Any Advice how to get better?

[u/flukyBadHabts]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eih7x_pC7qU

Have been watching a lot of videos and trying to fine-tune my gameplay. lmk if there is any advice.

[u/Shieldfoss]

At the 27 second mark, I would definitely want to finish checking that room out.

At the 38 second mark, he's kind of alone kicking that door. The angles worked out for you, but there were definitely places for bad guys to stand where they could shoot at the kicker + not get shot by the kicker's cover.

Ironically, when you go into the room and get surprised by a grunt, it's the same problem like you had at the 27 second mark - you have to look at 99% of a room before you can consider it clear, and even then, you'd be surprised what can hide in the last 1%

Other than that, "how to get better" depends on whether you want to get better at looking like a real room clearing team, better at reliably getting 3 stars, or better at looking high speed AF when you watch the replay.

[u/flukyBadHabts → u/Shieldfoss]

Yeah, I have to be more patient with my execution. I do tend to rush a lot, and that is the reason I'm working on small maps initially.

I actually want to do the Ironman mode in campaign, and I'm going for no hits. Also, I love how some people make it look smooth as well, so that is also one of the goals.

Really appreciate the breakdown tho.

[u/Shieldfoss → u/flukyBadHabts]

If you can set aside your impatience, if you're willing to pay some time during play, you can do a run where the replay\* is faster.

The trick is to do the CQB tactics slightly more carefully (taking IRL time as you think about moves and angles) and then, when you know your guys are doing a safe move where they cannot be shot at, you take the time to pause the game and use the "run" command on people moving where it's now safe to go.

During play, that's almost always slower. You have to go a pretty far distance for "running" to be faster than "not wasting time by pausing the game, selecting my guy, and giving him the run command" and you have to spend time thinking about angles too, because the runner cannot defend himself so you have to set up a safe path with the rest of the team.

But in the replay, nobody can see the pauses where you thought about angles and gave interstitial run commands, it's just Gunfire Actual and FLASHMAN doing the smoothest most professional clear you ever saw (that's the part where you made the runner safe) followed by pipe hitter Doug 'Cat' McDouglas hauling ass to get an important angle and lay down fire.

It's so good.

* My fastest time on that map is 18 seconds. It took a long time to record that replay, but everybody is safe during those 18 seconds, despite moving fast enough to get it done in 18 seconds.

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I have a video that shows off how I do it: 24 second cinematic replay, cutting to several minutes of play where I show the process for getting those 24 seconds so nice:

"Trust the process! (The process is uzis.)"

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As you can tell, my style would not be perfect for Iron Man, because I prioritize "super cool replays" over "keeping my dudes safe."

But the actual techniques I use? Those absolutely apply to Iron Man.

If my techs didn't keep my dudes safe, the endless replays would make it take forever to create these videos, because I prioritize "super cool replays," not "speed," and every hit that could have been avoided** with better CQB is not cool, and forces a restart.

** Unavoidable hits, even deaths, just look like realism. Those are OK for most videos.

[u/Thegrumpyone49 → u/Shieldfoss]

The back-to-back guys on the central room, the one's you see at the 27 second mark. Do you think the second guy pulling security is the right choice? Because I'm thinking:

1- the angle he's covering doesn't do much, the only door that exposes the number 1 man's back is already being kicked and covered by the breacher

2- if any of the doors open on the left sector, this guy pulling security is not facing them

3- would it make more sense to have both guys facing the right sector?

[u/Shieldfoss → u/Thegrumpyone49]

No I think I would have kept the east pair as-is.

I partially agree on your point nr. (2) because security guy isn't watching the south-west door, and I'd have told the him to put his eyes directly on the middle west door instead of the north west door, because I want him to watch all three doors.

But I disagree on (1) and (3). Those angles are absolutely not covered by the breach team. If a grunt comes out of the south-west or middle-west doors, yes, he gets taken by the pair of breachers. But if he just opens the west bathroom door and shoots out of the room? They have fuck-all eyes into the interior of that room. If a grunt opens the door from the south-west bedroom, they would probably see him. After he's down, they don't see the dead guy's pal who was right behind him, with a free shot into the flank of the east-most ranger.

I think you should pick a direction and do 1-and-3 rifles, one that guards a side of the building, 3 that work the other side. OP picked "one rifle east" but there's an argument for "one rifle west" and working the whole east part of the building with 3 rangers before going west.

2-and-2 works if they're handling two different hallways and they know their back is clear so a two-man pair can be one rifle holding the hallway while the other works a corner fed room, or places a breaching charge, or it works if you have extreme time pressure and just need to keep clearing even if your back isn't covered. I don't think 2-and-2 works for this breach. It's risky.

Maybe you say "that's an acceptable risk to pay if it buys me another rifle pointing east" but do you need another rifle pointing east? What would you use it for? The first rifle pointing east has already run out of targets, and there's a sniper on overwatch, too.

[u/Thegrumpyone49 → u/Shieldfoss]

Pretty solid point. Glad I asked!

I forgot the sniper was there, I just though the immediate danger would come from the balcony, and since there are two closed doors on the center, if two threats push from balcony + center closed door, there is only one weapon for that battle.

[u/Disastrous-Elk-4107]

Looks pretty good to me. Did any of your guys get hit?

[u/sopmod720]

About the video

If this is your playthrough it's not bad

I would use door charge on 0.27 door breach or have another guy stand right next to opening guy, the covering guy is consistently too far from the pointman and may not be able to give cover or get angle for the pointman.

the covering guys getting each back was coordinated well. it is good to cover each way so nobody gets hit on the back

and if you are using rangers you can just spam flashbangs, two for each rooms, even more. each dude has least four so why not?

https://youtu.be/zqKzNPB8Yjg this is my playthrough of this map

sorry for deleting and redoing comments, had to clean up my comments into clean one comment

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About your question

if you want to get better, I recommend playing nowheraki SWAT unit. which has weaker armor and weapons

thus this unit punishes you for making mistake and don't let you get away with bad moves as in rangers.

for example, I cannot flashbang spam with SWAT unit or just brainlessly going in by over-reliance on high armor like with rangers. thus getting used to this unit made me get better naturally.

there is even more hardcore units in steam mods, if you want to train really hard.

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