CONSOLE Aiming Guide: For those of you struggling with it still:

Let me start right off: As it stands right now, Especially if you’re used to ANY other FPS game, you will hardly be able to find a perfect aim Setting. However, for those of you, who, like me have been struggling a hell of a lot with Aim settings in OW (And I’ve been playing since day one on console!), I might be able to help you on your path to find an appropriate setting. This topic will be GIGANTIC, so be prepared, if you’re tired, bookmark this and read it another day, take notes if necessary and if you know stuff I don’t, don’t hesitate to share.

ABOUT ME/DISCLAIMER!!!

I am not a developper, I am not an informatics genius, so the explanation I will provide, hoping that’s what will make it even more helpful, is that it comes from an amateur with little to no knowledge on the technical side of things. It will be a verz dumbed down version in terms of explaining. I might even say some wrong stuff and apologise in advance! Again, if there’s anything you would like to correct, don’t hesitate! This is inspired from a previous topic of mine which got a lot more attention than I thought it would be. Now, let’s get into it!

PLAN:

(For the sake of my Sanity, I will be trying to humor myself with stupid titles and casual talk, I apologise in advance if this offends anyone or any specific group of people but I value my sanity, yet still want to help you guys as well. If you find them funny, glad I could help you through this with a smile, if not, well, deal with it!)

"Aim System"… WAT?!
1.1 Exponential Ramp
1.2 Dual Zone
1.3 Linear Ramp

SO MANY SLIDERS! WTH IS THIS?!
2.1 Aim Assist Strength
2.2 Aim Assist Window Size
2.3 Aim Smoothing
2.4 Aim Ease In

SO MANY GUIDES!! WHAT TO DO?! WHOM TO LISTEN TO?!
3.1 Horizontal/Vertical: same setting
3.2 Vertical= 1/2 Horizontal
3.3 Different Aim settings/systems for ever Hero/Hero Archetype?
3.4 PSA Method with a controller?! Is it possible?

Other stuff that I might think of sharing.

"Aim Systems": What is it and which to choose?

So in Overwatch, Devs have decided that one Aim System is not complicated enough, so let’s have multiple of those! And most importantly: “LET’S NOT ADD ANY KIND OF EXPLANATION BECAUSE… LOL” So we distinguish 3 aim systems which have been added at different points in time. The difference between each of these is the way in which your aim accelerates. A probably better name for this option would have been “Aim Acceleration mode”, but I don’t know if it would have helped more.

1.1 Exponential Ramp (ER)
ER is the first aim system which the game had to propose to us on Day One. As the name implies (I will try to avoid including math as much as possible!) your aim acceleration will EXPONENTIALLY (no kidding!) rise the more you get to the outer edge of your joystick So basically what is defining of ER is that when you only slightly tilt your Joystick (JS), your crosshair/aim will hardly move (for around the first 10-30% of your joystick movement), however, the more you get to the outer edge of your JS, the faster the acceleration is. Even if I usually say that everybody has his preferences in terms of aiming and you should not blindly follow other people’s settings, I can only advise you not to choose this one if you’re not used to it.

Some people have started with this system and stuck to it, but building the propper muscle memory (=basically means the idea that your brain learns aiming as an automatism: if you keep training on the same settings, your brain will learn exactly how much it needs to turn the joystick to aim at a head) with ER is very complicated. However, i have to admit, when I was using the NACON Revolution Pro controller for PS4 (until it broke down after 2 weeks) this aim System was the best because of the additional modification you could do with the controller. If you have a controller like that, able to adjust the Deadzone and acceleration of the joystick on the controller itself, Exponential Ramp might be the best for you! However, if you use standard controller, I suggest you to stay away from it.

Summary:
ER accelerates exponentially: if you move your JS in the first 10% of its max turning capacity (MTC), you get 10% turning speed, 20% of the MTC, you get 20% acceleration, 30MTC, 30% etc. this creates a “clunky” feeling at the edge of each new acceleration because you "jump from 10 to 20 to 30 etc because if you tilt your JS to 25% of MTC, you get 20% turning speed… which can feel weird. The % of the Speed is of course applied to the value you attribute to your Horizontal and Vertical Aim setting speed!

1.2 Dual Zone (DZ)
So. DZ is the mode that was added I think 2-3 weeks after release? People were complaining a lot about ER as it felt “clunky” or inconsistent. Seeing how quickly Blizzard responded, the console community was euphoric to see support and updates coming this quick. The correction DZ made over ER is that it is a simplified aiming version. Basically: DZ has 2 main accelerations (even though I feel like lately there’s 3 accelerations in this system). So the goal of this aim system is to allow you to have precise movements with your joystick by having a pretty slow aiming speed for the first 80% of your MTS while giving you Max turnaround speed for the rest of the last 20% of your MTC. The advantage of using DZ as an aim System is that you can have a higher sensitivity because you can still aim with precise movements with your initial movement and if you fully tilt your JS you will turn as fast as possible. Dual Zone is a pretty much accepted Aim system as it is because it is accessible and muscle memory is easier than it is with ER (maybe I’m based on this, I don’t know!). Also, if you’re new to FPS, this is what I would suggest you to start with, it will generally be easier to use as well. However, this was not enough for us players, we wanted a better aiming system, a closer 1:1 translation from the JS to the Screen (as far as a controller can do so), what we wanted was LINEAR RAMP!

Summary: DZ has 2 accelerations: 1 slow allowing you to do precise movements and extends to the first 80% of your JS MTC, and the Max turning speed for the ast 20% of your MTC.

1.3 Linear Ramp (LR)

Ahh Linear Ramp… Sweet, sweet… DISAPOINTMENT! Last year during the Uprising event, our prayers finally got a response! We got Linear Ramp! The idea of this Aim System, as the Name suggests is that there is a LINEAR acceleration in your movement. The more you move your joystick, the more acceleration you get, however, unlike ER, LR does this with, in theory, better scaling: 5% MTC= 5% Max turning Speed (MTS), 17%MTC=17%MTS. On paper, this sounds exactly perfect and the ideal Aim system for your muscle memory to be buld around. in reality, this was a hot mess. The devs had forgotten to include (and to this day they still don’t want to admit and rectify this) the Deadzone of a joystick.

DEADZONE: It is the part of your joystick which is considered the “resting Area”. When you do not touch your JS, nothing happens. If you tilt your JS VERY SLOWLY (milimeters!) you will see that, depending on your controller and the game, there is still a zone around which, even if you move, no movement is registered in the game. that is the deadzone.

So, In OW the Deadzone, even if you don’t always notice it, is pretty important. I notice this especially when I play Paladins where you can modify your Deadzone size.What the devs forgot to include when doing Linear ramp, was the fact that there is a deadzone, meaning that your initial acceleration (1% etc) is literally not registered because it is in the Deadzone. This means that people like me, that used LR at release noticed how it was literally IMPOSSIBLE to make precise movements because you either had no movement of your crosshair, or immediately a jump in your aim speed because it does not start at the beginning.

Summary: LR functions with a Linear acceleration the more you tilt, the more acceleration you get. at 12% MTC you get 12% MTS at 15, you get 15 etc… However, this, at release was bugged as hell and unusable. To this day it still has issues. But I’ll come to that later when explaining Aim Ease In and in the final Section.

2. SO MANY SLIDERS! WTH IS THIS?!
So, now you know what the aim systems do… but what about all these confusing sliders?! I’ll come to those! Yes, You still don’t know which System to pick and what the hell you’re doing here. You might even be questioning why you’re still reading this but don’t worry… the ad of my E-book at the end will EXPLAIN EVERYTHING and provide you with a miracle solution! MOVING ON!

2.1 Aim Assist Strength (AAS)

Aim Assist Strength, as the name kind of implies is the strength of your crosshair/aim to stay on target. If you want, consider AAS to be Glue. The higher this value is, the stronger the “Glue” effect on your target. This specific slider only kicks in once you are with your crosshair ON A TARGET!

2.2 Aim Assist Window Size (AAW)

This one, again, as the name implies, is the window of when your “glue” effect is supposed to start kicking in. The bigger this value, the Earlier your AAS will kick in. Basically AAW is the ZONE around the target during which the AAS/Glue effect will kick in. If this number is maxed, your aim will move by itself if a target runs close to your crosshair. To get a better grasp of this concept, go in Trainng range and play with 0 AAW and 100 AAS. You will notice the glue effect but it will be very short. now max the AAW and observe how your aim will move by itself as soon as bots are walking close to your crosshair. Do the Same with 0 AAS and 100 AAW. It will help better understand the dfference between the two.

My suggestion for these settings is: If you’re very serious about muscle memory and have already a good level of mechanical aim, go for lower settings. If you’re beginning, keep it all at 100. I know people will tell you to have it all always at 100 but I myself realise how mid matches, especially against Deathball comps (everyone is clumped in together) , my aim would get “torn away” between targets trying t pull me towards a target I wasn’t meaning to aim at. if two targets are equally close, your AAS and AAW will be torn between both targets and put up a resistance in your movement.However, I also wouldn’t suggest putting it all the way to 0. But if you can, try to work your way slightly down until you are sure you never feel that feeling of getting the commands stripped away from you. this setting will also depend on your aim system. I personally think DZ is probably the most dependent on higher AAS and AAW values to work properly because of its huge “gap” in acceleration.

2.3 Aim Smoothing (AS)

This is complicated to explain, easy to show. Pick Linear Ramp, Set AS to 100 and try to make circular movements. It’s going to feel very uncomfortable right? I don’t know if it has changed since the last time I used this but basically, the higher the number, the more restricted your movements were. I’ll explain what these restrictions were. Basically I could only move on an X and a Y axis. (I could only go straight up-down or left-right. It was not possible to do a proper circle because of this.) What Aim smoothing does is… think of it as a helping hand. It’s like a teacher teaching you how to hold a pen and helping you by holding your hand. It helps you doing straight movements. If you yourself try to draw a propper line without a rule what happens is that your line (on a blank piece of paper) will probably not be perfectly straight.

AS, as the name implies tries to smooth out this input and make a straghter command.Helpful for beginners of the FPS genre, I would definitely suggest you to work towards getting this slider down to 0. This cannot happen from one day to the other. It took me 3 months to get used to 0 aim smoothing by working my way down. The reason you should really work on getting this down to 0 is that AS actually has a negative effect which is it directly impacts your acceleration sleep and kind of limits your max turnng speed to allow for this smoother movement.

2.4 Aim Ease In (AEI)

Now… This one is the hardest to dumb down, I’m honestly still not a 100% sure I understand this one fully but I get the gist of what this slider has for an effect. So AEI was introduced as a fix for Linear Ramp. The idea is that apparenlty, LR was turning too fast (and no apparently the Deadzone is fine… anyway) so AEI is basically a multiplier/a variable which will affect directly your acceleration of your Aim system. I will tell you right off the bat, if you use DZ, avoid this one and put it to 0, it doesn’t really work with DZ because of the way this one accelerates, the gap is too huge. So, without going into details look at it this way:

Take Linear Ramp, set it as your base value with 1% MTC= 1%MTS, 37%MTC=37%MTS etc (LINEAR). The higher your AEI value, the closer you get to Exponential Ramp’s acceleration. So if I understood the dev explanation correctly, if you use Linear Ramp with 100 AEI, you’re basically using ER. So what this allows is to smooth out the high initial acceleration of LR which is due to the problem with the Deadzone. So their fix to LR was to make it closer but not the same as ER.

Insert “Different yet the same” Meme here

Remember! I am slightly caricaturizing this but it is also to help people who do not know all about this technical stuff understand the main idea.

SO MANY GUIDES!! WHAT TO DO?! WHOM TO LISTEN TO?!

So there’s TONS of guides out there, be it Youtubers, people on forums (yupp like me… right now… on this topic) trying to convince you there is ONE way, there is one ideal setting (ah no… that’s not me actually!). Here I’ll talk about some generally known and debated questions where you’re either for or against. I will just explain these ideas and give my 2 cents on these.

3.1 Horizontal/Vertical: same setting

So a lot of people tell you to have the same Horizontal and Vertical (H/V) settings because it helps with muscle memory. I don’t know about this personally. I can tell you this: I’ve used this method a long time and I always missed the Pharah’s and started “panic aiming” (you know when you try to look cool and make a nice flick but totally overextend your aim so you try to get back but you tilt your JS to fast so you overextend your aim again and basically if someone would be watching your char he would be pissing his pants because he can literally see you’re out of control and panicking right now). Maybe it works for some, I can certainly tell you, it does not for me.

3.2 Vertical= 1/2 Horizontal (V=1/2H)

THIS. That’s the one I personally use. The rule of thumb is: you have a 360 turning degree horizontally, but you can only look up and down and cover 180 degrees vertically. Your hero cannot break his back and do a full turn vertically while staying on the same spot. because your degree of turning is doubl horizontaly than vertically, you should have a vertical sensitivity which is half of your horizontal. So, for me personally, this does work, my aim on Pharahs and genjis is clearly better now than it was when I used the first method.

3.3 Different Aim settings/systems for ever Hero/Hero Archetype?

I have always been against this idea. Basically, you have one sensitivity for almost each hero or hero archetype (hitscan, projectile, high speed projectile etc… Hope I don’t have to explain Hitscan- projectile as well?.. ah while we’re at it:

Hitscan: Heroes like S76, McCree, Widow, Tracer: you aim, you shoot, if something is in your crosshair, the hit is registered (the hit is “scanned”, there is no travel speed for your weapon/bullets)

Projectile: Hanzo, Orisa, Lucio, Hog, etc: You aim, and you see your “bulet”/PROJECTILE travelling towards your target. A projectile hero needs to anticipate more the movement of his target to actually hit it. )

So the idea is you would probably want lower AAS/AAW for projectile heroes because you don’t want your crosshair ON the target, but AHEAD of the target’s line of direction it is heading. Heroes like flankers (Tracer, Genji) and other highly mobile heroes would probably want a higher sensitivity because they keep turning around quickly while attacking etc. The thing is, I always was convinced… if you do this, how can you build up muscle memory? But then I also notice how I actually instinctively act and play a different way with each hero.With Widow and McCree, I flick… I don’t ever do that with Soldier.

With Tracer, Genji Winston, I flick and sometimes need to do high speed 180s. for example WInstons jump is all based on the VERTICAL FLICK to get more height and distance. if I use the V=1/2H rule, I can’t quickly jump up with Winston but have to actually aim at the sky, then jump and aim back down. So, Whle I don’t want to convince you that you actually HAVE to do this to be successful, I am certainly considering changng certain settings for certain heroes as for the case with Winston for instance.

If you however, plan to Main a specific character and just flex occasionallz, I suggest you keep the settings the same accross the board. It coul probably just confuse you.

For more info, I don’t know about you, but when I plaz Brig or Rein, I have issues with DZ because sometimes I want to sdjust to my target quickly, but not too quickly Yet DZ only has 2 speeds: minimum or maximum. So while I still hit my targets, I get completely disoriented with these heroes.

3.4 PSA Method with a controller?! Is it possible?

AHHH! ALMOST DONE!!! But this one might be still very long… SO what’s PSA? Well, it stands for: Perfect Sensitivity Approximation! (Thanks Google!) What is this about?
So it’s moslty a Mouse and Keyboard method to find your perfect aim sensitivity. It does not mean it’s the best sensitivity, it means it’s the most comfortable for you to get warmed up with. I know I look motivated but come on guys…

I’ll play my Lazy card NOW: Go watch this video from IoStux:

Watch this video to get a gist of the concept…

Alright. Watched it? Yeah, now you’ll think… “YOU B*****D, THAT’S A PC ONLY METHOD!! YOU JUST WASTED 7MIN OF MY LIFE!”… To that I have to add: “don’t forget the time you spent reading this WHOLE GUIDE… and now think… how much time do you think it TOOK ME, to actually write this guide?! ANYWAY!!”

I suppose by now you’ve watched the video. What I can tell you is that, if you use LR as an aim system, I think this can help you. At least I did it that way and it worked for me for a while untile I realise LR on itself is not suited to me in general. But I did find the best LR setting for me and it is the setting I ran for the longest time.

So the video tells you to find a starting sensitivity allowing you to do a complete 360 on your mousematt without resetting your position… well yeah… how do you do that wth a joystick? that is indeed a hassle. So I found 2 methods to substitute this part of the PSA method and adjust it to controllers:

  • either you go into a room where no AAW/AAS can kick in (I suggest the room with the Punching bags and weights) and find a sensitivity where it takes you around what YOU FEEL is 1s or .5s to do a full 360 degrees (kind of messy to actually properly execute)

  • You just use a close to default setting: 30/30 or the 30/15 I think is the game’s default.

From there, just apply the method as it is done in the video. Again, this is no science, it is time consuming and it might not be what you actually like. however, if you do it, follow the rules: start out cold, not warmed up and do ALL THE STEPS properly! It can really help you find a comfortable aim setting to get quickly warmed up with.

I felt it was weird with DZ aim System and haven’t tried with ER but you can still try I guess!

4. Other stuff that I might think of sharing

ALRIGHT!! That was long but I still have things to share PEOPLE! You’ve come to here and think…: “That Jerk still hasn’t told me what to do! Are you friggin’ kiddin’ me?!”

Well the reason for that is, I can’t tell you a perfect setting and just share my own setting and just solve all the problems. What I can do is give you the tools to understand how it all works and you have to experiment. I have changed and switched MANY MANY times. I hated DZ, yet I’m using it right now. WHY? because I hate the others even more. LR has HUGE potential to be good but the problem is that if I want to be precise with LR, I have to give up my turning speed and as a Tracer, Winston, Brig, D.Va user among many others, I can’t give up on turning speed. So for now the best compromise for me remains DZ in the end. If Blizzard ever gets back on console issues and decides to add Deadzone sliders and a max turning speed setting, I’m sure LR would be PERFECT, at least for me.

What I can do is give you general tips though:

  • A lot of people told me that LR is useless if you plan to use a higher AEI value than 30. That is not true. I personally used LR with a value of 80, bringing it pretty close to ER but still was faster. It was an ok compromse for me as it allowed me to turn somewhat faster and reman precise in the early movements. However I was still giving up on both close precision and max turning speed. It still felt better than using it at 30 AEI and have super low sensitivity and literally taking 1.2s to make a 360.

  • If you play a lot of “flick” and high mobility heroes, I suggest you to start with DZ, try to use it with a possibly high sensitivity to maximise your turning speed and let yourself be helped with a higher AAS and AAW value if necessary.

  • Regarding AAS/AAW: If you can bring the value between 50-80 I think that would be perfect as the mechanics still kick in, but not enough to affect your aiming/muscle memory. however DO NOT FORCE THIS! it will not work trust me. It HAS to be done PROGRESSIVELY!

  • Snipers: something I would like some of you to try and tell me what you think: I use DZ on snipers and decided to go with a scoped sensitivity of 65. the flicks are amazing. I used to go with 50 Scoped Sensitivity but it felt weird. again just tips I’m randomly throwing in.

I’m pretty much done here! I’ll keep updating this one if I ever have new ideas and findings on the topic! If you’ve read all of this: thanks for not making this a pure waste of time and I really hope I could somehow help you. If you have ideas to add or questions, feel free! In a time where Devs don’t want to help out and fix some game mechanics, we have to help each other out in understanding how what we have works and how we can deal with it! Sorry but there will be no TL;DR here because you’re either interested or you’re not. I have the Chapter division in case you’re interested in a specifc part.

HAVE A GOOD ONE! CR3D1T out! Drops Mic

PS: Yeah, Credit where Credit is due: thanks to IoStux for actually havng made this video a long time ago explaining PSA Method. His video, make sure to leave a comment and like if it has helped you and even consider subscribing he has a lot of useful guides!!

ACRONYMS:
ER: Exponential Ramp
JS: Joystick
DZ: Dual Zone
MTC: Maximum turning capacity
LR: Linear Ramp
MTS: Maximum Turn(around) speed
PSA: Perfect Sensitivity Approximation
AS: Aim Smoothing
AAS: Aim Assist Strength
AAW: Aim Assist Window Size
AEI: Aim Ease In

19 Likes

I play on X1 and now I just click on their head.

Works 4 me

Thanks Mate
9 characters

1 Like

Love how I actually made the effort just to get a response such as this one… hope it made you feel godd at least.

2 Likes

Thanks for the post (a little late)!

You needed more credit than you got for this informative post

4 Likes

This was very informative, I’ve often wondered what each setting meant and did, but always only thought about it while I’m playing the game and always forget to look it up. Great post, sorry I missed it the first time around, but glad someone necro’d it again.

2 Likes

Well, I’m glad you found it and it helped you! Didn’t expect to get necro’d twice on a post but as long as it helps, I’ll consider my duty done! And thanks! The appreciation is always welcome!

2 Likes

How do you put in your horizontal sensitivity and your verticle sensitivity in the PSA calculator? Or how do you calculate them, separately or together?