Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009) - Multiplayer

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009) - Multiplayer

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Becoming an 'advanced' Call of Duty player.
By ORDAje
In this guide; you will learn what it takes to become an 'advanced' or 'meta' Call of Duty player. The guide is very detailed and quite lengthy, but, if you read it all, and are willing to change your playstyle; you will see results quickly.
   
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Introduction.
This is going to be long, so strap in and listen!

There seem to be two types of people who look to become better at FPS games, the "get better fast" guys and the "get better properly" guys. You see, there is no universal way to "get better fast" and in the end it all comes down to YOU and your dedication to your improvement.

Okay, before I start, you're probably wondering what makes me so special and why you should listen to me about becoming a better player?

The fact is that I, myself, am an advanced player (often mistaken for a hacker) and I have years of experience playing competitively in Australia for top teams in Search and Destroy and Domination ladders in multiple CoD titles - with that said I will share the tricks of the trade.
Game configuration.
In this part of the guide you will be learning about what makes the game run how it does, and what you can do about changing that to get the best results for you.

Most people have never heard of the 'config_mp.cfg' file even though it is one of the most important things to know about in the Call of Duty series. This file is where all of your controls and graphics settings are saved when you change them from the game's menu - but there is so much more you can do by manually editing the file! You can get an advantage over others before you even open the game!

You can find the 'config_mp.cfg' file in the following directories:
  • 32 bit Operating system
    C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\call of duty modern warfare 2\players

  • 64 bit Operating system
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\call of duty modern warfare 2\players

Once you have located the file WITH THE GAME CLOSED, right click it and select open with then find and select Word Pad from the list and click OK.

So by now, you're probably overwhelmed by the amount of text in front of you and wondering what it all means. Don't concern yourself too much with what I don't mention in the guide though because a large majority of the code in the file wont stay edited after you start the game again and will revert to their default values [they are locked items].

Now, scroll down the bottom of the text and paste these lines into your config. What you are doing here is editing some aspects of the game to improve your FPS, ping, hit detection, and your ingame scoreboard. These changes were able to be made through the ingame console in earlier CoD games, so you're just cheating the system a bit. Essentially, you now have improved visibility and chance of hitting your enemy, gotta be happy with that right?.

seta cl_maxpackets "100"
seta fx_marks "0"
seta fx_marks_ents "0"
seta fx_marks_smodels "0"
seta r_distortion "0"
seta r_dof_enable "0"
seta r_drawSun "0"
seta r_drawWater "0"
seta r_gpuSync2 "2"
seta r_vsync "0"
seta cg_youInKillCamSize "3"
seta cg_ScoresPing_MaxBars "10"
seta cg_ScoresPing_Interval "20"

You should be left with something looking like this:
Now close Word Pad and save the file.
Ingame music.
While we're trying to get an advantage over our enemies, why not make it easier to hear them?
Everyone knows that helpless feeling when near the end of a round of Search and Destroy, or near the end of a Team Deathmatch when you can't hear footsteps properly over the stupid cinematic music that the game plays. let's get rid of it, it's easy.

Go to the following directory:
  • 32 bit Operating system
    C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\call of duty modern warfare 2

  • 64 bit Operating system
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\call of duty modern warfare 2

Here you can find a folder called 'miles'. In this folder is all the information the game needs to play music (menu and lobby music included). Delete it.

That's it, you're now another step ahead of the competition.
Ingame options.
Now that you've edited the stuff that you can't edit from the game menus, let's focus on what you are actually able to change by using the game itself.

Open the game and go to the options menu and let's get started understanding what's going on.

Video:
  • Change your resolution to the highest supported by your monitor. This gives you the best visibility while you play, however you may begin to experience FPS lag if your graphics card isn't fast enough to run the game at higher resolutions.

  • Fully increase the brightness. This makes seeing into shadows a bit easier, and will leave a stronger outline around player models. Increased visibility.



Advanced Video:
  • Aspect Ratio: Auto. This setting determines how to arrange the pixels on the screen. The variations are 4:3 (for squarer displays) 16:10 (for widescreen displays) and 16:9 (for HD displays) however 'auto' will automatically select the correct aspect ratio for your display. Some people who play on widescreen, or HD displays like using a 4:3 aspect ratio because it makes the game appear quite different, like it's squashed from top to bottom; this is up to you though, give it a try and see.

  • Anti-aliasing: 4x. This setting attempts to smooth out the edges of objects and models in the game and gives you better visibility. If you have a low-end computer, I suggest leaving this setting off as you will begin to lag on large maps - there is no harm in trying it out though; try 4x, and 2x before setting it to off if you are FPS lagging.

  • Screen Refresh Rate: Highest. This setting determines how many times your screen refreshes per second. Similar to FPS (frames per second) your refresh rate in Hz will indicate how many frames are being shown to you per second by your display. The higher the number, the smoother the game will feel while playing.

  • Sync Every Frame: No. This setting will lock your FPS to your refresh rate if you enable it. The maximum FPS you can get in MW2 is 90 because the com_maxfps code is locked in the config. The quality of your connection to matches relies on your FPS, as the game will only send packets to the host of the game once per frame, so by locking your frame rate at anything below 90 ruins your chances of having a perfect connection.

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  • Shadows: No. This setting lets you disable the shadows of buildings, trees, cars etc for a HUGE boost in performance for most people's frame rate. This does not disable the shadows of player models however which is very important. You will notice that some shadows do still exist inside buildings and in other corners and stuff; you cant get around this which is a little annoying but that's why you increased your brightness.

  • Specular Map: Yes. This setting lets you decide whether or not reflections are allowed in the game. If you disable it, the game will run better but you do sacrifice some visibility in doing so. To increase your FPS, disable it, but if that isn't a problem for you, then leave it on so the game is pretty.

  • Depth of Field: No. This setting allows you to disable the blurring around your ironsights when you are aiming down the sight. This is very useful in improving both your visibility and FPS and so there is really no reason for it to be enabled.

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  • Soften Smoke Edges: No. This setting is ridiculous, all it does is fade the edges of smoke clouds a tiny bit, and while it does that, your FPS will take a nose-dive for no gain in visibility. So turn it off.

  • Ragdoll: No. This settings lets you turn off the physics calculations for dead bodies. You know when you shoot a dead guy and blood sprays out of him while he jerks around from your heartless mutilation of his corpse? yeah that's what we're talking about. Turn it off if you're not a serial killer in the making, your FPS will increase a bit during Airstrikes and explosions and stuff.

  • Bullet Impacts: No. This setting allows you to disable the bullet holes which are left after you shoot a wall or another surface People might think that this is silly because you can see where people are shooting if bullet impacts are left on, but you can still see the smoke and dust getting kicked up as bullets hit surfaces if you disable them.

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  • Texture Quality: Manual. What you should know about texture settings is that as you lower them, you will notice that you load maps much faster. Let's say you load a map in 10 seconds with 'Extra' set across the board for your texture resolutions, if you drop them all to 'low" resolution, you would probably load a map in 3 seconds. If you experience FPS lag you should have a low/normal setting for all of your texture resolutions.

  • Texture Resolution: Set this to the highest you can before you begin to lag. The higher the texture resolution, the better visibility you will have and the higher quality graphics you will see. As you lower the resolution of your textures, the game's graphics begin to look uglier and less detailed. Just try it out until you find the balance of quality and performance which you can play with.

  • Normal Map Resolution: Set this to the highest you can before you begin to lag. The higher the texture resolution, the better visibility you will have and the higher quality graphics you will see. As you lower the resolution of your textures, the game's graphics begin to look uglier and less detailed. Just try it out until you find the balance of quality and performance which you can play with.

  • Specular Map Resolution: If you have specular map enabled, set this as high as you can before you begin to lag, extra should be fine for most people though. If specular map is disabled, then set this to low, because it's pointless having high resolution textures loaded for a feature that isn't being used.

Below are my settings.


Audio:
  • Volume: You'll notice that if you have never changed the volume of the game before, the default setting is 80% volume. Turn it up to 100% so you can hear everything more easily.

  • Speaker Config: Windows Default. Leave this as Windows Default, so you get full compatibility with whatever sound setup you have. Some people think that changing this setting to 5.1 Surround will magically transform their 2 channel stereo headphones into a cinema. No, just... no.

This is what you should be looking at now.

Field of View.
Field of View determines how much of the map you can see. This is a very important aspect of all Call of Duty games. By default, MW2 lets you see 65 degrees from left to right, cool. But what if I said you could see 90 degrees by using a small tool called a FoV Changer? yeah that's more like it! if you can see more, you can kill more. Makes sense, right?

A lot of people would be scared to download and use this tool because they would be worried about VAC2 banning them. The FoV changer was added to Infinity Ward's exemption list quite some time ago and no one has ever been banned for using this tool, nor will anyone be. This is 100% safe for you to use. Click the link below to grab the tool (Mediafire).

{LINK REMOVED}
- Credit to www.mapmodnews.com for releasing the tool.

To use the FoV Changer; simply open the program, type in 90 as your field of view and then click start game, and MW2 will open. You will hear a beeping sound to indicate that you have successfully changed your field of view. You can also use the - and + keys on your number pad to change your field of view on the fly.

Here is a screenshot of the tool:


















Here is a comparison of the default Field of View (first screenshot) and the 90 degree Field of View (second screenshot):


You would have noticed how much more you can see of the map with the tool running in the second screenshot. See more, kill more.

*I can understand if you don't trust that the tool is safe and don't want use it, but feel free to try it in a private match where VAC2 IS DISABLED ONLY IF YOU PLAY ALONE, VAC2 BECOMES ACTIVE WHEN ANOTHER PLAYER CONNECTS. Password your server.
Weapons.
Okay, now that we've finished setting up the game to give you the best chance to win, let's look at what weapons you're going to play with and why.

Let's go through the top 5 primary and secondary weapons in the game and discuss their pros and cons, and some similar weapons.

Primary weapons:

ACR:
This Assault Rifle is my favourite weapon in the game. It is the most versatile of all weapons in the game in my opinion and, therefore, will get you out of any situation you find yourself in; provided that you use it correctly. It has next to no recoil and a high fire rate, this means you have to aim with it - if your aim is sloppy; you will end up with an empty mag and no kill pretty quickly. The high fire rate makes it competitive with sub-machine guns in close quarters fire fights, especially if you aim down its glorious ironsights for fast 3 bullet kills.

Similar weapons: M4A1, Vector, FAMAS

Pros:
  • Low recoil.
  • High fire rate.
  • Great ironsight.
  • Early reload cancel point.
  • Versatile.
Cons:
  • None.

UMP45:
This is clearly the best sub-machine gun in the game. It has low/medium recoil and a slower fire rate than the other sub-machine guns, the main selling point of this weapon is its damage though, and for that it gets a bit of hate. The UMP will kill your enemy in 2 or 3 shots with stopping power from any distance, which people don't seem to like.

Similar weapons: MP5K, AK-47, TAR-21

Pros:
  • Great ironsight.
  • Early reload cancel point.
  • Versatile.
Cons:
  • People hate you for using it. (Be strong, it's okay to use the UMP)

Intervention:
This rifle is obviously intended to be used as a support weapon and is great at long range, but that's in the real world, in MW2... if you can aim... it will let you kill anything in your way instantly, providing you get a clean shot in and dont tag or hitmarker your enemy. Coupled with the right perks this weapon will be your best friend.

Similar weapon: Barrett .50cal

Pros:
  • One shot; one kill most of the time.
  • Possibility of collaterals, triples, and quads.
  • Zoom while scoped.
  • Early reload cancel point. (will be explained later)
  • Versatile.
Cons:
  • If you aren't a fluent sniper or a quick thinker you won't be able to take on groups of players at a time with this weapon.
  • Missing your first shot can get you killed because you have to load another bolt before you can shoot again.

Secondary Weapons

USP .45:
This pistol is king of the secondaries. If you can manage its moderate recoil, you two are going to get along fine. It has a big clip (12 rounds) and the fastest weapon swap time of any gun in the game. When you add a tactical knife to it, there is no reason for you to complain about not having ammo for your primary.

Similar weapon: M9

Pros:
  • 2 shot kills at close range.
  • Fast weapon swap.
  • Fast reload.
Cons:
  • Touchy recoil which needs to be managed a little.
  • Not many people use it, so there isn't much ammo laying around to pick up.

.44 Magnum:
If it weren't for its clip size, this six-shooter revolver would be at the top of the food chain. Without stopping power, this hand-cannon will get you 2 shot kills at close to medium range. The reload cancel point on this gun makes it semi-effective versus groups when you need reload.

Pros:
  • Lots of 2 shot kills.
  • Great penetration damage.
  • Early reload cancel point.
Cons:
  • 6 bullets in the clip means you won't be able to take down more than 3 people at a time, but even then you will need to be doing some serious aiming.
  • Inconsistent hipfire.

Now you're probably thinking -.- where are all the other guns? I've left a lot of them out; If a weapon is not mentioned it is because I think it's too easy to use and won't make you any better as a player by using it.

By using classes with the 5 weapons mentioned above, you will force yourself to think faster, aim smoother and to become more aware of what's going on. The ACR is incredible! It will let you put 30 bullets into an area the size of a basketball from 100m away - that will force you to aim because the gun won't recoil onto people if your aim is slightly off, it has to be perfect! The UMP45 will let you build confidence in being mobile, rushing into spawn points and getting huge multi-kills. The intervention will make you think about which enemy to shoot at first, where you can take cover after shooting and what move to make next after spotting enemies moving across the map.

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Here are some weapons, equipment and attachments that you should never use while trying to get better as a player:

Attachments:
  • Akimbo: You don't aim with this attachment, you just spray a wall of bullets in the general direction of the enemy. No skill involved.
  • Grenade Launcher: Exploding the enemy from halfway across the map might be fun, but you won't get any better by doing that, there's no hard aiming going on.
  • ACOG: Let's be honest, it's useless.
  • Thermal: If you can't see without thermal, then you need some serious medical help.
  • Heartbeat Sensor: This gives you an unfair advantage and you will end up staring at your little gun mounted wallhack and won't be aware of your surroundings.

Weapons:
  • Shotguns: A primary weapon and a shotgun is far too much fire power for one person. If you stick to pistols, you will learn to aim and will become more consistent. Shotguns are too slow to swap to anyway.
  • Machine pistols: Same as shotguns, these will make you too powerful and you wont learn to utilise primary weapons to their potential if you have to rely on having a powerful secondary to get you out of trouble.
  • Riot Shields: They don't shoot bullets and so they shouldn't be in a first person shooter, leave them alone.
  • Light Machine Guns: With the expception of the AUG HBAR, the LMGs slow you down and hinder movement. They aren't 'bad' guns but you really should be more mobile when trying to improve your intensity and focus ingame.
  • Launchers: These are too easy to get kills with, it's rediculously unfair. You will not improve while using these.

Equipment:
  • Claymores: You don't want to use these because you aren't in control of the detonation of the claymore, and they make you lose focus or awareness of the area being guarded by it - this will cause deaths from inattention to the claymored area.
  • C4: These just make you focus on detonating them rather than what's around you. They aren't as bad as claymores, however.
  • Tactical Insertions: You really shouldn't waste a lethal item for a tactical insertion.
Classes.
Okay, now that we have some weapons to work with, let's get all the other gear sorted out for our classes.

Your main classes should revolve around the ACR and the UMP45, perhaps with one for sniping if you like to. *You can substitute any of the 'similar weapons' mentioned in the weapons segment of the guide; I just find these to be the best.

Now these classes will force you to improve at using your primary weapons. Understanding the limits of your primaries and how they behave in all situations is important because you can't swap to a weapon which will get you out of trouble instantly; all you have is a cute pistol which needs to be used efficiently to be effective. You will need to get comfortable with performance of your weapons in order to learn when to make decisions, which decisions to make, why to make them and how to achieve the best outcome in all scenarios.

For example; you start shooting at 3 players with a UMP45 that has a half empty clip and manage to miss the remaining 15 rounds - you can't swap to akimbo G18s and spray your way to safety - you have your USP that requires some intense aim if you're going to kill these 3 guys.

The first few times you get into a situation like that, you will probably die. As your aim improves you will kill one, then two and finally you'll work out what it is you need to do to get all three and continue tearing through the opposition.

This will take time, so stick to these setups. I'm not saying that you can't have other classes, but it is important that you do have these and use them, especially the ACR and UMP45 classes; because other classes with grenade launchers, claymores, akimbo etc. will only make you more reliant on overpowered weapons and hold you back from improving. Ideally, to improve fastest, you only want to be using bullets; no explosives.

Lets start with an ACR class:


Probably the best class to improve with:
  • Primary: ACR

  • Attachment: Extended Magazine - This enables you to take down 5+ enemies in a single magazine of 45 rounds, you would find this useful when faced with enemies pouring out of a spawn point toward you. With this setup, you will cut them down easily if you can aim. FMJ would be a second choice for when you are more confident in shooting through surfaces.

  • Secondary: USP .45

  • Attachment: Tactical Knife - A USP tactical knife will hold it's own against any gun if you have to pull it out and the fast knife gives you a 'plan b' to go and stab your way out of trouble.

  • Equipment: Semtex - I find that Semtex works better with Assault Rifles rather than Sub-Machine Guns because you generally aren't as aggressive with ARs as you are with SMGs. You can pull the semtex out and then change your mind if you need to, and put it away.

  • Special Grenade: Flash Grenade - If you're in a bind, with low health and you're trapped behind cover or something similar; the humble flash grenade will leave your enemy blind and deaf to your escape; you turn them into completely useless players.

  • Perk 1: Scavenger: When you get better with the ACR, you will notice that staying alive is quite easy and you wind up with no ammo and a whole lot of kills pretty quickly, so scavenger is a good idea if you don't plan on dying.

  • Perk 2: Stopping Power: More damage, what more do you want to know?

  • Perk 3: Ninja: Ninja lets you hear others' footsteps more easily, and at the same time you don't need to worry about them hearing you running around - this perk also protects you from the heartbeat sensor fools.

  • Death Streak: Copycat - If you actually manage to die more than twice in a row, you don't deserve an advantage over the players that are dominating you (unless they're hacking) but for the most part they wont be. You need to learn to pull yourself out of deathstreaks by examining the situation and troubleshooting what you're doing wrong, then fixng it!

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Now a UMP45 class should be much the same as the ACR class:



Some slight changes will be made:
  • Primary: UMP45

  • Attachment: FMJ/Extended Mag - you shouldn't use a silencer, because then you don't have to worry about the red dot you create on the enemy minimap when you fire the weapon.
    This is important because you will break focus if you don't always have something to think about.

  • Perk 1: Marathon - this perk, in conjunction with the faster run speed of the SMG will make you a lot more mobile. You can sprint across map and into spawn points where you can cause havoc and rack up a ton of kills in the process.

  • Equipment: Frag - with a fast moving class, frag grenades let you do lots of cool things. The two most interesting are cooking the frag so it explodes where you want it to, and bouncing them off of surfaces, cars, umbrellas, whatever you like.
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For those who like some sniper action, an Intervention class:


Use this as a basic class:

  • Primary: Intervention

  • Attachment: FMJ - lets you shoot through walls with less damage loss.

  • Secondary: USP .45 - it's important to switch to your USP if you miss your first shot

  • Attachment: Tactical Knife

  • Equipment: Throwing Knife - This is important for snipers who have no ammo loaded into their weapons. If they have shot the last bullet in the sniper clip, swapped to their secondary and wasted its ammo they still have a chance to get a kill with the throwing knife while they look for a place to reload and make their next move.

  • Special Grenade: Flash Grenade - most people use stuns, that makes the job too easy though.

  • Perk 1: Sleight of Hand Pro - This puts the power of the quickscope at your fingertips.

  • Perk 2: Stopping Power

  • Perk 3: Steady Aim - helps with the consistency of noscoping when under pressure, also the pro version allows you to steady the scope for 8 seconds which is handy for choking corners.
Play styles.
Here is the part where you have to change your habits in order to improve your gameplay. Let's discuss some of the play styles which will set you on your way to becoming a better player, and some which will hold you back.

Try to use these playstyles in conjunction with each other for maximum effectiveness. The idea is to be unpredictable, while knowing exactly what's going on, and how you are going to deal with every situation without taking time to think about it. Obviously you won't be able to read this and then go 50-0 in your next game, but try to put these techniques into your gameplay and watch your results!


  • Choking: This play style is best suited to an ACR class, and requires some map knowledge. What you're going to have to do is realise where your enemies spawn, and where most of them are likely to go at the start of the game. After you work this out you want to move as quickly as possible to a vantage point where you can watch them pour out of an area and into your sights.

  • Choking corners is a good tactic when you have good aim. Whenever you are certain that enemies are going to come around a corner, there's no reason that you should run at them; instead, just wait them out and cut them down as they poke the corner. With the ACR class that we covered earlier, this should be especially simple for you to do, but with practice it will become a core element of your gameplay; second nature.

  • Rushing: This play style is pretty straight forward; you want to be moving quickly all the time while preaiming and prefiring as much as possible. While you are rushing, you will need to think ahead of each kill and set yourself up for your next one, and so on. It is a good idea to turn around 180 degrees to check your tail every once in a while, and then turn back to continue your rush - this builds your awareness and will inevitably keep you alive for longer. You want to run at the enemy spawn and hopefully catch them as they lazily emerge from the common paths away from it.

  • Holding: This play style is commonly confused with camping, but is most definitely not the same thing. Beginning by finding an area which enemies are moving towards frequently, make sure that you can take cover from many different angles. As you begin to kill your enemies, attention will be drawn to you and your location, and a lot of the time they will come back for revenge kills. Being an 'advanced' player, you will move position after eliminating the enemies that are coming at you - as they come back for revenge, they generally expect you to be in the same spot, so you have the advantage. Remember to watch other angles which you could be shot from if someone was to know where you were. Eventually, the spawn system will start to spawn your teammates close to you if you can stay alive; this gives you protection and also gives the enemies more targets to shoot at instead of you. Repeat this until you die or get bored really.

  • Flanking: This play style relies on you having great game knowledge and timing. You will stay on the outside of the map for the most part, and try to get to the enemy's spawn side as fast as you can and position yourself behind their spawn. In doing this, you will get yourself easy kills because the enemy's back will almost always be facing you. Sometimes you will have to run past enemies who are rushing the middle of the map - even though you see them, you dont have to shoot at them (you have a team for a reason you know). By letting the players run past you, you keep the element of surprise and are not suspected to be on the flank. This is a good play style to use in conjunction with rushing.

  • Farming: This play style is basically a strategy for staying alive longer with the goal of getting big streaks; nukes etc. What you're going to want to do is; wait at spawn until your team has left, then leave spawn in the direction that the least amount of people have gone. So if everyone goes left, you go right and so on. This allows you to find the enemy very quickly; if your teammates are getting killed or are wasting enemies, you know that some are around their area and so you flank your way there - alternatively, you could encounter the entire enemy team on your side, and as a 'loner' of sorts, you should easily be able to kill 5 bad guys if you make the right choices and be well on the way to a big streak.

    At the first sign of you possibly dying, you need to get to a safe place quickly; even if you're about to get a kill, pick up a weapon or whatever you're doing... just stop, and run to safety or you'll die... it always happens and then you've lost your streak. By playing safely like this, you should be aware of what's going on around you so you can pick your vantage points and exit routes well.

  • Baiting: This is more of a cheap technique to lure your enemies rather than a play style, but let's go over it. Baiting is much like fishing; you are the fisherman, your teammates are the bait and your enemies are the fish. You will sit behind your teammates as they move toward the enemy, and watch, listen and learn where the bad guys are shooting from. After figuring out where the enemies are, you'll have to work out a way to kill them; most common is to wait for your teammates to die, and then choke the area that they died in; killing the opposition as they move into the area they think have cleared.

    You can also use yourself as bait if you know some enemies are in a building, around a corner or somewhere else that you can't actually see. You can do this in a few ways; you can shoot an unsilenced weapon a few times to put a red dot on the enemies' radars and hopefully make them focus on your position. After giving away your position, depending on the situation, you will either take on the enemies who come to see where you are, or you can run away and hope that they move away from their previous positions; this allows you to flank them, or sneak by them to go and do whatever you need to. If your enemies are particularly good listeners, you can use footsteps to bait them out by jumping up and down on the spot or simply running without ninja - this is best for playing search and destroy matches.

  • Don't camp in corners, you need to move and become totally aware of your surroundings to improve at the game.
  • Don't spend too much time spawn sniping if possible as this develops a 'campy' tendency and you will become a lazy player.
Quick tips.
This section will cover some things to look out for in the game to help you make the most of your gameplay.

Reload canceling: This is pretty simple. For most weapons, you don't actually have to wait for the full reload animation to play before the bullets are actually in the gun. To 'cancel' the reload all you have to do is quickly double-tap your weapon switch key when the ammo counter displays a full clip again. For example, using the Intervention (no sleight of hand) you can double-tap cancel the reload just as the mag has been pulled out of the gun (saving about 3 seconds).

Penetration: Bullets go through a lot of surfaces and objects guys. Just because you can't see people, doesn't mean that you can't kill them! So shoot through stuff! Just about all interior walls are penetrable, most fences are, just about anything is really... so give it a go, shoot through the wall and get some easy kills.

Gaps and angles: You probably wouldn't pay much attention to small holes, gaps or tight angles which could potentially tell you a lot about where, when and how to play each game. What you're looking for are holes in walls, gaps between walls and objects and weird and unexpected angles that you can see through and shoot from.

Bomb Targets: Lets look at defending bomb sites in Search and Destroy. If you listen carefully enough after the plant, you can hear very clearly when someone is defusing the bomb. It's also pretty handy that the game gives you a nice big green icon above the bomb itself; with this icon you will always know where the defuser is once you've heard them pick up the bomb - so why not shoot them through some walls?

Listening: If you don't own a headset or headphones of some sort, it's safe to say that you're at a disadvantage straight away. You need to be able to hear footsteps, bullet impacts, fire fights and even failed knife attempts so that you can react in the best and most informed way possible.

Pre-aim and pre-fire: Pre-aiming and pre-firing can give you a huge advantage over your opponents. If you are turning a corner, you should do so while ADS (aiming down the sight) this allows you to put fire down in a straight line much faster than the enemy who is hopefully not doing the same thing. Pre-firing is shooting before you can see your target; let's say that you hear someone running near a corner, behind a fence or even above you in a building... shoot at them before they can see you for an easy kill (this will take good judgement, but you'll get better at it in time).
Conclusion.
That's it from me, and if you've managed to read through all of this, I sincerely hope that it has helped you on your way to becoming an advanced Call of Duty player.

Feel free to add me on steam if you have any questions.
Steam ID: 2onetwo

Happy Fragging!

5907 Words.
Gameplay Video.
A number of you have asked for a gameplay video so you can see some of my playstyles in action; here it is, enjoy.

165 Comments
FineMouche16 [FR] 4 Sep, 2023 @ 5:46pm 
why you don't speak about jumping in corner / door and lean to the floor in your guide ?
FineMouche16 [FR] 4 Sep, 2023 @ 4:39pm 
why the end of my config_mp files is not the same has yours ? (before the lines you you to copy past)

i end with that :
seta vid_ypos "22"
seta winvoice_mic_mute "1"
seta winvoice_mic_reclevel "65535"
seta winvoice_mic_scaler "1"
seta winvoice_save_voice "0"

and you with :
parsescript script network
FineMouche16 [FR] 4 Sep, 2023 @ 4:35pm 
Why LMGs are banned from MW2 competion ?
ORDAje  [author] 21 Jun, 2020 @ 7:13am 
Thanks mate. At the time of writing there were very few lobbies available to play in Australia, so I wanted to help players who wouldn't be able to play the game in any well structured competitive sense to learn the tricks and mindset required to be able to hold their own in any situation. That's why I didn't acknowledge shields and launchers, and suggested to stay away from teammates and play more independently to have as much control over the situation as possible. I would have much preferred to write a team play guide; dropping tips and strategies that were discovered through thousands of hours of team play in SND/DOM and practice sessions. In hindsight, it would have been beneficial to the rest of the world to have done this instead, or in addition to this guide. Still happy to weigh in on specific issues or questions if anyone has any.
White_ Ink 5 Jun, 2020 @ 11:00am 
#3
Sometimes Riot Shield is viable! Running 3 4 5 can be stronger than 5 7 11! Going for that final kill for your predator by pushing spawn may flip the entire enemy team's spawn, causing your teammates to get flanked. Tubing is a viable strat, but if it is all you know how to do, you will not grow as a player beyond a certain point. There may come a day when 5 players are tubing, and go up against a competent team who is able to counter tube, that 5 man group may complain how broken a subjectively weaker strategy is, or even quit playing. I believe MW2 is like Dota2, where SO many things are strong, and just about everything is viable, but bad habits prevent overall growth of the game!

I am knife primary (I can still shoot, snipe, play support if needed though), and far from a top tier player. Plat/Diamond skill lvl but looking at 4-5 players with 420 titles/ emblems in each lobby, so many can beat the stoners. I hope MW2 gets stronger with better, more well equipped players!
White_ Ink 5 Jun, 2020 @ 10:58am 
#2
Early Game Routing, Map Efficient Movement, playing WITH teammates as opposed to solomissioning it, and overall understanding of fitting team roles are *heavily underutilized* by the majority of players. Even *top* players fail to grasp the concepts they are using to outplay opponents, outside of better aim, and general map knowledge.

How often have you considered using covering fire from a loud unsilenced LMG or AR to distract a camping opponent bunkering down with OMA while a LW Ninja player rushes in with a SMG, Sniper, or even Knife to regain control of a contested point. All it takes is a single competent player to understand what your team is doing, and to help each other out! Imagine the coordination of a team of public players all understanding the goals of the game. (Exmpl: When you play on Estate, its easier to control mansion and guard it while enemy has to tube, snipe, find a way in and clear out the spawns)
White_ Ink 5 Jun, 2020 @ 10:57am 
#1
Excellent guide. Even if I disagree wtih some perk loadouts , weapon attachemnt opinions, gun viablities, this is still the best guide i've found to helping players move up in skill level.That being said, there's a lot more i think could be covered.

As someone who is a Knife Primary Player there are concepts popular in other video games, namely csgo, league of legends, and overwatch that *all* players can use to upgrade their MW2 Gameplay to fit their goals: to accrue more wins, higher win-rate, higher kda, reach larger killstreaks, become team kill-leader, higher points on scoreboard, or
even maximum exp per game. (imagine if destroyed air support and riot shield damage soaking were additional points on end-game scoreboard)