CoD aim assist - left and right stick

[TurboMan]

A question for the devs. Obviously there are two types of AA in multiplayer and battle royale on CoD (aim slowdown and "rotational" aim assist i.e. auto-tracking). Do we have any data as to what degree each is affected by left stick and right stick inputs?

I've been XIMing for 2.5 years, done a lot of messing around with syncs, DPIs, polling, smoothing etc, and also tried both analog inputs (and simulated analog behaviour) as well as 0% simulated with WASD. I feel as though the second type of aim assist (rotational) is affected mostly by left stick input i.e. your WASD or your movement analog stick regardless of what's going on with your right stick (obviously, it's common knowledge that some left stick input is required for rotational aim assist to be activated and will activate even when the right stick is not moving at all); while the aim slowdown part is mostly affected by right stick input - in the case of the XIM, this would be your DPI, polling, curves etc.

For example, people state that WASD input can create problems with hitbox entry, whereas I believe it's more just down to reduced levels of rotational aim assist not pulling your crosshair toward the target as readily as you'd get with an analog stick. I think I've noticed slightly increased rotational aim assist with some configs over others (more specifically, lower polling seems to create a little more than higher), but it's a small difference if any.

Does this seem accurate? It would be great if a separation of the two aim assist methods and how to tweak them as individually as possible was common knowledge among the XIM community. There just seems to be a "more aim assist/less aim assist" train of thought and not much thought toward how to affect the two types of aim assist individually.

[Oskool]

What are you using for left analog stick? Keyboard or Sony Nav?

[TurboMan]

What are you using for left analog stick? Keyboard or Sony Nav?

Pretty much covered this in the first post, tested on both WASD simulated on 100% and off, and Nav.

[Oskool]

I'm not a dev but I'll give my take on it for fun. Feel free to correct me.

Analog sticks like Sony Nav probably gives more rotational aim assist compared to keyboards with SAB.

Using sync at the game's framerate probably provides the strongest slowdown aim assist. So sync default for 120fps CoD and sync common for 60fps.

Or you could also disable sync and set your mouse to 125Hz, which is similar to using sync default with your mouse set at 1,000,Hz. In the sense that they both send 125 updates a second to the console. Sync common is 62.5Hz I think.

Basically XIM's Smart Translator does a better job of converting mouse inputs into human-like analog stick movement if the update rate being sent to the console matches the game's frame rate as closely as possible.

[wat]

ok you got me rethinking everything. ive seen people use sony navs on here but ive never considered it, and ive been a user of this product for like 10yrs lol.

just picked up my controller in left hand just to use the left stick and it unlocks a level of aim assist thats smooth and easy to control.. about to go buy a sony nav or whatever the next best thing is if they dont make them anymore.

[TurboMan]

I'm not a dev but I'll give my take on it for fun. Feel free to correct me.

Analog sticks like Sony Nav probably gives more rotational aim assist compared to keyboards with SAB.

Yeah, the rotational aim assist it appears is predominantly based around left stick movement. In my testing, the amount of rotational aim assist between a stick and 100% SAB is pretty much identical though (maybe a smidge stronger on actual analog but it's mostly negligible), so the devs did a great job there.

Using sync at the game's framerate probably provides the strongest slowdown aim assist. So sync default for 120fps CoD and sync common for 60fps.

Or you could also disable sync and set your mouse to 125Hz, which is similar to using sync default with your mouse set at 1,000,Hz. In the sense that they both send 125 updates a second to the console. Sync common is 62.5Hz I think.

Basically XIM's Smart Translator does a better job of converting mouse inputs into human-like analog stick movement if the update rate being sent to the console matches the game's frame rate as closely as possible.

You're certainly right in saying that making your mouse movements more controller-like will give you the strongest AA slowdown, at least we've all known that one for a while. Several methods of achieving that, be it applying smoothing; lowering DPI, sync, polling rate; or even implementing a curve that adds acceleration to your mouse movements or using software-driven acceleration on your mouse.

ok you got me rethinking everything. ive seen people use sony navs on here but ive never considered it, and ive been a user of this product for like 10yrs lol.

just picked up my controller in left hand just to use the left stick and it unlocks a level of aim assist thats smooth and easy to control.. about to go buy a sony nav or whatever the next best thing is if they dont make them anymore.

I've noticed a trend in keyboard users just using whatever settings produce the least aim assist slowdown; and Nav/Azeron users tending to use more. As I was saying in the OP, I believe that keyboards providing less controller-like input leads to less rotational aim assist, therefore requires more mouse movement to get into the hitbox, leading keyboard users to prefer less aim slowdown to allow easier hitbox entry (or they just use a lot of SAB to counter that problem, I've seen a lot of people's settings using 90+ SAB on ADS for example).

[antithesis]

AA messes up the velocity mapping of the look mechanics, so STs are never trained with AA. So there's no intent behind either left or right stick AA behaviour on a XIM, that's governed entirely by the game engine. Nor is there any data on how AA interacts with an ST because they're developed in the absence of AA.

Right stick AA can be manipulated by Response Rate, Polling Rate, DPI, Smoothing, Boost, Sync, Ballistics Curves etc, but they're not designed to do so. Steady Aim is the only tool in the kit that is designed for AA, but its purpose is to combat the AA bubble to assist with hitbox entry in CoD games.

SAB only affects left stick AA, so it is already separated, though not intentionally. SAB's purpose is digital input obfuscation, not left stick AA. However, the acceleration from 0-100% over roughly 30ms in SAB plays friendlier with LS AA than digital WASD that pegs straight from 0 to 100. When using a kb without SAB, you won't feel LS AA at all, which helps rather than hinders hitbox entry, but there is no sticky AA feeling to LS movement.

True analog input is better than SAB because you can easily hold a value of less than 100% input speed to capitalise on LS AA. You can't do that with SAB, it'll always go quickly to 100% and stay there until a change of direction.

[TurboMan]

AA messes up the velocity mapping of the look mechanics, so STs are never trained with AA. So there's no intent behind either left or right stick AA behaviour on a XIM, that's governed entirely by the game engine. Nor is there any data on how AA interacts with an ST because they're developed in the absence of AA.

Right stick AA can be manipulated by Response Rate, Polling Rate, DPI, Smoothing, Boost, Sync, Ballistics Curves etc, but they're not designed to do so. Steady Aim is the only tool in the kit that is designed for AA, but its purpose is to combat the AA bubble to assist with hitbox entry in CoD games.

Oh absolutely, this thread is more of a discussion on how we can manipulate the AA based on our settings and input devices. Namely, how to manipulate the two types of aim assist in CoD mostly independently from one another. My question re: data was regarding the game in general, not XIM-side, and mainly regarding to what degree right stick input affects rotational aim assist (if at all) and vice versa about left stick affecting aim slowdown. It appears that they're pretty much independent from one another but having that confirmed by data would be nice. I'm also aware that most of the XIM features were originally designed to aid the quality of inputs and that they affect the aim assist as a happy side effect.

When using a kb without SAB, you won't feel LS AA at all, which helps rather than hinders hitbox entry, but there is no sticky AA feeling to LS movement.

You think so? I've spoken to a lot of people who say they found hitbox entry and staying in the hitbox overall easier when playing on analog. Although, if you for example stood completely still, aimed down sights and tried to swipe onto an enemy, then tried the same again with an analog stick moving juuuuuuuust enough to trigger the rotational aim assist, then yeah, you'd probably have an easier time; but once we bring strafing into the equation, it in my (and others I've spoken to about it) experience, the rotational aim assist just helps to give that nudge into the hitbox when both yourself and the target are moving and your snap to the target is a little off.

With this said, which one is preferable may depend on your play style or the game being played. I find that having a maximum amount of rotational aim assist to be very beneficial in close quarters combat (I guess for the same reason controllers are becoming considered "meta" in games like Warzone), but if you're most often engaged in longer range fights then I can see LS AA being more of a hindrance than a help.

[Oskool]

I found an old topic about the Steady Aim feature. Apparently it was originally designed to make entering the aim assist bubble easier in CoD games.

ST2 is higher precision than ST1. Meaning more subtle mouse movements of the gamer are picked up -- especially on higher DPI mice. Based on what I'm seeing here it sounds like CoDs aim assist is resetting at a higher frequency than when using ST1. It must be because the game is seeing a level of jitter in the input that is causing it to trigger differently. The higher the mouse DPI the harder it becomes for the user to keep stable mouse velocity which is picked up more with ST2.

I have some ideas of how to fix. Thanks to AP for posting the video and a way to reproduce. It'll make it much easier to address.

https://community.xim.tech/index.php?topic=41082.msg509246#msg509246

Od1n has a great video explaining the mechanics behind Steady Aim. I find it interesting that it was made specifically for CoD's aim assist.

I would have never guessed this setting was for adjusting aim assist. I'm 7 years late to the naming convention, but I think 'Reduce Aim Assist' is pretty descriptive. With higher values reducing aim assist more.

[antithesis]

Turbo, XclusiveAce has been covering the CoD AA topic for many years -

Search for "ace aim assist cod" in Google to find more of his videos.

Left stick rotational AA helps with aim in all games that use it. I started experimenting with adding acceleration to WASD input via a Titan Two script a couple of years before we got SAB and noticed rotational AA instantly. It was even stronger when I swapped from kb to Azeron.

Oskool, Steady Aim quantises input to make it lower resolution and more like ST1. Ironically, adding stair steps to input smooths it out and that plays friendlier with the AA bubble. It was designed for CoD to improve hitbox entry and is the only game that I use it in, but works in all games that have janky AA bubbles. A value of 3 or 4 is enough to emulate the ST1 modelling that's found in the XIM 4 SA3 firmware, which is silky smooth in CoD out of the box.
 

[Oskool]

Wow, I had no idea Warzone can have a double bubble around players and that the bubble extends 6 feet beyond the player model. That's a ton of bubble to cut through!

[TurboMan]

Search for "ace aim assist cod" in Google to find more of his videos.

Left stick rotational AA helps with aim in all games that use it. I started experimenting with adding acceleration to WASD input via a Titan Two script a couple of years before we got SAB and noticed rotational AA instantly. It was even stronger when I swapped from kb to Azeron.

Oh yeah, seen those! Though yeah, was wondering if to any extent right stick movement affects rotational AA and if left stick movement affects aim slowdown AA. I feel like I sometimes get more tracking assistance with lower polling rates for example, but it could just be how the bubble feels that makes me feel that stickiness more I guess.

Yeah, I use a Nav and I've converted a couple of keyboarding friends over to Nav after I told them to give it a try and see if they like the benefits of rotational AA. They did of course!

[TurboMan]

Wow, I had no idea Warzone can have a double bubble around players and that the bubble extends 6 feet beyond the player model. That's a ton of bubble to cut through!

Yeah, I didn't rewatch the vid cause I saw it before but I remember the advice being, if you're a close-range player go for standard and if you're more of a long range fighter, go for precision or focusing. That advice stands two-fold for XIM players aha, the latter two are hideous to work with on the XIM plus yeah, no rotational AA with those options.

[antithesis]

I feel like I sometimes get more tracking assistance with lower polling rates for example, but it could just be how the bubble feels that makes me feel that stickiness more I guess.

That's because lower polling rates align XIM with expected controller input. It's the same reason Steady Aim reduces input fidelity to reduce AA jitter.

CoD's an oddball game for AA. I found that high DPI, polling & Response Rate helped more with cutting through the bubble. It's been awhile since I've played any CoD game though, so I don't know the current best practice.

[TurboMan]

Bumping a bit of an old thread, but I have some update - the two aim assists on CoD (aim slowdown and rotational) are not just exclusive to right and left stick respectively. Rotational aim assist is also heavily affected by right stick movement. Contrary to what I've heard a lot of, you can get very strong rotational aim assist without even moving!

I did a test in custom games, standing still and having a player running back and forth in front of my crosshairs. Obviously, there is no rotational aim assist if you stand still and don't move your crosshair. As soon as you start to move your crosshair, even if you're standing still, the rotational aim assist kicks in. If you have them running back and forth in front of your crosshair and you wiggle your crosshair round in tiny circles, the rotational assist is very pronounced.

So yeah, later I wanna try different polling rates, syncs and DPIs, as well as smoothing and stuff and see which ones give the strongest rotational aim assist.