Is crouching in Quake Live useful?

Question

In Quake Live I see users crouching when using gaunt or shotgun. Is there any advantage to crouching? Or are these players doing it for no reason?

Asked by m3tron0me

Answer

IMHO, no.

Let me explain: crouching allow you to reduce your exposed surface, making you a smaller target. It could be useful, but crouching has a downside: it impedes your mobility by reducing your speed.

Since most of the weapons allow somebody to one-shot or two-shot you, good speed and unpredictable movements are your greatest way to survive. That's why most of the time, crouching is the easiest way to die.

Answered by Lysarion

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In Quake, what's the difference between Armour and Health?

Question

Obviously when your health is 100 you can't pick up any more (normal) health, but you can add armour. But do they act different against damage? Or is armour just extended health?

When you've hit with armour, you do lose health too. Would it be better then to have 80 health, or like 50 health with 20 armour ? (wild value guesses)

Asked by user717572

Answer

Quake3World has an extensive guide to how armour and health work:

When you are shot, Quake3 applies 2/3 of total damage to armor ..., then the rest is taken off health. If your armor is insufficient to cover the 'debt' the leftover damage comes from your health

So when you take damage it takes 2/3 of the total an applies it to your armour. It then takes the remaining 1/3 plus any left over if your armour was totally destroyed and applies that to your health.

If that takes your health to below 0, you die.

For example, if you have 100 health and 20 armor you can take 120 damage before you die; if you have 100 armor and 20 health, however, 60 damage is enough to frag you.

The function of armour is to reduce the amount of health you lose when you get shot etc. In terms of benefit any armour is better than none, and the stronger your armour the better as it means that none of the 2/3 "armour" damage will get applied to your health.

Answered by ChrisF

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Would I be at a disadvantage if I played Quake Live with an HUD that displayed damage to death “instead of” health and armour numbers?

Question

There are many custom HUDs available for Quake Live; most make all numbers larger because, hey, everything is important right?

Obviously, this can't be the case. Something has to give.

I believe that damage to death is more important information than health and armor counts. Maybe the health and armour count would be handy to have around to know what item should pick up first, but I believe a far more common scenario is questions like "can I be oneshotted by a railgun this very moment"?

All of the points made in this quickly closed question do not apply to Quake 3 — damage is distributed between armor and health independently from the source¹. There are no side effects to having low health.

In my opinion, this would also help understand what these numbers really mean. Say, for example, you have 25 health and 0 armour, then picked a red armour. Now you have 25 health and 100 armour. Quick: will a railgun (110 damage) oneshot you?

[Answer: yes. Indeed, 75 damage are enough to kill you (-25 to health, -50 to armour). Good luck calculating that during the game…]

The only real downside would be not knowing what I should be looking for: health or armor. However, I believe this is a question separate armour and health bars would answer more than adequately. (more on this below)

Is there something I'm missing from the big picture? Why is there no mod that tries to do this? Is keeping different counters this important in Quake Live?

_{¹The only difference would be for the lightning gun, which due to rounding deals 5 armor damage and only 2 health damage.}

---

EDIT:

To make myself crystal clear here, I'll post a picture of what I had in mind:

Separate bars would answer the "what I should be looking for: health or armor" question, but the actual numbers (the "count") wouldn't be displayed. Why would you want it? This is my whole question.

Hope this helps.

Asked by badp

Answer

This is something of an expanded comment, more than an answer in itself.

There are two effects that your choice of compound HUD has in comparison to a default display of two numbers.

• Instead of displaying the numbers of each value, you have a bar displayed. The effect is advantageous to those who work better on visual differences and relative changes, but disadvantageous to those who rely on values and absolute changes.
• There is a compound display for the post-calculated "damage limit". This is advantageous to those who cannot do a quick calculation immediately, and disadvantageous to anyone who relies on seeing the separate counts.

This is a matter of information substitution, not addition or subtraction. You are given exactly the same information as everyone else, the only difference is how it is rendered, and how well you interpret that information. The HUD itself provides no advantage or disadvantage.

Answered by n/a

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What options do you have on creating a server in Quake Live?

Question

So since Quake Live left beta status. As a "pro user" you are able to create a server on your own.

What options do you have?

Are there options like: "Only Clan-mates may join" or "Only players from my friendlist may join"

And is the server only active while the creator is ingame?

Thanks

Asked by eL13

Answer

I found out from a Forum:

• Match Location (only vicinity not country, as far I know)
• Match Visibility
• Match Password
• Instagib Mode
• Spawn Protection (yes/no)
• Game Type
• Arena
• You can invite friends

You can NOT change player slots - this is awkward :( edit: meanwhile there is a vote option to adjust the team size

Please correct me, if something changes (as long as I don't have a pro-account).

Answered by eL13

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How can I sync achievements for Unreal Tournament 2004 and Quake Live, with my Steam account which were not installed through Steam?

Question

Unreal Tournament 2004 and Quake Live are installed through my PC, but not through Steam. How can I sync achievements with my Stem profile for these and other games which Steam sells but which I bought through another vendor (or in Quake Live, it is free and browser-based)?

Asked by gameaddict

Answer

The "Steam Version" of games differs from the non-Steam version - if your game wasn't purchased or activated through Steam, you can't get Steam achievements for it. I don't believe there's any way to (legitimately) take achievements from a non-Steam version of a game and import them into Steam.

Additionally, Quake Live and UT 2004 don't have Steam achievements, as far as I can tell. In Quake Live's case, they have a completely separate achievement system (Awards on your Profile) and UT2k4 was released prior to the introduction of the Steam achievement system, and I don't think it was ever modified to include achievements.

Answered by agent86

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Where does the Quake Live plugin store downloaded content?

Question

Want to copy it to another system (not browser) without downloading it again...

Asked by Gtx

Answer

Your user data can be found depending on your OS in the following directories:

Windows 7 (probably vista as well)
X:/User/YourUserName/AppData/LocalLow/id Software/quakelive
You might have to enable the show hidden files option.

Mac OS X: /Users/YourUserName/Library/Application Support/QuakeLive/quakelive/

Linux: /home/YourUserName/.quakelive/

Answered by eL13

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What does the guard rune in Quake-Live do exactly?

Question

It has been suggested to use the Guard rune to combat people using rail and the Doubler rune. What does it do exactly?

Asked by m3tron0me

Answer

For now I'll reference this holysh1t article, citing damage taken being halved. I suppose there's more to it than that, especially regarding armor (which seems more effective with the rune.)

---

I and that good brony of a Tristan have done a little bit of science, and it turns out holysh1t got it wrong. That's just how much people at the highest levels care about maps with runes. Anyway!

Getting hit with 100/100 (= 100 hitpoints, 100 armor) by a direct grenade hit:

YOU              THEM  Without doubler      With doubler
Without guard             66/34 (-100)       49/1 (-150)
With guard                83/34 ( -83)       75/1 (-124)

Getting hit with 200/0 by a direct grenade hit:

YOU              THEM  Without doubler      With doubler
Without guard            100/0  (-100)       50/0 (-150)
With guard               150/0  ( -50)      125/0 ( -75)

We also tried with one hit from a plasma gun (20/30 damage) and the results are consistent with the above.

Guard halves damage taken by your hitpoints after your armor absorbed damage normally.

From what I recall, armor soaks two damage points every three. Now, with guard every second hitpoint damage is skipped.

This means that:

• You get one sixth less damage (-17%) so long as you have armor to absorb damage.
• You get half damage (-50%) when you do not have armor.

Considered that doubler appears to be a flat +50% damage boost, this means guard actually has the edge over doubler, although in this match up the guard player's armor will evaporate real fast.

(Oh, another thing. Scout does not make you get more damage than normal.)

Answered by badp

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Is excessive use of rail in Quake-Live a valid strategy?

Question

I get frustrated when playing Quake-Live on some maps such as rebound or vortex portal, when some users seem to only use rail and doubler and nothing else.

This is frustrating when an enemy does this as it seems there is little chance to get into the enemy base to capture the flag. It's equally frustrating when a teammate does it as they are not helping to capture the flag.

Is this a valid strategy? Does it make sense to do this in a capture the flag match? I seems like it is useful for racking up kills, not securing captures.

What can I do to combat the use of this strategy?

Asked by m3tron0me

Answer

You can counter the railgun spam on Vortex Portal by taking control of middle, the only place (IIRC) where the railgun weapon and ammo spawns. This area is also important to control for the megahealth below and for being generally the fastest way to cap.

It's unsurprising that keeping a hold on this area is not an easy task, but if you can do it your team will gain quite the edge over the enemy team. "Railwhores" will need to confront you on your terms, but don't assume that just because they spend ungodly amount of times camping portals with the railgun it doesn't mean they're not proficient with the rocket launcher. (IIRC, it's trivial to enter middle with 25 rockets, while keeping your weapons stocked up while camping middle is trickier indeed.)

As for Rebound... I don't recall the railgun being as "overpowered" on this map. If you know the enemy is camping your flag pole (something fairly safe to assume), you might want to forego the quicker but more dangerous lower routes by taking the main route, or better yet the not-as-frequented lateral ones.

If you have to take the lower route, consider trickier ways to climb on the top like climbing your way on the vertical pillars with rocket jumps or plasma climbing. It won't work eight times, but it might just be the move that changes the game. Plus, you get obvious bragging rights for pulling this off in a real game, with people like shooting at you and stuff.

If you get knocked off the map, try your luck and drop the flag (you have bound that command, haven't you?). If you're lucky enough it'll fall downstairs for a teammate to grab. It's going to reset if you don't anyway.

Answered by badp

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Would I be at a disadvantage if I played Quake Live with an HUD that displayed damage to death "instead of" health and armour numbers?

Question

There are many custom huds available for Quake Live; most make all numbers larger because, hey, everything is important right?

Obviously, this can't be the case. Something has to give.

I believe that damage to death is more important information than health and armor counts. Maybe the health and armour count would be handy to have around to know what item should pick up first, but I believe a far more common scenario is questions like "can I be oneshotted by a railgun this very moment"?

All of the points made in this quickly closed question do not apply to Quake 3 -- damage is distributed between armor and health indipendently from the source¹; there are no side effects to having low health.

In my opinion, this would also help understand what these numbers really mean. Say for example you have 25 health and 0 armour, then picked a red armour. Now you have 25 health and 100 armour. Quick: will a railgun (110 damage) oneshot you?

[Answer: yes. Indeed, 75 damage are enough to kill you (-25 to health, -50 to armour). Good luck calculating that during the game...]

The only real downside would be not knowing what I should be looking for: health or armor. However, I believe this is a question separate armour and health bars would answer more than adequately. (more on this below)

Is there something I'm missing from the big picture? Why is there no mod that tries to do this? Is keeping different counters this important in Quake Live?

_{¹The only difference would be for the lightning gun, which due to rounding deals 5 armor damage and only 2 health damage.}

---

EDIT:

To make myself crystal clear here, I'll post a picture of what I had in mind:

Separate bars would answer the "what I should be looking for: health or armor" question, but the actual numbers (the "count") wouldn't be displayed. Why would you want it? This is my whole question.

Hope this helps.

Answer

This is something of an expanded comment, more than an answer in itself.

There are two effects that your choice of compound HUD has in comparison to a default display of two numbers.

• Instead of displaying the numbers of each value, you have a bar displayed. The effect is advantageous to those who work better on visual differences and relative changes, but disadvantageous to those who rely on values and absolute changes.
• There is a compound display for the post-calculated "damage limit". This is advantageous to those who cannot do a quick calculation immediately, and disadvantageous to anyone who relies on seeing the separate counts.

This is a matter of information substitution, not addition or subtraction. You are given exactly the same information as everyone else, the only difference is how it is rendered, and how well you interpret that information. The HUD itself provides no advantage or disadvantage.

Check more discussion of this question.

Playing QuakeLive on Mac?

Question

Is there a way to play QuakeLive on a Mac?

Answer

Yes. As the homepage states, Safari 3+ on Mac OS X 10.4+ is supported.

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