A question from a guy who has been playing for a few hours

Questions and comments on tactics and playstyles
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KyoZero
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A question from a guy who has been playing for a few hours

Post by KyoZero »

Is there anywhere to go in there where I can practice with people who aren't just veterans taking pride in blowing newbies up to feed their ego?

Just curious

-Kyo
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A Meteorite
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Post by A Meteorite »

First off, welcome to BZFlag! :D It's one of the best games around and is very addicting with a huge, inviting, community. ;)

It's really hard to identify any one server as being "newbies only." The veterans are scattered about and play many different styles. I can say with certainty that no matter where you play, you will get good at it and become a veteran yourself (it takes a long time to get the hang of it, but you will).

I recommend to start out with generally harder maps (less shots and flags). This is simply because it will get you to learn some tough skills (such as dodging, ricochet, and using your shots wisely).

These are servers I would recommend for newbies: Pillbox, GU, The Two Castles, and Badgerking's, with the first three being most highly recommended. You will see a lot of experienced players in each of these servers, but it is the best way to gain valuable skills.

If you really want to compete against other newbies, try Boxy War, Missile War, The Two Tanks, and Planet MoFo. There are pros here as well, but they are not as frequent going (in my honest opinion, I bet I will get bashed for labeling these as newbie servers).

Welcome again and Merry Christmas! :mrgreen:
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Post by Saturos »

A few hints from a semi-veteran:

- Go to opions -> gui settings and increase your radar-size! Dont try to play the game on the normal view, watch the radar 90% of the time.
- In open field try to dodge the shots, dont jump to avoid them... try to remember when the opponent shot all his shots and has to reload. at this point turn to him and give him one of your bullets. If you have to jump, then try to land on a building, otherwise you are an easy target.
- Some (most?) servers have Ricochet enabled, which means that shots bounce off walls... try to use that to shoot around corners. Sometimes its more wise to hide and shooting ricos instead of going into the open duel.
- People on the servers are mostly friendly, this isnt counterstrike. You can talk with "n" to everybody and with "m" to your team. If someone greets you, say hello to him too. ;)
- Stick to one server until you get good at it... there are very different styles. I am pretty good on GU-style, but I totally suck on Mofo or those laser-maps... try everything out, find your preference and try to improve on that certain setup. Later one can move out to other styles, but sticking to one will teach you the basics more easily.

Have fun! BZFlag is a great game... at first you get slaughtered over and over but after two weeks you will already feel how you get better. Just dont give up too fast. :)
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Post by dartman »

I find that Hide 'n Seek Hills is a great map to practice your skills in Wings dogfights as well as stealthiness and for those times when you don't use the radar (though a lot of other veterans recommend using radar most of the time, I prefer to have a nice balance in between using the radar and using the HUD), plus it's very fun and you can make a lot of good online friends that way.
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Post by A Vicious Muffin »

Meteorite touched one good servers for noobs, but I feel that the best server to practice one of your most important stregnths, dodging, is either pillbox, 1vs1, or a server without jumping (in order from my most reccomended). Don't go on pillbox when there are 30 people there, however, you will die almost as soon as you spawn. 1vs1 is good for a person who wants a little competition, and helping out with their dodging skills. Those are places where you can learn to dodge, and once you get the hang of it, then you can go to other servers and learn their styles of play.
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Post by Mucho Maas »

Cant grasp you guys are forgetting ducati servers.

ducati is 2 shots, ricochet, no jumping, ctf and no superflags.

Is best place to learn all aspects of on-the-ground driving skills, which is a prerequisite to play well on jumping servers too.

ducati is played mosttimes on dub.bzflag.org:5154.

Equally fun is as has been mentioned before is GU, which requires a bit of the same mentality as ducati, but adds jumping to the game, and the players there are one of the most skilled in great jump kills, one of the most fun part of playing i think.
Search in the server list for HIX map or GU.

For both maps there are also leagues, namely the ducati league and the GU league. For pillbox, there is a league too.

Most other maps have superflag, which means a complete different playing style. And especially the Louman maps have a touch of adventure to it.

Servers with many shots will lead you in spraying bullets instead of aiming right and trying to guess the movement of your opponent.

As was mentioned before, there is a config file to your bzflag client. Look at it and try to figure out what each setting means, and play with them. Not many of the very good player play with a config file that came with the installer.

If you need help, don't hesitate to ask, there are many good players there that don't mind to share a tip or two.

And i completely agree with saturos, never take your eye of the radar. This also means to try to have the best setup for your radar as possible so that it matches your playing style. And don't forget, everybody has to play really bad before they get any better.
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Post by Zelgadis »

To learn how to play, i can only say: viper.pimpi.org:5158


Also are this Servers good:

bzf.bzflag.org:5154
brad.bz:5154
borrego.hepcat.org:5154
dub.bzflag.org:5154

But:
I can practice with people who aren't just veterans taking pride in blowing newbies up to feed their ego?
Sry there are too many of them, the best way is the ignore them :D

And you shall hear at Saturos, thats the simplest way to get better :D
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Post by plasma kaz »

Cant grasp you guys are forgetting ducati servers.

ducati is 2 shots, ricochet, no jumping, ctf and no superflags.

Is best place to learn all aspects of on-the-ground driving skills, which is a prerequisite to play well on jumping servers too.

ducati is played mosttimes on dub.bzflag.org:5154.

Equally fun is as has been mentioned before is GU, which requires a bit of the same mentality as ducati, but adds jumping to the game, and the players there are one of the most skilled in great jump kills, one of the most fun part of playing i think.
Search in the server list for HIX map or GU.

For both maps there are also leagues, namely the ducati league and the GU league. For pillbox, there is a league too.

Most other maps have superflag, which means a complete different playing style. And especially the Louman maps have a touch of adventure to it.

Servers with many shots will lead you in spraying bullets instead of aiming right and trying to guess the movement of your opponent.

As was mentioned before, there is a config file to your bzflag client. Look at it and try to figure out what each setting means, and play with them. Not many of the very good player play with a config file that came with the installer.

If you need help, don't hesitate to ask, there are many good players there that don't mind to share a tip or two.

And i completely agree with saturos, never take your eye of the radar. This also means to try to have the best setup for your radar as possible so that it matches your playing style. And don't forget, everybody has to play really bad before they get any better.




rock on foo:) I started on ducati, and it is a great foundation to get into. with the limited bullets of only two, you dont waste your bullets with a spray and just get lucky. ducati takes work, practice, and a decent mouse ;D.

anyway kyozero, the veterans may be frustrating, but believe it or not, the more you play them the better you get, you get much more experience playing better ones than yourself than playing a bunch of noobs:P
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Post by optic delusion »

Teppic's server is the definitive newbie server. He's got that script that loads bots. Read the directions there.

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Post by Da Best »

Welcome to BZFlag, I'd Recommend that you try a lot of servers, after you get the basics on one, of course, For Dodging GM (Guided missle) You go forawrd at full speed around a circle around the person who is firing at you, works all the time, though, if you are caught off guard you might pay with your life :wink:
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Post by $Bullet Friendly$ »

Yes The two castles is where i first learned how to play the game.
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Post by Zelgadis »

Two Castles will have always a place in my heart LOL :P
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Post by meeba »

I started out on badgerking, then I quickly fell in love with Silvercat.

There's a definitive art to sneaking around unnoticed. Anyone can do it, even without flags.

I recommend practicing on a variety of servers, but some that I would avoid recommending to a new player are any that are all about sniping (Boxy, The Two Tanks, Missile War) and MoFo. However, once you get better, you can learn other valuable skills on these servers (for example, lasers are stupid when everybody has them. get cloaking to avoid the idiots).

And as for technique and style... just do what's comfortable. People say I jump too much, and I might... but if you plan out your moves a bit, you'll find that even bad moves can be transformed into good.
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Post by the enemy »

Practice on servers with only one or two other players, and then tell them you're a newbie and be gentle :). Bots are even better for practicing.

Sometimes it does help if you ask people not to kill you as you want to explore or practice the controls or whatever. Myself, I try and respect that, although sometimes you'll get killed anyway if you are one of a zillion rogues.
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here's a server... sorta

Post by admril death »

any capture the flag server is good, but this one is the best. in-leauge.bzflag.eu (i think.) or you can log on to an empty server.
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Post by QuantumBeep »

Wow, you asked for a good newbie server, and then everyone just named the servers they play on.

I think the best thing for a newbie to do is "surf" servers. If you get addicted to one server, you'll never become really good.

Some tips:
Don't jump to avoid bullets UNLESS you are jumping onto higher ground. High ground is very good for defense. Pay attention to the verticals around you.

Don't try to use a Guided Missile (GM) at close range. They won't even hit a tank that's close to you. GMs won't lock on to a tank with Stealth, so just aim your missiles like ordinary bullets to take them out.

GMs can't turn very fast. If you want to dodge one, just drive at a 45 to 90 degree angle from the missile's approach. If the tank shooting at you is straight ahead, drive sideways. You can go in a spiral to close in on a GM camper, then when you're too close for them to shoot you (see tip above), you can just roll in and shoot them like a drunk partridge.

Lasers aren't instant-on/instant-off. They actually stay there for about a third of a second on most servers. Shoot a bit ahead of the tanks you want to kill and let them drive into your laser beam.

If you want to kill a tank with a laser, use a Cloaking (CL) flag. They make you immune to lasers.

When you shoot, the speed of your tank is added to the normal speed of the bullet. Moving forward makes your bullets faster, moving backward makes them slower. That's why a High Speed (V) flag is a really powerful offensive AND defensive tool.

The Agility flag has lots of uses. It makes your tank really fast for about half a second per motion. You can move forward and jump to sail all the way across the map really fast. Think of it as a get-out-of-trouble-free flag. Also see the previous tip regarding bullet speed.

For improved tank control, change the "Mouse Box Size" in Settings>GUI Options. The larger the box, the more precise your motion control. Good stuff.

If you want to get really good, don't let yourself get addicted to the "big weapon" flags like Shockwave, Guided Missile, and Laser. You don't need those to score well. Also, a lot of the better servers don't have those flags, so you want to be good without them.

We should maintain a better strategy Wiki, shouldn't we?
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Post by gilly »

This is how I learned it:

First when I started playing I didn't have any experience about the servers and therefore I just picked some from the top of the list.

That time ducati was a lot more active than it's nowadays and from the first time I went there I realised it was the place the tough guys were playing.

As you, I didn't like getting killed over and over again and I started going to those FFA servers instead. Then I moved to GU. I found that style a lot more pleasant than those FFA servers because IMO it had more to do with general bzskills (not so superflag centered).

Well I played there a good while and finally I started getting positive scores! I found that cool :) I think I advanced pretty quickly after I got my first positive scores and finally I was doing pretty well. That time the best weren't so interested about GU yet so it was possible for me to play very well actually :)

Well. Then I thought: Let's now go and show those folks on ducati field who is who :) [well, I didn't think that but it makes the story sound better] And guess what!

--
Yea.. I got pwned very badly. Back to supernegative :) This time I didn't give up, though. Slowly I practiced the fine art of ducati and nowadays I already play OK. Ducati style is also my favorite style and I love my team in the league.

That's about it.

- gilly

PS. Try to get into touch with the community, it's sooo cool. :)
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Post by The Gecko »

Join as an observer and watch the, so called, "pros" (usually the highest scoring player on a map). That's the best way to get a "private lesson" on the tactics and skills you need to learn.

We could talk all day about the "best" way to play, but there will be 100 different "best ways." Each person has his own personal style. You need to set your own style. Copy the tactics you like, and add a few of your own. You'll soon be one of the "pros" dominating the scoreboard.
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