I'm hopeless at FPS games, I find them interesting though. So much so I went searching for strategy guides for FPS DM games, things like warsow, cpma, quake series etc. The results I got were pretty pathetic, strategy (at least written strategy) doesn't seem to have developed. I move and aim reasonably well, I know about timing items and do, yet I very rarely win. One thing that puzzles me, is when do you attack your opponent or play aggressive in between item spawns? What do you do? Attack and let your enemy lure you into a trap find a defensive spot and wait? I'm extremely puzzled by deathmatch theory, whether 1v1, ffa or team. It all seems rather chaotic with no given reason for why a player wins.

Not long ago I watched the PainKiller CPL world tour finals. I've hopped around PK for fun, seeing what the maps were like and have a feeling for the game. With personal feelings aside on the game itself and the opinion that Fatal1ty practised more so won, why did Fatal1ty win? Was it purely better aim? Made less mistakes on timing items?

Chess AI is based on minimax theorem which derives from game theory. Essentially it's about minimizing loss. Many people have compared chess to DM 1v1, a few complaints I have about that is you don't have perfect information, you don't know what health, armor, weapons or ammo your opponent has. You can however estimate which is what most good players appear to do. Anyway, minimax does bring up some interesting questions. Example, in Quake 3 (or most Quakes) if your opponent has 20hp and only gauntlet and is nowhere near a valuable item like MH, RA, YA etc. You have 70hp and plenty of good weapons, would it be in your best interest to let your opponent go? fragging him would only provide your opponent with 100hp, a MG and the possibility of a good spawn, but you would get a frag and a chance at a spawn kill, but if your opponent gets a good spawn, you could lose more frags than you gain.

Opposite choices maybe needed, if your opponent is in control the map the only way to get control back would be to attack constantly before the RA, MH or whatever item spawns, but this obviously isn't possible with a MG alone, the weapon would need to be powerful enough to kill your opponent before the item spawns.

Strategy is lacking in DM games, the community, journalists, commentators etc. Clearly DM games are strategic and highly complicated, the strategic side can be broken down into a mathematical side game.

Weapons that are powerful enough to take down an opponent are needed to gain control back of an item, losing frags to gain control back is irrelevant for as long as you play optimally (probably impossible, so as close to as possible) the worst you can do is tie or coin flip in a overtime/sudden death style 1v1, and the price of getting control back should be greater as long as your opponent is playing below optimal strategy. So clearly minimax does apply, DM 1v1 isn't about hiding and camping, it's about attacking when ever you have the minimum needed fire power and health. Any more or less than the minimum and you won't be doing enough staying alive long enough and/or doing enough damage to gain control and/or rack up frags. What's the minimum needed to attack for a given time till item spawns? I have no idea...

Of course all this considers aim and position to be equal. If you have a RL and opponent a RG and are fighting long range, there is no way to win so should run. This is more common sense than anything else and doesn't even require much experience or practice, at least in my opinion.

My thoughts on deathmatch strategy.