I was inspired by Phil's post and started thinking of doing some Duel Commentary of the games I play, trying to explain what is going on and what I think I should do.
Commentary Videos
These are full commentary videos with editing and eye-candies. The quality improved over time, so you can take the last videos as an example.
I'd like to use these to really go into some specific aspects of the game, possibly writing stuff on the screen, and making them a mix of commentary and tutorial.
Third video, to test the new microphone. The duel itself is probably less instructive, as it is quite one sided, but since this happens in a lot of games, I wanted to discuss the concept of duel specific thinking and lobby a bit duel to clan arena players. It also gave me the opportunity of making a plan for the next videos, which I really hope to be able to follow.
Fourth video. I speeded up a recent demo, and tried to break it into phases, discussing each. Contentwise, this might be for very beginners, but I hope it is entertaining to watch also for better players.
Fifth video. This video shows what I'm learning in Aerowalk, which is a map I'm new to. After many losses, I managed to find a bit of a ballance on how much to push, and where to position, so I felt confident enough to share my thoughts. Thanks to Sub_ for his help.
Sixth video. I've been improving my aero game lately, gaining understading of the map. I'm trying to reinforce some of the comments I made in the previous videos, and show a close game with a few good moments.
This is commentary number 7. I took this demo as it was a good example of what happens when a player (in this case the opponent) leaves the opponent too much room, and does not capitalize on the damage done.
This eighth commentary shows a close match in Aerowalk. The game starts really bad for me, but I slowly manage to get the score up. I try to show my mistakes, and discuss a few general topic (getting angry, concentrate damage).
These videos are my attempt to discuss the spawn system. Please notice that time has passed since I first made them. In the meanwhile I realized that some rules are not exactly what I thought, and in fact I realized that the Interactive Spawn Visualizations (news, wiki) are probably better than any video. Still, I include the videos here for completion.
This is a lower production value video, where I just launched a demo and recorded some comments. Expect much less quality/editing. The thing is that I can do this much faster (half an hour), compared to the many hours a full-edited commentary takes me.
I'm aware of a ton of problems (audio synch, wrong screen area, bad cfg, bad audio mix). I'll try to improve with the next ones. My hope is to reach a good ratio between appreciation and time spent for the production. Feedback is welcome.
This video is meant for players that are quite new to the game, and still struggling to find a proper setup. Many of the observations are based on what I could take off various lan events I visited. As usual, feedback is welcome.
Even though I'm not that good at dueling, I was thinking of trying to host a daily stream with a few demos of game modes (Duel, TDM, CTF) and going over basics to players unfamiliar with tactics and positions and whatnot. Even if they are basic to us, to a new player they are still a foreign and unique concept. All it takes is that helpful push over the wall.
I wish I could talk for 10 min streight and always say something smart. But no, I simply can't. Besides, I do so many mistakes and bad wording that I have to re-record things multiple times so by the end I know the demo in and out.
ah ok, i was baffled at how well you did it, and imagined myself doing something similar. without watching the demo 5 times beforhand and taking notes, there would be no way i could achieve an output like that.
I'm not a ztn expert but I don't like it how you attack mh with a lower stack from lg. Once is maybe ok but not a few times in a row. Luckily your opponent didn't have the best rocket aim/brain otherwise he would have killed you at least once at the first mh engagements. I mean you don't gain much from that position. Dealing dmg without receiving any is almost impossible and if you are out of control this is the thing you want to do, because he doesn't care about one rail as long as he keeps you hitting in return. Most likely he will grab the next ya and ra uncontested as you can't attack through the ra corridor vs a decent player (grenade spam). So all you gained through that move is mh timing and a shitty position+stack for the next items whereas your opponent has position and 1xx/200 and can easily trap you whereever the fuck he wants to.
Imo better positions would be either gl platform or lower tele. From both positions you are able to get mh timing and easy dmg on your opponent without receiving any.
gl: spam grens => delay mh pick => pick ra or head towards stairs => you gain mh timing, deal potential dmg if he is to greedy at mh, receive none, red, shards etc. Depends what he is doing. Rail/spam both teleexits.
lower ya: hit rail => tele => gain mh timing, lower ya, some easy dmg and position on either red or plasma ya depending on your stack.
Always stack up with shards/ya, deal dmg and challenge either ra/mh. Strong rail => rail ra rj twice and pick mh and suddenly you are in the position to attack the next ra etc.
Positioning is way more important than perfect timing on ztn.
Btw. I always hated ztn as I just played way too stupid on it but after playing a few games vs better players and asking them what I did wrong I improved my play a lot on it. I mean if you would do these moves vs lets say dksl he will easily kill you at lg and go on a spawnrape hunt. If you survive the engagement he will just +fwd and kill you in the upper ya room.
I'm very happy to read this. I wish people would discuss these things on esr more often. I will try whay you say and possibly show it in the next video.
I wish people would discuss these things on esr more often.
you can do that very well in a game like starcraft but in quake duel its all so specific. i mean the way you attack a position an item, depends on the stacks, weapons, if he/you or both have the timing, your opponents aim for each weapon, score/time left, how you attacked in a similar situation in the past, how easy each player is going to find health afterwards, ...
you also forgot about player playstyle... from what i seen in this 2 vids he made, hes trying to play very rapha/cooller like, not taking risks...
as some guy said in yt comments... i would follow opponent thru tele, at that point he was lower stack than memento...
there were also few more times when i would stay and deal some additional dmg.. but as i said: players are different when it comes to personal gamestyles
the first commentary i heard by day9 was from 2008 or something where there was this chill-vs-combatEX grudgematch and day9 was commentating ong it, going nuts over his own jokes, being very unprofessional and swearing a lot.
people still loved it tho, i guess when sc2 came along he just jumped on it because if anyone was going to do it, why not him.
I would post one I did a few months ago, but fraps is god awful and always gets the audio desynched. I think it's because fraps splits video up into 4GB files and when I splice them in virtualdub, it adds a few inbetweens. super gay.
I don't think he ridiculed his opponents, actually he stated some positive things, and the games were close so I wouldn't take it as a typical Incubus video.
My skill level is irrelevant as long as there are others that like these videos and learn out of them. If you are afraid I might spoil them with the wrong teaching, either correct me as ffx did or make your own stuff, though I hardly believe you care, do you?
u dunno me, so u dunno wtf u talkin about. for example, there is a moment where u run from him at ra, coming from plasma, u go to shotgun, ra is up, but u cant jump cuz ur being chased. then u say smth like 'i make a mistake by picking up sg ammo and he hears me and i ruin my own trap' rofl. how the fuck could u expect to set up the sg trap for ra, camp with rockets or whatever, when in that situation u were being chased and it was obvious u were gonna be at sg?
ye ye u multi lan winner, and best quaker of all time...
i play this game for few months and understand why memo said he fucked this up... you dont... staying there would be goos if they had equal stack, or if his oppo wasnt sure hes there... both didnt happen
yeah i bet ur the best ever just noone discovered u yet, a hidden gem perhaps (nah just the 9999th delusional faggot kid) :D fuck yourself than fuck off :D
Good job op. Too bad you didn't make this video 2 years ago when it still mattered. FU to all the trolls that posted in this thread. Good job killing this game...
1, total noob video like in ztn which corner to spam, where to bounce the granade, elaborating things in warmup etc etc to help them catch up. its just nothing new anyone could say about ztn nowadays tho.
2, this type of live-commentary but in new maps like toxicity, etc.
just an idea from me.
Edited by onlyDM6forever at 07:00 CDT, 19 July 2011
Yeah, I was going to mention that. If you jump and then fire the rocket late you take about half the damage and make the jump faster. Or you could just be a boss and plasma-climb to it, but I can't do it in less than like seven plasma balls so it kind of defeats the purpose for me.
Aim for 3 balls. 2 is doable since the upstep/chainjump update but you have to have the perfect angle so the ra platform " grabs " you when you hit the wall.
I can upload demos but I don't think you'd learn anything from them.
The 2-ball plasma climb just takes a few minutes of practice to get consistently, but 3 is definitely the safest way to go. Any more is completely inefficient.
True, it's less consistent, but if you practice it you'll eventually get it every time, no matter the circumstances. I get it often in duels, but i usually opt to RJ when I need to get to RA fast, because the plasma climb is slower.
Yes, that's weak. I'm not very comfortable with the current setup, and all jumps to red are non smooth, regardless of rocket plasma and such. I need time to adjust things, to dare doing fancier moves.
Its nice that you do these, but from what i watched you mostly just blabber about positioning and about running items, while you dont talk a shit about the most important thing: mindgame. Of course it might be that its cuz you dont do it even urself in vods, but even at any semi-high skill games almost all games are decided by blocking routes of ur opponent in unexpected places instead of camping @items, to be honest its so expected that you will never get any frags from that if opponent isnt raging. Thats something important too, reading your opponents emotional state. You miss totally reading opponents feelings, like if he isneedy / raging / calm and abusing his mental state.
On top of that all you shoul play vs more skilled players for vods, checked two of them and they both play like shit, i mean they are below avg skill level in duel.
So all in all, the easiest way to make this better is to take a demo of pro players or other good players and review it instead of your own demos.
I think you hit the biggest problem I have, which simply put is that I'm not very good at duel. I know the few things I learned from 2GD casting, plus I have about 1000 duel games played.
The good thing is that doing this stuff gets me feedback I would not receive otherwise. Should I become a better dueler, the video content will improve.
Thanks for the feedback though, I really appreciate [+]
I think you are right about most of your comment, but ive to disagree with you on one point:
I dont think that memento_mori is "below average skill in duel".
If you upload a demo of yourself you may recognize that you do many faults that you would not have expected from yourself. Mori had some close fights against Draven (correct? or was it dem0n?, dont remember) at the UGC. So he is NOT below average. He is certainly not a top player, but better than you think.
Looking at other poeples gamestyle always makes you thinking that the other one is a noob. If id watch your demo I could make multiple CORRECT statements about, what you are doing wrong and whatnot even you are probably a better player than me.
I also have to disagree with you on the point of watching pro players. Reviewing your OWN demo makes far more sense to me than watchin the pros. Because they do stuff, you wont get away with, because your aim is worse etc.
I just said that his opponents were below average, also I know meme's skill level as I have played him like 10 times or so, he aint bad, but since even I can win him quite easily he aint at top either.
Sometimes it is hard to read a demo though when you don't play it yourself. You cannot always know what the player thought at any given time. I find it really hard (especially) live casting (which is why my casting is pretty bad) to feel where the opponent is when you are not playing.
However, I guess when watching the demo multiple times and having both povs than you can make really good predictions etc. otherwise its always best to cast on your own games (imho!).
the only suggestion i have is to eq the microphone audio, theres far too much bass which makes it harder to understand what youre saying.
try either a high pass filter at about 150 hz or some kind of shelving eq. Then after that some light compression will help to smooth out the volume changes..
Great jobs with making those vida, but god... stop saying ur gettin lucky every time u see ur enemy...
selfconfidence is far the most important factor of duel, if u belive u can hit - you will hit... telefrags are lucky, not escaping from hard situations because youe opponent fucked up...
also in on-the-fly vid you say stealing red infront of your enemy is stupid... its not, when you got frag advantage... even if you die, u just made you enemy waste more ammo, time, and guess what - he wont have 200 armour for next 25 seconds! pure win situation.
I see your point. Don't take this as an objection - I will try to use that word less and more appropriately - but I'd like to expand my thoughts on it.
I called luck whatever big mistake my opponent does, in the perspective that a better opponent would not do that and instead would punish me severely. At the same time I want to have a clear distinction between what I consider a correct outcome based on following a certain methodology, and random sugar obtained by a particular lucky situation.
Just to exemplify. If I have stack advantage, I enter an lg vs lg fight, and win, that is just how things are supposed to be. This is something I can teach (stack advantage -> lg fight -> profit!) . But if I go to the same fight with a lower stack and just out-aim my opponent? What lesson is that? Play with lesser aimers? That is just a particular instance where things went my ways, but it is a conceptual mistake as it would not work against most players (I'm not making these videos for strenx/killsen, am I?).
And there are tons of situations like this. I'm below 80 points and am the one who hit the rail first and get red/mega right afterwards. Would that move always work? No. Is that kind of move something you want to teach to others? No, it's just a given that hitting helps. I'd rather focus on the troubles I would get in if I did not hit, as that is the experience most beginners have.
So, in general I should probably find better wording, but this is what I meant with "luck".
Edit: I have to think more about your remark on stealing red. Thanks for pointing that out.
This is somewhat true. I came into Quakelive having never played a Quake title before, and videos like this along with watching a shitton of casts helped a lot.
Have you considered doing this with other people's demos as well? Not necessarily pro's, but average and beginning players. I remember back in March when I was first starting out one of the more helpful VOD's I watched was QLTV's coverage of some sort of beginner's duel cup.
I have a couple of demos that would lend themselves well to this sort of thing (for example, coming back to win from 3 or 4 frags down by making the right decisions), but I haven't played this game for long enough to have any real insight other than explaining what happened.
to be fair I feel like I was far from what I can do on aero in that game since I've hardly been playing these past 2 months but still nice to see you improved quite a bit. apart from me not hitting as well as I should I definitely saw some crucial mistakes in my decision making and general play though, which is something I'll have to work on if I should get back to playing a little more seriously again.
liked the graphics you did for the ra-situation, curious to see what you're gonna come up with for the next videos, so good job and keep them coming!
Excellent vid, I can definitely say that your videos make me think about my own games and commentaries a lot more. I feel like I'm still pretty new to quake (only started really playing in February this year), so most of my focus on improvement is still basic mechanics. Strafe jumping, using the right weapon, aim, general map knowledge, etc. I give so little thought to strategy outside of a "10 second window". Thanks for making these, keep it up!
Haha that would be pretty fun. Ping would definitely be a big problem. Also I think Memento_Mori would take me down pretty easily. I'm still pretty new to dueling (and quake for that matter), and still have so many basic mechanics to improve, that I don't give a ton of thought to strategy yet. I just try to run the items, and cut my opponent off when it seems obvious. I think he'd win, even with a ping disadvantage. If we ever play though, someone should stream it!
I guess it is better to wait for one of us visiting the other continent. I tried playing with 150 ping last night. 90% of the things I know about weapon choice/positioning ended up killing me... It's a different game, and way down the broken line if you ask me.
Prettyawesome is there, right? I havent heard of him lately.
Yeah over 65 ping the game is pretty unplayable. My movement isn't the greatest (I feel like I snag a lot of corners by not getting my strafe jump angles perfect), but over 65 ping I snag on EVERYTHING. Oddly, I can still hit about 30 lg, but yeah, my game just falls apart.
As for prettyawesome, not sure what happened. He kind of fell of the map =/ Maybe he got discouraged. Would be understandable. It's a tough game, and a tougher community, haha.
20s: he was on your spawn too fast, probably he didn't take red! This means he has 100 HP. After the first rail you jump randomly towards the yellow side: He just listens and hit you because you ran into him. I would have forced the opposite, let him make a decision. He'll probably go to the red side. Anyway i would have tried to go to the red side and take the lower RL as soon as i heard some steps. He overextended and isn't healty, i think the best option here is to try take something out of it. If you force a missed rail you can go to the strong side of the map, take RL and be inbetween red and mega.
24s: Ur best option here is probably to die and delay him a little. But imho he made a mistake, instead of just deny you mega and the strong side of the map he took the telly and fell down. You have a chance to catch him off guard and rush to Red.. If it works it's great, if it doesn't nothing'll really change for you.
33s: anyway it turns out ok because he decided to go red instead of forcing your spawn and take mega and then red. Now you have same stacks or so.
50s: i would have probably stayed silent around lg for a while.. Similar stacks, first dmg is crucial and you have position.
57s: bad weapon choice he has upper ground and you are running at him.
1m02: you decided to run, then do it and protect your stack, staying bottom and engage a railfight has no upside imho. When you hear him around green, you won't have the angle so take the telly because he can retreat to red anytime after or during the battle.
1m20: red is still up, u rushed your rocket there on the spawn and could have punished his lack of respect greatly, unlucky! Whatever, but should go take position on red.
1m50: after the rail you have similar stacks and that was your best case scenario most likely. Just do the jump to rail after you took the telly and you are in good position for the big items.
2m: he misses the rail and drops down. As soon as he jumped you had the chance to rush red immediatly, take health bubbles and counter what he does. It turns out you'll be a little late and he'll catch you.
2m10: he catched you, there's no upside in escaping at that point. Surviving with 10 health (what would have happened if you didn't try to hit a third rocket) is worse than be dead, so you are just making ur second rocket harder.
2m16: good spawn. 20 secs to next major item. He's outstaking you by too much. To me this is a perfect situation for... A SNAEKY-DUMB RL FIGHT! Expecially on the YA side of the map as it's harder to get spawnfrags afterwards.
Imo you want an RL fight where you shoot the first rocket, die, score 150 dmg, put him on around 100 health, and have big time chances to steal one of the next big item AND have a stack similar to his.
This fight has to happen soon so you'll have time to take some weapons of the spawn and go in decent position and him going to YA... At least try to set a trap and give yourself a chance do catch him.
2m30: that's a good position for the items. When you hear him going to red after the jumppad, set yourself up to escape to the yellow bubble ledge on your right, not the GA hole on the left. Now you lost your positional advantage and have to run away.
2m40: you managed to find yourself in great position (upper RL). Jetro overextended. Go red without any hesitation.. Imho even something crazy like dropping down to mega with RL (if you have the exact timing) is better than just standing there doing nothing.
2m48: this is the battle he wants. He will do dmg at YA and take Red afterwards.
3m05: very risky.. You got the kill but for what? You are too low now and there's no health. If he gets the SG after the RG he has stack, positional and weapon (you can't fight not long range not med-close range) advantage.
3m17: you are lucky to be alive imho, not going to mega and scare him after the missed rail it's the right thing to do anyway! Because even if you are not railable, if he hits one you are still in a bad situation. Now you have stack and weapons advantage and you have the possibility to make him pay if he stays at mega.
3m20: This push turns out greatly and gives you the map, the odds were on your side. Great LG to RG combo, you are in control.
4m05: stay in the fight! He has like 50 and you have 250 and red is up for you. Stay there and maybe abuse lg a little, spamming and so on. Give urself the chance to get a kill and a spawnfrag since he's willing to fight.
4m15: he was kinda lucky. Anyway i don't see why you jumped to rail exposing yourself to damage just to deny the rail. Stay at upper RL with Rail, take YA without being damaged and you'll be in time and in great position for the big items.
4m20: lol
4m30: risky, but he's out of position. Little bit of luck but your odds weren't bad, very high reward. Very good rockets.
4m38: you are too kind, lg him xD
4m40: you exposed yourself waaay too much. Keep the upper ground and keep position on rail and YA.
5m12: why on hearth did you came all the way back to the Yellow Side against his lg?! You gave him 100 free dmg.
5m20: you rushed your moves, he's not healthy and you have 150, decent position and rockets. You even know where he is. If you are patient and counter his moves (or do some fakes) you would probably have a good chance to get some armor and weapons (YA and rail or position for red and LG).
5m30: go LG immediatly. He doesn't have much health and Red is up!
5m45: you have an RL, after the YA pickup you have similar stack... Use RL not nades.
6m: :DDDDD! Good job afterwards collecting GA and YA.
6m22: why peaking with lg? Unefficient fight and he punishes you.
6m57: don't go up the stairs next to the left wall, very easy for him to hit good damage and run. I would have gone up by the right side, RJ'd up to red and rushed mega. He's too low to do anything really. And you'll have a good chance to get frags and spawnfrags with your 200-200 stack.
7m05: It doesn't turn out great but whatever, it's a kill, but should go to the red side after mega!!
7m25: upper RL and YA had priority imho
7m40: you dropped too soon :p probably going for the lg and red position was better. Nice try anyway but it's harder if you haven't the exact time on mega.
7m45: he took the telly! Try rushing the red side immediatly... Unlucky you messed up that rocket when he landed, would have been crucial.
8m: very nicely done.
8m05: take YA, turn 180 and rush directly the "upper" GA spawn! It's the standard spawnfrag route there i think. And you wanna position yourself around there anyway because of the items timings. This will ultimately cost you the game.
8m10: you are too scared to stay there\go to his spawn position and too slow to go at rail via the teleport. After that you'll just be a little late for everything, items, shots, better position and so on.
8m15: After you drop down from RG, probably leaving Mega, going to red and RJ up is probably the safer option.. You'll be the only one with lg and you have the option to use that advantage at yellow and to make your comeback.
GG anyway, making analisys of a video it's 10000000000000000000000000x easier than playing it.
![shaftwhores only by [EXE]dann](/files/avatars/2007/51852-shaftwhore.gif "shaftwhores only by [EXE]dann"){kind=small}
