Getting Better....

[[UA] Mos Def]

Hey Forum folks I have a quick question-

I have been playing CS for a long long time, but it seems like I still lack some of the tricks and techniques that are going to take me to the next level, so my question is: Can you guys post some things that have helped you become the pros that you are?

For example, changing your crosshair settings, or doing crap with the frame rates, etc....

Thanks,

Mos

[ZERO]

Flashlight on improves hit registration. The recoil for the ak is up and to the left so counter down and to the right. If you really want to do well having top of the line headphones and sound equipment is as if not more important than having a good computer. (And I mean stuff that is actually good not some bs "gamming" sound shit, I mean audiophile grade(see headfi.org)) I use a higher sensitivity than most players so that I can react faster, your better off with a steady hand and a fast mouse than a slow accurate mouse in an inaccurate hand. Learn the timing, in a lot of games there is a rhythm to particular maps learn this and you will know when to do what. It helps if you try playing music when your gaming to learn what type of music matches with a given map. Then over time as you learn the rhythm you can turn the music off and the sound back on and take your game to the next level. I have been doing this to improve my NS skills and now I am often one of the top 3 or above players in that game. I also used to do this in CS:S all the time when I played in CAL. Always make sure your rates are perfect and your fps is never <100.

[Fireye]

The best thing you can do is to play with people that challenge you, IMO. The next-best thing is setting your rates properly (100/100/25000 if your computer / network can support it). I personally don't make my crosshairs smaller, but I know that some people do. Really though, playing with people that are better than you will force you to be a better player yourself. Aiming accurately and being able to headshot is a valuable skill, but so is patience and knowledge of maps. If you know that your enemy can't get to a location before you, you can use that to your advantage. If you hear an enemy around the corner, bank a flashbang into their face!

[loka]

Aim low. The weapons in this game are shown from holding it with both hands at waist length and not over the shoulder. Weapons like the AK that kick up when you shoot will have an automatic headshot when you aim low. It's always been like this since 1.5 and it hasn't changed. What has changed is the ability to get easy HS in source because of the hitbox around the head as oppose to 1.5 1.6. Aim low.

[acolyte_to_jippity]

relax and don't overthink the game. yeah, try to win, but don't bust yourself striving for it. as your brain gets used to the game, you'll start noticing things that you didn't before, while you were trying super hard. Your eyes and ears will begin to process info natually, and your hands react automatically.

i've found a big difference in when i go carefully around a level looking for a "spot" and worrying about getting shot...and when i essentially relax and let my body take over.

also, communication with your team and teamwork is important. it's alot easier to relax and become absorbed into the game if you can trust your team to have your back.


oh, and clarion is amazing for long range.

[Spasm]

I am a pretty good cs player. I have been playing since 1.5, on and off. Here is a few tips from me:

Learn the maps, its important to know when you will meet the enemy, that way you will be on your toes and not suprised.

I know someone in this thread said aim low, but I aim for the head, and so does most top cs players, I used to watch CAL matches years ago, and they all aimed for the head, its better if you shoot 1 or 2 shots and get a HS then having to shoot more to get it. Plus most guns are amazingly accurate on the first shot.

I know this might be irrelevant but I used to play alot of aim_ maps years ago, to improve aim with the most used guns at long range. I'd suggest scoutzknives to improve sniping skills, fun map and you will learn how to snipe.

I play with a high enough sensitivity that I can turn around real fast if need be, but not much faster. I think too fast makes aiming harder in stressful situations while too slow makes it impossible to shoot the guy behind you.

Turn off automatic pick up for stronger guns option. Got me killed too many times.

I wear headphones and turn the sound up, it is important to know where your enemy is at just by the sound. You should be able to tell where they are and if they are friendly or not within a split second.

I have more but these are probably the more important ones. Good luck at getting better

[OMGBEARS]

[wall of text]

1) Invest in a professional gaming headset

5.1 true surround sound or 7.1 virtual surround sound is invaluable. It stepped my game up further than anything else I put money towards. Professional gaming headsets (such as the Steel Series 5h v2) are optimized for games like CSS and emphasize the frequencies that games use for sounds like footsteps, reloads, picking up the bomb, beginning a disarm, etc, etc. With my headset I can literally hear players exactly where they are on the map if they aren't being very careful before I can ever see them. I can also differentiate footsteps to tell how many there are, and how far apart they are.

2) Invest in a professional gaming mouse

Gaming mice (such as the Razer Deathadder or Naga) are developed with games in mind. That being said, they have a much more powerful tracking laser for improved accuracy as well as missing a few benefits of stock mouses or office mice. Those benefits include a really lame tool that non-gaming mice include which is the mouse can detect when you are trying to draw a line and cancel out small movements up or down. Anything under 5 degrees won't change the path of said mouse. With gaming mice the curser goes EXACTLY where you want it to with no filtering out small movements. A steady hand can be incredibly accurate. The day I got my death adder I tripled and quadrupled my score as a sniper in TF2. The stronger DPI laser and higher ultrapolling means lower response times and faster acceleration which translates into your crosshairs moving exactly when you want them to as well as when you left click you fire exactly when you need to without adding more than the absolute minimum to your response times.

3) Mouse Sensitivity

I started playing with very high sensitivity (around 9.5) and noticed that once I switched to a higher quality mouse (death adder ftw) that I got better results the lower my sensitivity was. Now I play with 2.5 for CSS and TF2 and it really works out wonderful. Low sensitivity and a big mouse pad (a gaming mouse pad - ~1foot/~1foot pad) will do great things for your accuracy. You have to move your hand around more, but you can also make extremely small adjustments if you need to. It takes some getting used to, but changing my mouse sensitivity alone helped me out big time.

4) Invest in a high-def monitor

Different monitors are better for different things. Some lower-quality monitors are opimized for viewing pictures. Some are optimized for watching video. You want ones with high refresh rates as well as high color and contrast quality in order to insure that when the enemy is there you can 1) see him and 2) react in time. HD gaming monitors are the best for this. You need to be able to SEE the enemy to kill him.

5) Learn about different weapons

Each weapon has a semi-unique recoil and are better for different circumstances. As ZERO and Loka mentioned, with the AK47 the recoil is up and to the left. The p228 is more accurate than the desert eagle when jumping or in the air. Weapons also lose their accuracies after a different number of shots. M228 is good for about 1 bullet before becoming extremely inaccurate at long ranges. The AK is good in bursts of 2 before losing accuracy, M1 can be used in bursts of 3, that sort of thing. It takes time to learn the popular weapons intricacies.

6) Watch demos of professional players

You can find demos of professional players on sites like ESEA which can teach you a lot of invaluable things. When to buy and when to save, what to buy when, hiding places, sniping spots, team-play stratagies, methods of throwing the different kinds of grenades, when to reload, tricks in terms of faking out the enemy (throwing a smoke grenade in place of a flash, or beginning a disarm then looking around for the enemy to pop out, for instance), these sorts of things can be learned from watching demos of professionals that have taken years, in some cases, to learn can be observed and absorbed by you in a few months time of dedication.

7) Play a lot

The more you play with proper techniques the better you become and more instinctive they become. The goal is to know when to switch to your pistol if you need to reload, when to flash, how to attack a position, how to defend a position, when to retreat, how to treat different weapons in different situations, which weapons are good for indoors fighting versus fighting at long range, etc, etc.

[/wall of text]

You can expect to invest around $500 into professional gaming equipment beyond your computer tower. ~350 on a good monitor, 80-100 for a good headset and 80 on a good mouse.

[maynard]

The best thing you can do is to play with people that challenge you, IMO. !

+10


Lol bears quit being a noob. investing in products does not make you any better. honestly. you're gonna tell someone 2 go buy a new HD monitor 2 get better at the game? Lol

you don't need any fancy anything 2 be good at CSS.. all you need is 2 know the maps, have good reaction time, and have good hand eye.

spending a buncha money on a gaming mouse and all that other crap wont make you any better, it will just take money out of your pocket.


play people that are better then yourself, go on the losing team more often, and have a challenge, and just keep putting time into the game.

You can expect to invest around $500 into professional gaming equipment beyond your computer tower. ~350 on a good monitor, 80-100 for a good headset and 80 on a good mouse.

only if you wana throw money out the window Lol. you cant buy skill, you can only progress and learn and get better by playing more. fancy exspensive objects do not make you better.

[acolyte_to_jippity]

take golf.

the most expensive clubs in the world don't mean shit if you don't have the experience to use them.

now, the reverse isn't true however.

all the slkill in the world won't help for shit if you're using crap equipment. tiger woods aint going to play right if he's using a croquet mallet for a driver after all.

you don't need super quality stuff, just normal quality stuff. take me. i have a standard set of nvidia gaming headphones (about 40 bucks on newegg) that get the term gaming because they have a boom mic, a 20$ bluetooth optical mouse from lenovo (which came w/ my comp)

ironically, the crappy mouse is working great because of a slight quirk in the driver, clicking the scroll wheel left counts as me pressing "k"...and completely by accident, i bound !ztele to k.

[OMGBEARS]

+10


Lol bears quit being a noob. investing in products does not make you any better. honestly. you're gonna tell someone 2 go buy a new HD monitor 2 get better at the game? Lol

Pft! You will definitely notice a huge difference if you go from standard stereo speakers to using a 7.1 virtual surround sound gaming headset. Being able to hear everything going on in a 20 foot area around you and being able to pinpoint exactly where footsteps are coming from, how many footsteps there are, if they are reloading, if they are going in different directions, etc, etc, etc, is priceless.

Same goes for the mouse, it's a large difference when you use a mouse optimized for gaming. I've used tons of mice before my death adder and can safely say that my death adder improved my game! It's more steady, more responsive, more accurate, has a faster response in terms of starting to move and stopping, has a smoother click and reset. Skill and experience can only take you so far before your hardware limits you. Hardware comes after experience, sure, but without the hardware you will never be as good as the guys with both skill and hardware. You do have to have the skill in order to fully appreciate the upgrade in hardware.

The HD monitor is less important, but important none-the-less if you want to fully optimize your game. Most professional players use similar set-ups not only because they're sponsored but because they're actually good set-ups that let them worry about the situation at hand rather than about their equipment.

EDIT:

The same is true with performing music. As a professional clarinetist I could make a plastic clarinet sound better than any beginning clarinetist. However, I couldn't do what I do with just a plastic clarinet. I need a professional set up in order to do so. Likewise, a beginning clarinetist couldn't just pick up my clarinet and play what I can play, they need the experience to do so.

TL;DR: Equipment matters.