Quake Live! - Page 53

On February 13 2014 06:18 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
I'm thinking of picking up Quake after easily excelling at various other, similar shooters. I've looked up noob guides, shoved my ego out of the way, all that good stuff, but I have to ask: just how inhospitable is Quake Live for beginners? I know it's years-old and legendarily difficult, but just how long is it going to take me to stop having my face smashed into the ground?

On February 13 2014 06:18 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
I'm thinking of picking up Quake after easily excelling at various other, similar shooters. I've looked up noob guides, shoved my ego out of the way, all that good stuff, but I have to ask: just how inhospitable is Quake Live for beginners? I know it's years-old and legendarily difficult, but just how long is it going to take me to stop having my face smashed into the ground?

On February 13 2014 06:59 MasterOfPuppets wrote:


Well if you claim to excel at similar shooters (which I'd assume would be along the lines of Unreal Tournament 99/2004, Painkiller, Half-Life 1 deathmatch, Team Fortress Classic) then your hitscan aim, rocket aim and likely movement fundamentals should be decent.

In which case, the most important thing to work on is item timing, weapon and item cycling, easily making your way around the map. You want to always keep tabs on item spawn timing and make your decisions based on that. If you're in control, you want to keep taking the items or set up a bait trap, depending on the situation. The takeaway is that you want to use your knowledge of item spawn to deny your opponent the items, one way or the other. If you're not in control, you'll have to use map awareness and the aforementioned timing to avoid your opponent (unfavourable engagements) and take every opportunity to build up stack so that you may take favourable engagements later on.

You can sort of equate that to the map control and macro of RTS games like StarCraft, it's a bit of a stretch but it makes some sense.

Unless your aim is k1llsen/strenx/toxjq/evil level (which let's face it, it's never gonna be) you almost never want to rush down opponents unless you have a very strong stack and/or positional advantage. If you play enough on every map to get a good feel for it and practice the more methodical, control-oriented play, you're well on your way to gain a few hundred Elo points. ^^

As for what maps to practice first, that's very much debatable. Aerowalk is one most people suggest because it's fairly small and straight-forward and there's many ways to make things happen even when severely behind, but at the same time it's certainly one of the less strategic maps, one where aim and engagements are often more important and impactful than a safe, well thought out, control-oriented play. On the other end of the spectrum, maps like Bloodrun and Furious Heights can be pretty brutal for a beginner. :s

We had a great player and insightful poster in the thread before, Phyrigian I believe was his name and he did explain some concepts a lot better than I can. (what with him still being active, whereas it's been a long time for me ^^)

Still, what I think you'll find is that there's an astounding amount of depth to this game at the highest level, especially when people like Rapha, Cypher, cooller, evil, strenx, toxjq are involved, but you mustn't let that discourage you. Good luck! ^^

On February 13 2014 07:22 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:

Woops, perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I tend to divide shooter gameplay into two categories: skill-based (Quake, Tribes, etc.) and tactical (CoD, Battlefield, every single fucking fps on the market these days). The few skill-based shooters that have come out in the past few years I've gobbled up and become pretty good at in a really short period of time. Meaning I've gotten really good at Tribes: Ascend and Strike Vector, not one of those classics. My aim is most likely not up to snuff, along with my everything else.

On February 13 2014 07:42 MasterOfPuppets wrote:


I see. In that case, the weapons you want to be focusing on are your rocket launcher, your lightning gun and your railgun. The hardest part, as usual in fast twitch games is predicting where your opponent will move next; I'd imagine you'll struggle at first with opponents strafejumping around the map, while at the higher levels of play people tend to favor quicker, more short and spastic dodges rather than jumping around all over the place. But these three weapons are your bread and butter as good usage of them can very decisively win engagements and often turn the tide of the game. Knowing when to switch between them during an engagement is also a very useful skill toi have, although it mostly comes with experience. All three are very important, but which you'll be best at comes down to personal preference: if you can maintain constantly solid aim throughout a fight, you'll probably gravitate towards LG, whereas if you're more the super-twitch sniper kind, you should love the railgun and the ridiculous shots you can pull off with it. ^^

Grenades are most likely next in order of importance, but they're mostly used as a zoning out / area control type tool, like for instance spamming the Mega area from the Red Armor on Bloodrun, or lobbing a few grenades near a teleporter exit to deter your pursuer. The plasma gun is fairly situational, its damage output is absolutely ridiculous but it's extremely hard to control and not very effective at longer ranges, although it too can be used as some sort of area control in that it forces your opponent to move out of its way. Shotgun is fairly straight-forward, but in the vast majority of games you will prefer not to use it in favor of one of the above.

Still, as long as you have decent aim and a basic understanding of the weapons and how to use them, the more important aspects of the game for now will be map control and item control. As some like to put it, "playing the items, not the opponent". While aim and the art of engaging are very important, especially on smaller maps like Aerowalk, Toxicity and Hektik, being able to control the map and the items is an even more important skill overall and its what you want to focus on and develop if you want to get good. Same case as with people advocating macro and mechanics first for a game like StarCraft. ^^

It certainly doesn't suffice to be just a great aimer, since you can be outsmarted. As an aside, I've had the pleasure to watch strenx stream himself playing SPART1E one night, it was an absolute massacre even though strenx never used his superior aim (against an in-form SPART1E who was almost as good when it comes to LG and RG). ^^

On February 13 2014 08:23 DPK wrote:
These are all great advises, but I think he should at least focus on learning how to strafe jump properly before anything else. Without it, he will most likely get his ass kicked against people who knows how to. It's so much easy to get away or chase someone who don't know how to strafe jump. It also can be very helpful item/control wise. I know that being able to strafe jump saved my life numerous times.

On February 13 2014 08:15 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:

Last questions: any game modes/ladders I should play as a noob? How tolerant are people of lag? I have lag spikes from time to time. Their length and how often they occur varies widely, but I sure as hell am not going to be able to get rid of them anytime soon.

On February 13 2014 08:23 DPK wrote:
These are all great advises, but I think he should at least focus on learning how to strafe jump properly before anything else. Without it, he will most likely get his ass kicked against people who knows how to. It's so much easy to get away or chase someone who don't know how to strafe jump. It also can be very helpful item/control wise. I know that being able to strafe jump saved my life numerous times.

On February 13 2014 16:08 PineapplePizza wrote:
Play FFA; Clan Arena is kind of obnoxious, as you're likely to spend most of your time spectating, waiting for your team's railgun hero to hurry up and die so you can play the next round.