Why do players shoot near the ground?

[Madeleine McCann]

Im new to this and when I watch games i see pro players shoot nearer to the ground just below the enemy to kill them. Why is that? Like they spray near their legs. wouldnt the spread go everywhere?

[Abinavski]

Spray control and recoil, watch a video on it.

[Valča]

In CS as you shoot you have to compensate for recoil. Each weapon has a unique spray pattern in which bullets always go. When you spray bullets go up above crosshair, so while the crosshair might be at an enemys feet, bullets are firing near his head. So you have to master the spray control for most used weapons, like AK and M4. Might sound stupid for a new player, but this causes a high skill gap. Winner of a gunfight isn't always the guy who sees the other guy first, but rather who is better at spray control or managing rate of fire (tap shooting, bursts, spray). You can check out some tutorials on YT to learn the mechanics of CS. WarOwl for example, watch some of his videos to understand how shooting, movement and how stuff works in CSGO.

[Kitai]

hold=move mouse down and left/right to control the spray

[Lu]

Skilled players will aim straight for the head with an AK and pull down to control their fire.

Less skilled players will just aim straight for the legs or the feet and spray, knowing that the recoil pattern goes upward.

[BibleClinger]

Recoil and spray patterns in CSGO can be thought of as different things. I'll go over the concepts.

CSGO's concept of recoil is similar to other traditional FPS games including COD and BF. Recoil describes the phenomenon of the gun -- and your crosshair! -- kicking back and shaking as it begins automatically to point upward the more you hold down the trigger in a full-auto spray. This usually makes your crosshair go mostly above your target. This is an important concept: recoil makes your gun and crosshair move together away from what you're aiming at. This generally means you need to drag the mouse down to counter recoil. This is intuitive for people used to games like COD in which you simply want to point your crosshair at the enemy, but in CSGO, it doesn't work this way alone, which is why many newbies who understand basic recoil control still miss what appear to be very easy shots.

This is where spray patterns come in. This is pretty much foreign to many FPS games. To see this in action, stand still and point an AK in CSGO at a wall. Fire the entire magazine at the wall without attempting to correct the recoil. Do it a few more times and observe the pattern it draws. You'll notice that the same pattern is drawn on the wall over and over, as long as you're not moving when you're firing. If you're paying attention to where the bullets are going, you'll notice that the bullets begin going toward the center of the crosshair, but suddenly begin to diverge from the crosshair in a predictable pattern. The first bullet in the spray is the most accurate in terms of going where your crosshair is pointing. The second bullet will be pretty accurate as well, especially at close range. Pretty soon the bullets will be firing noticeably off-center, away from the crosshair. Eventually there will be some strong lateral movement as well as the bullets will appear to be going wildly away from your crosshair. This concept is a must that every decent player needs to grasp: your bullets do not always go where your crosshair is pointing. This is why controlling recoil is not enough. The next thing to understand is that the spray patterns of the go-to rifles (ie. M4A1-S, M4A4, and AK47) are predictable and should be learned.

You need to control the recoil first and foremost -- that's fighting the natural tendency of the gun and your crosshair to jump around. This is usually pretty easy and intuitive for people well-versed in FPS games. It gets more difficult after that. You'll need to move your crosshair from being on your target's head to being off-center from the target's head in such a way so that your next bullet in your spray will still go toward the target's head. In a full spray, this usually has the appearance of drawing a weird, non-straight line over the target, starting with his head and working downward. You'll sometimes end up finalizing this with appearing to shoot wildly at the ground, depending on your distance to the target, which is what you're seeing in matches, but it shouldn't actually be a wild spray. It should be exactly based on the spray pattern of the weapon in question.

This video might do a better job at explaining the concepts visually:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWszuhOmPE4

[Stim]

Originally posted by BibleClinger:

Recoil and spray patterns in CSGO can be thought of as different things. I'll go over the concepts.

CSGO's concept of recoil is similar to other traditional FPS games including COD and BF. Recoil describes the phenomenon of the gun -- and your crosshair! -- kicking back and shaking as it begins automatically to point upward the more you hold down the trigger in a full-auto spray. This usually makes your crosshair go mostly above your target. This is an important concept: recoil makes your gun and crosshair move together away from what you're aiming at. This generally means you need to drag the mouse down to counter recoil. This is intuitive for people used to games like COD in which you simply want to point your crosshair at the enemy, but in CSGO, it doesn't work this way alone, which is why many newbies who understand basic recoil control still miss what appear to be very easy shots.

This is where spray patterns come in. This is pretty much foreign to many FPS games. To see this in action, stand still and point an AK in CSGO at a wall. Fire the entire magazine at the wall without attempting to correct the recoil. Do it a few more times and observe the pattern it draws. You'll notice that the same pattern is drawn on the wall over and over, as long as you're not moving when you're firing. If you're paying attention to where the bullets are going, you'll notice that the bullets begin going toward the center of the crosshair, but suddenly begin to diverge from the crosshair in a predictable pattern. The first bullet in the spray is the most accurate in terms of going where your crosshair is pointing. The second bullet will be pretty accurate as well, especially at close range. Pretty soon the bullets will be firing noticeably off-center, away from the crosshair. Eventually there will be some strong lateral movement as well as the bullets will appear to be going wildly away from your crosshair. This concept is a must that every decent player needs to grasp: your bullets do not always go where your crosshair is pointing. This is why controlling recoil is not enough. The next thing to understand is that the spray patterns of the go-to rifles (ie. M4A1-S, M4A4, and AK47) are predictable and should be learned.

You need to control the recoil first and foremost -- that's fighting the natural tendency of the gun and your crosshair to jump around. This is usually pretty easy and intuitive for people well-versed in FPS games. It gets more difficult after that. You'll need to move your crosshair from being on your target's head to being off-center from the target's head in such a way so that your next bullet in your spray will still go toward the target's head. In a full spray, this usually has the appearance of drawing a weird, non-straight line over the target, starting with his head and working downward. You'll sometimes end up finalizing this with appearing to shoot wildly at the ground, depending on your distance to the target, which is what you're seeing in matches, but it shouldn't actually be a wild spray. It should be exactly based on the spray pattern of the weapon in question.

This video might do a better job at explaining the concepts visually:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWszuhOmPE4

Wiki?

[BibleClinger]

Originally posted by SqUaTz:

Wiki?

Original content. I should really write these as guides instead of forum posts.

OP: I forgot to include this workshop map. This map will teach you how to master the recoil and spray patterns of various weapons:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=419404847