Section 1.1 – Alter Your Silhouette[Reminder of Observation Technique] Most people will glance around the battlefield as they play. The best players can identify characters from the corners of their vision without the need to directly look at someone.[Check and see if I’ve covered the way that vision works yet – reference it here] The first tenet of concealment is to alter your silhouette in some way so that you are not easily identifiable as a character in the game world. Your goal is to be mistaken for some other object by anything but the closest of inspections.
The simplest way to mask your silhouette is to crouch, or when your game allows it, go prone. Of course, this action alone will not usually be enough since players will also be familiar with prone and crouched animations. They’ll be looking for these as well.
However, if you crouch in a window or near some other object, you can often get away with it for long enough to take out your target before he can react. Obviously going prone is preferable to crouching when we’re talking strictly about changing your silhouette since you have a low profile if you’re laying on the ground.
The downside is that most games don’t allow you to stand up quickly. You’ll be stuck in a transition animation for several seconds before you can to fire your weapon. If you’re playing something like ARMA, you’re not going to make it to your feet if someone has spotted you, so you should just stay low and hope that you can kill them before they kill you.
Section 1.2 – Being a Creeper (Split this into 2 sections as well – hardware and gameplay)
Think like a creepy stalker. Hide in bushes, rubble, darkness and around irregularly shaped objects. Position your character inside or under a shrub or pine tree and it will do the rest for you. The branches and leaves that surround you create a shape that most people will not identify as a threat. If you are in an area of complete darkness, you will not have any shape. This is likely the best form of concealment.
Take particular care in noting your actual silhouette in relation to the object you’ve chosen for concealment. It’s entirely possible that your rifle will protrude out from the bush if you have it at the ready, Also in certain games, the height of a weapon on your back is important as it can stick out the top of a bush.
Be aware in these situations that different hardware has different ways of drawing objects. Also, graphics settings are going to change things for different people. In some cases, a certain make or model video card is going to render things separately or with a slightly different contrast setting and you may be completely visible whether you’re inside a tree or covered in complete darkness.
This is most obvious in games with huge maps. Different objects in the world will render at different distances. Fundamentally this allows the game to maintain high levels of detail up close while keeping load times and framerate at optimal levels. On occasion, it also renders your character model for someone without rendering the bush that you may be hiding in, or even a building or rock that stands between you and your enemy. I’ve killed many people in ARMA because my computer simply didn’t draw the object they thought was protecting them.
There are also people who will turn up their brightness to maximum levels if they’re playing a dark game. This makes the game look like crap, but it also gives them the advantage of sight over everyone who plays the game at normal settings. It doesn’t always work this way, but its a cheap and dirty trick if you’re playing anything in the ARMA engines including DayZ. Take this into account before relying on darkness to hide you.
Section 2.1 – Hiding in Plain Sight
Let’s talk about the average gamer for a minute. The average gamer is someone who is not exceptional. On a bell curve, this will be anyone making up the majority of the people. If a person is average or below, we can make a few safe assumptions about their game play. This is not to say that you can always assume these things about your opponent, it simply means that you are about 80% likely that these following rules apply.
1. No one ever looks up. This rule is so universal that I’ve made it a staple on my “Garlock’s Gladiator Rules of FPS’ list. Strictly speaking, when someone enters a room – they fail to look above their position. People will sweep from left to right (because they’ve seen it on television) and if they don’t spot an enemy, they’ll give the all clear signal.
If you’ve seen the Jean Claude Van Damme movie ‘Cyborg’ then you’ll know that this I can be a deadly assumption for them.
When taking a position of superior height, keep in mind that vision widens with distance. The further you are away from a person, the easier it is for them to see you without the need to actually move their head.[Show a graphic of some dudes positioned high up, with a line for vision]
2.[First paragraph title relevant]
Section 3 – Fire Discipline (Hiding in the open)