So, WAR is not beginner friendly, because ...

[Benfica]

It's obvious that a new gamer has very low probability of success...

This is what happens with CTF when he draws attention:
- If he doesn't have much clue and stays behind around the flag, he barely gets flamed. It can even help, because he is still a pain in the *** for the opposing team. What is flamed is the "team". 1 player flames a lot of others, it's one against many and only once, in the end of the match
- If he manages to even touch the enemy flag, but gets owned, he isn't flamed either. He will feel proud and even his team may congrat him for trying. More, not having skill, lowers the probabilities of even getting there and being exposed. He is only flamed when both flags are out of base and he gets killed, which is not so common.
- If he manages a cap, "well done dude".


This is what happens with WAR:
- If he doesn't have much clue, he is flamed for defending the core.
- If he grabs "t3h 0rb" and doesn't go to the right direction, he is flamed.
- If he grabs it and tries, the odds of success are very low, so here we go again. Now it's many against one, and it can happen quite often
- If he somehow manages it, almost nothing happens, and he doesn't get much credit.

CTF promotes courage while WAR punishes failure.


The result:
- New players gave the finger and don't join anymore
- A lot of veteran WAR players just don't play on pubs
- Some of the remaining ones didn't care and sticked to UT2004

I've posted this on another forum already and didn't reread it to correct flaws, but I'm kinda bored ...

[Plutonia_Experi]

It's not ****** friendly you mean.
Before jumping online one could even take a look at the manual while the game is installing, amirite?

[Moloko]

Cannot speak on CTF but they should've included classic ONS as well as WAR -it took some, shall we say less capable players, long enough to get their heads around the concept of that. WAR needs a good Orb carrier(s) and on some maps, node capping, including killing the orb holding, node defender is critical to any chance of success.
For players who can cap nine out of ten times, whoever is defending, seeing the orb repeatedly dropped in front of a tank, like for example on Islander, just because some noob keeps waiting/fighting to take it, only to go on stupid suicide runs is pretty frustrating, and yes said noob is gonna get flamed.

[oldkawman1]

A Warfare Guide for Beginners

This was the Warfare Etiquette for Beginners I posted a short while back. Following this guide will keep even a total noob from getting flamed. I have never flamed anyone and most of the players I play with do not flame either. We are too busy have fun. I cannot usually even remember who won or lost the match. It just does not matter, it's the action during the match that matters.

A Warfare Guide for Beginners

1) Warfare is a TEAM GAME so players must help the team win the match. There are loads of things you can do to be a team player, here are a few;
a) Heal other team mates vehicles when your near them.
b) Tag along with other team mates to help them attack or defend.
c) Do not go off alone, it's best to attack in numbers.
d) Do not take a break while in a vehicle or turret unless you want to be very poorly regarded. We all know players that do this, A-holes!
e) Do not fight over vehicles, first one there presses E gets in. It's just that simple, they spawn pretty quickly as life is short.
f) Do not camp out and wait for vehicles to spawn. You must defend or attack, you can always get the vehicle if it is there when you respawn.
g) Man the machine gun in the tank or the turrets in the dark walker or cicada. This will increase the life expectancy of the vehicle and increase it's effectiveness.
h) Do not destroy abandoned enemy vehicles. Hijack and heal them. This gives your team extra firepower while denying it to the enemy.
i) Do not just leave the game when the going gets rough. Do not be a quiter, at least finish the match before you leave.
j) Don't be constantly chatting in game instead of playing that kills gameplay and ****** off the other players.

2) If you do not know what to do with the ORB, do not pick it up when it spawns. If you find out you have the orb take it to a node.

2a) If your interested in carrying the orb, first learn the map. Follow and back up a more experienced player when they carry the orb. If they drop the orb, pick it up and continue to the destination node. The orb must be kept on the move to the correct node.

2b) The ORB can only defend, heal, and attack nodes. Never take it to the enemy base or core. If a team mate is chasing you and shooting you with a FLAK cannon, maybe it's time to check if you have the ORB.

2c) Protect the orb carrier - follow him to one side and perhaps a little to the side, with an Avril ready, and also ready to whip out a minigun. (credit - rhiridflaidd)

3) Playing online with other players is not the time for your first tank drive or raptor flight. Do not use vehicles if you do not know what your doing. This hurts the team by wasting resources. Instead, learn these skills offline and observe how the more experienced players use them. If you pay attention, you can learn alot.

4) Everyone cannot attack at the same time, some must defend or you will lose the match very quickly. A good way to approach this, for example, Islander, when you spawn at prime node base, check for the orb and take it to prime node to heal and lock it. Always! Then decide if you should take it to the AIR node. The announcers voice does not always give you good advice on this.

5) Do not accuse other players of cheating. Some players think all good players are cheating. No UT3 players will put up with cheats, it will be the better players that suspect and expose a cheat. There are many highly skilled and well known players. They do not cheat, they are just elite players of extraordinary skill. You will learn their names very quickly through repetition as it's flashed on the screen, You were killed by PLAYER_NIC weapon, over and over and over and over again.

6) Never steal vehicles from another team member while they are healing it, instead, help them heal it. Stealing a team mates ride is one of the highest sins you can commit. Yes, it can be inadvertent, one strike, two strikes, but come on, three strikes your out, *******.

7) Remember, it's only a game, the purpose is to have fun. But keep in mind not to ruin the fun for everyone else.

8) Do not grapple to or ride on top of your teams Nightshade. This gives it's position away and makes it an easy target.

9) Remember, if you abandon a vehicle you make it available to the other team. They can hijack and kill you with it.

10) Grappling to a tank or Paladin has no real use as they are both slower than the hoverboard.

11) You cannot heal the power core, so do not try. You will only scare away the more experienced players on your team.

12) The fastest way to get the orb to the node is to grapple with a viper, raptor, manta, or scorpion. The one you choose depends on the map and what's available.

13) Do not blindly follow the instruction of the anouncer on where to go or attack. The voice is frequently wrong. Keep an eye on the mini map. If the prime node is flashing you better go there before it's too late.

14) Think before wasting a Scorpion or Viper don't go self destructing it without thinking, use it to destroy the enemy's Tank or rapidly induce heavy damage on a node or core don't waste it just on one player. (credit - VoodooMaster)

14a) One note on this is that if a node was just built it has 10 seconds of shielding. The orb cannot cap in that period, but also important is that damage to the node is reduced by half. So using a self-destruct during this period would be a waste. You can tell if a node is shielded because a little orb will float between the ball and the base of the node (credit - So's_your_face)

15) The Shaped Charge just doesn't destroy Barricades, you can use it to destroy Nodes, Vehicles and Cores as well. (credit - VoodooMaster)

16) HEAL AND KEEP HEALING your teams heavy assault vehicles because they might be powerful but if they don't get any support they will rapidly get destroyed. (credit - VoodooMaster)


WARFARE LINKS

There is a great post on just WARFARE.com about the play and its a bit more indepth about Warfare. Warfare Manual http://forum.justwarfare.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=146

Make sure you read what Mr Evil has to say in this very informative thread about the nightshade; http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=610869

[commiecat]

It's obvious that a new gamer has very low probability of success...

This is what happens with CTF when he draws attention:
- If he doesn't have much clue and stays behind around the flag, he barely gets flamed. It can even help, because he is still a pain in the *** for the opposing team. What is flamed is the "team". 1 player flames a lot of others, it's one against many and only once, in the end of the match
- If he manages to even touch the enemy flag, but gets owned, he isn't flamed either. He will feel proud and even his team may congrat him for trying. More, not having skill, lowers the probabilities of even getting there and being exposed. He is only flamed when both flags are out of base and he gets killed, which is not so common.
- If he manages a cap, "well done dude".


This is what happens with WAR:
- If he doesn't have much clue, he is flamed for defending the core.
- If he grabs "t3h 0rb" and doesn't go to the right direction, he is flamed.
- If he grabs it and tries, the odds of success are very low, so here we go again. Now it's many against one, and it can happen quite often
- If he somehow manages it, almost nothing happens, and he doesn't get much credit.

CTF promotes courage while WAR punishes failure.


The result:
- New players gave the finger and don't join anymore
- A lot of veteran WAR players just don't play on pubs
- Some of the remaining ones didn't care and sticked to UT2004

I've posted this on another forum already and didn't reread it to correct flaws, but I'm kinda bored ...

I disagree. First, I don't play video games to be coddled by my teammates. If I accomplish a mission in any gametype I don't want to be patted on the bum and told, "Awww, that's a good commiecat!" I'd be more likely to quit a game if that happened all the time.

Comparing CTF to WAR isn't valid, either. CTF has not only been a staple of all online FPSs but it's also played in real life (e.g., paintball). The concepts are pretty simple so people are far less likely to just not know WTF to do. Of course WAR is harder to understand because it's a little more complex and it's a completely new gametype.

If you're gaming online you should know that a) you don't take anything personally and b) Google is an amazing resource. Even if you ignore those you can practice either in campaign mode or instant play with bots.

I'm always on public WAR servers (UMG & BGE). I see plenty of top Warfare players in those matches and I also see some people I recognized from 2k4 ONS. Whenever someone says that they're new to UT3 and/or WAR, I generally see (and give) the response to spectate a few rounds first, which is probably even more informative than finishing the campaign.

The problem is that it's an unfamiliar gametype, not because of the community.

[3leggedFreak]

text

Tl; dr. And here we have the basic flaw of WAR, it goes against what constitutes good game design, namely that it should be easy to grasp the concept, but still provide unlimited room for progress. A minute to learn, a lifetime to master.

This is why CTF and ONS kicks WAR's but bigtime.

[rhiridflaidd]

New players shouldn't go anywhere near the orb, unless nobody else is using it for a long while.

The main issue for new players on-line is a tendency to think that a 32 player is a better environment than a 18 player server, due to the annonymity of numbers.

On a 32 player server, all the vehicles are taken, and since vehicles are rare, people get annoyed if they aren't used properly.

So my advice to new players would be to play on smaller servers, grab an avril immediately after spawning, and have a keybind to quickly select an Avril, and shadow some of your team's better players, to learn what they do.

I've just started playing quake wars, am a total noob at the game and it will take a while to get any good. TBH I think warfare is far more self explanitory to pick up.

[dcthug]

The only way to learn is to play. U won't ever get better if you sit around worrying about getting flamed. I would advise playing against the AI until you get the basics of Warfare. Try shadowing/assisting the orb carrier to learn about the basics.... also, that Warfare guide is pretty good tutorial

[commiecat]

Tl; dr. And here we have the basic flaw of WAR, it goes against what constitutes good game design, namely that it should be easy to grasp the concept, but still provide unlimited room for progress. A minute to learn, a lifetime to master.

This is why CTF and ONS kicks WAR's but bigtime.

You've never played WAR, have you? It is an easy concept to grasp -- how much more simple can you get than connect the dots? That's what you do. Same concept and same objectives as Onslaught -- only now there are different vehicles, some special dots that don't connect anything and an orb.

There is always room for progress as there are always different paths to take or different strategies for a team.

Maybe you've heard of this game called chess. It also has a simple objective, requires some basic learning about movement/strategy, and allows players to progress. I suppose it's also doomed to fail because it's not designed for the lowest common denominator.

[Cr4zy]

Actually WAR's concept is pretty simple. Create a link between your core and the enemies, build your nodes, destroy enemy nodes. Use the orb to instantly destroy and build a node in one, Use the orb to protect a node. Shoot enemy core.

Yea theres everything hard about that o_O

It's just that some people that play war aren't beginner friendly. And hate those that **** about with their game. Like you weren't all at that stage once, Even if you've played bots and can win. Online is different.

[oldkawman1]

WAR is just hyperspeed ONS with an ORB (Bombing Run) added, plus AS type stuff like count down nodes, levi nodes, tank nodes, DD (DOM) stuff like tenicle nodes.

UT3 WAR is way faster than ONS, way more fun. I only played ONS online like a total of 48 hours. I played UT3 off line until XMASS time to learn WAR. Now I only play online WAR. So, I am still pretty much still a newb at many things. I am still improving, learning, and thinking stratagy. I have never been flamed ever.

I played ONS a couple weeks ago for like 4 hours when GameSpy was broke. Too slow! You usually spend most of your time getting to the action. I did not see people playing my favorite maps, KAKMO, Bittersands, and lots of other super ones. So I ended up playing mostly Torlan and some of the spam tank maps. There is just no going back, UT3 is just so much more intense an experience. ONS was a great training tool. Newbs who never played ONS would be lost and confused unless they read the online ONS guides and practiced off line.

If you want to just join a game and instantly become the hero or lead player, go get WOW or another of those fantasy SIMS genre RPG games.

[3leggedFreak]

You've never played WAR, have you? It is an easy concept to grasp -- how much more simple can you get than connect the dots? That's what you do. Same concept and same objectives as Onslaught -- only now there are different vehicles, some special dots that don't connect anything and an orb.

There is always room for progress as there are always different paths to take or different strategies for a team.

Maybe you've heard of this game called chess. It also has a simple objective, requires some basic learning about movement/strategy, and allows players to progress. I suppose it's also doomed to fail because it's not designed for the lowest common denominator.

Congratulations for not getting the point at all. I'm not talking about myself, I have played ONS, on and off competitively, since -04 and have many hours of WAR behind me, the subject here was the NEWBIES. And chess is an example of exactly the thing I was requesting, it's easy to grasp the basics but the strategies can be improved upon infinitely. Next time; read, comprehend, reply.

[commiecat]

Congratulations for not getting the point at all. I'm not talking about myself, I have played ONS, on and off competitively, since -04 and have many hours of WAR behind me, the subject here was the NEWBIES. And chess is an example of exactly the thing I was requesting, it's easy to grasp the basics but the strategies can be improved upon infinitely. Next time; read, comprehend, reply.

I did read and comprehend. The people against WAR are saying that it's too difficult, and that people won't play WAR because it's too difficult.

And here we have the basic flaw of WAR, it goes against what constitutes good game design

My chess comparison stands. The above quote is probably the same argument that a checkers player would have against chess. Chess is poorly designed because it's difficult and I just want to jump around the board and become a king.

That's right, I said it. CTF is to checkers as WAR is to chess. :P

[MoonBlood]

I think Warfare is more noob friendly than the other game types. At least in Warfare, there's action going on all over the place and there are all different kinds of ways of earning points, which can make you feel like you're accomplishing something even without getting in the heavy action. And it's fairly easy to pickup so long as you're dedicated to it; I'm an okay Warfare player and I picked it up quickly without ever playing Onslaught.

Even bad players can have a lot of fun in Warfare, whereas playing something like pure CTF with good players can be bloody frustrating. But maybe that's just me.

[3leggedFreak]

I did read and comprehend. ..
My chess comparison stands. The above quote is probably the same argument that a checkers player would have against chess. Chess is poorly designed because it's difficult and I just want to jump around the board and become a king...

No, you still don't got it, try again. Chess is actually exactly what I meant with good game design, it's easy to learn but hard to become good at.

And btw, checkers = consoles, so don't mix it into your comparison.