How do you time items in QuakeWorld? Not as in like "well there's a gameclock nowadays..." but rather like - how does your mind use the information?

For me, I get a little bit too confused still if I time too many items on the second. I am still a fairly new player so that might have to do with experience. Instead, I think of items as "next item to respawn is...". This applies to all gamemodes. In 4on4, I'll keep track of important items not on the second but "next item is RL, then LG, and then GL" for example. All items form a line in my head so that I know which item is gonna respawn next. In duels, it's more about armors/mega. Same applies here - if I know that mega is the next item to spawn, I'll try to get a positional advantage in that area to be ready to pick it up when it respawns. I actually don't care about the specific seconds things spawn, unless I'm on mm3 with teammates. Then I keep track of seconds just to be able to announce it to the team and whatnot.

Anyway, so that's how I time items in Quakeworld. I see both advantages and disadvantages in my way of timing them. First, I think since I don't think about the items TOO much (memorizing the seconds that items spawn at), I feel that I can focus more on my aim and positional play. Disadvantage will be that I sometimes show up at the item location too early (since I don't know the exact spawntime), and it might cost me the positional advantage.

How do you guys do?

(Edited 2012-05-29, 18:27)

Well, I think you absolutely must have accurate times on contentious items like dm3 quad, aerowalk mega, or anything where you're likely to have someone else try to jump on it. If an opponent knows the time better than you, then there's little you can do to stop them standing on it as it spawns. In duel, to-the-second item timing isn't something that most quakeworld players have really focused on over the years (probably because it's far less meaningful on some of the older qw maps than it is on, say, quake 3 maps), but I always see the few players that prioritise it come away with more than their fair share of items.

(Edited 2012-05-29, 19:40)

Well I agree on timing quad and pent. That's a bit different I guess... I'm a pretty solid aerowalk player but I don't time the mega. I just know whenever it runs out from me or my opponent and then I list it on my line of next-spawns. So perhaps I know that I'll have time to get RA and then mega, or if I need to go mega first etc. It's hard to explain really, but I hardly ever look at the clock unless someone says on mm3 that RL spawns at xx:xx, just to "reset" my inner clock. Dunno... really hard to explain ^^

When playing 4v4, my mind goes nuts.. for example, on dm3, i try to have the exact time on pent, quad, ring, rl, lg, ra all the time, mostly cause i suck and im the one trying to steal the weaps from enemys, works out pretty well tho.

When playing duel, i fucking suck on timing items, especilly the mega, occasionally i get somewhat of a timing on the red armor, but i always go on "the feeling" when it spawns, i think.

I'm using a fucking huge gameclock, so it is impossible to not notice the timer whenever you hear an item is taken

edit: if you have to focus a lot on item timings, it is gonna hurt other aspects of your game. I think the "what is the next item I should focus on" is a pretty good basis at least. And going with the feel as well, unless your feel for item timings suck a lot. Obviously the most effective and consistent way of timing items is noticing the gameclock whenever an item is taken, and then sync/desync the most important items in your favor. Might sound easy, but it is not.

Imo, the way Martin plays DM3 when in control is the most impressive example on how big impact having good timing on stuff. Also, watching a good DM6 player sync / desync RA and mega in duels, is a good example on how simple and effective it can be to have exact timing.

(Edited 2012-05-31, 08:59)

I use an alias to temporarily place gameclock on the centre of my screen when pressing took bind. Obviously u need to monitor it for enemy takes too...

I'm still very rookie, in duel I take an item and check the time when I hear the pickup sound. I then get back 4 seconds before it respawns to take it again, doing this with multiple items is tricky but its what I try my best to do. I'm not very good at mega though usually I forget to check my health often enough and miss when I go below 100. I try listen for enemy RA pickups so I can ambush on next pickup. I do the same with mega but just guess when he's below 100 and time from there.

4on4 I just try and be useful deny weapons etc, I'm fairly useless at 4on4 atm.