what makes counter strike counter strike at a fundamental level?

-hitboxes are very small

-playermodels are very small

-engine is physics based which leads to complexity in terms of movement and grenade usage

-time to kill is very fast higher skilled players will have a lot of 1 shot kill potential with ak, deagle, awp, and scout, mainly.

-damage is not uniform, different parts of the player model take different ammounts of damage

-each gun has a unique recoil/style of play that it is suited to/cost to buy/ expected value that you can get out of it/situation that it works well in

-gun inaccuracy while moving

-movement system based on acceleration not instant velocity which mean that you can compensate for deceleration by counter strafing and at a high level you can move stop shoot move stop shoot as if you were just moving and shooting fluidly/because the movement system is based on acceleration and not instant velocity the player model will move in a non uniform pattern depending on how the opponent is moving which makes it even harder to track them on top of the hitbox being small and the playermodel being so small

-the maps have a huge level of depth and complexity in terms of positioning and strategy

-often times people will be behind cover and you sometimes may only see the persons head or a very small part of their body and you'll often have to hit "pixel shots"

-grenades can be used for a wide variety of tactical use cases in order to gain a strategic or tactical advantage over your opponent for instance if you can throw useful flashbangs it helps because it's a lot easier to fight someone who can't see and smokes can block off visibility of a certain area which can help your team to potentially safely move foreward on the map and gain map control/better positioning

-terrorists or t's need to plant the bomb at the bomb site and defend it until it explodes or kill the entire enemy team, and counter-terroritsts or ct's need to either prevent them from planting the bomb by killing them all or kill them all and defuse the bomb

-you need 16 rounds to win and 3 rounds for each overtime, there is no overtime in matchmaking overtime is just for third party matchmaking systems such as esea or faceit and tournaments

-rounds are 1 minute and 55 seconds long and the bomb timer is 40 seconds long and the defuse time is 10 seconds without a a defuse kit often just called "a kit" and 5 seconds with a kit

-you would be suprised at the ammount of things that can happen in 2 minutes and 35 seconds this game is really fast paced and intense and a lot can happen in a very short ammount time being able to react in a practiced way very quickly within basically 250 ms +/- during each engagement is crucial which makes practicing things super important the more practiced you are the less you will have to think when shit hits the fan and that means the easier it will be for you to react according to the situation

-there is a huge ammount of game knowledge and different things to learn about this game on top of all of this

-communication is better than wall hacks

-at higher levels counter strike in many ways becomes a game of mental constitution and confidence in one self and ones team and involves various mindgames

-you can hear sounds through walls such as someone running or shooting or a nade hitting a wall or exploding or the bomb being dropped etc. Understanding all the different sounds in the game can give you info on what is happening where without ever having to peak so being aware of your audio surroundings is super important

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How do you get good at counter strike?

this is a very broad question a better question to ask at first is...

What are the skillsets required to be good at counter strike?

1. basic mechanics/fundamentals; what are the fundamentals/basic mechanics?

a. movement. having fluid movement, being able to stop shoot move stop shoot move on a dime is really important and is the basis for the rest of the fundamentals. counter strafing, crouch spraying, crouching while peaking in order to throw off someones aim, crouch jumping, a d spam at the right times, jiggle peaking an angle which means to quickly peak an angle and unpeak to both gain information and to line up a shot with crosshair placement and to take easier shots, etc.

b. aim. aim is probably the biggest visbile difference between lower skilled players and higher skilled players. The ability to point your crosshair exactly where you want it to be is the highest skill ceiling skillset in the game. You will never ever ever stop practing this and you will never ever ever master this. It doesn't matter how good you are, cs is such a hard game that even the best player in the world cannot I mean CAN NOT hit every single shot or get every single frag that is possible, so don't fret if you miss just unpeak and try again.

c. recoil control. Having good recoil control, having a good understanding of each gun and it's recoil pattern and situational use case is really important. If you can't control your spray you can easily wiff easy kills.

d. understanding what style of shooting to use at what time i.e. spray vs tap vs burst. This is dependant upon the situation in terms of what gun you are using, what position you are in, and what position your opponent is in.

e. crosshair placement. Crosshair placement is the ability to place your crosshair preemptively without ever seeing someone at a spot on your screen where an enemy player could be/could peak out of/could walk into. Crosshair placement is also placing the crosshair at around headshot height at this spot or depeding on the weapon for instance if you are using and awp you might aim for chest height it is also depedant on what style of shooting you aim to use in many ways because if you are trying to burst for expample it might be better to aim around the neck or chin or chest depending on the situation. Crosshair placement requires map knowledge, a good sense of how the player models look and how they move and things like that.

2. tactics/strategy/knowledge

a. map knowledge. It is extremely important that you have not only a sense for how to move around the map, but what the good and bad positions of the map are, where the common spots to play are, what the common strategies and tactics for each map are, what the way to counter the opponents strategy and positioning and tactics are, etc.

b. grenade/nade usage. Understanding what the nades do, how and when to use them, the value and situation use cases of the nades and how to get the most out of them. Learning different "nade lineups" which is where you position your player model in a certain spot and place your crosshair at a certain spot and throw the nade with a certain technique i.e. jumpthrow/run jumpthrow/crouch jumpthrow/shiftwalk jumpthrow/etc. You can also throw the nades at various different distances depedning on if you only hold mouse 1 or mouse 2 or if you hold mouse 1 first then hold mouse 2 together with mouse 1 or vice versa.

c. understanding positioning of yourself and your team mates and what the best thing to do in each position is and what positions are good and bad how to take "off angles" which are unusual positions that might throw the enemy off gaurd etc.

d. understanding different strategies and tactics and setups and what to do about each situation. for example getting cat control on dust 2 and getting info on where the enemy team has sset up and either challenging their strong position or rotating to attack their weak position, boost spots, wallbangs, flashing through smoke for entry kills, making a wall of smokes on the site to take site with less visibility for the enemy team etc. Basically understanding how to get a strategic or tactical advantage on the opponent. This is the broadest deepest and most important thing about counter strike at the highest level of play and even at some low levels of play although in something like matchmaking or a pug you shouldn't expect any real strategy most of the time because random people have trouble working together might all have their own approach and skillset to the game and have their own ideas of how to play etc.

e. communication. Understanding what each spot on the map is called, how to callout an enemies position in a clear and concise way to your team, not spamming the mic unless you are giving real info to your team, not talking shit to your team mates because it will send them on tilt and a tilted team is a team playing worse than it's best.

3. mental game.

a. Confidence. You must have confidence in yourself in order to be good at counter strike. cs is such a fast paced game that if you are anxious or unsure of a play it will often times slow you down and make the play even worse than it would have been. A bad play done with confidence often times works out more than a good play without confidence. Have confidence in yourself. Confidence should also come from practice. The more practiced you are -> the less you have to think -> the less you will overthink -> the more confident you can be -> the faster you will react -> and the better you will play.

b. maintaining your composure. It can be a very difficult thing in csgo to maintain your composure. When a play doesn't work out, when you are missing your shots, when your team is doing poorly, when you get killed in a way you didn't think was possible, when your team is just outright not communicating or trying to work together, it can be really easy to tilt when things go poorly. Try your best to maintain your composure as best as you can. IF your team is trolling in solo que, say to yourself "I'm going to do the best that I can to try and make plays and try and get frags and try and open up the map and try and learn this game and if I lose so what it's just one game of the 1000's I will play let me use it as a learning experience as opposed to wasting time arguing with people or talking shit etc." also sometimes maintaining your composure means muting players for being toxic, there is nothing wrong with muting someone for being toxic I would recomend that you try your best to save muting someone as a last resort try to work things out with them try to squash the bullshit and try and diffuse the situation so that you can have better communication and better team play, if that is not possible then just mute them because they have nothing of actual value to say.

c. motivation. It can be very difficult to stay motivated especially when you hit a really hard plateu or there is just something you don't seem to understand about the game or maybe your mechanics aren't getting good as fast as you would like. Try to stay motivated it is not impossible for you to get better you just have to identify the leaks in your play and try to work them out. IT can take months to get over a plateu if you maintain the wrong mentality.

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Now it's time for the big question

How to get better at counter strike?

1.mechanics

2.knowledge

3.mentality

the reason these are in this order is because without mechanics knowledge and mentality won't help you but without knowledge and mentality your mechanics can easily carry you to higher levels of play maybe even levels of knowledge and mentality that are beyond your current overall level.

1. Mechanics. Mechanics are the most fundamental part of the game. And the first place to start. How do you get good mechanics?

Firstly mechanics will boil down to repetion and disciplined diligent consistent practice. The main things that will improve your mechanics are things like playing free for all deathmatch in community servers. Training your aim via offline maps like aimbotz and training_aim_csgo 2 or any other offline maps that you feel you need to use. Improving your mechanics is ultimately going to start first and foremost with being honest with yourself about your current ability. If you think you have s1mple level aim but you are in silver you are delusional. this isn't me trying to insult you or disperage the work you've done up to this point, it's merely for me to encourage you to get better. A player who truely believes that they are better than they actually are will improve much slower than a player who thinks they are worse than they actually are. Another thing you can do to practice your movement mechanics specifically are to play on kz or surf community servers although I will say I don't think it's a hard requirment as most movement mechanics don't actually involve air strafing and jumping and things like that and most movement mechanics can be practiced at the same time as aim such as on the aimbotz map or deathmatch. There really is no secret to getting better mechanics other than to practice them over and over and over and over and over again and you will have to constantly be refining your mechanics no matter how good at the game you get. Just keep practicing be honest with yourself and always try to think about how you could be doing better.

mechanics subsection settings: your settings are quite important for your mechanics. That isn't to say that you have to have a certain kind of settings to be good at the game moreso what I mean is things like sensitivity and resolution crosshair style etc.

a. sensitivity. What sensitivity you use is going to depend on a number of factors. The most important thing to remember over everything else is that the best sensitivity for you is the one that you have practiced the most with. What I mean by this is that there is a myth in the community that certain people are predisposed to certain sensitivities. This is true in so much as people have their own preferences and feeling in their hand that they might prefer a higher or lower sensitivity, but ultimately the sensitivity that you have practiced the most with regardless of what it is as long as it is a somewhat sensible sensitivity i.e. it's not impossible to control(for instance like 12000 dpi at 10 sens would be impossible to control as one millimeter movements would make you do multiple 360 degree turns and be unplayable I would say the hard cap for the highest and lowest sensitivity that you should use is roughly 5000 effective dpi-dpi x sensitivity- and 480 edpi however the most common sensitivity's are between 560 edpi-400 dpi at 1.4 sens-and 1400 edpi-400 dpi at 3.5 sens) and you have practiced with it enough. Honestly I would recomend starting out at 400 dpi at 2 sens for your first 3 months of counter strike as this is the most middle of the road sensitivy and can help you gain a better understanding of the game, then after that you would make adjustments based on your preferences either turning it higher or lower depending on how you feel. I personally would recomend not changing your sens until you have played with it for at least 1-3 months and I would also recomend not changing it super drastically in either direction.

b. resolution. your resolution is ultimately going to depend on your personal preference. I would recomend if you are just starting out to try out eaach kind of resolution for at least a month at a time each. i.e. 4:3 stretched, 4:3 blackbars, or 16:9. Although most pros use 4:3 stretched, but it's not a hard rule it's just preference at the end of the day. Just try everything out and see what you like.

c. your crosshair style honestly doesn't matter outside of reasonable visibility. You can pretty much do whatever you want with your crosshair so go nuts or just stick to one if you find one you like.

d. DON'T CHANGE YOUR SETTINGS EVERY DAY OR EVEN BETWEEN GAMES THIS WILL COMPLETELY RUIN YOUR MUSCLE MEMORY AND IS ILL ADVISED IF YOU CONSTANTLY CHANGE YOUR SETTINGS ALL THE TIME YOU ARE ULTIMATELY WASTING YOUR TIME AS YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO GET GOOD WITH ANY ONE SET OF SETTINGS AND THEREFORE WILL NEVER ACTUALLY BUILD UP YOUR MECHANICAL SKILL TO THE LEVEL YOU WANT IT. PICK SOMETHING THAT WORKS THAT YOU LIKE AND STICK WITH IT I KNOW HOW EASY IT IS TO DOUBT YOURSELF AND TO DOUBT YOUR SETTINGS AS I USED TO DO THIS A LOT MY SELF. TRUST ME IT'S NOT YOUR SETTINGS JUST PRACTICE MORE AND YOU WILL GET BETTER.

2. KNOWLEDGE. Knowledge is such a broad topic that I won't really get into every single hyper specific detail but I will give you some idea as to how to build up your knowledge and how to learn more about the game.

Honestly this one is kind of the easiet to explain, basically you just look things up. anything you want to know, any tips you could ever want to find, any smoke lineups or nade usages, or ways to play certain spots or what to peak or what not to peak or how to buy more efficiently or strategies, etc. All of this can be found through youtube, and google, and reddit, basically just try your best to analyze everything and consume as much information on the game as possible and try your best to retain it. For instance if you learn a smoke lineup go into an offline server and use an offline practice config to practice that smoke then you will understand how to do it and retain that information. trying things out in offline maps is one of the most important ways to improve your game knowledge. Also another thing to do is watch pro streams, watch pro matches, watch high level fpl/esea/mm players who stream or upload videos/ etc.

knowledge subsection learning from pros:

so learning from pro players is a good idea and good intention, however it can often be misleading if you don't know what to look for. Often times we might see someone like s1mple or niko make a crazy ass play and say "oh wow he really hit those shots" and that is all we will take away from it. Or we might say "oh wow that's such a sick smoke lineup I'm going to use that" without regard for the situation that it was used in. The question you should ask yourself about what you watch when trying to learn from pros are as followed:

1. "how is this player moving, and why is he moving this way. What about this movement is different and/or better than what I am currently used to doing. Perhaps he peaks and unpeaks an angle very tightly and specifically just to gain info or to take a one off shot, or perhaps he is moving this way to bait out a shot or a nade from an enemy?" or things like that.

2. "Why does this person go to this part of the map? what is the plan here? where are his team mates? when does he go out? what kind of fights is he trying to take and why? Where is his crosshair placed and why?" and things like that.

3. "Why did he shoot through the smoke? what gave the enemies position away? why did he choose to do x thing over x thing?" etc.

4. "why is this player using their utiltiy in this way? what is the benfit of smoking this place off on the map? Why does he throw this nade and not that nade? why does he through a flash from far away as opposed to closer? why does he throw a flash so high? or why does he right click the smoke?" etc.

5. "why does he use this weapon this way? Why is he using the awp in this way and why is he positioning or moving in this way with it? Why is he spraying vs tapping vs bursting in this case, what range is he at and which shooting style is he using according to his position?"

6. "why exactly did the team rotate in this way? what info did they have to make them back off or to push in even harder?"

7."why did this player take this fight? what was the risk vs reward of this fight? What was the expected outcome? if he died or if he got insta killed why did he push it? was it a mistake or was he baiting himself for his team mates to take an easier shot?"

etc.

Just always be looking for more knowledge and always be analyzing what's going on and why it's happening.

3. mentality. HOw do we improve our mentality?