Aim theory

Okay, so I did a video on my stream where I talked about aim as whole, how to do it, picking your sensitivity, things you can do to be more consistent etc. The video was a bit scrappy but I think I talk about some interesting and useful stuff as well, either way I will give you all the information at the end with the things that I talk about, but this article is to just go over a few things that I felt I didn’t really get across well…

Yeah, it was messy, a lot of things I said were very very unplanned and quite a few remarks were off the cuff, I put a little bit of information on a piece of paper that I needed to follow but with hindsight I realise that I needed to plan this more. And as you can see in this video, I stumble over my words often which is why I don’t do it that much. Anyway, I’m going to go over the parts in this post as well, mainly because the video is long and it’s not very pretty, you can watch it for examples but I will go over a good amount of stuff here, in most cases I will just be repeating what I said in the video but I shall try and keep it brief.

Improving and training…

So as I mentioned in the video I had referred to a video/discussion that was done by someone called Raziel, he made a set of videos that gave some very good insight in to aim and how to practice and here is the relevant discussion:

http://www.teammuppet.eu/home/index.php?/topic/6058-aiming-by-raziel/  This is a post that someone has put together that has a summary with none of the downloads. There was downloads and stuff like that with the whole thing but I don’t think it’s actually needed now.

Anyway, so in the video I mentioned how you have to practice, now in the post above it doesn’t show the method that raziel used to practice aiming but in my video I go over it on walkway. All it is you just get a bot, make it stand still and just jump around that fucker trying to keep your crosshair on one point, I do it in several stages…

1. Strafe left to right aiming at body.

2. Strafe left to right tapping crouch at body.

3. Strafe left to right jumping at body only.

4. Take shit to the next level and combine all the moves.

5. Do it with your eyes closed.

Now it’s only really needed to aim for the body as in TF2 there isn’t any headshots unless you play sniper so I would recommend just keeping to that unless you plan to branch off in to other games, when I started doing this I was playing Day of Defeat so it was beneficial to me. I would also recommend that you do this with your respective class, it may not be that helpful as a soldier and other slow classes but it does mean that you build a good amount of consistency which is going to help you a lot when you need it the most.

I personally also find this one of the most effective warm ups. As I’ve mentioned previously I’m not a big fan of dm servers for warming up and this is a good way of low pressure practising before starting to play.

Another useful resource on helping you keep a good level of consistency is the following game: http://aim400kg.ru/en/ this gives you various modes on which to just practice general aiming, I normally do the reflex one as I find that it really helps me to prepare and get my head in the game before hand.

Most of these things I do every so often, the stuff on tr_walkway with jumping around bots I do for about 30 minutes before I start playing TF2, the aim400kg thing I normally do in between games or whilst I’m waiting for players to join the server. It’s just a little something I enjoy doing anyway.

Sensitivities…

This part is a little tricky in TF2 as you have a main class so your sensitivity is based on the class you play the most, if you’re a person that plays a variety of classes all the time you’ll find that you have a sensitivity that allows you to play all classes to a decent level.

Lets take a look at some sensitivities:

High: 0 cm/360 – 15 cm/360

Medium: 15 cm/360 – 30 cm/360

Low: 30 cm/360 – Anything that makes you look like an edgy video gamer.

Now with TF2 classes like soldier, demoman and medic will mostly have a sensitivity that will be in the medium/high section as these classes are more in the centre of the fights, you can have a low sensitivity but you will be giving yourself more work to do and it could put a serious strain on your wrist/arm.

With scouts you will normally aim for a lower sensitivity. As I mentioned in the video your fighting is normally done on your terms and you should be looking to keep a mid range distance between yourself and the player your shooting, not only that but moving closer to the player will again require you to do more work.

Now this is all mainly down to personal preference and many people will agree with that, however there is such thing has having a retarded sensitivity. You need to be consistent with your aim I started changing my sensitivity when I played soldier, I found that my shotgun aim was pretty poor even though I was able to blast everyone out of the sky with my rocket launcher, to change this I lowered my sensitivity so my aim became more precise, my shotgun aim then started to become a lot better and I found it was becoming insanely more useful to my game, I was able to pull off some good rocket + shotgun ammo meaning my rockets weren’t being used so quickly at the start of the fight.

If you’re suffering from moments of really poor aim I would just suggest going through your demo and see what is letting you down, don’t change your sensitivity straight away, make some adjustments to your posture/set up or anything else you can think of first as changing your sensitivity can really harm your and cause further frustration.

Closing thoughts…

In general aiming is just a matter of finding something that works for you, make sure that you try and keep your set up as consistent as possible, changing it is really detrimental to how you’re going to play and can sometimes drive you mad. I remember a point in div 6-5 when I changed my sensitivity so many times that it was just getting stupid, now though I have found the one that suits me the most and gives me a good balance in relation to my play style, I suggest you do the same.

Another thing to note which I have been saying a lot is consistency, when you have incredibly strong aim you will then become incredibly efficient in what you do, there’s loads of people that can airshot absolutely  anything, however when it comes to the parts of the game that require more finesse they will fall flat on their face, being able to completely control a enemy soldier with some very well placed rockets is something that is incredibly good to have, being able to do it consistently will make you incredibly terrifying to play against, it may not get you on youtube but it will win you the games.

Resources…

http://tf2.gamebanana.com/maps/66113

http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=8909

http://www.teammuppet.eu/home/index.php?/topic/6058-aiming-by-raziel/

 

This post is pretty messy I know, I’m hoping to go back to some higher quality content later on. I’ve been very busy with the new team, work and general real life stuff which is why I haven’t been posting much. Hopefully over the next month I’ll have more articles to dish out.

Goodbye friends!

Posted by warhuryeah on May 20, 2014

https://warhuryeah.wordpress.com/2014/05/20/aim-theory/