I've only played for ~12 hours but I've placed first in solo (out of two tries), first in duo twice, and first in party twice (including once with a three-man squad).
Thoughts in no particular order:
On Goals
- Decide if your plan is to try to win, or to have "fun". They're not necessarily the same thing. Winning often requires you to play very passive, avoid taking shots, loot away from other players, loot lower-reward areas, etc. A lot of people get impatient and crave action. Those players are not statistically good at winning.
On Winning
- The biggest keys to winning:
- Not getting into fights
- Don't reveal your presence to others
- Excellent decision-making on movement (when, where)
- Facing challenges that you're equipped to handle
- Note what's not in there: good aim. You can place ridiculously high (top 10) without even firing a shot. Obviously at some point you will need to kill someone to finish, but sneaking behind someone and shooting at their open backside while you're totally protected is a victory for most players.
- I've won games as a duo where I literally fired no bullets all game other than to kill the last person. In solo, I've won only killing people in very one-sided fights (shooting them while they shoot someone else, ambushing someone with a shotgun in a house when they don't know I'm there).
On Winning Strategy
- Drop in a medium-value loot, low-traffic area where you can safely obtain gear with a minimum of conflict. This should include an assault rifle, backpack, vest, helmet and some medical supplies at a minimum. These areas will often be on the edges of what you can get to from the plane, and often be unnamed.
- Evade and hide from the enemy players around you whenever possible. Continually keep yourself in a position where options are open to you and you can change your plan if the situation evolves unexpectedly. For example, don't make any plan that involves "and then we book it for full speed to the white circle or else we die". Don't get yourself pinned in a building in the white praying that the next zone is on top of you.
- Avoid greed when possible, but take smart risks. Had bad luck initially with getting gear? Be more aggressive, search more houses, maybe try to take down a better-equipped squad/player. You're not likely to survive late game anyway. Have decent gear already? Don't get picked off stupidly looting homes for stuff you don't need.
- When it comes down to the end, continually try to keep your enemies on only one of your flanks. Avoid detection as long as possible, and when you do need to commit to killing someone/a team make sure to put them down quickly.
On Winning Tactics
- Your default stance should be to never fight unless you have an overwhelming advantage and a reason to do so.. Shooting at people in an open field while you're in a building far away with scopes? A fight you'll likely win, but what do you gain? Now everyone knows you're in that house, and you may get pinned in or naded to death.
- As soon as you fire a round everyone in your area will know where you are based on the sound. Don't fire if you don't need to, and if you do need to, do the job quickly and then relocate.
- The overwhelming majority of the time you feel the urge to do something, the right decision is usually to be patient. It takes a lot of practice and self-control to resist impulsive, bad decisions.
- Clearing the upstairs of a building when they know you're coming is a low percentage situation. Generally, don't bother with this unless you literally have no choice. If you were pinned in a two floor house with an enemy upstairs and other enemies outside, I'd rather camp the first floor and pray than push the second, assuming he knows I'm coming.
- Conversely, being inside the upper floors of a building is virtual invincibility. Short of a really lucky series of shots at you through the windows when you're standing, you're not going to die to any short of a dedicated barrage of grenades. Use this to your advantage. This is a much stronger advantage in duo and squad play than solo.
On Ammo Conservation
- In a team, try to split up your rifles into 7.62mm (e,g, AKM, SKS) and 5.56mm (e.g. M16, SCAR) ammunition among teammates. For example, have two people in the squad using 7.62mm and two people using 5.56mm. It reduces the chance that any given person will run out. If you have a ton of ammo (say, 90-120 rounds per person) this becomes irrelevant.
- Generally speaking, grenades are not that useful. Or rather, it's hard to get into situations where you can use them: one where you know where the enemy is, you can't directly shoot each other, you can safely find time to pull out and throw the grenade, and it's a fight you actually want to be having.
- That being said, the grenades are EXTREMELY useful at the very end of a game when everyone is clumped together in a small space, and quite frequently it ends in building or near one. Grenades are the only means you have of clearing an upper floor of a building if the game comes down to that.
- All in all, try to keep grenades if you can but don't be afraid to drop them early if you need the space.
- Smoke grenades get a special mention for being more versatile than the other nades, being frequently used to help your team exit a bad position or (more rarely) attack into a good one. They're also useful for reviving people and looting corpses/supply drops.
On Vision Magnification Scopes (x2, x4, x8)
- These are hugely important and completely change the nature of long-distance engagement. With no vision aid you're at the mercy of even lower-powered weapons with better scopes. They also help you scan buildings to see if people are moving around/hiding inside them.
Zeroing Weapons and dealing
Random Tips
- Held weapon type affects your run speed. Rifles are slower, pistols and SMGs are faster. Unarmed is the fastest (default "X" key to holster your weapon)
