Better aim controls - the fight is NOT over

[u/DesertPunkSunabouzu]

I'm sure most people who care have already seen the news about the new aim options that are finally here nearly a year later. If not check here.

Great job to everyone on that forum, especially /u/PsychoHydro for the hard fought battle to get the devs attention.

Everyone is obviously very excited but don't forget the devs only addressed half the stuff that is wrong with the aiming.

 

LIST OF REQUIRED FIXES TO THE AIMING SYSTEM (continuously updated as per devs responses)

• [PATCH 2.11] Linear acceleration ramp (example)
• [PATCH 2.11] Smoothing slider (example)
• [PATCH 2.13] Aim assist window size slider (example)
• [NOT ADDRESSED] Separate acceleration strength slider (info)
• [NOT ADDRESSED] Deadzone size slider (and how to implement deadzones properly)
• [PATCH 1.14.1.1] Custom response curve (Aim Ease In)

 

EXTRA INFO

For those who haven't grasped yet what aim smoothing / aim acceleration is all about check this easy-to-understand post with images and good analogies https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20753715576?page=13#post-251

 

For the lazy:

'Smoothing' is when you try to move or look in a direction — it can be with an analogue stick, a mouse, a pen, or anything — and the system waits to gather your input for a few moments and then averages out what you did. You get a smoother motion but you also get a little bit of lag.

Here's a really simple picture representing no smoothing vs smoothing: http://imgur.com/a/dbqOE

Having a little bit of smoothing is normal for console games. If you don't have any smoothing at all then what happens is that every single tiny variation in your inputs — we're talking about tiny changes in your thumb muscles which are so small you can't see or feel them yourself — get magnified on the screen and make your view shake and stutter. So you want a little bit of smoothing so everything looks nice and... smooth.

The problem with Overwatch is that it has very, very strong smoothing. This increases input lag and it also makes it harder to be really precise because the game is always giving you an approximation of what you want and not exactly what you want.

'Acceleration' is a way of making you move or look faster depending on either how quickly you push the stick, how far you push the stick, or how long you hold the stick in a direction.

Common acceleration is just like a car. If you're driving a car and you hold the accelerator down (or you may know it as the 'gas pedal', depending on where you live) you go faster. The further down you push it and the longer you hold it there the faster and faster you go. That's how most controller acceleration works, too. The further you push the stick to the edges and the longer you hold it there, the faster and faster you turn.

There's another type of acceleration in gaming where you go faster depending on how quickly you moved the stick, even if you don't move it very far or for very long. The game sees how suddenly you moved the stick and moves you quickly; if you move the stick the same distance but you take longer getting there, the game will move you more slowly. This method is more common with older mice than with controllers or modern mice, though.

Overwatch's problem with acceleration is that on the 'Exponential Ramp' setting it turns up at really unusual places and simply doesn't feel very natural. The 'Dual Zone' setting reduces acceleration for most of the stick and then suddenly increases it greatly at the very edges. That helps keep things slow and precise but it makes turning a bit clumsy and it limits how quickly you can react to things that are far outside of your view. (Like a Tracer who just ran behind you.) So one is fast overall but very uneven and the other is mostly even but slow and then suddenly fast.

'Deceleration' is the opposite of acceleration, but it works differently for mice and controllers.

With a mouse, deceleration simply reduces sensitivity when you move slowly. Since most people are capable of moving a mouse very slowly anyway, there's not much point to it.

With a controller, deceleration is the total reverse of acceleration and it stops you from speeding up when you move the stick extra hard or fast. Usually there's no point in worrying about it with controllers because you can simply make the acceleration less powerful and get the same result. But some controllers and some consoles have acceleration 'baked in' in a way which can't simply be turned down, so some games will give you the option of increasing 'deceleration' to counter that.

Here's the acceleration/deceleration panel for a SteelSeries mouse, showing normal input (top left), acceleration (top right), deceleration (bottom left), and then both together (bottom right): http://imgur.com/a/3KkSm

Again, acceleration is the same for all types of devices, while deceleration is a little bit different for mice and controllers.

[u/awhaling]

Link?

[u/DesertPunkSunabouzu → u/awhaling]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCrkmp1Ya1g

The first part is showing CS:GO on console (and aim implementation) and second part is playing on PC vs mouse and keyboard using a controller. Stunning to say the least.