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Game Types, Roles and Tactics

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Sat, 01/24/2004 - 08:44 by narcogen

I'll be up-front about this: I hate Free For All (FFA) games, especially Slayer, so I don't really have much to say about them. If there are some high ping FFA players out there that are having luck with certain tactics, feel free to email me and I'll put them here. I tend to prefer team games, as well as games with non-slaying objectives like Oddball, King of the Hill, Race and Capture the Flag, so I'll comment here on how dealing with lag affects those games and your role in them. Capture the Flag You've got a choice when playing CTF as a high ping bastard: do you want to play effectively, or do you want to go for the glory and risk being hated by your teammates? There's no question that players with high pings are better suited to defending than attacking; especially if you have a vehicle such as a Ghost or Warthog, or even a Shade turret, to help you. (Teammates, of course, are even better.) Grenades are your friend while defending, if you can work out with your fellow defenders where you're going to throw so they don't rush in for a melee kill as you're lobbing one. (Work this out in advance of the battle, in the lull between attacks, not just as you throw one, unless you're using some sort of voice commo-- which for the high pingers, is pretty much ruled out as it eats up your bandwidth). If you die (which you may) in most CTF games you'll spawn relatively close to your own base, giving you another shot at the flag carrier before he makes a clean getaway. If you assume that high ping players are going to die more often (and in my experience, they do) it's better to have them defending; they know what's going on back at the base, and they know which way the attackers went, so they know how to respond when they respawn. If an attacker dies and respawns back at the base, he's not of any immediate use there unless he knows the situation, and more likely he's just going to be focused on getting back on the attack. As a high latency player, if you're involved in a coordinated attack you run the risk of upsetting the plan by dying early, driving poorly, or creating unintended friendly fire, and thereby drawing attention to your high ping in a negative way.
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Weapons

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Sat, 01/24/2004 - 08:41 by narcogen

As with the vehicles, the nature of each weapon sometimes makes it more or less suitable for players on slow connections. Again, in increasing order of utility: Needler This weapon is fairly useless in multiplayer anyway, barely better than the plasma pistol which is the default weapon on many maps. One good thing about it: the projectiles track, like the plasma pistol's secondary fire, meaning accuracy is not as important as with other weapons. However, the projectiles are slow and relatively easy to dodge or take cover from. If you're toe-to-toe with a single opponent, you might as well melee him with it, it'll do about as much good. If you're in a group with multiple targets, in can do damage, as your opponents won't be able to give their full attention to the miniscule threat you pose. Sniper Rifle If you're badly lagged and trying to hit someone with a sniper rifle, you'd better hope they're standing still-- because that's going to be your only chance. Most likely you're also standing more or less still while sniping; but if not, you may find yourself "warping" while zoomed in at 10x and having difficulty keeping your quarry in the crosshairs. Probably the only players you've got a chance at killing this way are either standing still with their backs to you (teammates, perhaps?) or other snipers, in which case they're probably going to react more quickly and kill you before you get off a shot (this happens a lot in the upper base lofts on Sidewinder). Add to that the small clips and long reload time, and you've got a nightmare for high ping players unless you're very well hidden. Pistol Most good players consider this the most powerful weapon in the game, and it usually is. In the right hands, even a player with full shields and health can be dropped to the ground with three accurate headshots. The problem is, if you've got a lot of lag, getting those three headshots is probably going to use up your clip. However, as a medium-range weapon the pistol can still be useful because of its scope (the sniper really isn't good for anything but long range for a high ping player, as closer in the "warp" effect plus player movement is going to keep you from drawing a bead on them). However, I suggest going for body shots to make every bullet count, rather than trying for head shots and a quick kill.
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Vehicles

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Sat, 01/24/2004 - 07:27 by narcogen

In order from worst to... least bad, these are the vehicles available to high ping bastards in Halo multiplayer: Banshees The "warping" effect that happens when the server corrects your client seems to affect Banshees particularly badly. It also manifests itself when getting in and out of vehicles or structures and using ladders. The kind of endless-spiral dogfights that Banshees tend to cause are especially bad if you are on a slow connection; a short delay can widen your circle enough to let your opponent get behind or under you and get in enough shots for the kill. What's more, the throttle-down and drop technique that many good pilots use also seems to initiate the "warp" effect. If there are no other good pilots in the game you're in, you can still use the Banshee as a good strafing weapon; but beware Shades. Unlike in single player, they don't tip over when hit by the Banshee's FRG, and the gun itself seems to shield players from damage far better than in the single player game. I recommend diving runs against players, shades and vehicles while firing the primary weapon until you can line up a shot with the secondary; then break off, look for cover-- either by flying behind a structure or going above the Shade, out range of return fire-- and wait for the FRG to reload before circling around again. Note you can only attempt this if there's nothing else shooting at you (like another Banshee). The diving melee attack that many Banshee pilots use is also a lot less effective if you're lagged; you can end up circling on the ground trying to hit a dodging target, all the while a sitting duck yourself (and also looking quite foolish). This works if the target doesn't see you coming and where the terrain is flat. UPDATE: vector40, author of the Banshee Handling article here at R.net (of which a second installment is forthcoming, I understand) doesn't care whether or not I credit him with this technique he passed on, which is to eschew diving runs and simply hover over the Shade. The gun's maximum elevation doesn't allow it to fire at targets almost directly above it, so you can hover there and "fire with impunity" as he put it. The dive-bombing technique is to be reserved for "heavily armored ground targets".
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XBL Could Help Halo Speed Running Go Legit

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Fri, 12/26/2003 - 03:54 by narcogen

Any game that continues to have an active community after other games have passed it by technologically usually does so because it is extended and used in ways that weren't necessarily originally intended. Sometimes this is done by adding in features missing from the original-- such as the options for Internet play created by adding TCP/IP code to Marathon through the Aleph One project, or to Xbox Halo using tunelling programs like PfhorSlayer's Aquaduct. In some cases it's using the game engine and content as a basis for completely new creative works, like the much-heralded machinima series Red vs Blue, based in the Blood Gulch level in Halo. Sometimes it's done by modmakers, who create new skins, weapons, vehicles, levels and even entirely new scenarios in an old game engine, breathing new life into it. Sometimes it's a much simpler process that doesn't really require any technical changes at all, but comes from playing an old game in a different way. One of the oldest types of this kind of "expansion" is speed running-- ignoring most of the normal goals of gameplay for the sake of completing a level as quickly as possible. The first speed runners I remember seeing were in the original Quake game, where a group known as Quake Done Quick posted the best speedrunners' times in small, downloadable files that you could put into your game recordings folder and play back at your leisure. The simple ability of the game to record the actions of players and monsters in-game in a small file that could easily be transferred on the Internet-- similar to facilities that existed in other Bungie games, like Marathon and Myth, made the whole speed running process easy and accessible to lots of gamers. Even those without the high-speed, low latency Internet connections could participate in speed-running contests. And the legitimacy of entries could be judged without putting onerous requirements on each participant, since the recording files were generally small.
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