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7.0 STRATEGIES
7.1 SITUATIONAL AWARENESS: Paying attention to your environment is key to becoming an effective player. There are lots of ways you can gain intelligence on the combat going on around you and you should pay attention to all of them, all the time, at the same time. Look, listen and watch. Look at the player/server menu, see who?s killing everyone, pay attention to the weapon they?re using, pay attention to where they killed your last teammate. Look at the map, where are your teammates? Where are they encountering the enemy, who killed them and by whom. Listen to what your teammates are typing and voice chatting. They will let you know where the enemy is hiding and what they?re up to. Listen for footsteps coming towards you, listen to the enemy firing from the next room and what type of weapon it was, listen for an enemy to call for a medic, listen for a grenade being primed or for your enemy to shout a voice command or anything else that will give away an enemy?s position. Watch your teammates as they negotiate the map, where are they going, where are they dying, is a teammate retreating towards you because an enemy is coming or a grenade just landed? Situational awareness will take you from an average player to a great player so slow down General Swartzkoff and pay attention to what?s going on around you.
7.2 THE INITIATIVE: Most good players take advantage of this whether they realize it or not. I adapted this concept from playing Role Playing Games long, long ago. When you encountered an enemy you would have to roll a die for initiative to determine whether you or your enemy gets to attack first and I think it applies here as well. Depending on how you are playing at any given moment and how your opponent is playing at any given moment will cause you to gain or lose the initiative. What I mean by this is that the playing style, strategy, skill, map, location etc that two enemies are utilizing in a moment of time can affect whether one has the opportunity to get the upper hand on the other. Take the sewers in Kalt for example. If you?re camping prone waiting for the enemy, and an opponent comes running around the corner unprepared, you have the initiative and you kill him because you had more time to react. Conversely, if you?re camping prone, not paying as much attention because no enemies have come through in awhile, and I jump-crouch-shoot past the corner without warning, I have the initiative and you die. Initiative is basically whichever player gets that extra fraction of a second to react / attack an opponent. It not a tangible thing but I always imagine a little initiative meter on my screen. When you play in different ways you increase and decrease this meter by small increments depending on what playing strategy you?re using and your opponent is using at that given moment. I also speak about initiative in some of the subsections for each skill or strategy. Just something to keep in mind.
7.3 EXERCISE CAUTION: Rushing in like Rambo in most situations will make your kill per death ratio look like the national deficit. Don?t run around the sewer with your gun down by your feet, treat every corner and every hiding spot as though an enemy was there. By doing so, you raise your initiative on your enemy giving you an advantage.
7.4 CAMPING: Camping is staying in the same spot, waiting for an enemy to come along, not moving from that location for long periods of time. Now, a lot of players hate campers, but camping is a valid combat strategy and in some cases, necessary for defense of an area such as is the case for machine gunners. Excessive camping is staying in the same spot for extended periods of time without any strategic reason, meaning it doesn?t advance your team?s goals. In other words, if you?re camping the first flag, and your team is trying to capture the bridge, you?re not helping your team. On the other hand, camping in defense of an objective is acceptable. I often camp around the bridge in the map Kalt so I can stop the enemy from crossing under the wheelhouse into our side of the sewer while defending the bridge from capture by the enemy. I realize that as a new player your instinct will be to camp and that?s ok. Everyone plays and learns differently, just expect some teammates might feel as though you?re not being as useful as they feel you could be. Also, campers die. Machine gunners, campers by necessity, are killed regularly because the enemy is aware of their location. In the case of an MG you usually get a steady stream of grenades on your head, almost as though you were a grenade magnet. The same holds true for non-machine gun campers. If you sit at the top of the sewer ladder of your courtyard in Kalt and kill an enemy as they try to climb the ladder, you can be 100% certain that they will come back to kill you or at minimum alert their teammates to your location, and since you?ve lost the initiative in the biggest way (the enemy knows exactly where you?re at), they will change their method of attack to kill you after they respawn. Next time they will slow crouch-peek while aiming up or flank you and the next thing you know your dead body will be lying at the bottom of the sewer. My advice is to practice smart camping.
7.5 RUSHING: This technique could be called ?going Rambo?. Sometimes it?s beneficial to push forward without stopping, stalling or camping. In places where the enemy may not expect you to be you may surprise yourself (and your enemy) at how far you can go by simply rushing the enemy. I can?t tell you how many rounds I?ve won simply because I had the cahones to rush.
7.6 REPOSITIONING: This is most relevant when you are utilizing a camping strategy and is critically important for the Machine Gunner class, which is where I learned this strategy the hard way. As I mentioned before, once the enemy knows where you are they will come back to kill you or alert their teammates to your location. To regain the initiative you have to move, but you need to move intelligently. If you are not playing as an MG then it?s relatively easy to reposition but it?s a bit trickier as an MG since you become vulnerable once un-deploying. As when reloading, wait for some teammates to provide cover while you reposition yourself to a slightly different location. The enemy will then attack the spot you were in previously or rush in thinking you?ve died or left and you will have gained a huge initiative over them. So camp, but do it responsibly by repositioning to stay alive.
7.7 JUKING: Sometimes when confronted by an enemy face to face you will want to make it more difficult for them to hit you. This is especially relevant when you have run out of ammo or you?re holding an un-deployed rocket or MG in your hand. By jumping, crouching and quickly strafing you can make it more difficult for the enemy?s bullets to find their mark. You have invisible zones on your player/avatar called hit-boxes. These invisible boxes determine whether an enemy?s weapons register a hit or not. By ?juking?, you can make it harder for weapons to register in said hit-boxes.
7.0 STRATEGIES
7.1 SITUATIONAL AWARENESS: Paying attention to your environment is key to becoming an effective player. There are lots of ways you can gain intelligence on the combat going on around you and you should pay attention to all of them, all the time, at the same time. Look, listen and watch. Look at the player/server menu, see who?s killing everyone, pay attention to the weapon they?re using, pay attention to where they killed your last teammate. Look at the map, where are your teammates? Where are they encountering the enemy, who killed them and by whom. Listen to what your teammates are typing and voice chatting. They will let you know where the enemy is hiding and what they?re up to. Listen for footsteps coming towards you, listen to the enemy firing from the next room and what type of weapon it was, listen for an enemy to call for a medic, listen for a grenade being primed or for your enemy to shout a voice command or anything else that will give away an enemy?s position. Watch your teammates as they negotiate the map, where are they going, where are they dying, is a teammate retreating towards you because an enemy is coming or a grenade just landed? Situational awareness will take you from an average player to a great player so slow down General Swartzkoff and pay attention to what?s going on around you.
7.2 THE INITIATIVE: Most good players take advantage of this whether they realize it or not. I adapted this concept from playing Role Playing Games long, long ago. When you encountered an enemy you would have to roll a die for initiative to determine whether you or your enemy gets to attack first and I think it applies here as well. Depending on how you are playing at any given moment and how your opponent is playing at any given moment will cause you to gain or lose the initiative. What I mean by this is that the playing style, strategy, skill, map, location etc that two enemies are utilizing in a moment of time can affect whether one has the opportunity to get the upper hand on the other. Take the sewers in Kalt for example. If you?re camping prone waiting for the enemy, and an opponent comes running around the corner unprepared, you have the initiative and you kill him because you had more time to react. Conversely, if you?re camping prone, not paying as much attention because no enemies have come through in awhile, and I jump-crouch-shoot past the corner without warning, I have the initiative and you die. Initiative is basically whichever player gets that extra fraction of a second to react / attack an opponent. It not a tangible thing but I always imagine a little initiative meter on my screen. When you play in different ways you increase and decrease this meter by small increments depending on what playing strategy you?re using and your opponent is using at that given moment. I also speak about initiative in some of the subsections for each skill or strategy. Just something to keep in mind.
7.3 EXERCISE CAUTION: Rushing in like Rambo in most situations will make your kill per death ratio look like the national deficit. Don?t run around the sewer with your gun down by your feet, treat every corner and every hiding spot as though an enemy was there. By doing so, you raise your initiative on your enemy giving you an advantage.
7.4 CAMPING: Camping is staying in the same spot, waiting for an enemy to come along, not moving from that location for long periods of time. Now, a lot of players hate campers, but camping is a valid combat strategy and in some cases, necessary for defense of an area such as is the case for machine gunners. Excessive camping is staying in the same spot for extended periods of time without any strategic reason, meaning it doesn?t advance your team?s goals. In other words, if you?re camping the first flag, and your team is trying to capture the bridge, you?re not helping your team. On the other hand, camping in defense of an objective is acceptable. I often camp around the bridge in the map Kalt so I can stop the enemy from crossing under the wheelhouse into our side of the sewer while defending the bridge from capture by the enemy. I realize that as a new player your instinct will be to camp and that?s ok. Everyone plays and learns differently, just expect some teammates might feel as though you?re not being as useful as they feel you could be. Also, campers die. Machine gunners, campers by necessity, are killed regularly because the enemy is aware of their location. In the case of an MG you usually get a steady stream of grenades on your head, almost as though you were a grenade magnet. The same holds true for non-machine gun campers. If you sit at the top of the sewer ladder of your courtyard in Kalt and kill an enemy as they try to climb the ladder, you can be 100% certain that they will come back to kill you or at minimum alert their teammates to your location, and since you?ve lost the initiative in the biggest way (the enemy knows exactly where you?re at), they will change their method of attack to kill you after they respawn. Next time they will slow crouch-peek while aiming up or flank you and the next thing you know your dead body will be lying at the bottom of the sewer. My advice is to practice smart camping.
7.5 RUSHING: This technique could be called ?going Rambo?. Sometimes it?s beneficial to push forward without stopping, stalling or camping. In places where the enemy may not expect you to be you may surprise yourself (and your enemy) at how far you can go by simply rushing the enemy. I can?t tell you how many rounds I?ve won simply because I had the cahones to rush.
7.6 REPOSITIONING: This is most relevant when you are utilizing a camping strategy and is critically important for the Machine Gunner class, which is where I learned this strategy the hard way. As I mentioned before, once the enemy knows where you are they will come back to kill you or alert their teammates to your location. To regain the initiative you have to move, but you need to move intelligently. If you are not playing as an MG then it?s relatively easy to reposition but it?s a bit trickier as an MG since you become vulnerable once un-deploying. As when reloading, wait for some teammates to provide cover while you reposition yourself to a slightly different location. The enemy will then attack the spot you were in previously or rush in thinking you?ve died or left and you will have gained a huge initiative over them. So camp, but do it responsibly by repositioning to stay alive.
7.7 JUKING: Sometimes when confronted by an enemy face to face you will want to make it more difficult for them to hit you. This is especially relevant when you have run out of ammo or you?re holding an un-deployed rocket or MG in your hand. By jumping, crouching and quickly strafing you can make it more difficult for the enemy?s bullets to find their mark. You have invisible zones on your player/avatar called hit-boxes. These invisible boxes determine whether an enemy?s weapons register a hit or not. By ?juking?, you can make it harder for weapons to register in said hit-boxes.
