CHapteh tyme!
As promised some stray chapter in the middle of April.
Hope you enjoy!
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Topic: A New Thread
In: Boards ► Guides and Strategies
ValGamer91 (Original Poster) (Unverified Tester)
Posted On Apr 9th AW94:
How do I stop sucking at this game?
I know it's a completely new genre and everything, so right now basically everyone is still terrible at it, but no matter how many games I play I simply can't help but feel like I'm stumbling through games.
Does anyone have any tips or strategies a new player like me could use to get better? I want to know.
(Showing page 1 of 5)
►TheNewPro11
Replied On Apr 9th AW94:
Heh. Sucks to be u.
►XXStephsStarsXX (Verified Tester)
Replied On Apr 9th AW94:
I used to have the same problem buddy.
The first couple games me and my friends managed to get through felt like we were stumbling through the dark. Only after the beta finished did we really started to know how to play.
My friends and i were lucky our very first game was against the winning team. seeing how real pros play mekes it so muhc easier to get better
►HappyNEWby
Replied On Apr 9th AW94:
it's a pity you can't just simply sign up for a training session with them anytime you want
►ValGamer91 (Original Poster) (Unverified Tester)
Replied On Apr 9th AW94:
Okay, what did playing against those guys actually taught you?
I'm starving for any type of tip at this point.
►XXStephsStarsXX (Verified Tester)
Replied On Apr 9th AW94:
Generally you must realise that in the end ATG is a team game mode in which you need tto cooperate with all three of your teammates. There are four different positions one can take to play as (one for each lane and one for the forest in the middle) and it depends on the team to decide how they want to spread themselves around those roles.
Usually it is recommended to have a person for each role but i've seen quite a few teams that simply ignored jungle to stack themselves more on one of the lanes.
►AngleGirl270
Replied On Apr 9th AW94:
Does anyone else also want StephsStars to get a unique tag "teacher"?
I feel like they deserve it after that comment
►TheGooldenMan
Replied On Apr 9th AW94:
yeh, no kidding.
►XXStephsStarsXX (Verified Tester)
Replied On Apr 9th AW94:
SHUT IT GUYS!1
IM GETTING EMBARRASSED HERE
►ValGamer91 (Original Poster) (Unverified Tester)
Replied On Apr 9th AW94:
Thanks for the general info.
Any other things I should be aware of?
►ColdyMorts01 (Verified Tester)
Replied On Apr 9th AW94:
Yes, remember to take more tanky character for the lanes on the edge of the map and more aggressive ones for the forest and middle.
The people at the edges of the arena need to be tanky to survive as long as possible while waiting for help.
►NouBeYs
Replied On Apr 9th AW94:
what abut the midle tho?
►xxGReeneRG_CHurCHxx
Replied On Apr 9th AW94:
The players at the middle lane as well as the forest are responsible for helping everyone else, that's why they are the most important.
Also, stacking the entire team on the middle lane is the best strategy in the game! If you think otherwise, then you are a plebeian!
►MineChammy09 (Verified Tester) (The Winning Team)
Replied On Apr 9th AW94:
You're lucky Snow isn't here to read that or she would have been livid.
►HappyNEWby
Replied On Apr 9th AW94:
The pro has spoken!
End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
(...)
Although it hadn't really been that long since she got into gaming—she started her career as a gamer only a couple of years ago, after all—turning on her computer to play with Snow and Knight had become a bit of a habit for Ilia.
There was something soothing about the fact that she could always log in to the different games they played together and expect at least one of her friends to be there for her, no matter what. Their gaming sessions might be quite late by normal people's standards, and it was incredibly difficult to add anyone else to their small group as well, but all three of them knew that those late hours fit them perfectly.
It was all that mattered to them.
Ilia grinned slightly as she saw the computer screen light up.
It had been barely a day since Snow returned to them after passing her tests, and Ilia was still excited about playing with her friend again. While it was certainly fun to play together with Knight, she would rather have her whole team with her.
The winning team simply wouldn't be it without one of its members.
She was pretty sure that Knight agreed with her on that, too. That boy might have been more reserved with his emotions than her, but she liked to think that she had a pretty good read on him after a few years of knowing each other.
Of course, she still believed that she knew Snow much better than she knew Knight.
In the end, the fellow girl on the team was the one who ended up getting her into gaming and helping her with the passing of her parents.
Ilia nodded with satisfaction as the computer finished loading everything before immediately clicking on the voice chat icon. Despite everything she's been through with her friends and all the great ideas they had, the choice to start all their gaming sessions by logging onto the voice chat app was their best decision yet.
It was simply so much more convenient than their previous alternatives.
Thanks to that, it only took her two different clicks to check whether her friends were already online and be completely prepared to start playing with them. Had they never decided on using the voice chat app, she wouldn't have finished checking half the games her friends could have been online at by now.
With an excited grin on her face, she clicked at the private channel she saw Knight wait in and instantly joined the conversation.
"How's it going, Knight?" She asked.
"Woah!" Knight shouted, startled at her sudden arrival. "Chammy, you're here! I didn't see you coming."
Ilia smirked slightly.
Of course, he didn't notice her. For someone who dreamed of becoming a professional huntsman in the future, Knight was pitifully bad at keeping his guard up and paying attention when waiting for Snow and her. If she were to guess, then she would have probably bet that her friend wasn't paying attention to the computer screen while doing so and instead chose to be focused on something entirely different.
Sometimes she couldn't help but wonder whether her friend was so terrible at paying attention because he was tired after the whole day of studying and training, or if he simply was like that by default.
Either way, she knew that when they played, the boy could be as sharp and focused as the best of them.
"Yeah, I just arrived." Ilia casually dismissed her friend's surprise, only to stretch a little and get ready to play right after. There was no need to stress her friend any more than she already had, after all. "Are you ready to spread the glory of our winning team to the newbies in our game mode?"
"Hm." Knight hummed, probably nodding his head while doing so, before continuing. "We just have to wait for Snow first. We wouldn't be the so-called winning team if there were only the two of us."
Ilia nodded her head a couple of times with a grin on her face.
"You're right."
The two of them might have played quite a few games together when Snow was away preparing for her tests, but all the matches they played together didn't grant them nearly half as much notoriety as the ones they played with their entire group.
There was a huge difference between being half of the team and the majority of the team, and without Snow, they could only be half.
As it turned out, multiple times in the last month or so, it was quite difficult to be called the winning team when there were as many people from outside their group playing with them as there were them. It wasn't an issue when all three of them were present, because the fourth player was clearly an add-on in that situation, but the moment only two of them were playing, it became an issue.
At most, Knight and her might have been considered to be a winning duo, but that didn't roll off the tongue, nowhere near as well as the winning team.
Luckily, Snow was going to play with them this time, so they would be able to come back to their full roster and bring back their fame as the winning team of the Arena of the Great without any issues.
"Hey, Chammy?" Knight prodded.
"Yeah?" Ilia asked back.
"Do you think that Snow will be willing to give us a couple more tips for our huntsman training today, as well?" Knight asked, sounding a bit self-conscious. "Her last advice helped me a lot, and I wonder if she would share more of it with us."
Ilia raised her eyebrows slightly at her friend's words.
"Are you worried about your training?"
Her friend sighed.
"Yeah, I am."
Ilia frowned a bit.
She was aware that her friends came from families that had at least some ties to the huntsman profession, but she always figured that Knight was actually the one who should have been more experienced when it came to the life of a huntsman. The boy often talked about how his father was a professional huntsman and how there were huntsmen and huntresses in his family for generations before him.
It shouldn't have been difficult for her friend to find someone to help him with the training if he had a family like that.
The frown on her face deepened a little as she remembered how clueless her friend was before he started to train properly. The boy didn't even know what Aura was back then, for brothers' sake!
Why wouldn't Knight's father tell him about Aura?
How come Knight didn't figure it out on his own in the first place?!
Ilia couldn't help but groan a little.
"I-Is everything alright?" Knight asked.
She didn't acknowledge the question.
There was no way she could allow her friend to dive into the life of a huntsman without proper training, but sadly, there was little she could do to actually help. She was almost as clueless about proper huntress training as Knight was.
Out of all three of them, only Snow really had the knowledge necessary to help them get better.
"Maybe we should just ask Snow for help after she arrives. I probably could use some help when it comes to my training too, and I don't think she is going to say no when it comes to it." Ilia said while a bit distracted, not noticing a quiet ping sound coming from the voice chat in the middle of her sentence.
"Y-Yeah." Knight quickly agreed.
"I'm not going to say no when it comes to what?" Snow asked suddenly, startling them both.
"Hah!" Knight and her shouted in surprise.
Why did Snow appear so suddenly?!
Why hadn't she noticed her before that?!
Ilia quickly took a deep breath to calm herself.
Was this how Knight felt every time she surprised him?
If it was, then she would really have to apologise for that at some point in the future; it was far from the most pleasant experience there was, and she certainly shouldn't have been doing such things to him.
She probably wasn't going to stop surprising him anytime soon, though.
It's too fun to stop.
"A-Are you two alright?" Snow asked, unsure of what to say in this situation.
"Don't sneak up on us like that!" Ilia and Knight shouted as one.
Getting startled like that really made her think that there should be some way to tell whether someone entered the voice chat or not. It would save her a headache and make sneaking up on Knight slightly more challenging.
"Uhm." Snow hesitated. "You were talking about me?"
Ilia huffed.
The surprise she felt was no reason to delay asking for assistance. While playing video games was fun and all, they needed to be sure they weren't going to die once they managed to enter Beacon together.
As far as she was aware, the only one of them that could reasonably survive as a huntress or huntsman in training as they were was Snow.
They, as in both Knight and her, couldn't afford to drag their friend down in the future.
She took a deeper breath.
"Knight and I think we need your help with our training." Ilia admitted sincerely and without hiding anything. "You're the only one of us who had proper teachers teach you how to fight, and it has been quite some time since we had the chance to ask you for advice. We think we might need your help if we are to enter a huntsman school in the future, like we plan to."
"Yeah, I have grown stronger physically and have my Aura unlocked now; however, I still feel as if I'm stumbling through training without knowing how to fight properly." Knight added to her words.
Although she didn't say it out loud, in her mind, Ilia couldn't help but feel that Knight's description of his own problems suited the issues she was seeing with her training just the same.
She had the physical conditioning to compete with an average huntress in training; her Aura was unlocked; and she even had a weapon she could almost call her own. None of it mattered, however, when she was pretty sure any stronger grimm would have been capable of easily defeating her as she fumbled her way through the fight with a weapon she could barely handle.
They really needed help if they wanted to know what to do in a fight.
"Alright, I will help you as much as I can." Snow said. "I don't think I can do much, however. The majority of my combat training consists of sparring against my teacher, who corrects me on my form during the fight."
A small grimace appeared on Ilia's face as she realised the issue such a training method would have in their situation.
"It's not something that can be done through our voice chats, isn't it?" Knight asked, instantly noticing the same issue she did.
"No, it isn't." Snow said with a soft sigh. "I would have gladly helped you more, but that's about all I have. I can't recommend you my teachers, because they work in Atlas exclusively, and their service is quite expensive on top of that."
Ilia sighed sadly.
Once again, she was reminded just how much the world revolved around money and connections.
It felt really disheartening to realise that one of the most honourable and respected professions on Remnant was as reliant on those two things as any other profession in existence. In the end, it turned out that if one wanted to succeed as a huntsman or a huntress, they needed to either come from a huntsman family or be rich enough to hire true huntsmen to teach them how to fight.
There didn't appear to be any way around it.
She supposed she was lucky that both her friends had high chances of succeeding in the future.
"Is there really no advice you can give us at this point in the training?" Ilia asked, a little desperate for help. "The last time you helped us with setting up a training regime, you really did wonders for us."
"I'm sorry." Snow said. "The most I can tell you is to find someone to spar with; a professional huntsman would be the best, but I'm pretty sure that's something both of you had already thought of."
Ilia slumped.
"That's not going to help us a lot." Knight said. "The only people in my village who are professional huntsmen and could spar with me are always busy, and all the people who have time to help me train are all so old and sickly, they are barely any stronger than an average civilian."
"I'm sorry?" Snow asked more than stated.
Ilia grumbled.
"Don't apologise." She said sternly, there was no point in her friend beating herself over something like that, especially not when it wasn't her fault to begin with. "If there's nothing you can do, then there's nothing you can do. We are all friends here; we won't get angry over something like that. Knight and I will simply have to figure stuff out on our own."
Snow hummed a little before sighing.
"What do you struggle with?" Their friend asked. "If it's something specific, like sword handling or shooting form, then I might be able to give you some tips or at least point you towards some books and online guides I'm aware of. I won't be able to help you get better at fighting or let you know if you're fighting properly, though."
Ilia's expression immediately brightened.
"Is there actually some advice you can give us?"
At this point, any type of assistance would have been incredibly helpful. She would probably have been satisfied with something as basic as weapon maintenance if it was something that she wouldn't have to guess whether she was practicing correctly or not.
"I can try?" Snow said, sounding unsure of herself.
Ilia didn't care if her friend wasn't confident in her capabilities to help them.
She trusted Snow and knew that she could rely on her.
"Let's talk about it as we play some Arena of the Great, alright?" Ilia asked.
"Alright!" Snow agreed, with excitement colouring her words.
With their spirits rejuvenated, all three of them logged in to the game, and two of them prepared themselves for a lesson that would hopefully help them become a proper huntsmen team in the future.
(...)
The matches they played this evening were incredibly easy to win.
They were lucky like that.
Weiss wasn't sure they would have been able to win and converse as freely as they did if their opponents weren't all newbies who barely knew how to play the game properly. At the very least, if they actually could accomplish that, she was sure that it would have been quite a challenge.
A challenge she wouldn't have wanted to distract herself with when her friends needed her help.
She sighed.
In her reluctant need to prepare for her concert last month, she neglected to guide her friends on their path towards their future lives as huntsmen.
It might not have been as disastrous as her friends might have thought it was—it had been barely a month, after all—but when it came to being a huntsman, even a slight mistake in their training could become fatal issues later in their lives.
Once again, she lamented that they couldn't meet each other in person.
Their training would have been so much easier and more interesting if only they could.
She bit back another sigh.
Then again, had they actually met in person at some point, it was extremely likely that they wouldn't have been friends any more. She certainly doubted that Chammy would have enjoyed spending time with someone whose family made her an orphan.
She knew; she certainly wouldn't have.
As she went over that thought in her head, a small frown appeared on her face, however.
Now that she thought about it, if someone were to get rid of her parents—and only her parents, without touching her siblings—she might not end up hating them that much, all things considered.
Her father didn't care for her at all, and her mother was too drunk to care for such silly things as family. She was pretty sure neither of them would have been too concerned about anything that happened to her, either.
The train of thought she was on was immediately cut short as she rapidly shook herself to get rid of those thoughts.
No, she shouldn't be thinking about how bad her family was when one of her friends was in a much worse situation than her.
She should be grateful she had family in the first place.
Her siblings were lovely, after all.
A huff escaped her.
There were more important issues to deal with.
"Have either of you tried delving into the public combat guides published by Professor Lionheart?" She asked.
"The who?" Both her friends asked.
Weiss groaned.
Sometimes she truly had to marvel at just how much her friends were behind her when it came to their knowledge about all things huntsmen-related. Things she considered to be common knowledge thanks to her teachers were so often completely new concepts to her friends, who had to stumble on their way to becoming powerful fighters on their own.
It wasn't their fault, of course, but that didn't mean that it wasn't jarring.
"Professor Leonardo Lionheart is the current headmaster of the Heaven Academy." She explained. "Before he became the headmaster, however, he was a combat instructor at his school, and at that time he published multiple guides meant to instruct others on how to fight with unusual weapons."
Neither of her friends seemed to have been enlightened by her explanation.
"Can you explain what you mean by 'unusual weapons', Snow?" Knight asked.
Weiss sighed again.
"The weapons included in the guides are all the weaponry made by famous huntsmen in the last couple of decades." She sent a link to one of the free guides on one of their private message chats. "For example, there are some useful instructions on how to use weapons such as a huge sword that turns into a scythe, a Dust-infused riding crop, or a thermos that's also a flamethrower."
Although she didn't usually enjoy acting like an unpaid advertisement for any of the tools she used during her lessons, she could make an exception to that preference this time around.
Her pride was far less important than the future safety of her friends.
"Why would anyone use a thermos to fight grimm?" Chammy asked, bewildered by one of the weapons she mentioned.
Weiss shrugged.
Her teachers used to say that no huntsman chose their weapon for no reason. On the other hand, she couldn't begin to think of a reason why some professional grimm slayers would decide to fight using such strange things.
Seriously, why would anyone fight using a scythe?
It's a gardening tool.
"U-Uhm." Knight hesitated. "Do you think that there are any instructions on using more normal weapons in that guide? I want to fight with a sword in the future, and I don't think knowing how to use a riding crop is going to help me."
Weiss let out a breath in relief.
"Don't worry, Knight." She reassured her friend. "I don't think there exists a single combat guide in this world that doesn't have some sort of instruction for using different types of swords. I'm sure you will be able to find something useful to you there, as well."
She was glad to know that her friends were still somewhat sensible when it came to their plans for the future.
If only she could say the same thing about their preferences when it came to gaming.
It was still difficult for her to comprehend how Knight could willingly play as support every time they played Arena of the Great together. As far as she was aware, it was the most tedious role to play in that game mode.
She would have given up on playing that role in a week, if not less.
"I will look into that, in that case." Knight said. "Thanks for the recommendation, Snow."
"Yeah, me too." Chammy added.
Weiss smiled.
"You're welcome, guys."
Knight and Chammy were her best friends—they really were her only friends, but that was besides the point—had they asked for it, she would have probably done almost anything for them; helping them with their training was practically nothing.
After all, if she wasn't willing to help the only two people she could trust, then who would she be willing to help in the future?
"Okay, let's stop with all this mushy stuff for today." Chammy stretched a little and yawned. "We still have at least two more matches to go before calling it a day, and I want us to win them all!"
Weiss grinned.
Of course, her friends weren't the only thing that was important to her.
All three of them readied up for another game of Arena of the Great. Despite the fact that it was already quite late, there were still plenty of other players to face, and teach them how to play properly.
Weiss's grin widened as she saw the game find them a match.
The other thing she considered of the utmost importance in her life was, of course, gaming!
(...)
Sounds of extended effort, the smell of sweat, and the sight of battered handmade training equipment permeated the backyard of the Arc family's household. Were this scene witnessed by a random passer-by, they would have undoubtedly thought that the person training there was preparing for the fight of their life.
In reality, however, Jaune Arc, in his goal to attend Beacon with his friends in the future, was only trying to follow the absurd guide his friend recommended to him.
After more than two hours of such training, he could only be glad that he decided to practice so late in the evening instead of earlier. He simply knew that he must have looked ridiculous right now.
There was no arguing about the results, though.
In the frankly insignificant time he had managed to train with the help of Professor Lionheart's guide, he already felt his skill with the sword improve more than they would have had he trained like usual.
It was almost pitiful how terrible his skill with the sword was for it to be improved so much by a single basic guide for combat.
He wasn't even training with a teacher!
A tired huff escaped him as he finished a swing and stab combo he learned from the guide.
Thankfully, he seemed to be getting better at it.
In a year or two, he was pretty sure he would be able to fight on par with other huntsmen in training. If not, then his strength would at least be close enough to theirs, and he would still be considered a threat to them.
It would be enough for him.
Since he wasn't aiming to be the best huntsman there was or the leader of their team, he felt that he could allow himself to be a little subpar compared to Snow or other people who had trained since they were five.
He groaned quietly.
It probably wasn't going to stop his friends from calling him too uncompetitive, though.
After a brief break for stretching, he went back to perfecting his sword swing.
Regardless of what they called him, however, he was certain that they wouldn't have him any other way. The same way, he probably would never accept if either of them suddenly decided to relax and stop being overly competitive themselves.
"Your swings are a little too constrained, son." A voice called out from behind, all of a sudden. "If you want to become a huntsman in the future, you need to get used to making your swings wider and more powerful."
"Woah!" Surprised at the sudden advice and unable to adjust himself in the middle of his swing, Jaune stumbled forward a little.
As he used his rusty, blunt sword to stop himself from falling to the ground, he could hear contained chuckling from behind. The sight of him making a fool of himself must have been an entertaining scene.
"Need help?"
Jaune denied any help as he slowly lifted himself up by using his sword as a lifting cane and regained even footing. It might not have been his greatest moment, but he certainly didn't need any help.
Having recovered, he could only take a deep breath to calm his nerves.
"I did not expect you to come back today, dad." He said as he turned towards the source of the voice.
If there was ever a person he could say that he looked up to, then it had to be his father, Charles Arc, a professional huntsman and someone who killed more grimm than most people knew existed.
It was only a pity that he barely saw the man.
Whether they liked it or not, supporting a family of nine people—seven of whom were currently still in the process of growing up—was an expensive endeavour, and it couldn't be accomplished by a single huntsman taking missions close to their hometown. Therefore, Charles Arc had to often go on incredibly long missions across the kingdoms in order to provide for the family.
Whenever Jaune thought about it, he could only bite back a sigh.
There was nothing that could be done about it.
He knew that despite all the long missions his father always went on, the older man loved them dearly and returned home from his missions as often and quickly as it was physically possible.
It just wasn't quite as much as he had hoped it would be.
"The grimm I was supposed to get rid of this time was easy to find, so I hurried up and destroyed it as soon as I got into the village." Charles sighed upon seeing his conflicted expression.
A look of shock spread onto Jaune's face.
"You didn't rest at all?!" He asked.
His father laughed.
"Son, as someone who's training to become a huntsman like me, you should know that, for people like us, a small trip to the end of the kingdom and back is absolutely nothing!"
Jaune looked at his father with concern in his eyes.
"I still think you should rest a little bit, now that you're back." He said.
Sure, the physique of a huntsman was far better than that of an ordinary person—professional huntsmen could certainly last a whole day of exercise and struggle—but that didn't mean that they could ignore such essential things as rest or sleep.
His father laughed again, although this time a little bit less heartily.
"I will; don't worry." Charles said. "I can't do it so soon after seeing you train here, however. I can still give you some tips, and I also have a small surprise gift prepared for you and your sisters as well."
"U-Uhm." Jaune hesitated, not knowing what to say.
Why was his father talking about giving gifts right after his return?
He didn't remember any occasion for that!
His father's expression turned more solemn momentarily.
"Look, Jaune." Charles started awkwardly. "I've been absent quite often recently. I couldn't even help you train to become a huntsman, which is something that should have been expected of me as a huntsman parent."
"Dad..." Jaune said, trying to interrupt his father.
Charles raised his hand to prevent him from doing that.
"I know that you probably think that it's not my fault, and nothing could be done about it." Charles paused for a second. "You're definitely right about that. It doesn't mean I should have neglected you so much, however. You shouldn't have to struggle on your path to becoming a proper huntsman in training."
Jaune stared at his father in silence, quietly wondering where his father was going with it.
"That's why I want to give you and your sisters a little present from me." Charles finally got to the point. "Don't worry about the expenses. I've been secretly saving some money for the last couple of my jobs, and the gift itself was actually sponsored by one of the people I've saved during this mission at the sea border with Atlas."
Jaune sighed.
"Alright, what's the gift?" He asked.
Charles smiled.
"We've got a reservation for a huge family ticket for the first fully open concert of Atlas's rising singer, Weiss Schnee." Charles pulled out a Scroll to show some email. "It will happen in a year or so."
And cut!
Ugh, writing this had been difficult, it's always hard to return to writing a story after a break longer than a week.
Yeh, I know that I used a different name for in my previous fic, but eh let this name be inconsistent.
No idea when the next update's going to be yet. Hopefully not too long till then.
Anyway, that's it for now.
Se yaa!
