i remember hearing something about thresh saying he could time 8 items in his head at once.

how pretentious.

Pretentious?

I highly doubt he went around bragging about it.

you're implying skaught is Thresh's boyfriend?

I'm implying that you're a stupid cunt for assuming that Thresh went around telling people how many items he could time at once.

So, then, you're implying that skaught is Thresh's boyfriend?

Sigh.

I've already made my point. Interpret it whichever way pleases you.

cum hoc ergo propter hoc

don't worry hun, i'm still the one for you.

do some brain excercises. you can train anything from your vision to your intellect if you try. how, you ask? I don't know, think about it really hard.

Yes, which leads on to the bigger problem of how to train them effectively, and that is the question for a lot of skills in sports. Sure, practicepracticepractice does wonders, but in a lot of sports, the people at the top have secret techniques (which they sometimes reveal) that they employ regularly to train certain skills; as these techniques focus on improving individual (or few) skills only.

I guess the same would apply to gaming; although it is quite possible that all the people at the top just got there by practicing the game itself only. At the end of the day practicing just the game globally improves all skills involved.

A big point is, that these techniques to train certain skills aren't always obvious; the brain works in strange ways, and a lot of the time a certain excercise which you wouldnt think would improve skill x does actually do wonders. A map with infinite rail ammo and a flying target might be an ok way to practice rail aim, but variations to that excercise, or even completely different excercises which make less sense can work better.

I think, as far as mental excercises and practices go, it depends on the particular individual what works best. Seems pretty obvious. What works for you might not work for me.

well

I do ra->mega->ya->ra->ya->mega, and it doesn't leave much inbetween, you don't even have to know the times.

if you go from mega to ya, it takes like 5 secs, so ya spawns 30 secs after you took mega, leaving 5 second margin to take the mega from after you've taken the new ya. applying this to ra spawn and waiting some spawns out, you can pretty much control the whole map. also when timing weapons do like "mega, weapon, ra, weapon, ra mega " :)

timing with feeling is pretty easy, especially when you involve items like that, but it's not so much use when you're playing against someone of merit.

I'm used to playing vs fooki.

I applied this vs toxic and it worked like a charm, so don't give me that.

why not?

is toxic your pet squirrel?

upload demos of that method in action( vs toxic maybe)

I think those are considered lame, since it's public. I don't think I have a toxic demo but I have a few vs fooki and fazz, but only the fazz one is worth watching, it always looks as if I play bad vs fooki because he is fucking impossible to beat :)

the fazz demos ounds good enough

priv on irc then.. but heh, I feel lame sending public demos =(

it is :/ but there nerd to ask.

but jeh when you have control you just run armors and dont kill anybody

You sound like a pro.

its true though.

not really.

i agree, preparation h feels really good, on the hole.

Well, timing is worth nothing unless you have everything else down.. You might look at the timer and think.. Oh.. Mega spawns in 10sec, but you still dont know how long 10seconds is.. In painkiller this problem was very apparent: As you could run though the map two times in 10seconds, it was far more valuable to know how far you could venture before you had to think about heading back, a sense of knowing how much you could do between each itemspawn, than knowing the exact spawntime; because if you came back 5-6seconds early you just had to run around doing nothing ..

Anyways, what i noticed when i had played the same maps for 2years in painkiller, was that i timed by distance. I first noticed this when i played on servers that where slowed or hastned in movment speed; the faster i went, the earlier i would arrive before an item spawned.. It messed my timing up completly.. I'm still not sure if i acctually timed when i was "in the zone" or not, might be subconsciously, but sometimes it was possible to just know when something would pop up within +-1sec

Not saying timing is BAD, just that, as i did, focus on timing too much in the beginning is not really nesessary; when you've played as much as you need to be decent, you already worry more about other things. Learn some more "routes" and time by feeling until you feel timing to the second is necessary.

In many cases actually timing by distance is better then timing by clock (sometimes armors "hit" you on the back while running over them). Plus not watching the timer and calculating (even if it takes you half a second or so) gives you time to think or react to something more important in the given situation.
I don't think that Cooller, sometimes standing 5 to 10 seconds over RA is exactly watching the clock. The timer is useful for powerups over 35-40 seconds, which are hard to get precisely at spawning just "by feeling".

I think cooller times items until he forgets them, and then starts timing them again, sometimes he does stand around, but that could be because there is nothing else to do aswell and positioning, for example, you would rather be by the armour waiting than the other guy. But cooller also just picks things up as they spawn and thats wtf!

Well put CPLains. I dont think your major concern should be timing so many items, maybe knowing when the mega spawns is useful or what not, but a general subconcious knowledge of when an item is going to spawn is something you pick up over time.

yeah :)

When I have to time a lot of items, I combine them.
ie - When I was playing UTCTF and there were 2 sb's, 2 armours and an amp to time, I would combine the 2 sb's because they would be picked up around the same time. If there was a difference, I would still time with the time of the first belt and then subtract the seconds of the difference :f

In Q4 duel, you get a certain routine when playing. Get MH, get YA, get YA, get MH, get YA.. etc After playing a game for some time, you just know when stuff it going to spawn. Altough precise timing is something which can come in handy.

I can't even time mega in q4.. i am retarded

I agree fooki is retarded>]

When I tried timing 3 items I found I had to concentrate so much on timing to not make any mistakes that I didn't concentrate enough on what my opponent was doing. Some of you guys timing by feeling and timing by the time of other items is funny though--- LAZY ASSES

I'm sure if you practiced it enough you could do it, if you really wanted. When I started playing q4 with a counting down clock it took me liike 5 seconds to work out the timing of the mega. I would deduct 30, then 5, and I even had to think about doing that. Now I just deduct 35 and can do it pretty quick..

The key is don't mentally time 3 items, time the two items by second and the 3rd by feeling, you can usually do this by remembering the order the items are picked up. This way its usually very accurate because you can determine if 5 or 10 seconds have past.

I pretty much do this with all items, I remember the order over the time, so I only remember 1 time, and then go "I picked up mega 5 seconds after red, so mega will spawn 15 seconds after red, and the red time is 12:05 therefore the mega spawns at 12:20"

It sounds complicated, but its hell of a lot easier than keeping 3 times in your head.

Also, be flexible, say you've been timing red, but you've lost control of mega, you have to start timing mega by second rather than red.

You get what I meant

this is more or less what I tried to explain but I didn't go very deep :)

Yeah I re-read yours after I posted and saw it was basically the same.

I'd love to play you though, come over to sweden ^^

Should be in europe by june, hopefully with broadband, I wonder what the czech rep. will ping sweden though?

way too high >_<

If its under 40 I'll be quite happy, obviously not perfect and i'll be lg raped but it'll make me concerntrate on timing and control and stuff. The lowest ping I've ever had myself to play on was 50 in cpm and 60 in osp, so it will be a godsend to have below that.

Someone from prague told me he got 20 ping to german servers though which is quite nice.

Oh, heh. I don't play with more than 15, 7-10 is what I prefer though (and get)

Most of us don't have that choice :( I'll just have to time extra hard when I'm playing swedes :)

Just move to sweden? It can't be -that- hard. people from way worse places move here all the goddamn time :P

Hahaha, does it look like i'm rich? And what work am I going to do? How much do I need to save up, how much are flights? etc etc. Also I'm guessing sweden has pretty hard visa requirements being an EU country.

I wouldnt say so... Its prolly the most immigrant packed place on this planet.

I suppose I could look into it, although I the cost of living will probably be way over my savings :)

Swedish welfare will take care of that... people move there to slack off. Same with Finland.

yeah. the welfare is crazy... and you get paid to go to school etc. sweden rules man, you just have to look for a job to get paid, you don't even have to get the job.. you just get money for looking for one

grrrrr, i'll check it out after eastern europe.

Please do :)

You just want to import foreign quake talent and breed it into you country, to create a super breed of gamers.... I see your evil plans now...

*evil laughter*

Isn't timing more complicated than just... running the map? Anyone can "time" 3 items if they spawn on a consistent basis, and you pick them up one after another without interference. That doesn't always happen perfectly in a game where you are playing against someone who is also timing the same items and trying to kill you at the same time. The real skill comes in adjusting the time in your head to account for deaths, late pickups, missed routes, etc., in case your little perfect cycle is broken. And that's not so easy to do.

the hard part is to deny someone 3 diff guns at the same time as timing all the other items. it's the most fun too.

Play with your heart, not with your mind...
And timing problem wont hurt you...

Instinct innit.

Timing by feeling isn't timing.. It's guessing based on experience, and my grandma could probably do it. That doesn't work when you're not in control either.

Just remembering the order is enough. But you have to think times little bit so that you don't take YA/RA just 10 secs after taking mega, so delaying some items is necessary when timing 2 armors + mega. I'm doing that by 'feeling' and works pretty well, as long as you are 100% focused in to the game.

Hard part starts when you have to time items that you don't get but you know when enemy got it, and keep it going maybe 2-3 armor spawns without seeing the armor. When there's situation armor and mega spawning same time, you gotta steal the other and try get back in to the game. My gameplay goes something like this.

I timed by feeling until i played a guy who was a bit of a savant when it comes to numbers; he could time(by clock) two yellows and a mega as well as a few weapons.

fucking destroyed me. the only way i kept it close was by out-aiming him.

you played dustin hoffman!?!??!

apply your insidious intellect to helping me download stream-only content daZZryl

y dont u vlc or so i here it wurkz wundrs

i meant download as an external file, not just watch ;/

x-actly

here's how i practiced timing. i stand next to my microwave and i dot in "25" sec and i walk around the room and i hear a beep meaning the mic's done. so i do it again, walk around then i know precisely when itll beep, so i do the bond thing and take out my finger n say "POW" instinctively then the microwave beeps. HAH! I BEAT THE MICROWAVE! the human mind is more powerful than a MICROWAVE LOL!

I hear it's not good to run an empty microwave.

what brand?

Not sure if this was mentioned, but if you are going to use clocks, try common denominators. You have to have some kind of feel for timing, but this is one approach to make it better.

I would give a quakeworld example (game i play most) but noone plays with weapon respawns anymore, and you can synchronize mega with armors pretty easily, so all thats left is armors and those you can do in serial, one after another.

However, hypothetical example:

Armor spawns every 30 seconds
Important Ammo spawns every 20 seconds
Quad spawns every 60 seconds

So common denominator is 10. Now where your feel for timing comes in, is to remember the seconds *between* the items. Ideally, you would pick up all items at the same time, so there is no latency between each. In practice, there is latency, but you can use your "feel" and, generally, the amount of time it takes to get from one item to the other. The rest is straightforward:

Armor, Ammo, Quad, 10 seconds pass... 10 seconds pass...Ammo, 10 seconds pass, Armor, 10 seconds pass... Ammo, 10 seconds pass... Ammo, 10 seconds pass, Armor, Ammo, Quad

This takes some time getting used to (and is generally not necessary if you are playing someone a division below you), but it will do wonders for when you have to play without a clock. The patterns are easily discernable,

However, timing down to the second is not about a clock. Because there are more factors in timing items than just the actual time between their spawns. There is also your opponents behaviour, mistakes and unforseen circumstances in your way, and other stuff. So it is better to train your "feel", and most people only use milestone time like minute(s)-long quads or pents. Those you should chisel down to the milliseconds

hahah, timer :>

get some brain first