USC ESPORTS WRAP-UP #15 — “It’s Not All Gun Skills.”
By: Richard Wang
USC COD Discord link: https://discord.gg/XHFu9qdbPN
Heya USC Games! To start off the semester, we have a feature interview with the new team manager of the brand new Call of Duty USC Esports team: Jose. Jose is a graduate student from San Bernandino majoring in Law and Regulation, and last week he had a few insights on the competitive environment of Call of Duty.
1. When did you start playing Call of Duty? Why do you continue to play it?
“I was like six or five, and I should not have been playing those games. Starting college again, I started playing collegiate for Cal State and that was Vanguard— my first collegiate COD, and now I’m trying to build that up again. If you can’t communicate then your team just isn’t gonna work out and I like that aspect because it also builds upon not only having that gun skill but also having that team skill.”
2. How does Call of Duty, a fast-paced shooter, differ between casual and competitive play, especially when most competitive shooters are slower paced and more tactical?
“As a casual, just running around, having fun, doing whatever you want, you can’t really do that in competitive. Without teamwork, without the foundation, you can’t just have four amazing players that can’t communicate. How it differs, or how we put it into competitive, is that you can create your own pacing as a team. Let’s say you don’t have two players who shoot straight: You can still win if you base everything else around slowing the game down, working on your foundations, and rotating. It’s not all gun skills, and that fast pace helps if you have very fast players, so use them to your advantage; if you don't, you can still compete and become a top team.”
3. Tell us a little bit about the Call of Duty collegiate team. What are you most excited about / what are you looking forward to? Additionally, is there anything you’re worried about?
“I really want to compete. I’ve received a player from Rocket League and their TMs praised them a lot— I think his name is Bruh on his discord— so I'm excited to see how he plays. And I do have another player… when I was competing at Cal State, he was also competing at Long Beach, and he’s actually here with us. It was always me and him against each other, but now we’re together / and I’m excited to see him play. We are getting to a late start. A lot of the other teams have a lot of chemistry already, and as a new team we won’t have that same chemistry as they do. But when it comes to that, we should have a honeymoon period where because we’re so different from each other it all works out.”