Tips on Aiming for a new player to PC FPS
Highlander92
Join Date: 2012-10-13 Member: 162257Members
Join Date: 2012-10-13 Member: 162257Members
Hi there this is actually the first FPS that i've played on PC and im finding quite difficult to aim. I've been playing around with my sensitivity constantly but i cant seem to find one that works. I was wondering if perhaps there were any tips someone could give me to help me improve.
Thanks :)
Thanks :)
Comments
Find a sensitivity that isn't too high or too low because you need to fine aim in this game, but also be able to do 180's quickly as well.
Always try to predict where your enemies are going and aim accordingly. One of the largest factors in having good aim is staying calm, and not panicking when you see an enemy. If you believe you are going to make the shot then you will... if you doubt yourself you will likely miss.
When I use the shotgun I tend to let the enemies move into my crosshair or make small adjusted twitch shots. The LMG is all about tracing the enemy... which simply takes pure practice.
How you grip your mouse is very important too. Make sure you have a firm but relaxed grip and don't be too lazy with moving your mouse. You can give your hand a workout playing this game if you are doing it right...
Heres one of my frag videos to show what a more experienced player will look like when aiming.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKjtys4e9Hc&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKjtys4e9Hc...eature=youtu.be</a>
Also, try to keep your eyes focused on the middle of the screen, and stare through your crosshairs... if that makes sense. Don't look at your crosshairs because that will be a distraction in itself. Peer through them and focus on the center.
Second, find a sensitivity that feels right. Some people like moving their whole arm, some keep the arm mostly still and just use wrist movement. Obviously the former will use a much lower sensitivity. This will take a lot of trial and error, even after you've mostly settled on a style. Personally, I have my sensitivity such that I do a 180° turn going from a neutral position to almost a far as I can rotate my wrist left or right without moving it (wrist stays still, hand and fingers rotate). Then if I really need to keep spinning (skulk circling around my feet), I can transition into whole-arm movement to keep up.
Most important is that you keep this consistent across all games you play so that you can develop muscle memory. This means you don't have to think about it anymore: you see an enemy at some position on your screen and you can snap right to him.
To expand on this, this plays more into posture and proper desk height as well. First and foremost you want to be in a position that is comfortable and allows range of motion for your mouse hand. How I do this is to have my desktop at a height that keeps the top of my hand and forearm straight (simply put I do not bend my wrist at all). This allows for big sweeping mouse movements with my whole arm and small switch reactions with just my wrist. The only bend at all in my wrist is to conform to the contour of my mouse. Which leads into the next point. Your mouse should feel comfortable and natural in your hand. If it feels awkward to hold, it is time to buy a new mouse.
This video is for starcraft but a lot of it still applies to FPS and gaming in general with mouse movement. It is worth a watch.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUohpQKVf_A" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUohpQKVf_A</a>
A lower sensitivity will help you to be more accurate, so as Kenichi said only increase it as far as you need it to go in order to turn around quickly to shoot at skulks.
One of the things I've learned is to not freak out. When I get in firefights or close combat situations I tend to lose my cool and start jumping around everywhere and firing at everything. The jumping around part is good, but I've learned to not shoot as much unless I am sure I am going to hit something. More often than not, if you keep your cool and time your shots you will come out as the victor.
As a marine, shooting at the different aliens requires different tactics.
-Vs skulk, keep your distance when using an lmg. Stagger your squad positions so you can cover each other, and shoot at your teammates feet if they are being attacked. With a shotgun, wait until the skulk gets pretty close, then fire at the center of his body. The more pellets that make contact the less shots it will take to kill him.
-Vs lerk, with lmg it's very difficult, learn to track his flight and shoot him down. Shotguns are easier, wait for him to fly right by you and try to get a full body shot with the shotgun. Use pistol to finish off as he retreats (same for skulk).
-Vs fade, you have to have shotguns and teammates. Never let him get behind you. Treat him like a charging bull: you wait for him to blink toward you, then you jump to the side and fire your shotgun right where he WILL be when he comes out of blink. You have to time it just right. Do this right, with teammates, and it will only take 2 or 3 shots to bring him down.
-Vs onos, you need three things: upgraded weapons, teammates, and better location. You won't be able to finish off an onos quickly enough without level 2 or 3 weapons. You also won't be able to take him down without at least 2 or 3 teammates. You all have to fire at the onos at once to bring down his health--if he has a gorge behind him, take those out first. If he retreats, you can try to chase him down and pistol snipe him, but make sure he isn't baiting you. The third is location--try to hide behind railings or at a lower/higher elevation so that if the onos charges you or uses stomp, you have something to maneuver around to dodge him.
As an alien:
Skulk: There are three bite cones, each one a little bit wider and doing less damage. Practice in explore mode to learn how wide each one is. You should try to make all your bites in the exact center, to get the full damage each time. Also learn what the bite range is, it's a bit further than it looks graphically. Try to remember the skulk works best as an ambusher, not as charging in to the front lines.
Lerk: Don't stop moving, don't fly in straight lines. Pretend you are drunk and trying to do a flying ballet of death.
Fade: Hit and run tactics. Don't move in predictable patterns. Use blink to dash in when a marine doesn't expect it, do a bit of damage, and blink out. Rinse and repeat. Don't get greedy, retreat to heal if you get to 1/2 health or below. Don't blink into groups of marines/exos, especially if they have shotguns.
Onos: Learn the range of your main attack, it's further than it seems. Don't rush into groups of marines without support unless you know what you are doing. Always have an escape plan. Don't over-commit to an attack. Do NOT die, as your life form is very valuable and costs a lot of res. Try to have a team of gorges backing you up, and coordinate with other life forms when you attack. Stomp is a bit buggy, don't rely on it too much.
Then practice, get used to it. It will take a while.
EDIT:
And prepare yourself: you will hate to play FPS games on consoles after being good on the PC. They are made for a mouse.
Also, a huge part of killing aliens isn't necessarily being able to kill an alien whose trying to chomp your behind... it's about listening, locating, and positioning. Make sure you have the advantage in each firefight you can, plenty of room between you and potential enemies, that sort of thing.
- Turn off mouse acceleration if you haven't already. It makes the distance the crosshair depend more on the speed your hand moves than the distance your hand moves. This adds an extra layer of complexity your brain needs to process, and therefor makes aiming more difficult. Turn it off in your windows settings as well to practice while not in game.
- There are 3 types of aiming. Tracking, snapping/twitching, and leading. You use tracking with the LMG or pistol. Snapping with the Shotgun, and leading with the GL (target leading isn't very used in NS, Tribes, for example uses it much more)
- Tracking: a target is moving, try to keep your crosshair centered on the target the entire time you can see it. The more the target moves the harder tracking will be. If you are moving too much, you make tracking harder on yourself, however, if you and the target both move in the same direction, from your relative perspective the target is now moving slower. Good tracking is mostly about not moving when you don't need to, and moving to make your shot easier when you do need to. (obviously you still want to dodge attacks, so don't plant your feet and refuse to move as soon as you start trying to track, mostly you want to kind of try and practice moving to match the opponents movement actually, the "feeling" of it is most important. Practice.
- Snapping/twitch: This is very simple. when you see the target, snap onto the target for an instant, shoot at exactly the right time, rinse repeat. To some degree waiting for a better shot can be good, but don't overthink this. An obscured shot that hits accurately is usually better than a shot not taken. Practice.
- Leading: your target is moving, but your bullets don't instantly hit where the crosshair is. Basically, this means you have to aim infront of where the crosshair is. The truth of this, it's a complex mental process, but a simple physical process. You have to have some idea how far away your target is, how quickly they are moving, how much delay your projectiles have at that distance. It's best not to try to think through this, but rather just try to do it and feel out the optimums. Practice.
- To get better at any of these, just practice.
- use the type of aim you need for the situation you're in. don't try to track with twitch weapons for example. Snapping to the target is more effective when you don't have to worry about keeping the cross hair directly on the target for all that time you can't possibly be hitting the target anyways. I find I am most accurate twitching to my upper right, so I'm better off having my crosshair to the lower left of a target when I'm between shots.
- You have to combine these 3 a bit. For NS, the weapons pretty clearly fit into one category or another, but for example, if you are using an LMG and you see a skulk, you don't want to slowly drift over to him, snap to his position so you're wasting as little time as possible, and immediately out of the snap track him. If you play more FPS games in the future you may have to combine things even more. Tribes combines leading and tracking for example. Rockets in TF2/Unreal combine leading and twitch.
- in the end mechanical aiming (all the stuff I'm saying here) is only half the battle. You also need to be in the right place at the right time. Skulks like to hide around corners and what not, so don't mindlessly go around corners without checking first. Half of good aiming is having your crosshair in the general area your target will be before you actually see it. Aim at doorways you expect aliens to come through, listen for lifeforms so you know where they are before you see them, anything you can so you don't waste time spinning around to acquire a target you knew about well before it actually came into view.
In Q2 I used to make a point of gibbing any bodies lying around whilst I was running, people would watch and ask 'why?' but to me, If I couldn't hit a stationary target whilst moving I wasn't going to have much luck in a full combat situation.
Are you absolutely sure of that? These sorts of weapons have almost always been hitscan (infinite velocity, zero travel time) in FPS games. They definitely were hitscan in NS1. Both games have latency correction to make them behave this way consistently regardless of network latency.