www.holysh1t.net

and http://www.trickingq3.com/tutorials.html

Good question.
There are many things that took me long time to figure them out.
Afaik unfortunately there is no mentoring culture in ql. Most ppl learn basic stuff from tutorials and everything else from countless hours of playing.

I learned a lot from ppl describing their techniques in forum posts scattered all over the quake-related sites and I'm sure there are many more "tricks" still unknown to me.

We have esr wiki but it's rather empty. There are some more detailed posts on ql forums describing particular skills.

play duel, or something with items. If possible try to play defensive and controlling the map instead of rushing frags with lg, because defensive = thinking.

when watching people play (streams, youtube, etc.) try to think why did that player moved to that place instead of the other. Also think where his opponent might be.

Practice timing items. This is crucial.

Wrong. Dont start with duel. Stick to ca/ffa and work on aim/movement.

for a couple of games sure, but not thousands and thousands.

You can work on both of those things in duel, and to better effect. CA/FFA is okay when you first start out but there's a limit to what you can learn from it.

CA/FFA only for getting a feel for the game, using it to actually improve in any significant way is silly.

I find it extremely hard to improve my technique while playing duel because my mind is preoccupied with other things.
I need to practice these changes in warmup/ca and then I can introduce them in duel.

I have things like dodging, aiming angles or rocket jumps in mind.

well, in theory, you can pracc things you mentioned in a duel, but only if u dont care about outcome of map...

i belive such things should be done mindless, so you can concentrate on things like position, enemy awarness, timings etc

If you don't care about the outcome of the map then you basically play warmup and I mentioned warmup.

I can give you one example. While playing 1v1 ca I figured out that my I do best at lg vs lg when I concentrate on enemy beam and my health status (to see when I'm being hit) and keep actual aiming and enemy "out of focus". I don't think it would be possible to learn it in duel where prolonged 1v1 lg fights are rare. On the other hand on maps like dm13 they are crucial.

not exactly... for example you want to pracc timing... you join a duel server, start a match, and try to be at every item there is, no matter the stack...

its good pracc, eventho you will prolly lose

By "technique" I meant fighting skills. Certainly not item control.

you can pracc it in a duel aswell :-) ignore items, just try to deal MAX dmg...

every aspect of quake[except movement] can be pracced in duel, but you have to focus only on it, and lose in the proces... thats why ca/ffa is bettar

tbh I lose in ca too when I practice certain things. Maybe it's just me but I can't play duel like this. I automatically start timing items, predicting opponent etc.

warmup and jumping alone on the map is still practicing duel.

Actually the latter is a great way to improve: do trick jumps on duel maps, which can be found in youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS6dNZGmIrE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkgN9ricd-Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN3dYOo_6qo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJslgCEvfBE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfH_q-VqvuM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urL6Zj1J794
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52zu5_NgECk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JqphruG1Mc
anything that looks trick jumpy on streams/videos. There's like 10+ used every day on each map.

He will have enough time for jumping alone on the map while waiting for someone to join ;)

Those things are very basic concepts that should be understood before one even tries to become good at duel. Just as you should know the maps, the weapons, the item locations, the common useful jumps and so on.

Once these things are known and understood, improvement of those things should become a natural progression that as far as I'm concerned is slowed by playing CA. Just have what you want to improve in the back of your mind going into the game, you don't have to think about it constantly.

Those things are very basic concepts that should be understood before one even tries to become good at duel.

I have ~1600 elo and I'm still improving in these areas. I would have bored myself to death if I had spend all this time playing ca.
And not by continuous, natural progression - this pretty much stopped long time ago. I improve by new ideas and focused practice.

No, sry you cant and wont. I have taught some guys the essential stuff and the quickest way was always with ca. Im not insisting on thousands of games but at least a couple of ingame days should be spend on ca servers.
The reason is that as long as you need to focus on the basics while you duel your learning process will be slow as fuck or even stagnate due to being overwhelmed. Not only have you to focus on the usual stuff like timing, positioning, enemy pos and spawns you also have to think actively about weapon choice, dodging and simple movement. I think we can all agree that this is supbar and not really enjoyable.
On the other hand in ca I can teach all the above in a very simple way and work even on one thing at a time. Basic dodging with and against certain weapon? Easy, get him on a small map (thunderstruck lololol) and for example do lg vs lg.
Positioning? Eeasy, spec him and tell him how to react. Yeah positioning in ca is kinda important even on pub :P.

Imo both the best and also most fun way to improve in quake.




http://www.qlranks.com/duel/player.aspx?name=mythson

Buddy of mine. Beat 1200 elo guys easily with almost no duel experience just because he destroyed them in plain combat. His dmg output usually is so high compared to his opponents that a simple forgotten mh or bad positioning wasnt really a problem. Simple mechanics and a 35% lg worked :P(not that he is any good it is just enough for most of the low elo guys).
Now some might argue that this is bad but as soon as someone didnt lose in simple combat he kinda got shit on and realized that he cant take every fight.
Keep in mind that he has beaten players with over 300 games on ztn. His basics are on a way higher level than others hence a way bigger improvement in duel overall.

Just my 2 cents which I have from speccing low elo guys asking for my advice and teaching a couple of stuff.

Another thing which comes up to mind is a friend on your same lvl. Then I would suggest duel server and simple warmup. That is actually the way how and why I became soooooo fucking good ;)

have a plus, wise friend of mine...

ps: ur shit, all aim no brain :b

Working on the brain part atm but I guess I wont get rid of my brainfarts :D

Buddy of mine. Beat 1200 elo guys easily with almost no duel experience just because he destroyed them in plain combat.

Sorry but that's just bullshit. First of all he is losing to 1200 elo guys as well. Second of all destroying 1200 elo guys with aim doesn't sound like such a big deal considering those guys probably can't move and time items on top of not being able to aim. He'd probably be raping those guys had his experience been in duel instead of ca. You basically can only learn to shaft in ca. You can't learn timing, you can't learn spawns, you won't learn how to use the rl when you always have lg and rail(so pg, sg and gl go out the window too). You won't learn to strafe jump since you always rocketjump.

If you wanna do a lot of pull ups you practice pull ups, not rows. If you still don't get my point: He4rTL3sS.

also, 1200 elo is the default starting elo for everyone

Yes, it could be a good player from another game or mode just starting to duel or a total newbie.

No it is not.

First of all he is losing to 1200 elo guys as well.

Never said otherwise, didnt I?

Second of all destroying 1200 elo guys with aim doesn't sound like such a big deal considering those guys probably can't move and time items on top of not being able to aim.

Yeah but these guys arent beginners. A beginner will eventually drop down to around 800 elo and probably even lower. 1200 is not!!! beginner level which most of you assume ...

He'd probably be raping those guys had his experience been in duel instead of ca.

I doubt it because as I explained the learning process would have been way slower. He is still totally overwhelmed when he plays duel. Imagine if he had to focus on aim and movement too.

You basically can only learn to shaft in ca. You can't learn timing, you can't learn spawns, you won't learn how to use the rl when you always have lg and rail(so pg, sg and gl go out the window too). You won't learn to strafe jump since you always rocketjump.

Did you actually read what I wrote or just want to contradict with me because you despise ca so much? Ofc you can learn how to play with rl. 2v2 ca is completly different than your casual lol gren polak dm6 pubbing ... Dunno why you even bring strafe strafejumping into the arguement because it is just a plain dumb one.

If you wanna do a lot of pull ups you practice pull ups, not rows. If you still don't get my point: He4rTL3sS.

Your arguementation is so weak. You just want to disagree with me for the sake of it. If you want to practice football you`ll split the practice into small sections and dont let the kids play 24/7 on the field. If you want to get strong you`ll start with the basics. If you want to learn a language you won`t start with reading romeo and juliet blabla.

Btw if you take heartless as example then Ill take nons as example ;)
http://www.qlranks.com/duel/player/nons

I`ve played and specced my fair share with beginners and almost everyone had similar problems. They sucked at the basics. And pls stop that bullshit about timing and so on because timing is not essential to become good at duel.

What exactly is nons an example of? He's got 3300 CA's and 2500 duels. Do you mean to tell me if he had 5800 duels he'd be shit?

No but he has 2500 duels and is on 2100 elo. And as far as I know he was always just a ca player.

yes look at baksteen, he is only playing duel (93% of the time), so he is obviously shit :D

2500 duels is A LOT ... 5800 duels and actually practiced propperly, i might have a nodge on having a 2000 elo aswell :D

*and yes I was sarcastic"

I find that when I play CA I start to get worse over time. If I play duel then join CA I do way better than I do if I play CA all the time. Also, for a new player I would suggest FFA. Why? Well I'm not sure if you notice but people flame all the time. I've noticed (by playing games with my girlfriend and some other friends) that when people who aren't used to the game get flamed they panic and don't like it. That stress will be in Clan Arena, your team will be horrible if you suck. In FFA you can go 1 kill for 100 deaths and no one will say anything except perhaps that you suck. In CA (even at tier 4 when a tier 3 is around) one person doing badly gets flamed for the whole game. I'd rather put noobs in a safer environment where they can enjoy playing for themselves, instead of being bashed.

cg_teamchatsonly 1

they rarely flame through teamchat

Most games I see flame its in Team, I also flame in Team when I do. But that's a good idea. Thanks.
But there is also the pressure of letting your team down, the people I've watched don't like the team losing because of them.

The thing is that ca can be indeed kinda obstructive. Especially when you got the kind of players who think too highly of themselfs and flame and kick everyone who might not conform with their "skill" standard. Dunno why people take ca serious in the first place but that is another topic :P. Im not saying that you should spend the rest of your playtime on ca servers just as long as you`ll get comfortabe with the basics and then ofc you should start with duel (or tdm/ctf whatever your preferred mode is)

check out some stuff on memento's channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s14EO-YI14Q


also:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdkDjsBiO58

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-H2bKcKUMs

this may also help
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ENJmEJI8d8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-faeDPHb0KM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxRy09GgjCA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhLFmpDxCNk

I actually typed three different answers already and trashed them all, fuck this question it's impossible to answer and that's the main reason why Quake is a dying game.
Best of luck.

start playing CA/FFA in order to get basic like movement, timing, aim, dodge...

when you get decent, or at least get the idea you can start duel... i suggest slow, tactical maps, as faster maps are basiclly the same, just faster...


Make a SWOT analysis of your basic skills, or play some duels with decent ppl so they will tell you at what you are bad or good...

In the duel itself, concentrate on the BAD elements of your gameplay, eg: i have positioning problem, i try to watch my position all the time... elements you are good at, wont suffer from this... As opportunities and threats you should treat elements that are hard to improve, and you should force/avoid such situations... eg: dodge is shit - dont go into direct fight without stack advantage

play 3-4 duels a day, to not rage much, and belive me - you will be raging a lot... after that watch your own demos, and try to find mistakes AND good moves of yours... if you have problems with finding mistakes, send it to some helpfull people... write down good/bad moves, and try to eliminate bad ones, and use more often the good ones...




you should get the grip of "how to" after rather short amount of time, like few months

http://esreality.com/post/2383373/hitsu-rocking-it/

At least 1400 elo advices (hitsu) is better than 1200 (heartless)

as i said many times: i know how to, just cba, no time etc

almost 10 years of online gaming experiance gives you a lot

e: also, almost 1.5k! lets celebrate

oh so hitsu = jamerio!!

i dont have bafta :<

oh so hitsu = jamerio!!

:DDDDDDDDDDDDD

n1, have a plus

think, watch, play.

And occasionally eat, drink, sleep, pee-pee and poo-poo.

Not necessarily in-game practice advice, just a bit of general advice:

- Everytime you come across someone who is around your skill level and appears to be a decent person, add them to your friends list, and always try to play with these people, not only to practice together but also to reduce the amount of time and nerves wasted dealing with retards.

- Do not accept the first clan invite that is sent your way. Make sure you get to know them first, make sure it's not a clan full of retards. Avoid large clans with 300 members... they just invite people for the sake of it. Find a small-medium clan where everybody knows and respects eachother.

- Don't play exclusively Clan Arena... it's the least productive gamemode, the least rewarding, and it's also a retard magnet. That said, it's fun to play occasionally on good maps with people you know, and balancing the teams.

- You will occasionally get raped. You will occasionally get severely raped, repeatedly. You will also rage sometimes if you happen to be having a bad day in addition to the repeated rape. If you're never getting raped, you're not doing it right.

- Do not get obsessed with your statistics or what you want people to think when they see your statistics. Unless you are a world class player, the only person who is ever going to give a fuck about your statistics is you, at most. This is mainly in reference to your kill/death and win/loss ratios.

- Do not tolerate faggotry. If you see someone that is constantly being a faggot, or has faggotry intentions (oh, you will), avoid them like the plague. Typical faggotry behaviour includes (but is not limited to): tierslumming, teamstacking, winjoining, repetitive insulting, compulsive whining, mid-game ragequitting, teamkilling, consistent last-man-standing, conspiracy to not shuffle, conspiracy to kick for no reason, conspiracy to not ready-up, conspiracy to not drop weapons, conspiracy to hog all powerups and items, conspiracy to stat-pad, conspiracy to noob-stomp, etc...

- Remember that hippy-speak buddha-bullshit that goes something like "you can only learn by making mistakes"? Well it applies to Quake more than anything else in life. Play, lose, learn, repeat. Always aim to play against people who are somewhat better than you. (But not excessively better than you.)

- Buy pro/premium. Less faggots! More game!

- Tune into QL events and see the pros play in all their glory. ESR news section has all the schedules and links.

- Bind one key for each weapon.

- Make sure your mouse and mousepad aren't absolute shit.

- Understand the config. You should be able to know what a config is, how it works, how to modify it. As time passes, you will become a master of your own config and fine-tune it to your personal preferences. Search Quake Live Config Guide in google for more info.

- Welcome!

quite ok i guess, what i would add is that to have more bias towards hardware, mouse and mouse surface are important, but it is also important to have headphones with microphone - headset,

i played in my early days for a long time without headphones or proper quality headphones, and i did not know that my own lg and railgun makes sound which the opponents can hear and know where u are.

ah yes, I completely forgot about headphones

Give us your profile link. There are many levels of being "quite new to the game" and it's important to learn things in correct order.

1)Find a mouse sensitivity which allows you to track decently AND move smoothly at the same time. I can not stress this enough: smoothly.
Bonus points if it allows you to do quick 180° turns as well. The default sens (4@400 dpi) is pretty decent to most people and offers a good start, but anything in the 15-30 cms/360 area is doable.

2) learn how to strafe and circlejump: don't play a single game until you're able to complete at least lines 1-2 of any strafe jump practice map (in QL: raztrainql_beta3 in Q3 defrag: tr1ckhouse_beta3, xcm_tricks2 and so forth).
In raztrainql_beta3, instead of doing strafe lines you could simply run from the wall of the 1st line to the wall of the last line: it's easier to check your mistakes, no downtime, and you should get a final speed of at least 900/1000 ups.
Use cg_speedometer 3 to check your speed.
Learn both single beat strafejump, double beat and half beat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeFRaG#cite_note-21

Good places in QL maps to train circlejumps:
-Campgrounds: from side to side of the Red Armor stairs (easy)
-Hell's gate: from a side to the central bridge above the void; difficulty changes depending where in the side of the map you start
-Almost Lost: from the "above central jump pad area" to the edge where Mega Health respawns (easy/medium)
-Vertical Vengeance: inside the central "building", on the level where the jump pad is (one level above the ground), from side to side (medium -)
-Furious Heights: in the Red Armor area, from the 50hp bubble ledge to the pillar in front of the bubble, or from the same edge to the Rocket Launcher pillar (medium+)
-Fatal instinct: in the central area, from one pillar to another. (very hard)

There are more places, find them out by yourself.

2b)
Rocketjumping.
I can't help you here, all it takes is practice.
(/Devmap campgrounds,/god, /give all, /addbot bones 5, play)

3) Once you're familiar with movements, and feel ok with your sensitivity, work on your cfg.
Find the settings that help you most,graphics, crosshairs and so forth.
Check "the ultimate quake live guide" for help.

Spend a day or two experimenting with different values for the cvars, find a combination that you like, stick with it.
Starting a cfg from scratch is technically better but harder, I'd suggest downloading Stermy's/Noctis'/Fox's cfg and start from that, or try other players' as well.
http://configs.eu/quakelive/

Bind everything. Every single weapon.

A good, clean cfg really makes the difference.


4)Now you're ready to play. Practice a lot. A lot.
A.
Lot.
It's normal to be bashed at first, everyone of us has been utterly destroyed in the first weeks of quake (and sometimes still is).
The correct mindset here is being grateful everytime you lose, since you have a chance to learn something new and improve,instead of having a futile ego burst.

Learn what Positioning means.
Always move, never stand still.
Focus on dodging instead of aiming. (This is very important, in warmups sometimes try to shoot as less as you can and instead focus on dodging everything).
Mix up your dodge patterns: alternate between small dodges with medium pattern dodges (left right leeeft right left riiiiiiiiiight left riight leeeft right left riiight leeeeeeeeeft etc)

Rocket Launcher: aim at the feet. Don't jump against it(sometimes works but its risky). Dodge with +back and +forward as well, instead of +left and +right only)
LG: dodge first (you'll see the enemy beam on the screen, watch its pattern and move accordingly), don't jump, don't take jumppads, abuse line of sight to your advantage
Railgun: wait for the enemy to go into your crosshair, not viceversa. Don't track the enemy directly, simply follow him with your crosshair until he changes the dodge direction and gets inside your crosshair.


Play different gametypes to hone different skillsets

Clan Arena: rocketjumping+aim (+positioning)+teamplay
Duel: timing, positioning, reading your enemy, movements, everything
CTF: timing, movements, teamplay,etc
Instagib: rail practice
TDM: harder but better than CA, although you rarely find a server.

///TIMESCALE///--------------------------------------------------



bind n "vstr timedown"
bind m "vstr timeup"



seta timeup "vstr time5"
seta timedown "vstr time3"


seta time9 "timescale 3.0;set timedown vstr time8;set timeup vstr time10;echo ^7Time ^1x3.0"
seta time8 "timescale 2.0;set timedown vstr time7;set timeup vstr time9;echo ^7Time ^1x2.0"
seta time7 "timescale 1.75;set timedown vstr time6;set timeup vstr time8;echo ^7Time ^1x1.75"
seta time6 "timescale 1.50;set timedown vstr time5;set timeup vstr time7;echo ^7Time ^1x1.5"
seta time5 "timescale 1.25;set timedown vstr time4;set timeup vstr time6;echo ^7Time ^1x1.25"
seta time4 "timescale 1.00;set timedown vstr time3;set timeup vstr time5;echo ^7Time ^1NORMAL"
seta time3 "timescale 0.75;set timedown vstr time2;set timeup vstr time4;echo ^7Time ^1x0.75"
seta time2 "timescale 0.50;set timedown vstr time1;set timeup vstr time3;echo ^7Time ^1x0.50"
seta time10 "timescale 100;set timedown vstr time9;echo ^2Time^1x100"
seta time1 "timescale 0.25;set timedown vstr time0;set timeup vstr time2;echo ^7Time ^1x0.25"
seta time0 "timescale 0.10;set timeup vstr time1;echo ^2Time^1x0.10"





Put this into your cfg/autoexec.

Watch your demos and use it to slow down the demo time, allowing you to analyze better.

Try playing some clan arena (use cg_drawfriends 1 to see where your teammates are), and watch those demos after.
Slow down time during fights, try to understand how you could have played better, try to notice where your mates were and how you could have helped them more.

Play some duels (it's going to be painful, don't worry about that and remember about that positive mindset) or just some 1v1 clan arena with a friend (the better he is, the better for you, try asking on irc or add me) and ask your enemy to give you his POV demo.

Watch it, slow it down during fights, notice how you are predictable whilst dodging, (or your routes in a duel).
Now watch your demo, and do the same.

After you've done this, go find some pro players demos. There's plenty of those.
Not videos on youtube but real demos, so you can slow them down.
You might find lots of duel ones, which isn't bad at all, since you'll be able to notice their positioning before/during fights, thetiming, the routes, and so forth.

Repeat the process. Analyze those demos.
When you watch a duel tournament stream try not watching the items respawn times, but do it in your head.

Join very difficult servers and spectate, notice how good players play.


And again, practice practice practice.
That's mandatory for quake and for everything else in this world in order to get better.
You'll feel frustrated at the beginning, but that's natural: generally speaking, if you manage to overcome the first weeks of quake you'll be rewarded with countless hours, days, even years of fun, and on a sidenote get better in every single other fps game there is

it's like playing guitar. Difficult to get started but incredibly rewarding.

CA is a guitar with 1 string.

ca is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBM1LCZKkQg

i disagree with playing a lot, but overall this should be posted as a column, or on quakelive.com

One more warning considering ca. 1v1/2v2 for rocket/lg practice. 3v3/4v4 mainly for rail. Trying to practice lg/rl in 4v4 causes frustration and headache.

Best advice post ever.

Also, I want to point out the importance of good hardware. I played on a TV/Monitor from Samsung that had horrid input lag. After I switched to Benq xl2420t............. it's so much easier to play! Sometimes it can really be a limiting factor. My bad for even using that POS in the first place (the bad Samsung monitor) but hey... it was a mistake I was paying for for a long time lol.

thanks for the kind words

however, as much as i agree with you, my personal advice for a complete beginner would be to avoid hardware improvements at all costs

a 120 hz monitor, good headphones, a reliable mouse sensor+pad, ps2 keyboard provide such a tremendous help that i feel it would be wasted without some weeks (even months) of struggling on a sub-par setup.

as long as the guy manages to get steady 125 fps, he'll need at least a few weeks to acquire some quake basics and, until then, he'll need to focus on his own limitations rather than the hardware ones

but yes i agreewith you, the day he hits a plateau for whatever reason, hardware improvements alone will boost his confidence so much he'll manage to get back on track

DON'T PLAY CA. JUST DON'T.

FFA/DUEL/TDM/CTF is way to go.

Learn movement/combat skills = positioning / weapon choice / dodging / using map architecture / faking / spaming

Then learn timing but rather by feeling than by pure math (if you're good with fast adding in your mind and don't forget item times, then go by math). Time mega only to the second, since its really crucial item on most of the maps.

Remember item rotation, it's even better than timing since you can always defend your possition / run away.

I'm also just starting out with this game. If you want to you can add me. I can tell you as a fellow noob that playing people roughly your own level is muuuuch more fun than being stomped on by better players. :)

My name on QL is vonKlaust. I hope to see you ingame!

Firstly, before you even start to quake, get a good mouse and mousepad, 120hz monitor, 500hz/1000hz mouse hz stable and 125fps in game / allmaps.

Now your hardware is set:

Start with defrag. Learn movement, get so good at movement that when people see you play they'll wonder how a shitty fuck can move so well but rail %10 percent.

Next play instagib religiously, try ictf. You put your new found movement skills into action and learn how to dodge bitches trying to rail you, and also learn how to track and flick rail.

Then move on to FFA, try many different guns and FOCUS on item timings. (learn them all by heart)

After that play duel and ca at the same time (yes i know, silly) But when you duel you will get raped by weapon combos and when you play ca you can try those combos you got raped with against other fucks and thus learn to use them yourself.

Do this repeatedly until you have %30 acc lg and %40 acc rail consistent. Then phase out CA and play duel religiously and you should be boss.

Then find out that duel is +b borefest and try tdm/ctf, realise how much faster and harder it is. Improve fanatically.

1) watch quake fragmovies
2) emulate quake fragmovies
3) ?
4) dirty air shots

I would not recommend this, it makes you too +forward

it most certainly does. but if it somehow starts to work out than its godmode.

1) Stick to ffa until you can win two matches in a row with +6 players, then move to duel and tdm.
2) Ask better people for advice when you lose to them in duel.

FFA FTW

Yes, ffa is very good. It has most basics (items, powerups, spawns, maps) of all other modes, fun to play but has too much luck to be competitive :(

I would make it 5-8 instead of 2, but not a bad idea.

2) Doesn't work in ql. I've never gotten any useful tip in game (although I gave a few).

edit: ok I recall getting one semi-useful tip on aero. It didn't work but taught me patience.

How much time does a beginner have to practice to win several Tier 4+ FFA matches in a row?

IMO depends on what base skill you have. If you got good movement and at least average aim (shaft ~30%, rail ~40%), 300-400 FFA should be sufficient for starters. But tier4+ has also a wide range of people; some of them you could just rape with any weapon, any map, anytime, some of them has tdm or duel background -> they're much more of a challange.
Other cases, when the subject has really dependable aim and positioning but his movement is so crappy that you could cry about the fact that he beated you.

The best movement training IMO is DeFRaG - it just FORCES you to learn proper movement. And patience. : )

Aim-wise: define your weakest weapons, and use them forcibly, even if the situation would suggest otherwise. I improved my shaft with this method from avg. 30% to avg. 35%, which may not sound much, but actually is a huge improvement - and started to appreciate the weapon much more.

For rail-training, probably instagib would be the answer, but don't spend too much time on it, because it's not "real combat". If you have a SOLID 50 %, you are ready to go, it will improve more with time.

For rocket-training, I would suggest DM17 with one nightmare bot at first (for example Sorlag, Anarki, Bones). Try to hit as many rockets as you can and go for the mid-air shots.
That's why I miss VQ3 rockets so much; I was WAY better with them than with the VQL version.

When you are here, you have a basic idea, which weapon suits the current situation best.

Need to work on dodge as well, because it's a huge factor in estimating the combat skills of a player. Training is...hmm, well, maybe try to find at least 2-3 different people (the more the merrier, because you will face more patterns this way) with decent aim, and train with them in warmup mode regularily. You can find tips on the internetz how to dodge against various weapons, use them and practice even more.

The knowledge of the map by heart is standard, so after you have the solid basics, you can start timing items. A Quad / Battlesuit + MH / RA is more than enough in 90 % of the cases - sometimes even just Quad.

Another VERY important thing is positioning. Every map has certain areas that are frequented by players; the reasons can be various: powerup, weapon, good spot to camp, etc. FEED on these spots, mercilessly. Try to control them as much as you can, don't allow tresspassing for free. Change your position with time to counter being predictable. You can rack up 5-6-7 frags in just mere seconds, even without any powerup.
Listen to sounds closely. They're not as important as in duel, but still can save your hide numerous times or getting you piece-of-cake frags.
And never give away easy frags, let the bastards work for their share. Try to formulate an escape plan / backup every time - or at least, try to deal as much damage as possible before dying; you'll finish the job with a few bullets after fresh spawn.
Analyze carefully, then execute the proper (counter)measures.

Oh, and avoid rage. Anger is your worst enemy. Try to be calm and collected in the tightest pinches as well. I know it's easy to say this, but it's true. If you're over the edge between suicide or murder, just quit the game for the day.

Follow this, and you'll be soon called aimbotter wh cheater at least twice a day. : D Take the insults with pride, because they mean that you're improved significantly. It's time to really get into more "serious" gametypes, such as duel / TDM / CTF.

The biggest piece of advice you can ever get (if your goal is to improve on things)...
Is to continuously think up new ways of playing and then try to think up a way which counters that.
The most important thing in quake is knowledge of where your opponent(s) are and what they are trying to achieve by being there.

If you start out thinking up a few default strategies (like for instance "taking all items" or "monopolising a weapon" or anything else) it is quite easy to see how you can counter that (relatively "get a possition on the item which is up so that you can do insane amount of dmg while the nmy can't hit you" or "not going for that weapon but taking the items your nmy can't cover because he's monopolising a weapon").

Just know that to just "improve a skill" like aim / movement etc is needed to get to the very top but before you get to a level where it's needed to have good aim/movement you should be at least 2100 elo... for instance I had crappy aim and barely addaquate movement. But I still felt like I could beat everyone because of my knowledge about the game.
You can become much better just by having the right ideas on how to play in every situation.

So basically knowing which options are good to utilize is much more influencial than doing some option perfect.

That is just bullshit weird. That is not beginner advice. On the contrary it is advice for people on 1800 elo and above who are stuck and rely a lot on their combat skills. Dont get me wrong I like your ideas on the brain game but a beginner doesnt even understand what you just wrote :P

no it's not...
it's easy as hell to imagine when you start.
The details just get more important when you go higher up.... the advice is true for ALL level of players.

btw ffx... I've talked to quite a lot of people over the years from all different skill levels.
Almost none of the players ever questioned the reason why they were doing things... and almost the same number of people couldn't tell me why they were doing those things.

It is SO important to take a step back and try to figure out what you're trying to do. Then the next steps are "why does it fail" and "what should I be doing different".

You are so right. I never really thought about my own game. I dont really have the ambition to become much better tbh but I wish I had done that when I was 16 and wasted a shitton of time into cs ...

well then how can my advice be bullshit?

And why the *&*(^ does your comment get more [+] than mine? :DDD

(I'm drunk btw so don't pay too much attention ;))

here, plussed yours so its equal :-)

haha :DDD
thx ;)

lawl. someone plussed ffx so that its not equal again :d

I agree, realising and truly understanding the different ways how to play the game and FUCKING IMPLEMENT them.. that's high level shit that sets "amateurs" and pro players apart

I didn't say that he should realise/understand the different ways how to play the game instantaneous...
Just that it is THE way to practise. Otherwise you'll only keep on doing the same stuff in the same way with pretty much the same result.

That (some) pro's truely understand the different ways to play has a reason... they thought about it in practise.

oh weird, you so smart when you dont mention things I agreed not to mention ever again :-)

Thx, but perhaps you should also trust me on the things you won't mention.... As I know I'm right on it... and I have the education to be able to know (which I must say is not easy if you haven't spent a lot of time around synchronisation problems).

as i once told you: i have my own opinion, based on my own experiance... Empiricism at its best :D


but im open, 24/7, on your ingame ideas and thoughts

I know... and you're entitled to have whatever opinion you like to have.
But facts and opinions don't have to be related ;)

If you want you can hire me for my ingame ideas and thoughts :D

Heck if you have an awesome computer and some video processing abilities we could make some real tutorials into gaming...
I've had the idea for doing that for a while but well... nobody really able to make it the way I want it to be made so...

dude, im polish... we poor and stupid! :-)

that's a shame ;)

Check out twister's videos on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3mmwI6lhy8

When playing duel… how to prevent oneself from getting overly nervous/blank minded and thus fucking everything up? Is the only way to stay zen to play more and more games?

what usually happens is pending matters or problems in real life can distract you, make you lose concentration, forget to time, items, become impatient and rush more, so that needs to be taken care of first

interresting question...
I think that the ingame-stress comes from thinking that you have to do everything perfect all the time....

But there are many things which can cause stress...
For instance at a few lans (back when I was young... so so long ago) I was so extremely stressed just "because people were watching". But when you think about them or think that you need to do anything different because of that... you'll lose (or well be stressed).

So the question is more what kind of nervousness are you talking about?

Maybe he just tries to "prove" himself to himself (what a stupid sentence, but I guess you get it). The first set of fails affect his sub-conscious and this can lead to a very passive out-of-control play which results in a definite loss 99% of the time. It's important to have a somewhat "carefree" attitude.

You have to choose situations when to... no, wait. Thats something different.

Actually that would happen to me a lot back in the day. I was in lead, died, respawned and suddenly I didnt know what to do.
I realised this would happen every time I felt like the better player and tried to rush and outaim the other guy. I wasnt focused on the items rather than him alone - or the score. Obviously, the best thing is to prevent this from ever happening and to just play your best game at all times.
But whenever it happened, I just stopped following the score and played like its a 0-0 game, I tried to hear my opponent and his item pickups. Other times, its OK to lose a few frags, rush and try to find out whats the opponent up to -or, if youre lucky, youll see him grabbing a major powerup.

Anyways, if you want to improve and be a good dueller, you should see the bigger picture whenever you feel under pressure - its not the actual game that matters, its the experience and getting better. You have to first lose in order to start winning.

improve what should be the first question? general play, clan arena, duel , ctf, tdm? i asume you are really new so the same answer as usual:

you have to learn

-movement
-weapon use
-positioning

in the first place, therefore play clan arena till you figured those out.
after that you can dare to start a real mod like ctf or duel. start timing one item and try to keep it. ask people what you do wrong / should do. a lot of quakers are assholes but there are good guys too. if you still have troubles i will gladly give you a lesson about basic things, just msg me on ESR.

Scream and shout and let it all out!

Apply deliberate practice in everything you are learning.

What works is a real love for the game. You need to really like it in order to be able to overcome all adversity.
Besides that, you need to be fairly inteligent and criative.
After all that if you don't have the right personality you will probably end up being another random.

Anyways, gamewise i recommend you watch ALOT of demos. Best way to understand the mechanics of the game is by watching alot of pro duel demos. Watch different players with different styles, try to understand the way they dodge, the positioning, the tactics and the weapon choice etc.
When i started (quake2), most people didn't even used mouse (really sad) and i improved slowly thro ctf and ffa, and later tdm and duel.
Where i improved the most was at duel, i watched many times duel demos, specially from the 1st q2 big lan in Europe (there weren't many) where shub won, and i really understood the way the game should be played. Then i tried to incorporate what i gathered from the demos, and it eventually worked. Even tho it's not physical training.. it's one of the most important things in ze world.
I think you should start with an easier mod to understand the game, like ctf or ffa. It's easy to grab a gun and kill.

I won't say CA because i don't consider that quake.. and you will develope alot of bad habits by playing that crap.
And.. one of the most important things.. always try to associate yourself with good players with solid personalities. Saying that.. that excludes 99% of ESR members (sorry but true :()

PS : oh.. and stay away from weird and his comments.. he's Quake VIRUS.

that last line about netcode....I mean weird was random. didnt expect it at all. BUt yeah. weird is weird, i saw him complaing about netcode because he lost to a guy that had 9 less ping.

everyones an expert

To be honest with 10 years of playing and a newbie asking how to get better... We ARE all experts.

try to have fun

faggot

The guy just forgot about this topic and ql altogether btw :-)

LSD and intuition.

cpm of fate

wow, some amazing advice folks thank you very much indeed :)

practice by practicing ))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

this will never catch on.

I mostly learned from watching pros playing, what they do etc

but that way you dont learn how to aim.

I am a beginner myself. I am playing a friend who usually has somewhat better aim but yet I rarely lose to him.

Outaiming your opponents on lower levels might work, but at the same time I think it can somewhat be a pitfall... I think the two most important skills for a newbie to learn is reading the game- predicting where your opponent is and movement.

Movement is kind of obvious. You can get faster from point A to B, allowing you to collect more items, take up better positions before fights. Also it lets you get away from fights you don't want to take and get your opponent when he's running.

However, learning to read the game is key for practicing. When you consciously always try to think where your opponent is you will get ambushed less and you can more easily prepare for a fight; like pulling out your lg and shooting as you come around the corner.

When you die, don't rush aimlessly for your opponent or grab the nearest weapon. Slow down, look and think where your opponent is and only then make your move for a weapon or item so you know you wont run into him. Be patient and don't give away fresh spawnkills when you don't have to. (Obviously rushing your opponent can be the best thing to do, but you should only do so based on a logical decision not mindlessly rush in any case)

I am a newbie as well so take everything with a pinch of salt what I say, but I believe it's a useful framework in which to learn. Because when your aim is hot you can do stupid things and make them succeed, when it's not you are forced to think more and thus learn how the game works.

Play the game.