Why do I suck at FPS?

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I'm no novice to First Person Shooters, and I play the "Battlefield" games a lot. I've noticed lately however, that I REALLY seem to suck at them compared to other players. I only just got done playing a round of Battlefield 2142, and save for some guy who joined later, I ended up in dead last with 13 points, while other people had absurd numbers like 24-50.

I really don't know what I'm lacking in, but it wouldn't bother me so much if I got killed every other time I engaged with an enemy. The only way I can seem to get points is by sneaking up on someone, or getting in a vehicle with some beefy armor and laying waste to infantry with a friggin' minigun, which is like going deer-hunting with a semi-automatic.

One on one however, just me versus another guy without vehicles usually leaves me dead. Either they run in at me while blazing their machine gun, or they take the ol' knife and try to run me down. Scenario A, unless I get a really lucky headshot in, typically ends with me struggling just to keep my crosshair over the guy while half my ammo hits air, and somehow every one of HIS shots hits me and leaves me to the worms. Scenario B usually ends in me plugging almost every round into him until I need a reload, and by then he's on top of me with the knife and I'm weaving like Jackie Chan getting my pistol out just so I can miss every shot at point blank and then get shived.

And of course, the rest of the time I'm just snuck up on by infantry units, because I'll be damned if I can locate the source of the murder and retaliate before I'm gunned down by someone I never even lay eye or crosshair on.

I realize that likely this is exactly like battle in real-life is, in which case if they institute the draft I might as well start writing my last will and testament, but seeing as I'm usually on the bottom 25% scoring in these games when the round ends, I have to wonder what's causing my epic failure.

Is there anyone here who shares my ineptitude, or else can offer some sort of FPS advice that I've missed out on in recent years?
 
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If you've been practicing for that long and still haven't gotten any better, it's something you have or you don't. You just don't have it.


But to try and ease the pain of your sickness:

Try to not spray, even if it means wasting seconds aiming, don't just shoot in the person's general direction, small quick bursts aiming in the chest/shoulders/head area = GG

Pause shooting every 1 second or so to make sure you're on target. Also, strafe edges to adjust your aim while maintaining partial cover.
 
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If you have no cover, go prone or crouch (though you should try to do that anyway for better aim). That will save your life in most situations (unless you're about to be run over or crashed into).
 
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You're prolly one of those bastards that panics and starts spraying like a bad painter as soon as you see something move.
 
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When shooting with automatic guns. Dont have a heavy triger finger.

Fire bursts of about 2 to 3 bullets every half a second. In other words just tap the button. That way your acuracy wont get affected by weapon recoil as much as when you just press and let hell fly.

If on open ground allways sidestep and jump. Change direction as often as you can and be sure to get some cover while laying short bursts of supresive fire.

That mostly works for me.
 
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Huh. Well, it's true that if I have something in my sights long enough I won't stop firing until I need to reload. I realize recoil-accuracy issue, but typically I start thinking that if I don't fire every second I can, that hesitation will get me killed. Usually these situations are in open ground without cover if any sort. I'll test the "burst fire" strategy and see what it does.
 
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It's important to learn only to fire when the opponent is directly under the crosshairs. Otherwise, by the time you sweep him with your weapon, you've lost accuracy due to recoil and have wasted ammo. With a shotgun, this is doubly important, as people have this miraculous dumb luck to pass over my crosshairs between shots. This is deceptively hard, and you have to fight the twitch reaction to point and shoot, but calm under fire goes a long way in all games. Anecdote: I was playing CS one night, and I was about to call it a night. "One more round," I told myself, "I'll just go for it, doesn't matter what happens." The map was cs_assault_upc, and I was on offense. I calmly ran the left way and up onto the roof. One of their better players stopped me with a headshot as I came out of the vent into the building, but only after I had killed 6 of his teammates on the way in. I'm sure it was a good part luck, but my playing that round was easily the best of my life. I was only alive for about 40 seconds, but I made them count.

Should you find your clip empty during a close-up firefight, don't reload. Switch to your secondary weapon and keep going. Odds are that you won't even have time to slide that second clip into place, whereas weapon switches are damn near instant.

Another thing to note is that performance in games, as in all things, is dependent on your physical state. If you're tired and hungover, expect to play like **** until you get pissed off and start screaming in German at your monitor. Being well rested and well fed (be sure to sit for at least 10 seconds while eating) goes a long way to improving your performance.

Watch other players. They've got it figured out, learn from them.

http://afirstpersonshooter.tripod.com/ <- A quick inspection showed some promise. It looks pretty old, but tactics and strategy are probably pretty much the same.

And another note: please keep the objective in mind at all times. The last thing I need is a bunch of morons on my team unfamiliar with "capture the flag."
 
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Just tried it on an Infantry only map with about 50 players. I got a couple kills...literally...2, and otherwise didnt do a god-damn thing. Rock bottom, as always, getting torn apart by fire from all directions, from hidden players, grenades and all sorts of stupid ****. Everyone else got an orgy of points I was missing out on. Hard enough to find an enemy at all before he finds you. Tried sticking with other players on my team who were in gunfights. They stand there letting loose for minutes at a time before getting inevitably killed; I poke my head 'round the corner for more than three seconds and I get insta-pwned as if I was suddenly a more appealing target than the guy who had been standing there like a turret for 30 seconds unloading his clip.

I honestly feel like I'm at some kind of disadvantage compared to other players. It may be partly due to 2142's ranking system and the fact that it's been out for a year that half the players have already achived the Master Commander rank or whatever and have all the unlocks and super-powered weapons they need to blow me away when I have the default assault rifle.

Maybe it wasn't wise to pick a map that was packed with players, but still when I'm trying my best and I end up unable to even get points for reviving dead people (amazingly enough couldn't find the people who had just died and were calling "MEDIC!!!") there's something seriously f*****-up, because I'm far from being a newb, and yet I never improve in FPS games...EVER, no matter how long I play them for.
 
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Simply put: you don't have the gift. If you try and try and try, but never improve in the slightest, then you simply aren't fit for that game genre.
 
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Maybe try something that isn't Battlefield. If 2142 is anything like BF2 it will be a nade-spam suck-fest.
 
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It has less to do with you sucking at fps and more to do with you sucking at 2142. The game, in a word, is bad. It's about as unbalanced as a game can get without being broken. I've sniped, I've assaulted, I've supported (probably my fav gun) and I've engineered. I'm actually pretty good at the game, but it doesn't change the fact that it's just bad.

Before you give up hope, try playing a regular fps and see how you do. I'd recommend CS or DoD (and their source counterparts). If you can master either, you'll have mastered every other fps out there.
 
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It has less to do with you sucking at fps and more to do with you sucking at 2142. The game, in a word, is bad. It's about as unbalanced as a game can get without being broken. I've sniped, I've assaulted, I've supported (probably my fav gun) and I've engineered. I'm actually pretty good at the game, but it doesn't change the fact that it's just bad.

Before you give up hope, try playing a regular fps and see how you do. I'd recommend CS or DoD (and their source counterparts). If you can master either, you'll have mastered every other fps out there.
I'd have to agree.

Really, if you can get pro at CS: S then by all means you are good at FPS. I remember the first time I played against actual people (as opposed to bots). And I could fairly easily kill expert bots. But these guys were on a whole other level; they would jump and shoot at the same time while moving. To me this was just madness. Get through that, and you can do pretty much anything in FPS.
 
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You wanna stay out of fighting? Show skills at a non-combat discipline of some sort.

Do your part, but in your own way.
 

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Just tried it on an Infantry only map with about 50 players. I got a couple kills...literally...2, and otherwise didnt do a god-damn thing. Rock bottom, as always, getting torn apart by fire from all directions, from hidden players, grenades and all sorts of stupid ****. Everyone else got an orgy of points I was missing out on. Hard enough to find an enemy at all before he finds you. Tried sticking with other players on my team who were in gunfights. They stand there letting loose for minutes at a time before getting inevitably killed; I poke my head 'round the corner for more than three seconds and I get insta-pwned as if I was suddenly a more appealing target than the guy who had been standing there like a turret for 30 seconds unloading his clip.

I honestly feel like I'm at some kind of disadvantage compared to other players. It may be partly due to 2142's ranking system and the fact that it's been out for a year that half the players have already achived the Master Commander rank or whatever and have all the unlocks and super-powered weapons they need to blow me away when I have the default assault rifle.

Maybe it wasn't wise to pick a map that was packed with players, but still when I'm trying my best and I end up unable to even get points for reviving dead people (amazingly enough couldn't find the people who had just died and were calling "MEDIC!!!") there's something seriously f*****-up, because I'm far from being a newb, and yet I never improve in FPS games...EVER, no matter how long I play them for.
I know how you feel. However, it's not always about being bad in FPS games in general but rather specific ones. I've been playing FPS games since Duke Nukem 3D was released and I can guarantee you that it's usually not you but how the game is.

I played Battlefield 2142 from when it was released to about a few months ago when I stopped playing. I sucked pretty bad at that game myself. The funny thing is that when I stopped playing Battlefield 2142 and started playing Battlefield 2 again, I did a hell of a lot better. Then, not too long ago I started playing Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (I still have the demo though, I haven't bought the game yet). I once again did a hell of a lot better in it than I did in Battlefield 2142.

However, one of the things that usually works for most people if finding out how the game works. By this I mean what you can do within the limits of the engine and of it's design, finding out what works, what doesn't and so on. You just need to be attentive to details and make note of them. Just be careful that you don't end up using an exploit otherwise you'll be scolded by the entire server.

One thing you can do if you have the time it to join a squad/clan. You'll learn a lot than if you went solo. I've only been on one squad during my entire gaming career, but I can tell you that being on there helped me a lot. We practiced every weekend, had a match just about every week with another squad, entered tournaments from time to time, it was a really good experience. One of the better aspects of it is that we had gone up against the best squads in the game, squads who were considered elite above all others. While I don't think we won against one of them, it was really fun. The pressure was intense and it brought out the best of me and my squadmates. We learned a lot more from playing elite squads than we did playing newly created ones.

This was just madness.
THIS IS CAKE TOWN!!!
 
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This is probably just one aspect of your problem but, try increasing your mouse sensitivity a bit, usually when you go against someone that can aim faster than you(and control it) they will have the upper hand. What i would try doing is increasing the sensitivity gradually, increasing only when you feel you've got a handle on on the current setting. It does help, you'll be strafing/aiming around faster.
 
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for a high vanity battlefield (which means ideal conditions i.e. alot of stuff to hide behind) stealth is the best weapon youll have.

your firing rate should vary with distance. at long distances a single bullet every second or 2. medium range 2-3 bullets a second/half-second, as they said. very close range, spray that ****.

keep your cool in a head-on firefight. the first thing you should do is take a second or 2 to aim for the head. if you fail at that, strafing is a key factor. randomly minimize your target by crouching every once in a while and use jump to add the variety thatll leave you un-predictabe.

if you have grenades, id use them either to move your opponent around (make him predictable) or to just kill him quickly
 
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First of all, I absolutely love 2142. Its so much more fun then BF2 or any other mp shooter I've played so far (and I played a lot)
But, Battllefield is very different from "simple" FPS games because there is no winning without at least some teamplay.
Still you can just run around as assault (yay! <3 the voss) and earn yourself a goldstar by just pwning on the frontline but your team might still loose terribly (been there, done that -.-)
If you want some practical tips to get better or some more insights about 2142, feel free to msg me on aim or something
 
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Maybe you are being too aggressive. Try hold an area and remaining defensive, only attack those who you have a good shot on or those who attack you from closer range. If you are getting sniped, then just get the **** out and run like hell until you find a new area to hold.

It shouldn't be this hard... have you tried playing halo? Thats a really easy FPS that i'm sure even you would have no problem getting kills in. Try practicing tactics and ideas on Halo before you go on to Battlefield 2 or other games like that.
 

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also has to do with reflexes, and adjusting to changing controls, but as you said before, you would just spray, bursting is really important (unless point blank) You'll want to avoid wandering into wide open areas unless you've got some friends (read: meat shields) with you to take some heat off of you.

I had the same problem with counter-strike, I was way too agressive, I'd see half the team shooting and retreating, shooting at the walls, throwing grenades, I'd get bored and be all "OMG JUST ATTOCK OMG"
and charge into a hallway...the otherside filled with people...after this happening to me about 3608263 times, I realized aggression isn't always the answer unless you're a maverick, which in my case at the time (and yours now)...you're not.
 
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walk Behind a teammate

or

get a good place hiding urself

or

just try to surprise the enemie by going the wrong way.


And yeh about your aim, never shoot while you walk, this is only needed when you're in danger. Always duck, or lay down if possible and shoot then, aim at the body first and shoot max. 5 Shoots out. thenn cool down and shoot again 5 more if needed.

I got myself a sensetive mouse, (in css its about 14.0 Sensitivity) as i always try to run into the Enemie and attack him with a good spray.

if not, i just stay wait tacticly.

since you have a problem like this i would suggest you a shotgun! :D
 

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