Skill Levels and Tiers / Gun sounds

[ArcDusky]

Hey, I read some of the other posts on here about Tiers and that nobody seems to understand whats up with that, and thats all right, I guess. Whatever...

I am new to QuakeLive. When I started it asked me to choose my skill level. I chose Beginner. After some time playing I began to wonder if QuakeLive is still thinking I am a beginner or not; I guess I thought I was supposed to evolve into my skill level eventually.
I'm curious if there is a place to manually change your skill level like at the beginning.

Also, I am baffled by some players' ability to know I'm right around a corner, and when I beg for an excuse they reply that they can hear me. They claim the railgun and gauntlets (or switching between them or something) makes a humming noise when it is not being used.
I, of course, dont experience this advantage and was wondering if anybody knew why. Its not a big deal if I dont find out I guess, Im just curious.

Thank you very much!

[KittenIgnition]

LG and rail (lightning gun and railgun) both hum when youre holding them, and weapon switching also makes a sound. if youre walking, chances are theyre using a forced model (cg_forceenemymodel keel/bright), which makes your footsteps louder. theres also a VERY small chance that theyre using some crazy bloom and can see you a tiny bit better. you need to turn your volume up and use headphones, or youll never get very good at quake. i was kinda surprised when i realized railgun and LG hummed about a year ago (i was watching fatal1ty vs. cooller or something and the commentators were talking about strats and stuff). i dont think the gauntlet makes a hum sound, but it does make a sound when you press +attack, obviously.

i doubt they were hacking though. hackers are incredibly rare, and im happy that someone finally came here asking questions instead of accusing people of hacking. restores a little bit of faith in quake live in me...

also if you play mostly ffa (most new players do), then chances are youre running into tier slummers, who play below their skill level for easy wins/frags/stats/"glory of victory"/whatever. if thats the case then theres not much you can do because iD doesnt enforce any rules regarding this.

if you HONESTLY think someone is hacking, record a demo (theres a couple threads around here somewhere... theyre stickied so they shouldnt be hard to find) and send it to support@quakelive.com or whatever their address is.

[RustyLazer]

@KittenIgnition Well said!

@ArcDusty Most everyone turns their music off but leaves the sound on. The sounds you will hear more clearly are the ones you and KittenIgnition mentioned (switching weapons, rail and lightning gun hum, footsteps, jumping, and picking up weapons/ammo/armor/mega/etc).

Also, people will 'predict' where you will pop up - sometimes it's guesswork, luck, and/or just knowing the maps and how people move well.

[ArcDusky]

Thanks a lot for replying, you two; this helps very much!

[KittenIgnition]

Thanks a lot for replying, you two; this helps very much!

its what i do, when im not too busy pissing authorities off <3

[Cat]

There's some people who literally fire a rocket around every corner too.

[*TalonSilverwing]

if youre walking, chances are theyre using a forced model (cg_forceenemymodel keel/bright), which makes your footsteps louder.

While we are at it, don't the alien chitnids make the loudest 'cry in pain' sound? I use one as my default.

[KittenIgnition]

While we are at it, don't the alien chitnids make the loudest 'cry in pain' sound? I use one as my default.

"alien chitnids"... i assume youre talking about orbb/klesk/uriel. orbb makes some really annoying sounds, but i find that keel's pain sounds are most distinguishable (75 to 50 to 25 health "screams"), and he fits teh hitbox perfectly, as well as being one of the only models with brightskin capabilities and is a robot so he has some loudass footsteps/landing/jumping sounds... i find keel to be the best even if other models have "louder" sounds, his are better for their purposes.

[Schutzengel]

The gauntlet doesn't make any idle sound, but the LG and RG do.

[*TalonSilverwing]

"alien chitnids"... i assume youre talking about orbb/klesk/uriel. orbb makes some really annoying sounds, but i find that keel's pain sounds are most distinguishable (75 to 50 to 25 health "screams"), and he fits teh hitbox perfectly, as well as being one of the only models with brightskin capabilities and is a robot so he has some loudass footsteps/landing/jumping sounds... i find keel to be the best even if other models have "louder" sounds, his are better for their purposes.

By alien chitnids, i meant just klesk.