Tips?

[pwohmy]

I bought the game today and I love it. My high score is about 87, and I'm looking for any tips to get further.

So far, I've found that putting the horned skulls first is a good idea since they have irregular paths and are faster than the normal skulls. Spires aren't really too important to destroy unless you have lax(ish) time and they're getting in the way. I know that B-hopping is a useful tool of dodging and being fast, and I know about using the bullet physics to predict movement from far away enemies. Is there anything I'm missing? Anything I've gotten wrong?

[pwohmy]

Originally posted by ambidot:

bhop is unimportant unless you're farming VERY hard. the single most important skill is positioning. by circling the basic skulls (no horns) like this[upload.wikimedia.org], you can kite them for a very long time. combine that with moving toward priorities like spiders.

fast and precise aim is also important, and can only be developed by playing.

priorities at this point are approximately (whatever's about to kill you) > Skull III (big horns) > Spider I (big spider) > Egg I > Squid II (medium spire) > Squid I (small spire) > Spiderling (itty bitty spider) > Skull II (small horns) > Skull I (no horns).

Why would I target the spires above the skulls? It's always the two horned skulls that kill me.

And when I do the circling thing, would I b-hop whilst doing it? Or is it just normal walking?

[pwohmy]

Originally posted by ambidot:

Originally posted by Yandere Comrade:

Why would I target the spires above the skulls? It's always the two horned skulls that kill me.

are you referring to Skull II[i.imgur.com] or Skull III[i.imgur.com]? Skull III should be your top priority due to their speed and turn rate. spires are called Squids. they release more swarms of skulls after the initial release, so it's ideal to kill the squids first so enemies don't accumulate so quickly.

Originally posted by Yandere Comrade:

And when I do the circling thing, would I b-hop whilst doing it? Or is it just normal walking?

walk. walking allows more careful movement.

Um, I'm not entirely sure. Both I imagine. Their movement patterns are different from skull 1's and they seem to be faster so they always come from a weird angle and kill me while I'm focused on trying to kill the spider.

I have many questions. I've seen this thing where people keep shooting the ground beneath them while they run about. What is that for? What do the red crystals do? What is that weird bullet time thing that always throws me off and kills me?

[bowsr]

Originally posted by ambidot:

bhop is unimportant unless you're farming VERY hard.

I really disagree with this. Farm or no farm, being able to fluidly move around the arena, with techniques like bhopping and air strafing, can improve your times. Movement is really simple, too. The hard part of movement is just combining it all and being able to change it instantly in any situation, and that just comes with practice.

To bhop, all you have to do is hit your jump button every ~0.8 seconds. Even if you don't hit the perfect bhop timing window, you will still get a speed boost.

Moving diagonally is faster.

Air strafing is probably the most complex aspect of movement in this game, but still simple. Here's some examples of various ways to air strafe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=096hNOoL_rM
The most important of those strafes are the ones where I held W+D or W+A, as those are what you'll primarily use to kite enemies.
To do that air strafing, hold W+D if you want to go counter-clockwise, W+A otherwise, and move your mouse towards the center of the arena (left for W+D | right for W+A). This will change your direction and cause you to circle around the center.

Originally posted by Yandere Comrade:

So far, I've found that putting the horned skulls first is a good idea since they have irregular paths and are faster than the normal skulls. Spires aren't really too important to destroy unless you have lax(ish) time and they're getting in the way.

That's a good enemy priority to start with. Squids (spires) release skulls every 20 seconds, so you have plenty of time to clear any skulls you need to before taking down the squids.

As for spiders, gems have a lifetime of 10 seconds, so it's important to take out the spiders as soon as possible.

A lot of the early game waves are about optimizing how you use your time to kill things. One thing that can help is to not focus on a single squid for too long. If you miss the gem on a squid, don't worry about it, it'll rotate back around whilst you are shooting at other enemies. If you can kite skulls, the ones without horns (Skull 1) you can just leave until everything else is dead.

If you want an example of the early game with no farming, I have a run uploaded here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq5DwpOw2To

[bowsr]

Originally posted by ambidot:

are there any advantages to diagonal bhop over standard fps bhop other than speed?

Speed is the main advantage, but it's also better for the placement of your aim.

With just left / right air strafing, your aim will be forced looking on the tangent to your circle of movement.

With sideways air strafing (W or S strafing), your aim will be looking on the radius of your circle of movement (towards the center with W, towards the outside with S).

Now with W+D or W+A air strafing (I believe it's commonly called circle strafing from quake days but I could be wrong as I never played quake), your aim will always be looking halfway in between the center and edge of your movement circle, which is the best for looking where you're going and aiming at any incoming threats.