- Elrissar97
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- Exalted Member
Posted by: Scruffles
The first thing to remember is that your technical skills--the ability to shoot accurately with precision weapons, strafe, effectively use armor abilities, etc--come last. In FFA, these things are generally only helpful when your back is to the wall. If you're in a situation where you have to out-DMR someone to save your life, or use armor lock, sprint, etc. to save your life, the odds are pretty good that you did something wrong somewhere along the line.
This is not to say that proficiency these weapons and AAs doesn't help; it does. But there are other things that are more of a priority.
So, what are the most important things, then?
1) Weapon control. This phrase encompasses knowledge of the power weapons on any given map, whether it's location, respawn counter, etc. It doesn't matter how capable any of the other players are; if you have the rockets, every rocket represents a free kill. Sniper and shotgun are more "niche" weapons that are only useful in certain situations, but used in an appropriate spot, they will also overpower whoever you're fighting. Getting the weapons is a priority. Additionally, a not-often-spoken-of aspect of weapon control is knowing which enemies have power weapons, and in what location they reside. When you know someone has the shotgun on the lift in Reflection, you know by extension that you shouldn't walk right up to the lift, therefore saving your own life just by a little presence of thought.
2) Find prexisting fights; don't start one of your own. When you and an opponent both have full shields and health and are relatively close in skill, it's more or less 50-50. Anyone could win. That's not what you want. You want to find a fight that's already tilted in your favor, and play clean-up on weak people. It sounds cheap, but it's reality. If you have to fight people in fair duels for the entire game, you will either die often or fail to obtain kills in a timely fashion, neither of which is acceptable. You want fast, clean, numerous kills. Find the weak and eat them up. This also means being aware of people who will undoubtedly be using the same strategy, and not falling into the traps that they set.
3) Know when to back off. Your life is extremely valuable. A death means you'll lose time, your positioning, and whatever resources you currently have on your person, by which I mean weapons. And, in addition to all that, it also means that you just handed a competitor a free point. There's no shame in retreating, and remember that retreat can also present a means of deception i.e. scoring some kills by retreating and throwing defensive grenades to kill or weaken pursuers, retreating and then countering with a power weapon if they chase, etc.
4) Mind your positioning. This doesn't necessarily mean camp one spot, but you should not flock to a location where you will be at an obvious disadvantage, i.e. below enemies who are fighting above you. You should never be in a spot where you can't back up to cover.
Hopefully you can see why I say technical skills come last. If you make good decisions you will RARELY encounter a situation where you need to outshoot a fully shielded opponent on an even field. Your goal is to tilt the odds in your favor, and then take advantage of them. When you do this properly, it doesn't matter how well anyone else in the game shoots or strafes, because you've already outplayed them.
On that note, if you're comfortable with your mental game, it obviously can't hurt to improve your accuracy with DMR, needle rifle, pistol, and sniper. Being confident and capable of using all weapons effectively is undoubtedly helpful, it's just last on the list of improvements that you can make to yourself to be a better player. These are the skills that you fall back on when you've made a mistake in your mental game. It's nice to know that they exist, but play properly and their full potential will rarely be needed.
Hope it helps. FFA is a complicated beast, and I can't teach you every nuance of decision making, but a few guidelines never hurt anyone. Some of these can be applied to other gametypes as well.
I noticed something like that,too.
i only played FFA twice in reach so far,and it felt really different from team games.they both were slayer dmr and in the first game i was playing pretty bad (i wasn't spamming the dmr like the others,but i was trying to do few but accurate shots) and i was the second last.my opponents weren't that good and i thought "what's going on?am i doing something wrong?" i started spamming both the dmr and frags,and in the end i was third with 20 kills,but i could've been first with a bit more time.i tried rumble pit once more,and in the second game i had 25 kills in 5 minutes,+20 k/d and a 14 killing spree i think.the weird thing is that i play well in team slayer without all this spamming/abusing power weapons.