Playing extraction shooters without teammates is the ultimate hard mode. You have one set of eyes and ears; odds are almost everyone else in the lobby has teammates. It’s even worse in Delta Force because the game defaults to filling a squad at the lobby menu, so even players who would otherwise be solo have friends.
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Delta Force Review (In Progress) – A Detailed But Unimaginative Modern Shooter
Delta Force is an enjoyable FPS, but it doesn’t do enough yet to set itself apart from competitors.
Succeeding solo in Delta Force is possible, but you need to play quite a bit differently. The main way to win by yourself is striking by surprise, but a few other things can help you come out on top.
How To Win More Fights As A Solo Player
If you aren’t winning fights in Delta Force, you’ll spend all your time in the lobby, meaning you aren’t making money or progressing quests. And as a solo, you’ll be at a numbers disadvantage 99.9 percent of the time. That means you can’t sprint directly to the hottest loot areas or high-traffic zones and expect to clear the whole lobby (unless you’re that good).
Even the best players lose fights when they’re outnumbered because if your target’s in front of you and their friend swings 180 degrees behind you the second enemy has at least a few seconds to shoot you in the back.
So, the first strategy is don’t take fights you know you can’t win. Sounds obvious, but it isn’t always. If you hear more than two sets of footsteps moving around you, and they don’t sound like the back and forth of the AI, you’ll know there are two humans on the other end. If they peek at you at the same time, your odds of winning are slim.
Take up a position where you wouldn’t think to look if you were in the enemy players’ shoes, and let them pass. If you’ve positioned yourself well, you’ll watch as the squad runs past you without a second glance. Whether you want to engage after that depends on your risk tolerance.
That leads to our next tip: only take one-on-one fights, even if you know you have to fight a full squad of three. The maps in Delta Force have enough cover and ways to break line of sight that you can move so you’re only fighting one player at a time. Two-versus-one is a losing proposition.
Always keep some hardcover between you and your enemy, then use it to separate and confuse the enemy squad. You don’t have anyone on the mic to communicate with, so no one else needs help coordinating their movements. The more mobile you are, the more you can split up an enemy group and put their comms into chaos.
Putting armor’s relative weakness in Delta Force aside, if you have the money to spare, always wear purple armor and use purple ammo if you can afford it. You’d be surprised what you can get away with and get away from if you’re properly protected and shooting the right kinds of bullets.
Tips To Survive More When Playing Alone
Winning fights is certainly a key to surviving more, but you can do more to stay alive and extract than take down squads or pick them off one by one. The first and most important rule is: don’t get into fights in the first place.
It’s not quite as easy as it sounds, but you can use the same basic strategies to win fights and avoid them. Your first and most important defense is your hearing. Always have a helmet with audio amplification and noise cancellation like the MC201.
It might be blue rarity, but for loot or questing runs where you want to stay out of combat, the 20 percent hearing range and modest noise reduction will be incredibly useful.
Second, you need to know the maps you’re playing on. If this is your first time running a map (especially Space City), look at the tactical map as you fly in and then for a few seconds after deploying. Note where the safe icons are and whether any enemy officers are alive. Steer clear of both.
Everyone in the match has the same map icons you do (besides the in-match tasks), so those high-value areas will be high-value for every squad. Many will beeline it for the good loot, but if you want to come out the better of everyone, keep away from the high-traffic areas for at least the first ten minutes of a match. Then, you can swoop in later and pick up any loot that might be left behind.
Another way to consistently survive in Delta Force is using the Healer support operator, Stinger. While operators like Luna, Hackclaw, and D-Wolf work wonders as part of a squad, Stinger’s self-heal does more than restore your HP: it also temporarily removes the effects of debuffs.
In particular, for about ten seconds after using his self-heal, Stinger can ignore the effects of broken bones and other major injuries while still restoring health over time. You won’t be clearing health reduction from a major injury, but you can escape from otherwise unwinnable fights.
Combine the self-heal with moving erratically to escape fights, and it’s possible to play guerrilla warfare with whole groups, diving in and out of combat, jumping out of windows, and generally being a nuisance. You might not get the entire squad, but you can cause no end of frustration or at least get away with your life.
The last thing we’ll recommend here is playing slowly off your spawn. No, don’t just sit where you land, but don’t immediately start running toward the nearest structure, either. Spawns in Delta Force tend to be somewhat close together, so there’s usually someone or several someones near you once you’re out of the helicopter.
Instead, wait and — again — listen. Wait to hear if any of the AI enemies start to sound off or fire off a few shots. Fights will start within the first minute of a match, either between players and AI or, more likely, between two squads of players. After about three minutes or so, things will settle down, and you’ll generally know how safe you are to explore the area around your spawn.
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