How to Deal with “Bad Hits”

How often do you think you should be scoring better than you really are? Should be landing more hits than you are? It’s not all in your head. Well, some of it isn’t in your head. “Bad hits” is a common problem, but most people don’t even know how to go about solving it.

It’s important to define what bad hits is. Bad hits is when you are doing everything right (aiming well, shooting in bursts to keep recoil down, moving intelligently), but for some reason that isn’t working as well as normal. You’re struggling to land successive hits on opponents who aren’t any better than your normal opponents. This is most evident in clan matches when you swap servers and suddenly you can’t hit anything. No one is quite sure what causes this, but the fact remains there are servers on which people just plain can’t hit well. This guide is an action plan for what to do when you encounter bad hits.

Check your connection

Pull down the console and type /cg_lagometer 1. This enables the net graph, which is a visual representation of your connection quality. Ideally, it will look like this:

If it looks similar to any of the following, there’s a problem.

– mild antiwarp

– severe antiwarp

– moderately fluctuating ping

– heavy packet loss

– delayed client-side packets

For a more indepth look at the above images, refer to the following page:
http://www.getlegitanddip.com/dailynade/lagometer.htm

Plan of Action – Observation

If your netgraph looks fine, there are some things you can try.

Check your aim
Are you actually aiming at the enemy? Thoroughly assess how you’re aiming. Is your crosshair on the enemy consistently, or are you only occasionally aimed at your enemy? Try extra hard for a few minutes to make a conscious effort to aim well. Although you may not normally have to do this, some servers seem to require a little extra aiming effort to get acceptable hits. Watch your crosshair, not the enemy.

Check your shooting
Are you shooting properly? Is your cone of spread consistently small enough to ensure reliable hits? If you’re spamming, you’re not going to be getting hits. In addition to aiming well, try taking extra care while shooting to see if your hits pick up.

Ensure you are using good network settings
Set your rate to 25000 (/rate 25000). Set your maxpackets to 42 (/cl_maxpackets 42). As you saw in the above selection of netgraph images, a low rate can cause data sent to the server to be delayed. Increasing your max packets means there is less of an impact if a packet is delayed.

Consider the skill of your opponents
Are you playing unusually good opponents? I never write a server off as hitting bad unless I know the skill level of my opponents. Veteran players will move more intelligently, thus requiring better aim to track. Of course if you’re in a clan match and suddenly you can’t hit anything after a server switch, you can be pretty sure it’s nothing to do with your opponents’ skill are doing.;) Watch how your opponents play, and if they’re doing things that make it hard to aim at them. Intelligent use of cover, jumping, crouching, and sliding all make it much harder to get a bead on your target.

Give yourself a mental and physical once-over
Are you stressed? Tired? Angry? Emotions have physical manifestations. Anxiety makes you shaky and jumpy. Anger makes you reckless and short tempered. Being sleep deprived makes your reaction times slower. Physical exhaustion makes your reactions and movements slower and sometimes shaky. Unless you’re rested and relaxed, you’re not going to be playing at top form. Take a good look at yourself and decide whether you’re physically and mentally in the zone. If not, gtfo and take a break!

Plan of Action – Execution

So you’re doing everything right and you’re still hitting like garbage. Now it’s time to try to do something about it!

LEAVE
Vote with your feet. Find a new server. No sense playing on a lousy server, not getting proper hits, and as a result, not having any fun. This is a game, games are about fun. Of course if you’re in an organized clan match, you can’t just up and leave! In a match, try not to whine about hits too much; it brings morale down.

Switch to a different role
In my experience, the SR8 does not suffer from bad hits like the automatics, probably because less data is required to be processed for one bullet every few seconds. In some cases you may be able to contribute to your team more with the SR8, even if you are fulfilling the same position as you were with the auto. It’s generally a good idea to have an automatic when on offense in CTF, but if you can kill more reliably with the SR8, that switch may help. Switching to a defensive role where you can take cover and have a positional advantage can also help because you have more time to kill an enemy.

Switch guns
Instead of an LR, try an M4, AK103, or G36. The different spread patterns might mitigate the bad hits, or the higher damage of the AK103 might make it easier to kill enemies with less hits.

Flank
Instead of facing enemies head on, flank around and shoot them in the back. The surprise advantage should give you enough time to finish them off.

Think positively
Don’t keep blaming bad hits for everything. You’ve established hits aren’t good, so put that out of your mind and work on being an asset to your team. Keep focusing on aiming well and shooting well, and you may find at the end of the round, although you didn’t play as good as you know you can, you at least contributed to your team. Constantly focusing on the bad hits will just make you angry and in turn make you play even worse.

Conclusion

I hope I’ve made it clear that although many servers do have bad hit detection, players share a big part of the blame too. Keep aiming well, make sure your network settings are optimal, and play to maximize your positional advantage and the time you have to kill enemies. Basically, don’t keep doing what you’re doing, because it’s not working. Switch it up. And remember, it’s just a game!

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