Wolfenstein Multiplayer Guide Version 1.00 Adrian Dunbar E-Mail: Dunbar32@hotmail.com This is a guide for those who are new to Wolfenstein's multiplayer, or are just looking for some tips for the game. I will briefly introduce myself(the alias) Snook. and then speak no more of it. I have played every worthwhile shooter game ever made for the PC, including the original Wolfenstein. I have found myself hopelessly addicted to CounterStrike, TFC, and the pursuit of perfecting my mid-air shots in Tribes/Tribes 2, among other FPS multiplayer games. Contents: I. Weapons and Abilities II. Classes III. Fighting Tactics IV. Correspondence I. Weapons and Abilities Knife This is an underused weapon. Your knife can backstab for 1-shot kills in multiplayer, but doing so is very foolish or desperate. You can use this underwater, but there are better tactics to use in that situation. In all, I've only had to kill someone with a knife once. Used by anyone Pistols The Colt and Luger in multiplayer seem to be about equal. They are your backup weapons for when your local ammo supplier thinks it's more important to save up for that air strike. While these seem to be crappy weapons, don't underestimate them. I managed to kill 3 people with a colt in 20ish seconds. How would one even survive with such a weapon? Simple: tap the fire button on your mouse quickly, and your colt will get an increased rate of fire. This 'simulates' having 2 pistols at once. Like Tribes' blaster, it at first seems to be worthless, but you will soon find uses for it. Especially at range. These things are obscenely accurate. Used by anyone Note: You don't get ammo for this from an Lt. You get what you start with. SMGs The MP40 holds 32 rounds, and the Thompson holds 30. The Thompson is stronger in single player, but I don't think there is a difference in multi. Unlike any other weapon, excepting the venom, your accuracy will decrease as you fire, thus it's important to make your first few rounds count. It is possible to snipe with an SMG with small bursts. The other SMG is the Sten which, is primarily useful for being stealthy around AI. Players can hear the gun, and the overheat limitation makes it completely useless in multiplayer. Axis use MP40 Allies use Thompson Lts and Soldiers can use any of them. Mauser The sniper rifle. The only 1 shot kill is a headshot, and you might as well forget anyone with a cross on their head, unless you are shooting at the cross. Medics will heal themselves faster than you will hurt them. The rifle is exceptionally good for getting heavy machine gunners off their posts, though head-shots don't seem lethal to them. Don't consider using this indoors. The Mauser deserves a large outdoor environment. The more difficult you are to see, the better. Soldiers only. Panzerfaust In some games, getting killed by these every 20 seconds seems unavoidable. It combines a grenade with a sniper rifle, resulting in a lot of pain. Your run speed is reduced while using it, so pack a pistol. It also has a delay to fire, which isn't much. Use it to fire at an area where many of enemies are hiding, such as the forward bunker in the beach. Another use is to fire rockets from an elevation. Your enemies will usually have no chance to evade the rocket, considering how large the blast area is. Lastly, use it to destroy enemy emplaced guns. It's ease of use, combined with an incredible explosive radius; often results in score 3 people jumping up to the 60s. Soldiers only Odd note: I recently noticed that rockets clip through players! Some poor chap shot a panzerfaust at me, but clipped through my chest and hit the floor behind me(he was on the same level as me). I was left with 80 damage, and an opportunity to laugh at the bug and kill him. It may have been a server bug, but keep your eyes peeled and be careful. Panzerfaust also translates to 'Tank Fist' or (not quite) 'Armored Fist'. Venom Part Machine Gun, part WWII fiction, all beast. Your Chaingun fires fast, and heats up to shut down. The greatest two difficulties you have with the venom is the time it takes to wind up, and your slowed run speed. What that means to you is that you can often be killed before you wind up. The best way around that is to wind up from under cover, then strafe out while opening fire. If you can deal with the shortcomings of the venom, then it's the gun for you. Soldiers only Venom-counter tip: Venom gunners tend to crouch down while firing. The best way around that is to circle strafe them. Circle strafing never fails versus a stationary target. Flamethrower This is a very neat weapon. Damage wise, your flamethrower just does not do as much damage per second as an SMG. The flamer throws out a fireball that will linger for a few seconds. Anybody inside the fireball will take a ton of damage very quickly, and won't be able to see through it. The second effect is being ignited, which will do around 40 damage until the flames go out. The key thing to remember when using a flamethrower is to sprint, as your running speed will be reduced for wielding it. Soldiers only Danger: Be careful not to hit allies with this on a teamkill server. You won't be able to identify who is being roasted until they are dead. Do not attempt to turn a 'cold meal' into a 'hot meal' with a flamethrower, either. Tactic: Fire this beast up grated stairwells. The flames will pass through the floor and torch anyone as if you were shooting them normally. With Lt support, you can also torch key doorways(i.e. the Warehouse Door) to keep anyone from walking through. Grenades All classes have grenades, but some have more than others. Medics have to be careful about chucking their one grenade, while Lts have a never ending supply of explosives. Prime and throw grenades at an enemy that is under cover, or into a pack of enemies. Grenades will gib anybody in 1 direct hit, and have a very large fragmentation radius. Only use them in two instances: to hit an enemy who is taking cover, or when you are in the company of an extreme number of enemies and are very dead anyway. My current best with one grenade is 11 kills, so don't underestimate them, especially on populous servers. Axis has stick grenades. Allies have pineapple grenades. Priming for Newbies: Priming is hanging onto a grenade so that it explodes when you want it to. In Wolfenstein, press and hold the fire button and you will hear a tick every second. Just like the children's game 'Hot Potato', hang on to it for too long and you will be dead. After three seconds of priming, you should release it. 2 seconds is usually enough to kill, though. Airstrike Airstrikes can be very deadly if the enemy can't clear it in time. Whether you kill anybody or not, you can be certain the hit area will be empty. Smoke grenades cause a harmless flash when thrown indoors, but players sometimes flee them anyway. Outdoors, players will be greeted by a huge line of explosions. The blast is large enough to warrant finding cover, or just getting far away from the blast. Often best thrown into areas where your enemy has little room to maneuver, and to keep enemies out of a particular area. Used by Lts, and takes half your power bar. Allies have blue smoke grenades. Axis uses pretty pink grenades. Binoculars/Artillery Otherwise known as the Pocket Howitzer. Use the binoculars and fire at your location. Friendly shells will pummel your target for 10 seconds. Think of it as an airstrike combined with a sniper rifle. Used by Lts, and uses a full power bar. Ammunition Packs Each pack gives 30 Thompson rounds, and 32 MP40 rounds. As you spawn, give anyone who is asking for ammo three packs. Not two or four packs, as many newbie Lts make the blunder of doing. Handing out ammunition is an essential part of being a team player. Unfortunately, many Lts will often give out too few packs. When you spawn, it's not essential that you get your ammunition immediately. Give ammo to who needs it, then yourself. Keep in mind that you can spawn ammo for yourself any time. Anybody else on your team will have to find another Lt when they run out of ammo. Don't be sorry that the medic who would have killed the enemy and revived you you only had a gimpy pistol to fight with. Most people also don't know that handing out ammunition gives score. One player, named CoolGirl, did nothing but hand out ammunition for several games in a row. She or he(you never know) managed to get 6 points of score per minute. That didn't matter though. What did matter was that in four hours, the team only lost once. Compare that to a team that gets no ammunition and cannot win at all. Remember that keyboard V 6 says that you are a Lieutenant, or German 'Leutnant'. Only Lts have this ability Moral of the story: give everybody 3 packs of ammo on startup. Health Packs It will take 1 power bar to completely heal somebody, and a revived person starts with half health. Make sure your buddies all stay healed by checking their health bars when you target them. Teammates will usually ask for health when they have under 20pts left, so you may find yourself shoving packs down people's throats. It is a good idea to cover a heavy fighting area with health kits to keep the fight alive. Healing team members gives score. Medics only Tactic: Place health packs where you stand at an emplaced gun. Every hit will be immediately absorbed by your health kits. That pesky sniper will have a hard time blasting through all those layers of band aids. Syringe One poke of a syringe brings back fallen players. They are marked with a red icon on radar, and friendly dead are marked with one on screen. When a player is being revived, he is invincible. While invincible, he also has no control over himself. Keep that in mind before you cap him in the head, blast him with rockets, or try knifing him. That sort of thing will only push him around a bit. Dead players, though, can be killed while on the ground. It may seem dishonorable or cheap, but it is a valid tactic. Nobody wants to blast someone, just to be shot in the head by him. Medics only Heavy Machine Guns Mounted guns are destroyable, and repairable when destroyed. Don't underestimate one. They are extremely deadly from any range, and have infinite ammo. Some guns are better taken over by the enemy. The vehicle mounted gun on the Comms Tower map and the Graveyard map's guns(the ones in/by the graveyard) are better off destroyed by the defenders. Engineers should repair mounted guns that are useful to their own team. Your side's gun in the Courtyard of wolf's only pure capture and hold map is the single most determining factor for determining who wins that map. Taking over enemy guns is also extremely deadly, as they can be prevented from moving to an area that is critical to defend. Engineering Tool Use it to arm and disarm dynamite. It also repairs mounted guns. The Engineering Tool takes some time to work, so be sure that an enemy will have enough time to interrupt you. Obviously only for Engineers Dynamite Red when armed, yellow when unarmed. Dynamite takes 30 seconds to arm before it will destroy your objective. Anything that can be blasted will be marked with the dynamite icon or the destructible icon. Please, don't waste your time by blowing up paintings. Engineers only Tactics: Some areas can have dynamite cleverly hidden on them. The Axis submarine can have explosives armed while you are in the water, and the Allied Field Ops in the Trainyard can hold dynamite in its maze of prefabricated objects. 'Dynamite Planted' doesn't always go off when it is planted, as a bug. Crafty engineers can plant and arm 'fake dynamite' near their objectives to trick enemy Engineers. I haven't heard of anybody destroying their own objectives, but I'd be careful with that trick. II. Classes This section is more geared to what the role of your class is with your team. If you aren't playing as a team, you aren't playing to win. Soldier If you want to be a soldier, don't use anything another class can use. The point of being a soldier is to fall into four specialized roles: Sniper, support friendlies and harass enemies from a distance. If you don't want your kills suddenly coming back to life, be sure to shoot the fellow you just wounded again. Snipers are more of a solo role, good for helping people up front. Flamethrower, close quarters and better on teamdamage off servers. Enemies caught in fire will be somewhat confused about what is going on around them, thus easier targets for your friends. This is a team player role. Devastating in a close-quarters ambush. Venom, your role here is to provide suppressive fire for team members. In a 1v1 'twitch' situation, you will go down with the venom's wind-up time. In a large fight, enemies will fidn themselves up against heavy firepower. The venom puts you in a suppressive role, good solo, and with a team. Rocket Launcher/Panzerfaust(Tank Fist), fire it into bunkers, approaching enemies below you, or at anyone taking cover. Your role on the beach map is to destroy machine guns, and the panzer is all around great for taking down enemies that are grouped up. You are not a fighting man, though. Lieutenant/Leutnant Almost all Lts choose the class just because they can call air strikes. Remember to be a team player as an Lt. Airstrikes: Smother the enemy in airstrikes to keep them from entering a particular area, and leave another area vulnurable to attack. Be careful not to blast friendlies with team damage on. Airstrikes shouldn't be used just to rack up a ton of kills. For the team, you want to hold off the enemy to support your own troops. Ammunition: Give everyone you see ammo. The more the team has ammo, the more you will win. A man with no ammo is a man with no chance. Lay a bunch of these around, but the most efficient way to hand out ammo is to throw 3 at everyone. Many Lts drop ammo on the run, but that leaves some people with no ammunition. Medic While not as immediately useful as an Lt, anybody who gets hurt in the field will need a medic. If you get killed and there are no enemies immediately around you, it's a good idea to wait for someone to revive you. The Bushido does not live on in Wolfenstein, however, and many players will kill wounded soldiers as they wait for medics. Any wounded players should wait at least until 2 seconds before reinforcement before they jump. That way, the medics can do their job and you'll still be at the front. Health: Being able to heal yourself may make you somewhat reckless. Daring, near suicide attacks are OK as a medic, but be sure to heal your teammates. Health packs degrade after a few minutes, but laying them around an area your soldiers are defending is a good idea. Syringes: Be bold and revive those teammates. Also make sure to tell anyone who immediately jumps into reinforcement to wait for revives if you are around. You get 1 point per revive, and a revived person is invincible while he gets up(subject to patching). Just like in real life. Engineer The Most Valuable Player award goes to the Engineers. Those nerdy kids from high school that could only speak in logarithms have grown up and learned how to use dynamite! If you are an engineer, make sure you have plenty of help to reach an objective. You may also be able to sneak into the enemy objective in small games. Review your objectives: Nothing is worse than an engineer blowing up the wrong gate on the trainyard map! Make sure you know which objectives to blow up before you plant dynamite. It may seem odd, but I once had to tell four engineers to disarm their dynamite. If an objective says to defend something, don't blow it up. Alternate entrances are always incredibly easy to defend. Repair Mounted Guns: Certain guns need to stay operational. Mounted machine guns defend an area like nothing else can. Even the panzerfaust can't clear an area like a heavy gun. III. Fighting It's obvious, but practice. The more you do, the better you'll be. Nothing will make you a good player like competition with other players. Don't be discouraged that you aren't a force of destruction right off the bat. Stay alert: be ready for an enemy around every corner. If you get caught off guard, then you will likely get killed. Ambush You can defend any area by sitting in one spot and waiting for an enemy to appear in your crosshairs. What makes the difference in your success is the environment. Human players aren't AI that can automatically know where you are if you can see them from where you are. People can be tricked, so use this to your advantage. I have listed certain areas and how to take best advantage of them. The 'L' corner: Not a very defensible area, and best defended by weapons such as the panzerfaust. An alert foe will likely be on even ground with you, should you try to defend a simple corner. A 'T' intersection: Even if it doesn't form a hallway, just a recession is enough to qualify for a T intersection, and the recession is even better! Stand on either side of the T intersection, by the entrance, or in your hidey-hole. They will likely be more set on deciding which way to go than ready to traipse into an ambush! A doorway: Stand on either side of a doorway, outside of their view, and shoot them as they walk into view. When people walk into a room, they almost always will be looking in the direction they intend to move in. The idea here is to be outside that field of vision, and shoot them before they even know you're there. Often, I can kill 5 or 6 people before they figure it out. A ladder: In Wolfenstein, you must be facing a ladder to stay on it. Face the ladder, or what would be their back. Any opponent who tries to shimmy down(they will be wobbling after a few rounds) will find himself with a back full of bullets. Large numbers of enemies coming down are better handled with a grenade or flamethrower. With a flamer and large numbers of enemies, just wave it up and down as you would a garden hose. Beware; crafty opponents often drop grenades onto would-be defenders. The Alcove/Hiding spot: Along many hallways you will find alcoves connected to a room. As an enemy runs by, give him chase(sprint helps) and shoot him in the back, in the least honorable fashion possible. If you really want to make him feel defeated, backstab him and wave your knife around in his face until he hits the reinforcement que. Examples: The alcoves in the underground of the Comms Tower map and Graveyard map. A room along the axis elevator in the trainyard also works as one. The crates between Radar 01 and 02 are filled with these. Why wait out in the open when you have a perfectly good alcove? The Cellar Stairs: The only isolated example of an ambush. Most players will stand right in front of the stairs, in plain sight! Don't do that! Instead, stand behind the stairs, so the enemy's back is to you while they ascend. This is allied only. For axis, hide to the left of the door from the forward deployment area and kill them as they go in. That will keep those doughboys from stealing your precious three bars of gold. Charge!: The only ambush not involving sitting in one spot is the charge. If an enemy is under cover, and you know EXACTLY where he is, then you can charge him. Charging defenders will result in an equal fight, but charging people that are trying to avoid bullets and explosives will give you a definite upper hand. Circle Strafing Wolfenstein isn't as much of a deathmatchy game as Team Fortress Classic or Unreal Tournament, but you still need your deathmatch skills. The most under used, and the most powerful in a straight up fight, is circle strafing. This involves continually turning while strafing in a circle around someone. The typical result of circumnavigating someone is them looking away from you. Do that while firing at them, and they will die. Most deathmatchers should know this, but the tactic is very rare to see. Narrow Hallways: In narrow hallways, you may discover that you can't quite get all the way around your opponent without getting stuck on him. In that case, all you should need to do is pull a half circle around him. In most cases, they will be dead before you get to a half circle, but the tactic does work in hallways, especially versus those pesky Chaingunners. Grenades/Air strikes Prime and toss grenades into areas where enemies are taking cover. Especially worthwhile if you have allies backing you up. Using cover: toss smoke grenades into enemy areas from cover or through windows, not just out in the open. The gate area of the Comms Tower map is the second most stricken area in wolfenstein. Against stationary enemies: enemies tend to be stationary in certain areas even if you can see them, especially when above. Drop a grenade in on them while they are steeling themselves for an attack. Gibbing the wounded: Drop a grenade on a wounded soldier(or overkill with air strike) to quickly make him hamburger meat. All wounded soldiers can be revived, and are still dangerous to you. Play as a team Stick together, be buddies. The best team is that which knows its own limitations and can act at its full potential. Is your buddy with a panzerfaust afraid to jump into the line of fire and put a rocket into 6 enemies that are grouped up? If he knows that you're a medic and will revive him, then he can take that risk. And your buddies with an engineer near you would likely find the weakened resistance easier to fight against. Be a team player: Wolfenstein scoring even rewards it heavily. A team with full ammo and health will beat a team filled with pistol packing weaklings! IV. Correspondence If you have any comments, questions, or tips you want to give me on this guide, feel free to email me at Dunbar32@hotmail.com .Don't send me files, or tell me how horrible of a person I am by email without asking nicely first. -End Copyright December 2001, Adrian Dunbar.