Nonstop's Strategy Blog - No comments please

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I thought I would make a string here on training tips that I have been working with others and tips that I have learned throughout the years. This will be sort of a blog of my ongoing thoughts on how to improve in UT.

Please don't add comments to this thread as I would like to just keep it as a reference of training tips and ideas. If you have a comment or question on the topic at hand give me a private or put it in the thread entitled "Comments on Strategy Blog" if you would like to discuss.

**This has been in the private area of Ti's forum and I'm moving it here for others to reference.

Hope you enjoy.

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1.Movement and Accuracy

These are really 2 separate issues but both are crucial to your abilities in any fps, movement and accuracy with hitscan weapons.

- First on Hit Scan Weapons which are weapons that fire immediately and in a straight line to your target. In UT this would be primary shock, lightning gun and the sniper.

* The lower your mouse sensitivity the more locked on you will be able to stay. For those of you struggling with this, I have explained the golf tip to some of you. Many golfers will take a tee and plant in on the green and aim at that for a while. When they aim at the cup later, it seems as if it's huge and easier to aim at. As with most obstacles it's all in the mind so try this trick with your mouse speed. Unload all mouse drivers and use windows native drivers, adjust your mouse speed down to say 1.0 or .6 for about 3 games. when you go back to 1.0 or a little higher your mouse speed will seem very fast. Try that out and it will change your whole frame of reference. If you have a typical mouse .6 or so will seem very slow and almost impossible. Stick with it for a few games and be amazed. You will probably need a new mouse pad. You can pick up cheap large mats at Micro Center and Comp USA called Super Mats for about 10 bucks.

- Second on Movement

* Move quickly and be unpredictable. When in a melee try to find combinations of your awsd keys that you can do quickly to throw your opponent off base when in a hitscan face off. Always be moving.

* Move in small circles, large sweeping circles or double dodging makes you an easy target with hit scans. Think about it, when your double dodging in a face off you float and for your opponent it becomes like skeet shooting.

4) Practice on your own. This truly is the only way to improve once you hit a wall slummin in the pubs. (more on this in future blogs)

5) Find one place on the wall and practice hitting that same place over and over while you move sporadically and unpredictably. You can see the mark left on the wall if you have decal stay on, try to hit it again.

Download and practice with the fng training map The name is dm-fng-traininggrounds
Here is a link if you need it. It's also on the Ti ftp server.
http://ataricommunity.com/forums/showth ... did=390061

This is a great map to practice accuracy on. There is one room with moving targets. Practice your movement and hitting the targets while moving. If you even just do this 10 min a day before you slum in the pubs you will be amazed at how much your accuracy improves with the hitscan weapons.


Happy fragging.

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2.Practicing on Your Own


In almost any area you want to improve in, no matter what skill; athletics, music, education, anything, you need to practice the fundementals on your own. Think about it, a musical instrument, a sport, learning a new concept like a language, etc... Yes you can learn all those things in a 'group' setting however to really excel at any of them, you have to practice alone and often.

In team sports you have group practices almost every day right? However, what does the coach have each person do on their own time or even during practice at times? Individual practice. If it's basketball it may be layups and working on form. If it's football it may be throwing accuracy or just working on catching with another person. Kicker? well, you get the picture....

Bottom line, to improve a little here and there play in team based situations. To improve exponentially you must practice on your own. It may just be 10 min before a match running around hitting combos and aiming with your other weapons at targets in the map.

I am saying this because if any of you are ever feeling like you have hit a wall or that you arn't improving in an area like you would like to, movement, hit scan weapons and accuracy, weapon switching, timing, map control etc. you need to practice on your own. Hanging in the pubs and doing a practice or two with tons of spamming going on is only going to get you so far.

I have heard so many people over the years say "I'm as good as I'm going to get." This actually be true for them because they believe it. The reality of the situation is that you are as good as you are going to get if your not willing to practice on your own and work on deficiencies. I have worked with many people who felt like they were as good as they would get and much to their surprise, they got better. With any hand-eye coordinated activity you have to practice on your own to break through barriers. A Tennis player will work with a machine or hit against a wall for hours to overcome obstacles. Most people who are extremely good have put in the effort to improve. So just remember if you 'think' you are done improving, or if you have hit a wall but 'think' you can continue improving, you are exaclty right. The barrier is in your mental framework, not your ability.

Take time to load up dm-fng-trainingrounds or any map of your choosing and practice. If you just do this for even 5 min. before you play each day you will see a dramatic difference after a few weeks. If you spend 30 min or more in this mode, you will see a dramatic difference within 1 week.

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3.Mapping Your Weapons

It is imperative that you have your weapons mapped if you want to compete with better players. Doing the wheel of fortune on your mouse just will not work when your standing off with a player who throws 4 different weapons at you within 3 seconds. You have to have every weapon available to you at any moment.

Just for some ideas on how I map and how to double pipe, (put two weapons on one key), you can look at my ini file below.

Please feel free to use whatever but most important:

- Map your keys how you feel most comfortable. I don't think there is a 'right' or 'wrong' way here. What is important is what feels right to you. Some folks map out from the arrow keys, many map out from wasd and some use esdf. Do what is comfortable and feels good to you.

I spent some time remapping about 1 1/2 yr ago and still am recovering so do with caution. I wanted to map more keys with my pinky because my pinky is rarely used and I could go any direction without worrying about hitting the right weapon with an index/middle/ring finger because my pinky was not being used at all. This finally has worked out because I can now move in any direction and change to most weapons while I move whearas before if I wanted to dodge right while switching weapons, I couldn't because the index finger was busy and can't do both at same time.

Some even go as far as using thier middle/ring/pinky for movement so thier index is left free for all weapon switching. That is a great idea and if I were new I would love to do it that way. It would take to long for me to relearn at this point.

Here's the beast in it's glory. (I have removed parts that I have nothing or really tells you nothing to cut the size)

Before I post my ini here is a quick reference of the cooresponding numbers for the switchweapon command. This will be helpful if you want to double pipe weapons or if you want to edit weapons in your ini.

The Weapons are as follows:
switchweapon 0 = Super Weapons. Ion Painter, Target Painter and the Redeemer.
switchweapon 1 = Shield Gun.
switchweapon 2 = Assault Rifle.
switchweapon 3 = Bio Rifle and the Mine Layer.
switchweapon 4 = Shock Rifle.
switchweapon 5 = Link Gun.
switchweapon 6 = Minigun.
switchweapon 7 = Flak Cannon and the Grenade Launcher.
switchweapon 8 = Rocket Launcer and the Avril.
switchweapon 9 = Lightning Gun and the Sniper Rifle.
switchweapon 10 = Translocator.

Now my ini file:

0=setname tr^th
1=teamsay "**100 shield in 20 seconds**"
2=teamsay "**Amp in 20 seconds**"
3=teamsay "**Shield taken**"
4=teamsay "**Amp Taken**"
5=Talk
6=TeamTalk
7=teamsay "Gaurding Amp"
8=teamsay "Gaurd the Shield"
9=setname -Ti-nOnsTop
F24=AltFire
A=StrafeLeft
B=SwitchToBestWeapon
C=Duck
D=StrafeRight
E=SwitchWeapon 6
F=pipedswitchweapon 8 | pipedswitchweapon 7
G=ThrowWeapon
Q=SwitchWeapon 10
R=SwitchWeapon 2
S=MoveBackward
T=NextWeapon
W=MoveForward
X=use
Y=writetolog
Z=SwitchWeapon 0
Alt=pipedswitchweapon 9 | pipedswitchweapon 4
CapsLock=pipedswitchweapon 7 | pipedswitchweapon 8
Comma=StrafeLeft
LShift=pipedswitchweapon 4 | pipedswitchweapon 9
Shift=pipedswitchweapon 4 | pipedswitchweapon 9
Space=Jump
MiddleMouse=SwitchToBestWeapon
RightMouse=AltFire
MouseWheelDown=SwitchWeapon 3
MouseWheelUp=SwitchWeapon 5
Mouse4=pipedswitchweapon 1 | pipedswitchweapon 2

Hope you enjoy and feel free to pass along your tricks in another thread or in my 'comments on strategy blog' thread.

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4.Watching Others Play

Ok this weeks entry into my strategy blog is about watching demos.

If your looking to improve, you really can find a lot of mileage out of downloading ut2k4 demos and watching them. Obviuosly you want to look for really good players so I recommend a few places at the end.

When you watch them look for:

-what weapons are used when.
-when a weapon switch happens (sometimes 3 or 4 different ones in a melee)
-map flow
-power up timing, notice with any demo you watch tdm or 1v1 power ups are always timed and never just let sitting for the opponent

Many of these demos are fun to watch because some of the players are pro's and almost never miss. Also notice that in 1v1 especially they almost always know where their opponent is on the map.

This is another way to see what the big boys are doing and find ways to incorporate it into your style.

*special note for demo playback* Many of these demos are recorded with old versions of utcomp as some of the better demos were recorded last year. You will need the correct version of utcomp to play, here is a zip of all of them.

http://ut2004.gameamp.com/modules/ut200 ... ons_91.zip

And, here are a couple great 1v1 demo's directly linked from cached.net of some WCG tourney finals between combat carl and stryfe. Good demo's and you will see a face off everytime at the shield. Notice that if one player is damaged he knows when to run. Also notice, they know where each other are at all times to an almost uncanny level. All of these are from Stryfes pov.

http://cached.net/?go=%2A/demo/single/16162//////nick
This is in Ironic for all you up close and personal players.

http://cached.net/?go=%2A/demo/single/16163//////nick
Great matchup in Rankin. This one really gets going about 5 min into it. Watch map control of carl in the beginning.

http://cached.net/?go=%2A/demo/single/16157//////nick
This was the first game in the matchup.

For some great team deathmatch games look at this page from ut2004.gameamp.com

http://ut2004.gameamp.com/recorded_game ... ordedGames

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5.Timing Power Ups

Here is your ultimate guide to timing power-ups. This is something I had to learn when I started playing 1on1 more and tdm in ladders because guys that were worse than me or our team (short list), would beat me/us just because they timed the power-ups better, esp. the 100 shield. I’m not that good at timing the ddamage and supershield at once after the first 5 min of the game but it’s something to shoot for.

1) 50 shield- this appears :27 seconds into game and every 30 seconds after taken.

2) Health vials/weapons - these all appear at start of match and every 30 seconds after taken.

2) 100 shield - (he who times this ownz) Ok here is the deal with
timing this bad boy. Like the ddamage and 50 shield, the supershield, appears :27.5 seconds into the game. For instance if it’s a 15 min game, normal match time for a 1v1, the 50, 100 and ddamage would all appear at 14:33

- The 100 shield appears every :55 seconds after it is taken. So
if you take it right when it first appears, i.e. 19:33, it will appear
at 18:38 after that. It is easy if you just add 5 seconds to whenever
you take it. If it is taken at 18:38, add 5 seconds, and it will
appear at 17:43. You can get it everytime if you keep track in your
head. At first it may seem hard but after a while it will be second
nature. Watch any demos from prounreal.com or cached.net and you will
see everytime it appears both players are right there like clockwork.

3) The AMP, the darn amp!!! I’m not too good at this one as when I was doing 1v1 no one used it in ladder play. Some guys prefer this over shield and I must say the dd with the lg is about unstoppable.

This one appears every 21 seconds after
it is taken. Just like the 100 shield it appears 28 seconds into the
game. In a 15 min game it would appear at 14:33. The difference is
that the amp appears every 1:21 after taken. There are 2 ways to time
this.

- As soon as it's taken, you can usually hear when someone grabs
it, take away -21 seconds. So if it's taken at 5:41, subtract 21 from
the seconds and it will be back at 4:20.

- If you missed it you can hear when its fading out as it beeps
about 5 or 6 times. If you want, just add 6 seconds to the last beep.
So if the last beep is at 5:41, add +6, and it iwll be back at 4:47.

If you practice it a lot you can time the amp and shield and always
have it or at least damage the guy getting it before you. I would
recommend just practicing one to start with. Maybe the shield.

Good luck guys, tell me how it goes.

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6.Strategy

If you have watched any of the demo's that I have posted in this blog you have learned a few things. It is ok to run away. A lot of players have a hard time knowing when to engage and when to disengage.

This is actually very important. You are just handing points to the other team when you keep coming at them with low health/shield. It's ok to back out, health up and come at it again.

Some of the best 1on1 games you may ever see from pros may have a score as low as 2 to 3. That means their not interested in just handing over a point just because they didn't want to loose a stand off.

So here are a couple quick pointers on strategy to help wether your playing 1on1 or TDM:

-Make sure your shield is hot keyed so you can pull it up and back out if your low on health,
-There are times to be aggressive and there are times to pull away and play defensively,
-Know the timings of power ups. Even if you don't like to focus on that for your own game, if you don't your just giving them away to the opponent. Would you rather face off with someone who has no shiled or someone who has 150 shield?
-Know the map. Knowing map flow and controlling the weapons on a 'no weapon stay' game is huge. I have watched some pros who sweep the weapons so well that once you die it's almost impossible to get a decent weapon,
-Know spawn points if you can. The pros know every spawn point and pretty much know where you are when you appear after a death and are already formulating their plan around that,
-Don't try and face off with someone with rockets when you are a good distance away. That is a no win situation.
-Switch weapons often. If you demo any good players you will see 5 weapon switches in one melee. This keeps your opponent off balance. Some simple weapons switches can be throwing a flack ball in the air, getyour opponents eyes on that and pull out a quick primary shock or lg. Same thing with a shock ball, instead of trying to combo hit a primary shock or lg while their avoiding the combo. Another good one is once you hit with a rocket/flack/lg and know they are damaged pretty good, pull out the mini gun and chip away at them till you get the frag,
-Listen - If you can get some good headphones it makes a difference. Don't ruin your hearing but you can listen to where your opponent is on most maps and always have a bead on them.

Watch other people play. Some of the best players in the world right now, as of May 2005 are...

GiMiX
Gitzzz
infinite
k-stryfe
kCombatCarl
Lotus
Skooder\\
WhiteTigerzZz
xs-pain
xTc`
Xyber

Go watch demos of them and learn some good strategy. Steal shamelessly and adapt to your own style.

Happy fragging![/list]

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7.Spaced Repetition and Taking a Break

Just a quick update for this weeks training thoughts,

Sometimes just quit for a while. A few days, a few hours, even a couple weeks here and there to keep yourself fresh. You will find that this allows you to come back with a fresh perspective and even drop some annoying mental tendencies that you have been trapped in.

Learning a new skill often involves spaced repetition and small spaces are necessary as well as big ones at times. Feeling frustrated, up against a wall, not doing as good as you think you should?

Take a break.

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8.One Weapon Wonder



Have you ever felt like there is a weapon that you just haven’t mastered? Or have you felt like you use one weapon to much and if you can’t find it you feel a little handicapped? Let me tell you how I transitioned from mainly carrying rockets and flack to mainly having my lg as my comfort weapon.

Since early quake days and even ut99 I had never really found the sniper guns to my liking. People who could use them in up close situations just made me nervous so I just threw more of what I was comfortable with, the mini gun, or flack/rocket combos. I got pretty damn good with rockets and flack but I could never feel comfortable with a sniper or a lightning gun.

At one point I decided enough was enough. I decided that for a given time I would alias, sometimes, and then just go ahead and take my lumps with my regular name others. But, I decided that I would use the lg exclusively. So especially on small maps, if there was and lg, I grabbed it and just shot away, knowing that I would almost always be the lowest scorer on the team. (Thus the alias for those of you who can’t take that).

After using this method for many weeks off and on, I began to notice a shift in my weapon comfort. I no longer was nervous to enter a melee with the lg or primary shock. And the comfort grew so much that I now prefer those two weapons and find that my rocket and flack skills have taken a back seat.

Time to start playing with rockets only again.

Try this with any weapon you feel uncomfortable with. Bio, shock, link, whatever.

Happy fragging.

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9.Sound and the Art of Listening

Have you ever spec’d or played a game and wondered how in the world someone could meet you with a combo to the face right as you came around the corner? Often it’s the art of listening. They say Thresh, who beat John Romero at doom to win his Ferrari, would always have a rocket coming at you before you turned a corner. He knew where you were most the time. Obviously part of this is knowing spawn points and the map really well, part of it is listening for weapon pickups, loads and footsteps.

Good headphones are a must. You will definitely hear more things with good headphones. Lauke, the top ut2k4 player in the world in 05 uses some senheisers that run about $200.00. I have noticed many pro’s go for the closed ear design. Very different from say a cheap pair that just sits over your ears. That way you can track where people are at not just by sight, but even more by what you hear.

Want to add a few frags to your roster, listen closely. If you get really good at it, this esp. applies to 1on1, you can have your opponent meeting your rockets/combo’s when they turn the corner.

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10.Fun Tricks with Weapons


I have seen some more strategic play lately in the clan and that is great. Trying different things with weapons and trying to use a weapon that matches the location/distance of your opponent.

I thought I would add a couple things to have fun with while you play tam or whatever.

Whenever your running around with the bio rifle loaded up on the alt fire, obviously you have your 2nd mouse key held down until you find your victim, while your holding the alt fire with your goop loaded, (that sounds wrong), click the next weapon you would like to have go off immediately like flack or rockets.

This is a great trick that can get your opponent way off base and even get a quick damage in if you miss with the goop.

For review:

1) alt fire the bio rifle and hold it
2) click the flack key you have configured (left ctrl for me)
3) when you find your target, let the alt fire on your bio rifle go and your flack gun will come up immediately allowing a quick alt or primary flack to be shot from the selected weapon, in this case the flack gun.

Some things to note here,

If you run over a weapon you have loaded already it will go off. Example: goop loaded on alt fire and you have already clicked your flack key, if you run over flack you will automatically fire and if your close to a wall, most likely kill yourself. Trust me, I have done it many times trying to sweep a weapon when I have already loaded up the same one.

Get creative, try firing the goop behind the person and get them to back into it or try the same trick with rockets as your next weapon.

You can also do this with rockets on your alt fire. As there loading up with your alt fire, hit the next weapon you would like to have switched to after you dump 3 rockets like mini/lg or other. The weapon you click while your rockets load will come up as soon as your fire your rockets and give you a possible advantage.

Keep your opponent guessing. If you spec or watch demo's of very good players they are constantly switching weapons based on where their opponent is and where they are. This allows for the best weapon for the condition and on top of that keeps your oppenent guessing. If you just come hopping down the hall with the same weapon the person you are facing can adjust easier and you give your opponent the advantage.

Happy fragging!

(Since I would like to keep this thread clean, you may have your own ideas on some of the strategy ideas in the space so I will start a new thread for comments as I know this one esp. may generate some nifty tricks that you use).

Thanks.

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11.Improve Your Shock Combos

There is only one way to improve your shock combos to a large degree and that is by working on them alone. Yes they can get better in small degrees just playing but to really put yourself over the hump of feeling you can hit them sometimes to hitting them confidently while moving, you have to go to the woodshed.

If you aren’t hitting them like you used to or if you have never hit them well, it’s just a matter of practice. And, usually the payoff comes very quickly for just a little effort.

If you use this practice method or something similar for at least 2 or 3 times a week you will be ‘shocked’ at how well your combos have improved.

Here is what I prescribe:

- Go into a utcomp server where you can have practice mode and 999 ammo loaded in your shock rifle. Choose a fairly large, open map like Grendle, Goliath, even Rankin and walk, don’t run throughout the entire map just firing your shock core, (alternate fire of shock rifle), and practice hitting the core with your primary shock. Don’t worry about how many you are hitting or missing. Just make at least 2 laps around the map and practice throwing the core ahead of you and hitting it.

- Next do the same lap around the map but this time practice moving from side to side as you walk around the map at least 2 laps. Again don’t worry about how many combos you actually hit.

- Now do a couple laps where you are double dodging forward after you throw the core in front of you at least a couple laps.

- Finally practice moving around the map throwing the core in doorways or points of entry and trying to get combos as your double dodge, move from side to side and double dodging forward in no specific order. As you know moving while you are waiting to hit your combo is key so you arn't a standing target.

Congratulations, you are now able to hit combos at a much higher frequency.

When you go to play on a server with other people, you will notice that you probably will take a couple steps back from when you were practicing. That’s ok because you now have added the element of an opponent moving in front of you and that is a distraction. You also have added the anxiety that they are trying to frag you while you hit your combo. No worries though, you will notice within just a few games that you are hitting them at a much higher frequency.

Do this often and eventually it will be unconscious for you. You will not even notice yourself aiming but focusing on your opponent more. Once a week and you will find yourself getting better. 2 or 3 times a week and you will be very good at it within a months time.

Good luck and let me know how your progressing.

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12.The Wall and Playing Through It

Time for a new entry in the strategy blog. This time lets take a little turn from normal weapon/strategy talk and discuss getting better.

Ever notice yourself saying “I’m not getting better” or “I just suck lately?” You may be ready to break through to another level.

It seems there is a law in effect that in any endeavor that requires improvement various stages. If you were to examine these stages at a macro level certain trends begin to appear. Of course there is the beginning stage of ‘this is new and fun’ which usually jumps to ‘man this is hard’ and that may go to ‘I can’t do this' followed sometime after by 'hey I'm getting better’ if that person continues. These stages seem to repeat themselves in differnt iterations.

Let’s look at trying to improve on a musical instrument or say a sport like basketball for instance. At some point you feel as though your not doing well and in comparison to others feel like your not good at all. Then by staying the course you notice some improvements here and there. You have a few good games/practices and some bad ones. Then at some point you hit a high were everything seems to be happening right and much is happening even subconsciously so you don’t even have to think about things that you were struggling with earlier. At some point in there you plateau and drop down a bit. Now things are happening but not as fast and with a little more effort. Then things start getting downright hard.

This is the point where you feel yourself or hear others say things like “I give up” or “I just am not getting any better” or “I suck” or “I used to be better.”

The truth is that you are actually better in most cases it’s just that you have peaked and now are getting ready for the next improvement cycle. Your having to work harder and push through. When I have given a guitar or percussion lessons many people have stopped here and just not continued. But for those who pressed on and focused on fundamentals, they broke through the wall and started up the next hill and improved. This is where the cycle repeats.

So if we look at UT you can see the same trends. If you can see a trend and notice it, you can use that to help you mentally frame where you are at. Knowing where your at can help with your frustration level. This really applies to any human endeavor where improvement is needed.

Let’s look at it this way.

1) Beginning of cycle - Doing ok but not great
2) Climbing - Getting better, seeing improvement
3) Hitting the Plateau - Hitting things with ease and feeling at the top of your game
4) Descending - Doing ok but having to work at it a bit
5) Frustration - Feeling like nothing is coming easy and working at it harder than normal to play at the same level
6) The Wall - Missing, not moving really well, can’t remember things you didn’t have to think about previously

This is where you look at where you are in the cycle, play through it and get ready for the next climb. As you go you will notice that each descent feels like your worse but as you look back, your feelings betray you because your actually better than the last time you descended.

What I have noticed is some people stay at the wall and just give up, complain or don’t play as much and just settle at that impasse.
Others have the ability to stay with it and play through the wall and move on to higher performance.


Happy fragging.

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13. Twitch Aiming verses Strafe Aiming


There are two ways to work on your aim. One way to work on hitting better combos and hit scan with the lightning gun is to move your cursor over the target with your strafe keys. Once you reach this point you fire. This works nicely as you learn to hit combos because you throw the core, alt click, and then just strafe until your cursor is over the core and then use your primary fire. This is also a good way to do moving combos as you will be able to move back and forth and hit a combo easier this way.

The other way of shooting is by moving your mouse to the target. This is commonly referred to as twitch aiming. It appears that some of the best players use twitch aiming a lot. Gimix would be a good example. Being able to move your mouse to the intended location with great accuracy requires lots of practice and usually a slower mouse speed so you can track smoothly.

Obviously much of your time in the game goes between twitch aiming and strafe aiming so it is good to work on both.

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14. For Those Wanting to Improve

Over the years playing UT, or racquetball, basketball, a musical instrument or whatever, I have always heard people say "I wish I could be better" or "I wish I could play like 'x'." I'm sure you have too.

The line between wishing and having is never without work plain and simple. Sure it's more fun to play in pubs and scrims and you will see little improvements from time to time but you will always be left short of what you would like to play like if you don't spend that time alone. You end up being to focused on winning or loosing. This is not going to help you get your craft down. If you absolutely won't play alone, then at least go into games and just work on 1 or 2 things like maybe hitscan or just rockets or whatever you need to get better at. Don't be tied to the score or your performance, that will be counterproductive to your improvement.

Alone where no one can applaud, where no one can see how good or bad you are doing and you have nothing to fight against except yourself. Nothing but you and the craft you want to exceed in. I have stressed this in other entries and some have taken it to heart and I have seen huge improvements. Nothing thrills me more than seeing someone who wasn't that great come in and kick my arss and that happens all the time now. The list grows all the time and that's great.

So for those of you who took heed, congrats. For those of you who didn't and want to improve, you know what to do. For those who don't care and are just having fun.... you have discovered one of the secrets to life anyway so don't listen to my dumb ass.

It is like archers. If they start out competing, they’ll never become marksmen. It is only long after practice, with no thought of winning or losing, that they can hit the target. Same with the study of the Way. If even a single thought of winning or losing appears, you will be chained by winning and losing.

- YING-AN