I have been the player that did pretty much what you suggested - always tried to play smart vs aggressive.
What I have concluded just this year (more than 10k hours in FPS games combined):
- my decision making on BIG picture is at a good level, I can easily come up with a plan e.g. rotations in Apex from the drop and like 2-3 rings ahead
- my comms are at a good/very good level, I don't shy away from them for sure
- my skill to contain / control a fight are at a good level = I can easily do 3v3 in Apex have plan A and B if things go wrong and in most cases not die
- my decision making speed during intense situations I would say is at best average, I can't just lock in and say kill 3 people in a row or shoot at the main team then successfully switch to surprise 3rd party etc.
- my mechanics under tension become much worse typically I see that in scenarios in aim training where I know I am good at it I will do 95% accuracy with good score easily vs in challenging cases I would fall far below my average placement vs overall leaderboard. Same in game - when plan falls apart I would do sub par.
- in a sense my confidence is rather low/medium in terms of winning 1v1 / fight in my elo lobbies because I know by now my shortcomings stated above
Long story short it kinda been in FPS games for DECADES that people should start ASAP with shooting, getting uncomfortable as often as possible in that way utilizing time in game for what it is about = mechanics, fighting vs. looting / inventory management which is important yet not crucial (think about how many times people day with inventory full of stuff, abilities left unused etc.).
And the big picture of this approach I guess is that you have to just do that until you find yourself at a level that no matter the situation you don't panic (you might miss some shots, make some wrong calls / decisions) but you always remain calm.
And only then you go for rank grind say and add the layer of tactics because eventually you will not be able to just brute-force players and combination of outsmarting and outshooting will be needed (but that happens in Apex I would say in Masters lobbies ... not at this matchmaking state that ensure it happens never for Preds / Masters) = level which 95% of ranked players will never reach.
Thus in below Diamond and soloq you see things like:
- people having really bad mechanic because they have not enough experience actually fighting in game
- people running for their lives vs holding together as a team because they have little confidence in themselves, teammates and adding to that inability / inexperience of teamworking and this false sense of "I am better of running away and respawning so we can repeat it all over again vs putting up a fight and potentially bully enemy team back / win them"
- people having 0 or close to that game sense, just recently a dude posted in forums about returning heat-shields because he was dying to the zone too often = lack of awareness and inability to rotate
- people approaching ranked with too much confidence = training above said skillset in actual ranked which is probably not the best environment and can be compared like doing your training at sports championships not prior to them
p.s. 1v1 is good, you can learn a lot form doing that if you practice certain things at the same time Apex in most cases is about fight / space management, teamworking = no matter how good you are in 1v1 e.g. if enemy team is better in coordination they will focus you, each hitting 2-3 bullets and you will be knocked instantly and will have no chance to do anything about it most of the time. So besides 1v1 you must train almost 1v2, 3v3 etc.
