[edit]oh, yeah, there's no auto aim or auto dodge options, that'd be cheating. it'd be bad to rely on stuff like that anyway imo. =)
Ok, lets get down and dirty with this!!!
PRACTISE PRACTISE PrACTISE!! hehehehe, the most important thing of course.
Second, it sounds like you're getting frustrated. That's ok man, I get frustrated when I get completely owned as well. You'll actually best increase your skill (if you're the type who gets frustrated getting owned all the time) if you play people who are your skill level and slightly better...maybe to moderately better.
Once you find a server where you can get some frags but are generally still losing, maybe not last, but nearer the bottom but with some decent fragcounts to your name, start spectating. Follow the lead player around and completely absorb what they're doing. Note how they approach other players, note what weapons they use in what situations, take not of how they dodge, and very importantly, learn how they navigate the map and control resources.
If you spectate people moderately more skilled than you, and you play them a lot and genuinely try hard to better your game and kill them, then you WILL get better. If servers aren't too busy, try to make small chit chat and ask the other people what they think of your game, if they have any advice etc. Chances are you'll get some helpful feedback if you're polite (and a lil lucky, hehe).
Here are the things that you can LEARN, and get better at doing by watching/learning from better players;
Resource control.
Map navigation.
Weapon usage (situational).
Dodging techniques.
Of course, one of the single biggest skills that cannot be taught or learned, but
only bettered through intensive practise, is aim and prediction. No-one can teach anyone how to have better aim, but here's some exersizes you can try and practise at;
Join servers with other players who are about yout skill level, or maybe a little worse. Generally, try and play other people who will challenge your aim, but not slaughter you all the time. When you're up for it, collect
only Shock Rifle or Lightning Gun and try to get kills with only those. You can also practise with Link Gun secondary and Minigun, but it's a slightly different style of aiming. If you force yourself to just use these weapons, especially SR and LG, and you don't get too frustrated but try your hardest, your aiming should slowly improve.
Also worth trying is shock combo accuracy. This is best done offline, but start some instant matches with lower skilled bots, get your shock rifle, and start comboing. Try not to shoot and stand still, because most of the time you'll be a sitting duck while doing this. Generally, there's two kinds of shock whores in UT, the first kind are the moderately skilled ones who ALWAYS seem to shock you but are always standing still when they do it. These peeps have great prediction skills and thrive in tight z-axis maps, but if you can dodge around them or get close to them, they're sitting ducks usually. The second more skilled type is comprised of the peeps who can actually move around or dodge after shooting a core, and then hit it afterwards. These guys usually have good prediction skills and can dodge while the combo.....they're really rare, and they're l337, and that's what you should aim for. =)
So, basically, against novice/average bots, get yourself a SR and first start comboing while running forwards or backwards in a straight line. Try shooting the core at slight angles up or down, running, and hitting it again. This'll develop basic aiming skill. Once your'e really comfy with that and getting lots of bot kills, start strafing a little after firing the core, and trying to hit it. Once you're comfy with
that, shoot a core, dodge, and then try and hit it. Like in Rankin in the main shock room, on the raised part with the pillars, on one side facing out over the shock rifle pick-up, shoot secondary, then dodge or dodgejump sideways past the pillar, and try and hit the flying core for a combo. It'll hit the wall quick, but if you build up your skills gradually, you should start hitting that combo after a dodge in good time.
For general all round DM skills, some have suggested playing repeated 1v1's against a bot at a setting that really challenges you, and keep playing that till you start winning, then re-adjust the bot setting....but that can only get you so far, and bots can be predictable once you learn the map pathing. But it's there; fighting bots can help your accuracy a lot but not really your dodging skills.
Ok, movement and dodging skills. You know how to dodge, doublejump, dodgejump and walldodge right? Okie dokie, well it's all covered in the manual (I think) anyway.
Now, bear in mind all these tips can vary between people. I mean.....combat in UT is a fast and furious thing, and it takes a really really sharp player to actually be
thinking about everything that's happening constantly...enough to be able to react and predict everything. But still, consider the following points, try hard to implement them into your game, and they may help.
First, depending on the skill level of the people you face, dodgejumping can be a great or a bad thing. First thing about dodgejumping, (dodge [doubletap direction] then hit jump at the height of the dodge) it's a great way to navigate maps. If you need to get somewhere fast, dodgejump. Just be wary of low ceilings, sloped surfaces and jumping into a too-near wall; they will all hamper you and leave you extremely vulnerable for a couple seconds if you dodgejump into them. Dodgejumping in combat is great against people your skill level and lower, it is good for example as a technique to put distance between your opponent and yourself in order to minimize self-inflicted splash damage from a rocket spread or flak shell. If your opponent isn't as mobile as you, a good dodgejump past them, while simultaneously turning to face them and letting loose rockets or flak shell is a good bet to killing them and not injuring yourself. This is very very risky if overused though. First, ANY jump or dodge leaves you vulnerable to players who know you use it a lot or to players who are better than you or are good predictors. A dodgejump for example gives you good height and great distance, but it is extremely easy to predict where you are going to land because you are in the air for so long. Good players will have a flak shell or rocket spread ready to meet you at the exact point you land with a dodgejump......so be very careful when using it in combat, use it sparingly.....it's mainly a navigation/movement technique, as you can cover ground far more quickly than running. To use it like this, execute dodgejumps to the side as you turn 90 degrees...this'll propel you forwards without pausing your movement (if you were to press double forward to do the dodge...big no-no). [edit] Dodgejumping is also a big no-no against people proficient with shock and lightning primary; hitting people in mid air is quite an easy thing to do. Best to stay on the ground and strafe a lot. Also, double jumping is a specific skill in combat. It's almost useless, BUT it can be extremely effective when facing someone with a rocket launcher. Because rockets work 95% of the time with splash damage, people have to aim at the floor, and if you can time when rockets are going to be released your way, and/or you don't have much space to dodge away and avoid rockets, then doing a double jump will almost completely negate splash damage on the ground. The only disadvantage is that it leaves you vulnerable on landing if your opponent is quick enough to loose a single rocket at you. Double jumping otherwise is a bad thing in combat; most other weapons are good at shooting-down floating people. =) The only other possible suggestion I might have is versus minigun and link secondary at close range. Sometimes a double jump at close range will put you out of their view and make them lose their lock for a split second. Sometimes it is difficult for people to quickly shift from horizontal to vertical aiming (myself included).
Ok, dodging. Double tap in a direction. Ok, never use forward dodge, it's useless. Like I said above, just side-dodge as you turn 90 degrees. Backwards dodge, nearly as useless. The best use for back dodging is to confuse people trying to shock combo you from the front; tricking their distance judging. Otherwise, side dodging is the only thing you'll ever use. Dodging is a reliable and effective thing to use in close combat. It's pretty much ok to use it a lot as it's fast, gives you good distance and doesn't leave you as vulnerable for as long as with dodgejumping. Basically you use dodges to avoid imminent incoming fire, and as the first part of a killing blow. Facing someone with almost any weapon, a dodge is a good way to throw people off. If you're in close combat and the enemy has a hell of a lock on you with link secondary, minigun, or you feel a milisecond away from an imminent primary flak jamface, a dodge to the side while aiming/firing back at them the way you dodged may buy you the quarter second you need to turn the tables. At medium range versus flak, people using primary shock rifle, lightning gun, link primary, a dodge is useful to avoid incoming fire....especially versus lg and sr. Someone who's l447 will have an easier time hitting you at the landing of a dodge, but typically most people will miss when you dodge, especially if you take quick mental note of the firing rate they have, and dodge just as you think they're going to fire. This is especially effective when using the dodgejump to escape rocket fire at medium ranges. If you can be a juicy, stationary target, the enemy will release their rockets asap at your feet, and if you know that, you can dodgejump away at the right moment, and force them to spend another second loading more rockets. Enough time to let you turn the tables. So dodge a lot, but be careful with dodgejumping. Walldodging (jumping towards a wall, or double jumping, then double-tap dodging away) is the tactically the same as dodgejumping. it sends you miles but leaves you vulnerable. The only advantage is that it's less expected, so you can get away with it more often.
Other movement tips. Try not to be predictable. RESTRAIN YOURSELF FROM RUNNING TO THE NEAREST WEAPONS!!! If you have any suspicion that someone is lurking around you with a flak or rocket launcher or loaded biorifle, do not do a beeline for the nearest weapon. These are some of the easiest kills anyone with experience will ever get; unloading a flak shell or rockets right at the weapon pickup people are obviously running towards. If you're under attack and can't get a weapon, learn to use the shieldgun. Bind something like middle mouse to the shieldgun, and learn to whip it out very quickly and activate the shield (alt fire) while you dodge towards a weapon pickup. If you get good with your dodging, you can even try to load up primary and blow them away by touching them. The shieldgun is extremely powerful and it's surprisingly easy to get lots of kills in a deathmatch with it.
Same goes for armour and health. if you're fighting someone, need a pickup and see one nearby, don't think you can get away with quickly darting to it so you can prolong the fight. It never works. If you must get that pickup, know where it is in advance, and, while fighting the enemy, work your way towards it, and get it by dodging or dodgejumping into it. If you can make your opponent believe you're not going for the pickup, they won't have a killing blow waiting for you there.
So for the rest of movement....something not to be forgotten is corridor fighting. Do NOT zig zag. It's extremely tempting, and it's easy to do without thinking, but if someone is dodging from side to side consistently, it becomes an easy matter of shooting them. Try to be erratic. In narrow places, the most effective thing to do is restrain from dodging side to side and instead strafe in quick steps, forwards, side to side, to the side again, forwards, other side, etc etc. Make quick patterns of movement and direction off of your movement keys without dodging. This is another miracle movement technique essential when facing people who're shooting at you with shock, flak and lightning gun primary fires. It's extremely hard to land a blow on people in front of you doing a merry tap dance of plain movement key jittering. Sometimes it is preferable to dodging. You just have to try and read your opponent and know when it's right to jitter, and when it's right to dodge the flak shell that he lobs at you in frustration....because jittering won't for example be effective against a rocket, flak shell, bio rifle goo, link or minigun primary. Learn to mix-up your movement and dodging maneouvers; getting predictable in your dodging is guaranteed death.
I think the last issue i'll bring up is weapon binds and weapon switching. It's something i've not nearly mastered yet, and something that amazes me when people own me. You'll have seen it. it's when someone zaps your ass with a lightning gun, dodges right into you and a split second later blows you away with a flak cannon. What?! I thought that dude had a lightning gun out?!?! WTF! Hehe, yeah, binded weapon switching. Knowing what weapons to use, and having the instant keypress to change it in time. Infinitely better than wasting time and effort trying to scroll through your weapons....although a little complicated to learn. I can only set basic binds myself at the moment, but here we go.
http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=371456&highlight=key+binds
That'll give you an idea on how to go about setting a keybind to let you switch between weapons fast. Some people find them useful, some don't....I guess it depends on how much space/keys you feel you have available. i find it useful because when I have a lot of weapons, scrolling through them all really does take too long.
Oh yeah, and one more thing. weapon crosshairs. Of course, set them as what you like, but certain crosshairs seem to stimulate better aiming. For example, use CIRCLE 5 crosshair, white, mostly opaque, and about half scale, maybe slightly smaller.....assign that crosshair setup to shock rifle, lightning gun and maybe sniper rifle and link gun. For minigun and possibly link gun, assign a plain DOT, again white mostly opaque, largest scale. There's something about those particular crosshairs that seem to make you hit more often. Dunno what it is. I used those crosshairs and felt my aim get better instantly.....and afterwards I got a hold of some demo videos with pro players, and I noticed some guys from mTw (one of the best clans in the world) using the exact same crosshairs. So if you're not too attached to your currect crosshair setup, try those particular ones out and see how they feel. Also, make sure to get rid of the big chunky crosshairs, for example the default one assigned to the grenade launcher. All they do is obscure your view.
Well, i've typed FAR too much, but I hope you get some ideas and I hope your game improves somewhat!!!
Later fellow clan member!!!!
-Sculpy
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great guide though, good help 