Headshot percentage—what's yours? [New Poll December 7th]

[Brian Boru]

ETA December 7th: Per requests in comments, I recreated voting choices to go all the way from zero to100—original lumped all under 50 together.
—Brian

Far Cry 5 has a list of stats which includes all your kills, split out by various weapons. Two useful ones for this are Total Kills and Headshots. Right now mine show:
Total Kills 1,302
Headshots 739

Adding up those where I assume headshot isn't possible, ie…
Grenade Launcher 64
Dynamite 36
Prox Explosive 18
Airstrike 19
Various takedowns 29
Hit & Run 2
Melee 3
Grenade 8
…leaves 1,123 possible headshots. 739 of that is 66%.

I've never noticed such stats before, so I'm curious how that compares for you guys who play a lot of shooters which have such stats. I assume spray n pray should be lower and headshotters should be higher—but by how much?

 

[Alm]

My headshot percentage on CSGO is only 28.1%

 

[bh3bh3]

I'm pretty poor when it comes on hitting the head.

 

[Brian Boru]

I'm pretty poor when it comes on hitting the head.

Over half my kills are with the 45/70 AR which is probably the best-for-me AR I've ever used in a shooter. It's single-shot, very accurate, low recoil, and I have the Rifle Mastery perk to reduce spread, plus a scope. Uses the same ammo as all the bad guys, so looting kills = never run out.

It's not the best for close up dog fights due to it's single shot action, but I have the SPAS-12 for that—it has double the fire rate of all other shotguns, which is the essential trait for crowd control, along with decent damage. Make sure to get the extended mag tho.

In my early shooter days I used to panic when a guy appeared shooting at me, and just spray him. Funnily enough, it was learning to use a bow which helped with that—got no choice but to take it slow and make every shot count. That extra split-second to get a headshot is usually more effective if there are more than one guy, as spraying = having to reload.

My headshot percentage on CSGO is only 28.1%

It'll be low if you usually charge in with LMGs blazing
My playstyle is sort of a roleplay—what would I do if in the situation? So charging a bunch of enemies is not it—sneaking around them, taking the high ground, and engaging from range near cover are staples.

 

[Alm]

It'll be low if you usually charge in with LMGs blazing
My playstyle is sort of a roleplay—what would I do if in the situation? So charging a bunch of enemies is not it—sneaking around them, taking the high ground, and engaging from range near cover are staples.

I do spray n pray quite a bit. Even shooting at walls in the hope of hitting someone. I think if it was a single player game or something like Ghost Recon I would have better stats.

 

[Withywarlock]

If I get a headshot it's either by sheer coincidence or I'm standing behind someone taking careful aim of their unaware bonce. Not to mention I'm the one who's laying down suppressive fire. "Fire without maneuver is indecisive. Maneuver without fire is fatal," after all.

 

[Johnway]

unsurprisingly, very low. that said, when i played planetside 2 when i was an infiltrator i did get a fair few headshots. managed to plat 2 of sniper weapons so at least 1500 kills. Get a high powered bolt action rifle, cloak and observe your prey (stationary targets and surprisingly, other infiltrators were easy prey), measure out your distance (fun tip, i used the way point marker to measure distances instead of buying the implant...) and fire accordingly. i spent a fair bit of time in the VR Training testing various sniper weapons, scopes and playing around with ranges so that i could make kills 100+.

Of course, spawn room camping and shooting out made things safe for me to practice sniping extreme ranges. Some maps i would remember particular good spots to snipe and to watch out for. My personal fav tactics, include sniping through buildings/windows to hit a target on the other side, hiding in plain site cloaked 2 or 3 rooms away, spawn room (of course), crouching on a capture point (the LEDs made it hard to see when there was someone crouching on it. normally gunfire from a Max or some other player firing their weapons meant that you were never spotted immediately. Of course, once kill cams came into place, all those dirty tricks disappeared. But by that time i stopped playing.

 

[Dan]

The lack of poll options under 50% upsets me. My % can depend on the game, but it is normally around 30%. I do a lot of supression fire though, and will pre-fire locations I expect the enemy to be.

 

[Brian Boru]

The lack of poll options under 50% upsets me

I assumed under 50 would be guns blazing players and those using automatic fire, or players doing tactical moves like yourself. I also assumed I'd be on the low end of the headshotter group, as I've never regarded myself as anything other than below average at shooting.

I think I can edit the poll—should I take it down to zero?

 

[ZedClampet]

I assumed under 50 would be guns blazing players and those using automatic fire, or players doing tactical moves like yourself. I also assumed I'd be on the low end of the headshotter group, as I've never regarded myself as anything other than below average at shooting.

I think I can edit the poll—should I take it down to zero?

You might want to take it down to zero. It's going to be completely different for people who are playing competitive games, too.

Strangely, Ubisoft Connect is breaking my mouse. I went to see my stats and couldn't get to them. I've never looked at them before, so I don't know how in-depth they get, but I doubt I can get a realistic figure. I probably take out 10 enemy vehicles with grenade launchers or rockets every time we drive from one location to another. Then you have defense missions, where I nullify the incoming roads in the same way. Also, I use the machete an awful lot when we stealth an area. The rest of the time when I'm using rifles or pistols, I'm aiming for the head exclusively. Of course, that doesn't mean I hit it. Probably an overall accuracy score would be interesting. Don't know if they show that. I do a lot of sniping before going in to stealth around, and there's no reason to hit them anywhere other than the head while sniping, of course. Only time I aim for the body is if I have a good automatic gun. I've done it off and on this playthrough with the M60. Maybe I ought to be aiming for the body more often with other weapons. I'll try it next time. Seems like very little extra effort to point at the head, though.

 

[JANUARSAH]

my headshot is only 20 percent.

 

[Brian Boru]

If you already voted, please vote again. I made a mess of the original poll, and couldn't edit it without making a bigger mess 🥴

lack of poll options under 50% upsets me

take it down to zero

Done, check first post again..

take out 10 enemy vehicles with grenade launchers or rockets

My quick n dirty test on that says your kill count goes up by the number of people killed by the shot. I blew a fuel truck winding thru a roadblock and my grenade launcher & overall kill counts went up by 5—that should be 1 for driver + 4 in and around the roadblock.

an overall accuracy score would be interesting. Don't know if they show that

Oh no, my % would be a fraction if it counted all shots—guys moving, truck driving etc.

 

[ZedClampet]

Went into my devices and told Windows that it was not okay to cut power to my USB ports, and so I was able to get on Connect and look at my stats. Unadjusted for anything, my headshot kills were at 40 percent. Take away the machete stealth kills, and it bumped it up to appx 55 percent. Sadly, there's no way to get rid of all my grenade and rocket kills, so I'll just go with 55 percent. It doesn't seem to go into the same level of detail as FC5 does with it's stats, and I uninstalled FC5, so I can't look at those at the moment. I think I'm getting credit for "Amigo" kills, but I'm not sure. If I got rid of those, I'd be just a tad over 60 percent, but I'm not sure those kills are being directly credited to me.

 

[ZedClampet]

I'll try to see what my son's headshot ratio is. He should still have all the last the FC games loaded. He also plays CSGO and TF2. After looking at my stats, though, I'd say no one is going to beat Boru for just pure headshot kills because of the game that he's playing and how he's playing it. If we wanted to get serious here, we'd have to all play the same game, something that goes into great detail in the stats.

I'll just tell you now that this has nothing to do with being an accurate shot or good at a game. I've got a good headshot total, and I'm probably the worst shooter player here, and based only on his age and his description of his playstyle, I'd bet Boru is about the same as I am. We'd probably both be at the bottom of the stat sheet in a game like CSGO.

 

[Brian Boru]

If we wanted to get serious here

Oh gosh no, just a curiosity—play style and type of game will result in wild differences.

I was just surprised to see my figure, since the game doesn't provide any feedback for a headshot—would be nice to get a 'ding' every time. If you'd asked me, I'd have guessed 20%.

We'd probably both be at the bottom of the stat sheet in a game like CSGO

I would certainly be at the bottom. I stomached about 2 mins of a YT video before boredom seizure froze me. So I'd stay at the spawn point every game, bet that doesn't earn many points

probably the worst shooter player here

CS:GO has nothing to do with being a good or bad shooter, why would it? No more than Duke Nukem or Sniper Elite or any other. One can be good/bad at a particular game, and generally good/bad at a play style, but that's as far as it goes. Happily there are many games and styles within which we can all find our niche(s).

 

[ZedClampet]

CS:GO has nothing to do with being a good or bad shooter, why would it? No more than Duke Nukem or Sniper Elite or any other. One can be good/bad at a particular game, and generally good/bad at a play style, but that's as far as it goes. Happily there are many games and styles within which we can all find our niche(s).

It's not just CSGO, it's any competitive game. As someone who used to play competitive all the time, I can tell you that actual people are much better than FC AI and that playing competitive games is much harder than playing singleplayer shooters. You can be very good at Far Cry and still be bottom rung in any competitive shooter. That's just the way it is. I used to be very good at competitive shooters, and through the years I worked my way down to the bottom half of players and finally quit, but I can still play FC on the hardest difficulty and probably do a clean playthrough with no deaths, same thing with Resident Evil games, though they are harder than FC. It's not about shooting. I'm still incredibly accurate. It's about reflexes and milliseconds. If you put my son, Thomas, in an arena with you and me against him, he'd kill us both probably 98 times out of 100. That's how much better his reflexes at age 16 are than ours. If you'd like me to upload a video of him playing a shooter, I'll see if he wants to do it. You'll see what I mean. He looks like he's playing with cheats. He jerks the mouse full speed, stops it exactly on his target and shoots so fast my old brain is still processing it. And that's who is playing these competitive games, not old folks like us.

 

[Alm]

I have never been particularly skilled at CSGO. I don't have the hand eye coordination. It's the same with art and music. I got OK among non-competitive playlists and that took many years of being the worst on the server (or at least outside the top 10).

 

[Brian Boru]

You can be very good at Far Cry and still be bottom rung in any competitive shooter. That's just the way it is

Which is my point. That doesn't matter, doesn't make a competitive player "better" in any way—except obviously at competitive shooting.

Is there a ladder for enjoyment level? Shame, I wonder how that would look. The interviews I've read/seen with esports team members, some would certainly be well down such a ladder. So they're "worse" than me, right?

How about a ladder for screwballing around? For alt-tabbing out to do a bit of work—I tell you, I'm a pro at that, I could alt-tab in the Olympics! In other words it all depends on what you choose to measure.

It's not about shooting … It's about reflexes and milliseconds

Again, that's only if that's all you choose to measure. There are many other factors you could measure:
Headshot %
Bullets per kill
Total health losses
# of detections
Completion %
Etc etc

Thomas, in an arena with you and me against him, he'd kill us both probably 98 times out of 100

Very likely—but boy, would we have a party after those 2 wins!

But again, not the point. You're picking something to measure where I for sure suck, and where son excels. So not an arena, how about an open world island? I bet we'd get that elusive 3rd win when patience and positioning and preparation and anticipation and decision making and terrain traversal are significant elements of the encounter—there are reasons young drivers are the worst.

He jerks the mouse full speed, stops it exactly on his target and shoots

Ah yeah, typical newbie style—not to worry, he's young, plenty of time to learn. The key to effective shooting is similar to the key to winning a battle or a war—do not engage until you have already won. Jerking, stopping and shooting is certainly an enjoyable teenage activity, but not a long-term effective shooting strategy.

Quantic Foundry have interesting and credible gamer motivation research. 'Competition' is one of a dozen motivations across 850K gamers surveyed.

 

[Brian Boru]

Aimlabs on Steam

Aimlabs is the aim trainer of choice for over 40 Million players, from beginners to esports pros. Our unique aim analysis optimizes your gameplay, targets your weaknesses & builds key skills for any FPS game! Time to warm up with our unlimited scenarios & rank up in-game!

store.steampowered.com

This seems to be a pretty good aim trainer. PCG article includes it:

Aim training: How to improve your FPS aim

Build good habits by learning how to practice and hold your mouse.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[Brian Boru]

aim trainer

Brandon Taylor has an interesting 9-min video about 'arm aiming', how he finds it better than 'wrist aiming'. Also changed his mouse grip.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl3guJSct1Q

 

[fboskinsofficial]

My headshot percentage in CS: GO is 62%.

I started playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO) in 2012, and I've been playing it nearly every day since. I started out with a few mods, but eventually, I moved to the official game. Now that I'm more experienced and comfortable with the game, I can't get enough of it!

One of the things that surprised me when I first started playing was how often people would die from headshots as opposed to other kinds of hits. A headshot is when you fire your weapon at an enemy's head; this is usually done using a sniper rifle or any weapon that has a high rate of fire and accuracy.

Additionally, I have the best and rare CS: GO skins which feel me like a pro player and boosts my confidence.

 

[bretbernhoft]

I'd say my headshot rate in most FPS games I play, is between 10% and 20%. But that's just an educated guess.

 

[SirDJCat]

Sheesh my headshot percentage is 27% in CS:GO, 10% in Valorant (which is odd bc I’m much better at Valorant), and 40% in Siege.

 

[Brian Boru]

which is odd bc I’m much better at Valorant

But do you deliberately try for headshots, or is your focus just to kill the guy? If you don't try for it, you won't get it. Nothing wrong with that, play the way you prefer