These will be aimed mostly towards the Q3 side of arena shooters. The information on weapons and pickups may vary with different titles.
- arranging a session with some friends or a small group is the best way to play. Pubs (if you find any) are usually populated with very high-level players and (from my experience) a lot of them aren't very friendly to new players.
- disparity of skill level between players are usually very apparent when playing AFPS's. As a new player, you will most likely be destroyed many times by people who know what they're doing. It'll be frustrating but don't let it discourage you. It's completely normal.
- play against bots if you need to practice your aim or practice a weapon.
- play race (a gamemode included in QL, Warfork, and Reflex) if you need to practice your movement. Some games also have "sandbox" maps with things like strafe pads and long hallways to help you perfect the movement.
Every weapon shines in a specific situation. Try to become familiar with all the weapons instead of focusing on one of them.
- Machinegun (or your game's starting weapon): Because starter weapons are usually very weak, you want to find another weapon as soon as possible. For the MG specifically, another use is to pick off enemies who you know are low on health since it is a hitscan weapon. Some Quake 3 maps have automatic doors that will open if you shoot them. You can use the MG from a distance here to bait the enemy into giving away their location.
- Railgun (or your game's sniper weapon): Mostly used to pick off enemies from a distance and is fairly unsafe to use at close-range due to the long cooldown.
- Rocket Launcher: A versatile weapon that can be used at any distance, as well as for prefiring spots and rocket-jumping to get to some locations faster.
- Shotgun: Useful in finishing off enemies similarly to the MG. Shotguns usually do anywhere from nothing to an instant kill depending on the distance. Not very useful in fights against weapons that out-perform the shotgun in range.
- Grenade Launcher: A weapon that is infamously only used for spamming into areas ("area denial"). Where possible, you should do this into spots with the important pickups (the megahealth or red armor) to prevent the enemy from picking them up.
- Lightning Gun: A beam weapon that is effective at short to medium range. Useful for pressuring grounded enemies and pushing away airbourne enemies. You can actually suspend enemies in the air with this weapon if you catch them using a jumppad, for example.
- Plasma Gun: Useful for pressuring people at a distance. Can be used to make it very annoying for RG players to hit you, for example, due to its very big and bright projectiles. If you can consistently land shots, also has the highest DPS out of the weapons.
- Gauntlet: A dedicated "humiliation" weapon. Pretty much only used to flex on your enemies.
Your health and armor is usually also referred to as your stack.
Health is a value that can vary from 0 - 200. Your health will go down as you are hit with weapons. Once it hits 0, you'll die. Health (in Q3) has a soft cap of 100. Certain health pickups will allow you to go above 100, which is called overcharging. When you are overcharged, you will lose 1 HP per second until your health goes to 100 or below.
Health pickups come in 5, 25, 50, and 100 (the megahealth). The 5's and megahealth will overcharge your health.
Armor is a value that can very from 0 - 200. Your armor has a certain "absorption rate" (66% in Q3) that will determine how much the damage you sustain is split between your health and armor points. For example, if you have a stack of 100 health / 100 armor, and are hit with a direct rocket (100 dmg in Q3), 66 points will be taken off your armor and the remaining 34 will be taken off your health, resulting in a stack of 66 health / 34 armor.
Armor pickups come in 25 (green), 50 (yellow) and 100 (red).
Note that the megahealth and red armor are the most important pickups to get in high-level matches.
Most maps have very delibrate weapon and pickup placement. Try to memorize where everything is placed so that you can find what you need quickly.
- Try to manage your stack and weapon collection. Don't feel like you need to go for kills all the time.
- In general, only enter fights you know you can win, otherwise run and stock up.
- The powerups (like the quad) as well as the megahealth and armors all spawn on a timer. Try to time your pickups so that you collect them as they spawn, and prevent your enemy from taking them first.