is it just me or is the level design in this game actually terrible

[BaconBiscuitsBaby]

The example that best stuck into my head is one level where you run down a short hallway to pick up a gold key and a shambler immediately spawns behind you. There's absolutely no cover to dodge behind and the shambler is blocking your way out, so all you can do is hope you had enough armor or health from the prior parts of the level, or get a quad damage from a secret area to kill it before it kills you because it has a hitscan lightning attack you can't avoid.

[Francisè von Spitroast]

Sorry but Shambler attacks are very easily avoidable and predictable. They turned me off the game at first because they seemed artificially hard but it didn't take me too long to figure them out and realise they're pretty easy if you learn how to deal with them. I'm not a Quake nut so I don't know which level E1M6 is but I assume it's the one with the 4 pillars? It's difficult but hiding behind each pillar and hitting him with the nailgun every chance you get will get you through pretty easily. There's a bit on E2 where there's literally no cover. I had 20 health when he spawned right in front of me so I'd die in less than second, so I just ran to him so I could exit the room. Even when it seems hopeless you'll still only die once or twice trying to get them. Since my first playthrough I've played on Nightmare btw, so I'm not speaking from an easy experience.

[ULTRA]

Originally posted by The Godfather:

I'm not a Quake nut so I don't know which level E1M6 is but I assume it's the one with the 4 pillars? It's difficult but hiding behind each pillar and hitting him with the nailgun every chance you get will get you through pretty easily. There's a bit on E2 where there's literally no cover.

No, you're thinking of E1M5 - Gloom Keep, not E1M6 - the Door to Chthon. The shambler that spawns in when you get the gold key in E1M6 has you down a narrow hall where you cannot dodge an initial lightning blast. The only way AFAIK to avoid damage is to pre-empt his arrival with weapons fire, but the point of playing on hard and nightmare is that you understand the game and have either apportioned enough health/armor to survive or that you can take down the shambler before it does any damage.

[Phoenix]

For E1M6 go behind the teleporter and it will take you to a secret area up top with a Quad Damage. Then go back through and hose the Shambler with super nails while charging at him to avoid his friends. He won't hit you once.

[Francisè von Spitroast]

Originally posted by Mountain Man:

Originally posted by The Godfather:

I'm not a Quake nut so I don't know which level E1M6 is but I assume it's the one with the 4 pillars? It's difficult but hiding behind each pillar and hitting him with the nailgun every chance you get will get you through pretty easily. There's a bit on E2 where there's literally no cover.

No, you're thinking of E1M5 - Gloom Keep, not E1M6 - the Door to Chthon. The shambler that spawns in when you get the gold key in E1M6 has you down a narrow hall where you cannot dodge an initial lightning blast. The only way AFAIK to avoid damage is to pre-empt his arrival with weapons fire, but the point of playing on hard and nightmare is that you understand the game and have either apportioned enough health/armor to survive or that you can take down the shambler before it does any damage.

So... shoot him then?
I had never played the game before when I first played on Nightmare.

[Erick]

Originally posted by Lonely Heart:

Quake 3 is pretty poor though regarding difficulty. On one hand its easy as hell with certain bots because they only use a specific weapon, etc Anarki with the rocket launcher. But on the other hand this makes them difficult as hell when you've got Xaero with the railgun or Hunter with the Lightning Gun.

The game's really inconsistant in my eyes.

Xaero isn't that hard. If anything, he is the easiest tough bot to exploit compared to Phobos and Hunter, where you can't really get them to play with a pattern. Anarki is much harder than Xaero since his map doesn't allow you to take advantage of things like say ring outs. But then again, Quake 3 doesn't have an SP so oh well.

One day I'll beat Quake 1 (and 2) on Nightmare to know how hard they are, and from what I remember, it's not pretty on either game.

[Doctor Eggman]

Originally posted by Erick:

Originally posted by Lonely Heart:

Quake 3 is pretty poor though regarding difficulty. On one hand its easy as hell with certain bots because they only use a specific weapon, etc Anarki with the rocket launcher. But on the other hand this makes them difficult as hell when you've got Xaero with the railgun or Hunter with the Lightning Gun.

The game's really inconsistant in my eyes.

Xaero isn't that hard. If anything, he is the easiest tough bot to exploit compared to Phobos and Hunter, where you can't really get them to play with a pattern. Anarki is much harder than Xaero since his map doesn't allow you to take advantage of things like say ring outs. But then again, Quake 3 doesn't have an SP so oh well.

One day I'll beat Quake 1 (and 2) on Nightmare to know how hard they are, and from what I remember, it's not pretty on either game.

Well yeah, if you abuse the crusher on the final level to constantly make him fall to his death until he is negative, he is easy.

But fighting him without cheesing is brutal, and honestly Xaero is way stronger when he's in a level that suits him (which the last does not ironically); simply due to his 90-100% machinegun accuracy, 100% Lightning Gun accuracy and roughly 90% rail accuracy, depending on his range to you. Believe it or not, he's not actually an aimbot, since it doesn't always work at close combat. He also has the best movement of all the bots since he moves through the map consistently quicker.

Contrary to that, I'd say Anarki is the easiest enemy in the game, since he rarely if ever uses hitscan weapons after he gets the rocket launcher. And he prioritizes it all the time, which makes him near useless as the bots aren't that good at prediction. The bots that prefer the Plasma Gun are way harder than him imho, since its a hitscan weapon at close range and they melt you constantly.

Bots like Phobos are easier imo (force him to use RL) and Hunter can be denied if you control the LG, really.


And Quake 1 / 2 depends on experience and what game you're playing.
I find Quake 2 to be far less brutal than Quake 1, but the machinegunner enemies are jerks.
I wouldn't say they were any harder than Quake 3 to an experienced player though.

[ULTRA]

Originally posted by Erick:

Originally posted by Lonely Heart:

Quake 3 is pretty poor though regarding difficulty. On one hand its easy as hell with certain bots because they only use a specific weapon, etc Anarki with the rocket launcher. But on the other hand this makes them difficult as hell when you've got Xaero with the railgun or Hunter with the Lightning Gun.

The game's really inconsistant in my eyes.

Xaero isn't that hard. If anything, he is the easiest tough bot to exploit compared to Phobos and Hunter, where you can't really get them to play with a pattern. Anarki is much harder than Xaero since his map doesn't allow you to take advantage of things like say ring outs. But then again, Quake 3 doesn't have an SP so oh well.

One day I'll beat Quake 1 (and 2) on Nightmare to know how hard they are, and from what I remember, it's not pretty on either game.

Dude Quake 1 and 2 are pathetically easy compared to Quake 3 haha. You're here talking about exploiting pathing in bot AI. In Quake the enemies just zig zag toward you and then attack. You can just walk around a corner and they'll never get you. If you think Xaero "isn't that hard" then clearly you are misremembering Quake 1's difficulty.

[Erick]

Originally posted by Lonely Heart:

Well yeah, if you abuse the crusher on the final level to constantly make him fall to his death until he is negative, he is easy.

It's called the chicken method, I just take a quick look, shoot a slug, do it again, wait for him to spawn, kill him with a RL, repeat. I didn't even thought about the crusher.

But fighting him without cheesing is brutal, and honestly Xaero is way stronger when he's in a level that suits him (which the last does not ironically); simply due to his 90-100% machinegun accuracy, 100% Lightning Gun accuracy and roughly 90% rail accuracy, depending on his range to you. Believe it or not, he's not actually an aimbot, since it doesn't always work at close combat. He also has the best movement of all the bots since he moves through the map consistently quicker.

I wouldn't really give the Xaero bot that much credit, he's just a bot where there are little changes in stats to somewhat make him easier. As it is, all the bots act the same aside of weapon preferences.

Contrary to that, I'd say Anarki is the easiest enemy in the game, since he rarely if ever uses hitscan weapons after he gets the rocket launcher. And he prioritizes it all the time, which makes him near useless as the bots aren't that good at prediction. The bots that prefer the Plasma Gun are way harder than him imho, since its a hitscan weapon at close range and they melt you constantly.

Yes, I know the Plasma Gun is one weapon the bots do very well with, but as I mentioned, it's more the map that made it so that Anarki isn't a bot you can slam through with easy strats like say Klesk and Uriel.

Bots like Phobos are easier imo (force him to use RL) and Hunter can be denied if you control the LG, really.

Hunter makes for a hide and seek game on Nightmare, and Phobos doesn't go for the RL that much on Nightmare last time I played, so can't conclude anything on that.

And Quake 1 / 2 depends on experience and what game you're playing.
I find Quake 2 to be far less brutal than Quake 1, but the machinegunner enemies are jerks.
I wouldn't say they were any harder than Quake 3 to an experienced player though.

I'm no speedrunner for Quake but Quake 1 and 2 have actual campaigns that don't take 1-2 hours to finish on a normal playthrough, and given how much I am slacking with playtime, well I'm out of luck. And if I can recall, Quake 2's level design doesn't really force you to tough situations like Quake 1 would do on some of its later levels, so probably.

Originally posted by Mountain Man:

Dude Quake 1 and 2 are pathetically easy compared to Quake 3 haha. You're here talking about exploiting pathing in bot AI. In Quake the enemies just zig zag toward you and then attack. You can just walk around a corner and they'll never get you. If you think Xaero "isn't that hard" then clearly you are misremembering Quake 1's difficulty.

Just finished the first episode of Quake 1 on Nightmare, still beats Quake 3 in terms of difficulty...and an actual SP to have fun with. Seriously though, how is it people found Quake 3 any harder than the games before it, I will never know.

Oh Quake 1 monsters zig-zag and you can just run away from a corner, yeah not like you could do that with a Quake 3 bot as they blatantly walk in front of your rocket blasts around the corner.

[Captain n00by]

Btw, if somone's searching for something like a "Quake 3 singleplayer campaign", there's a solid mod for Doom (the first one, not the reboot) called "Hunter's Moon":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNrBjR9Qm9I

[Doctor Eggman]

Originally posted by Erick:

Originally posted by Lonely Heart:

*snip*

That problem affects any bot on that map in particular. The chicken method is generally frowned upon to be fair. I mean I don't care personally, but to say that the bot is easy due to a flaw in the map isn't really fairplay. (Most players wouldn't even discover this anyway)

If I remember correctly its due to an issue in the way the bots see the pillars, which makes it easier to peek rails.
(Something to do with the base and roof of the pillar coming outward from the centre, if I remember correctly, the bots see it from the widest part of the shape and thus can't see you if you peek slightly and quickly.)

Its not an inherent fault with the Xaero bot.

And technically, that's not true, if you've ever played vs Xaero in other maps, you'll find he completely destroys most other bots aside from Hunter, which is usually pretty even, depending on map size. Its good to test a bot vs bot battle if you don't believe me. :3

Anarki is extremely easy to cheese if you're decent with the railgun. :P Just always take the top floor. Add to that the obscene 100 railgun damage of Quake 3 and you can waste him all the time.

Tbh it sounds like you're looking up strategies to defeat most of the Quake bots with defeats the point, most people when talking about the Quake 3 bots are talking from the perspective of a new player. The strategies you talk about only apply to those particular maps and don't really apply to the bots in particular.


Also, the first episode of Quake 1 is easy dude. B) Game's not really too bad at that point. :P
Quake 2's most threatening hitscan enemy has a delay on its firing mechanism, meaning if you simply strafe left and right, it misses.
The shambler does not. :3
Quake 1 is definitely harder simply because of that. :P

[Phoenix]

Beating Xaero legit in Nightmare requires one thing: Deny him the railgun. He's completely single-minded and will always go for it. Kill him before he can get it. Once he has it he's going to do nothing but hit you with 100% accuracy.

[ULTRA]

Originally posted by Erick:

Originally posted by Mountain Man:

Dude Quake 1 and 2 are pathetically easy compared to Quake 3 haha. You're here talking about exploiting pathing in bot AI. In Quake the enemies just zig zag toward you and then attack. You can just walk around a corner and they'll never get you. If you think Xaero "isn't that hard" then clearly you are misremembering Quake 1's difficulty.

Just finished the first episode of Quake 1 on Nightmare, still beats Quake 3 in terms of difficulty...and an actual SP to have fun with. :emofdr: Seriously though, how is it people found Quake 3 any harder than the games before it, I will never know.

Oh Quake 1 monsters zig-zag and you can just run away from a corner, yeah not like you could do that with a Quake 3 bot as they blatantly walk in front of your rocket blasts around the corner.

what haha

grunts: shoot them with any weapon and they die almost instantly

rottweilers: shoot them before they lumber over to you

ogres: strafe their grenades that they shoot while stationary and hit them with 4 SS blasts, or just cover shoot them

scrags: surprise them around a corner or just dodge their confetti for a few seconds while shooting

fiends: can be beaten in melee if you just Hexen-dodge; other strategies irrelevant

knights: shoot them before they lumber over to you

zombies: slow and have no range, just grenade them since there's practically no other use for rockets at this stage

shamblers: just cover shoot around the pillars they spawn by, and in the case of the one that spawns without cover, use the quad damage or save up enough health

chthon: just casually walk over the triggers

What about any of this is harder for you than an enemy that runs as fast as you, denies you items, has perfect aim within a 0.15 second reaction time, respawns, has a hitscan weapon that can kill you instantly with no telegraphed wind-up, can jump and run in directions other than straight ahead, and starts with a hitscan weapon? It's categorically harder than any threat in episode 1 of Quake 1.

I guess Quake 1 would be hard if I got literally no secrets and just tried duelling enemies with a shotgun the entire game... But since you are familiar with Quake 3 I would hope you realize the value of map knowledge and are getting the ample secrets that raise your health and armor above 100, which the enemies can never get nor deny you, your weapons carry over from level to level, you can quicksave at any rate, and the enemies actually have to engage you to win the match. What are you saying is baffling. The bots in Quake 3 are not geniuses but it's not as though they're easier to tackle than guys that just stand still and fire easily dodged attacks.

Here are two prescribed strategies for overcoming challenges in Quake 1 and Quake 3 respectively:

Shambler kills me in E1M6 on nightmare: just quickload and shoot where he spawns, or get the quad damage and be sure to outdamage when he spawns

Xaero hogs the railgun and has perfect aim on nightmare: make sure to kill him with perfect aim before he reaches the railgun and proceed to control its spawn the entire time, shooting him with perfect aim using the railgun to make sure he never closes distance again

You see, one strategy requires level knowledge and an algorithmic, low-skill plan, and the other requires actual skill in the mechanics of the Quake series. Quake 3 is categorically harder than Quake 1.

[DregSmoker Dixie]

That's only the first episode. git gud

[Captain n00by]

Originally posted by DD64:

That's only the first episode. git gud

Considering he's playing on "Nightmare" setting, he shouldn't really complain about the difficulty.

It's called "Nightmare" with a reason.

[Francisè von Spitroast]

Originally posted by noobean:

Originally posted by DD64:

That's only the first episode. git gud

Considering he's playing on "Nightmare" setting, he shouldn't really complain about the difficulty.

It's called "Nightmare" with a reason.

It's not designed to be impossible though. You can still complain about artificial difficulty.