Another guide for new players

From an experienced player who is stuck in silver, I bring to you a guide for beginners on how to improve as a player and a teammate.

0 hours, 0 minutes.

Congratulations, you have just downloaded a free to play game. But not just any free to play game. Oh no, this here is the most downloaded, most active and most played game on steam. with an average of around 700,000 concurrent players and millions on per day, there are a few people who enjoy it to say the least. Whether it be a pro with tens of thousands of hours in game or new players who are just starting, CS:GO is a great game and loads of fun to all. To ensure you too have fun and don't rage quit I have compiled this guide to show you the ropes and lead you through the hardest part of the game - the learning phase.

Main menu

You're in the main menu and you have so much on the screen. It is pretty self explanatory what everything does but for those of you who need an explanation, here you go...


Starting on the left side bar. CS:GO logo is your main menu screen (the one you open the game to). the play button is to play games. Duh. the radio icon is if you want to make a lobby with randoms and links up with the radio icon on the right side bar, I will get into that later. pistol on the briefcase is your inventory where you can equip your dope skins, music kits, agents, open cases, etc. below the inventory is the watch matches icon. There you can see results from past CS:GO Majors, view your past 8 games and their scorelines, download games to view at any time, view the most watched CS:GO matches live, watch streams of CS:GO and see future events for CS:GO. The gear icon below that is the settings menu where you can change you crosshair, change key binds, volume, display and really anything else you can think of. At the bottom left, you have your quit game button, in case you do rage quit or are doing a quit CS:GO% speedrun, its there. to the right of the left side bar you have your news where you will get updates on updates, majors, releases, and whatever else they have there. Below the news you have your market where you can buy things. In the screenshot you can see sticker capsules which you can place the stickers on your guns to style them I guess, but they also will have crates, name tags, storage crates and other tools/collectables for your inventory.

To the right sidebar we go, and again we start at the top and work our way down. top right we have our profile, or in your case, your profile. your name, steam profile picture, display items such ad badges, pins and other collectables. Then you have your ranks. as you can see I am the low rank of Silver Elite. if you click the down arrow beside the rank you will see your wingman rank and danger zone rank. below your ranks are four more icons. the first one is a person icon which represents your friends. It is a list of all your friends who are online steam with those who are currently running CS:GO in green and prioritised to the top of the list, and those with steam open or in another game in blue. beside the person icon is the radio icon once again. "But Momo, why are there two radio icons", I hear you thinking to yourself. They're both part of "Looking to play". The left one is where you say hey, I'm online and want to play a game. You can select competitive, wingman or danger zone and when you click on it, it puts you on the right side icon, which shows a list of everyone who wants to queue up with someone in the game mode they selected. If you want to join some random's party, click the left side icon. If you're trying to create a lobby with randoms, choose people from the list on the right side icon. Beside that, you have a clock icon which represents the recent teammates. Lets say you had a blast with the people you played with in the last game and want to play with them again but you forget to add them as a friend mid game. You can simply click on the recent teammates icon and invite them to your lobby like that. And the last icon is just for incoming requests for friends and invites. The final little thing about the main menu is the background and agent on your main menu screen. There is a button on the bottom right (between my agents legs) that allows you to change who is on your screen, what they are carrying and where they are.

Before you play casual

Now if you tried to play a comp game as your first game, you will notice you need to rank up once in order to play competitive. So what are you waiting for, go play some casual games. Buuuuuut... a few things before you do that, not exactly important and necessary but a few helpful things you can do include changing your crosshair, enabling console, and the training course. to change your crosshair I HIGHLY recommend you use crashz' Crosshair Generator V3

(https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=308490450)

Here you can customize it however you want. A few tips on what you should choose, as a newbie beginner with no knowledge on how fps games work at all, you can choose a dynamic crosshair (moves when you run, shoot or jump) however using a static crosshair (one that does not move) is less distracting and easier to use. make sure it is small, you don't want it to cover up someones body to the point where it hides them from your screen, and don't make it too too small or you wont be able to see where you are aiming. choose a colour that stands out on people. I prefer green, some choose blue or pink. Anything that isn't yellow, white, black and dark colours are pretty good.

Enabling developers console is easy, and it is useful in many ways. to enable it, go to your settings, game, game, and the fifth thing, enable that. Confused? Here's a picture to help.


To open console, the default key bind is ` or ~, the key beside the "1" button. Console can tell you pretty much anything and allows you to do pretty much anything in servers from checking how much you hit people to wall-hacking, cheating and other stuff. Just know that Valve aren't dumb and disable the cheating parts from online matchmaking, but seeing how much you hit people for is important and console is just a useful thing to have handy.

Lastly, the training course. Its a good introduction to the game and teaches you the fundamentals. How to shoot, throw grenades, plant bombs and other need to knows.

Casual, Casual, and more Casual

So you decide you want to start playing and have a few options to choose from. Casual give you a first to 8 points wins with up to 10 players a side. Death match is the PvE where you try to top the leaderboard by killing as many enemies in the 10 minute rounds. War games are fun little side games, like casual or competitive but with a twist. Play whatever you would like to get that first 5000 XP to unlock competitive matchmaking. If you are playing your first game and don't know how anything works, on most maps, the Terrorists (T's) are trying to plant a bomb with a 40 second fuse. They can only plant it on the bomb sites. The terrorists win if they either A) kill everyone on the CT side or B) plant the bomb and it explodes. The Counter-Terrorists (CT's) are trying to prevent the T's from planting the bomb. They can win by A) killing all the T's, B) Defusing the bomb or C) running the time out before the T's plant. Of course those are the basic examples and there are a lot of what ifs to them. If the T's plant the bomb but all die, the CT's don't automatically win, they have to defuse the bomb. There are two maps that are hostage based where the roles are swapped, the T's prevent the CT's from rescuing the hostage in time.

The game is also economy based, you get money from kills, winning rounds, planting the bomb, and losing. there are losing bonuses so the more you lose, the more money you get. You spend money on guns, armour, defuse kits, nades, etc.

You'll notice that if you spray at a target (hold down the shoot button) that you crosshair goes up and the bullets are shooting higher, even though you aren't moving your mouse. Recoil is yet another realistic thing CS:GO has to offer. every assault rifle and smg has a unique spray pattern. Memorising them is an important step to becoming good at the game. but for now just know to aim downwards whilst spraying and or spray in small bursts / taps. And unlike other games *cough* Fortnite *cough*, this game is realistic. there is more than body shot 30 head shot 60, building and healing. This game has different damage values for the feet, legs, wallbangs, hips, chest/arms, neck and head. of course headshots do more damage and in 90% of cases result in an instant kill. This all should be enough for you to start playing casual public games with others online.

Ready for Competitive

So you've played enough to get to private rank 2 and can now play competitive matchmaking...

Dont.

People in competitive do not want to play with inexperienced players. Before you queue for competitive, please learn a few things that I have compiled in the list below.

- Coms. Communications are key. Learn the callouts for the maps you want to play, learn tactics, call out where they are, how much they are hit for and what they have. here you can use console by opening it up and seeing how much you hit anyone for. DO NOT use coms to spam, to make non-callouts while your team is alive, or be toxic. Remember, this game is enjoyable for a reason. Be polite, straightforward and positive.

- Spray patterns. Please learn the basics for sprays. just practice a little and try to keep your bullets in relatively the same spot.

- Walking and crouching. When you hold shift or control, you do not make footsteps. sound queues are also a big important part of the game. listen for footsteps and make callouts if you hear someone on the other team. Don't be that guy who runs and jumps when everyone else is walking.

- Learn the economy. Like I said earlier, this game runs off an economy. Guns and equipment is purchasable. Don't buy the most expensive gun possible every round. Learn to save, half buy, light buy and prioritise what you buy. CT's should buy first defuse and armour, then a main weapon, grenades and lastly a secondary weapon (pistol) if you have a lot of money still or are AWPing.

- Learn the grenade spots. Knowing where to smoke off and how to do it, knowing how, where and when to pop-flash. Knowing what a pop-flash even is. When to throw a molotov, the real reason why you should be throwing fire nades, (Not always meant for killing people).

- Crosshair placement. You should not be aiming around a corner at their toes, pre-aim for the head by keeping your crosshair at head height. it takes about 200ms to see and click and at least another 150ms to readjust your aim for the head in the middle of that so keeping your crosshair up will give you an advantage in most scenarios.

- Positioning. Know your safe spots and never put yourself in a position where you are out in the open with nowhere to run. Hide behind cover, hold an angle around a corner, etc.

- Bomb plant positions. Knowing where to plant the bomb and where to hide on each map is key to both teams. T's need to know where they are safe to plant and where they can protect the bomb while being safe. The CT's need to understand basic plant spots and defending positions to know where to expect an enemy to be.

These are the basics and necessary to being a good teammate.

The beginning of greatness

Remember, this is just the beginning. You are still new and have a lot to learn which you can easily find out through playing or by reading other guides. I hope this helps you out even if its just a tiny bit that does. Don't stress if you aren't the best. I know I sure aren't and I have over 1800 hours in game. I know I'm not playing to be the best, I play to have fun with the randoms and my friends. And also to win cause of course winning is fun. And above all, remember that it's just a game. A fun, enjoyable game.

[d1sco]

very good