Absurd Minds

Every week I'm going to try picking one thing that we can focus on whenever we play. Serial and I will pick these based on what we see people are not doing effectively or consistently, to make it more habitual. I'll give a focus and some tips.

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For the week of February 9th, our focus is trading

This week, our focus should be trading kills. It's important that any time a teammate dies, the person who killed them dies. Here are some tips to help trade kills with your teammates. Using these skills wisely will also help you avoid teammate deaths at all.

• First, if your teammate is shooting somebody, you need to put yourself in a position to help, rather than backing off and hiding. If you can't do that, then all hope is lost.
• As your teammate is fighting, be aware of how many people he is fighting and how many bullets the enemy had shot. Trading a kill is always easiest when the enemy is reloading.
• Knowing if there is another enemy keeps you from being baited. Be aware of how many enemies were shooting will help.
• Be aware of the space you're in so you and your teammate can move freely. You have to know what path your teammate is going to take when retreating to reload so you don't block them. Don't get so tired up in having to get the kill that you block their path and lose an unnecessary man.
• One person is the aggressor, and one is the support. If you're both aggressive, you'll run into each other and cause unnecessary deaths.
• Work out a system with your teammate, and be aware of their playstyle. For example, with an awper, be sure to step out as the bolt is cycling (because that's when an enemy will be pushing) and fire suppression rounds. But don't empty your clip in case too many people rush out. Alternate your engagement so nobody runs out of ammo, to pull them into your choke point where you have the advantage.
• Stagger your grenades with your teammate to help you trade. Their a flash when you know your teammate needs to reload.

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Maybe something to help with this further:
I watched a documentary about the marines. They are a team. You never worry about yourself, you always worry about your brother/sister next to you. If everybody is looking out for each other instead of themselves, synergy is built much easier.

EDIT: " instead of '
:p

You have to use " instead of ' to make the quote

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I think this focus of the week is a very good idea

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The focus of the week for this week is holding crossfire.

Crossfire is a very important aspect of this game and a very useful way to hold chokepoints. Chokepoints are narrow areas of the map where most of the enemy team was come funneling through at once. For example, B tunnels on dust2, ramp on Nuke, or banana on Inferno are all chokepoints.

Holding chokepoints can be done using crossfire. This is where you and a teammate are on relative opposite sides of the chokepoint. I chose this to be our second focus of the week because of some few key problems with people holding crossfire. Here are some tips to keep in mind while holding crossfire.

• Always be "equally as aggressive" as your partner. The key to a crossfire is that the moment an enemy can see one person, the other person can also shoot them. You never want to be in a position where the enemy can shoot your teammate before you can see the enemy. For example, if your teammate is at quad in inferno, don't try to hold a crossfire from arch-side from the closet. This is ineffective crossfire.
• Communicate a ton. If you're flashed, tell your teammate, so they don't expect help from you. If you're smoked off, tell your teammate so you can both retreat. You don't want one teammate holding crossfire if your other teammate is not.
• Have useful weapons. Crossfires are most successful at places where the team has to funnel through a small opening, which means you'll be in a position to shoot many people in a short period of time. If you both have awps, consider a different strategy instead of a crossfire.
• Vary your positions. Don't let the other team know exactly the point from which you will hold the crossfire. Change up the aggressiveness with which you play the spot to be less predictable.

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This is a good focus for the week. This plays on our previous focus. You can trade while still holding your crossfire. Most important of all like anubis said, make sure the angle you are holding allows you and your partner to see the enemy at the same or almost the exact same time. Sometimes you want to change up your positions. If you are holding the top of mid on inferno as a CT, your basic cross fire is just to sit on each side of middle. Now, you can't obviously always hold those spots. If you have killed the enemy several rounds using it then you should change it up slightly. Maybe have one person sit back by cubbie hole near arch and the other person sit in boiler or even overhang. This is a more advanced form of crossfire. In this position you wouldn't remain out of cover the entire time. You will be peaking in and out. As soon as your teammate starts firing at the enemy then you know you need to be out helping as well. This gets the enemy focused in one direction hopefully allowed your teammate and easy cleanup.

Another important aspect is to know when to change your crossfire. Again using the top of mid inferno as an example, if your other teammates as bombsite A have died then having a basic crossfire at the top of mid leaves your flanks open. The enemy could go apartments, they could come boiler, or the rarer chance they could go through ct spawn and hit you arch side. You need to be aware of your flanks at all times. If your flanks are not covered then your crossfire doesn't have much value anymore. Sure you might catch one coming through but that could just be the distraction to keep you in place for a flank. This is a situation where it would be better to have one person play in overhang so that if someone comes boiler they will still be in the crossfire, and if someone comes apartment they won't see the overhang player until they come off the porch, at which point you should have heard a noise. I love to set up a crossfire with someone and have one or two other crossfire positions that we can fall back to.

Example:Ace and I like to hold banana site together. We set up a very basic trade crossfire just around the corner away from car. Towards in actual side. Ace takes the more aggressive spot, while I take his cover spot. As soon as I hear him fire I step out while he steps back in. If the enemy rushes us, he just steps back a couple of steps and instantly we have a crossfire. If they smoke, molly, or flash us then all we do is back into the site. He takes CT spawn while I take a position opposite him in the site. Sometimes one of us sits in cubbie spot next to the site while the other sits spools. He obviously would see them first sitting at spools but then I am RIGHT next to the enemy and can surprise them. This is more of a rudimentary crossfire but it still works.

Often, I see us setting up a crossfire and one of the people just stays hidden the entire time. I don't know if you guys can't hear the bullets or what, but when your teammates are in a fire fight that is your cue to help. A successful crossfire is when you are not only aware of your position and what you need to do, but also your teammates. You need to know they are throwing that flash and you are BOTH peaking after instead of just one of you. Trading is good, but anytime we can keep our people alive that is best. I think anubis hit the main topics and I just elaborated a little more, but this is a very important part of counter strike, and its something we should really work on.

REMEMBER, when you have a crossfire you have the advantage. Sure the peaker has the advantage in GO, but not when there are two people to peak in opposite directions. If you get bored and leave the crossfire to peak, you gave up your advantage. Force your enemy into a mistake and capitalize on it. Be patient. Crossfires require patience.

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I'm so official, like a dealer with a pistol or referee with a whistle.

This week's focus: Put your damn knife away, and you don't need to reload yet

I've seen so many people recently getting killed with their knives out or because they're reloading after shooting two bullets.

STOP doing this.

The only time you should be running with your knife out is if you know you won't be encountering enemies.

• Your teammates have been covering their areas for long enough that you know an enemy can't be sitting behind a box somewhere.
• There are only X number of people left and you know exactly where each one is.

Other than that, put your gatdang knife away. This involves quick switching.

Reloading, also, should be focused on. You are defenseless while reloading.

• Don't reload out in open unless you know there isn't an enemy there (see above).
• If there is an enemy in close proximity, throw a flash before reloading, or run away completely.
• Don't reload if you have enough bullets to kill another enemy. No need to reload after shooting four bullets from an AK, but definitely reload if you shot 60 from your Bizon.

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I want to get a change to revisit the crossfire when we get our servers back up and running. Maybe next week or something.

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I'm so official, like a dealer with a pistol or referee with a whistle.

But I love running with my knife out, it makes me feel all sneaky

Quick-switching is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much fun though

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It's a dangerous habit to have. I often see our people pull a knife out INSTANTLY on rotations. They do it when I either know an enemy is between them and their teammate, or its questionable if there is an enemy between them and a teammate. That is so dangerous. The gain from running with knife over pistol is very small. Plus you can shoot further than 2 feet in front of you with it. Also, the timing of reloads is bad like she said. We reload at the obvious moment and enemy is going to attack, or out in the open, or too early. If you are gonna be a player that sprays bullets you better keep track of your bullets and get better at timing reloads. If you have 6 bullets that SHOULD be enough to kill your enemy. If they are right around the corner you better not reload.

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I'm so official, like a dealer with a pistol or referee with a whistle.

What about when you're going for a knife kill?

Some good points here though.

Sorry we haven't done one for a while. Our focus for this week is communication. I've noticed people having trouble deciding what they should communicate and what they shouldn't communicate, and also how to react to communication.

Things you should communicate

• When you see an enemy, communicate where they are, how many there are, and what weapons they have, if possible.
• When you need a drop. (Don't try to be "modest" and say things like "nah, it's ok, I'll get a nova". This is a team game, and we'll drop you a weapon.)
• When you are going to drop a weapon to your teammate. If nobody says anything, everybody might drop a gun and that's wasted money and free guns in spawn.
• What spot you're going to play and how you'll "default" play it. (Aggressive, passive, etc.)
• If you change your spot or how you're playing that spot.
• If you have to rotate from your spot to cover something else.
• When you died.
• When you see the bomb.

What not to communicate

• Don't call a specific number unless you're sure. Don't say "All long" when you haven't seen everybody.
• OMG THE REG SUCKS
• HOLY FUCK HE SHOULD BE DEAD
• Micromanagement - everybody has a different style; let your teammates play theirs.
• Most criticism can wait until after the match. Unless it's incredibly important, in the middle of a game is not when to provide criticism, no matter how constructive.

How to respond to communication

• Use communication to form a mental picture of where people can be, and reorient yourself to cover higher probability flank positions.
• If somebody calls that they'll be dropping a weapon, don't drop one also.
• If somebody calls a change in their position that round, change yours in accordance.
• If somebody tells you where the last X people are on the map, move into a position to pinch or flank them, instead of continuing to watch your "spot".

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Well put

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that list is really good imo. something i feel that is an important aspect of communication is being direct. there have been times when a call is made and people are not comfortable enough to peek/change to a better position etc. for example there was a time when i was playing a mix with some friends, heard 2 in a apps on mirage, called it, while the person on boxes by midcon got shot in the back because he was still peeking mid for some reason. the next round when they went a i made sure to let him know ill smoke a ramp and watch his mid so he can take a quick peek into apps. this way he is more comfortable and only has to worry about that one angle.

i guess this just goes along with calling your positions and what you're holding in relations to others. i think it is really important to be aware of what others are doing as it would be a waste to call every little thing in relation to where you're looking. having that awareness is very important and being able to make calls/decisions on that. really don't know how else to explain this. i guess it just comes with playing with the same people over and over.

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Wish I could practice this focus of the week!

I'll have to practice them all together and brush up when I get back home. Nice post though.

This week's focus of the week:

being competitively conversational in the pub

The theme of our pub is fun, active, inclusive competition, and in order to maintain that ambience we need our clan members to cultivate it. Here are some tips on how to do that. (Sorry for my formatting, I'm on mobile)

1. Be an IGL. You don't have to be super hard core about it, but make basic strat calls, call out where people are and what weapons they have, etc. Encourage others to do so as well.

2. Compliment your teammates. Tell them good job when they clutch, nice try when they fail, etc.

3. Give helpful advice in a non judgemental way.

4. Keep mic spamming to a minimum. You can have fun, but don't be annoying when people are trying to clutch.

5. Most importantly, don't forget that our clan is centered around helping newbies. Don't ever ridicule people for being bad. Don't say things like "God me team is so annoying" every time you lose a round, don't rub it in every time you kill somebody terrible, and don't alienate people for being worse than you.

6. Remember the purpose of mumble. In game, we should keep most of our discussion on topic and competitive. We should encourage people to join mumble if they're looking to be more off topic, as you can always join a gaming channel if you don't want to hear off topic conversation.

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