Video Guide - Basic Skils

[5ketch]

Here is a rather long video I've put together on the first of three attributes that skilled players have. This video is all about Basic Skills... I have a whole lot more information, but I cut a lot of it out just to shorten it to 12 minutes. I know a lot of you already know most of this information. This is just the fundamentals. The first video I created is actually about tactics, the second of the three attributes that skilled players have. The final video (and I'm editing it now) is about judgment. The best way I can describe judgment is playing and analyzing what I did wrong and what I did right. Enjoy!






Basic Skills Video

[Lotek19]

awesome, its great that you try and help us...but here are some things you did wrong were.....some parts were....boring so to say

1. Your disclaimer, the opening....yeah we could listen but its not fun to watch it, maybe put a couple clips of you owning some guys, while you talk, or make a trailer or something so to say.

2. I happen to use a certain aspect called "diving" with my skorpion, basically, this is very very useful.

3. you got to remember, that most of your tactics are for...so to say: 5 v 5, while many MANY people will play 24-40ish.

4. I agree with the headphone.headset thing you talked about

well, i have to say you probably took some time, and these will go to help alot of newer people because this game, is "relatively" new.

Also im just wondering, what type of video capturing stuff are you using, what program to edit, and how you doing your narratives to the video?

[sgt.collins]

nice video!

[Kodakk]

Nice video - good ideas/tactics...

I have parts where I agree/disagree (especially with the 3 dimensional part where you walk outside the building - exposing yourself - just to throw a grenade in).

But there is a lot of useful in there for newer players. Looking forward to some more advanced material :)

[imported_Whiskey]

I enjoy these vids. :)

Not sure if you cover these in other movies, but a few things I found very helpful/learned over the yrs...

a) know the map - probably one of the biggest things, aside from reflexes, to doing well. You have to know where you can be shot from, where you can shoot from, where to flank/escape, and likely areas of high/low traffic.

b) watching for movement - especially in COD4, I find the camo is often so effective, and surrounding graphics/clutter so good at cover, that trying to catch movement out of the corner of your eye is often key to finding opponents when the UAV isn't up.

c) stances - I consider this basic, and maybe you have it in another vid, but learning when to crouch, lean, prone, and sprint (either to/from cover, or retreat) is important.

[5ketch]

Ok let me post the list of stuff I wanted to talk about... maybe that's a better idea. If you have questions let me know. :)


Basic Ideas

• In order of difficulty, there are 3 levels of performance in this game. First is basic skills, second is tactics, and third is judgment. Basic skills are stuff like shooting straight, aiming, nading, etc. Tactics are things like circle strafe, flanking, finding cover, etc. Judgment is about knowing when and where to use which tactic, at what moment, and at what place. These tips will cover the first two, with the emphasis on tactics. The third one (judgment), I'm afraid, can only be learned through experience, but I'll try to point you to the right direction.
• You can only perform well on a level if you are fully proficient in the preceding level. For example, all the tactics won't mean much if you can't even shoot straight. Likewise, if you don't understand common tactics, there is little meaningful judgment to make.
• Despite all the effort to make COD4 "realistic", it is still a video game, meaning real-life rules don't necessarily apply. Just because the MP5 shoots a particular way in real life, it doesn't mean it will shoot the same way in game. Skills, tactics, and judgment calls are entirely different from real life. If you want to be good in this game, you have to be ready to drop all the things you learned, and pick up online gaming principles.

CQB Training

• The single player is an excellent training ground for CQB engagements. Practice here with the game mode on “veteran”. If you can't beat single player on "veteran" then start with "normal", still can't beat it? Lower it to "easy mode" and work your way up. If you can't beat the levels on "easy mode" then, you'll have little fighting chance against an above average COD4 gamer.

The Standard CQB Tactic

• Remember SSFF, which stands for Spot, Shoot, Frag, Flank. Any experienced player almost always engage in this fashion. Once you spot the enemy, shoot as fast as you can, and if you miss or need to reload, frag him, and if he's still alive, it's time to flank him (if possible). The tactic is so standard that if you know you're facing an experienced player and you somehow survived the first exchange of fire, you should fully expect a nade coming your way. And if you are smart enough to survive the nade, you should expect that he's no longer in that original spot, unless he can't go anywhere else.

Speed

• Remember, "speed is life". This is especially true in the beginning of the game. You need to get somewhere fast and find some cover, especially in maps notorious for spam nading. Spam nading is a practice where enemies lobs grenades or put any explosive round in the vicinity of your spawn point.
• If you know the map fairly well, try sprinting to where you're going. When you got to a place frequented by opfor before they do, it's gonna be a nasty surprise for them.
• If 2 guys are facing each other in close range, one standing and one crouching (or worse, prone), guess who's gonna come ahead. The standing guy has faster maneuver speed and can evade the crouching/proning guy better. More on this later.
• The person with the greater speed almost always wins. I've had many instances where a guy behind a corner or door knew I was coming (from the footsteps) and fired first, yet since I was moving fast while firing, few of his shots (if any) landed on me, and I ended up killing him. I would sometimes find a leaning enemy, and a lot of times my fast movement was the only thing that saves me from this kind of ambush. Once in a while I would even shot from behind and survives, because he missed and I had a chance to turn around and kill him instead. Now how can this happen? the likeliest explanations are (a)Lag inherent to an online game (b)The stationary person has to FOLLOW the target's unpredictable movement (which means he's almost always late to adjust his aim), while the moving person adjusts his aim naturally because he knows the exact direction of his own movement.
• Bottom line is, the faster you move, the harder you are to hit. If you don't believe me, take sniper and try to shoot an enemy while he's sprinting.

Gun Selection and Handling

• The ideal configuration for CQB is a sub-machine gun with a silencer. The silencer masks your shots somewhat by deafing the muzzle, and suppressing the weapon from being seen on the radar.

• Don't automatically reload after you killed the enemy. This is also counter-intuitive, but you don't want to be caught reloading while his mate barges in. In most cqb engagements you'll spend less than half the magazine to kill people, so if you start with a full clip there's no point in reloading just to get yourself shot by the next wave. Reload only when you're sure its safe.
• Learn to compensate with burst firing with the weapon.
• Switch to your sidearm instead of reloading. The reason being it's faster to switch weapons than to reload an empty mag. When both you and your enemy have emptied the whole mag and the two of you are still standing, you'll out pace his reload by switching to your pistol.

Shooting

• At very close distances, do not "lead" your bullets. Leading is a practice of shooting ahead of your enemy's path of movement, and a valid practice in real life. A greater distances you do want to "lead" your target and have them pass through your bullets, and then readjust and have them pass through again and so on.
  
• Learn how far you can shoot accurately without bringing your sight up. It is always faster to shoot without bringing up sight/scope, but there is a limit in its accuracy. Find that limit, and from then on, only use sight/scope when your enemy is beyond that limit. This is important because by the time you brought your sight/scope up, the enemy could have squeezed at least a couple of rounds toward you.
• Even though you are so close to the enemy you could smell his deodorant, DON'T think of just spraying the bullet in his general direction. Always keep your bead exactly on him and make that first shot count.
• If you need better accuracy, squeeze fewer rounds at a time. You never know when you need to unload the whole mag. (Repetitious I know, but it's important that you squeeze the trigger at longer ranges, instead of spraying and praying.)
• Learn to control your fire when firing a whole mag at the full cycle rate of the weapon. Learn to compensate the recoil by moving your aim to the opposite direction. This is instinctive, but I still see people who obviously never learned it, or never bother to master it. This skill is particularly important at extreme short distance (under 10 m), because you don't have time to bring your sights up, and as such the game's physics throws your aim everywhere at full auto.
• Learn to "circle strafe". Circle strafing is the practice of moving side-to-side while shooting at the enemy. It's called circling because if you keep going to one direction while keeping your aim to him, you will eventually make a circle around him. This is an invaluable technique that most people new to fps games never know. By circle strafing you are making yourself a harder target, and is especially useful at CQB encounters.
• Aim for center mass. When you aim for center mass (the center of the target), you stand a better chance of hitting him. Even if the first hit is not fatal, it will throw his aim and give you ample time to kill him with subsequent shots. Some people recommend aiming for the head/neck; I don't do that (unless it's the only body part visible) because it's easier to miss. When you shoot somebody and miss you're giving him a chance to shoot back, and that could be your last mistake for the match.

Grenade Handling

• Learn the farthest distance you can throw your nade, then work from there. To achieve maximum distance, throw at 45-degree angle. Anything but 45-degree will give you shorter distance. To reach through openings (like windows and doors), use shallow angle throws. To reach enemies beyond walls, use steep angle throws.
• Learn to bounce your nade. This is especially important for flashbangs, because it has such a short effective radius that you want it to go off as close as possible to the enemy. If you can't have a straight line-of-sight to the tango from where you are without getting shot, bounce it.
• Flashbangs are effective, use them. The enemy will not only be blinded (and deafened) when you flash them (even when they turn away from it) but their shot pattern will be affected as well..
• Somebody called smoke nades the "thinking man's grenade", and I couldn't agree more. The only time a smoke nade is useful is when there is a strategy to go along with it. Smoke limits visibility, so use it in a situation where limited visibility is more advantageous to you than to the enemy. Don't forget that thermal vision can be used in smoke but the enemy will not beable to see very far, or tell if it's friend or foe with thermal vision engaged.
• There are two aspects of limiting visibility of an area: (a) You don't' know if the enemy is there, and/or (b) You don't know if the enemy is NOT there. You might not see the difference between the two concepts, but there is a real difference: the first implies cover for your movement, the second implies diversion.

Movement

• Keep moving! Staying in one place for too long will either: (a) get you killed, (b) make your team lose the game, or (c) get you kicked.
• Flank the enemy. When you encounter a tango at medium distance, shoot it out and both of you are still standing, don't stay in that spot and slug it out with him. Move out immediately and try to pop up behind him. In most cases it will take you only seconds to sneak up to him, short enough that he won't expect you there (unless he knows how to flank too).
• Advanced topic: counter-flank the enemy. After several encounters, you'll notice the common path people take when they're trying to flank you. Anticipate his movement, move, and shoot him from a place he least expects. If there is only one thing that you remember from this manual, remember flanking/counter-flanking.

• When you hear somebody behind the door pulled a nade pin, what do you do? Run to him! Open the door and you basically catch him with his pants down, because he can't possibly get to his gun faster than you do, and his nade will not kill you instantly. Just remember to clear the vicinity after you nab him so you won't eat his nade. Learn when stealth movement is appropriate. In CQB, the pace is so fast you rarely have a use for stealth. However, there are times when stealth is necessary (like when you are the sole survivor of your team). Press the left thumbstick in, and you will walk in a crouched position. While walking that way, you'll have a tighter shot group, and you'll be less of a target.

Sensory

• Listen for your enemy. Get good speakers/headphones and listen to gunshots, footsteps, door opening, etc. Those sounds will help you find (or avoid) the enemy. A good set of speakers/headphone can at least tell you which direction the sound is coming from.
• Watch for movement. Sometimes the shadow will precede the person, use this to your advantage. Also when someone is rappelling down you can see the rope moving, this is a indicator that someone is coming down.
• When you are shot at and can't see the enemy, look at the bullet marks on the wall/floor next to you. Compute the bullet marks and your location, and you'll have a rough idea of where the shots are coming from.
• When flashbanged, the map in the upper right hand corner still works. Use it to direct yourself to safety!

Environment

• Unless you are reasonably sure that there is no enemy on the other side, never stand squarely in front of a door when you open it. Always use the cover system before opening the door; if there happens to be a machine gunner behind it, you can kiss your backside goodbye. In case you don't know, you can open a door from cover.
• Watch out for objects on the floor, they can impede your movement enough to ruin your day. It won't be fun when you're trying to back up or move sideways to get out of enemy's line of fire, only to be blocked by a stupid box or chair.
• Know that in most maps the enemy can be above as well as below you. This sounds like a no-brainer, but I've seen too many opfors that went by, practically next to me, just because I was standing on a wall above them, needless to say they didn't live long.
• As a general rule, you don't run past corners unless you absolutely know what's beyond that corner. Do a "slice-the-pie" whenever possible, which is a practice of moving sideways facing the corner but as far from that corner as possible until you can fully see around it.
• In defensive situations, use objects to cover you. Leaning allows you to see and shoot around an object or corner without exposing your entire body to the enemy's fire. This tactic can be very effective in defending an objective from enemies coming from a specific direction, but it usually means certain death when you are flanked (shot from behind).

Psyche

• The two extreme ends of your fighting spirit is boldness and cautiousness. Ideally you must swing from one end to the other as situation dictates. However, in CQB it pays to be bold. If boldness is 10 and cautiousness is 0, you should (on average) be at 7. At the beginning of the round you should be real bold, and be more cautious toward the end. By bold I mean move fast with no hesitation. Sure you'll get killed more, but if you know what you're doing you're gonna kill even more.
• Be unpredictable. If your movements are unpredictable, you have a better chance of surprising the enemy. I can't stress enough the importance of unpredictability, because when the difference between life and death is only 5 milliseconds, having the element of surprise on your side goes a long way.
• Adapt. The nature and strategy of the opposing team always changes. You need to think on your feet and adjust your strategy accordingly, all the time. For example, if opfor is a bunch of rushers, depending on your objective, you'll need to come up with a counter tactic, such as setting up an ambush or rush faster than they do. If they constantly kill you in one hallway, try the other. If they are a bunch of campers, move fast and snatch the objective before they realize it. I know I said you need to be bold, but when situation demands it, you MUST not hesitate to be cautious and stealthy. You get the idea.
• Anticipate. The hardest thing to master is the ability to predict enemy's movement, but it also has the biggest payoff. truth to the matter is nobody can accurately predict what an enemy will do, but if you can just be 25% right, your success rate will increase dramatically. How to learn to anticipate? Observe. Whenever you are playing a map, observe how people behave, observe how most people react to a situation, observe how most people move through a particular map, observe what positions in a map that are occupied by enemies at a particular time, that kind of thing. You will be surprised at how common people's behaviors are. This is also why being unpredictable is important, so you won't get killed by an enemy anticipating a common movement.
• Snap judgments. The game is (generally) only 10 minutes long folks, whatever decision you make must be instant. One of my pet peeves is people who can't make their minds and just stop. If you feel you need to hide, then go find some cover and duck. If you feel you need to rush, then sprint away. If you feel you need to be stealthy, then hug the wall and move slowly. But, in no circumstances should you just stop and stand there in the middle of nowhere thinking what to do.
• Experiment. This is only a game, don't be afraid to try new, crazy things. You become successful in this game by finding out which crazy thing works and which one doesn't. Don't sweat it if you got killed experimenting. At the end of the day when you turn your 360 or PC off, you'd still be safe and comfy in your Mom's basement. :)
  

[Lemon]

wow... Thats alot of text... ^^ Great tactics and tips! But I belive the biggest advantage is to know the map, like whisky mentioned.

[Lotek19]

Also im just wondering, what type of video capturing stuff are you using, what program to edit, and how you doing your narratives to the video?

cuz im betting its windows movie maker and fraps for some

[5ketch]

This post I state exactly what video editing software I'm using. Yes, I don't have the best elite software in the world (although I wish I did). I'm only using movie maker, xfire video capture, and my mic while playing.


I agree that knowing the map is very important, and I also agree that the movie is sorta boring if your not interested in becoming a better player. As I said I cut out alot because it was getting into around 30-40minutes of me just talking. :) Knowing the maps is very important, but it's not the most important thing. If you know how to move around properly, you can get away with not knowing the map so well. However, as I said, knowing the maps is very important, and if it was against someone who knew the maps vs someone who knew the maps and also knew how to move around properly, the second would almost always win.

Diving - Created in BF1942, I hate this tactic and it never works for me in COD4. It does work in BF2 and BF2142, but I regard this tactic the same as bunny hoping... If I play to win, I'll use whatever means necessary to win; if playing for fun, then I'll try to imerse myself into the gameplay by trying to be tactical. I mostly only play for fun, I find the younger players play to win... [shrug]

3d - Ok, your correct I should not have gone out to expose myself, but I wanted to explain how 3d works. So many people only think on the same floor/level. What if instead you flank above or below? It almost always works in your favor.

Stances -
Crouched - makes you silent, but it also slows you down. I'm to damn aggressive to be crouched when an engagement happens. :)
Prone - Because of the model (avatar) exposes way more than it should. If was to mirror real life tactics, I would never "stand or crouch" while looking around a corner - most enemies will be expecting that. Instead I would lay down and only expose my head a very little bit, peaking out if you will, but in-game not only is my head out, but my leg, my shoulder, and most of my weapon... not to mention clipping errors with my weapon going through walls... gay.
Leaning - Yep, important... as you'll see in my next video.


If I didn't mention it, this video, called basic skills are tactics for newer players. I recommend all new players watch the video and then go play single player (especially the first level or two) and then after that join a clan so they can see how other perform; as to improve their own "noobish" performance. Most average and above average players know all of this information already. :salute:

[[7IR]581|Pvt.Md2a]

Movement, Sensory and Psyche are all really good stuff. Very useful info, cheers.