Poll: CoD aim assist WARNING: RANT

[Drummie666]

A while ago I decided that I should get a CoD game because I wanted to play an online game with some of my friends and CoD was what they were into. They told me that black ops wasn't that good and to get MW2. So, I went out and picked up my very first CoD game.

Like I normally do when I get a game, I started the single-player first. During the first little training session, (y'know, showing the local militia guys how to aim properly) I noticed that when I ADS'd, It snapped onto one of the targets. I thought nothing of it and went into the options and disabled the aim assist.

Then I made it to the pit, chose my weapons and charged in. Immediately, I noticed that the game took control of the camera when I strafed around targets. I was thinking "wtf? I thought I turned aim assist off." I went back into the options and yup, aim assist was disabled. I then thought "Well, that's a fucking odd glitch. What was the update I just downloaded? 1.16?" I flicked it on and off and then made sure it was off again when I exited the options, thinking that it was just a weird glitch and that it would be fixed by messing with it. I resumed the game and it was still moving the camera around when I was strafing around a target, putting my aim off. Then it hit me. "No... No developer could possibly be stupid enough to have the auto aim permanently on." I then stopped and wondered whether I should turn the game off and chuck the disk in a furnace or attempt to persist so that I could play with my friends online. I decided that I should persist and did so.

Then I started up the multiplayer and found the aim assist to be more manageable as you are normally only killing one guy at a time. But keep in mind that I'm using the word "Manageable."

Okay then, for those people that obviously don't make sense to me, the people that aren't furious with these people for having permanent aim assist, Let me talk about aim assist.

The first time in any game where I turned the aim assist on was in the Medal of Honor multiplayer. I turned it on because, after reading some posts on the EA forums where people complained about the multiplayer having aim assist on, I wanted to see if I did any better. After I turned it on I had to ask if these people were on something because I did worse with it on. Much worse. I did worse because, with the aim assist altering my aim, I was nearly always off target.

I tried to think of why aim assist exists in the first place. If I remember correctly, the reason aim assist was created was so that console players could aim as well as PC players. So, in other words, it's for balancing difficulty. Devs don't have to worry about a difficulty gap between PC and Console, it makes it easier for them. Okay, fair enough. But, some people, such as myself, find aim assist unintuitive and prefer to play with it off, so they normally put in the option to turn it off. I have no problem with games that do that.

Now, there are two parts to aim assist. Aim Snap and Aim Assist. Aim Snap is simply snapping onto a nearby target when you aim down sight. Aim assist is when the game moves your aim when an enemy close to the centre of your screen moves.
I find both of these unintuitive and like them to fuck off when I'm playing.
Aim Snap is not terrible, but I prefer to aim by myself. Aim Assist however, Is horribly unintuitive. Let me give you an sample senario to demonstrate why. You are on Invasion in MW2. y'know those three two story buildings on the right side to the attacking team? you are on the farthest one from the blue building, facing the attacking team spawn. You see a guy round the corner. You ADS and start firing at him. Suddenly, your aim gets pulled away from him. Then you get killed from a guy who came from the building to the right. Because that guy moved close enough to where you were aiming, the aim assist locked on to him, making you miss the guy you were aiming at. (Oh and yes. This did actually happen to me) Do you see now? Aim assist is something you can get used to and compensate for when aiming. BUT ONLY WHEN DEALING WITH ONE PERSON. When there is more than one person, which, in a game like CoD, WILL happen quite often, the game CANNOT know which person you want to kill: The guy in the back shooting at you, or the guy in the front shooting at somebody else.

I've told my friends that I simply cannot play CoD anymore with this issue and that I will never play another CoD game again unless they do put in an option to turn the aim assist off.

Okay, I think I've explained enough. Now then, let me ask:
Why is nobody else as pissed about this as I am that they did this. IS everyone else angry at the permanent aim-assist? Or am I the only one.
And, given the poll, what should IW and Treyarch do about the Aim Assist?

Also, damn. Almost 1000 words.

 

[SilentCom]

I'm not a fan of aim assist either. The problem is that the developers keep it on in a lot of fps games for console. The reason being is that the controller "lacks precision" over the mouse so people will find it difficult to aim. I also believe that the option to turn it off should actually turn it off.

 

[Wolfram23]

I don't mind the snap, but the following thing throws me off when I'm already moving my aim to compensate, and next thing I know I'm spraying bullets way in front of him. But yeah even the snap is annoying, and the worst thing is when they don't work when you expect them to, and then do work when you don't. And honestly I'm not even sure why there is auto aim. Afterall if it's for balancing with PC... you don't play against PC players on console games. So there's no balancing issue to worry about. Epitome of "dumbing down for console"? Maybe.

 

[Chamale]

Definitely some people play better with aim assist off. I play FPS games with aim assist on console, because I don't have nearly as much experience as some people. I'd play Timesplitters 2 with aim assist and have a good time, then I'd go to a more experienced friend's house and get owned by his ability to score unassisted jumping headshots with just about any weapon.

One of my cousin plays Black Ops on 10 sensitivity and still achieves more precision than I get with a setting of 3. People like that only play one game, and get so used to it they need no aim assist.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

Eh. If it can't be helped then just learn to compensate for it. Or play something else. It's not like there's a lack of modern (both post and pre) warfare shooters to choose from.

As a final alternative there's always the PC version, but eh.

 

[Wintermoot]

controllers aren't that great when aiming wich is why they included snap/ADS
and I agree with you its stupid to keep it in a PC port (and sepperates the FPS boys from the FPS men)

 

[Infesord]

Yeah Aim Assist doesn't get much approval by me either, although I always thought there was another element to aim-assist, which I like to call Sensitivity Slowdown. Basically when you're aiming around and there are no targets in view, whatever your selected sensitivity you use is what the sensitivity is. But the second an enemy target is in view, the sensitivity decreases to a certain amount to help you aim more precisely at a target.

This Sensitivity Slowdown I find just about as intrusive and annoying as those other things such as Aim Snapping and actual Aim Assist since its adjusting the speed/rate of aiming and looking around.

But to fair it makes sense with a Gamepad. With PC gaming and using a Mouse, the sensitivity thing is merely for what your comfortable with for max speed. Being able to slow down and be precise simply requires slower wrist movement with your fine motor skills to accomplish. It's a lot harder to have that kind of adjustable control with your thumb on a stick. So a game compensates that by decreasing the sensitivity down automatically during a time when you (might) need it, as in when a target is available.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

If you're frequently getting into firefights with too many people, you're doing something wrong, that's one.

The game doesn't actually autosnap to the target if your reticle is nowhere near him, that's too. Being a seasoned console CoD player, I've never had ANY problems with the aim assist in singleplayer or multiplayer. If something, it makes it too easy.

 

[Aphex Demon]

If everyone online has this aim assist then surely its all even and no-one gets an advantage?

 

[Mr Twist]

It really gets to me. I have it off, but it works in zombies and multiplayer. Its worse when it really screws up. More than once I've gotten a kill not because I was awesome but because I was near a wall and the auto assist tracked someone through it.

Thank you magical tracker device, now piss off and stop forcing my aim in the middle of every group.

 

[Tanner The Monotone]

I'm pretty sure you can take it off manually.

 

[Dizzle26]

I find it annoying but I don't really notice it that much. My luck must be off or something, because I can honestly say I've only seen it happen like..once. And I was aiming at a corner I thought a dude would be clearing..and sure enough, he did. Not only did the Aim Assist thingie push my reticle over, but I had to adjust -and- I got killed. Lame!

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I like auto aim assist or whatever you call it, but I admit it can get annoying. The only time it gets annoying for me though is when I'm playing Nazi zombies. Several times there has been a horde coming at me, so I decide to run like a little girl while my teammates try to make this honorable last stand. My friends call it, "Going into pro mode," which makes me smile, but is beside the point.
Anyway, I'll be running and then a zombie or two will pop up in front of me and the game will aim assist on to it and stick to it for a second, causing me to strafe into a wall or something. When you're running for you life, strafing into a wall is never a good thing.

 

[Baneat]

I'm not a fan of aim assist either. The problem is that the developers keep it on in a lot of fps games for console. The reason being is that the controller "lacks precision" over the mouse so people will find it difficult to aim. I also believe that the option to turn it off should actually turn it off.

That's such a bs excuse. They just wanna make it so everyone can be decent at it. From a 9 year old girl to a 99 year old. Which means more $$$$ for them, because it so easy and accessible to just about anyone.

No they've put aim assist in games for forever, it's nothing to do with accessibility, gamepads suck ass when it's down to aiming

 

[Continuity]

Personally, as a PC gamer, I don't want or expect to find aim-assist of any form in a PC game; though I fully understand why a console game needs these things.
To a WASD + Mouse FPS gamer consistent behaviour from their mouse is vital, you ideally want the ability to finely tune sensitivity across a large range, plus no acceleration or any interference with your direct input via the motion of the mouse. Accurate shooting and fast and reliable target acquisition depends on the reticule doing exactly what you expect it to.

I think this is really all there is to be said on the subject from a PC perspective, auto-aim has no place where the mouse is involved.

 

[Griphphin]

I'm not a fan of aim assist either. The problem is that the developers keep it on in a lot of fps games for console. The reason being is that the controller "lacks precision" over the mouse so people will find it difficult to aim. I also believe that the option to turn it off should actually turn it off.

That's such a bs excuse. They just wanna make it so everyone can be decent at it. From a 9 year old girl to a 99 year old. Which means more $$$$ for them, because it so easy and accessible to just about anyone.

Have you ever tried teamkilling someone on Halo? You might get it easy enough the first time if they aren't even moving, but when they start circle-strafing like enemies do, you will be hard-pressed to kill them in any reasonable amount of time.
in CoD, if the two of you are moving (CQC firefight), the engagement might end in as little time as usual, but past that at mid-range and beyond the kill times get quite annoying. It slows down the pace of the game and makes engagements annoying.

angry snip

If you really want to see just how much aim assist helps you in MW2, make two classes:
One class with the vector silenced, and one class with the M4 silenced + acog. Then try to engage enemies at mid-range and beyond. At mid-range, you will kill in the same amount of bullets, and the vector has slightly higher RoF and the same general recoil pattern as the M4. The big difference is that the acog increases the aim assist range to much farther than the vector. You will see just how much the aim assist helps you.
Also worth mentioning that I've been playing CoD for quite a few games and I have had the problem of aim assist working against once every 200 or so games.

 

[sabercrusader]

Not trying to insult your chice or anything, but your first mistake was buying MW2. You may not like the series at all, but MW2 is by far the worst CoD I have ever played....

OT:Now that I've got that out of the way, I think it should be a choice, if you want no aim assist, more power to you, so switch it off, but if you want the aim assist, then that's fine too, just keep it on. I can see how the permanent aim assist can get annoying for someone who hates aim assist.