Photon cycles bracket advice:
Beginner will at first avoid to go between the walls (usually they have to be shown/told just how much they are missing and move on to the real game).
Runners are anathema to pc.
Beginner will not be using the DELETE button and will never be adept at its mechanics/gameplay
Beginner can learn very quickly if he wants to try stuff out for herself/himself.
Beginner can be a runner and never get over that
Beginner will try to kill someone else only if: 1.they are cornered or feel thus 2/think there is no danger in doing so.
Beginners will always revert to their gregarian instinct and go to what they perceive intuitively to be the safest route to safety (even temporary safety) AND will struggle to understand just how predictable their courses/headings/reflexes will be to more adept players.
Beginner is meant to learn quick to have fun and then understand all the timings/build orders that work and the others that don't,
Beginners are the most lucky people there is, if they will love the game they are discovering they will have a ball discovering all the layers that are initially hidden, one by one more and more in depth and this..
in a community of people around them in the same "process"! Going from 0 to 50% skill in pc is easy, easy for everyone, it is the next 50% that matters and how these 25 to 50 extra will be conquered and obviously not all the losses endured on the way!
Beginners are the bread and butter of pc.
Moskau was magic!
Famous runners: lol, no one runs and makes friends that would cite their names later, that is so ridiculous a notion, in a game so prone to rewarding defense that players that don't even understand that they are not taking risks ever, and are winning from hiding and not getting that what they are doing is so much easier than hunting people down.. makes me sad
+ Show Spoiler [itmakesmedothis] + Stalker is when the player understands that he can survive and go through gaps (harder and harder ones ; more and more dealing with the maze under pressure etc) .. that is the best time!
Stalker chooses his preys, often it starts at random .. as an opportunistic drive that develops.
Stalker level is when you realize you can remember this turn or that defense against a boost coming at you this way etc (you can then do them on demand and your muscle memory is more at work than your analytic prowess's.
Stalker is when you make most friends.
Stalker is when you meet people the most clearly, you start to always try to look in the white of their eyes before you turn furious deadly or vile on them
(furious: you boost and scare them repeatedly, deadly: you place a wall in their face and make sure they see it coming, and vile is when you place a wall in their face and make sure they see it coming and what your name is, and they type you something...
Stalkers, at an early stage will start "playing" with beginners like a cat with its prey.
Stalker is your best sparring partner, he wants to kill you, not anyone else by accident, he or she wants to kill you and that you know it was him/her doing you in.
Stalkers will generally know about the delete button and 1/ignore b/partake/ c/ use it
Navigator have fun because they got bored of being a stalker and still did not get bored by the game. They refine stuff and discover stuff by just never dying.
Navigator can be very solo or very fun and inclusive to his/her fun with other players (of any given skill).
Shark is a navigator that likes to win.
Snakes are the soul of pc.
Some snakes teach
Play through/tips:
+ Show Spoiler +If you are a beginner:
If you are a player and getting to stalker soon:
this is the best time for you!
Play the players individually while always thinking that someone else is stalking you,
from the first build order out of the start round countdown to the last tile/wall you lay on the map.
Every bike's rhythm lays different tiles, learn to distinguish them in different manners:
1/ follow the rhythm of the prey with your own and "copy/relay" every bit of movement (left or right) imposed to the bike by its user.. this will allow your hand to record such rhythms.
If you do this gymnastic consciously skill/knowledge/fun/strategy will emerge more in bursts than if you just play it by not thinking it through and all will tie together neatly
2/look at those, the ship does an L and you know if you go through that gap no one mediocre will find a way to cut through it out again once you have passed through it..
.. so since you see that, confront your thought and
so go close it
and from then on make it a point to always kill the guy/gal by trapping her / him / it inside its own fort as many time as you can devise/happen on to!
This will develop your own snake skin! that you will then claim later when you really get good and you get on rolls where/when you understand that you can't be beat by "normal" means
that you will always manage to wiggle out of anything "default" on your way escaping from the maze...
..
and that in each round ..this all began with the first tile and will end with this "x" last tile and that life is sweet!
Once you don't scare, you know how to predict how diagonally you must go to counter the walls' diagonal decline (if you have to go left you know you have to go a little left first or if you have to run the wall you just did allows for this or that etc...
before you go into a set of gaps
and each consequent time you will do a 90 or 180 or other turn, you will in preparation wallow a little left or a little right before you do so
because that is your compensation time and you know if you do the tun it will work
and you will be facing the gaps with the proper angle (or at least close to it)
some..
some
very few
some will do straight pool shots where you go straight to the desired turn angle and compensate in the last two tenths of a second after the turn (add a little left/right or add nothing (which is often more difficult to do .. to restrain one selves since the heading is better without any change etc)))
trail after trail you cut through one by one and they are more and more left or more and more right (if they are default lines)))
some will be magic,
pure magic
(disclaimer
+ Show Spoiler + some will be pure lag and hax/cheat, such is bnet
)
$
Your muscle memory
+ Show Spoiler +will quickly surpass your perceived limits (people think nothing at first and 100 by the end of the first game (20/30 rounds)
then if they ever return
each new game increases everyone's skill by 100
then they understand the game at their own level
and
maybe 10% that are left going further start to think they were crazy when they started this game.. to not have seen just how awesome and hard / competitive this game really is <3
If you need navigation tools:
then make mazes that lower skill players can't get out of!
If you are a snake:
i know you