Need training

[engurrand]

As the forum section says beginners help and guides i decided to post this here.

I am new to this game, have only played 2 days, and i really need someone to take the time to help me practice. If anyone is willing to help train me i would greatly appreciate it. I'm not dumb but i can see clearly this game requires you to pay lots of attention to many factors at once.... For example, knowing the animations is critical to having a good chance, yet i am still new so i have no had enough time to view all the animations from different angles and find it hard to recognize. My manual blocking skills also need work, i have been using keyboard blocking lately, and although i find this much easier it is almost impossible to do correctly while also moving... So i must mouse.

Basically i want someone to practice with me with wooden swords and... well... Be a pal.

[OzyTheSage]

If you can, try joining a duel server with people in it. Ask around there and you might find somebody willing to help you out.

EDIT: Also, are you NA or EU? You should try joining servers marked for your zone for less lag and stuff.

[Teeth]

Start off with firing up Native and pressing play tutorial. There are some bots there that are good for early blocking practice. You should set the combat speed in options to slower and fight the novice bot. Then work your way up to the veteran or whatever he is called and then turn up the speed to medium. Only go fight the next bot or turn up the speed if you can confidently block nine out of ten strikes while moving. First block standing still and then start moving around.

Try to move in certain patterns. So you are concentrated on your movement and blocking at the same time, which will be important later on.

When you can confidently block the veteran on medium speed you should go to the online duel server. You could also block the AI on fastest for a while, but in the end its not going to help you much, from that point on its just experience. I recommend you also try attacking back to get an idea how that works, but only after you can confidently block.

Doing what I described will atleast give you a good sense of the directional blocking system and moving and blocking at the same time. Blocking real players is very different though. In your first duels you should play defensively and focus on blocking and seeing what your enemy does. You can throw in attacks but keep focusing on defense.

Eventually you will start to become better at blocking till the point you feel bored when mostly just blocking. That is when blocking has become kinda automatic and your brain has time to actually think that youre bored. You should start with basic feinting (pressing RMB to break up an attack during its animation and pressing LMB to start a new one). From there on theres quite a lot of tricks and strategies to learn, the most important thing is that you watch other good players.

Oh, and block with mouse.

[Loar Avel]

Find the greatest player, figth them, die by their hand, repeat operation until you can put a good fight, repeat operation untill you can beat them.


Could also try the melee only server.

[engurrand]

Thank you all for your advice.  Even though it's my second day i'm already lv 27 I never played native or anything, just jumped right in... So i have a pretty good feel of the "higher end concepts" but it is apparent i lack the muscle memory skills to effectively put into place maneuvers.

I'm going to go practice on the bot for a long time now

[MR_FISTA]

im online most evenings english time, send me a pm on the forums ad il gladly jump in skype and help you out.

[Zerran]

One way I found that helped me at first with blocking was to use the sparring practice in the single player training areas. Basically I just created a character, exported them, which creates a .txt will all their data, modified this so that I had a few thousand strength (So I would never get killed while practicing), imported the .txt in game (There's an option to do both export and import in the camp menu) then recruited a follower and just let them swing at me and tried to block them in the training area.

It's a great way to learn the animations and to get used to an opponent that is actually trying to hit you.

Once you get to the point that you can block at least a little, the dueling server is a fantastic way to get better at single combat. Just don't get discouraged if you lose a lot, it's to be expected.

The newby phase of this game is one of the most frustrating of any game I've played, but it is well worth it.

[engurrand]

okay.

After practicing with the bot on normal (veternal fighter) for about 2 hours i then went into battle mode ... was just dicking around but i did notice that my percent of blocking increased from about 10-15% to around 30%, pleased with the results but seeing that my mind could see what i needed to do but hands lack the finess to express that concept i found my self very frustrated. Not in a discouraging way at all but in a way that made me realize how good this system actually is.

The reason more people don't play this game is because it requires a lot of real skill...

So good... but omg..... sooooo mad..... Not at people, just... at my brains inability to learn faster better STRONGER

[Froto_the_Loc]

I found siege a better place to learn when i started, there's normally newer people there, and there are respawns.

[Zerran]

my mind could see what i needed to do but hands lack the finess to express that concept

This is exactly what happened to me when i first started to play. You see what you need to do, you try and do it, and your hand is like "fuck that". 

Seriously though, it just takes practice. You have to train your muscles to respond to what you need them to do, which just takes time.

[Knute]

Here's something to try: go into the game options and turn your mouse sensitively way up.  Some people like having it turned way down too.  I like it turned up so when I'm blocking with the mouse there's less hand movement required.  You can also zoom your view in and out with the - and + keys on your keypad, I like going all the way zoomed out.

I'd also recommend creating skip the fun alts to try out all the different classes too, they go instantly to level 30 and have 10k to spend on starting gear.  You can make a new one every 7 days after you've deleted the old one.  Just pick a build from the solid builds section, buy a weapon or two, then hop on a duel or siege server and test it out.  When you try all the different classes it helps you learn their strengths and weaknesses.

[RandomDude]

okay.

After practicing with the bot on normal (veternal fighter) for about 2 hours i then went into battle mode ... was just dicking around but i did notice that my percent of blocking increased from about 10-15% to around 30%, pleased with the results but seeing that my mind could see what i needed to do but hands lack the finess to express that concept i found my self very frustrated. Not in a discouraging way at all but in a way that made me realize how good this system actually is.

The reason more people don't play this game is because it requires a lot of real skill...

So good... but omg..... sooooo mad..... Not at people, just... at my brains inability to learn faster better STRONGER

Hey how does your mouse respond? Does it always up block when you mean to? Does it sometimes do a side block instead of upblock?

Maybe think about getting a gamer mouse - it really worked for me when I had that problem.

Other than that, it can be easy to misblock in a fight. I do it all the time and i've been playing for ages.

[Dooz]

Nice. At this rate, you'll be kicking ass in no time. There's plenty of tips and tricks, but the most obvious and true one is the more you play, the better you'll get. And since you appreciate the game for what it is already and enjoy playing, you'll be getting better and better. Before you know it, you'll be doing things even before your mind recognizes you should be. 

[Vodner]

Blocking is mostly muscle memory. After some practice, you'll get to the point where you don't have to think about which direction to block. Just stick with it for a while. Duel is good practice for blocking, since it only takes about ten seconds after dying to get started on a new duel. Just be sure to take a break if you find yourself becoming unreasonably frustrated.

Personally, I played siege rather than battle when I was first learning the game. Getting killed within the first minute of a three minute battle isn't really much fun.

The real frustration starts when you get decent at blocking, but you haven't quite figured out footwork ('What? How did he hit me? I swung first!'). Keep practicing, and you'll get past that too.

[TheNeX]

As other said, duel servers are the best bet imo, to speed up the learning process.