COOP guide for the new players!

[Sigavax]

I absolutely love this game and find it very challenging and fun, especially with friends! I have learned a plethora of minor details that some players might not be aware of or that have helped increase my time alive while capping objectives or clutching a game winner on the last round.

Options:

Go your options under game, first tab of settings in Game, under HUD make sure to check show compass, always leaves it showing on bottom center of screen, and toggle show "fire mode selection"

Also when playing on security, under the customize selection you can change your characters voice to spec ops which is a more american speech. It'll help when your playing since everyone speaks the same. I don't have to turn around to hear the dialect of the enemy when its a friendly player, 10/10 less likely to get shot by a teammate. Not necessary but great for team play.

Teamwork:

This is imperative, even playing with a group of guys you have never met before or playing with friends there is a feature called the "Commo Rose" to help communicate with your team. By holding down your "C" key it will open a quick menu with different commands to help communicate.

Intimidation is one of the most useful tools available on the commo rose in coop for pesky camping enemies that are blocking a cap point. If you use it you will hear some funny banter and then the enemy will respond with their own. Using this will allow you to hear your enemy and approximate the location they may be around, be aware because now the enemy knows where your at now as well! Best to be used if you have a teammate watching your six, sometimes the enemy will bull rush your position with his buddies and you can use your teammate to help mow them down as they weren't expecting him to be there.

Set up and watch each others backs, this isn't call of duty, you want to win? Keep the numbers in your favor. I have died too many times because I thought my battle buddy was watching the door on my blindside while I was covering his only to die because he decided he wanted to go all in on kills. Be patient, work together, don't be the guy who runs right in front of my launcher as I set up to clear a point. Be aware. If you happen to be stacking on stairwells, some cap points are multiple story, one guy go prone, another crouch, another stand, communicate and work together. Stay out of firing lanes its best for the team.

In hardcore I notice a lot more friendly fire. If you see a teammate set up and leaning around cover don't run in front of him. If there is room move behind someone who is aiming. You can tell by the characters animation if someone is aiming down sights. Don't always run, move around corners slowly especially when pushing an objective. Don't be the guy who runs head first into a point to die or get shot by teammates.

Load out:

This is your bread and butter, this defines your play style. I prefer demolitions as the versatile class. You can destroy enemy caches with ease and from a distance or you can clear central rooms with choke points to help your teammates advance on the objective.

Every gun in the game is a viable option, they are all equally deadly, especially when aiming at the head. I prefer to go with the cheaper guns with a formidable assortment of attachments. A x1 sight, under-barrel launcher, extended mag/drum, pistol, heavy carrier, incendiary, rocket launcher, and gas mask will certainly allow you to take and keep any point.

Most weapons have a fire select, use "X" on your keyboard to select flavor. I have noticed a lot of newer players trying to gun down an enemy at 60 yards with full auto and miss a whole magazine's worth of ammo. Go semi auto, make those shots count. The recoil is much easier to handle and head shots come much easier with practice. Going in a building throw that bad boy on auto and hip fire to your hearts content. LMG's, what can I say, go prone, cover choke points and lay the lead down.

When considering your load out you will have a bar at the top left indicating your players weight. The lighter your player the faster your sights will come up on your weapon when ads'ing. This also directly effects your players speed and agility and stamina degradation. When your running at full speed for awhile and immediately pull up your sights you accuracy will be affected and your gun will have significant sway and notice your shots aren't landing.

Sound:

This is a huge part of the game and not many people realize how much it effects the play. A really decent headset will go a long way with this game. Almost everything is defined by sound, from hearing enemy smoke shells being launched miles away or to hear an enemy pulling a pin on a grenade behind the wall can mean life or death.

Your character is almost never purely quiet for a long period of time. Your character will shout or make some banter throughout the fight. If you can hear it so can your enemy! Enemies can you hear you reload if they are in close proximity, ever wondered why you got hit with that sniper Molotov, chances are you reloaded , responded to your teammates cries for help, or you decided to take pot shots at a wall hoping an enemy was there. Almost everything you do will give away your location. Enemies can hear you running across a second floor if they are below you, if you crouch they become more hesitant and unsure of your location. Use your intimidate command and then crouch to the other side of the room if their are stairs nearby, I have caught many AI running to the spot only to be mowed down from behind.

Utilize the "Walk" key to be super quiet, you become a ninja and more likely to surprise the enemy!

Reloading:

Don't worry to much about ammo, after every point there is a resupply box in normal modes. Sometimes you can be stuck at an extended point because its a cap/defend. If you are running low try to scavenge ammo from fallen teammates or foes. If you have the same type of ammo as a gun laying on the ground you can scavenge its magazine while looking at it and interacting. If you notice an abundance of insurgent weapons don't hesitate to pick one up if your empty. If your a sniper and last one alive pick up that a rifle that will give you a chance to become the hero while capping a point, after capping go resupply and get back your original load out. Picked up weapons only come with one mag with varying amounts of ammo, it can be the difference from life and death.

if your pressed for time or completely dumped all the rounds from a mag or have just a few shots remaining you can double tap the "R" key to perform a speed reload, you lose the mag for now, until resupply, but that extra second saves lives. If you hold "R" you can see the approximate amount of current ammo remaining in the magazine.

While reloading if you cancel the action you may have stopped your reload, Don't fret if it wasn't empty you still have one in the chamber, make that shot count and hit the head, or run for cover and finish the reload.

In hardcore however you will only receive 2 supply points caches during a match, one somewhere in the middle set of points and one at the last Objective. It's a more likely scenario to scavenge ammo throughout the fight. There are a small handful of ammo containers that will spawn after each objective that will give you a few magazines, be on the lookout for these as they can help extend the time you have in a fight.

Map awareness:

Study while you play, become familiar with the enemy spawn points, know the attacking or flanking routes. Some people play fast but for the most part it flows well with a team clearing and checking corners. Know where to set up and watch different entry ways with your team, cover all entrance points and choke points, stick to your slice of the pie!

Coop Scoring and Caps:

The best and easiest way to get points is PTFO! You can get all the kills in the world but the guy who caps will always get more points, no matter what! Sure its okay to have a few guys holding flanks or being right outside the objective, but I have also lost my fair share of games because players were no where near the point. When it comes to enemy caches its as simple as blowing it up. When you get to a point that you have overrun and your confident in holding don't hesitate to let other teammates catch up to throw an incendiary down and share the points. I believe most of the team should carry incendiary, they cut off doorways or choke points for roughly 30 seconds. It may not kill the enemy AI but you will hear them coughing or screaming as they are on fire. It also allows you to blow a cache up while defending yourself. The only time you should manually detonate a cache (Holding the "F" key while in range) is when you have no explosives and its a must win to keep the round alive, if down to a small number of players be the guy and take one for the team, cover your buddy while he plants!

If the timer is running out get on the point, once you have the point the timer is useless you can play cat and mouse for hours with the AI, just don't leave the point otherwise game over. Even if you are losing a cap point stay on it the game will continue until you die or leave the point. I have seen too many players try to rush the win when losing the cap because they didn't understand and ran headlong into mob of angry AI.

Smokes:

I can't stress this enough. GAS MASKS! If you are throwing smoke down or if the enemy smokes you out throw on the mask with the "B" key. Insurgents get one free of charge and Security must allot 1 point for it. It will keep you from coughing and giving away your location. Also comes in handy when Insurgent commanders call in Chemical Morters on your objective. Another tip for smoke, in my opinion and observation i've made is its more beneficial to the enemy team when you smoke an objective. The AI sometimes see through it more often then not. Try to smoke the surrounding areas of an objective, keep your line of sight open and obscure theirs. Its easier to handle the AI when they are at a distance and coming through the smoke while you have clear vision. Smoke has absolutely hampered an objective cap because the AI has an advantage there.

Support call ins and Technical trucks:

Commanders, know when to call in strikes and when not to. You don't have to use everything you have right off of the bat. There is also a delay before the strikes come, its not immediate. If your team seems to get the point and cap without much trouble best to hold onto it and try to call a more offensive strike towards the spawn points. When its the last cap and your team is holding onto it pretty well don't call in smoke just to call it in. I have seen great games end badly because someone didn't want to be patient and call it in just because.

Learn the sound of various supports throughout your play time. Security can call in a chopper, best to get indoors, if you hear it hide in a building, you are almost always going to die if caught out in the open. It will wall bang you if you are seen running into a building or via windows. Insurgents have IED drones, listen for the buzz then run and hide, they can be nasty and kill everyone on a point. They can also fly through windows and doors. Remember if you run to a teammates position and they are by a window it can and will kill everyone on an objective. Take your time and learn the sounds. You can hear friendly/enemy shells coming inbound from miles away. You actually have quite a bit of warning almost 20 seconds worth to secure a spot.

Learn your strikes/support and use them wisely. When playing Security try to use the Mini-gun support first as the insurgents unload rockets and explosives saving your Gunship and extending the amount of time active support can stay up. Remember Danger Close, your gunship can cause friendly fire, the rockets will hurt friendlies on upper floors or by spotty cover. Try to call it in near the objective and away from friendlies. Try to fire the strafing run away from friendlies most used by open roads or open cap points. The A-10 will be called in perpendicular from where the commander called it in, keep that in mind for placement. You can typically call in strikes several times over a match. In coop the last point is always a cap/defend objective. Try to save the big guns for the last few minutes if you can manage. Don't hesitate to use them to keep the game going however.

Technical Trucks, where do I begin? They are the single biggest threat when active on a map if not handled accordingly. If you engage it, it will "fix" on to you and it will wall bang you. I have personally seen someone engage it, run on a point and wipe a squad because it sprayed the whole room. It will not engage unless someone is seen. Its best for a sniper or long range built player to head shot the gunner, seems to me that the tactical has about 100 yard range on engaging players. I rarely mess with it unless it has a direct line of sight of the team such as the first or last cap point on refinery in the warehouse. When you cap an objective and the enemy has a tactical they will often abandon if not currently using it or wipe out a squad as it spawns because no one killed the gunner. The enemy will often prioritize getting an empty truck over defending an objective. This can be used to your advantage by watching the truck and gunning down any AI that make its way to it. If you decide to use one and no longer need it BLOW IT UP, do not leave it for the enemy because they will make use of it.

Spawn Kills by Bots:

There is a simple way to avoid this altogether. When you play an objective and cap it there tends to be some enemy AI that sticks around the obj trying to kill players that were left alive. If you cap a point try to take it down to as close to zero or even have the enemy block it. Clean the objective and its usually one of the last AI left, so when you kill them they will all re-spawn away from the old objective and the wave will continue at the new one.

What seems to happen is that when a player/players cap there will be a few AI left up and they will try to flank or rush the objective to kill players left, they sort of wander around and will run into spawn points on accident and engage which I'm sure is in the programming algorithm for their behavior. Its best to clear a point hang back for a few seconds and check corners. If they don't get you in a spawn they will get you from behind.

Other Tips:

When pressing the AI on a high vantage point or from a distance and you can't seem to kill them, fall back don't press. They seem to "fix" on you and will surely head shot you before you know it. I have a tough time with this one but getting better. Its best to stick to cover or flank completely around. It seems as though they make you a priority until you are dead if a teammate hadn't taken its attention yet. Its ok to fall back and find another route, staying alive is best. This is where a lot of my WTF moments come from. There seems to be a slight difference when playing against the AI. The best way to describe it is "Suppressing fire" and "Accurate Fire". When you are being shot at and seems to be around you and a little off (suppressing fire) I would say your ok to engage but quickly try to kill the target. If the fire seems to be accurate and hitting your cover or being wall banged (accurate fire) its best to high tail it and disengage the target for now, I have died almost 80% of the time when it hits this stage.

This isn't COD or Battlefield, be patient, don't run around the objective with like a chicken with its head cut off. Your more likely to get your team killed rather then help win a match. I have pretty good discipline when shooting so if your in my line of sight I won't shoot but the enemy on the other side of the room opened a door and killed me because I had no visual. Work as a team its much more fun winning then spending 30 mins trying to get halfway through the final round. This game awards team play.

Make a habit to learn the enemy AI and the classes. Hit tab during a round and you can see the team makeup for the AI. Most full games you will find a nice mix of AI with dual observers and a commander with a few suicide bombers. You can cap a point wipe the enemy team and check to see that your playing 13 breachers and 2 rifleman, at that point you know to spread out because a lot of fast pistol wielding, molotov throwing badasses are coming your way to light the whole world on fire and they are accurate up to 50 yards out on their firebombs, you have been warned!

Ominous music will play to let you know that you are the last player alive as well as a few choice words from your character, no need to hit tab to look and take your eyes of screen to get that clutch objective cap!

Chat:

When you are alive everyone can see/hear you, when you die you can only communicate with dead teammates.

This is my first ever tip guide and hope it can help you get better and make the game much more fun. If you have any other tips I will be glad to update this to help all the new players that are coming into the community!

[Kozzy]

Nice tips!

[dieandpuke]

Awesome stuff - One clarification. Technical truck not tactical. Great tips for newer people!

[neo_bpm]

omg coop guides... pfffffffffff... the end of this game.

gg NWI

[crumbs]

Originally posted by Sigavax:

Options:

Go your options under game, first tab of settings, under HUD make sure to check show compass, always leaves it showing on bottom center of screen, and toggle show "fire mode selection"

Thanks! I'm not new but I didn't know about this.

[Eze]

+1. I was about to ask and you covered.

[Samiri]

Great stuff

[Sigavax]

This is still very relevant for the influx of newer players.

[=TAC= Stuermer]

Never saw this before, but that’s some really helpful stuff - hopefully new players read this.

[Puppers]

When you are alive everyone can see/hear you, when you die you can only communicate with dead teammates.

Worth mentioning, to communicate with fellow dead players, you have to use "Team and Proximity" chat. "Proximity" alone does not work.