help with keybindings for noob?

[Donald J. Trump]

Hello,

I have next to zero experience with arena shooters, so the concept of more than a primary gun and a pistol confuses and angers me. This game seems like fun though, so I thought I'd give it a go, so if someone can give me some pointers on some good bindings for the hundreds of guns this game seems to have, that'd be great. I know that it's much about individual preference, but starting from scratch it'd be helpful to have a set of "common" bindings that works well for most people that I can get started with, and then rebind to my own preference once I find out what works or doesn't work for me. Thank you in advance :D

PS: I saw on the steam page for this that it costs like 10 dollars but is now on sale for 2, but I feel certain that I got it for free when I first downloaded it a while ago. What's the deal with that, did they suddenly start charging for it, is the payment voluntary, or is there a free version and a paid version with more functionality?

[Birna]

It was free to play before it became steam exclusive, now you have to pay. I think if you had it already then you will not have to pay. All versions of QL are the same.

For keybindings, well, maybe I am not the best person to ask because I still have some noob habits, but I think it will depend a bit on which mode you like to play. For example in CTF mode it is important to have drop flag, drop power up, drop weapon on keys which are easily accessible. I have all of these on the mouse, also for changing weapon I use a combination of mouse wheel, and also rail on 3, rocket on 4, lighting gun on 5. I think most people probably put them close to the wasd keys so they can be pressed easily without taking away from movement too much. Mousewheel for changing weapon is quite noob but not so bad I think in CTF where you will not usually have every single gun anyway unlike in clan arena where you spawn with all of them and scrolling them is much harder.

I think just put your favourite guns close to wasd or even on your mouse maybe the side buttons for quick access. Big 3 are rail rocket and LG but it is nice to have shotgun close too for a finishing weapon sometimes.

Welcome to QL have fun!

[^7B0NE^2$^71967^2k^7ID]

setings weaponds go there

[55zanaris99]

ju5t f1nd s0m3 n00bz 4nd sh00t
K4B00M

[^7B0NE^2$^71967^2k^7ID]

/bind n weapon nades

[aRt]

i personally don't like to switch weapons with mousebuttons.
like to have them near my movement keys.

[.Dreams]

This is an interesting discussion because Quake is highly customizable under this point of view. Basically a bind work like this:
bind [key] [command 1, command 2, etc]

If you learn to "play" with this you can have a more comfortable gaming experience.
For example, as Sophia said, you can drop weapons, flag, power ups, runes or say a certain thing by pressing a button, exec a config / hud or create variables and even run scripts for gamma, volume, net settings, etc...
I will not go into specifics, really.
Someone could wrote a guide about this, but the best thing is to understand what you need and do it.
If you just want an example, that's my weapons bind:

bind 1 "weapon 1" // gauntlet
bind 2 "weapon 2" // machinegun
bind 3 "weapon 3" // shotgun
bind 4 "weapon 4" // nade
bind e "weapon 5" // rocket
bind q "weapon 6" // lg
bind r "weapon 7" // rail
bind f "weapon 8" // plasma
bind 5 "weapon 9" // bfg
bind 9 "weapon 10" // grapling hook
bind 6 "weapon 11" // nailgun
bind 8 "weapon 12" // chaingun
bind 7 "weapon 13" // prox launcher
bind CTRL "weapon 14" // heavy machinegun

[The Thorne]

Critical error has the standard might be a suprise to some who play me but I never use WASD never in my whole PC gaming life, I use the arrows and I bind gauntlet to 0,next weapon on 1 and the others on the other number keys , I play with my keyboard at an angle yes I am weird but I can't change the habit of a lifetime

[Birna]

I have

1: MG
2: SG
3: RG
4: RL
5: LG
E: zoom (toggle)

shift: crouch
capslock: silent walk
alt: use item
f6: say team "enemy high"
f7: say team "enemy low"
f8: say team "need help here!"
f9: say team "base unsafe"
f10: changed fast sky (with certain settings you can change whether the sky is black/orange, and other things like see through teleporter but I think this is default to see through them)

mouse 4: drop flag
mouse 5: drop pu
scroll wheel: change weapon
click wheel: drop weapon
left click: shoot
right click: gauntlet! (most important weapon) :p

How is your fps? You can tinker a lot with settings to improve it, if your computer is not a potato it should be able to go between 200-250, the game is I think a lot smoother here. Look for picmip settings and all other commands here:

http://www.regurge.at/ql/

A lot of those can be found simply in the game menu but a lot of them are not... I think also it can help to watch videos of quake on youtube etc, some people have some really nice configs for better enemy visibility etc you may see something you like and want to put in your own config.

[n00kie]

Originally posted by ^1Rs^4The Thorne:

I play with my keyboard at an angle yes I am weird but I can't change the habit of a lifetime

Well the angeled keyboard is quite common if you watch famous teams on CS:GO tournaments. As you mentioned it's a habit whereas you can see pro Q3 players using the russian style (keyboard on lap).

[^1Z^7ebb^1y]

When I was new to Quake, I used ASWD to move, so I chose Q, E, R, C, and F for rockets, lightning, rail, shotgun, and plasma, respectively. I used the default 1, 2, 4 binds for the remaining weapons.

Now I use UJYK to move, and these are my weapon binds.
bind 6 "weapon 1 (Pummel) "
bind t "weapon 2 (MG) "
bind , "weapon 3 (Shotty) "
bind l "weapon 4 (Nades) "
bind f "weapon 5 (Rockets)"
bind v "weapon 6 (LG) "
bind g "weapon 7 (Rail) "
bind i "weapon 8 (Plasma) "

I prefer my new bindings, because they let me have more room for my mouse by allowing me to put my keyboard farther to the left. Also, these bindings let me switch between the three main weapons (RG, RL, LG) without having to sacrifice any movement, using my pinky instead of my UJYK fingers.

[mapamapa]

I move with WASD.
Q = Rocket
E = LG
R = Rail
F = Plasma
1 = Gauntlet
2 = Machine Gun
3 = Shotgun
4 = Grenade Launcher
Z = Nailgun
X = Heavy Machine Gun
C = BFG

Only bad one of those is 1 for Gauntlet since it's awkward to reach it with my ring finger(dunno why but my hand feels weaker in this position) which is why I'm so bad at switching to Gauntlet when I should. Should probably change that.
The faster you can reach your keys the better.
Some argue that binding weapons to the mouse buttons is good because of this reason while others argue that it screws with your aim.
One bad thing with changing weapons with your movement hand is that your dodge gets worse (if you're not as smart as Zebby).
For example normally I don't move left when changing to rocket, gauntlet, and machine gun since my ring finger is busy and I don't move right when I change to lightning gun, rail, nade and plasma since my index finger is busy. If I really have to dodge in one direction and change weapon at the same time I need to do some crazy finger acrobatics that I now do from time to time subconsciously. :p

Oh and most people jump with mouse2. It's easier for movement for some reason and it also frees up your thumb from constantly having to be assigned to jump.
(I use the thumb for ZXCF weapons, space for zoom and I also like to lift my hand up high and tap dance the movement keys while letting the thumb hang loose in the air when I'm doing some heavy dodging.)

[The Thorne]

yes agree on jump on mouse 2 this is really a must if you want to master fast movement that was something I did relearn for this game as I used to have jump on a small side mouse button, no good for QL.