or situation, that might be because he's the one having a step ahead even if you don't realize it right away. So always keep track of time left to the game and don't always use the same routes, try to confuse your opponent by picking up some items that make it look(or sound) like you're going one way but actually go a different route. But don't repeat the same tricks all the time, try to be unpredictable.

So basically, try to adjust your play to your opponent's. It all comes to this: before engaging in a fight, make sure you're ready.

[nifrek]

Other tip:

Learn weapon combos. Get used to their rate of fire. Get used to explosion radius of each weapon.

Some weapons are better than others in various situations.

ie: If you opponent is fighting you with rockets, time your rate of fire to his and use mortar to make his own rockets blow to his face, even if full of health/armor it'll most probably kill him or hurt him enough so that you can switch to shotgun and finish him off. And remember that your opponent can do the same to you, so if you only have the rocket launcher, don't keep your finger pressed on the fire button, try to make you fire rate irregular while dodging his grenades. Good players will try to do what I just explained, that is, try to make your rockets blow to you face. So by making your rate of fire irregular you can make HIM fire at the wrong time and be able to fire a rocket between his shots. This is very hard because it's all happening very fast but it saved my life many times.

So remember that all weapons with projectiles that can explode (electro, mortar, hagar, rockets) can make other projectiles explode if they're in their explosion radius. This is very useful.

[Devbang]

I'm sorry for asking, but what does "hitscan" mean?

[halogene]

"Hitscan" means that the projectile you fired immediately hits the point that your crosshair aims at, with a total travelling time of 0 seconds. Thus there is no need to lead a moving target with a hitscan weapon, you can directly aim at it and if the target is in the crosshair at the time you fire, you will hit it.

[Devbang]

Ok, thank you.

[esteel]

Does that mean that When you use direct-hit (hitscan) weapons like the shotgun, machine gun, or nex, you 'just' have to directly aim with the crosshair and hit fire. is unclear? Any ideas for improvements??