Been discussing with several people about how skills in pov, meaning lg- and movement skills, are usefull at all
when playing regular maps dmm3. Might be a 4on4 on dm3 or something like it.

Taking myself as example:
When I started playing again seriously in december 07 I used fakeshaft 1.0 and played pretty much povdmm4. I felt that
this might not have been the best solution to practice LG-aim in general, since you don't have a clue about where the real shaft is (doh).
But this made me keep the crosshair on the opponent and as I feel this has given me a much better SG aim than before.
(Ofcouse when playing with 12ms, fakeshaft 0 or 1 doesn't make That much difference, so LG aim will improve too ofc. )

Regarding movement I also feel that you improve your dodingskills both when it comes to lg and especially RL.
Both beeing useful in all types of games.

Most people on the otherside think that povdmm4 doesn't tell anything about aim or movement on a regular map, and I agree
to some level, for example when the map has several floors (like dm4), and being pretty narrow, with a lot of things to hide behind and so on.
Otherwise I feel that it has improved my aim and movement overall. (playing with fakeshaft 0 or 0.5 atm)

What are your experience?

My experience is that i get beaten black and blue on povdmm4 and also on end to some extent, but do OK in the other game modes anyway.

I have found dmm4 the quickest way of getting my aim somewhat tolerable after a week of not playing at all. More than 15 minutes of it at once causes utter boredom, though.

Play som E1M7 for RL practice.

No help at all.

The problem with povdmm4 is that it is WAY too big map and it has no proper elevation. What this means is that you don't have to move your mouse when aiming, instead use strafe properly. Jerking off behind that side rail isn't really any help at all. Normal maps aren't like this.

As many players as I've seen getting 30% or even 40% sometimes in pov fail to get even 30% in normal maps. dm4 is the easiest one because people tend to come towards you from ssgroom/uptele/ya hole/quad spawn/ra-exit/100h-exit so you can get high lg% in this map. Even so... no dice, not to mention other maps like aero or ztn where these so called 30%+ pov-shafters have problems even on getting 25%.

The only people I've seen constantly getting over 30% lg in ANY map are Interceptor, Scenic, Mawe, Locust and nabbe, out of them only int/nabbe seem to play pov.


To get some skill, lg aim in particular, play any map in dmm4 mode (even dm4 or aero works quite well if normal dmm4 maps are boring) while avoiding big or flat maps like pov/outpost (they are the worst). For RL use something intensive like outpost or amphi2. End is bad here because it requires staying out of lava and keeping a lot of air control. If you're advanced then try oldcrat.

I myself don't like much povdmm4 or end. I like more dm3hill or dm2dmm4.

Good post Renzo.

Yep, what was what I was trying to say (about the map beeing big and flat), that part I agree with. But, one shall not forget that even on the maps you mention there is pretty flat areas too, and it's especially there you can notice improvement imo.

Well, imo, povdmm4 can give nothing, and it can give you much. Some opponents always seem to move backwards away from their target, while some seem to be +forward and always having a short distance between you and him. This will force you to move the mouse more and as I see it this is the best way of practice if your goal is to improve your aim.

EDIT: Lets not forget that this is a discussion regarding AIM and Movement only, dmm4 = both players compete on same conditions, meaning map-knowledge and control is no longer an important factor. Otherwise it might be easy to fool oneself that aim hasn't improved and so on just because your enemy seem to have RA and being placed at the right spots on the map, and you still loose as much as before.

pov is a good way to learn shafting, completely changed the way I play dm3. (I don't say it changed into better, but at least I'm having more fun now.

If you've really missed it, there is a lot of map knowledge that goes with povdmm4 concerning good angles, where to stand waiting for enemyspawn, from where can you shoot lg through the railing, how to move when your opponent is moving x way etc.

For me personally pov has mostly just been about testing settings and gear. The bad thing is that like we've already discussed, pov as a map really doesn't have much in common with any of tb3 or normal gaming situations. So some settings might work really well for me in pov (also opponent can skew the results), but end up feeling subpar in actual games. One of the only places in tb3 I can think of that has anything to do with pov is dm3 pent. Maybe someone could draw these similarities as well:
- shafting from low-bridge to rl or high-bridge where you just see a little bit of enemy's head = kinda like shooting enemy behind raling on pov
- shafting from hill or ra-low to ring / quad or ra-high = kinda like staying closely under highspawn on pov and causing flash damage or getting enemy pinned up to the ceiling

Still I find it that I need to test settings on maps like aero, dm4, ztn to really know how they work. For some reason aero is a really big test for me, dunno if it is the basic color palette of the map or what but depending on settings I shaft high 20's or barely 20's

As for movement, not really any improvement. Every map part has its own little things that affect your optimal movement, pov simply isn't good practise for that.

Renzo mentioned Oldcrat, a map I really like, but I consider it way too complex and lava-ridden, as it has so much stuff you have to worry about that is never really a problem in real games. I guess if you can do really well on oldcrat, you could have an easier time doing jumping + fighting on dm2, high-plat, platform, ramega, tele. Oldcrat does force you to improve more precise aiming(because the often small target you have for enemyfeet) and blockwall bouncing, as in shooting a rocket to pilarwall as opponent is near it or jumping as to cause splash. Also when enemy rj's out of lava, you get to practise fast midair, kinda like what you do often in dm2 quad, when ppl rj from quadbelow.

So...
A more general question would be 'is skill from map A with gametype 1 applicable on map B with gameplay 2'. The answer is obviously yes, if the maps or game mode have things in common. For a real FPS noob, playing CS would improve their quake-skill without even playing qw.

but how about we compare DM3-4on4-dmm1 practice vs povdmm4-1on1-dmm4 practice.

If only looking at which gametype will improve your game the most, ignoring which is more fun, I'd say not just one but...

...it depends
What is the goal? becoming a better 4on4-dmm1 player?
the most important gamemodes to practice here is imo in the following order:
4on4 dmm1 cw, 2on2 dmm3, 1on1 dmm4, 4on4 rpickup,ffa dmm3, 1on1 dmm3, 6on6 mid_air.

a better dmm3-dueler:
1on1-dmm3, 1on1-dmm4 and 2on2-dmm3 is the ones that will improve your game the most.

Well I think there's a lot more to your shaft than simply pov. It has always been good and even if I can compete with you on pov (ofc mostly losing), my shaft is rarely as devastating as yours on dm3. I simply think that you've adapted to a very shaft oriented style of playing the map and therefore you know the good spots, the good angles and above that you have a natural affinity for shafting. But ofc if you feel that pov has had such a great impact, who am I to question it

Well I agree with Blaze regarding myself. I feel the same.

Maybe would have felt the same out of practising usual maps with lg, dmm4 ofc.

endif/amphi is the best practice imo for better RL.

It has helped me alot with both my movement and aim but its hard to say that "this helps you and that helps you" its all about situations and the best way to get better aim is to play those maps.

dm2dmm4 is an excellent way of owning ppl at bigroom, play that 5 times/day and after 1 month you can own a 200 200 with only 150 100 (depends of course on the opponent).

Some people even have different mouse sens. on pov just to win there so it really doesnt say anything to me, the map is 2 much rl and way to big + 1 really bad spawn, as renzo said, better to play dm4 dmm4.

I used to play pov every night with KovaaK but I came to the realization that it's pointless for anything but a warmup. Midair maps such as endif and nacmidair are a thousand times more pointless. They're so impractical and have less benefit than playing a real map.

I still think one of the best ways to practice (especially for newbies) is to play FFA.
You are playing 'normal' maps in a very intense situation where often you get surprised and must make many reaction shots.
Of course there is not quite so much focus on pure aiming compared to dmm4, but it is more of a balanced practice, since you are also practicing:

-item timing
-quad running
-movement
-many different types of combat (lg vs rl, rl vs lg, spawnfragging, sg vs rl...)

Of course not everything is perfect since the penalty for dying (and especially dropping packs) is much lower, so you can get into bad habits. But I find playing a few maps of FFA gives me a good idea whether I'm 'in the zone' or not.

Haha HT, you don't seem to be playing a lot of FFA as a noob nowadays If there are at least 8 people on the server, I can guarantee no noob is going to be timing anything and will hardly have time to move and most of the time won't hold a weapon for too long. Even though I can generally be at the top of the fragging board, it never seems like anythings under control, just massive mayhem. I truly don't believe you learn much there. This is the reason why I loved and still love the old Large @ edome (death32c) without powerups. There you could actually practise most of the things. You could get weapons and gear and have nice fights on some of the most played maps. You don't spend much time getting spawnraped and you get all kinds of combat experience. I don't play much ffa and never have besides on Large, it's simply hard to get satisfaction from the way Small type ffa is structured. Main goal is to basically escape spawnpoint, get any weapon and make a few frags. Maybe you get lucky and get an armor, maybe even luckier and get to a good camping place. And once every so seldom you get quad with good gear. Most of the time you're just dying and the better players just get a couple of more frags per life than the less experienced ones.

But I guess quite a lot of people actually enjoy it to a degree as there always seem to be players on XS4ALL, personally I wish people would play more Large. Oh, and just remembered one thing. The great aspect of Large was that it was good individual warmup for 4on4 games due to the maps involved and actually being able to get some gear.

I played couple games @ large many years ago, death32c beats the shit out of any ffa-map. Would be cool to have all that back..

More d32c to the ppl! Easily the best ffa map of all time. Can´t we make a d32c day, like kenya thuesday did? Im in for sure.

GOD DAMMIT!

GO DIE YOU SONS A BITCHES!


...and why aren't any of you on the qw.suomicom.fi ffa that has death32c as only map. Yes, you read it right, it's large time and no powerups. You should thank koff guys making me to do the change (Eh and Scenic in particular).

Too good to be true. I will drop by sometime during this evening trying to get couple mates with me..

Nice, so we will soon see everyone get 50% lg on the FFA-server

Chill out Renzoman, I'm very aware of that server but like you said, until recently, it had powerups and haven't seen too many people there. I've been speedjumping alone on that map so much in the old Large days, that I just cba to do it anymore But maybe this heads-up will work as a revival tactic. I guess the only complaint people would have is the location of the server. I wouldn't really mind playing at even 39ms on Large if that meant more players (which it probably would). But all you euros and yanks alike are welcome to my 13ms world :]]

No powerups on death32c but instead a map rotation that had pups enabled. As it's easy to go from one map rotation to another I just changed the config to be more like edome large. I wonder if I should change the timelimit though as it's now only 12 mins per round.

Hmm, 130ms... :{

The only thing which certainly DOESN'T HELP, or even, actually makes you worse is playing endif. It kills your RL-midair aim on real maps.

For the first time I agree with goqsane, I feel like after playing couple endif's it takes me two months to get my old mid-air skill back. Which isn't very good but it's not the point..

I used to suck with shaft. I still remember playing Rocket Arena back in the days and Champ came in with fakenick and pretty much owned everyone with shaft only, which of course was lame for RA, but still. At some point I started practising pov against him and it was only then when I started to get a hang of it. In the end I started winning him more than losing in pov. I used to think that it has to be some magic cfg settings that make the uber shaft but you just need to realize how to play and the practise it to perfection. Now we just need to switch The Castle of Boredom into cmt4 in the mappool to get more shaft maps.

I'm in.

Which day is thuesday? Both tuesday and thursday?

Imo there should be another team dm map with lg in the standard mappool yeh, but not at the cost of tb3
And if 'qw' is gonna add a map to TB3 it should be CMT3 imo.