Aside from guidelines to help you improve your play, there’s also some tips in there for basic stuff like finding server quickly and playing the game with optimal settings. As such, any Unreal Tournament 3 player aught to be able to find something useful in here! So sit down, grab something to drink, turn up the volume - and enjoy!

So, you’re looking to get better, but don’t quite know where to start? Look no further, you’ve come to the right page. The following guidelines alone won’t always make you better overnight, but combine it with some practice and you’re bound to notice swift improvements in your scores. And if even that is not good enough for you,

Now before I begin, you might want to know why you should even bother listening to me. After all, chances are you’ve never heard of me - and what point is there to listening to someone who doesn’t know what he’s talking about, right? That’s why I’ve got a few pages up on this site that should give you an indication of my - extensive - experience with competing in online shooters - and other games. Visit my achievements overview for a collection of awards and placings I’ve attained, and my clans listing if you want to see where I’ve been in the past couple of years…

1. Search for games properly. When looking for servers, set up your filters to show full and empty servers as well as both pure and non-pure servers, but filter out locked servers. If you start filtering out either full or empty servers then the server list will be incomplete and will not show every active server that you can join. So how do you easily find a good server to play on amidst the mass of empty servers? Sort it by player count - by clicking the players tab - and look for the server amongst them with the lowest possible ping, but still featuring active players. Always try to stick to servers under 100 ping if you can.
2. Make sure you know your maps. Find out where all the weapons are, where the health is, where the power-ups are and which routes give you an advantage over your enemy (generally high ground is better). Check out this entry for a collection of helpful tips to get you started on the right track towards knowing the maps. This is absolutely essential if you want to be able to compete, even in public servers.
3. Tweak in-game settings to optimize your play. Aside from setting your mouse sensitivity to your liking and turning off mouse smoothing, this also means putting your ‘fov’ value at the appropriate level. If you’re playing on a widescreen monitor you’ll have to change it to 100, otherwise part of the screen will be missing… for regular monitors the standard setting is fine. Also useful might be toning down the post-processing level (intense is overkill, default and muted are nice) and selecting a more difficult to see character (generally any slim female). None of these will have a major impact, but they’ll add up and make playing more comfortable.
4. Bind your weapons properly. Generally you’ll want to play with the W, A, S, D or E, S, D, F keys for movement so that you have a lot of keys surrounding them to bind weapons and functions to. Switching by scrolling tends to have you over- or undershooting frequently, while having each weapon binded to a specific, easy-to-reach, key will have you constantly switching to the correct weapon. It’ll take some getting used to, but it’ll definitely prove to be a major improvement given time. Example Given: I use ‘esdf’ and like to have rockets on scroll down, flak on scroll up, shock on W, sniper on R, stinger minigun on Q, link gun on G, impact hammer on A, translocator/hoverboard on Ctrl, superweapons on 4 and the rest defaulted.
5. Make good use of everything at your disposal. If you have a translocator, use it to get to high areas in the map. On CTF-Hydro above the minigun you can translocate to get a shield belt (100 armor) and in the center area, translocating on top of the buildings gives you a distinct advantage over anyone on the ground. Likewise the hoverboard is a nice tool for getting about maps quickly. And in DeathMatch you might want to try using your fully loaded impact hammer to make high jumps and reach secluded areas more easily.
6. Follow the leader! Play alongside, or try to spectate, better players. Copy their tricks and their routes and try to adjust them to your own prefered playstyle. It doesn’t matter if you get stomped into the ground, because after playing these guys and learning some tricks - you’re likely to have improved far more than you might have thought. This is the way I started out in Unreal Tournament in 1999 - and soon I myself became one of those ‘good players’ that new players follow around and spectate.
7. Train up your weapon skills. Determine which weapons you suck at, for example the link gun. Then try to play with those weapons exclusively for a couple of days. It’s a basic and common tip, but one that really helps a lot. In games like these it’s vital to be proficient with each weapon.
8. Shock combo’s are king. They’re probably the most difficult weapon functionality to use properly in UT3. They’re also one of the most deadly and important attacks in the game. If you can make shock combo’s while moving, then you’re on hell of a deadly opponent, for anyone. An easy method for practicing these is to load up a map in Instant Action, without opponents. Determine a target in the decor or space that you intend to hit, then keep dodging, jumping, liftjumping, etc… while trying to fire off combo’s at your target. Just 30 minutes of that is better combo-practice than 200 live games, you’ll notice the improvement immediately!
9. Use the environment to your advantage. Hopping a lift and jumping up high over an opponent with rockets loaded is a genuine guaranteed kill. Likewise, translocating up to unexpected locations ensures at least a couple of easy kills. And if you’re good at dodging, then perhaps walldodging up over enemies and out to ledges mid-combat might just save your life, or end theirs. Movement is arguably the most important skill in UT3, so take your time to practice dodging and liftjumping, but don’t start randomly bunnyhopping or double-jumping: it’ll just make you an easy target.
10. Use movement styles effectively. If you’re up against someone with link or stinger fire, then closing in and dodging all around them is your best bet - unless you can somehow get away and ambush him from around a corner (with flak, bio or rockets prefferably). Snipers and shock primary are best dealt with by dodging and strafing as erraticaly as possible and avoiding jumping altogether. Flak and rockets are best taken on at a distance, while strafing and never dodging (makes you an easy target). And so on…
11. Learn from the best. If you happen upon a good player who seems talkative and friendly, try asking for some tips. I know I hand out a few pointers - like important items on the map - while playing every now and then, and I’m sure a couple of other skilled players wouldn’t mind sharing some of their knowledge.
12. Use your head. Maintaining control over the map and taking armor and power-ups is more important than fragging as much as possible. If you’re fully stacked, you’re one heck of a challenge to take down. Likewise, retreating from a losing fight to heal up is smart - don’t just always fight to the death. Try and out-think your enemy if you can’t out-aim them, translocate all around them and mess them up from all sides, lure them into tight sections of the map - where you can lie in ambush, and so on. In similar vein: feigning death is not smart, you will be spotted and killed by most players.
13. Don’t frag, play for victory! If you’re playing an objective-based gamemode like Capture the Flag or Warfare - don’t go playing it like it’s DeathMatch. You should be trying to cap flags and keep your base secure, or take nodes while defending your own. In teamgames, objectives are more important than individual kills, statistics or scores.
14. Play for fun, not victory! Yes, quite the opposite of the previous line, but this is also important. As a beginner you shouldn’t be playing to top servers and dominate others, because the likelyhood of you doing so, even with all the tips in the world, is extremely slim. In fact, don’t ever play to win: it’s just no fun! As you play more, eventually you will start winning… but for the moment, stop considering dieing as something horribly unfair, but start seeing it in a more positive light: it’s one heck of a cool effect to look at. It’s never fun to frustrate yourself over little things.
15. Join a clan. A clan is a team of gamers which plays against other teams. The static nature of these teams will mean you’ll frequently be playing with the same guys and girls, in an organised fashion. Not only is this oftentimes more enjoyable than random public server play, but you can also share tips and practice together. Furthermore, the competition against other clans will make you a more capable player. A few clan matches will mean as much for your skills and level of play, as a few hundred public server games.
16. Keep at it. Trying your hand at some of the guidelines and then deciding it’s not working enough for you after just a couple days of play is not good enough. Just keep at it and have fun! You will improve over time, as long as you stick to it - not improving is practically an impossibility.
17. Play along. If you happen to have an IRC client and basic knowledge of how it works - head on over to IRC server Quakenet and join channels like #UT3.CTF and #UT.DM. These channels features pick-up games, which you can join by typing !add in the channel. These games are visited by good players, and supported by teamspeak channels, and offer intense teambased games. A perfect place to learn the ropes from the best of the best.
18. Lastly, read this guide for some basic pointers that work for every shooter, including Unreal Tournament 3.

Hopefully this lengthy list of pointers will guide you in the right direction and have you fragging more people, capping more flags and overall just enjoying the game more. If you have anything to add, any lingering questions or just want to comment - feel free to do so below! Good luck, have fun - and see you in-game!

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