Hello everyone.
For those who have been looking at the controls have seen the series has made a number of improvements to the aiming controls throughout the series, most notably in Halo 5 and recently in MCC.
For those unaware:
Classic Halos started with a deadzone like this: https://imgur.com/VfRgoi0
and was updated in Reach to:Imgur: The magic of the Internet
In 5, 343i added deadzone and look acceleration options and while the inner deadzones in that only applied to the circular region of the deadzone(Imgur: The magic of the Internet) it was the lowest the series has offered until that point.
The best improvements however were made in the MCC, with separate options for axial and radial deadzone options(Imgur: The magic of the Internet) allowing for the first time full/correct diagonal movement and circular deadzones if the player wants. There is an issue with low vertical sensitivity, but it’s functionally leaps above what they were.
The MCC is a great example of this idea. These options makes the included games far more smoother than they ever were before, and the aim assist used in them feels like total overkill now. The more in control of your aim your are the less you need assists.
We probably can expect that Infinite will carry these improvements and won’t need the level of aim assist 5 used. And there’s still some more improvements that can be made.
Further Improvements
- Currently look acceleration only controls the ‘time’ that it takes the turn acceleration to build up. Having another option to control the amount of this acceleration would be another improvement - Acceleration curve slider. This is a very rare option in games(Only Titanfall 2, Apex and Overwatch to my knowledge), but having control over how your acceleration increases with stick movement powerful. You could control how fast or slow your precise movements are.All these options together would allow you to fully customize your aiming. For different preferences, you could have a low sensitivity, a linear curve with higher turn acceleration, or a high sensitivity with a higher exponent curve and no turn acceleration. You may want some axial deadzone to help you make perfectly cardinal movements, or be happy with full diagonal movement. Any possible preference could be catered to.
343i has gotten a lot of flak in 4 and 5 for the bullet magnetism used, but I think they have an opportunity to both lower both ‘sticky aim’ and bullet magnetism to the lowest levels they’ve ever been just by making the controls the best the series has ever had.