HEA7
01-28-2011, 11:19 AM
Let me start off by saying that it is not in fact how well you shoot your DMR that defines you as a player. It is not how many blains you pull off with your sniper. And it is NOT how positive you go in a game that determines your skill. In fact it is a trait that is often overlooked. Your awareness.
I'm going to start off by thanking MichaelMongrel for his great thread "team 1st you 2nd" that really emphasizes how to put the team ahead of yourself. This thread really made me sit back and say to myself "Do i really posses all of these qualities that really define me as a player?" I'm not going to sit back and talk about how I view myself as a player because that is not the purpose of this thread. The result of me thinking about Michael's thread is the attribute of awareness.
Awareness comes to me in three forms
1. Visualization
2. Comprehension
3. Consciousness
Visualization is the most obvious form of awareness. A player see where an enemy is and shoots at him. That's all there is to it right? WRONG. For example lets say a player is playing on Sanctuary TS and sees two people run down mainramp, right towards front door. From that you should know exactly where 3 out of the 4 of the enemies are. Of course one of the four is going to be going to sniper, and it wouldn't be a bad guess to think that the last person is going to be on their carbine. Or if put in terms of weapons, say that a player is on S2 (or evade) on Countdown CTF. A player see the sniper come up. Immediately your first reaction might be "Oh lookie! Sniper! and then proceed to run all the way through bottom mid, up main ramp to grab your precious. From doing that, the player have given up A. The spot overlooking both their front door and jetpack and B. The ability to easily lift up to top med pack where you are in a better spot to help your teammates. Instead, the better idea would be to sit on S2, call out "snipers up" and try and team shot the person going for the sniper rifle on the enemy team.
Comprehension comes in many forms. Some could argue that the examples I just gave for visualization were in fact examples of comprehension as well. That is a valid argument, but the way I see comprehension is the ability to actually LISTEN to your teammates. People think that they are being a good teammate when they are calling out, thus achieving communication. This is only half of the challenge my friend. Players must be AWARE of what your teammates are saying at all times. You would be astounded to realize how many more cleanup kills you can achieve by simply listening to where those one shot enemies are located. Listening to call outs can sometimes lead you to making educated decisions about what to do in certain scenarios of the game. This leads me to my final point- Consciousness
Don't you ever feel like you don't have control of a game? It's almost as though the enemy team has complete control of everything that happens. It can just make you throw your controller up into the air and curse the mighty Bungie Gods. A majority of the time this happens because you THINK that they have complete control. For example, if you spawn and then immediately get killed by a sniper or a rocket. People tend to think that the enemy has the upper hand and thus all hope is lost. I can't speak for any of my fellow TLN community members, but when i spawn in Countdown and get killed by rockets, i used to get pretty discouraged. If you lose one set of rockets, guess what? the game isn't over. However, it never hurts to glance at the time every once in a while to see when weapons are coming up. If you die in a BS way don't complain, just call the person out, take a deep breath, and then proceed to get an overkill on them on your next respawn. Being aware of your own attitude and to the importance of the little things can sway a game towards your own favor.
Some people may think I'm a random that doesn't know what hes talking about. I get that. This is just simply what I think best defines a player in terms of their relative skill. It took me a while to understand this, but i truly believe that if everyone sat back and thought about this post for a bit then there is a lesson that can be taken away.
-Hea7
I'm going to start off by thanking MichaelMongrel for his great thread "team 1st you 2nd" that really emphasizes how to put the team ahead of yourself. This thread really made me sit back and say to myself "Do i really posses all of these qualities that really define me as a player?" I'm not going to sit back and talk about how I view myself as a player because that is not the purpose of this thread. The result of me thinking about Michael's thread is the attribute of awareness.
Awareness comes to me in three forms
1. Visualization
2. Comprehension
3. Consciousness
Visualization is the most obvious form of awareness. A player see where an enemy is and shoots at him. That's all there is to it right? WRONG. For example lets say a player is playing on Sanctuary TS and sees two people run down mainramp, right towards front door. From that you should know exactly where 3 out of the 4 of the enemies are. Of course one of the four is going to be going to sniper, and it wouldn't be a bad guess to think that the last person is going to be on their carbine. Or if put in terms of weapons, say that a player is on S2 (or evade) on Countdown CTF. A player see the sniper come up. Immediately your first reaction might be "Oh lookie! Sniper! and then proceed to run all the way through bottom mid, up main ramp to grab your precious. From doing that, the player have given up A. The spot overlooking both their front door and jetpack and B. The ability to easily lift up to top med pack where you are in a better spot to help your teammates. Instead, the better idea would be to sit on S2, call out "snipers up" and try and team shot the person going for the sniper rifle on the enemy team.
Comprehension comes in many forms. Some could argue that the examples I just gave for visualization were in fact examples of comprehension as well. That is a valid argument, but the way I see comprehension is the ability to actually LISTEN to your teammates. People think that they are being a good teammate when they are calling out, thus achieving communication. This is only half of the challenge my friend. Players must be AWARE of what your teammates are saying at all times. You would be astounded to realize how many more cleanup kills you can achieve by simply listening to where those one shot enemies are located. Listening to call outs can sometimes lead you to making educated decisions about what to do in certain scenarios of the game. This leads me to my final point- Consciousness
Don't you ever feel like you don't have control of a game? It's almost as though the enemy team has complete control of everything that happens. It can just make you throw your controller up into the air and curse the mighty Bungie Gods. A majority of the time this happens because you THINK that they have complete control. For example, if you spawn and then immediately get killed by a sniper or a rocket. People tend to think that the enemy has the upper hand and thus all hope is lost. I can't speak for any of my fellow TLN community members, but when i spawn in Countdown and get killed by rockets, i used to get pretty discouraged. If you lose one set of rockets, guess what? the game isn't over. However, it never hurts to glance at the time every once in a while to see when weapons are coming up. If you die in a BS way don't complain, just call the person out, take a deep breath, and then proceed to get an overkill on them on your next respawn. Being aware of your own attitude and to the importance of the little things can sway a game towards your own favor.
Some people may think I'm a random that doesn't know what hes talking about. I get that. This is just simply what I think best defines a player in terms of their relative skill. It took me a while to understand this, but i truly believe that if everyone sat back and thought about this post for a bit then there is a lesson that can be taken away.
-Hea7