SNWZY3's CoDBlog #2

Topic: Psychological Warfare

Welcome to my second blog looking to cover how to use your head to win you and your team more rounds.

Bare in mind that these points are purely from my perspective and might not work in all situations.

You don't need to be the most precise, most accurate, have the best movement in the galaxy to be a good CoD4 player. You need a good head on those shoulders. Rather than just focusing on what is going on in your game, you need to understand what is going on in your teammates heads and more importantly your opponents. As the old saying goes "Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer"

Your Head
"So, what should I be thinking about?" Well, a lot of you already know the answer to that one, but for the newbies:
• Where am I playing
• What is my role
• Where am I nading
• Where am I smoking/pushing
• Is my position secure

If you don't know the answer to one of these, you should be asking the question to your captain or teammates. The captain will normally give you direction at the start so base yourself upon those guides and do what you can. A team pushing for the same objectives will be far more successful that a team scattering all with their own game plan.

Don't over think things, if you try concentrate on too much you will make mistakes. Personally when I make a 'balls up' my normal reaction would be "why was I there?" 99% of the time, the answer would be simply because my head went into auto-pilot and I let myself be in that situation before I even knew I was in it.

At the start of the round, plan what you want to do. e.g. "I have a good A spawn I will push and try get 2-3 kills, take a flash focus on landing the strafe and getting into the A site, after that shift focus on those A bins." Now that might seem like a lot to think about, but if you work on it, it becomes normality. Your brain processes 3 times faster than you can speak. So it's enough time to hear teammates calls and call yourself based on what you are doing, the captain should recognise you have a good spawn and call out for an A push. Get all your information at the start of the round and then build upon it throughout.



Opponents Head
So, I have pretty much covered what you need to be thinking about. So what about your competitors thought process? Well, if you have a good B strat, they, (as a team) are more likely to put a keener defence on B site and give the boys in A site a little more freedom. Even if they don't the guys in A will feel less pressure and play accordingly.

So with more peeks on a than a Jack-in-the-box convention, it "should" be easier to get the frags required to lock down and unexpected A push, causing another shift in the defence. Keeping the defence unstable and frustrated is probably your best goal. Disciplined teams are definitely a tougher nut to crack but they are not unbeatable.

If you can outplay your opponents on both sites the game is yours to lose. Don't fall into the trap of repetition, decent teams will rip you apart. Just because working B worked twice doesn't mean it will work 5-6 times in a row. Mix it up with a variety of A pushes, B pushes and splits.

Focusing on the Moment at Hand
Now, this section is about what is happening in a 15 second period. Lets play the part of an SMG in A on strike, you have been covering café from single palm and killed and AK who attempted to push through. There are 4 left alive, you are unsure whether there is another AK at the back of café so you hold position, your other SMG has just been killed from garage by an opposing SMG, you want to move to halt a push on your position from statue, but you also don't want to move to release the cover on café. Call your scope to watch café while you deal with the offending SMG. Right at that moment, a smoke lands at A bins, cutting everyone off from visual cover.

That sounds like a lot to be happening, but when you put a round in to perspective a lot of things happen really quickly and you have to react quickly. This is about 5 seconds of game time, now, you should be thinking, "right, so the AK is dead, he will have called that I am at café, the SMG who killed my teammate knows I'm at single palm so if I stay here too long I'll be a sitting duck." The smoke has thickened and you hear movement around café but they will do either one of two things, let the noise try bait you into looking at café while that SMG flicks round to take you down, or they are actually running at you. From my perspective, I would move to an unorthodox position and watch for that SMG rush and if the guy pushing does jump out onto single palm you won't be there and you will be out of view but close enough for a quick takedown. So your main focus should be on the little blighter than took down your teammate. You see him and he sees you. Time to run, they have your position locked and you are going to get done from two angles. The AK has jumped out, "you first, then get to taps." The threat at single palm is eliminated and the SMG is now on a mad hunt for you. At taps you have ample cover to work with so you are just waiting for that smoke to die down and the opportunity of a push dwindle.

Now that "can" happen in the space of 15 seconds it is a very small snippet of something that could happen and an option you might want to try take, but you need to be able to improvise like that on the fly round after round. Decisions become easier the more you play the game and the more experience you gain. You can learn something from every team you play, so don't be ignorant and not take the opportunity to take something away from it.

I won't bother breaking down each and every decision because that would take me days to write and this blog would end up a small novel. So I'll keep it to an example, I'm sure after reading it you would understand the thought process that was going on so...

Focusing on the Long Game
Every round is a fresh start to win. Try keeping your focus on every round, I cannot even begin to count the amount of times my team has got to match point and the enemy team 6-7 rounds behind and we just stop playing the same way. Finishing the game at a rather mediocre 13-10 or whatever. I'm guilty of it too and it is something that I know I need to work on.

In the ready up phase, you should be thinking over your strats, or actually discussing them. Making sure that you are all clear on what you need to be doing and you are clued up on where you can be expecting cover from in general. These can change round by round so don't take everything they say as sacred because it will differ.

If someone dies in your team, remember where they where playing and be aware that cover is no longer available from that area. With your AK's covering A and B in a general strat. Know who has gone where, and be aware that the enemy will focus pressure on that weak spot as fast as possible to abuse the advantages that particular spot holds. A good player will pick up on things like this instantly and change their game style to either, fill the gap (AK) or try retake the position (SMG)



Closing Off
So in this example, I have basically only covered Strike from and SMG's perspective. In my opinion that seems like the most balanced map so taking out what I have written about Strike should allow you to apply it to other maps. If you have any questions or would like some more information, feel free to contact me via the site's PM system.

SNWZY3~

Edited once, 10/9/11 - 1:41pm.

Cool but a serious tldr is needed lmao

It was finding pictures to go with it tbh.

I'm still intoxicated from last night. I will add some when the brain manages to successfully reboot.

Great blogs craig, keep it up

nice guide on the "thinking game" good read

nice, i think this is what most people really forget about, they just cant seem to either focus or do not know what to focus on. good read/guide.

• Is my position secure

That question makes the diffrence between people able to handle a gun and people being able to make it to the top.
If you combine that question with 'Whats the best thing I can do now(based on the current situation in the round(or even how to adept.)

If've seen so many sick players, being unable to do simplest things that could make a diffrence in the round. It's just something I rate higher then people being able to aim.

nice read

tl;dr

buy me some booze and I'll read the rest of it

Good reading though, Despite already knowing most of that

Nice to see you're helping the new community of lows Someones gotta train them to atleast hit med in less than a year ;D

GJ Keep it up

nice blog and nice read , keep em comming, one of the only long texts i read in a long time

Nice blog, totally want more of these.

good read! Hope to see more of that mate!

Good work! always good to read these.

1Tip: If you are nervous then loosen your mouse grip don't grab is to hard and try to focus on your role