The Finals Actually Nerfed Aim Assist!?
After years of complaining, getting called all types of names, being told to “git gud” a first person shooter game finally did something that I truly never thought would happen. And it took a small studio named Embark, the developers of “The Finals” to do it. They Actually nerfed aim assist. Now hold on, before you call me names, I want to say 2 things. Number 1 I want this to serve as a forum so we can have a reasonably informed discussion about Aim Assist. And Number 2 I want you guys to know where I'm coming from. For my entire life I’ve played controller up until the last 3 years. I’m 31 at the time of writing this so I’ve put in a ton of years on controller. I want to talk about aim assist as a whole, how it actually functions, what controller players get wrong, what MnK players get wrong and some potential solutions to balance the two inputs. Lets talk about how the parts of aim assist actually work.
Aim Assist Breakdown
Part one, you have Aim Slow Down. Now Imagine a bubble around an enemy character. When your crosshair is within this imaginary bubble you get a reduced sensitivity to help give you better control with your right thumbstick. This is because at full sensitivity it’s incredibly hard to be precise with just a small thumbstick. Part 2 is aim assist rotation. This is the part of aim assist I see the most confusion around because casual players either don’t know that it’s there or how it works which is the reason why we see so many comments like “my aim assist doesn’t do that”.. And it’s also the main culprit behind complaints about aim assist. The way aim assist rotation gets implemented is a little different from game to game but it’s the same basic concept. When your cross hair is over that imaginary bubble we talked about earlier and the enemy is moving, it will rotate your camera or character to always be facing in the general direction of the enemy. In some games this will be active while standing still and in other games it requires you to be strafing for it to work. This is why some people don’t feel like they’re aim assist is as strong as the videos they see on the internet because they’re standing still on a piece of cover or high ground shooting at the target. You actually need to add a little bit of movement to get aim assist rotation to work.
So now that we understand how aim assist works let’s talk about what controller players get wrong about the criticisms of aim assist. I’ve noticed that alot of controller players have 2 core misconceptions when it comes to mouse and keyboard players complaining. 1. They think that all mouse and keyboard players believe that aim assist should be removed entirely and based on my own experience and discussions that’s not entirely true. Sure there are a few odd ones out there but majority of MnK players recognize that controller as an input is less precise and therefore needs some type of aim assist to be on a level playing field in games that allow both input types. I know i’m biased here but most mouse and keyboard players actually come from playing controller like myself so they have a deeper understanding of both input types. However; Very few controller players have ever played both inputs and most definitely not played Mouse and keyboard at higher skill levels. Which leads me to the 2nd misconception controller players get wrong. they think that all Mouse and Keyboard players are as good as the streamer they watch and i’m here to tell you that there are plenty of casual gamers that use a mouse just like controller players.
But what about MnK players, what do they get wrong about aim assist? What I see most Mouse players get wrong is that some of them think that aim assist in multiplayer works just like it does in something like a Call of Duty campaign or zombies. Where when you pull the left trigger to aim down sight it just snaps your crosshair to the enemy with zero effort. And that’s just obviously not the case. However there is a feature in battlefield and the finals called zoom snapping. And this actually does snap your aim to center target, but you have to be very, and I mean very, close to the target already. And even then it doesn’t just lock on and stay glued to the target.
So as a person whos put a ton of time into both inputs, what is my opinion on aim assist? Oh boy feel the pressure already. In general I do believe aim assist is absolutely a necessary feature for controller players but due to a few new developments and the way it’s been handled in the last few years it’s a bit too strong especially in those close range gunfights. There are a few reasons for this. Aim assist may have been slowly cranked up over the years but why? Let’s not kid ourselves for a second and think that triple A studios care about fair and competitive play. They don’t. I think we can all agree that modern games undeniably cater to bad players at every chance they get in the hopes that appealing to more gamers will lead to more microtransaction sales. And if you’re thinking to yourself, I’m a casual player and I don’t feel like the game is catering to me. Well remember that old saying, if you don’t know who the sucker in the room is…. It’s you. In an era where ‘everyone gets a trophy’ aim assist has been dialed up to make players feel good at the game who otherwise might have a tough time. Now let’s combine strong aim assist with all of the recent improvements the controller has gotten to fine tuning their aim. Features like advanced look controls, multiple or custom response curve options and now you even have aim assist types to choose from. All of these give controller players more “control” haha and when you stack that on top of strong aim assist it becomes really hard to compete against.
So for the sake of discussion let’s assume that aim assist is a bit strong in recent games. What are the core issues and how can we fix them without absolutely destroying controller as a viable input. I know I’m biased but as a person who wants to release a first person shooter game in the future I’ve genuinely spent a long time thinking about this. For me, It really boils down to 2 core issues. Number 1 is aim assist strength across distance. Typically aim assist is incredibly strong up close and gets weaker over distance. Now to me this is actually completely backwards and makes no sense if you’re trying to balance it against mouse and keyboard. If anything it should be weaker up close and stronger at long ranges. We all agree that Mouse and keyboard has the advantage of precision, which typically takes place at medium to long ranges. This includes things like recoil control, using snipers and headshot accuracy. But up close Controller has the advantage with aim assist rotation helping to keep you on target, with that sticky aim feeling. So why not make aim assist rotation a little bit weaker up close to level the playing field and give it a touch more strength at range to better compete with Mouse and Keyboard players.
The second issue is a fundamental limitation of our human biology and that is reaction time. The average human reaction, depending on what study you read is somewhere in the range of 150 - 250 milliseconds when reacting to visual stimulus. So how does that apply to aim assist in gaming? When we look at a mouse and keyboard players aim when reacting to a strafing target, even the highest skilled players still have a reaction time delay when tracking an enemy. So even the best players in the world are going to miss a few bullets here and there. Whereas aim assist will shift directions with a strafing enemy near instantly. So if all else is equal in a gunfight, majority of the time a controller player will come out on top due to being able to stay on target for those few extra milliseconds. So what do we do about this? Well I think it makes sense to add in a tiny 50ms delay between direction change when it comes to aim assist rotation shifting the direction of your crosshair when reacting to a strafing target. This combined balancing out aim assist over distance as we talked about previously should get us as close to a level playing field as possible. I don’t think we’ll ever reach a perfect equilibrium because it is true that each input has it’s slight advantages and disadvantages. I think it’s fair to say that in it’s current state aim assist is a bit too strong. There should never be a situation where pro players feel like they’re required to switch inputs to be competitive and we’ve seen plent of pros from games like apex legends and call of duty end up switching from Mouse and Keyboard to controller. Because when money is on the line you take every competitive advantage you can get.
I also want to add in one more argument for balancing aim assist and this is really just for controller players. Imagine a world where mouse and keyboard doesn’t exist, or you just turned crossplay off… If you’re a cracked or even above average controller player, just realize that the stronger aim assist is not only will you ,the player, have less control, but the bad players are now able to compete with you in a way they otherwise wouldn’t because aim assist is helping them too much. I’ve seen so many players who practice with aim assist off and would absolutely demolish other people in a game with no aim assist let alone having a weaker version of it to give them better control.
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