Playing Counter-Strike with friends is great, but sometimes you just have to go alone and see what happens. Solo queueing is challenging for many people as working with strangers in a team is hard. To help, there are a few things you can do to be a better team player, even when you queue solo.
Counter-Strike is a team game and while a great player can make a lot of impact on their own, players must work together as a team to succeed. Playing with friends is great fun because you can comfortably work with them and communicate easily, but you can’t always play with people you know. Sometimes, you might be in the CS mood and no one is around, so you have to solo queue and play a match with random people.
Playing with people you don’t know makes the game more difficult for many, but just because it’s hard, doesn’t mean you should give up and pretend the team isn’t there. You cannot succeed in CS without working as a team and, even if it might feel weird, you can have great teamwork with random people. There are a few crucial tips for being a good team player when you queue solo:
A tip as simple as it is effective, the best way to improve your experience playing on your own is to communicate with your team. You give and receive information when you play with friends, so why not do the same with random people? It feels awkward, especially at the beginning, but a silent team is one that doesn’t work together and that is no way to win or have fun. Communication is indispensable, especially when you aren’t comfortable with those around you. We’ll go into a few specific forms of communication later, but here are a few general things to keep in mind:
This is second nature when you play with friends, but it can be easy to forget you need to tell your team where the enemy is. This can be sharing sounds you hear, people you see, or even information after you get killed. Let your team know what’s going on that they can’t know because they’re not in the same place as you. This gets your team better prepared for fights and they will likely follow your lead and call enemies to you, improving your game as well.
When you see smokes, flashes, or grenades thrown or hear shots from certain guns, tell your team. This is not quite as central to the game as enemy positions, but it’s still helpful. Just like communicating where enemies are is important, saying what they have can be just as helpful. Voicing if and where utility is thrown is useful for predicting enemy actions, and knowing what buy the opponents have is something the team will want to know so they can prepare for what guns they are about to fight.
Talk to your team when you are doing things in the middle of the round. This can be pushing, falling back, rotating, or anything else relevant. You don’t want your team to be surprised by what you do, so tell them. This is especially relevant when queueing on your own because your regular teammates are probably used to your playstyle while random people aren’t. When your teammates know what you’re doing, they can play around it or even help you out with flashes and cover, so let them know when you make moves.
At the beginning of a half, or even a round, let your team know where you are going to play or where you like to play. This isn’t about a one-round play you’re going to make (though you should share that too), this is about where on the map you are going to play every round by default. What site/location are you going to hold as a CT? Where are you gonna go at the start of rounds as a T? This is vital information and important to share with your team.
When you play with your friends, you probably have a rhythm of where you all go on certain maps, but when playing solo, everyone is starting fresh. It’s a bad idea to switch where you play every round, so try and figure out who is going where at the start of the half. This does not mean assigning people sites or that you will get to play exactly where you want. It means you and the team are going to try and find a balance where you can all play consistent spots you feel alright in. Not everyone can play catwalk on Mirage, someone has to anchor B site. Don’t take ten rounds to decide, try and work it out at the start then stick with it, the team will be better for it.
As sad as it is, you probably won’t win every round of your next CS game. That’s okay and when you’re with friends, it’s usually pretty easy to crack jokes and stay positive. However, when you queue solo, things can get tense fast if you start losing so you should always try and keep team spirits up. Keeping your teammates positive is great for teamwork and will improve your game as well, so be sure to support your teammates in a few key scenarios:
If your teammate loses a clutch, especially if it was close, be sure to tell them it was a nice try. It’s not fun to feel like you could’ve won a round on your own and then lose it, so pick your teammates up instead of getting upset. Creating more positive communication between the team, even after a frustrating round, is a great way to make queueing on your own more fun and relaxed.
Even with all these tips, there will be times when the team is not successful and gets on a losing streak. This can be hard to get out of when you don’t know your teammates because everyone gets quiet and frustrated, so be the one to try and pick everyone up. Let the team know you’re still in the game, suggest new strategies, or even make a joke. Losing a lot increases the tension and silence within the team, which can compound to make you lose even more, so break the silence and keep team spirits up.
Just as important as picking the team up when they’re down, you also want to encourage them when they’re doing well. If a teammate has a great entry, wins a sick clutch, or even just when you win an important round together, let your team know they did a good job! It feels great when people recognize your skill and it brings the mood up when you’re already doing well, which can create some good momentum.
While it might usually be a good idea to communicate often with your team and work together to ensure you have the best chance of winning, sometimes what’s more important is to gauge what your team is feeling. If you are the only one talking after many rounds and people are getting annoyed, it’s okay to take a game and be a little quieter. Even if it might seem like it hurts your odds of winning to communicate less, an annoyed team is rarely a good one so sometimes your best intentions won’t work out and that’s okay. If the whole band is playing slow and won’t speed up, it sounds worse if you are the only one playing at the correct speed than if you all play slow together.
Teamwork is an essential skill in Counter-Strike and often this comes most naturally when playing with friends. However, sometimes you end up playing on your own and will have to put in some extra effort to get the team to play well and make the solo queueing experience more enjoyable for everyone. The tips for playing with randoms are exactly what you should do when you’re with friends: communicate well, call strategies, and keep the team positive. These skills are always important but are especially relevant when you don’t know the team. Next time you end up in a lobby on your own, take it as an opportunity to both hone your communication and make the game a more enjoyable experience for your teammates.
Good luck and have fun!
