The Problem With Aiming Is NOT the Aim Assist

Hey all! I’m sure many of you have already seen me commenting on some threads regarding the aiming in Halo Infinite. I really want to see this game succeed so it is important to me that 343i hears the main gripe about the way Aiming works in Infinite which quite frankly is way worse than basically every other shooter on the market. The goal here should be to create a welcoming experience for players both new and old yadda yadda.

Anyways what I am going to post here is NOT my analysis but a cross post from Reddit and XIM creator.

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Aiming issues? This is why (from the XIM creator)
If you don’t like XIM that’s fine, that’s a discussion for a different day. But this is a guy that has spent 10+ years analysing controller data and knows this stuff from back to front.
Anyway this is his analysis from H5, but HI appears to share the exact same control mechanics (and thus problems…and before you say HI was just in beta…remember these issues were never fixed in H5):
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I’ve been seeing posts about “problematic controllers” and “deadzones” as being the problem with Halo 5’s aiming system. That’s not it.
343i, I’ll make it easy for you. Look at the picture below. Here is a partial map of the stick positions where you jump in turn velocity by 2.34x. For example, if you are aiming at someone and you happen to be at 32336,0 and you accidentally nudge the stick to 32337,0 then your reticle will suddenly jump by over 2 times the speed you were just turning at. Even worse, it’ll accelerate to that 2.34x speed over ~1 second. Unless you have incredible muscle memory, how could any gamer reliably know where that point is?
The fix is:

  1. Keep your dead-zone and positional acceleration curves
  2. Remove the velocity jump
  3. Remove the time-based acceleration at maximum
  4. Increase maximum horizontal turn speed by at least 3x (make sensitivity knob go up to 30)
    The Halo community (XIM and controller gamers alike) have been talking about Halo 5’s surprise changes to how it aims. XIM’s Smart Translator system gives us an insight into how every game developer designs their aiming systems. I can tell you after studying the data that 343 has done a great disservice to the Halo community.
    343 changed Halo aim by splitting the stick into 2 separate regions: aim and turn. They also chose this point seeming arbitrarily as well before maximum stick deflection. Meaning, any player that accidentally goes beyond this point (such as during the heat of a fire fight) will find their reticle jump. The speed gap between “aim” and “turn” is very large. Instead of moving towards a good example of an aiming system (i.e. CoD and BF), they went completely the other way.
    Controller users hate it too. Why they would optimize for the .0001% is beyond me. It has to be the dumbest decision that 343 has made.
    https://preview.redd.it/5dbu0q9lb9f71.png?width=1329&format=png&auto=webp&s=e23fff0bedbb53e0deddb5e3505a62e77b6eb3d7

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    Most in the Halo community know that aiming on H5 was a chore, and for me and many of my friends was a colossal turn off. For my friends at the time of launch it turned them off as aiming was a complete chore. Even after all of their “fixed” it still wasn’t right.

Simply put, new players will not want to play Infinite if they can’t get a comparable experience to other shooters or at the very least what is present on MCC.
Allegedly, some pros seem to like this form of aiming and that is fine too, what I am simply proposing is the OPTION to enable the same aim curve that MCC uses or something more akin to the industry standard. Along with of course a true “0” deadzone setting (which also doesn’t exist here). Having the option to choose whether we want this new curve or the ”modern” aim setting of MCC is tantamount to the games success and quite frankly would eliminate much of the discourse around aim assist which frankly might only need the tiniest of tune ups on certain weapons.

Thoughts?

yeah H5’s two-turn aim mechanic was atrocious it was fine in the beta and then the proteam changed it for competative play, which transfered into the whole game

I’m not too familar with infinites aim mechanic I do know that (as you are also aware) aim assist has been toned right down, if theres more at work or not I’m unsure

I also thought the aiming was incredibly unresponsive on controller and tried basically every sens/deadzone/acceleration combination. It absolutely wasn’t an aim assist issue, it was the functionality of the right stick itself. I’m just hoping 343 adds in modern aim options because Infinites current aim is anything but. I’m also praying they don’t massively increase aim assist instead of fixing the actual problem.

> 2533274832130936;2:
> yeah H5’s two-turn aim mechanic was atrocious it was fine in the beta and then the proteam changed it for competative play, which transfered into the whole game
>
> I’m not too familar with infinites aim mechanic I do know that (as you are also aware) aim assist has been toned right down, if theres more at work or not I’m unsure

H5 beta aiming was perfect. I still don’t understand why they made such a drastic change to it that couldn’t be undid with options.

> 2535459670919424;3:
> I also thought the aiming was incredibly unresponsive on controller and tried basically every sens/deadzone/acceleration combination. It absolutely wasn’t an aim assist issue, it was the functionality of the right stick itself. I’m just hoping 343 adds in modern aim options because Infinites current aim is anything but. I’m also praying they don’t massively increase aim assist instead of fixing the actual problem.

100% This is make or break for me and a lot of my friends, we will just stick to MCC or other games

> 2533274874194954;5:
> > 2535459670919424;3:
> > I also thought the aiming was incredibly unresponsive on controller and tried basically every sens/deadzone/acceleration combination. It absolutely wasn’t an aim assist issue, it was the functionality of the right stick itself. I’m just hoping 343 adds in modern aim options because Infinites current aim is anything but. I’m also praying they don’t massively increase aim assist instead of fixing the actual problem.
>
> 100% This is make or break for me and a lot of my friends, we will just stick to MCC or other games

I also hate to agree but, yea, if the aiming isn’t made more enjoyable, then actually enjoying the game will be harder than it should be, and that’s a darn shame.

I don’t know what was wrong with H5’s aim, but the beta was way better. Probably the number one reason I didn’t enjoy H5 that much. Looks like there are a bunch of options with infinite though.