+ Review: Antec N...
+ Player Spotligh...
+ Player spotligh...
+ Q&A with ra...
+ A chat with the...
+ Logitech G15 - ...
+ Q&A with Dr...
+ Today's Fragmov...
+ Night will answ...
+ Review: FIFA 10...
Community + Forums
+ Blogs
+ Users
+ Ranking
The Team + Teams
+ Matches
+ Awards
|
 |
UT: The power of timing |
|
| Published by: tewic on 11/05/2007 at 19:37 pm |
Page 1 of 1: Pages: 1 |
|
Timing. You might have heard of the term before. Every decent player times, but how do you actually do it, and what can you do as an already good player to further improve your timing? You don’t know? Then look no further. This guide will take you through the very basics of timing, and also some things you can do when you have the timing laid down, such as timing one item and getting 5.
Before we start it’s worth mentioning that the tactical parts of this guide can be used for all UT games, because the way of playing the game is the same, just remember that times may differ from the UT2004 ones.
Quote: dignitas/astz:
Timing is very important. Good timing is essential if you want to become a top player, timing items has to become second nature if you want to compete with the best players.
So, let’s get started with this guide, if you already know how to time and don’t think you need to learn more there, then read further down where there should be something for the players that are already comfortable with timing.
The numbers
The most important thing to know when timing, is of course: with which time intervals does the item spawn?
Here’s a little list over all the pickups in UT2004:
82s (~3x27,5s) - Yes it is 82s, it's because the exact time is actually 3x27,27s getting rounded down, but in other examples it'll get rounded up.
- Damage Amplifier:
55s (2x27,5s)
- 100 Armour
- KEG:
27,5s (1x27,5s)
- 50 Armour
- Adrenaline
- Ammunition
- Health
- Weapons
How to time?
The first thing to remember is the UT2004 clock counts downwards in a time limited game (some public servers might not work after a time limit, but all competitive game types do).
There’s a few basics you got to have in mind when you time, because we’re calculating in time, a minute is of course 60 seconds, counting downwards.
This means that you’ll be thinking in seconds instead of minutes.
55 second items:
Regular UT players will nod their heads when I say; this is for sure the easiest item to time. This is why I start out with this time, so you can get a sense of what timing actually is.
Subtracting 55 seconds from 60 is not difficult at all, in theory we could just as well +5 seconds on the clock, and we’d get the same time, just 1 minute before. This is probably the easiest way to time items that spawn every 55 seconds.
Example:
Imagine you’re playing a duel, the first 100 armour will spawn at 14:33,5 (27,5 seconds into the game). Let’s just say its 14:33 to make the calculation easier. Forget about minutes, and focus on seconds now. You might be in a fight before taking the 100 armour so you get it at :27. Instead of subtracting 55 seconds, it would be much easier to plus 5, in the heat of battle. Adding 5 seconds would give us a new spawn time of :32.
82 second items
Getting the Damage Amplifier in TDM is important, but not hard to time.
82 seconds is also 1 minute and 22 seconds.
Example:
The amp is picked up at 17:11.
The next amp should spawn 1 minute and 22 seconds later, since the clock is ticking down towards 00:00, the easiest way is to subtract 22 seconds from the pickup time. That means the next amp will spawn at 15:49.
Just as with the 55 second items, the 1 minute difference in actual calculation is taken for granted, and learnt really quick.
Should you by accident miss the time the amp was picked up on there’s another way to time it. The amp makes noise when it’s ticking out, at the last noise, plus 5 seconds and you have the next spawn time.
That’s because the amplifier lasts for 27,5 seconds. 82,5 seconds – 27,5 is 55 seconds, so you simply got another scale to time on. This last method is NOT recommended, because you might kill the amp before it runs out, and then have no clue when the next one it spawning.
27,5 second items
These items can be timed in many different ways, and I bet that there’s more methods than I could ever think of. I’ll try to give some suggestions to how you can time these items, and to how I do it myself, might give you some inspiration to get started.
First of all, calculate with 27 seconds, to make it a bit easier (It’s more precise than 28 seconds, been looking quite some into this, and came to the conclusion that 27 was best to use in terms of precision, won’t bother you all with a huge explanation why).
As most can see, 27 seconds is almost half a minute, and this is also where I’ll start off.
Example:
I’ll start off by the method I use myself.
The 50a is picked up at 12:23.
30-3=27, so in theory I could do the opposite.
12:23 + 3 seconds = 12:26
12:26 – 30 seconds = 11:56
I simply spilt the calculation up into two small actions, simplifying it, to make it easier to perform in the heat of battle.
Of course this can be done where you subtract 30 seconds first and then add 3. I don’t like that myself, but that’s because I often remember the pickup time to a later point and when I have overview to it, I calculate the time, making sure I get it spot on when needed.
Other methods could be to subtract 7 seconds, and afterwards subtract 20 seconds. It’s mainly a matter of taste, and how YOU usually calculate, if you have no problem jiggling around with weird numbers and such, maybe the 7 seconds and then 20 seconds, would be just fine.
Because it’s often easier to perform tasks when you can get them visualised, then I’d recommend the first method, adding 3 seconds is not difficult, and then simply thinking that you need the “opposite” time, as in, the direct opposite place on the watch (analog).
Advanced timing
With all the basics covered, it’s time to dive into the more advanced timing, and really where you harvest the benefits of knowing when an item spawns.
Overtime:
When going into overtime, the clock suddenly reverses, and starts counting up from 00:00, so obviously, the timing methods will change, because everything is reversed.
Because of this, you simply reverse your timing, instead of adding 5 seconds; you subtract 5 seconds, when you time the 100 armour. With amp you’d plus 22 seconds, and 50a you’d minus 3 and plus 30.
Being in overtime will always be against an equally skilled opponent, timing is a point where you have the chance to shine through and make that difference that’ll make you win the game. I often see many players (even top ones) mess up their timing at the first spawns during overtime, simply because everything changes around, and often the timer screws up while changing from counting down, and to counting up. A typical example is the clock ticks down to -00:10 and then resets to 00:00 and starts going up, so pay attention during the switch to overtime, and be early for the items to make sure you get them.
Routes:
You’ve probably often thought, why not time multiple guns, some health, and the armours, but maybe given up because it was too complex to remember all those times, and continuously time the items.
That’s why you’d want to time your items in a little route; it’s only limited by how many items you think you can get the hang of.
It’s rather simple to do in theory, but hard in the actual game. Before I explain how-to, then I’ll stress that this only works with the 27½ second items, because there’s so many of those on a map, that you can actually make a route out of it.
To time the items in a route, you simply start off by picking up an item, remember the time when it spawns again. Now you instantly move onto the next item nearby, pick it up, but don’t care about when it spawns the next time, and you move onto another item and another, until you have the items you want to get over and over again. E.g. this could be the 50 armour, one or two of your favourite guns, their ammunition and some health. Now you know the spawn time of the first item you picked up, get there when it spawns, and take it right away, now head to the item you took second, it should be spawning by the time you’re there, unless you’re getting caught up in a fight.
The purpose of this is, to get many good items for yourself over and over again, to keep you stacked with armour, health and good weapons.
You might have heard that an item picked up for yourself, is also one item stolen from the enemy. This is where this tactic gets really interesting, not only will you get more powerful in your battle to win, but you’ll also weaken your enemy and you might pick up his favourite gun on your route, preventing him from unleashing his best firepower.
This is of course easier to understand when visualised, so I’ll give an example from one of my recent EuroCup games, where this tactic made me win the decider map.
It was the upper bracket semi final against  kiLLzA, after winning a map both we went onto playing the decider map, picked by him due to net frags in the previous maps. It was Rankin, a map that’s known for rewarding heavy hitscan play. Hitscan being my major weakness I of course had to take action to prevent kiLLzA from demolishing me.
I got a lucky spawn in the shock/lg end of the map, and made sure to get the shock right away, and after a few minutes I had a route going that was proving strong. First I picked up the 50 armour, then the lightning gun and then the shock rifle. Taking away the two hitscan weapons + an small shield. The following 10 minutes kiLLzA managed to get his hands on one shock rifle, where he got killed seconds later, because I was already there to make sure he didn’t take it into use + a lightning gun + a few 50 armours.
This made him game crack up and gaining frag after frag while maintaining the lock; I had the game in my hands, taking a secure win.
The demos from this game can be found here (Watch Rankin, as it’s where it happened)
There’s also made a small video out of this last map, with the shoutcast by  RubberChicken attached to it, it can be found here.
There are many other popular routes to use. E.g. on Roughinery, taking the vials on the ledge above the elevator, then small shield, the vials down the ramp and then the shock rifle, this route is very fast (takes max 10 seconds) and gives you 40 health, 50 armour and a powerful gun.
Now it’s up to you to invent your own routes, most routes depend a lot on the opponent’s weapon choice and your own, so adapting and inventing a new route during a game can make you win it much easier than without.
How to practise timing
Practise is of course important to learn the actual timing; there are various methods to improve your timing accuracy and speed.
Timing during normal practise:
This is obviously the most straight forward way to get used to timing and improve it, but in the start it can be difficult to focus on the game, on timing and the opponent. That’s why I’d recommend using some other methods on the side, simply to optimize your timing.
Timing during demos:
This is probably the best way to get a good hang of timing. Whenever I watch a demo I tend to time along. This is a great way to learn both from the actual demo, and get much better timing; you can often try time 3 items when watching a demo.
Learn by heart:
This method is mainly if you want to get really good, really fast - you simply start learning timing for every second. It can be done in various ways; think of a random number and as fast as possible think when the next item spawn would be for that time.
Another way is to get all the numbers from 00 to 59 and run them through as fast as possible. You could for an instance do this in the bus/train to and from school/work.
Of course having the numbers randomized is much better so you always get some weird number and have to think fast all the time. Go to Random.org and fill in from 00 to 59, then you can copy paste the numbers into word, and create another random list, copy paste, until you have enough for your liking.
That was all, I hope you learnt some from this guide and maybe if we’re lucky, we might see more players focusing on timing and intelligent play in the future =)
|
 |
Page 1 of 1: Pages: 1 |
|
|
Articles Comments |
| well done tewic.. nice guide :) |
| good one should be helpful for less able players. |
| great work once again tewic :) |
| fuck tewic :) my old mate ;) |
| haha kiLLzA, sorry for stepping all over that game, but you gotta admit, it's the perfect example if you want to show people the benifit from timing in routes ;) if I didn't do that, you'd have won I'm sure. |
n1 tewic
unreal.ie hosting ftw ^_^ |
|
