Echo Arena Skills Map

1 Move

OBJECTIVE - Effectively move your avatar

EchoVR is played in a zero gravity, virtual environment. This means some real laws of physics do not necessarily apply here. Don’t get me wrong, most physical sporting concepts will translate directly i.e distance, range, control and momentum. But generally speaking, It is best to first approach this game with a child-like mind of how to move in this new world.

FLOAT -

Your absolute foundation for movement in the arena. As a new player, you will find yourself floating around in the zero gravity environments at all times. It is vital to get comfortable moving in this way.

• Hand Boosters - Point your hands in the direction of travel and hold A & X buttons. Use these as an axillary tool for course correction. Do not rely on these for momentum due to the low speed.
• Back Booster - This is how you build momentum. Face your head in the direction of travel and press the joystick inwards on your left controller. As you play with this, get a good feel for the cool down timer (time it takes to recharge).
• Brake - Sometimes you will need to quickly kill your momentum. Press the joystick inwards on your right controller.
• Physical Playspace - Assuming you have a decent sized playspace, feel free to take a step forward or to the side for that extra foot of reach. This applies to jumping up or crouching down. Note - moving too far horizontally can be considered an exploit in competitive play, so don’t abuse this advantage if you have a 5x5 metre playspace.
• Physical Turning - Physically turn your body in your playspace. Pivot on your feet where you stand, or take a step forward with one foot and move your other foot back to rotate your body.
• Joystick Turning - By default you will have ‘Yaw’ turning on with snap-turn enabled. I highly recommend opening your settings menu (hold home button on left controller for 2 seconds to find it) and finding the option to change snap turn to ‘smooth rotation’ and changing the sensitivity to 10. Note - If this makes you feel queasy then change back to snap turn, although your VR tolerance will improve over time, just be patient with yourself. In the settings you will also see options for ‘Pitch’ and ‘Roll’. I Strongly advise to keep these off for at least your 1st few months of playing.

ANCHOR -

‘In EchoVR, if you grab any object, you can freely move yourself, regardless of any predetermined momentum’. If that last line doesn’t make sense then please read 3 more times. This breakaway from real life laws of motion is what I need you to focus on as you grab surfaces in the arena. Any momentum whatsoever is instantly ended as soon as you grab something. In the arena this means a player ‘anchored’ to a surface can move in any direction they wish, instantly, with a flick of their arm. A floating player, however, must build momentum with their boosters. Therefore, minimise the amount of time floating. Achieve this by doing the following:

• Sticky Hands - Hold down your grips (middle fingers) and imagine your hands are magnets and every surface is made of iron. You do not need to time your grab on a surface, only your release. This is also commonly referred to as ‘Autograb’.
• Slap - Building on the prior point, as your hand (with the grip button held) collides with a surface, try to time your grip release to be almost instantaneous to the moment you touch the surface. This will maximise how quickly you can change your momentum in game.
• Juke - You are significantly more manoeuvrable when anchored to a surface. Use this to your advantage, especially when in disc possession.
• Tip - Take larger ‘steps’ as you crawl along surfaces. Drift, if you will, from one anchor point to another, as this will move you faster than crawling along the surface in small steps.

Your priority for getting around the arena should be slapping off from surfaces to quickly build momentum. Then use your boosters for fine adjustments as you float. This should be your bread and butter when it comes to movement

DRILL -

• Solo - In a private arena (or the training arena in the social lobby), get out your personal disc (orange slider on your forearm) and hold it in your strong hand. Now ‘walk’ around block surfaces, grabbing with your non- throwing hand. Get used to moving like this. To avoid getting bored, pick a block on the other side of the arena and plan a travel path towards it, slapping off other surfaces as you go.

• Team - With at least two players in the arena, throw the disc randomly. Now all players race to catch the disc first. Whoever catches it gets to clear it away again. Rule out stunning and grabbing other players so you’re more focused on movement.

2 Throw

OBJECTIVE - Effectively catch & throw the disc

After being able to move your avatar, the next fundamental of this game is your ability to move the disc in the arena.

CATCH -

Probably the easiest mechanic in the game, as long as you focus on the following:

• Autograb - When your controller grip is held down and your hand touches the disc, the disc will snap to your hand. This is referred to as ‘autograb’. Think of your hand as a net rather than a clamp and scoop the disc up. Your hand doesn’t even need to reach the actual disc, it just needs to enter the glowing bubble around the disc.
• Positioning - Utilise your movement skills from last week to adjust your avatar location relative to an incoming disc & better position yourself for the catch. Staying anchored will make position adjustments much easier.

THROW ANGLES -

Get comfortable finding a shot angle:

• Standard Throw - The fact that your shoulder is a ball joint means you have the ability to propel the disc at a variety of angles. Around 90% of your shots should be an overarm or a sidearm as these will feel the most natural. These are your bread and butter so make sure to drill them whenever you can.

• Swing Plane - The main variable in your shot type to consider is the plane you are swinging your arm on. Throw on a vertical plane (overhand) and your shot will be more accurate left & right, but may drift up & down. Vice versa, throwing on a horizontal plane (side arm) will give you more accuracy up & down. Be aware that the shot may drift left or right. This will become relevant later as you explore shooting from different locations in the arena.
• Other Angles - Once you are comfortable with your basic throw angles, then experiment with other shot angles, such as back hand, under arm and full overhead swing.

THROW ACCURACY -

Arguably the hardest mechanic in the game. Be patient with yourself and focus on these key elements:

• Intent - Focus on a pin-point location where you want the disc to land.
• Movement - As you swing, stay aware of each body joint participating in the throw. Feel your wrist flick, your elbow bend, your shoulder rotate and your hip twist. As you practice the same shot repeatedly, pay attention to how small adjustments of each moving body part can affect your throw trajectory.
• Relax - Breathe. Let go of the tension in your throwing arm. Your throw should feel more like a whip than a rigid catapult.
• Release - Let go of the disc at the apex of your arm swing. I recommend keeping your wrist cocked back as you swing, then adding a flick at the end as follow through to your throw.

THROW SPEED -

The fastest throw possible in the game is capped at 18.7 metres per second (scoring at above 18.5m/s will be rounded up to 19m/s on the scoreboard). So how do we generate the fastest possible shot speed in the game? The answer is by accumulating the following:

• Player Movement - 12m/s can be generated by your real life movement. So that is the speed of your controller as you release the trigger at the apex of your swing. This speed is generated from your elbow swinging, your shoulder rotating, your hips twisting and your feet pushing. As covered in the accuracy section, utilise the whole body to generate your movement
• Wrist flick - 2m/s is also generated by your controller movement input, however this is not taken from your directional movement, but from the rotational spin added as you flick your wrist with your shot. As a newbie this isn’t worth worrying about, however that extra 2m/s can be very valuable at higher level play.
• ‘In-Game’ momentum - 4.7m/s is the maximum speed you can float at in the arena whilst holding the disc. Add it to your shot speed by floating toward your throw target before taking the shot.

DRILLS -

• Solo - In a private arena (or social lobby training room) get out your personal disc and throw it 100 times. Stay static (use your brake) and rehearse the motion of your throw. As you practise, keep awareness of how the different body parts involved feel as you swing your shot. Also stay mindful of your trigger release point as you swing. With repetitive solo drills like this, I recommend putting on some music or a podcast.
• Duo - Play catch. Again, stay aware of your body and your release point, but now you have a target which may be moving. Adjust difficulty of the drill with distance & player movement. Note - this is actually a great bonding experience if you have found an Echo friend and want to improve together. Use opportunities like this to get to know your new Echo buddies!

TIP - As you meet other players in Echo, you will come across recommended custom throwing settings. You are free to experiment with custom settings via the in-game settings menu, however I strongly advise to keep the default. At least for the first few months of playing. Personally, I play on default throw settings myself, even having experimented with them in the past. But if you do decide to change your settings, keep a clear record of changes you make and be scientific about it. Make one change at a time and test the difference each time.

3 Brawl

STUN -

Probably the most engaging part of Echo Arena is the stun mechanic. It is pretty fun and satisfying to land a good stun. Key moments when to use stunning:

• When racing with an enemy to collect a loose disc, consider stunning them just before they pick it up.
• When defending, a well timed stun will temporarily neutralise any offensive threat from that player.
• When attacking, a well timed stun can remove a defender from the equation, opening you up as a pass option. Can also be applied to stunning out enemy goalies!
• On a possession turnover, a stun can be used strategically to stop the enemy regrabbing together (will cover regrabs in depth in a later lesson.

SHIELD -

Do not overlook this mechanic, especially when new to the game! Just using your shield will neutralise your average stun hungry newbie. Just be aware that:

1) The shield wears out after a few seconds so can’t be held forever.

2) There is a cooldown period of a couple seconds before your shield can be used again.

When to shield:

• When racing with an enemy to collect a loose disc, be aware that the enemy may try to stun you, so pop your shield as you get close to the disc.
• When defending, try to bait an enemy to stun you, perhaps by facing away, then time your shield as they approach.
• When attacking and have a defender hard marking you close to the goal.
• TIP - Ears open! Learn to hear other players' boosters as they sneak up on you and time your shield in response!

GRAPPLE -

In this scenario you are in close quarters with an enemy but they have their shield up which is preventing your stun. You also can’t shield because you ran out or released it too early. Introducing the often overlooked third option: physically grabbing the enemy player’s avatar.

• Hold & Juke - Also referred to as leeching and will be covered in more detail later. Essentially, anchor yourself to the enemy while you wait for their shield to run out.
• Push Away - Quickly remove yourself from the altercation by slapping the player away, pushing you to a safe distance out of stunning range.
• Counter Play - If an enemy player grabs you, then simply grab them back. Doing so will cancel out their grab and leave you both floating in free space. You will still need to act afterwards, but this simple move can throw an enemy off their flow, when they will likely throw up their shield in panic. Try it!

To summarise:

Shield > Stun

Stun > Grapple

Grapple > Shield

Experiment with each, and learn to read other players' habits & bluffs.

DRILL -

Solo - Brawler Award - Enter a Pub solo, with the goal of scoring the highest number of stuns. Random players are your guinea pigs. Feel free to mute all! And don’t feel bad for being stun heavy, especially if this feels out of character. This is just an exercise to build your competency in stun altercations.

Duo - Free Float Brawl - In a private arena with a partner, free float toward each other, with intention of leaving the other player stunned. Intention is to learn your reach range and the timings and movement involved.

Duo - Geo Tag - In a private area with a partner, Pick a geo block and anchor to it. Player one attempts to stun player two. Player two resist / counter / avoid the best you can. Repeat going back and forth when someone is stunned. Only restriction: Do not leave your geo block you picked! My favourite geo choice for this drill is Pacman or Bowtie.

4 Regrab

OBJECTIVE: Break the speed limit

What is a regrab? Very early on, EchoVR players discovered they could accumulate speed in the arena when pushing off from other moving players. Over time, this technique evolved into a team strategy for rapid movement called “Regrabbing”. In simple terms: Find a teammate, grab them and pull through.

TECHNIQUE - Here are some technical aspects to be aware of:

1. Autograb - Just as you do with catching the disc, keep your grip button held down, so you automatically grab your partner when your body collides with their chassis.
2. Grab Front of Chest - Assuming you’re flying towards your partner head on, & you are the one in front, grab the front of the chest of your partner
3. Swing Around - While anchored to your partner, Rotate yourself so you are aligned behind. (I strongly advise to turn on smooth ‘Yaw’ turning, on max speed. This will drastically speed up how fast you can turn 180 in a match.)
4. Pull Through - Pull yourself forward in a straight line by moving your grab hand toward your chest and let go of the grip. Your focus should be on aiming your avatar chest to pass forward through your partner's hand (which should be held out in front of their own chest).

‘RIGHT-OF-WAY’ -

The biggest issue you will quickly discover with regrabbing is the confusion of “Who grabs who?” A helpful way of thinking about this is to imagine that one play is ‘hitching a ride’ off another player. The three images above on this page help illustrate the movement.

1. Player One is behind,  flying in the direction of travel.
2. Player Two is in front. They must turn around 180 to see player one who is behind.
3. Player Two puts out their ‘hitch a ride’ hand, to signal that they need a lift. That same hand grabs Player One’s avatar in the chest to initiate the regrab.
4. In this scenario, Player One does not grab Player Two. They must wait until Player Two has grabbed them & swung around, before they squeeze their grip for autograb.

TIPS -

This isn’t easy to grasp overnight, especially if you are very new to Echo. Here are some guiding principles to speed up the learning process:

• Lead - Like driving on the road in real life, avoid any confusion or hesitation by taking the lead in the arena by clearly signalling what the other driver should do. Clearly signal with your hand and movement, as well as your voice!
• Empathise - Regrabbing is a duet. Open your mind to what your partner is thinking and make it easy for them
• Adjust - If your regrab direction is drifting offline from your target destination, you can make small adjustments with your pull direction, as well as with your hand boosters. This should naturally come with practice, as it is a great way to recover mid flight from a dodgy pull through.

DRILL -

• Solo - Tunnel Cubes - Go to a private arena and go to either tunnel at the sides of the arena. There you will find rows of grabbable cubes. One by one, pull yourself along a line of cubes. When you reach the end of the row, use your joystick yaw rotation to turn around 180 degrees. This pull through can also be rehearsed on the locker room avatars, seen when you 1st enter the arena. Try practising your 180 rotation and pull through on these idle avatars.
• Team - Regrab Paths - With a Partner, go into a private arena and regrab together from Blue Nest to Orange Nest and back repeatedly. This long straight travel path will give you a chance to find each other's rhythm and get a feel for how accurately you are pulling.
  • Variation 1 - To avoid getting it getting repetitive, test how high a speed you can reach together with higher frequency of pulls. Another altercation is to
  • Variation 2 - deliberately split as you reach Nest. Player One stops at nest and Player Two continues through to the backboard. This then adds the element of rejoining each other, which will test your right-of-way coordination in a natural way.
  • Variation 3 - Zigzag path travelling from orange shoulder to orange far side Popcorn, to far side blue popcorn, to far side blue shoulder. Then repeat the same path back and forth.

NOTE - In your learning journey you will inevitably find yourself frustrated at another learner's regrab ability. When this inevitably happens, please remember: It takes two to tango. However, saying that, one very good regrabber should be able to compensate for their technique and carry someone else. So… very rarely is there nothing you could have done to regrab better with someone. Stay patient, and try to learn your training partners' regrab cadence. Everyone regrabs differently.

5 Score (2 Pointers)

OBJECTIVE - Be a threat on goal from inside the bubble

You only win if the disc goes in the goal and the easiest location to shoot from is inside the bubble. This is why you get 2 points, instead of 3. Knowing this is useless if your only plan for scoring is a rushed shot directly into the middle of the goal. This is where both the goalies hands are ready to catch your panic shot.

Relatable?

Scoring one-on-one with a goalie is possible, if not arguably easy. You just have to keep them guessing by having options. We can achieve this by learning a variety of alternative ways to put the disc in the goal.

Take a look at the following 5 shot examples, all different approaches, but all taken from inside the bubble.

Inside Bubble Shots - Click the Hyperlinks to see Video examples of each shot

• Backboard Inside Post
• Backboard Outside Post
• Zero Angle (Drifting); Zero-Angle (Straight)
• Pocket Placement
• Pocket Slam Dunk

Drill each of these shots to really get comfortable inside the bubble, so you have a variety of options next time you’re one-on-one with a goalie and they give you some pressure. If you’ve scored each of these shots at least 50 times in practice, you’ll feel significantly more comfortable passing into that bubble.

NOTE - Treat each of these shot examples as a template. No two shots are the same, but once you’ve got the mental blueprint for each ‘flavour’ of shot, you will find yourself naturally seeing and taking opportunities mid-game.

DRILL -

• Solo - Personal Disc - Shooting is very straightforward to drill. Repeat a shot with your personal disc, with no pressure. Set yourself a target i.e hit ‘x’ total within ‘y’ minutes.

• Team - Rotating Shooter - Take turns taking shots on each other. If you have more than two players, you can continually rotate roles: Shooter > Goalie > Fielder(s) > Shooter again. Rotate around each shot so each player gets experience shooting and goalkeeping.

6 Grapple

OBJECTIVE - Initiate, maintain & end a grapple with an enemy. Also known as ‘leeching’

If you’ve played pubs long enough, then you probably know what it feels like to have an enemy hold onto your toes and continually stun you out. Not fun. Let's go over how to deal with this.

To start with, let's break down how to leech an enemy:

1. Grab Low - The lower down on an enemy's robot legs you grab, the harder it is for them to reach down and stun you back
2. Juke - Sometimes (due to ping or a player's arm span) a leeched player will be able to reach you. So keep moving around, making sure to keep your path random and unpredictable.
3. Range Control - After plenty of brawling in Echo, you’ll get a feel for your personal space in the area, and how close you need to be to physically reach someone. Timing your leech grab to be at the very outer limit of this distance will help avoid getting stunned in the process.

So someone else has leached you. These should be your go to moves to remove a leech:

• Timed Shield - Overtime you will develop a 6th sense for when the stun is coming. Pay attention to it, predict it and time your shield up as a response.
• Head Bump Off - The only part of a player's chassis which will collide with the arena is the head. And if the head does collide, then the player will be forced off of any other player they are holding. To achieve a successful ‘head bump off;, do the following:

1. the nearest arena geo block.
2. Juke around the geo, with your own head as close to the geo as possible, making sure to swing your head around the sharp edges of the geo.
3. Top tip - Their head is most likely behind yours and slightly up, so aim to juke underneath and up around a geo to increase the chance of the bump off

• Grab - If you’re giving the leecher things to think about (i.e shield and juking) then they are likely to move about as well, instead of just leeching low on your chassis. If this is the case, instead of throwing a blind stun down, try pushing them off.

1. Swing your hands around where you think they are
2. As you do so, quickly pull and release the grab trigger
3. The same way grabbing a stacked regrab partner will split the regrab, deliberately grabbing an enemy leech will push them off and give you some personal space back.

BONUS - Boost Off An Enemy Player

The scenario: You need to get to the other end of the arena but no teammates near you to regrab with. But you know there is an enemy behind you, also caught outside the play and trying to get to the other end of the arena.

1. Turn to face the incoming enemy player
2. Approach them with your shields up
3. As you fly into / pass the enemy, grab their toes
4. Turn around whilst anchored/leeched on them, and pull through in the desired direction
5. Leaving gift - If you’re feeling particularly bitter than day, throw a stun on them as you leave. Make sure to stun after you have already pulled off, otherwise you will lose the stolen momentum off of them.

DRILL -

• Solo - Pub Leecher - Play pubs (feel free to mute all) and prioritise leeching over regrabbing with your own team. Get super comfortable with enemy players, with the intention of stealing a leech. Just for this drill, really force the leech play, in an effort to learn how often leeches are available and when they are not.
• Top Tip - If the disc is cleared forward, remember to turn around 180 to peak if any enemy players are floating behind you. If they are, then steal a leech!

7 Regrab p2

OBJECTIVE - Stay stacked!

A basic understanding of regrabs will get you across the arena faster, but you should quickly realise there’s a lot more to it once actually stacked. A full 8 week course could be made just on regrabs. To save time this lesson will break down arguably the biggest mental shift in your regrabbing: Reading the bounce. Simple to understand but extremely difficult to actually learn and execute.

If you can’t predict the bounce trajectory of the disc in the arena, you will constantly find yourself on the back foot and chasing where the disc is now.  Instead you want to know where it will be after the bounce.

The bad news is, you’ll only really learn this from many hours spent in the arena. The good news is that it is easy to drill. And once you have a good prediction of the common bounce angles in the area, you’ll find yourself picking that loose disc up significantly faster, rather than chasing from bounce to bounce.

DRILL -

• Solo - Read The Bounce- In a private arena, randomly throw the disc and chase after it. Paying close attention to the disc and where it is going to bounce. Aim to travel to where the disc will be, not where it is now.
• Duo - Read The Bounce Together - The same as above, but try to maintain the stack as you chase the disc clears
• Four-Squad - Stack Tennis - One pair stays stacked on orange, another stays stacked on blue. Orange pair collect the disc (reading the bounces) and clear into the blue zone. Blue pair then collects the disc (also reading the bounces) and returns the disc into the orange zone. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

NOTE - This will be frustrating to learn for two main reasons. Firstly, if you are still learning the fundamentals of regrabbing, you’ll still have your mental capacity spent on just staying together. It will be difficult to also keep your eye on the disc location, speed and direction. Be patient with yourself as this all becomes second nature with practice. Secondly, no matter what level you are at with regrabbing, it takes two to tango. If you realise your regrab partner isn’t as good at reading the bounces as you, then slow down the stack and try to meet their level and pace. TLDR - patience patience patience…

8 Score (3 Pointers)

OBJECTIVE - Be a threat on goal from OUTSIDE the bubble

Scoring 2s will move the game in the right direction, but there's nothing more devastating than conceding a couple 3 pointers in a row. Just a minute would have passed on the clock but you’re seeing a 6 point gap in the wrong direction. You may feel demoralised by how many consecutive, hard-earned 2 pointers you’ll need to get the scores back on track.

Scoring 3’s is vital if you’re going to play competitively. So it’s time to get comfortable taking shots from a long distance.

Take a look at the following 3 shot examples, paying attention to the distance from the goal, the lane available and the throw technique used.

Quarter Court Range - Click the Hyperlinks to see Video examples of each shot

• Pacman shot
• Bowtie Mailslot
• Low angle Windmill shot

The next 3 clips are essentially the same shots as above, but used in a half court range context.

Half Court Range - Click the Hyperlinks to see Video examples of each shot

• Tunnel Side arm
• Double Diamond Mailslot
• Boop Shot

As you get more confident finding and using these shot lanes, you can then experiment with other long range bounce shots. Here's a couple examples exploiting the bounce angle of the walls around the bubble...

BONUS Bounce 3 Pointers -

• Cloud Bounce Shot
• DD Long Bounce Shot 2

Unless the opposition have someone permanently in goal, in a game you’ll often find that the goal is unattended and open, so always keep an eye on your shot lane incase. The most common time these opportunities arise mid-game are on turnovers in the tunnels. Your team has won possession, and the opposition haven’t setup to defend yet. But you’ll need to realise and take the shot quickly, before the opposition regrab back.

DRILL -

• Solo - Personal Disc - Shooting is very straightforward to drill. Repeat a shot with your personal disc, with no pressure. Set yourself a target i.e hit ‘x’ total within ‘y’ minutes.

• Team - Play H.O.R.S.E. - A common basketball trickshot game, and a great way to put teammates to the test!

1. Player One calls a shot and attempts to score it
2. If Player One hits the shot, then Player Two (+ any other players) are challenged to hit the same shot from the same location.
3. If Player Two misses the challenged shot then they get the next letter from the word H.O.R.S.E. So 1st shot missed = H.
4. If Player One misses their called shot then nothing happens and it’s now Player Two’s turn to call and attempt a shot. This continues for all Players, and then back to Player One.
5. Two missed challenge shots = H.O. Three missed challenge shots = H.O.R etc etc
6. 1st to get all the letters H.O.R.S.E loses!

NOTE - Treat each of these shot examples as a template; no two shots are the same. Once you’ve got the mental blueprint for each ‘flavour’ of shot, you will find yourself naturally seeing and taking opportunities mid-game.