Now I’m not going to argue that I’m some sort of pro gamer. But I do have 8 years of experience with playing shooters online, and have known both many successes, and failures. In all that time I’ve also gained a wealth of knowledge - and today I’ll be sharing some of that will you. Now not all of these tips will be feasible for everyone and some might take a lot of work, but there’s bound to be something in there for everyone. Go on… take a look!

1. Upgrading your PC is obviously the easiest way to improve your play. You’re not going to get many kills if you’re playing your game at 20 frames per second, no matter how good you are. A less expensive alternative would be to downgrade the game’s visual detail to a more manageable level. Either way, what you want is performance and lot’s of it.
2. A good mouse and mousepad combination is key to victory in shooters. A basic Microsoft mouse isn’t going to do you much good when you’re going up against people with state of the art Razer DeathAdders or Logitech G5s. Those incidentally happen to be the best mice you can get nowadays. If you want truly optimal performance then you’ll also want to get a decent mousepad with that, such as a fUnc 1030 or Everglide Titan. Of course you can also opt for a piece of cardboard, but you get what you pay for… In general you’ll want to use the rough side of a mousepad for any new mice, to gain optimal accuracy and control, the smooth side - in my experience - tends to be a bit too smooth of an experience.
3. Mouse acceleration is often your enemy, not your friend. In many FPS games you will want to disable mouse acceleration in the options menu. Particularly in games like Battlefield 2, Counter Strike or Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory you don’t want mouse acceleration throwing off your aim. In other games, such as Quake 3, you might find that mouse acceleration helps out your movement a little. In general slow games, or a distant play style, require mouse acceleration to be turned off for the best aiming experience. If on the other hand you’re playing a fast-paced game, or tend to play more up close and personal, like me, then you’ll want it to be turned on so you can react more swiftly. In some games the difference will generally be minimal (e.g.: Unreal Tournament 2004), whereas in others it’ll be immediately noticeable (e.g.: Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory). The key here is to try both settings on a per game basis and see which one works best for which game.
4. Quality surround sound is a must. This isn’t an exaggeration, a good surround simulating headset (e.g.: Razer Barracuda) or surround speaker set, coupled with a decent soundcard or integrated HD audio, will significantly boost your gaming experience. Not only will everything sound better, but you’ll be able to hear exactly where your opponent is coming from and possibly even dodge shots based on sound alone. It might be a bit costly, but you will definitely notice an improvement right away, I know I did.
5. Binding the most important functions to keys is an effective means of improving your performance. It’s much better to have your weaponry bound around your movement keys and on your mouse, than using your scrollwheel and frequently selecting the wrong weapon. Try to bind all the most important game functions around your movement keys. And on the topic of movement keys: do not use the arrow keys as your movement keys, switch to wasd or esdf, right now.
6. Determine your strong and weak weapons. Now ignore the weapons you can already handle well and try playing the next three or four days with just the weapons that you suck with. After that you’ll generally notice a sudden improvement of your handling with those weapons. Of course, if you’re playing an important 1 on 1 or clan match then you should just focus on obtaining the weapons you’re good with and kicking ass with those. Still, it never hurts to be well versed with all weapons, just in case you run out of ammo for your favorite guns.
7. Analyze your playstyle and improve it. Keep tabs on how you play: are you constantly in the midst of the action, do you hold back and snipe from a distance, what is your most common reason for dieing, etc. If you tend to play aggressively, like me, then you’ll want to improve your playstyle by holding back more often and not rushing into things too easily. If you frequently tend to stick back to the point of being near useless for your team: jump into the fray. Ideally you’ll want to continually criticize your performance, and then find ways to improve it based upon that criticism.
8. Spectate good players and try to copy their tricks. It can help to just spectate a game and follow one of the more well known players in the server around for a few minutes. See where he goes, how he plays, which weapons he uses and what kind of tricks he might use to his advantage. Then the next time you play that map try to incorporate some of that in your play.
9. Organize some sparring matches with your friends/clan mates. It really helps to be mixing teams up in 2 vs 2 or 3 vs 3 format, while you discuss your strong and weak points on TeamSpeak, or some other VoIP utility. You can get used to playing against various playstyles, while exchanging tips and tricks with your friends and improving together. And aside from just improving your skills, it can be a lot of fun too.
10. Memorize the maps offline. You’ll want to walk through the most popular online maps in an empty offline game. This way you can easily figure out spawnpoints for weapons and items, as well as good spots for ambushes or hiding. Knowing your way around the map is the most elementary foundation you need to succeed online. You could even use the offline time to practice some of the more difficult moves, such as circlejumping in Quake 3 or making shock combos while moving in Unreal Tournament 2004.
11. Learn to time item spawns and memorize spawn locations. This is important in hardcore shooters like Quake or Unreal Tournament, where players spawn in a predictable manner and items have fixed spawn timers. The best way to learn item timing is to find the exact timer statistics online and using the in-game game timer to calculate when an item next spawn, as you pick them up across the map in an empty offline game. Try to start out with only a few items, and if you have to do this online right away: have every team member time one important item, rather than everything. As for spawn prediction: this is something you learn by repeatedly playing the same map, preferably in Instagib mode because it’s faster paced and you can then see the spawn patterns more easily.
12. Tweak your game files in the same manner as the pros in your game. What you want to do is find some sort of community site for your game of choice and see if there are any tweaking guides, or premade configs, out there. In any online shooter the following is key: your opponent must stand out and your environment must not distract you. This usually boils down to lowering your brightness and raising contrast values, while implementing some form of brightskins through mods generally. Another common practice is that of forcing player models in the game’s .ini files, which also serves to make your opponents more easily identifiable.
13. Play against better players… and lose. This might sound like strange advice, but the best way to gain experience and skill is to lose against better players. You learn so much more from losing than you do from winning that it might almost seem advantageous to lose. Of course you’ll want to do your very best in every game, but reality is that initially you’ll probably be losing, a lot. Don’t ever let that discourage you, but see it as a great learning experience, because it is. Losing in a tense game against a superior player, you are bound to find some tricks or skills the other player constantly uses, which you can then mimic and incorporate into your own game.
14. Practice… practice loads. This might sound obvious, but I’ve seen many players give up well before they even really started practicing. It takes dedication to become better, particularly in hardcore shooters like Quake and Unreal Tournament, which tend to feature a pretty ruthless scene (almost every player is going to be significantly better than a newbie). Practice does make perfect. I once annihilated three of my clanmates with a 28 to 2 score in 1 vs 3 UT2003 iCTF. The next year I played 1 vs 1 against one of those guys, who had regularly been practicing against top players in the scene. The game was incredibly close and I only won by about 1 or 2 frags difference. That’s an insane improvement and it’s something you can do too, with enough dedication.

Using these fourteen tips as your basic guidelines for every online FPS you should be able to last more than a few seconds on any server. That’s not to say this is everything there is to know and practice for every shooter. Every game is different, and most shooters will introduce you to new gameplay elements that are completely alien to you. The trick is to utilize the twelve tips above as your basic guidelines for every shooter and expand upon that knowledge with every game you play. Polish those basic skills so that when you start playing a new game you can focus on what’s new, rather than having to learn everything all over again.

Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind while you start utilizing these pointers for improving your game is that your skill is not going to magically improve tenfold overnight. Learning how to strafejump (Quake 3 Arena) or burst spray (any game with a machine gun in it) isn’t something you do in an hour, it takes time and lots of practice. You might see some immediate improvements, or even a slight decline, as you start, but the real realization comes after a month or two of honing your skills. Suddenly you’re topping the scoreboards at that well known public server where all the good players frequent, your clanmates seem to be playing way below your level and admins start banning you from servers…

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