DOD:S Improvement Guide

A guide for enhancing your Day of Defeat: Source game play, understanding, and knowledge.

1. Recognizing your limitations and lack of expertise

In DOD:S as in any other video game, this is the first step to become better.
This means to maintain your humility rather than to undermine your confidence.


A video to look at.

2. Learning The Weapons.

Players in North America will refer to the Rifle as Rifle. Support, Heavy, Assault, Assault, and Sniper, Sniper.

Rifle, Light, Assault, Medium, Support, Heavy, Sniper, Sniper will be called by European players.

It is best to learn and get better at all of these classes, but rifle, heavy, and sniper are the most crucial to learn. Here I will go over these 3 classes and their weapons.

Rifle/Light

M1 Garand(Garand)
You start off with 10 clips of ammo, 8 bullets per clip. You cannot reload until the clip is finished there is no mid ejecting in this game for the M1 Garand unless modded in by a server. The M1 Garand is semi-automatic but does less damage than the Kar98. This weapon excels at short-mid range fights for longer distances scope in and fire with the tip of the middle iron sight. You can apply very hard pressure with this weapon by firing at wall bang-able spots like corners or wood. try to bait out shots from Kar98 players by exposing your shoulder to a corner by quickly peaking and unpeaking so they focus on the corner then wide swing and take the shot. The gun has a tiny bit of recoil with each shot pulling down with your mouse along with each shot will help with precision. Head shots will do 200dmg, torso 80dmg and legs 60dmg.

Mauser Karabiner 98 Kurz(Kar)
You start off with 12 clips of ammo, 5 bullets per clip. You can reload mid clip. The K98 is bolt-action. This weapon excels at long range. If you miss you become vulnerable especially at closer ranges but if you hit a shot above the torso you're rewarded with a 1 hit kill. Scoping in will make the gun extremely accurate. You want to strafe back into cover after each shot and peak again when ready when using this weapon players will try to bait out your shot by quickly peaking and unpeaking be patient wait for them to expose themselves and take the shot. The gun has a tiny bit of recoil with each shot pulling down with your mouse along with each shot will help with precision. Head shots will do 275dmg, torso 110dmg, legs 83dmg.

Sniper

You can play back and take defensive positions and excel there or head straight on into battle with and be a force to be wrecked with. You can also fight close range by no scoping and using your pistol. Crouching and proning will reduce scope sway. Allied will have 10 clips Axis will have 12. Both sides will have 5 bullets in each clip. Head shots will do 300dmg, torso 90dmg, legs 90.

Springfield M1903A4(Springfield)
1 hit 1 kill. Essentially a more powerful Kar98. Hip firing is very inaccurate scoping in is extremely accurate and the scope for this weapon is very clean compared to the K98 with scope.

Mauser Karabiner 98 Kurz (with scope)(Kar scoped)
1 hit 1 kill. Scope is not as clean as the Springfields' but the shot fires in the same area once you learn true center of the scope near the tip it won't bother you anymore.

Support/Heavy

Both weapons have insane recoil you're going to want to learn how to pull down with them to effectually use both of them. Burst fire is essential with these weapons. Most of the time STG44 is preferred due to the more bullets it has in a magazine trade off is less magazines more bullets but if you want more magazines and less bullets use the BAR. With this class you want to learn how to properly throw your grenades. You want to crouch jump peak with this class often but if you get caught crouch jump peaking out in the open let go of crouch and you will land standing up. If your opponent catches on to this and is prepared switch it up and peak by crouching or normally. Crouching will significantly reduce the recoil as well proning. Both weapons are fully automatic but can be set to semi-automatic for a more accurate shots. Head shots do 125dmg, torso 50dmg, legs 38dmg.

M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR)
12 magazines, 20 bullets.

Sturmgewehr 44 (STG 44)
6 magazines, 30 bullets.

3. Cone of Fire (Learning The Weapons Continued)

Bloom, aim spread, cone of fire.

Call it what you want. This is what makes you miss your shots. All the guns in the game are hitscan (besides the Bazooka and Panzerschreck), but they have a cone of fire to semi-emulate firing a real gun. To reduce COF crouch, ADS, or prone.

Knifes/Shovels/Fists

M1918 Trench Knife and Entrenchment spade
You can hold down the firing button to make it automatically swing. Hitting the head will be an instant kill. Hitting the torso will require 2 hits to kill and swinging at the back will be slower than a normal swing but will kill instantly.

Fist(Punch)
Same as above but there is no instant kill when attacking enemies from behind or slow down of the swing. You can punch with the M1A1 Thompson and Maschinenpistole 40

Rifle Grenades and Standard issued Grenades

Rifle Grenades
You only start off with 2 and that's all you get. You can fire directly at the location you want or shoot the rifle grenade at your feet or against a wall press your use key and then throw it like a traditional grenade. You will mostly see rifle grenades used in line ups. The rifle grenade will explode after 3 seconds. U.S Army and Wehrmacht Rifle grenades are shaped differently so line ups that may work on one side may not work for the other. Rifle grenades have a slight arc to them. You can throw them farther by shooting the rifle grenade at your feet picking it up then jumping then throwing the grenade.

MKllA1 fragmentation grenade and Stielhandgranates 24 fragmentation grenades
Will explode after 4 seconds.
M18 smoke grenade and Stielhandgranate 24 smoke grenade
Will explode upon landing after 2 seconds. If you hold it in your hand it will explode after 10.
U.S Army and Wehrmacht smoke and frag grenades are shaped differently so line ups that may work on one side may not work for the other. Standard issued grenades have more of a U arc to them you can throw them farther by jumping then throwing the grenade.

Secondary Weapons

Headshots do 100dmg, torso 40dmg, legs 30dmg

Colt M1911A1 and Walther P38
Both weapons have 2 clips Colt has 7 bullets in 1 clip P38 has 8 in 1 clip. Both behave the same and are semi-automatic. Bullets will travel randomly with a few landing accurately. Both are only good at CQC.

M1 Carbine and Mauser M1932 C-96
Both of these secondaries only have 2 clips. M1 carbine has 15 bullets in 1 clip. C-96 has 20 bullets in 1 clip. M1 carbine shoots twice as fast as the M1 Garand but does less damage. M1 Carbine is more accurate than any other secondary and is semi-automatic. C-96 shoots faster than the MP-40 and excels at CQC and is fully automatic.

Off-Classes

Unfinished section
Assault/Medium
I suggest aiming around the torso or lower for weapons like the Thompson or MP40 at longer ranges.

Rocket

Machine gunner

4. Strats.

This all depends on your playing style, but this game rewards teamwork, accurate aim, quick reflexes, and camping. In a situation when there is competition, talk to your team about a game plan and what you are going to do with or without them. SPEAK TO YOUR TEAM! Learning proper nades will win you games, hard clearing corners and jiggle peaking to bait out shots, switching positions after getting a kill or being called out by the enemy team along with holding off angles, learning pacing, awareness, and communication like where you are going, where an enemy is, where you are nading. This is what will win you games. If you are wondering what you should do as a beginner, play as aggressively as possible and learn from your mistakes. Team communication and being a team player is essential.

5. General Tips.

Play on Ethernet and purchase a router that supports SQM/QoS and will give you A+ bufferbloat rating or use Openwrt/dd-wrt or build your own router and install openwrt/dd-wrt.
Learn more here [www.waveform.com] and here [openwrt.org] and here [dd-wrt.com]

The greatest advantage over other players is having a reliable internet connection, which lets you play the game at 1:1 ratio.

Use a polling rate of 1000 Hz or more, depending on your USB driver and specs. Since DOD:S dislikes greater polling rates, I suggest experimenting with this first.

If possible, use 1600 dpi or greater; this will reduce the response time of your sensor.

Purchase a large mouse pad (about 500x400 mm). You'll have greater leeway to aim at a high or low sensitivity as a result.

Maintain an organized desk to prevent cognitive strain and accidental mouse bumps.

Strive to enhance your mechanics, gamesense, and teamwork while playing the game.

Consider getting Aimlabs which is free or Aimbeast or Kovaaks to improve your aim.

Aimlabs/Kovaaks have dedicated playlists to improve your overall aim or game specific aim provided by Voltaic. https://discord.gg/voltaic

Have good posture. If you don't know what that is I suggest watching these videos.

Videos about counter strafing and peaking.

Use

 m_rawinput 1 

it's off by default.

do not use

 -noforcemaccel -noforcemparms -noforcemspd 

it only works in Gold Source games. Disable acceleration in game instead.

Use

 cl_dynamic_crosshair 1 

A lot a people say to disable this because it is distracting but I think its a great tool to use to see how you are inaccurate when moving when you have learned how to be accurate disable it if you like.

Practice strafing and stopping with out shooting first then implement shooting and try to sync both your hands.

Smooth your cross hair around corners and strafe common angles.

For practice, turn off the volume. Focus on your aim and movement strictly without any other distractions. You will die more but you will gain a greater focus and understanding on when to strafe and shoot.

6. Advanced techniques/Bugs/Scripts.

Fast Ammo Throw
Standing still look slightly up press H then hold E and the ammo will be thrown across wherever you are looking.

ALWAYS GIVE YOUR TEAM MATES AMMO! ESPECIALLY ROCKET!

Fast Fall
Spamming the crouch button will make you hit the crouch faster difficult to repeat consistently but rewarding if you can do it.

Sideways Sprint
Holding W + S + Shift then pressing A or D allows you to sprint sideways.

Any type of sprinting initially let's you run faster but makes you slower when you stop sprinting. You can view this with

cl_showpos 1

Doesn't work with Null-Canceling Movement.

Bunny Hop
If you understand how to bunny hop, Do the normal bunny hop movement but hold crouch and you'll begin bunny hop. Good to use when you're low on sprint.

Sprint management is an essential thing to learn.

Quick Switching/Fast Switch
USED TO make you shoot faster but was patched by Valve around 2009-2010. Any server/person claim that it does is simply a liar. All it will do now is make you unscope

Fast Scope/Fast Unscope
Shifting into scope makes it seem like you scope faster but doesn't. The reason why it gives off this illusion is because when you sprint your gun will lower outside your view by default. Doing this on the Kar98/M1 Garand is not the best the scope animation messes up, on default values. Changing

cl_gunlowerangle 30

to 0 gets rid of this issue.

I personally like

cl_gunlowerangle 2
cl_gunlowerspeed .05

Shooting then unscoping makes you unscope faster but does not allow you to shoot faster, only re-scope faster. cl_autorezoom must be 0 to achieve this.


Fast Ladder Climbing
You can move up ladders quicker by putting yourself perpendicular towards the ladder the looking up or down all the way and holding D+S and A+S depending how you are facing the ladder and where you are looking.

Fast Rocket Shooting
Ensure cl_autorezoom is 1. Shoot your first rocket reload while sprinting and spam the shoot button.

A-Pose
If you shoot once drop your weapon and pick it up repeatedly you will start A-posing.

Suicide Bomber

 This glitch works because for some reason carrying 2 nades causes your weapon to become null. With no weapon in hand, your playermodel has no choice but to a-pose because it has no in-game unequip animations.

Also, if you want to make use of suicide bombing, like Soldier's Last Spark, without going into A-Pose and not being able to shoot, it is simple.

1) "Drop your Weapon!"
2) "Put a grenade in there!"
3) Pick up grenade
4) Walk into weapon to pick it up.

Now you can run and gun. Press Q to instantly explode. If you accidentally draw your pistol, Q wont work anymore, so just press 4 or 3 to equip the primed grenade and visit ALLAH.

This method also works with any class that has grenades (Rifleman, Assault, or Support)

Doing this with rifleman's grenade is very tough, but it can be done by shooting the grenade before dropping the weapon, but you better be quick! - aryeh77 

Original Guide; https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2886646237

Jump throw bind for support/assault

 bind "YOURKEY" "+jump; -attack; -jump" 

Carbine/Pistol fast fire
People use a script for fast firing pistols and carbines but I don't suggest them its just better to butterfly click.


Weapon Sway
The weapon sways a lot by default. You can turn off the sway by using

cl_wpn_sway_scale 0

This will not stop scope sway from snipers.

This will allow you to hear where gunshots are coming from more accurately.

bind "W" "+mfwd"
bind "A" "+mleft"
bind "S" "+mback"
bind "D" "+mright"

alias +mfwd "dsp_volume 0;+forward;alias checkfwd +forward"
alias +mback "dsp_volume 0;+back;alias checkback +back"
alias +mleft "dsp_volume 0;+moveleft;alias checkleft +moveleft"
alias +mright "dsp_volume 0;+moveright;alias checkright +moveright"
alias -mfwd "-forward;checkback;alias checkfwd none"
alias -mback "-back;checkfwd;alias checkback none"
alias -mleft "-moveleft;checkright;alias checkleft none"
alias -mright "-moveright;checkleft;alias checkright none"
alias checkfwd "none"
alias checkback "none"
alias checkleft "none"
alias checkright "none"
alias none "" "" 

7. Practice Aim Map by Hambooga

Supposed to be use along with srcds but there is a practice.cfg that you should execute if you don't know how to set up srcds. Here you can practice what I said above. Strafing and Aiming and learning to sync the two.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VNIoPUFJw7ND92A6wQRoNVnzj4sTsq4Y/view?usp=sharing

8. Where is DOD:S Competitive now?

Now DOD:S Competitive is DOD:S G. It means DOD:S Global. It's a place in which players from all over the world may play in tournaments without fearing bans for merely being good. If this sounds like a place for you, join for DOD:S Global now!

Are you sick and tired of getting banned from a server for simply having better movement and aim?

Are you tired of being banned for not complying to the restricting rules of abuse admins?

Want to improve your DOD:S skills?

Be a member of a group that welcomes new and experienced players?

Join DOD:S Global now!

http://discord.gg/dods

9. !!!NADE VIDEOS!!!

Multiple Maps:

Donner:

Lennon:

Aura:

Argentan:

Palermo:

Anzio:

Harrington:

11. END.

Now you are on your way to becoming a better player!

12. Extra. My Config and my thoughts about configs.

https://github.com/DepriFromEarth/dodsfig

I advise against using the typical configuration file you find online as most of them contain false information, placebo effects, and commands that just make your game look and run worse. The majority aren't even properly or at all tested. People just go off of "feel" or believe in things they have been told that turn out to be untrue because of the misconceptions that have been that have been spread throughout the years. Which, if you're looking to genuinely improve performance or establish a more reliable connection, you shouldn't utilize or trust a typical "Pro", "Comp" or "FPS" config. My configuration is a fork of mastercomfig [mastercomfig.com], which has been shown to improve hit detection and increase fps through extensive testing and benchmarking. I have only ported it over to DOD:S.

I suggest reading this [docs.comfig.app] to avoid following such misconceptions.

[corgi]

Could be improved thanks for the feedback!