Last updated: 21/07/16

A lot of friends of mine are getting into Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Which is really cool, since it’s a great game that has stood the test of time. A minor inconvenience is that the game requires you to have a matchmaking ranking in a certain range to be able to play together.

Since I’m currently at the rank Distinguished Master Guardian (AKA the Sherrif badge), I think I can teach new players a thing or two. A player at my rank is supposedly at the top ~15% of players playing matchmaking.

Before you start playing

Mouse sensitivity

One of the first things I tell my friends when they start playing, is that they should lower the mouse sensitivity. This is something I can’t stress enough, since this is the single most important factor in you clicking the correct pixels on the screen.

Consider someone with a mouse sensitivity that is set too high. When this person tries to move his mouse a tiny bit to perfectly aim on the enemy’s head, the crosshair will just fly past the target. When sensitivity is set too high, it is impossible to be precise with the mouse.

Your sensitivity should be as low as you can handle. When you are being shot in the back, it’s mostly too late to spin 180 degrees, and kill the opponent before he kills you anyways. Therefore, there is not need to be able to spin around in one supple move of the mouse.

I personally use 850dpi, 1.0x sensitivity in game, with the Windows setting for the mouse set to the default value of 6/11. Here’s a spreadsheet that tracks the settings of professional players, for reference.

Don’t just set your mouse to a low setting right away. Keep lowering your current values until you no longer feel comfortable.

Game settings

Let’s take a look at the game settings. Under video settings, disable V-sync and motion blur. V-sync should be disabled, since enabling it will introduce a bit of a delay in your inputs.

Below, in the video setting there is a button saying ‘HUD SIZE’. Click it and set Horizontal Adjustment to its lowest setting. This will cause the UI elements to be closer to the center of the screen on widescreen resolutions, putting the minimap closer to your field of view.

Go to keyboard and mouse options and make sure mouse acceleration is turned off. Now scroll down and set up hotkeys for all the five grenades. Mine are on my mouse: the two side buttons are for smokes and flashes, scrolling down gives me a molotov, scrolling up a decoy and clicking the mousewheel gives the HE (high-explosive) grenade.

Now go to game settings and turn on the developers console. Some useful console commands to remember are voice_scale and cl_mute_enemy_team. The first one can be set to a value between 0 and 1. Knowing this command easily lets you control the volume levels of the voice chat, in case some guy decides he should yell the whole game. The second command instantly mutes the enemy team, so you can quickly put a stop to enemy shit-talking.

Scroll down to Item Options and enable ‘always show inventory’. You want to know without trying if you have any flashbangs or other grenades left at any point during the round.

Feel free to set all the other options in any menu to your liking. Be aware that in the audio settings, you should leave the music of at least the bomb on. This gives you an audio cue whenever the bomb is planted and when the final 10 seconds before detonation start. If you don’t have a defuse kit and you hear this music, you are unable to defuse the bomb in time.

The crosshair

Go into a bot match and fiddle around with your crosshair. Type in cl_crosshair to see all possible command (useful ones are cl_crosshairgap, cl_crosshairsize, cl_crosshaircolor, cl_crosshairthickness). I suggest using cl_crosshairstyle 5. This type of crosshair widens when you shoot, and closes when your accuracy is back to a 100%. Note that moving also decreases accuracy but isn’t shown. This allows you to still (pre-)aim your weapon when moving.

Play around with settings until you find something that works for you.

Gameplay guide part 0: before the game starts

The maps

Before you just jump into the competitive matchmaking, I advice on playing all the maps you plan on playing at least once in a casual gamemode to learn the layout. It is round-ruining if you don’t know your way towards the bombsite when it’s up to you to defuse it.

What also has to be kept in mind are callouts. It is crucial to be able to communicate where enemies are in this game. When your teammate tells you the final enemy is hiding in pit, you want to know where that is.

There is no need to know every callout to every map (as a beginning or even advanced player). You will find out soon enough what the most important callouts are. For example, I have never heard the callout ‘dog’ being used in a game, but ‘goose’ is quite common. When in doubt, just describe the (general) area.

Here are the callouts for the competitive maps. Note that some are also displayed in the top-left corner of your HUD during gameplay. Not all callouts are in the game like this, since some callout names are only used by certain communities.

Gameplay guide part 1: the game starts

If you have a microphone, say hello at the start of the match to your teammates. This is a good way to get the other players starting to talk as well, which will be really helpful for communicating during the rest of the game.

If you do not have a microphone, get one ASAP! Communication is key in this game.

You will start as either a Terrorist of a Counter-Terrorist. The Terrorists (Ts) will try to plant to bomb on defuse maps, on either bombsite A or B. The Counter-Terrorists (CTs) will try to prevent this.

Because this is a beginners guide, I won’t thread into too much detail on different attacking/defending tactics, but will keep it effective and simple. Don’t expect any next-level strategies in silver.

Defending

This means the most important strategy for the defensive side is to evenly defend the bombsites. Since there are five players, it is common for one player to take position in the middle of the map (if there is such a position on the map) to provide information on the movement of the enemies, while the remaining four players divide themselves over the two bombsites.

If two players are running towards bombsite A, don’t be the third person to defend that bombsite, go someplace else.

It is annoying for people to have to check every round what location every player is going. For that reason, you should announce if you play on going to a different bombsite next round, and generally stick to the same defensive location each round.

There’s no shame in camping. That is kind of the only advantage you have as a CT defending a bombsite. The enemy has strength in numbers, while you can hide, forcing them to scan the entire bombsite before planting.

If the bomb is spotted close to your bombsite, it warrants a rotation of the entire team. Chances are really high that the Terrorists will attempt to plant to bomb at this bombsite. In the case this isn’t happening, you will know by the stretch of time where the bomb is suddenly missing from the bombsite, indicating that the Terrorists are rotating to the other bombsite.

When defending, it is smart to keep some cover in your back or side. This ensures you can’t be hit from every possible angle. It also provides you a way to fall back behind the cover you are using if things don’t go your way.

Attacking

Because defenders are split up between bombsites, attacking is pretty simple in the lower ranks. Since you have the numbers advantage on a bombsite, simply moving towards it as group of five people is a good plan.

Once the bombsite is clear of enemies, plant the bomb as soon as you can. If you feel that the Counter-Terrorists are far away and you have time to plant in peace, try to put the bomb in the open. This means, that the bomb-defuser can be seen from many angles, making it extremely hard to defuse when there are still Terrorists alive: the defusing CT can be shot from multiple locations and is thus really vulnerable.

Since there is a lot of chaos in lower ranks, you can take the initiative and suggest a bombsite to go to. In addition, you can also specify the route you want to take. For example, you can say/type “We should try to go to A through short”. If you really want to be a tactician, you can also add extra information like suggesting to smoke middle to provide a safer passage.

For both sides

Passing on information

You died. Shit happens. This also (hopefully) means that an enemy killed you, and that you now know a bit more. At the very least, you know where the enemy killed you from, and thus his location. You might also see other enemies, and now know their locations as well.

In the death window, it tells you how many hits you have taken, and more importantly, the damage you have done to your killer. Do the math in your head (players start with 100 health points), and tell your teammates how much health your enemy has left.

There is a small window of time after you death, where you can still see the live game at the location you died. Note that you now can’t move the camera. Use this to see the direction enemies are going, and also pass this information on to your team.

In this game, people die in just a few shots, and there are at most five enemies to deal with at a time. Any piece of information on the enemy (location, direction and health) is crucial and can make the difference between winning and losing.

For instance, if the final enemy is low and your teammate has a sniper rifle, it easier to win for your teammate by hitting one pistol shot instead of hitting one sniper shot. Thus you should suggest him to switch to his sidearm.

Always keep in mind that giving too much information is less than optimal. It is annoying for people trying to clutch to process all the information under pressure. Keep it brief and concise. Let the player hear the enemies’ footsteps and only convey that what is useful in the situation.

The economy

Income

After every round, you normally get an income depending on the outcome of the last round. The more rounds you lose in a row, the more money you will receive up until a limit. Everything on end-of-round income, including a table, can be found here.

Also important to note is that SMGs, with the exception of the P90, give double the kill bonus as opposed to rifles ($600 vs. $300). Shotguns give triple ($900).

Eco rounds

It is inefficient to have one person gear up, when his teammates are broke and can only afford a few grenades and a better pistol. Each player being fully equipped increases the chances of the team. For this reason, it is suggested to either fully buy (armor, a rifle, grenades and a defuse kit on CT) or not buy, together.

Not buying or barely buying at all (i.e. just getting a better pistol and a single grenade) is called eco’ing. The aim here is to save up money so the whole team is able to buy the next round.

When one or more players have insufficient funds to do a full buy, another player can drop his weapon (so no grenades, armor or defuse kits) on the ground. By sharing funds this way, an eco round can be prevented. This act of kindness is called dropping.

Beware though, because people sometimes don’t realize they have been donated a rifle and end up buying a lesser weapon afterwards. This is a huge waste of funds. Either announce that you have dropped the player or wait until this player starts running away from spawn before being a second rifle for yourself.

Economy for the first three rounds

Much like chess, there are some default moves in the first three rounds of the game.

The first round of a half is called the pistol round. You start with $800 here. Buy (a combination of) armor, a better pistol and/or some grenades. HE grenades are effective in the first round since not all enemies might have armor. Buying nothing in the first round is a waste, especially since winning the pistol round dictates the flow of the coming rounds.

If you win the pistol round , you should buy an SMG. The main difference between SMGs and rifles is that SMGs have a lower armor penetration. Since losing the pistol round will mean you have a lot less money than your opponent, it is also unlikely for the enemy to have invested in armor. SMGs also cost less money and have double the kill reward. Banking on making SMG kills in the second round is a good way to earn yourself some extra cash.

You can either stick with your SMG after winning the second round or upgrade to a rifle. I advice you on sticking with the SMG on round 3 as a T since the CTs are still eco’ing. If you lose, there is no default action, it all depends on your team’s current economy.

If you lose the pistol round, you can either directly eco or buy armor and a better pistol to counter the SMGs on the other team and surprise them. I personally prefer to eco, since there is a big chance of you just throwing the funds and round away against the superior equipped team.

Gameplay guide part 2: hitting stuff

Pay some attention the next few times you are killed. Look at the amount of hits it took to kill you. For most weapons, it’s around 3-4 hits. This means that you only have to land 3 or 4 shots to make the kill. Hmm…

This means you have two options, controlled shots (tapping) and spraying. CS:GO has a system in which the recoil of the spray is always the same, and you could learn these patterns if you really wanted.

As a beginner, you can really outgun the enemy at low skill levels by just landing all your shots. The opponent will most likely spray without any sense towards your direction, missing the far majority of shots.

My advice thus is: shoot one or two bullets, and then wait for your recoil to (almost fully) reset (watch your crosshair if you changed it to a dynamic one). Repeat until the enemy is dead. It’s better to take your time than spend more time aimlessly shooting all your bullets without hitting a thing.

Also watch the placement of your crosshair. Aiming at a wall or floor is useless. It is advised to keep your crosshair on the points where the enemy could come from, preferably at the height of their heads.

Gameplay guide part 3: winning rounds

Reading the map

Reading the map is incredibly important. For this reason, you should zoom the minimap out so you can see what is happening everywhere. Use the console to set cl_radar_scale to 0.4 (or preferred value, try some out).

The most important thing to read from the map are enemy positions. Red dots are enemies currently in sight by yourself or an teammate. Question marks are old positions of enemies who fled your team’s sights. Crosses are of people who recently died.

Enemy decoys will always leave a red dot on the map. You can easily deduct if a red dot is a decoy or not by the noise, and checking if any ally has sight of that location on the map.

Each enemy can have a maximum of one marking on the map. For example, if an enemy was spotted and left allied sight, it will show up as a question mark on the map. If he then re-enters allied sight his question mark will disappear and a red dot will be drawn.

Knowing this, we can make well-informed decisions on where to go as the attacker.

Using (information from) the minimap

This is really simple, but a lot of people in the lower ranks are oblivious to it. If there is a majority of CTs defending one bombsite, you should probably rotate to the other bombsite. So, if there are three CTs left, and two of them are defending bombsite A, your best odds are on bombsite B, assuming they keep this division of players. Same goes in the more common situation where three CTs out of five are seen on one bombsite.

It is important to be aware of the parts of the map that are safe for you to traverse, and which parts you risk getting shot from.

Take a look at the image above. Assume you are the player on bombsite A. Normally, the enemy can take three routes to your position, as indicated by the red arrows. Because there is a teammate watching the middle, enemies can not cross here without your team knowing it. This results in you only having to pay attention from the two paths in front of you.

Don’t forget to transmit the information you received from the map. Not everyone is using the minimap properly, so it’s safe to assume your teammates aren’t getting the same information from the map as you’re getting.

Grenades, in short

I’ll keep the final section short since going in depth will take quite a few paragraphs.

There are two grenades in the game that are the most useful: flashbangs and smoke grenades. HE grenades do surprisingly little damage unless the grenade lands at the enemies’ feet. Molotovs are more expensive than smokes and provide less utility. Decoys don’t have a real use in the game.

Flashbangs

Flashbangs are essential to entering a bombsite or areas that have an enemy camping in it (think common sniping spots).

If the enemy camping sees the flashbang, he has to avert his vision away from the grenade, forcing them to readjust their aim after the explosion. This will buy you some time to move in. However, if the enemy doesn’t look away in time, he is blinded for a few costly seconds, in which you can move in and have a big advantage to make the kill.

Smoke grenades

Smokes create effective barriers.

It is useful as defenders to smoke of an entry point of the bombsite. If the enemy crosses, he has no information until he gets out of the smoke. Imagine running into a bombsite having your eyes closed, only to open it the moment you are in the open. CTs have the first shot in this situation. The same applies for defending the bombsite after the bomb has been planted.

When attacking, it is possible to smoke out common camping spots or sight-lines by using smokes, effectively removing a spot that you have to check before planting. Most of these ‘smokes’ have to be learnt though, if thrown from a safe point on the map.

In short: use flashes when you are entering a potential unsafe area to gain the advantage. Use smokes to reduce vision to increase your chances of defending and even attacking.

In conclusion

A lot of lower rank players are clueless on how they play CSGO. By staying calm and using these tips you can easily improve.