How can I aim better/kill people more often in first person shooters? [closed]

Question

When I play FPS games, I find that I can rarely kill people before they kill me; often a whole SMG clip doesn't take them down, while they hit me with a few pistol shots and I die.

I think this is just me being very poor at aiming. I go for the neck, so the recoil hits the head... How else can I kill people more often?

Answer 1

It depends on the game of course but here are some rules that you may find helpful:

1. Don't spray, make every bullet count.

   For shotguns and sniper rifles it means that must be confident that you are going to hit your enemy when you shoot. At first it might become even harder to kill someone but it's a proper way to improve your aim.

   For assault rifles it means that (again, depends on the game) you should shoot in short bursts making a tiny half-second breaks to decrease the spread.

2. Learn shooting techniques like drag-shot or twitch-shot

3. A good mouse and mouse sensitivity that suits you. I think majority (debatable I guess...) of professional gamers use rather low mouse sensitivity. They use the whole arm and the whole mouse carpet to turn 180 and use their wrist for precise movement. It is also important to have enough space to move your mouse. I feel extremely uncomfortable when there is something fragile on the same table where I sit...

4. Turn off mouse acceleration. Everywhere: in mouse drivers, in OS settings, in the game. Most people agree that it helps but there are a few guys who like to have it on.

5. Turn off vertical synchronization, tune your network settings. For source games cl_interp, cl_updaterate, cl_cmdrate etc can make a difference.

Answer 2

This is entirely dependent on the game, but learn whether your guns are hitscan or projectile.

Hitscan weapons have their bullets travel instantly; a hit or miss is calculated as soon as you pull the trigger. Don't rely on visual feedback alone to determine if a weapon is hitscan -- depending on how the bullets are animated, they may appear to be slower than they really are. The most important thing here is that you shouldn't lead with Hitscan weapons, as doing so will only make you miss.

Projectile weapons, on the other hand, have actual projectiles that need to hit the target to do damage, so you do want to lead your shots.

Answer 3

Play lot. Play often.

Only way to get better is to play. At first it may seem that you are not getting any progress. There isn't any tricks to get better. You just need to play.

Deathmatch servers can help you get faster, you don't need to wait for the next round to train aiming.

On strategy side, you can watch some pro games. Watching good players playing can help you understand the high level strategy and overall idea what is good to do.

Its also important that your sensitivity is perfect for you.

Answer 4

Drink caffeinated drinks and rest beforehand if you're tired!

Use every advantage you can by learning the levels, predicting other players, laying traps or attacking when they're busy. Players that shoot first or more accurately are not always the ones that kill and shooting at the first enemy is not necessary the best plan, especially in games such as CS:S where players are so fragile.