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Why is it so hard for devs to make good fps aim with a controller?

The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
It's really crazy how big of a difference there is between fps aim with a controller in each game.

On pc you have a mouse, where any game feels identical no matter which mouse you have.

Then there's games like Halo and Destiny that's feels like ass and are heavily clunky, while games like Cod and Titanfall had spot on fluently aiming.

I don't get now that fps has been going on for so long on consoles, why smooth aiming from cod and Titanfall hasn't been an industry standard, and we still get shit clunky controls in a lot of other fps games?

(disclaimer - I know controller is shit compared to keyboard and mouse, but this is about using a controller in different games)
 
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SeraphJan

Member
You could always setup your own Sensitivity & Acceleration, but on PC for mouse its more unified, just choose specific DPI for your mouse. On console its a per game basis thing, 1 unit of slider in Halo might not equals to 1 unit of slider in Destiny. "Smooth aiming" is a subjective thing, some are ok with certain game but not the other and vice versa.

Mouse will always be the best input of choice for FPS, followed by Gyro (theoretically), and finally Analog
 
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AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
It's really crazy how big of a difference there is between fps aim with a controller in each game.

On pc you have a mouse, where any game feels identical no matter which mouse you have.

Then there's games like Halo and Destiny that's feels like ass and are heavily clunky, while games like Cod and Titanfall had spot on fluently aiming.

I don't get now that fps has been going on for so long on consoles, why smooth aiming from cod and Titanfall hasn't been an industry standard, and we still get shit clunky controls in a lot of other fps games?

A mouse moves as fast as you move it and the hardware/software has built in mechanisms like DPI and physical weights to help control that stuff outside of games. Most controllers don't have that so devs have to manually tune it. That's about the long and short of it.
 

Mozzarella

Member
The same reason its hard to make good third person swordplay action combat with mouse and keyboard.
In short, the original design mechanics and ideas were made specifically with the type of controller they had, so despite all the current evolution in these mechanics at their core there is still some bias towards the OG controller/style.
This also applies to RTS or Isometric RPGs as well.
Try fighting games with Keyboard, it worked for me eventually but at the end of the day, controller and arcade is the best way to play fighting games and the reason for that is because the OG fighting games mechanics were made for those in mind.

So its hard because the fundamentals are pretty much rooted in these core design mechanics and its going to take real effort into changing that.
 

Shifty

Member
Because pad aiming requires assists to be viable, and assists aren't standardized like the baseline input that comes out of a mouse.
Thus, different games take different approaches, for better or worse.

I'm still over here repping Team Perfect Dark. Losing detached-reticle autoaim in favour of using tricks to fool pad players into thinking they're shit hot with a fixed reticle was a terrible mistake.
 
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It's really crazy how big of a difference there is between fps aim with a controller in each game.

On pc you have a mouse, where any game feels identical no matter which mouse you have.

Then there's games like Halo and Destiny that's feels like ass and are heavily clunky, while games like Cod and Titanfall had spot on fluently aiming.

I don't get now that fps has been going on for so long on consoles, why smooth aiming from cod and Titanfall hasn't been an industry standard, and we still get shit clunky controls in a lot of other fps games?

Destiny isn't clunker at all, not nowadays anyway. Its one of the better feeling FPS games.
 

Robb

Gold Member
Yeah it’s way to varied between games imo. Some games feel horrible. I stopped playing Far Cry 5 altogether just because I couldn’t stand the aiming in the game. I don’t want to fiddle with the settings in every single FPS game I play.

Wish more devs would just implement gyro controls and get rid of the aim assist stuff (or at least allow the option to opt out of it and use gyro instead).
 

FingerBang

Member
It's really crazy how big of a difference there is between fps aim with a controller in each game.

On pc you have a mouse, where any game feels identical no matter which mouse you have.

Then there's games like Halo and Destiny that's feels like ass and are heavily clunky, while games like Cod and Titanfall had spot on fluently aiming.

I don't get now that fps has been going on for so long on consoles, why smooth aiming from cod and Titanfall hasn't been an industry standard, and we still get shit clunky controls in a lot of other fps games?
Don't drink and post, son.
 

Kupfer

Member
Better ask why so few games make use of gyro-aiming. It feels way more natural and is accurate.
Aim roughly at the target with the stick and adjust with gyro-aim, works with every FPS on Steam Deck I tried so far - and games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or F.E.A.R. don't have aim assist, still works like a charm. The Vita did it as well in some games.
 
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chixdiggit

Member
Because pad aiming requires assists to be viable, and assists aren't standardized like the baseline input that comes out of a mouse.
Thus, different games take different approaches, for better or worse.
This is the answer. Auto Aim will never feel as good as a mouse.
 

Shifty

Member
Destiny, COD, Titanfall,Quake, Apex to name a few all aim great on a pad.

Besides it takes more skill to aim with controller rather than that point and click shit PC peasants claim is great.
If nothing else, this goes to show how effective aim assists are at making pad players think they're good.

Rowan Atkinson Attack GIF by Working Title
 
It's really crazy how big of a difference there is between fps aim with a controller in each game.

On pc you have a mouse, where any game feels identical no matter which mouse you have.

Then there's games like Halo and Destiny that's feels like ass and are heavily clunky, while games like Cod and Titanfall had spot on fluently aiming.

I don't get now that fps has been going on for so long on consoles, why smooth aiming from cod and Titanfall hasn't been an industry standard, and we still get shit clunky controls in a lot of other fps games?
Just a heads up not all games feel the same to move on mouse. There are a lot of heavy feeling games like Metro.
 

Maestr0

Member
Mouse and keyboard will always be superior for FPS, but the Metroid Prime Trilogy with the Wiimote, everything is just better than the traditional gamecube controller and a good alter to the mouse-keyboard, motion control for fps on console shouldn't be dismissed whatsoever.
Also, the first Splatoon, had the camera, vertical bind to the motion control of the wii u gamepad and the horizontal to the right stick, and it worked very well, of course it's not FPS, but that combination of camera movement was well done for a shooter imo
 
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Punished Miku

Gold Member
Nintendo is about 10 steps ahead. You guys are all wondering why people can't find the perfect settings of auto-aim, acceleration and auto-snap, and meanwhile Nintendo mastered a full tier well beyond that. It's embarrassing.

Splatoon will have far better controls than any console shooter this year. Neon White is another great example. I doubt people could even play that game with just traditional dual stick, but on Switch it works flawlessly.
 
There are plenty of games on PC with terrible mouse controls. It's not as bad as it used to be, but back in the 2000s lots of shooters released with ridiculously high minimum sensitivities and locked mouse acceleration.

Up until about 5 years ago there were also plenty of gaming mice using sensors that came with built-in acceleration and angle snapping that could not be disabled.
 

Shifty

Member
Just a heads up not all games feel the same to move on mouse. There are a lot of heavy feeling games like Metro.
That's down to a bad mouse implementation, i.e. aim acceleration that turns the linear motion response into a curve. Done right, the mouse movement to rotation ratio should be 1:1.

Thankfully you can fix that via options menu in the best cases, and via config files in most others.

It's a shame pointer controls (PS Move & Wii) never stuck with console FPS. Mouse like accuracy and still retaining an analog for movement, best of both worlds. Almost felt sorry for others when playing MAG, Killzone 3 and Resistance 3 online.
Mouse and keyboard will always be superior for FPS, but the Metroid Prime Trilogy with the Wiimote, everything is just better than the traditional gamecube controller and a good alter to the mouse-keyboard, motion control for fps on console shouldn't be dismissed whatsoever.
Also, the first Splatoon, had the vertical camera bind to the motion control of the wii u gamepad and the horizontal camera to the right stick, and it worked very well, of course it's not FPS, but that combination of camera movement was well done for a shooter imo
Proper pointing controls are top notch, hearkening back to the light gun games of old. They can be a bit clunky if camera rotation is tied to aiming at the edge of the screen, though that's a non issue if you have stick rotation to compliment the pointer reticle.

I think the motion control waggle factor still drags down how they're perceived by many people though, even though it's not mutually inclusive with precise pointer aiming.

Nintendo is about 10 steps ahead. You guys are all wondering why people can't find the perfect settings of auto-aim, acceleration and auto-snap, and meanwhile Nintendo mastered a full tier well beyond that. It's embarrassing.

Splatoon will have far better controls than any console shooter this year. Neon White is another great example. I doubt people could even play that game with just traditional dual stick, but on Switch it works flawlessly.
(Insert cheap shot about joycon drift here)
 
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rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
Because controller sucks anyway and devs try to make it suck the less possible messing with accelerations and dead zones . Some fail more, some fail less.

It's really crazy how big of a difference there is between fps aim with a controller in each game.

On pc you have a mouse, where any game feels identical no matter which mouse you have.

Then there's games like Halo and Destiny that's feels like ass and are heavily clunky, while games like Cod and Titanfall had spot on fluently aiming.

I don't get now that fps has been going on for so long on consoles, why smooth aiming from cod and Titanfall hasn't been an industry standard, and we still get shit clunky controls in a lot of other fps games?

Funny you mention Halo and Destiny being bad. Tons of players think they are the best, because there are two aim assists helping (fooling) the player. While CoD and Titanfall have only 1 assist. Though CoD is so strong on the soft-lock that it is not far from auto-aim.
 
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The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
Guys I know keyboard and mouse are superior in everything, but this is just about controller aim which I find insanely inconsistent.

Destiny isn't clunker at all, not nowadays anyway. Its one of the better feeling FPS games.

I strongly disagree.

With a mouse, you can aim with your whole arm. Ever hear of a craftsman or marksman who only used their right thumb?

I am aware of that. But if you read my post, if you compare controller aim between different games then there's a huge inconsistency about how the aiming feels.

Destiny, COD, Titanfall,Quake, Apex to name a few all aim great on a pad.

Besides it takes more skill to aim with controller rather than that point and click shit PC peasants claim is great.

Bro aim assist ain't skills.

Having controls as your enemy is not skills.its called a disadvantage.
 
It's really crazy how big of a difference there is between fps aim with a controller in each game.

On pc you have a mouse, where any game feels identical no matter which mouse you have.

Then there's games like Halo and Destiny that's feels like ass and are heavily clunky, while games like Cod and Titanfall had spot on fluently aiming.

I don't get now that fps has been going on for so long on consoles, why smooth aiming from cod and Titanfall hasn't been an industry standard, and we still get shit clunky controls in a lot of other fps games?
Because many developers think controller aiming with analog sticks should be implemented like if the sticks weren't analog and they add high amount of acceleration like if the controls were binary. Same thing with many racing games and manual cameras in most 3st person view. It's one of the most annoying thing on many console games
 
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rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
Destiny, COD, Titanfall,Quake, Apex to name a few all aim great on a pad.

Besides it takes more skill to aim with controller rather than that point and click shit PC peasants claim is great.
Without any aim assist, maybe. Which games do you play without any aim assist? And if it is so easy to aim with a mouse, go to win some championships easily for us to see.
 
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Guys I know keyboard and mouse are superior in everything, but this is just about controller aim which I find insanely inconsistent.



I strongly disagree.



I am aware of that. But if you read my post, if you compare controller aim between different games then there's a huge inconsistency about how the aiming feels.



Bro aim assist ain't skills.

Having controls as your enemy is not skills.its called a disadvantage.

You can disagree, but that just tells me you haven't played it since 2017.
 

Shifty

Member
Without any aim assist, maybe. Which games do you play without any aim assist?
I wouldn't even concede that tbh. Integrating a second-order time equation with your hand muscles isn't a more impressive skill than accurate pointing in absolute terms, just a different one.
 

rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
It's a shame pointer controls (PS Move & Wii) never stuck with console FPS. Mouse like accuracy and still retaining an analog for movement, best of both worlds. Almost felt sorry for others when playing MAG, Killzone 3 and Resistance 3 online.
Far from it. Pointer controls still has the inconsistency of "floating hands" and to turn around takes an eternity. It's only cool for some immersion.
 
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TrebleShot

Member
Have to say mouse is king for aim with Gyro very very close behind, but the whole thing is killed when you have to use a keyboard for movement, its fucking backwards ass way of doing things.

On one hand you have a precise 1-1 tool in the other you have binary off/on clunky keys where you have to distort your natural hand position and grip to even do basic manoeuvres.

Amazed in 2022 someone hasn't been able to comfortably combine controller type movement and action buttons with precision of a mouse.
 

Punished Miku

Gold Member
Have to say mouse is king for aim with Gyro very very close behind, but the whole thing is killed when you have to use a keyboard for movement, its fucking backwards ass way of doing things.

On one hand you have a precise 1-1 tool in the other you have binary off/on clunky keys where you have to distort your natural hand position and grip to even do basic manoeuvres.

Amazed in 2022 someone hasn't been able to comfortably combine controller type movement and action buttons with precision of a mouse.
Which is why it's great to have gyro on a controller with normal movement. My personal preference.
 

rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
What are floating hands and what takes an eternity to turn?
With mouse you have it on a surface making consistent and "still" movements. With a wimote your hand makes too inconsistent movements on the air aiming the pointer. Worse if you have some "shaking hands", like me. And to turn you have to take the crosshair off the screen on Wii games, making turn slow and a pain because you lose the crosshair on the screen while turning.
 
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01011001

Banned
some developers are stuck in the past. they think they have to add weird shit to their aiming to make it easier on controller.
that was the way of thinking back in the day, and is why we have dogshit like axial deadzones, aim acceleration with ramp up time and overbearingly strong aim assist.

the best way of doing aiming on a controller is to almost literally just emulate moving a mouse, and then give the player the ability to change deadzones, reaction curve, added speed boost on the edge and of course horizontal and vertical sensitivities.

some games on PC can be salvaged by literally emulating a mouse on your right stick through Steam's controller settings, others can't be as easily because they refuse to take both input methods simultaneously.
 

Wildebeest

Member
I am aware of that. But if you read my post, if you compare controller aim between different games then there's a huge inconsistency about how the aiming feels.
So the reason why this is important is that PC uses fewer tools to compensate for the lack of translation of real body dexterity. Aim assist is the most well known. But PC FPS gamer as a whole have been vocal in rejecting input acceleration or smoothing, and options to even have them are now rarer. Mouse gamers still have "aim down sights" in games. Players have different philosophies on if this is a bad thing or how to use it. Some say that the sights sensitivity should be adjusted, so a mouse movement moves the aim by the same degrees as normal, while others say it can be used for more fine control while aiming. But on PC a scope is only really needed to zoom in on things which are very far away, not to increase accuracy. Different sensitivities are seen as "optimal" for different typical ranges of games or types of games such as "pixel hunters" like counterstrike, but for most games people can stick with the same amount of turning per inch of mouse movement from game to game and still do ok.
 

01011001

Banned
If nothing else, this goes to show how effective aim assists are at making pad players think they're good.

due to a similar post in another thread I did a little experiment.
I went into Splitgate which I hadn't played on controller for more than 9 months (I only played it on controller for about 2 weeks after the game launched on consoles) and then turned off Aim Assist and queued up into a Gun Game match.

Splitgate has almost no aiming settings either, only speed and deadzones can be adjusted, and it doesn't have reaction curve settings, so all in all not very optimal for my tastes, but it's not bad overall, so I gave it a try

here's the result of playing Splitgate on controller for the first time in months and queuing in without aim assist...
it was also the first game I played after a patch came out, meaning UE4 being UE4, there are some shader stutters

the actual match starts about 2min in and before that you can see me warm up in the pre match lobby

(Zielhilfe Stärke = Aim Assist strength)





and here after roughly an hour of playing without aim assist, a Swat Pistols match... not a fan of Swat Pistols because the pistol in Splitgate has random spread, meaning aiming someone dead on the head can still result in the bullet missing or hitting the body hitbox instead

(I had to mute the audio because I had Spotify on in the background and YouTube didn't like that)
 
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BlackTron

Member
Have to say mouse is king for aim with Gyro very very close behind, but the whole thing is killed when you have to use a keyboard for movement, its fucking backwards ass way of doing things.

On one hand you have a precise 1-1 tool in the other you have binary off/on clunky keys where you have to distort your natural hand position and grip to even do basic manoeuvres.

Amazed in 2022 someone hasn't been able to comfortably combine controller type movement and action buttons with precision of a mouse.

What? WASD and space bar is a contortion?

Have you actually spent much time doing this or just watched gamers fingers clacking away at a keyboard and felt intimidated?

You can actually hold the left side of a controller with your left hand while using a mouse so that you have analog movement and map some buttons. But I don't think it's that worth it, the keyboard is totally sufficient.
 
I find Destiny 2/Halo Infinite aiming much better than COD/ Titanfall aiming.

Even if I buy a third party controller, stick feel is wildly different from model to model.

It's not as simple as aiming with a mouse. Overall I stick with games that I like the feel of. Easy to decide which ones to get.
 

Punished Miku

Gold Member
you most likely do so because aiming in both of these games is ridiculously dumbed down by the most extreme aim assist mechanics of any modern shooter.

some of the weapons almost aim for themselves.
But you know, Splatoon is only for babies. The main console shooter with zero aim assist and far more technical controls ....
 

01011001

Banned
But you know, Splatoon is only for babies. The main console shooter with zero aim assist and far more technical controls ....

Splatoon massively benefits from the fact that it's designed primarily for gyro aiming from the ground up.

it kinda sucks tho that Splatoon 2 has higher input latency than the first game. and I think the gyroscope sensor inside Switch controllers isn't as good as the one in the Wii U Gamepad or the Dualshock 4 for that matter.

afaik both of the latter ones have a way higher polling rate than the Switch Pro controller or joycons
 
you most likely do so because aiming in both of these games is ridiculously dumbed down by the most extreme aim assist mechanics of any modern shooter.

some of the weapons almost aim for themselves.

Whatever the reason.

They are much easier to pick up and play and get in a couple of matches/sessions.

I find it to be relaxing, much better casual games than most stuff out there.
 

buenoblue

Member
Yeah I don't feel this way at all. But I've bin using a controller for like 35 years now. I tried playing with mouse and keyboard on PC a while back and even though I know it's superior, in my hands it wasn't cause I just don't have the muscle memory like I do with decades of controller use 🤷‍♂️
 
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01011001

Banned
Whatever the reason.

They are much easier to pick up and play and get in a couple of matches/sessions.

I find it to be relaxing, much better casual games than most stuff out there.

the aiming on controller in them is pretty terrible tho. if you played all the games you listed above without aim assist you would quickly know why I say that 😬
 
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