Aim Assist will Kill Infinite on PC

Games Halo Infinite
1

If Infinite has the same degree of aim assist as previous Halo titles aim assist will kill the PC player base without completely separate input based matchmaking. I know this topic already gets a fair bit of discussion, but the importance of how this is addressed is crucial to the game’s success on PC.

Lets be clear that mouse and keyboard certainly has advantages of its own. Projectile weapons, grenades, and general mobility all excel on M&K, however, the core Halo multiplayer combat loop is most commonly comprised of mid range precision weapon fights. Due to Halo having a moderately high time to kill, but relatively slow movement speed it is crucial that you land almost every shot at a high level. Aim assist at mid range makes this much easier for a controller player compared to an equally skilled M&K player. This is further emphasized with battle rifle burst mechanics. I believe a magnum type weapon has a somewhat smaller discrepancy between controller and M&K.

Look at MCC, high ranks are dominated by controllers and it’s not just due to those players having more Halo experience. This trickles down and affects the casual players as well. Good luck to a new M&K player vs a new controller player. I imagine when the upcoming MCC input based matchmaking patch hits there will be very few M&K players still playing the game and those playlists will be empty. COD Warzone is another current example of a game where the community is split on PC aim assist.

Unfortunately there is not an optimal solution for everyone. You essentially have 3 options.

  1. Completely remove controller aim assist on PC. This was the norm for PC FPS games in the past (TF2, Overwatch, and almost every game before them), but cross play makes this pretty impossible.

  2. Tone down aim assist. Unlikely since this would upset the core console player base and it will still be tricky to achieve something resembling balance.

  3. Completely separate input based matchmaking (with option of playing vs other). This is probably the best bet with Infinite. How large the negatives are greatly depends on the size of the player base. Hopefully with this being the first Halo game immediately coming to PC on launch coupled with it being free to play we get enough players that splitting the player base isn’t a big deal.

I’m not looking to start a war and I don’t care to argue controller vs M&K. They each have their own merits. Halo 3 was the last console FPS I played before switching to PC. I have enjoyed replaying the games and discovering the ones I missed now that they are on PC. I am very much looking forward to Infinite and hope it has a successful PC debut.

2

I’m interested to see how the update to MCC actually splits the community, my guess is that at this point the M&K crowd is the vocal minority and finding games will be even harder for them than it already is at certain non-peak hours. So I assume those players will be funneled into playlists that don’t discriminate on input type most of the time or those players will end up picking up controllers to make it easier to find competitive mode games. This issue will be exacerbated when crossplay is introduced as the ratio between controller and M&K input types will be even more lopsided. This is obviously the way 343 will take Infinite as it’s becoming the industry norm.

Your point regarding F2P boosting the M&K playerbase is a good one. My bet is that the effect of that is M&K players from MCC will more likely make the transition to Infinite MP than controller players, if they can keep their frames up.

3

Well I have herd multiple times over that its easier to aim on PC with m&k. Yes I think the bullet magnetism an aim assist may help out for cross play but in halo 5, an other FPS games when your clearly not aiming or when your reticle is not touching the target an yet the shot still registers although you aimed 5 feet off target …
Looks like lag or an error on video. Players got used to aiming in halo 1.

4

Honestly I think the games can be inclusive for casual matches but the ranked games should be separated.

That or have an option where you can toggle the option to play against players using different control inputs. Unfortunately I can’t see aim assist being messed around too much or you make the game harder for controller players. A Skill gap you could cross but for the causal players why would they? They would just leave and play something that doesn’t require that of them.

5

It’s been too long, all developers should remove completely aim assist from PC in every shooter and leave it only on consoles. At least in Gears there’s an option to turn it off and there are a lot of good players that don’t even need it because they have improved. In ranked both KBM and controllers must be separated or it will never be truly competitive.