ESF 1.2 Tips

This page aims to teach useful gameplay tips for ESF.  We're in need of a lot more tips, so if you have one you'd like to submit, feel free to send it by using this page!

• First and foremost, ESF is a challenging game.  If you want to get good at it, the best thing you can do is play the game and get some experience.  Playing vs good players and losing is what makes you good.

• The default camera view leaves a lot to be desired as the character model blocks a good portion of your view.  Most good players play the game with a zoomed out camera view.  An easy way to do this is to hold the button "K" down while ingame.  This will zoom out the camera.  It's a little weird to play with at first, but this enables you to see more of your surroundings and can be an immense help.  Just note that you'll need to do this everytime you enter a server.  Alternatively, you can open up console and type in "cam_idealdist " followed by a number of your choice.  The number determines how far in / out your camera view is.  The default view is 40.

(ESF with K held down)

• Holding jump before getting knocked directly onto the ground or onto a wall will make your character jump up immediately 

• When recharging your ki, make sure you're safe.  Many new players tend to recharge all of their ki at once and sometimes do it too close to an enemy which leads to them being hit.  Just keep your distance when doing it.  

• If you're playing at +100 ping vs someone good, you should generally always be on the move.  If someone swoops / teleports at you at relatively close range, you're going to get hit before you can react if you're not moving.  

• Unless the situation calls for otherwise (IE:  you're about to get a hit), you should recharge for a split second after every teleport.  

• Many newer players make the mistake of doing the same thing over and over.  Try to be unpredictable, and don't fall for the same trick twice.

• Try to avoid flying in a straight line, you want to be moving with a purpose.  Swooping in a straight line usually means death if you're playing someone good.

• During the first second of charging up, you'll gain a quick spike of ki.  After that spike, you'll gain ki at a slower, steady rate.  This is why charging up for a fraction of a second can be immensely helpful. 

• Glide, glide, glide.  Seriously, use gliding.  For those unfamiliar, to perform a glide, simply swoop in any direction, stop the swoop, then turn off fly mode.  You will still be traveling at the same speed as you were while swooping, but now you’ll be using up no ki and freefalling.  A player can also swoop into the ground, release the swoop button and press jump.  Note that holding block while gliding can be very useful.

• If you're ever in trouble and run out of ki, an easy way to get out of the situation is to drop out of flymode, get to the ground and beamjump away with turbo on to restart the fight.

• It's possible to recharge while moving.  Drop to the ground and stand perfectly still, then press teleport and recharge at the same time.  This will cause you to be freefalling while charging up.  It can help a lot in higher level fights

• This tip is more for the advanced players.  A nice move to know how to do is a critical hit.  It's technically a glitch, but it's accepted in 1v1's.  To do it, you need to be freefalling, then land on an opponents head and then do a simple melee hit.  It knocks the opponent across the entire map doing roughly three times the damage of a normal hit.  Critical hits can be useful in situations such as advanced melee - For instance, do an Advanced melee hit up, then teleport up three times, doing a critical hit knocking the opponent back down to the ground.  It beats doing a normal hit and you can pretty much do it everytime once you figure it out.