Dinnea get it ken?

Meant to reply to this yesterday mate, but tbh it’s hard to put my finger on how I’ve managed to pick this up, and that’s probably because I’m still not really that good at it. Don’t worry too much about being crap early on though because it’s a difficult game to adjust to when you’re not used to the style, and that’s even when you have been playing FPS for years. I’ve slowly made the transition, and since I’m starting to rack up some decent scores regularly, I’m confident not all the advice here will be useless, but of course I’ve only been playing it about a month myself 🙂

I think the most important place to start is in learning the maps, as once you know the routes people take, you’ll know where to find targets, and which alleys not to go charging down blindly 🙂 Maybe even before that though, and while it’s definitely worth trying out all the classes and eventually learning them all, I’ve found it helpful to stick with one class exclusively, and learn it first. I think there would be a general consensus that Medic is the best choice for this, since as a backup class you’ll be following the action, and allowing others to take the lead in terms of the routes travelled. From the Medic’s perspective you’ll see where people like to set up camp, and how others operate in assault and defence, and you’ll see the spots where best to drop medic packs, and also the areas where people generally die the most. The light machine guns carried by the Medic’s are also pretty good, dealing good damage at a high rate, and you’ll rarely run out of ammo with the huge ammo clips on them. Medic is not an assault class though, so don’t charging into the thick of the action if you can help it because the specialisations which maximise your medic abilities, don’t give you much in the way of combat bonuses in the middle of a fight.

As far as aiming goes, though again this comes mostly from a medic’s perspective, you need to stop, and kneel before shooting, as a general rule. Obviously there are exceptions, like at close quarters versus someone who’s seen you coming, but your aim will be much better crouched, sitting still, and also firing in short bursts. The other classes vary a bit in this, like the Engy for example, who can fire and move a bit easier than you can with Medic. Hopefully Stalker will chip in with some Assault advice, as it’s one class I haven’t quite managed to get to grips with yet myself.

A few other general bits of advice. Try and stay away from Hardcore servers initially as you have no mini map, which is crap when you’ve no idea where you’re supposed to be heading. You have a big clumsy map you can pull up for reference, but it takes time. You also don’t have spotting, which to me is a big part of the game, and when available try to spot people and manned vehicles as much and as often as you can. Even if you don’t get the kill, it’s invaluable information to the rest of your team, contributing a lot to the team effort, and is rightly awarded with points when it leads to a kill. If you’re in a squad, don’t blindly spawn on team mates, as you can easily die if you pick someone in the middle of a firefight. If they are in a fight, you can sometimes help them out, but you’ll need to be aware of your surroundings and quick when you spawn.

Finally a word on snipers. Almost everyone claims to hate them, and rightly so. They are the class people chose when they want to boost their K/D ratio and have little interest in the team effort, so generally the people who play sniper are a waste of space. Having said that though, there are some awesome Recons out there, and if you watch a few frag movies on youtube, you’ll see the class can actually be played very effectively, but take note of the way the guys play, especially in how they are not playing the game from the same spot for hours on end. You need to be aggressive in this game with every class, including recon, so don’t fall into the trap of thinking it’s a sitting class. Move around all the time, try and flank the opposition, and play the objectives. It’s the most satisfying way to play, and the most rewarding, although you’ll need to know the maps to play it well. Oh and I’m not saying you do this, just saying before you see others doing it and think it’s the correct way to play Recon 🙂