So I have been playing about a month now, and I thought I would share some of the things that took me from going 1 kill per 6 deaths to a roughly even ratio.
Don't get me wrong, I know I am far from good and I am sure that these tips will be too simple for experienced players, but since there are probably a lot of people that just got the game for christmas, I thought I would give my one-month insight on how to go from horribly bad to just normally bad.
Also, this is for players who didn't play Socom 1/2. So many people are veterans of the previous games that there are really simple tricks/knowledge that is taken for granted by everyone but that a complete newbie (like myself) doesn't know.
1. Aim for the head. It really makes a difference. How much damage your gun does to an enemy seems to be a function of several variables (distance, body part shot, attachments, type of gun, etc). But when I am conscious about forcing my target up a hair more towards the head, I get a lot more of those insta-kills where it seems like they go down in one bullet.
2. I have taken to standing instead of crouching for the above reason. I know it makes me more visible, but when I am hiding around a corner and pop out on an enemy, I find starting from standing makes my target more naturally at head-level of my enemy.
3. Shoot fast. Shoot fast. Shoot fast. It took me a long time to realize how important it is to get the first bullet into your enemy. At our newbie level a lot of your 1v1 firefights will end with one person in the red on health. If you got the first bullet into him, then you are more likely to be the one still standing.
4. Frustrated by your grenade throws? I spent a month wondering why some people could chuck that grenade halfway across the map and I couldn't. The grenade goes soooo much farther, faster and on target when you are standing straight up. I am sure a ton of people know this, but I didn't for a month.
5. Keep moving in a firefight. I think even newbies know this one, but it is so fundamental to surviving that I had to include it.
6. You will hear people say "my gun is hot at X" or "gun up at Y" -- I knew that this meant they saw enemies but I never knew why they used that language. If you pay attention to your character, you will see that sometimes he pops his gun up like he is suddenly alert. This happens when an enemy is nearby. I know this is like super-old-news to most people, but you would be surprised how easy it is not notice this if you don't know to look for it.
7. If you are going to adjust your controller settings (dead zone, accel, and speed) don't go too fast. I spent a long time at the very fast settings trying "force myself to learn them." But then I talked to some players who do really well... four stars going 20-0 and such... and they all told me that they had pretty slow settings. I settled on LookSpeed: 3/4 full, Accelleration: 1/3 full and Deadzone: 1/2 full.
You are a little slow if you get surprised from behind, but in this game if you are surprised from behind you don't have much of a chance anyway. Even at the highest speeds. So I think better to have a more solid aim for when you have the drop on someone.
8. Turn the vibration off of your controller. It really helps.
9. Consciously focus on staying calm. Getting panicky when attacked leads to erratic aim. If you can learn to not get the jolt of adrenaline
when you are attacked, you will do much better. As an aside, this fact
is why I think so many people swear that weed makes them better
socom players. It dulls that adrenaline surge when surprised.
Okay, so that is pretty much my one-month newbie knowledge about how to improve. Hope it helps some of you one-day newbies out there have more fun with the game.
wr.
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