Seriously tho fella, its spelt practice

Praktiz

ever heard of fatality?

among spam you have some good comments :)

tbh u need like natural shit to be proper hot but to be above/well above, average it is just practice.

but how do you practice? any tips, tricks, techniques from peoples?!?

1) Learn the maps
No point in knowing where your opponent is when you have no clue how to get there. Once you can run around a map backwards you're good to go.

2) Learn how to survive
Lots and lots of public FFA. +backwards is your friend here.

3) Watch demos
Understand the game and tactics. Why is socrates waiting there? How did cooller know his opponent would come this way? Get on IRC and ask for 1v1s. Play different opponents and not just the same guy over and over again.

4) Get your item/map control down
Learn the spawntimes

Everything else, like for example aiming comes with playing. Good luck.

those are extreme basics, really. I usually do ten thousand times that in my first hour of playing a game.. I know all the spawns, tactics, maps and whatnot from Q4 and I've "had" the game for like five days now. since I can't play online yet, I haven't been able to practice any, but I'm wondering if there's anything else people do?
and if you're playing against people? what do you do to 'practice' or improve, or learn/analyze?
in other words, what techniques do you use to criticize yourself and figure out how to make your play better?
for instance, in your aim example: suppose you could never hit more than 25% lightning gun. what would you do to learn how to correct that?
but I don't care so much about aim as tactics and control. in Q3, I always tended to keep games with good players "close" but never won very many.
I'm sure part of that was nerves, part of it was hesitation, part of it was not being able to come back when I was down, amongst other things. of course I never really played that many 1v1s in Q3, so I was pretty good at my peak for not being experienced. but when I start with Q4, I hope to be fairly competitive, so any thoughts would be nice.

"I know all the spawns, tactics, maps and whatnot from Q4 and I've "had" the game for like five days now. since I can't play online yet, I haven't been able to practice any"

Nice, what kind of insane intelligence do you posess? What is your IQ?

not very high, I'm sure. I just played sabot a couple times and watched some demos. I very much enjoyed playing galang a lot against bots so it was no trouble learning everything there. I guess you could use "methods" if you wanted to learn fast:
spawns) bind n kill, press n a bunch of times.
map knowledge) run around the map a few times and think about where you're going
tactics) with your acquired map knowledge, think about all the places your enemy could reach items from and spam them. watch demos for more.
that's not particularly hard, I imagine?

Well the spawns and mapknowledge comes fast if you have good memory and do as you said.. But all the tactics from playing a bit and watching a few demos?

Anyways, for what else there is to learn; you have spawn raping, which is important, it's not enough to know where someone can spawn but also from where you stand; this is very important if you want a comeback -- spawn rape combined with map domination (taking everything, RJ around to get it all). Alot of the aiming is just chosing the right weapon at the right time and knowing where you opponent wants to go. Anyways, i don't think you did anything wrong in q3, i just think you are too lazy to play enough. You really have to play until there are only a handfull of players that can get a single kill on you.

none of that is hard. using the right weapon or tactics or spawn raping..
actually, the game is quite easy now that I think about it. if that's the only thing involved, it should be insanely easy for anyone to win.

yeah, it's easy for the opponent aswell, so don't get too excited :)

perfection is always impossible :&

I'm not getting excited. I had a bunch of thoughts flowing into my head from memories, old thinking sessions, and new ones together. I didn't have enough time to sort them out and write something constructive down at the time.

<3

YOU CAN'T HAVE IT YOU NEED TO TAKE IT FROM ME!

I´d advice you to use hax for quick and ez succes.

it worked for cl0ck. he's top five US.

top thirty all time.

haha

Dedication, motivation and a lot of practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice practice...

I mean, if you really want something you'll need to dedicate yourself to it in order to keep the motivation up. You've got a goal to achieve and you need to figure out what it takes to achieve that goal. Meaning that you won't go pro by just thinking; "hey, I'm gonna play some quake today and hopefully I'll win some games". Instead you should be thinking something like; "Ok, today I'm gonna play like 20 games and win all of them. If I don't win I'm gonna analyze my losses and plug those leaks in my game. What went wrong and why?"

I'd say you don't need to have some kind of "natural talent" for it, that's just bullshit. The only "talent" you actually need is discipline to stay focused on your "A game" all the time.

Sure, some have better reflexes, some thinks it's easier to time several items, some are better at making quick descisions but bascially it's all about practice and experience.

It's pretty much like becoming a consistent winning poker player. Simply put, you need a goal, work on your discipline and patient and last but not least work on your game and keep records of your hands in order to plug those leaks.

That's probably why so many pro gamers has been successful in poker.

kill the enemy.

The obvious one is practice, but practice is useless without self analysing and short term goals.

Can practice all you like but if you don't know what you're practicing what's the point? Those that stop and question what they need to improve then go out and put it into practice learn the quickest. Majority of people (myself included of course) just go and play and that's it. Watch the odd demo and keep playing. It's why so many of us stay 'average'.

The best thing is to start playing people better than you but not insanely better because you'll find they just do stupid stuff any better player would just take advantage of. You'll lose most of your games, watch the demo and see where you are messing up. It also helps a lot to watch the demo of the opposistion. Watching 'pro' demos is good for quickly getting the best starting stratergy down and learning the things you should be constantly doing everygame, ie spamming certain entrances depending on where the enemy went and so on, but you won't notice all that much mainly because you aren't good enough to understand it. As you improve you notice more and so on.

As I said at the start, short term goals. Can't time well? Make it a goal and start simple such as remembering the MH for the whole match, then add another item and so on. You can't do it all at once, you'll just start losing track. As for general talent, I think that's just bullshit really. Nothing more than a keen interest and past expirience. Haven't got that past exprience? You'll learn it somewhere, ie. starting now.

good post.

Can practice all you like but if you don't know what you're practicing what's the point? Those that stop and question what they need to improve then go out and put it into practice learn the quickest. Majority of people (myself included of course) just go and play and that's it. Watch the odd demo and keep playing. It's why so many of us stay 'average'.

that's pretty much what I was wondering. I think some of it, though, is just that we don't care or were never motivated enough to actually analyze and practice hard.

The best thing is to start playing people better than you but not insanely better because

I always found that playing players on my level or so was harder than playing people the likes of elpajuo, lost cause, socrates, czm, etc.
I don't know if it was lack of motivation or not, but it seems that playing 'average' people I would be _too smart_ in some instances, as I tend to always think things through on a deep level. (perhaps because my personality leans toward introvertive thinking)
for example,
on dm6, if we had a battle at mega and you won, but I managed to get away and made a run for YA - there arises an issue of timing.
if I were playing elpajuo, e.g., I would "know" in my mind that he didn't have enough time to go up to RL and rail me. and I would know that _he knew_ the same thing. so I could fart around at YA and get the 25 health before going up.
now, if I were playing an average player and I assumed _they knew_ that they didn't have enough time to rail me, then I may be wrong in assuming that and find out I'm fucked a second or so later.
it's these kind of things that amuse me.
my way, thus, of playing, is just to assume EVERYONE IS GOING TO DO EVERYTHING THAT'S BAD FOR ME AT ALL TIMES.
and I guess that works. we'll see.

edit: actually, playing people like blokey and prodx on EU servers I always managed to be very defensive and elude getting fragged, but had utterly no chance of winning.
I think my score against blokey was 1-11 on ztn, and prodx 3-6 on ztn.
so defensive keeps games close, but doesn't win them.
(basically the way I achieve that is running all the time, thinking of all possibilities of where the enemy would go and where he'd think I would go and avoiding it or tricking him.. maybe I thought too hard in Q3 :)

that's pretty much what I was wondering. I think some of it, though, is just that we don't care or were never motivated enough to actually analyze and practice hard.

Spot on, I say all this stuff about watching your own demos and watching your own progress but I do little of it myself. Maybe I'll try some a bit harder for Q4.

I think my score against blokey was 1-11 on ztn, and prodx 3-6 on ztn.
so defensive keeps games close, but doesn't win them.

I couldn't agree more. The amount of time I wasted being a +back rail turret was stupid. Until Jay told me, "keep playing like that and you'll never win". It couldn't of been more true.

About your way of thinking, after reading czm's post on here somewhere about the finals vs z4muz during ESWC 2004 it made me realise how little people likely think during games. A major weak point is probably not thinking ahead enough, or at all. My thinking goes as far as keeping track of the player that's it. Even then so, I find that it's done using initiative and not logical thinking thus I just use the same stuff over and over meaning any player that does think thoroughly will just pick up right away and out smart me.

If that makes any sense at all. :\

fuck. that's what i go through all the fucking time. it's ridiculous. we think alike, my brother. :D

That sounds very reasonable :)

It's very possible to break down the gameplay into parts that you can measurably and reliably improve upon by practice. What makes champions though is another story.

watch cooller demos and move your mouse and press keys on your keyboard like he does, simple

hehe fun to see my thoughts started a little discussion even tho the ideas started after I chocked in tourney :(.

But yeah I do belive practice makes you better, that goes without saying but I don't know. I think it takes more then that. I don't belive all of the pro players have put all that time into it as one would expect them to do so. There is always exceptions. Fatality practices his ass off and he gets results but I don't think they all practice as much as he does.

It would be fun tho if some of the talented players could add some opinions on why they think they've made it so far? what made you guys so good? Is it the way you think, is it way you aim or maybe the way you move?.

Practice can improve your aim, improve your movement on the maps and such but it won't prepair you against the
unknown. All you can do is play your best and hope that's enough. But what I think truly separates us "average" players from the best is the nervs. When down by a few frags to be able to keep your cool and convince yourself that you are better then other guy and beliving it!. Keeping your spirit up. Becouse if you get nervus... that's your aim outside the window and that's the game. You chocked.

Yeah i agree that 'pro' players don't play as much as you'd think they would. i also think they aren't as self critical of their play as some people are saying we all should be. they just play.

they kind of just get filtered to the top of the game skill ladder. i.e. they have a special talent that others do not possess. i believe some have talents that others can't develop with practice or by any other means. i think most people here are saying that there isn't such thing as natural talent because they can't face the truth... they don't have 'it'. :\ but like stated in a post before hard work, discipline and time spent shrewdly should of course get you to a very high skill level in any pursuit.

and nerves worsens aim? not for me. its just my movement goes out the window. become clumsy - i start walking into walls, messing up jumps etc.

yep, me too. nerves = movement fuckup, not aim.

First, you need to have fun, if you have no fun at all playing the game,
getting good at the game is just a dream fading away within weeks.
If you have fun playing the game, and you practise with good 1on1 partners and stuff, you willl become good.
I myself just have been average at first in q2.
But then I just said myself I need to become better, I need to improve,
and I played a mix of RA2 and TDM/101. Rocket Arena (duel) is very good
for getting good aim, aim is not everything, but it's almost everything.
And I did also stuff like still taking the railgun to take down the enemy instead of finishing him off with ssg, cuz I wanted to improve my railskills, even I risk getting killed if I don't hit with Railgun ...
If you have good aim, almost everything else will come I think ...
But I myself I have been mainly good in Q2 for my aim (probably been best with rail) ... and also movement, I trained everyday offline on Q2DM1 like 15 minutes only moves,movement is not that important, but it's still important.
But with good Aim, you have almost everything.
I have to admit I haven't hat enough practise in 1on1's that is why I didn't become the best duelist, I lacked skill for map control, but I was one of the best thanks to my aim. Just play regularly and watch demos of the best to learn from them ... but I didn't really plan becoming good in Q2, I just played eveyday, had my fun, and just told myself everyday I need to improve, need to improve ...
But that was Q2 in 97-mid 99, honestly I think the competition since Q3 increased very much, but I still think with outstanding aim,
you will be already one of the best players in your country ...

Well I dunno about aim being the most important thing. I once played for probably one of the best RA3 clans (groove) in europe and could easly hit an average 45-50% shaft, ~70% rail online but that didn't really get me far when playing 1on1's in osp. Sure I could pretty much win the majority of all shaft/rail duels but without armor and health, anyone could take me down. I lacked in map control, it wasn't like I didn't knew how to take control of the map by timing the items but to maintain the control for the whole game even if I got killed. Aim is an essential part of the game but without the knowledge of map control you're fucked in the long run when it comes to 1on1's.

movement is a massive factor in gaming. Moving into postions to make shots easier and un-respondable to0 and moving in unpredictable ways tro avoid being hit. Unbelievable aim, shit movement = bot.

you got a point there. aim is not everything you can easly out smart a bot

play the other player, not the game.

™