CS Factors; Differing good players from bad

[Sc0rPi0n]

Alright, I know I said this in vent but i'll make sure everyone knows EXACTLY what I am talking about when I say factors. Factors is what CS is all about. From teamwork, to individual skill, to strat calling, the difference between somebody with ungodly aim to someone who just plays their roll. Now listen up, what you don't know will get your team killed.

When you are using factors, you are using every advantage that you have against every disadvantage logged against you. By taking advantage of %'s, terrain, and #'s, you can defeat your opponet w/o ever having fired a gun. I'll go over these factors in more detail and break down what types there are.

#1 Individual skill factor

This is the most obvious one. The key here is to decrease the amount of reaction time it takes to accomplish an objective. Whether that is getting a frag, throwing a grenade, or moving to a point on the map. Secondly, it is to decrease the amount of reaction time it takes for you to take initiative when performing these objectives.

a)Aiming. Alright, first and obviously you have to practive your aiming. I recommend shooting at a wall..duh. But there are many situations that a non-moving object will never help you with. There are alot of skill tricks I will go over in a map, but I am going to break down the simple things you can do to improve your reaction time and aim w/o doing this..its only getting into the habit.

1a)Aim at head level: Do not aim at the ground, aim at where their head would be if they peeked

2a)Keep crosshair ready. When you are running a strat, your crosshair is you. Where it is, is where your priority is. Don't ever take it away, when you are moving you are moving oblivious to where your crosshair is, this way when an enemy appears you will be ready to fire.

3a)Mobility. If you are squating, it is harder to move. If you are standing, easier. When you are moving about, be sure that you are taking advantage of your mobility vs accuracy. When you are not required to move, squat and use cover so that your accuracy increases, and so that you become a smaller target.

b)Initiative. What I mean by this is by doing things w/o having to think about them..until they become second nature. This will require lots and lots and lots or practive. And then when you scrim, or match, alot more; because you will also be fighting your nerves. There are lots of examples that I won't get into right now, but the main thing is that your own head is your most powerfulest tool in CS. When I played, I had 2 heads. One was my aiming/performing head, the other was my initiative head. What do I mean?

1b)You assess every situation past your own that is going on in the map. If you hear something, someone yells something, or w/e, you take that in, process it, and change up what you are doing accordingly. If 2 enemies die, you should immediatly assess where they died at, and what you can do at that point to take advantage of the #'s/positioning. If 2 teammates die, you should immediatly assess what you should do to minimize the advantage the other team will get from it.

2b)Likewise, you need to be able to take initiatives w/ objectives. In an instant you should realize that your the only one left, the bomb has been planted, and what you should do to kill the remaining terrorists and defuse the bomb. For instance, 3 terrorists and you have no idea where they are at. You get into the bomb site, first thing you should be doing is looking for terrorists and trying to identify where a defuse kit is if you don't have one. At this point almost every advantage the terrorists have. If you see a terrorist, use every factor you have available to kill him, or any terrorist you see. If they refuse to peek, fake defuse the bomb to try and draw them out w/ your crosshair pointed at where they might be waiting. All of this, being able to do w/o hesitating is part of the individual skill factor.

#2 Terrain Factor

In every map there is terrain that you have to deal with. Most maps are designed to give both terrorists and counter-terrorists advantages. Using the terrain to its full potential is how successful strategies are devised and how they are executed. An example would be catwalk in dust2. Smart terrorists will flash/nade it in an attempt to push up, smart counter-terrorists will flash over wall and use the cover to kill the terrorists as they come up it. The #1 thing is to remember that in every situation there is an advantage and disadvantage to be had. Using every advantage and trying to eliminate every disadvantage is the key to victory. Just remember your terrain factors as you are trying to execute a strategy, and that you have to eliminate spots that counter-terrorists might be hiding in order to push up...as they do not know for sure where you are going, and you don't know where they are.

#3 Positioning factor

This is all strategy here. If people are intelligent about how they hold their positions, and are good at it...you can really start to take advantage of it as a strategy caller; and the real chess game begins. Now, where the previous 2 factors were either self advantages or map advantages, these factors CREATE advantages, and open up additional factors. Now as a strat caller, there are many different things you have to take into account.

1)Money: Who has a money advantage. Does your team have enough money to perform certain strategies? Maybe a teammate has enough money to buy 2 guns. Does the other team have all awps? Are they gun-running?

2)Rounds won-loss: Sometimes it is ok to take a loss if you need money, or w/e. Maybe identify what is working and what isn't and change it up.

3)Momentum: If the other team has won a few rounds, they are probably building up cash. Maybe you need to have a save round, in the very least killing 4 of the other teams players..whether you lose the round or not can give you momentum.

All of those factors can effect the way you call a strategy. I am not going to go over strategies here, but I will identify several points in a strategy that are keys to creating advantages.

1) Eliminate CT positions: Pretend that a map is like a battleground. Robert E. Lee might want to flank, or charge up the middle, or pound on the enemy with artillery before he sends in some troops. But the key to all of his victories is that he controlled the terrain, or moved his troops to take key parts of the terrain before he initiated a strategy. The same holds true in Counter-Strike. By eliminating where a counter-terrorist can go, you force them to bottleneck their positions until they are bogged down, leaving themselves open to nades or crossfire. Being able to take certain parts of the map w/o giving up your true intent is key. So when I say take long A, if the other team thinks "they are rushing long A", than they might get screwed if someone in B tunnels heres them rotating.

2)Positions: As a CT, you know your job is to hold a certain part of the map. Even if you must die, you can't allow your opponets to get to a certain position or you allow them to open up cross-fire on your teammates on their blind spots. As a terrorist, you need to understand that there are 5 crosshairs looking at 5 different parts of the map. You have to trust your teammates that these spots on the map are being guarded, and you need to make sure that you guard your spot. When you are moving to perform a strategy, this doesn't change. AT ALL TIMES YOU MUST HAVE YOUR CROSSHAIR WHERE THE OPPONENT IS MOST LIKELY TO COME OUT AT. Now, when you are about to attack or defend, having 2 crosshairs in that position is better than one; likewise, you could always have somebody I like to call a "floater" whos main job is to set people up and get ready to toss a nade/flash. This also has an advantage. I'll give 2 examples of these and then cease to bore you all.

Example #1: Dust2 3 CT's in A, 1 mid, 1 B

2 Counter terrorists get set up at long A. One guy goes to ramp, the other "floats" near wall to help him get in position, at this time one counter-terrorist goes catwalk and tosses flashes, and the 2 other counter-terrorists head to B to cut off an initial rush. The floater comes back and checks middle from long A, and everyone listens for information. If there was not an initial rush, the guy who went B will come back and hold middle, and the "floater" from long a will prime a grenade and get ready to toss it on catwalk, and the counter-terrorists will hold their positions. If the strat caller notices that B seems to be a little week and the other team is taking B, an alt-setup would have 2 counter-terrorists in B, 1 counter-terrorist mid, and 2 counter-terrorists at long A getting set up. Once everyone is set up, the "floater" at long A will come back to A and listen for information coming from the guy at mid. If a smoke hits middle, it is up to the middle guy to flash over the wall and guard middle from CT spawn as he slowly makes his way up to A. If not the case, everyone remains set up. Likewise, in B, there needs to be a main gun checking tunnel from somewhere in the sight, and either a second gun or a "floater" with nade primed.

Terrorist, a couple of examples could come from the strategy I gave the other day. The floater was the guy who flashed off the wall right before the terrorists pushed up Catwalk.