cRPG
cRPG => Beginner's Help and Guides => Topic started by: Christo on August 30, 2011, 04:32:49 am
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It just.. feels like that I'm only the shadow of my past performance in this game.
I used to be good, no, not good. Awesome at this. But now I'm only a useless burden, no matter what I do.
Many, many things happened since I learned the basics. They remained the same, but no matter how hard I try, I just end up getting steamrolled by almost anyone. I just suck. Maybe the avg. player skill increased, and that's why my methods don't work, so I'm asking for
advices from you, fellow players about melee. What should I try now?
For an example, feinting doesn't work anymore. I relied on that a lot alone. Now everyone and their mother can read them like an open book.
Cheers.
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Now, now, Christo. Everything will look better tomorrow. Also do you wanna come duel nao?
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Now, now, Christo. Everything will look better tomorrow.
What do you mean?
Sure.
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You need to understand the basics of how melee works, and practice blocking and movement. Noways I find that the person who moves better wins.
BASICS OF HOW MELEE WORKS
Essentially: The basic mechanics behind the game are very simple, basically melee works in turns: Your turn, His turn, Your turn, His turn and so forth.
This is an important concept, that most new players do not understand and the old hands know inside out. Many players tend to get hit when they ignore the his turn, my turn paradigm. Basically they try to force another turn once their turn is already over. When they try to force another turn they naturally get whacked, because its not their turn anymore.
While feinting is nice, first understand the simple concept of his turn my turn, if understood properly it will save new or struggling players tons of frustration.
OTHER CONCEPTS
Feinting serves two purposes:
1.) Get your opponent to misjudge the direction he should be blocking from.
2.) Goad your opponent to attack during your synthetically extended attack phase.
Number 1 is self explanatory. We will talk about Number 2 at greater depth:
When you synthetically extend your attack phase, you are on borrowed time. You cannot indefinably extend your attack phase, as your opponent can judge your feints and attack you midway feint and hit you. He will be able to hit you while your are feinting in your attack phase because you were synthetically extending your attack turn into his turn.
Another way of synthetically extending an attack turn is using movement. This is tricky to describe you have to see it in action, a really good player to spectate to understand this is Balb. But essentially, most new players tend to have only 2 types of movement only forward or backward and they usually stick to that type of movement all the time. If you watch the old hands, they move forward and backward but what makes them really good is their ability to attack people at angles and rapidly shift from one angle to another. This does two things:
1.) Confuses the hell out of many opponents getting them to misjudge blocks
2.) Makes opponent players orient the wrong way giving the old hand the ability to get "free strikes in"
Another idea you should get rid of is the idea of getting wed to your immediate opponent. In siege or in battle allot of the fighting is done in crowds, in those instances many new players tend to face and concentrate on only one opponent. This is a mistake, your job when fighting is not to fight one guy its to win the map. Switch opponents, after one or two attacks if you are not making progress fighting your current opponent (aka. he is still standing) try disengaging and attacking someone else, then turn back to the first guy. Many times you will be able to hit a guy in the back and give your teammate help in getting rid of his opponent, so then he will be free to help you with yours.
When fighting two or more opponents, try getting rid of the weakest player first. How do you know who is weakest?
1.) You can usually tell by the way the players move
or
2.) The player with the least armour.
In this way, hopefully you will be able to quickly get rid off one of your opponents and give yourself some breathing room.
Also when fighting 2 or more opponents do not let one of them flank you or get to your back. To prevent flanking, try stringing them along, you can do this by moving in a zig zag pattern backwards. In this way it will be hard for your opponents to know which way you are going to go next and prevent them from flanking you.
Hope this helps :)
P.S
My old really long thread on melee, that talks about many of the things covered here:
http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,1545.0.html
My two favorite teaching videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9jHcZjWw9U <-- Very good basic tutorial
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZZnl09qBKM&feature=related <--Shows people dying mostly due to timing problems
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Footwork + holding is better than feinting, I would say.
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Funny seeing how bad people were back in the ole days. That 2nd video in Formless' post, hahah... not a single person could do anything but spam like a nub. c-RPG's come a long way compared to that.
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Stick 'em with the pointy end.
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Try combining feints, hold attacks and outranging. Try to invent your own funky, unreadable feints. With poles it's actually quite hard to pull off fast feints, unless it's hafted blades or staffs.
Perhaps even try spinning around and changing attack direction while you spin.
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I find the delayed release much more rewarding than feints these days
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Tell me more about that delayed release, it's timing especially.
Thank you.
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Well most of the fodder have a sense of timing if a duel goes the usual way.
Your turn - you hit (they block)
Their turn - they hit (you block) and so on
However if you interupt the timing of the duel with a delayed attack you step into their turn
Your turn - you hit (they block)
Their turn - they hit (you block)
Your turn - delay
Their turn - swing attempt and get hit by your delayed attack
This will work on 80% of guys thats on the fodder servers
Or you could do a delay just by a little ammount of time, you will then interupt their anticipated block of your attack
They will anticipate the time of your next attack, if that attack doesent come (you delayed your swing for a bit) they will realease the block and commence their attack thinking that their turn has come when in fact you have stepped into their turn with your delay.
This wont work on those 20% of guys who know their stuff. You will have to combine all your skills of footwork, timing, feints, delay and a sense of your weapons lenght to beat those guys
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Higher agi, footwork and hiltslashing also works quite well.
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You can discuss techniques, timing and mechanics all day long - but all of those things just comes with practice.
The most important thing (imo) when transcending from a "decent" melee fighter to a "good" one is that you develop a style that is your own.
I see way too many people who either 1. Know how to block good, and got the timing down, but really don't put any creativity into their fighting but rely on their weapon/agi to get past the opponent (these guys usually reach for the scims eventually) or 2. copy their style from others. Lots of wannabe Phyrexes/Bjords etc. running around using the exact same techiques, but worse (most often MUCH worse). These guys are never going to "be" anything, and they're exceptionally boring (and easy) to fight.
In short: As Vibe said - invent your own funky techniques, be creative.
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You can discuss techniques, timing and mechanics all day long - but all of those things just comes with practice.
The most important thing (imo) when transcending from a "decent" melee fighter to a "good" one is that you develop a style that is your own.
I see way too many people who either 1. Know how to block good, and got the timing down, but really don't put any creativity into their fighting but rely on their weapon/agi to get past the opponent (these guys usually reach for the scims eventually) or 2. copy their style from others. Lots of wannabe Phyrexes/Bjords etc. running around using the exact same techiques, but worse (most often MUCH worse). These guys are never going to "be" anything, and they're exceptionally boring (and easy) to fight.
In short: As Vibe said - invent your own funky techniques, be creative.
This ^
I find that my fights never last as long as the 2 minute+ duels that i see happen all the time. But that doesn't mean i can't kill those superblockers. Footwork and deception is probably the most important part of meleeing, feints is really easy to read if someone spams them.
Also, even holds can be countered if you're smart enough, you don't have to jsut hold your block and wait for the attack, feint to goud them to attack and block it, or try block chambering the hold, or if they hold it extra long, block chamber block the same direction as the attack.
The key to success in CRPG is Metagaming, always ask yourself why you lost this duel, or died in such and such manner. You'll find that doing this will propel you pass the noobish masses and into the moderately goodrange of players
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You can discuss techniques, timing and mechanics all day long - but all of those things just comes with practice.
The most important thing (imo) when transcending from a "decent" melee fighter to a "good" one is that you develop a style that is your own.
I see way too many people who either 1. Know how to block good, and got the timing down, but really don't put any creativity into their fighting but rely on their weapon/agi to get past the opponent (these guys usually reach for the scims eventually) or 2. copy their style from others. Lots of wannabe Phyrexes/Bjords etc. running around using the exact same techiques, but worse (most often MUCH worse). These guys are never going to "be" anything, and they're exceptionally boring (and easy) to fight.
In short: As Vibe said - invent your own funky techniques, be creative.
So very true, couldn't have said it better. Nothing is worse than watching some two un-imaginative averages exchanging blow for blow for a full minute or two, before one of them does a wrong block.
Doing your own thing is the most important ability in the game right now, blocking ability stopped being the indicator of someone's skill a looooooong time ago.
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You've really just got to learn to mix it up. Once I learned to delay my swings that's all I thought about doing.I forgot to feint while fighting. Then I started to focus on feiting and I forgot to delay my swings. Just mix it up more. Delay. Feint. Feint. Delay. Feint. Think about what would fuck you up blocking the most and use that on your opponent.
Also remember to stay balanced with your opponent. Don't let him move around you. Stay in front of him, so that you can block him more easily and see his swings more visibly.
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I always find it amusing when some nutter comes up to you feinting manically and you just overhead them once.
I find footwork the most important. Screw feinting, delayed attack ect. I find that simply moving around them and learning which direction to go depending on their swings is the best thing. If you're fast at blocking you can really pull of some good stuff with footwork.
And if you really want to get crazy, throw some spin attacks in, or even a jump slash/jump overhead. I've caught more than a few players off guard by just being boring and following a pattern and then throwing a jump attack in. It's risky but worth it if it pays off and you get them in the head.
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When it's "your turn" to swing you have a few options.
Simple swing
-fastest, can catch people trying to do something fancy
-easiest to block/chamber
Delayed swing
-slower, but can break up the rhythm of a fight and catch someone off-guard.
-if held the right amount of time can do extra damage
-can be easy to block if used too often; someone trying to get multiple swings will catch you looking
-can counter someone who's trying to chamber you
Feint swings
-slower than a simple swing, but can throw off the enemy's block if you change direction (or even if you keep the same direction)
-can get caught if the enemy is trying to chamber you (their 'chamber attempt' swing will hit you before your second feint comes in)
Do nothing for a second/simple swing
-will make the enemy who is expecting a response to get confused and believe it to be 'their turn' to attack. This can land you a simple swing blow if they hesitated
-probably shouldn't do this to start fights, only if it's going longer and a pattern is established; you've shown that you can be respected as can't be spammed to death
Then there are all sorts of things like chambering (I'm bad at and rarely use) trying to get double swings in based on enemy hesitation or positioning/swing choice, kicking, abusing the reach of your weapon/backpeddling. These are essentially ways steal a turn from the enemy and often net you a solid hit.
Working on mixing things up with the above will go a long way I think. I typically keep things pretty simple until I get into a complicated fight with someone. Going too crazy too soon will probably let someone burn you with simple fast stuff.
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You can discuss techniques, timing and mechanics all day long - but all of those things just comes with practice.
The most important thing (imo) when transcending from a "decent" melee fighter to a "good" one is that you develop a style that is your own.
I see way too many people who either 1. Know how to block good, and got the timing down, but really don't put any creativity into their fighting but rely on their weapon/agi to get past the opponent (these guys usually reach for the scims eventually) or 2. copy their style from others. Lots of wannabe Phyrexes/Bjords etc. running around using the exact same techiques, but worse (most often MUCH worse). These guys are never going to "be" anything, and they're exceptionally boring (and easy) to fight.
In short: As Vibe said - invent your own funky techniques, be creative.
On the contrary, there's no reason to re-invent the wheel. A lot of people bitch and moan about it, but if you want to be good, first you steal the good shit from the best players and then you go about fitting them into your own style. Many people have gotten good just by copying.
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Very, very good suggestions here.
Thanks guys. :)
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Awww don't mention that Christo.
You just made me realise how better I was doing when feints worked all the time on the usual rabble :cry:
Now it's all about "I have more reach and agi than you blah", "I can run through you and hit you in the back for some reason" or that kind of crap. If you want to be a really good fighter, you need to learn every way of stealing a turn, and you need to be able to rely on only the two firsts if you want to be good with all weapons and builds.
Feints, because they still work sometimes. Polearms are crappy for those but still.
Holds, very good alternative.
Clever spam. That's often more about knowing your opponent than really striking fast. When he will hold, feint etc.
Footwork. Either for the first strike or when you just got blocked, go to the other side preparing a swing, waiting for your opponent to miss.
Kicks. When you learned the typical behaviors of opponents, you can predict where they'll go. You need a little bit of practice to learn the timing of the strike after the kick. Don't forget you can block when you kick !!!
Chambers. Not that usefull, most people will block in time. Good against people with few attack directions. Needs an awful lot of practice.
If you have a short weapon, you have to learn how to counter the reach and footwork of your opponents. The best way to protect your back is trying to keep your opponent in the same direction all the time. You can acheive that by imitating his movements. Their's no secret about how to counter reach abuse. Just stay extremely focused. That's why it works so well when you can use it.
Finally, the most effective way of fighting is still not fighting at all. Backstabbing high profile enemies will help your team a lot more than trying to take out a group by yourself.
Also, even if that's tempting, don't try to rush fights too much :
Going too crazy too soon will probably let someone burn you with simple fast stuff.
That got me killed quite a few times.
I found that the ideal moment for releasing a holded swing is just before your opponent's "turn" to strike. You have to hold a very short time, more like 1/3 of second, depending on the weapons.
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i found it hard to adapt a little after my first absence
the average skill level of crpg players definately went up
i used to get most kill from just using overheads - the hardest direction to block for novices usually
Formless made some good points - especially about the fighting in crowds and moving around like a maniac to confuse them although lately I move myself into rape groups and die so sometimes backpedalling and just focusing on blocking works until I only have to fight 1/2 players that are in front of me.
Most of my kills come playing like a piker. I used to do this a lot before most people were aware of it and nowadays it's usually a lot harder. Basically waiting till a friendly player is being attacked and then attack their attacker. If you can keep an eye on multiple opponents during a fight you can use this quite well, as well as defending yourself from similar tactics.
Chamber blocking can work in extended duels, usually when they try to feint from a side swing, but a lot of people hold their attack now and it's only good vs people trying to get a quick strike in. Also I wouldnt ever advise a flamberger to chamber block an overhead - even if you time it correctly and they feint to a side swing you get hit before the do.
I hate fighting long duels. I just run from ally to ally trying to finish their opponent off from behind or after my ally has been attacked. You dont even need to be good at duels to place highly in the score boards, just good at these tactics and getting the last strike on an enemy.
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I hate fighting long duels. I just run from ally to ally trying to finish their opponent off from behind or after my ally has been attacked. You dont even need to be good at duels to place highly in the score boards, just good at these tactics and getting the last strike on an enemy.
Honestly, this is probably how I get the majority of my kills. I do decently well in 1v1 situations but if you can break off and gang up on someone during battle you'll find your battle awareness goes a looong way.
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basically melee works in turns: Your turn, His turn, Your turn, His turn and so forth.
The faster you drop the idea that its in turns the better, I am so fixed at this turn system that spam attacks and hiltslashes mostly kill me, I'm trying to get rid of the idea, but its rooted pretty deep. Do not trust its your turn after you've done an attack.
The average player skill, especially on the duel server, went way up. I believe average cRPG skill surpassed average Native skill quite a while ago now. I've been long trying to get really good at this game, but I can't get it done, whilst I am intelligent, have fast reflexes and a good hand-eye coördination.
Lately I've grown tired of duelling and I started focusing on my battlefield awareness. I just spectated good players, see how they reacted to certain situations. How they survived their counter classes and preyed on the weak. Now I do pretty good in battle, I think battle awareness is almost as important as duelling skill.
Although maybe youre just talking about duelling. I know the feeling. One day you suck really bad, and you think you just have a bad day. But there are only bad days after that and you feel you have to relearn duelling.
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My best advice when you start to feel like you don't kill enough/die too soon : play an alt for some time. You are probably just getting tired of playing in the same way all the time. When you come back to your main, you will be more focused and more imaginative. Playing alts is also a good idea because it improves your reflexes faster (less predicting than your main because you are less used to the timing) and your skills in other categories than what you use as your main. If someday your favorite playstyle is nerfed too much, you can switch without loosing everything you learned.
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Alts also give you a fresh perspective of things and thus lets you improve with other classes. Without anyone teaching you, you most probably won't learn all the tricks of one class, by playing only that.
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The faster you drop the idea that its in turns the better, I am so fixed at this turn system that spam attacks and hiltslashes mostly kill me, I'm trying to get rid of the idea, but its rooted pretty deep. Do not trust its your turn after you've done an attack.
Actually, if you go by "your turn, his turn" you'll never get spammed - unless you feint. If you strictly exchange blow for blow and don't fail footwork, spam or hiltslashes won't get you.
, but I can't get it done, whilst I am intelligent, have fast reflexes and a good hand-eye coördination.
You forgot to mention that you're also modest.
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You forgot to mention that you're also modest.
:lol:
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Actually, if you go by "your turn, his turn" you'll never get spammed - unless you feint. If you strictly exchange blow for blow and don't fail footwork, spam or hiltslashes won't get you.
You forgot to mention that you're also modest.
Meh, I don't mind stating facts about myself. :P
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if you want to be good in battles, its all about picking your fights, sit back for 2 mins and let all the cannon fodder go in first and get shot/spammed to death, plus by the time you move in alot of people will be low hp. I think picking your fights would be the most useful for you, know what your capable of and what your not, and if you think you cant win in a certain situation,walk away and fight somebody else.Your more help to the team if you can turn around and go fight somebody else who you have more of a chance of beating, then dying hopelessly to a really good dueler or a 3v1 situation.
Thats my 2 cents :) even a below average player can be more use to the team if he does this.
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even a below average player can be more use to the team if he does this.
Hey! That's me!!! :D
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hmm ur an poleaxe user.
so id say backpeddle and spam that fuckin thing.
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hmm ur an poleaxe user.
so id say backpeddle and spam that fuckin thing.
YEAH
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and if you think you cant win in a certain situation,walk away and fight somebody else.
Pff boring!
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Glaive, 27 agi, light armor, backpeddle and spam. Problem fixed!
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Just copy and improve. If it works for your playstyle, use it.
I don't think I've developed any sort of "tricks" or attack-patterns by myself. I've learnt by watching the masters and legends of the past and improved upon their legacy.
TheNarrator - The creator of the spinthrust. I tried to copy his style, took me 2 weeks before I started to get the hang of it. His spinthrust was kind of basic, vertical downwards. I spent a month of just perfecting it and taking it to the extreme, side spinthrust, ground and upwards spinthrust, all the variants. Took a good 2-4 weeks before Kekn, Hubbel, Weirdo and the old school Ndition duellers figured it down and started doing it themselves. Kekn took it even further then me, his spinthrusts were the most retarded I've ever seen.
Ereev - Chambering. Nothing special, took me half a year to master it, but if you add feints and/or holded attacks after your chamber it can be used to even more deadly effect. Most of the "pros" around here still fall for a holded chamber attack(Including me, most of the time). Ereev was special, he could chamber holded attacks, somehow... still trying to figure out how he did it... :P
duckduckMOO - Feinting rotations - duckduckMOO, this guy was insane and it took me months and months before I reached his level of skill. He had it all, perfect blocking, footwork, chambering, but above all else, he had his feint rotations. By mixing left-slash feints with thrust feints, utilising the natural right-hand mouse movements, he did some really fast feints. I copied it all and I'm still using it.
Flash - Distance control - You know the drill. Side slash -> backpeddle -> do a thrust and fall back in on your opponent and hit him just after he missed you. Flash was the grandmaster of this. Copied it and with the current 2h thrust nerf, this type of attack works best of all.
Szymczak - Hiltslashing - Man, I was furious when Szymczak started utilising this a long time ago. He broke the sacred duelling rythm, attack block attack block. He managed to do an attack attack. I refused to use the same technique he did, I thought at the time that the duels turned into a strafe and spam contest, and it did at one time. However, after many duels I found the weakness and exploited it. After that my thought on the subject softened enough for me to copy it aswell, it's after all a very quick way to dispatch new players. :P
Morii - Feints with Hold attacks - Very basic but extremly deadly. Do fast feints and suddenly do a holded attack, time it perfectly and it'll hit your opponent since most people click-block. Copied.
I'm 99% certain that everything that can be done has been done. Engine and animation limitations has reached its peak of what is doable. All you can do is copy others and adjust it to your playstyle.
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I'm 99% certain that everything that can be done has been done. Engine and animation limitations has reached its peak of what is doable. All you can do is copy others and adjust it to your playstyle.
Yeah all the good tricks have pretty much been made, its gonna be harder to create a whole new trick, I defitenely cant think of one right now.
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Szymczak - Hiltslashing - Man, I was furious when Szymczak started utilising this a long time ago. He broke the sacred duelling rythm, attack block attack block. He managed to do an attack attack. I refused to use the same technique he did, I thought at the time that the duels turned into a strafe and spam contest, and it did at one time. However, after many duels I found the weakness and exploited it. After that my thought on the subject softened enough for me to copy it aswell, it's after all a very quick way to dispatch new players. :P
Tell me about it... Hats off to Szym though, he developed a fighting style completely different from anyone else, and at the same time forced you to completely change your game. I still haven't seen anyone who does it as well as him.
Phyrex you're such a sell out, all the hate speeches and then you copy it :D
Also, Lilac - maybe someone's alt, but I haven't seen anyone feint as fast without actually releasing the attacks. In fact, this is the person whose attacks I had the hardest time reading.
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Just copy and improve. If it works for your playstyle, use it.
I don't think I've developed any sort of "tricks" or attack-patterns by myself. I've learnt by watching the masters and legends of the past and improved upon their legacy.
I am actually really impressed by the dedication you put into this hobby. If you used that in your professional life, no matter what you do you would be a star in your occupation.
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There isnt many ppl I can rarely or never defeat.
phyrex, xant, bjwhored, chase, atze (most retarded fightstyle ever)
Remember i refused duelling phyrex for months, had one duel and it was awesome.
Packed in all I had, was an awesome exchange of blows.
First: They got awesome blocking
2nd: Perfect range awareness
3rd: They are combining diff. attacks
4th: They are really keen :-)
Openly admit, I copied everything I saw 12 months ago.
Think my 2h play always was rather clean, a clean playstyle isnt a bad thing per se.
People allrdy stated the most important things.
I throw in:
Sneaky playstyle (hide somewhere, flank, read the opponent)
Retreat (is an option)
You can always create a comfortable fighting situation by enough awareness.
Though, I always was a rather average player, so better dont pay attention to what I say .
And yes, the engine reached its limits some while ago.
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Funny seeing how bad people were back in the ole days. That 2nd video in Formless' post, hahah... not a single person could do anything but spam like a nub. c-RPG's come a long way compared to that.
exactly my thought. watching the old reapy videos again is great, though.
think i will play some native TDM rigth now. hope they will make a TDM for crpg one day, just for the luls.
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also try to figure out wether ur best at fighting defensively or agresive.
or a combo of both.
just switch style each round , first round il attack very agresive and no caring( wear te same armor next round btw)
then the second round thel see my armor and expact me to be agresive but then i throw them off by acting agresive and then play very devensive etc etc.
u get the logic hopefully
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by the way also use this against ur enemy.
if you see ur enemy kills you by feint spamming alot.
then just think there probly gonna do it again the next round so just fight him in a way thatsgonna counter his attacks.
this way i almost never lose 2 times against one enemy:)
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by the way also use this against ur enemy.
if you see ur enemy kills you by feint spamming alot.
then just think there probly gonna do it again the next round so just fight him in a way thatsgonna counter his attacks.
this way i almost never lose 2 times against one enemy:)
thought when you meet a good player, he will know that you are gonna spam if he feintspams, so he just wont feintspam and if you spam there, your gone buddy.
Forexample: I feintspam you insanely, like 10 feints or so, and you get killed. You meet me again, you think im gonna do it again. I feint ONCE, and then your gone.
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Know your manual. That's all. Period. This tactic chavent failed me for over 2 years.