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Be On Top of the Crowd by Dr.Gibbs May 28, 2001
We've all seen them... servers with so many people there is not a moment of silence; they can be packed with 20, 30, or even 40 players at a time. Some of us win, some of us lose. The best of players could easily end up in last in these types of games. Some may think that this is a test of skill, but in servers this packed all of a sudden skill is no more important than what you ate for breakfast. What's the most important asset of these games? Luck, pure and simple. Skill will help you dodge and aim, but basic rules of FFA go out the window on crowded servers. While skill isn't a big factor in helping you win, there are ways you can increase your chances of winning.
Here are some tips to help you dominate the next crowded game you play. They might not work, after all this is all about luck, but they will greatly increase your chances of getting a better score.
Honor? What honor?
When that many people are running around, honor becomes an irrelevant variable. There is nothing honorable about 50 people slaughtering each other. By all means... spawn rape, pick on the weak, steal items... do whatever you can. It's not about honor; it's about placing first. Feel free to utilize the game's functionality to your heart's content. Chances are, even if a few people notice the activity and they happen to mind it, they won't even know who is doing it.
Use the right weapons.
Explosive weaponry and other means of mass genocide are the best to use. If you are running around these types of games with the railgun, forget it. Even the machinegun will serve you better. Weapons like the grenade launcher, rocket launcher, and plasma gun will help you to rack up tons of frags in very little time. Here's the order you should use the weapons, from best to worst:
- BFG
- Plasma Gun
- Rocket Launcher
- Machinegun
- Lightning Gun
- Grenade Launcher
- Shotgun
- Gauntlet
- Railgun
With the BFG and the plasma gun, circle strafing won't be as effective as it used to be. When you run into a large group of people, just strafe left and right and aim into the crowd, avoiding their fire as much as possible. This tactic is also effective with the lightning gun and machinegun. Just remember that the lightning gun gives away your position, whereas the machinegun tends to be stealthier. The grenade launcher is similar in that it is best used in large crowds, but you will find that strafing doesn't help a whole lot with this weapon!
Weapons like the rocket launcher can be used more or less conventionally, just aim at the walls and the floors instead of trying to make direct hits and you will rack up loads of points. Most of the players are weak and splash damage can easily be divided among large numbers of people in one shot. When using the shotgun, simply walk straight through the crowd, avoiding firefight when possible of course, and gun down all of your unsuspecting enemies. The gauntlet can be used in much the same manner, just remember that you have to be directly on top of a person to actually hurt him. Crouching and strafe jumping are especially effective tools for this melee weapon. You will find some people like to use the gauntlet instead of the machinegun, while this may be good for some you will find that you cannot get as many frags with it.
Don't even think about the railgun unless you have no alternative. This extremely effective weapon is useless with that many people around, everything else can rack up more frags.
Be a spectator, not a player.
Get out of that team menu, it was a figure of speech :)
When you see a huge crowd of people, take advantage of it. Don't jump right in there and start shooting around. Remember, if you have to turn a full 360 degrees to hit everyone you are not in the position you should be. When you meet these immense crowds make your target radius as small as possible. Hug the walls and, as soon as you can, find a corner and crouch in it. Then fire all you have right into the middle of the crowd. If you are lucky you will get loads of frags, and probably live to do it again. Sometimes you may fire a stream of 100 plasma bursts right into a crowd of 30 people and not get a single frag. Hey, it happens to the best of us. Remember that luck plays a much larger role in crowded games than skill.
The crowds tend to gather in various areas on different maps. This entirely depends on the people you are playing with, but you will begin to notice universal patterns that are fairly reliable. For example, it is a given that on DM6 most of the people will be hanging around the plasma gun, it's a central area of the map hearty with items and spawnpoints. However, on a map like DM17, the crowd tends to migrate from one rocket launcher pad to another. Once you learn where the crowds are, go to them... don't wait for them to come to you.
Don't be too alert.
While watching your sides is typically a good practice in FFA games, interestingly enough it can easily be suicidal in crowded games. Concentrate on your front and only your front; attempts to protect every side can prove to be lethal. Remember that you are here to kill, not to avoid dying. If someone kills you from behind, don't worry about it. If you keep your attention forward you will get more frags. Keep your back to a wall as much as possible and ignore your sides. With the number of players flying around, chances are you won't be using much more than the machinegun anyway so just live with having to respawn every once in awhile. This is a race of speed, if you spend too much time defending yourself you won't be racking up frags as fast as your opponents are.
Don't pick up the Quad Damage
This might be the most ridiculous thing you have ever heard. Well, let me tell you, a Quad does a great job of letting you get frags quickly, but in order to get a lot of frags you have to be near a lot of people. Nothing screams "shoot me" like a giant blue aura around your face. Most of the crowd wants you dead so they can get the Quad, and those smart enough to avoid the Quad want you dead so you won't hurt them. With ten people targeting you (that's an easy 120 damage per second if they all have machineguns, with typical accuracy), you won't have time to even dream about their splattering bodies. You will get more frags without the Quad, plain and simple. If you don't believe me, try it. Watch someone who has the Quad, and watch everyone zero in on him. Would you really want to be that person?
As a side note, items such as the Battle Suit and Flight can be safely picked up. The Battle Suit may attract attention, but it's typically not as much... and you are protected from a lot of the weapons. Flight is absolutely lethal to your opponents; nothing can help you more than flying above the crowd rather than standing level with it.
Don't move around too much.
The less you move, the less crossfire you will be involved in. Find a nice cozy corner in a room in which people tend to congregate. Until you run out of ammo or all the players disappear, don't leave.
Never run from anyone you don't think you can beat.
If you have the machine gun, and your foe has the rocket launcher, in a normal game you would probably want to avoid him. But here, chances are they are hurting as much as you, especially since they have an explosive weapon and they can hurt themselves with. Health packs are not a luxury very many people have when 30 hurting warriors are attempting to pick them up. If you run you will just end up getting in more firefight from other players, and if you can hurt someone you still have a chance of fragging that person, so at the very least try it. Besides, players are the best weapon resources.
Don't camp.
It doesn't work very well in FFA games anyway, but with crowded games it is especially ineffective. Not that many people are going to be coming up there anyway; they will all be flowing into the crowded areas of the map in search of more frags. A crowded spot is the most enticing, and any spot filled with people is certainly not a camping spot.
Turn off gibs and blood.
Turn off your game's gibs (in the console: /cg_gibs 0, /com_blood 0) if you really want to do well. Now, if you are just out there to have fun nothing is more entertaining than watching tiny anatomy lessons flying around the room, but let's face it, blood is thick and it impairs your vision. You will be able to see much better without it. Better vision means more kills. While this is certainly not required to win, it helps quite a bit.
Tweak your video settings.
With crowded games, your system will slow to a crawl. Resolution and the force models option are the easiest settings to change and most importantly they have the largest impact on your game's performance. Turn your resolution down to 640x480 or 800x600 even if you have a very good card, it will make the game run a lot smoother and you shouldn't be able to tell much of a difference. The video resolution is easy to change and it will provide the largest performance boost. If you like using a high resolution, you should at least use force model. It's in the game options menu. When activated, it will make every player have the same model as you. It is most effective when activated before you join the server; otherwise all those models are already loaded into your memory and are doing a great job of slowing your game down.
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