Is the Heartbeat Sensor for Noobs

One good thing about this WordPress blog system is the stats. It shows me the search terms that people use to get here. Mostly it’s the same thing over and over, but occasionally there’s a term that is related to something I’ve posted, but is not explicitly answered.

The search term “is a heartbeat sensor for noons” was there today (and I take it that ‘noons’ is a typo for ‘noobs’). I thought it was a very good question since the Heartbeat Sensor, like every other attachment and perk, attracts the suffix -noob when it is used in game. Ironically the person who is killed is the one yelling “noob!” which doesn’t really make sense as the person who caught the dead is the ‘noobish’ one for getting killed – not the person who racked up the kill or kills…..

So, the HeartBeat Sensor. It’s not an attachment that I use as I find that I get tunnel vision with it. Staring at the Aliens-esque blips moving on the screen I tend to get killed from behind. But that’s not to say that it is useless or noobish. You just have to learn how to use if effectively. So here is my quick list for effective Heartbeat Sensor use:

• 1 – The HBS is an aid, just like the UAV. But you cannot fully rely on it. As such, it is important not to become fixated by it.
• 2 – Remember that the HBS refreshes about once a second. This means that moving enemies are potentially at least one second closer than it is showing – even more for Marathon/Lightweight enemies.
• 3 – The HBS will not show up people using the Ninja Perk – but does show up Cold Blooded users who will be invisible to UAV. This is probably the number one reason why you should not become reliant on it. While you’re scoping out the area and not picking anything up, I (because I tend to use Ninja a lot) could be coming directly towards you. And while you’re looking at the HBS I could already have spotted you….
• 4 – It’s usefulness is reduced when in buildings with multiple floors as it only shows you the relative distance away and not whether they are on the same level or not.
• 5 – Avoid camping with it. And by camping I mean proper camping. i.e. sitting in the corner of a room with your gun trained at the door. Not because camping is wrong, but because you’ll get killed very easily through camping. Claim an area and patrol it while maintaining a strategic presence with the aid of the HBS.

It’s important when using the HBS to pre-empt the incoming enemy rather than allowing them to come directly to your position. The HBS gives you their relative position so you should move to a point where you have the best chance of winning the engagement by launching a surprise attack.

Here’s a video from Wings of Redemption where he uses the Heart Beat Sensor in conjunction with the Scrambler perk to lure enemies to his position so he can kill them. For most 1337 players the HBS and Scrambler perks are considered worthless, but here they are used to great effect:

But to answer the original question: Is the Heartbeat Sensor for noobs? No it’s not. It’s not any more noobish than any other attachment. Although you’ll always have the complainers who consider any perk/attachment combo that they are not currently using to be noobish. So you know what? Sod them, use what you like. If someone calls you a noob, load up One Man Army, Danger Close and the Pro-Pipe and noob them to death! You’ve bought the game for your enjoyment, not to adhere to another person’s crazed concept of how the game should be played.

You can find more information on the Heart Beat Sensor at the Call of Duty Wiki

Peas and loaves.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

Is Quickscoping a Random Event?

So this post is about quick scoping and no scoping. I was inspired to write it after watching the following video and then reading/participating in the comments. The video isn’t really that interesting unless you enjoy listening to someone complain constantly about how crap MW2 is, but here it is for context:

Recently I’ve put my lack up success in Modern Warfare 2 and pretty much every other FPS down to my awful aiming. It’s as good an excuse as any and is something that only I can have an effect on. So I’ve been looking at how the more successful players aim in game and in most cases they make it so that the enemy is within the onscreen crosshairs before ADS (aiming down sight). This means that they already have a bead on the enemy and they are not chasing them across the screen with their sights. But what has that got to do with quickscoping and no scoping?

Bear with me because in order to fully explain this it may take some time. On screen (unless you’re playing hardcore) you have the cross hairs – four little white blocks towards the centre of the screen:

The Crosshairs can be seen in the centre of the screen around the number 1

When the Call of Duty series started, one thing that they did well was to increase the realism of firing your gun. So no longer did your bullets go in a straight line from the barrel of the gun to the horizon.

No more Laser Guns

Instead, when you fire without ADS (aiming down sight) your bullet will follow a trajectory from a random point within the crosshair area to replicate muzzle sway:

The Hit Area

If your taget is across the map then your chances of getting a non-ADS kill (or even a hit) are greatly reduced. But in the event that your enemy fills the “hit” area then you will hit them – not accurately, but a hit nonetheless. And as Bruce Lee said “A hit is a hit!”. If you are lucky your hip fire will strike them in a critical area scoring a multiplier before they are able to return the favour. The ONLY way to accurately hit your target is to ADS, or scope in if you are using a scoped weapon:

ADS - the best way to fly

The crosshair accuracy increases if you crouch or go prone – in most cases it will noticeably contract. Accuracy is reduced when you are moving which you can see on screen as the distance between the crosshair points expands.

So now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get on to no-scoping, and quick-scoping (NS and QS from here on). I don’t have a problem with people who no-scope or quick-scope, but I do think that on the whole those who say it is all about skillz and being 1337 are teeny tiny bit delusional. People who NS and QS in MW2 utilise two things in their “skill” whether they realise it or not – luck, and the helping hand of auto aim. When your crosshairs are filled by your target, or they occupy a large proportion of it then your chances of hitting that target are increased. When you scope in, the auto aim “snaps” you towards the target if one is close to the center of the crosshair. Combine with that the fact that the sniper rifles do a lot of damage and you increase your chances of getting a kill even further.

To illustrate the random spread of fire when no scoping have a look at this quick clip from Hutch:

As you can see, the guy he’s trying to shoot is in the middle of the crosshairs, but due to the random spray element the bullets are missing him….. Which neatly brings us on to the whole Sniper Rifle hitmarker complaining that people – mostly quick and no scopers – are complaining about. I’ll allow YouTube comments from the first video to explain how I feel about hitmarkers with the Sniper Rifle (I posted before about getting hitmarkers when using the silencer).

I missed off the ‘t’ in ‘event’ in the last reply…. Anyway – that’s pretty much how I feel about quickscoping. If it was total skill then the quick scoper would not get hitmarkers and their shots would be upper body/head. But that is not the case because they are effectively in between hip firing and ADS. If you watch any QS videos you’ll see that in most cases the scope doesn’t even come up far enough to see the enemy in it….is that aiming?

One thing you’ll notice is that QS and NS posters on YouTube will generally post montage clips of their 1337 skillz. Invariably they show every hit getting “One Shot Kill” or “Headshot” – but these are montage clips, meaning they are the best bits. If you watch videos from QSs who post full matches they you will see them miss, sometimes a lot.

But generally they put it down to lag, or Infinity Ward messing up – but it’s not. Try aiming, that’ll fix the problem in a heartbeat. I particularly like the commentaries that go: “So….um…..yeah. I’m sniping and….. oh my god look at this! A hitmarker?!…..and then he kills me. Infinity Ward, you need to fix this, like, immediately as this is the single thing that makes me want to quit playing this game right now, along with noobtube noobs, commando noobs, Assualt Rifle noobs, SMG noobs, pistol noobs, shotgun noobs, rocket noobs, thermal noobs, grenade noobs, semtex noobs, claymore noobs, C4 noobs, hardscope noobs, turret noobs, prone noobs, jumping noobs, camping noobs, running noobs, chopper gunner noobs, AC130 noobs, last stand noobs, martyrdom noobs and nooby noobs. So……um…..yeah”

In my opinion and experience, is Quickscoping governed by random chance? Yes, yes it is. I’m fully prepared to be proven otherwise, but so far I have not found one person who can consistently get upper body or head shots while no or quick scoping. Even so called Quick Scope tutorials are vague at best on how to do it. My own no scope and quick scope tests indicate the bullet spread remains random compared to actually aiming.

Peas and loaves.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

Hey! That’s My Camping Spot…..

I’ve just remembered an event that occurred last night during my catastrophic gaming session. I’d run into similar “Spot Envy” while playing Zombie Nazis on World at War (Call of Duty 5), but this was the first time on Modern Warfare 2.

So here’s the scenario – Derail, Mercenary TDM, FAL – Bling, silencer and Holographic sight, Spas-12 with grip, Stopping Power Pro (because of the silencer), Ninja Pro, Claymore, Stun Grenades. The game had already begun and I decide that I’m going to pitch my tent in the middle building by the train wreck. This was because I haven’t really sniped on this prestige and having been destroyed in the previous games I thought I should cause the enemy some pain for once.

Unfortunately when I got there, there was already a sniper in place who quickly killed me on the stairs. When I got back there the enemy team had sort of made it their home and were making a good job of ventilating my “team mates”. We were attempting to go up the far stairs by the power plant, but as soon as anyone got to the door they were cut down by someone in the other room. “No, after you, I insist…” I think to myself as they push past to get into the doorway of doom. When the last of them had been blown away I jumped over the bannister to get onto that landing bit so that I would present less of a profile to the door as I looked to see where the shooter was.

Spas out I made my way forward and got the shooter – Hooray! I placed a claymore on the stairs I had come up (the narrow back stairs) and made my way through to the front of the building. As I did, a “team mate” came through from the other end with akimbo Rangers. So, having checked the building was clear I jumped on the bannister of the wide stairway pointing down towards the entrance. Akimbo Ranger kid returns and starts air knifing me……what? What is your problem? He’s there for a good 20 seconds before going to the bottom of the stairs in a huff. I was obviously in his camping spot. He was obviously griping over the mic as his name kept flashing up with the speaker icon next to it – but I have game chat turned ALLLLLL the way down.

Well you know what – I cleared out that building, I took out the guy that was camped there decimating the team so why should I move just because I’m in his favourite spot that he did nothing to achieve? To be honest that guy pissed me off so I chucked some stun grenades his way to let the enemy know where we were – he’s lucky I didn’t have smoke equipped……

So eventually I decide there’s not enough action here and go sniper hunting. But honestly! Fair enough show your displeasure at someone if you’re playing an objective game and they’re sitting in a room doing nothing for the team, but getting your nose all out of joint because someone is in “your” spot?! It’s time to grow up. And that’s another reason why the title PEGI rating should be enforced.

Bah, I’m grumpy.

Peas and loaves.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

Three to Watch on YouTube – MW2

I’ve put together a quicky vid to pimp out three YouTube peeps that I’ve recently come across.

DuelistMaster9 – he’s only got three videos up, but I’m sure that if some of you go over there and show him some love he’ll put more up. There’s no commentary, however if you like to see other people’s playstyle then go have a look.

MisterFantasmo – a free for all beast who has some of the driest funny commentaries I’ve seen so far. And if you thought the riot shield was a useless hunk of junk used by noobs then maybe his vids will make you change your mind.

sasbenjr – he shouldn’t really need any introduction if you’ve been following this blog. For those of you who are late to the party he’s producing the most informative videos about MW2 on YouTube that I’ve seen so far. He picks up where every other tactic commentary left off and gives you insights that most people don’t even think about.

Here’s the vid:

If it’s popular enough and I can find more uploaders who I haven’t already mentioned somewhere then I may make this into a regular feature. Let me know if you know someone who is creating good work, but isn’t getting the views and we’ll see if we can pimp them out a bit.

In the meantime, to see all my current YouTube subscriptions simply click on the YouTube link at the bottom.

Peas and loaves.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

The Invincible Commando

In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (also known as CoD6) there is a perk/ability called Commando. I’ve watched The Discovery Channel and know for a fact that real commandos don’t wear underpants, and can wipe their bums with a single sheet of toilet paper. Although double hard and twice as tough I’ve never seen it mentioned anywhere that commandos have some sort of supernatural shield that makes them impervious to bullets coupled with the ability to lunge forward an impossible distance to stab their enemy in the face.

In game, and it is a game so reality may be suspended at any time, if someone is shooting me then I basically can’t do anything unless I’m already shooting them and get a lucky hit in. However, if I’m shooting someone else and they have commando equipped they are mysteriously able to ignore the incoming hit markers and stab me to derff!

I don’t have a problem with commando as such. I use it on some of my classes to reduce fall damage (and so that I can lunge at someone from across the map when the sniper rifle failed to do the job). There are many people who complain about commando and call is ‘nooby’ (that old chestnut) or ‘cheap’ (the new ‘noob’), but just like everything else that people complain about in game they only complain about it when it doesn’t work for them. But, to a certain extent I agree that there is a problem with it.

The problem isn’t the lunging. It’s the invincibility of it. It would be more acceptable if the Commando Lunge only worked if you haven’t taken any damage, or at the very least are not in the process of being riddled with bullets. For example:

1 – Walk round the corner – uh-oh enemy in my face, no time to react, they haven’t reacted either….STAAAB! – perfectly acceptable.
2 – Walk round the corner – uh-oh enemy waiting for me, getting shot, STAAB – i r 1337!!!111!!!! – totally unacceptable.

Unlike other people who are calling on Infinity Ward to immediately remove Commando from the game – because that is not going to happen – I’d just like to see it toned down a bit, just have the “Suspend Reality” option turned off when the melee button is pressed.

The difference between normal knife distance and commando:

And here’s an example of running through a hail of bullets (it looks this guy had the little known perk “Teleport” equipped rather than Commando)

Your thoughts on Commando?

Peas and loaves.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

My First and Last MW2 YouTube Video

I’ve been messing with the idea of recording some of my Modern Warfare 2 gameplay because I’m so awesome at the game I thought it would make a change for people to see an ordinary average player rather than the usual beasted ownage that you see from players like Hutch, SeaNanners, czeko92, theMOODIEswede, tjeb and all the other brilliant players out there.

Anyway, I’d looked at different ways of doing it and as I already had a Dazzle adapter thingy for a video camera I cobbled together a splitter cable. Which was fine except it meant playing in non-HD, and the computer didn’t like the set up. So I went cross-eyed and the PC had a fit.

The next thing was using the video camera to record directly from the screen – a cam, as it were. Again this was fine except for a couple of things:

• flicker from the screen, it’s a 50hz plasma screen and the slowest shutter speed on the camera is 1/50th so that was unavoidable.
• Because I was using headphones to play and couldn’t be bothered to make an audio splitter cable there was no actual in game sound
• Connected directly to the PC I could only get 5 minutes footage before the camera shuts down
• Couldn’t get the whole screen in without getting a massive border

I made a quick intro bit and stuck some music on it. I avoided the usual Drowning Pool or LaRoux that seems to be popular at the moment and went for something more fitting to my gameplay. It was the first (and only game) I played last night and when I joined the team were already losing. It was on Afghan and I chose my sniper class as I prefer to go sniping on this map. My secondary was the PP2000 which I’ve only just started using and by golly it’s a beast of a gun.

One mistake I made was forgetting that I had claymores equipped which meant that the twice a grenade would have been infinitely more useful I stood in the open and brazenly planted a claymore (although later on it did alert me to the position of the enemy).

And here it is (although not available in Germany due to WMG restrictions):
*UPDATE 08-05-2010- Now not available anywhere due to a copyright strike on my channel)*

I’m not going to make anymore videos for the forseeable future, not because it was difficult, but because I’m not happy with the end quality from the camera set up. But if anyone has an HD PVR that they don’t want I’ll take it off their hands for zero monies (you don’t ask you don’t get).

Peas and loaves.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

Cheap Kills in the house

I hit and then maxed out level 70 last night – mainly thanks to the AK47 (beast of a gun). And rather than jump into prestige and possibly make the worst decision in gaming I’ve created a second account as a bit of a mess about. Mainly to see if I could handle going back to level and not having any perks or weapons, and to allow me to have mess about doing stupid stuff like running around with the riot shield, or camping with C4.

I’ll look forward to mucking about on Karachi and Terminal especially. They are two maps that I just can’t seem to do well on. The new psn is CheapKills so feel free to add that as well as my usual id – evaDlivE.

It’ll be interesting if going back to level 1 will help me improve at MW2, or just show how much of a nooby booby I am.

Long live the noobs!

Peas and loaves.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

To prestige or not….I’m thinking not.

Modern Warfare 2 Prestige Badges

For those people who are new to Modern Warfare 2 or the Call of Duty series once you reach a certain level (in the case of MW2 it’s level 70) you have the option to lose all the weapons, perks and attachments that you’ve unlocked and start again from level 1. But you get a new symbol, one new custom class for every other prestige (1, 3, 5, etc), and the ability to unlock new titles……is that worth it?

I played Call of Duty 4 (Modern Warfare) but at the time I wasn’t really into it, nor had the time, so didn’t actually get the opportunity to prestige – I was planning on doing so, but then the xbox360 had the red ring of death and I got the PS3 instead. At the time of writing, I’m level 68 and have been playing since early January so it’ll probably take roughly two months per prestige if I was to do it.

The life cycle of Modern Warfare was roughly two years before MW2 came out so there would theoretically be enough time to go through at least one prestige, but can I really be bothered with starting from zero again? It took me long enough to unlock all the ghillie suits (300 one shot kills). I’ve unlocked killstreaks that I haven’t even accomplished yet, and currently I don’t think I’m ever going to get the 25 killstreak required to call in the nuke.

Ofcourse it’s great having all the messages popping up on screen when you get a certain achievement or promotion. But I hate being the noob level. I couldn’t wait to unlock claymores, Ninja Pro and Cold Blooded Pro and I’m not sure if I could play without them. I would prefer the prestige to give you the option to keep one unlockable weapon and one unlockable perk to be going on with. Another thing is the match making, once you prestige it’s going to match you more with higher prestige levels – and I’m really not that good. It’s bad enough being matched with multi-prestige levels as it is.

I think I’m going to create a new PSN account and try it from level 1 to see if I can handle not having any equipment. If it’s okey dokey then I’ll consider prestiging, but if I spend my time being bent over and intruded then I’m not doing it.

What do you think?

Peas and loaves.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

Improve Your MW2 Gameplay in 10 EASY steps

Okay, here is the single most video you are ever likely to see on how to improve your MW2 (or any FPS really) from Hutch. I saw this video a while ago, and refound it this evening. So I’m not going to waste anymore of your time – just watch the damn video!

Got popcorn? Awesome!

Peas and loaves peeps

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

The Two Commandments

And so it was written, on the third day he descended from the mountain, and in his arms he carried two tablets. And on those tablets were the words of wisdom, the tenets by which all should live or be cast into the outer darkness where there is much weeping and gnashing of teeth. And he read from the tablets and it is written that these were his words: “Thou shalt not die, for to die gives the enemy team an easy victory. Therefore to die is to commit a sin against all that is holy and attract the wrath of all those who scream “NOOB!” into their mics with great vengeance and furious anger. And also thou shalt kill the enemy team, for the only way to victory is by the demise of the enemy team – unless you’re playing Domination in which case capture some flags you camping puke!”

The Two Commandments

Peas and loaves people.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE