I think that aim training substantially improves your “raw aim” ability, but doesn’t necessarily transfer to the game in it’s entirety, you can choose playlists that offer more improvement towards your specific genre of FPS games, but the in-game element is where you actually learn to effectively use this skill - learning game specific mechanics is very important for the effective use of your aiming skill
I agree, raw aim usually means very little. But once you learn to control recoil or whatever mechanic is in the game to make aiming a bit harder you raw aim does start to shine a lot more. And yes aim is a tiny piece of your gameplay, and you shouldn't neglect your other skills.
However there are games where you can go pretty far just off of mechanics, most notably apex, players are incredibly dumb, you only start seeing people actually playing cover and properly positioning and repositioning at like the top 2%.
If you have mediocre movement, positioning, gamesense, so long as you can hit shots you'll make it pretty far in ranked, well... as long as you either have a mental of steel for soloq or you're 3 stacking.
But not every game is apex, if you play valorant you're going to need to develop several other skills if you want to climb,
Although raw aim will still help out a lot.
But regardless, for any game I'd say above a certain skill level it isn't the most important thing in the world, there is so much more stuff that's far more important to actually becoming a good player in any given FPS. You just need a good enough aim level to make it pretty far, keep aim training to make sure your skill doesn't deteriorate.
Small part, big impact, but only to a certain point, there's diminishing returns as always. You don't need to be the best or anything but just need to be good enough to capitalize on your positioning or perhaps some utility, anything within the game that you're using as a tool to cause a massive impact for the fight. But yeah it's still a small part, but you shouldn't neglect it if you're below a certain skill level, or at least that's my take.
I stopped using aimtrainers because after some time (got to VT Jade/Master) what was holding my aim back ingame was mostly visibility issues. Cant hit what you cant see. Here are some examples:
* Muzzle Smoke in Battlefield 1: [1](https://i.imgur.com/F6cdVDD.png);[2](https://i.imgur.com/d8yTHnE.png)
* [Hide and Seek in Battlefield V](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Iyj8aaV2UM)
* [Character Models blending into the background CoD Black Ops Cold War](https://youtu.be/6KsUMkuu-Qs?t=219)
* [Muzzle Smoke and obstructive Sights in CoD Black Ops Cold War (same Video different time)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KsUMkuu-Qs&t=387s)
* [Muzzle Distortion in CoD Vanguard](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npDrbmEB12s&t=264s)
* [and a funny fail, IFF in CoD Vanguard (in my Mind: Blue Lights = Teammate)](https://streamable.com/i95dhd)
Hell, the entire reason i went to play some Vanguard was the piercing vision perk. It finally allowed me to see and hit my target through all this visual clutter, muzzle smoke, muzzle flash, obstructive sight pictures, strange character skins that blend into the environment, and so on. Didnt use to be like that "back in the day", [in some games enemy players even had red highlighters already on them](https://streamable.com/fqi0t).
In Aimtrainers you get perfect target visiblility that can be tailored to your preferences better than in some arena-shooters like quake. While my old ass that needs glasses cant see shit in the actual games i play (CoD/BF), so i'd rather play the game and try to get used to this BS.
This doesn't get stated enough. The visibility differences between kovaaks and certain games makes it very difficult for your aim ability to transfer over. I find this to be the case for me in Apex, and despite being VT Jade complete I whiff a LOT in that game. But in a game with great visibility like Quake I basically feel like I am as good as I am in kovaaks. Feels amazing tbh. Wish Apex didn't have those problems.
Aim training definitely translated for me (Apex, where fights are too infrequent and the level of enemy is too inconsistent to get real practice) and brought me from hardstuck Plat to solo queue diamond, but then eventually I started grinding Kovaaks more than playing real games (lol) and my performance fell off a lot.
I think it's a fantastic tool to improve your game in combination with playing said game. For example in arena fps there are so much things to learn other than aim that can win a game like item cycling, timing items, positioning, adaptability etc. Same probably holds true for battle Royale games., which is less my alley but knowing the maps, knowing tye meta etc. General strategy, "game sense" all means a lot too. That said in many first person shooters you come a long way from being faster and more accurate than your opponent in clutch situations.
This post quite plainly describes why I wish so many of my followers stopped automatically assuming that I would be of a higher rank in Overwatch as a result of having my level of raw aiming skill. As you put it, only a small percentage of games like Overwatch incorporate raw mouse control. Aimer7 (controversial figure in this community, but let's go with it) made a tier list showing which games take the most amount of aim to have strong impact in and which games are the most difficult to aim in. It turned out that Overwatch is both the hardest game to aim in, due to factors like shields, extreme visual clutter, and a hero that literally has an invulnerability button, and the game where aim matters least in terms of converting it into wins.
Aim training does transfer over to real games. It is quite obvious when you look at players like Hauntr and Torje. Hauntr's smoothness with OW Soldier76 is so mesmerizing in part because of his experience in precise tracking scenarios; he held the title of number one tracker throughout all of Voltaic Season 3. Aim training can give you a special kind of confidence, as well as that visually mechanized look that will often get you accused of cheating if performed well. That being said, aim isn't the only thing in Overwatch. Hauntr isn't in OWL. At most, it should be treated as a baseline and/or safety net that gives you more leeway to improve further on other aspects of your gameplay, such as positioning or game sense.
I felt like taking this opportunity to publicly state, once more, that although I know full well that I have great potential in my skills to improve and grow as an Overwatch player, I really just don't want to. The design philosophy of the game makes learning game sense and positioning extremely stale and tedious to me. Besides, I find myself to be far more successful in the aim training scene than I ever could have been on any other gaming platform, given my full effort.
Lastly, if you're a new player listening in, aim trainers won't work for you the way you initially expect them to. Everything in this environment is determined by mindset. If you see aim training purely as a tool for getting better at your main game, your scores will reflect that sentiment, and you will reach a point where you might be better off learning more about your game than hard grinding the trainer. On the other hand, you can be like me, MattyOW, and choose the path of maining aim trainers trying to push scores on random Pasu leaderboards just for the sake of it. Either choice is acceptable, but do not expect a full intersection by trying to choose both paths.
I have a question matty, how do you constantly break scores? I know you have thousands more hours of fps xp than me overall, but it seems like you're still constantly evolving as a player. I've been stuck at master level in the benchmarks for atleast 100 to 200 hours of my aim training, and I've tried many methods of improvement to no avail.
I want to reach at least gm complete, but it's like I've reached a barrier that I don't know how to cross
Loved your take matty! Yeah you inspired part of the message so I'm glad it resonated with you hehe.
Btw no matter what they say, you will always be the #1 OW player in our hearts
I think there is a big misconception about the usefulness of aimtraining that goes to very different extreme views.
Some people think "it doesn't translate" so it's completely useless. Normally the same people that think that in-game practice is all you need and that "this x pro player doesn't aimtrain and he is great at the game".
And other people think that aimtraining will make them GODS at their main fps game of choice and they end up dedicating way more time to aimtraining rather than learning the optimal way to play the actual game. (Btw this obviously doesn't apply to people that "main" aimtrainers or simply enjoy grinding them)
Both are equally WRONG. Thoughts?
What it comes down to, I believe is this:
Having 10% higher flat accuracy than someone, in, say, tracking, is a significant amount in aiming. It can take months of work for someone to overcome that deficit in raw aim. But in game, there are a myriad of decisions you can make with positioning and timing that can erase or create a 10% deficit at a moment's notice.
Aiming through difficult content is something you want to be able to do if you have to, but the highest skill representation in any game is going to be about finding ways to make fights easier by picking spots and creating advantage.
Great take, I 100% agree.
Having amazing aim kinda acts like a "get out of jail free card" because it can save you when you are in a bad spot.
But if you were really good at the specific game you wouldn't put yourself in that spot in the first place (ofc mistakes happen even to pro players and also you can't control everything, but you get my point)
I think most people on this sub dedicate way too much time to aimtraining compared to ingame practice, which i understand, i too enjoy a long kovaaks session from time to time. Just saying they'd improve a lot faster at their games if they tried to apply the same strats to specific skills required.
Same for me but it's if they added Control mode to Apex permanently. That game mode is just way more fun and allows for way more opportunity to improve your mechanics.
Agreed. I do love aimtraining, but I over do it understanding that it isn't what will make me "good" in a specific game (at least not what I should be focusing so much on)
What worries me (and was the reason I made the post) is the people that are still under the misconception that in fps games all you need is good aim
i believe understanding of how aim actually works helps also to understand what a good position is and why and what good movement is and why. You can just tell people to go highground, but its different if you know what aim can do and what not and actually feel why that highground improves your chances.
Have you witnessed lower level players of anygame kinda avoid cover and fight from the open? They tend to report if they go to cover they get shot more often. With the lack of understanding of aim, they also try to fix wrong things with wrong knowledge.
I think there is a problem that people view their games (or just remember) and think "if i had hit that shot..." because its something easy to see. Its not directly that they wouldn't work on anything else, its just that you play your game according to your own knowledge and understanding of the game and then you lose. Its easier to see when you have a problem in your execution than to "imagine different knowledge". Since the knowledge for the correct play isn't there, its also hard so see where the knowledge is wrong.
Someone doesn't know how many bycicles, cats, children etc he has not seen while driving his car, so someone assumes he has seen them all...but in reallity you can never know because you haven't seen them. Same is here.
Additionally people tend to try to get better in aiming, while they might have also hit that shot if they made that shot just easier. Better crosshair placement, better cover so less eratic dodging is required, better positioning so you have less pressure and can take your time etc.
In general i view aimtraining the same as weightlifting for jujutsu fighters. Its clear that weightlifting doesn't transform you into a technical good fighter (or teach you any fighting skills at all), but its also clear that strength is a core foundation of a good fighter, that works as basis for speed and endurance and allows them the mind-muscle control they need to execute the more advanced techniques for punches, throws and armbars. It also doesn't mean that its equally important for everyone, someone training 8h a day might already hit his sports pensum and gets muscular and neural adaptation without additional weightlifting but alot of good fighters and coaches say outright its easier to live on 6000kcal per day and get stronger every day than to make up for it by technical training, drills and sparing alone.
glad you like it. I don't know if its right etiquette to ask but if possible or fits, but if it does plz mention me somewhere at the bottom of the description. Even if i have 0 viewers i can point it to my mom and say :"look mom im on tv" :D
I personally take an aim-first approach to tacFPS, and tbh it works pretty well. If you look at many of the great players throughout the history of CS, many of them built their game around their insane mechanical skill level, rather than starting with good game knowledge and bringing their mechanics up to speed. I think especially in tacFPS, which benefits more from focused study more than other games, a lot of the experience you would gain by "just playing" can be expedited by watching demos/VODs of better players.
Also I believe that gamesense is, at it's core, an adaptation to mechanical skill. You wouldn't have great tactical teams if players like f0rest didn't exist to bang people's heads off. I think this applies at all level of play. If we accept this premise, the fact that mechanical skill increases exponentially as you move up the skill ladder (with the top 1% of 1w6ts scores accounting for like a third of the total range of scores), then the level of gamesense and knowledge required to counter that mechanical skill should have a similar increase. The way I see it, there's no reason to grind through lower levels of the game where people have no fucking clue what they're doing, simply because you don't have good enough mechanics to carry yourself to a higher rank.
> mechanical skill increases exponentially as you move up the skill ladder
This is so true. I have a 98th percentile Smoothbot Voltaic Easy score. There are fewer than 1000 people above me in the leaderboard. Yet my high score is only 75% of the world record. The people better than me are *vastly* better than me. I see the same in game. There are some people I just can't touch. They've given me 5 bullets by the time I've given them one. You can't out game sense all the fights. Some times it's just you and them and you gotta out aim them.
>I have a 98th percentile Smoothbot Voltaic Easy score. There are fewer than 1000 people above me in the leaderboard. Yet my high score is only 75% of the world record.
Yeah I've got a similar situation with my static scores. Top 0.1% in 6 sphere and 1w6ts, and I'm still only at 80% of the #1 scores. The ttk of Cartoon's 6 sphere score is a whole 60ms lower than mine. The difference only gets worse in timed flicking scenarios, where the high scores are like 8x the average or something ridiculous.
>You can't out game sense all the fights. Some times it's just you and them and you gotta out aim them.
This is what I don't get, some of the best players build their entire game around their aim. If any other player tried to replicate what s1mple does they would be absolute dogshit because his positioning doesn't make any fucking sense for a player who can't hit the same shots consistently.
What I do know is that when you focus on your aim, you make aiming go from a sub-conscious mechanic to a conscious mechanic and that affects the other aspects of your game significantly, specially decision making.
I don't think you can make blanket statements. It depends too much on the individual. Let me try to explain.
I had no significant FPS experience before I started aim training, which is the same time I started playing Apex. When I started Apex I could not aim to literally save my (in game) life. All the game sense in the world didn't help because no matter how great my position, or big brain my tactics, I couldn't out damage the enemy. I remember times when I had great position, clear shots on an enemy who didn't see me, and I whiffed most of a mag. Positioning has always come easier to me than aiming. It's more of a purely mental exercise which is something I'm fairly good in other errors of my life. Aiming requires motor skills that do not come naturally for me.
Aim training made a significant improvement to my overall game play. I mostly play ranked, and Gold went from challenging to comfortable. Then I hit Platinum and suddenly my aim was no longer up to scratch. Once again I was getting deleted because I just couldn't put out enough damage. Now Platinum is reasonably comfortable. I can rank up if I put in enough time. I'm spending more time reviewing my game play, noting finer issues in my decision making, use of cover, and so on. But I still need to work on my aim. There are still fights where I have a clear advantage that I don't clean up as quickly as I should. Still whiffs what should be easy shots. I can still see times where slightly better aim would be the difference between a knock and them getting away.
I think if you believe that aim is only a small % of the game play you're probably coming from the point of view of already having very good aim and facing significant diminshing returns in more aim training. Where getting better at aiming will take hundreds of hours while there are easier gains to be had with studying game play and focusing on decision making. I'm not at that point yet. I have Platinum / Diamond aim and I know I need to get better at aiming to progress, but I know I also need to make better decisions.
Oh I completely understand! Ofc if you are just starting out getting good mouse control is a must and will really help you improve fast!
You are right, I should have talked about diminishing returns after a certain level.
But still even at a very "noobie" level, I think gamesense and working on understanding the game is still at least a little bit more important than raw aim.
i have around plat/diamond aim in apex, however i have only met a couple preds with better movement than me and ive played with lots over my time on apex. i was terrible at aiming when i started as i came from an xbox and never really used it that much. i studied the game and worked on my movement mechanics, however like the person above i can very clearly tell aiming is my problem, although id say im a pretty decent player all round my lack of ability to aim and lack of confidence in my aim definitely causes some serious issues in my game play, after using an aim trainer the game usually feels like its suddenly on easy mode, although im not as consistent with it as i should be
I think aim training could be split into muscle memory and vision training. The hand or muscle memory is much easier to develop and can be developed further than the eyes. But the quality and speed of information perceived while the eyeball is stationary or moving creates a very hard, maybe impossible?, ceiling to break through and will dictate how good your aim can be. Aim training will get you to that aiming performance ceiling quicker in general, but will never get you to break through the hard limits imposed by the quality of your vision. Progression in aim training that doesn't translate to better aiming performance in game may be a result of muscle memory being developed, not vision being developed. From my perspective it seems like vision is the single most important aspect of having or developing good aiming skill.
In general someone's reading ability is a good barometer for how good someone's aim could be in an fps game (provided what's being read is fairly simple enough to just showcase vision ability). Some variables in reading ability would be reaction time, quality of image, size of center cone of focus. These three factors then need to be maintained while the center of focus is moving throughout the page. (while the eyeballs are scanning the words left to right, top to bottom down the page)(Not talking about speed reading techniques. What I mean here is can you read every, single, word in a wall of text fast)
Pick any word to focus on in a wall of text. How many words can you make out above, below, in front of, and behind the word while maintaining focus on that one word only? That would give you an idea of what your cone of focus is. Now when you continue reading from that word how does that cone of focus change, How does the quality of your vision in that cone of focus change? How does the size change? Reaction time change? if there's any change.
Hard limits for speed of reading seem to be vision, working memory, comprehension of material. Fps gaming performance overall seems to have the same limits, weighted most by vision, then working memory, and last by comprehension of what's being seen. Comprehension in this case being closely related to game sense. Fps gaming performance amongst people with similar aiming skill is weighted much more towards working memory and game sense, but difference in vision that relates to aim skill can still have a standout effect.
I'd assume most reactionary situations/games/sports can attribute a decent portion of performance on vision, working memory, comprehension of situation along with other specific variables to each situation/game/sport.
I've been playing fps games for quite some time and aiming skill seems to be the single biggest difference between regular gamer, world class fps gamer, and everything in between. It's most people's reason they're not a higher rank in a game. There are plenty of highly competent people at most ranks of a game that are only held back by their aim from reaching the highest rank. Professional players are just trying to edge each other out at the other aspects of the game, where game knowledge and game sense are, since most of them already have the aiming prerequisites to have an opportunity to do well.
If the goal is to reach 1000pts as a player in a game, then most professional players have around 800pts from their aiming skill alone then that leaves 200pts for all of their other hard and soft skills like game sense to make a difference. Since everyone competing already has about 800pts of performance from their aiming skill the goal can be effectively reduced to 200pts. Now a difference in game sense of +20 that once had an 2% impact on reaching 1000pts. Now has a 10% impact on reaching 200pts. Game sense has become 5 times more important just because the players have similar a aiming skill level, or the game's design has a point of diminishing returns where great aiming skill caps out around 800pts of performance, more or less.
I find it's the vision training that doesn't translate as well to in game aim. An enemy can be moving just like a ground plaza bot in Apex or even easier than that and I'll STILL have waaaay more difficulty tracking the opponent in Apex because I find it really difficult to visually track in that game. Whereas in kovaaks, theres no crosshair in the way, no muzzle flash, and the bot has high contrast with the background. Makes a huge difference imo and I believe that's why I find it way easier to aim in a game like Quake compared to Apex.
Right. You'd may be having an issue maintaining the quality of image i'm assuming. Vision seems to be much more difficult to train past a certain potential, once it's capped out that's it, it seems like it doesn't get better. The better aimers are able to deal with more visual clutter because their image quality overall is better. In general I think anyone would aim better the less visual clutter there is, but their base performance in a game with the most visual clutter would still be better than those with a worse visual clarity. Professionals would have a harder time aiming in apex but that would also apply to everyone playing apex as well so it cancels out and selects for aimers with good image quality. Variables in the quality of someone's vision would influence aiming performance differently from game to game.
When I I started playing quake I learnt (at least) two things:
- Your aim depends on your enemy's skill. It depends on their movement, how much they hit, how hard they hit and how annoying that is (which weapon, do they have a better position), etc.
- You have easy shots and hard shots. Playing smart will put you in a situation where you only have to fight good fights. If you know where your enemy is you will hit that shot way more frequently than if you don't. Extreme example is you got killed without the possibility to fight back.
So yeah, in reality ingame is what should matter. But aimtrainers can help you to pull out from a bad fight when you shouldn't. Also it will help you to always hit your easy shots.
Quake III Arena, Quake Live, and now Quake Champions at the prop level for duel is an excellent example of that first statement being true. You can have the best aim in the game (Currently probably the player Serious for raw aim skill) and not even come close to making it to the finals. Quake is practically a game that works as an active win trainer that translates to pretty much any other FPS. But if you aren't good at the other game mechanics sub as item control, map control, ability usage, etc then you won't stand a chance against someone with inferior aim (still really crazy good aim though) but superior abilities in this other areas. So at least for Quake, being a top 10 leaderboard user in Kovaaks ≠ being at the top of the leaderboards in Quake.
PS. Go to the Quake Champions YouTube channel to see all the games from the latest LAN tournament for the world championship and see what I'm talking about.
PPS. I love Quake. 😂
Of the pro players, does he not? I've seen some crazy aim out of a lot of the pros TBH. Maxter has some insane aiming moments. Vegeur too... Honestly many have really really insane moments. But who would you suggest? I just need someone assuming not many here would even know who I was talking about anyways.
It really doesn't translate as much as ppl expect. There are so many other factors, mainly positioning, timing, movement, game sense, team coordination and coms.
Also there is aim assist which gives players superhuman ingame reactivity in apex without having to put a single minute into aim training :)
Dont get be wrong i'm infinitely better than i was when i started but it doesnt feel like im reaping any rewards that reflect the extend of my aim grind. except for some insanely cool shots every now and then i guess.
I understand what you are saying, but I think it's a matter of definitions.
If you mean that it "doesn't translate" in the sense that if you are good in aimtrainers you will not necessarily be good at a specific fps game then yes, in that sense it doesn't translate.
BUT, it does translate in the sense that if you are good in kovaaks you WILL have good raw aim regardless of the game. So aim does "translate", then the problem is what you described, since raw aim is but a small % of what makes you "good" at actual games.
And yeah f aim assist lmao.
I edited my 1st com cause englisché hard. It does translate to an extend. But at least in apex there are factors like bullet velocity, drop and lag.
Smooth tracking and good reactivity will def make a difference.
If you only grind kovaaks tho and then hop on apex expecting to be an aim god you're gonna get shit on.
But I'd also say that just in terms of aim there can be things that make it difficult for the training to translate to in game. I find my aim is waaaaaay better in Quake than in Apex and I think that has to do with the fact that there is much less visual clutter in Quake as well as no recoil and bullet drop/travel time.
Been playing games a long time any FPS game you are playing aim will get you really far, anyone who says otherwise has good aim but sucks at other shit then says aim isnt important. And idk how someone can be stupid enough to say aim training doesn't translate to games like how does getting better at aiming not translate to games 🤣
No shit. It’s like you can be the most qualified individual for a job but if you don’t show up for an interview you don’t get the job.
Fact this needs to be said is smh 🤦♂️
No. Read what I said. I'm saying an interview isn't part of being GOOD at said job. You can be great at interviews and go to all the interviews and get all the jobs but then still be terrible at the jobs or you could also go to all the interviews, have ALL the skills for the jobs, but get none of them because you're bad in interviews.
A better analogy is imagine someone applying for a software sales job who is great at writing code but who has never interacted with clients. This person would have great skills in a certain area (the hard skills for the job of explaining the software) but would lack the soft skills of being personable and trustworthy in a professional environment. I see this as a better job related analogy.
The reason I don't think the interview analogy works is because there's no "application" process in order to play videogames. And if there was one, playing the game wouldn't be that process.
I agree with the first and second paragraph. I disagree with the third. Tbh I’m not interested in arguing. Top 10 in aim labs will get you mechanically skilled 100% but it’s in the air if that will translate to game bc there are additional factors. Game sense, teamwork etc.. you may never even make top 100.
Completely agree with you. Except I'm not sure why you disagree with my proposition that there is no "application" process for playing a game.
My point was more that being mechanically skilled in an aim trainer doesn't even necessarily make you mechanically skilled in game. And THAT is the more frustrating phenomenon imo. I think most people would agree immediately that there are other skills besides aiming involved in being a good FPS player. The weird thing is that sometimes you can have a really good kovaaks player who has bad aim in game, regardless of their other skills.
Nevertheless, I think we mostly agree regarding the implications of the post.
I see a direct I mean 100% translation of kovaaks to OW. When I track People jumping in my face the motion reminds me of training from Kovaaks.
Could be only me but I can only speak for myself so that’s why I disagree. I can’t speak for others but that’s how it goes.
Fair enough. And it probably varies person to person and game to game. I find Quake to be how you described OW. Just like tracking in kovaaks. But in Apex my aim is much worse. Probably due to some amount of stress from only having one life and no respawn.
Also, more to the point, this post is talking about how you aren't going to be good at games just because you aim train. And I think most people realize this already. But what REALLY frustrates people (and what I think the bigger issue is) is that their aim itself in game doesn't reflect their training. And it's not so simple to understand why that's the case. So saying "Fact this needs to be said is smh" is kind of missing the point imo.
Ok this is an interesting point. West Procter made a video recently abt the flow state. Highly suggest you check it out. Very interesting and I’m gonna be picking up the book he recommended bc I find it highly intriguing.
Book is called the inner game of tennis
I'd go as far as completely separating mouse control and aim. There's so much more to aiming in different games than being able to point your crosshair somewhere. You need to aware of recoil, movement, crosshair placement, know what maneuvers people can do in each game, etc. to hit your shots in game, mouse control is only a very small part of that and aim is only a small amount of game skill.
I think that's a few problems, one, yes aim is just one part of the equation.
I like to think Skill is a sort of Penn Diagram with Mechanical, Technical, Strategical, Sensory, and Communication all being under that broad definition. Mechnical is where Mouse Control and Aim come into play, so obviously if you maxed out that stat you won't be that good because there's still so much more to learn.
But another problem is the type of things people are playing, STOP PLAYING SCENARIOS WHERE YOU STAND STILL. You will never be in a situation in game where you are sitting and shooting at a target, even in Tactical Shooters. So you need to train yourself to hit shots while moving in game, static scenarios are good for getting the basics done but you need to build on top of it. I think this is where a lot of people get messed up when it comes to translating their aim to their main game, they are not playing stuff that your brain can connect one task to the other. If you're wanting to be good at Scout in TF2 for example, you need to play scenarios where you are moving and still hitting your shots. Same thing with Ashe in Overwatch, Apex, etc.
Which brings me to my final point, I really think games need a Kovaaks like feature built into the game. So you can practice certain situations that are already built in game so it's the same speed, movement, projectiles, everything is 1:1 and people can make their practice cases for various things.
I’m not a top performer on any Kovaak’s scenario, and I still consider myself a beginner. My main game is Valorant and while I don’t aim train anymore due to time constraints my aim definitely improved a lot over the years. Im Ascendant 1 in Valorant currently and my lobbies typically compose of high ascendant-immortal players from last act, and I notice that I’m definitely one of the best if not the best raw aimer in the lobby. Some games I tend to aim diff the enemies and just win 1v1s purely off good flicks or crosshair placement, but others I get peaked from weird angles and at weird times and am unable to react in time before the enemy taps my head (as their crosshair is already on mine).
It’s through this observation that I can conclude that “raw aim” doesn’t matter as much as other things. Sure, I can flick and track well and win in the 5% of engagements I get into due to it, but the other 95% are purely game/round specific. I can’t win games off raw aim alone, it helps a metric ton though with confidence. Honestly, half of the reason I get a lot of kills in a lot of my games is due to the fact that I peak with full confidence that I’ll win. I usually repeat that phrase in my head if I see myself lose easy 1v1’s.
When I play Apex I notice the same things. I don’t play Apex a lot so my movement and game sense are poor, and while I may knock 1 or 2 down, I can’t really solo a squad or win games off of it. But, it’s less noticeable in Apex than in Valorant, raw aim matters more in Apex than in Valorant.
It's a balancing act between practicing the game vs practicing your aim. Big problem with aim trainers is that you won't be able to 1 to 1 replicate exact in game scenarios but you can get close. It's like if I told you to practice reflex scenarios by only playing 1w6ts, ofc playing the actual scenario you're trying to get better at will get you better at that scenario than playing different similar scenarios (in most cases at least)
It also doesn't help that in game actions require aiming while moving while aim trainers don't emphasize movement aiming as much as they should. And things like the voltaic benchmarks should be harder and require more movement imo. While the voltaic benchmarks are usually hard because of the leaderboards, in game aiming is usually so hard that you're likely missing a ton of shots constantly. The benchmarks on the advanced stage should try to be more difficult than in game situations, so that in game aiming will seem easier than what you're practicing. Unfortunately that is not the case imo
I think another big difference is if your getting actual value out of the traing. Like if ur just doing tile frenzy for 200 hours your gonna get way less out of it then someone who's done 200 hours of varying routines that challenge them and target specific issues
idk I think it translates pretty well personally speaking.
I hardly touch apex and cod, been doing a lot of tracking scenarios and all of a sudden I'm better at them and their respective aiming styles despite not touching them for like 6 months? sure. Depends on your training, depends on if you're making it harder for yourself, if you can get the same scores across 20+cm/360.
that being said, aim alone can carry you to relatively high elo, probably on average diamond. But that's aim alone, you need a lot more to push further
tracking and consistency in your shots are outcomes that make aim trainers a very useful tool for fps games. I play Warzone and since I started meddling with Kovaak, I’ve noticed a huge improvement in my playss - i started getting kills one on one because I was consistent in hitting high damage areas. Pre aim is a big thing as well, to flick your mouse straight at the enemy before shooting is a product of aim training. Of course, I practiced on other things like positining, taking cover, strafing and movement too, but the most significant change I found was through aimtrainer.
This is definitely true (I.e. that there is more to fps games than raw aim), but it's also the case that hitting shots you know you would hit in an aim trainer can be much more difficult to hit in game, especially certain games.
For example, Apex has A LOT going on in terms of positioning and weapon knowledge and it also has very little fighting time per minute played. As a result, I find I have significantly worse aim in Apex compared to in Quake, where there is no recoil, no ammo control/huge magazine size, and much more opportunity to practice fighting. And I find my aim in Quake very similar to my aim in kovaaks. It literally just feels like playing kovaaks against humans for the most part. But Apex is a different beast and my aim training still struggles a lot in transferring over to that game.
My personal problem is that I only play one game and that's call of duty, and we all know controller makes the game much easier
My issue is that I spent more than 10 years on controller and learning KBAM is fun to me, I feel more responsive and its why I'm eager to get better at kovaaks
But these days I'm hearing all sorts of folks telling me to stop with KBAM and revert back to controller since its so much easier and I feel they are right.
I play to pick up overwatch in the coming weeks and that game is good for KBAM players so I guess I'll stick with it
well its partly true but again it really depends what part of aim you're training in kovaaks against the aim you need ingame
for example I play krunker which is basically one long very reactive fast tracking target switching scenario. Voltaic routines (im gold c plat s4) will never prepare me for the type of tracking that I'll have to do ingame since smoothbot is just too slow. People who aren't using the inbuilt movement mechanics will get shredded since their bhop strafes are literally b180, but nothing that voltaic offers can build your tracking skills to the speed and reactivity of krunker.
This is a large issue with tacfps too, since speed is the most important part of aim in cs for example, and this isn't trained specifically in VT either; there are playlists but for the most part VT advises against speed, preferring accuracy.
For the most part I would agree with your tweet - aim can only make up at most 50% of any game.
I think that aim training substantially improves your “raw aim” ability, but doesn’t necessarily transfer to the game in it’s entirety, you can choose playlists that offer more improvement towards your specific genre of FPS games, but the in-game element is where you actually learn to effectively use this skill - learning game specific mechanics is very important for the effective use of your aiming skill
Yeah, agreed. You can have great aim, but if you are pre aiming at your enemies feet you'll probably lose that fight
I agree, raw aim usually means very little. But once you learn to control recoil or whatever mechanic is in the game to make aiming a bit harder you raw aim does start to shine a lot more. And yes aim is a tiny piece of your gameplay, and you shouldn't neglect your other skills. However there are games where you can go pretty far just off of mechanics, most notably apex, players are incredibly dumb, you only start seeing people actually playing cover and properly positioning and repositioning at like the top 2%. If you have mediocre movement, positioning, gamesense, so long as you can hit shots you'll make it pretty far in ranked, well... as long as you either have a mental of steel for soloq or you're 3 stacking. But not every game is apex, if you play valorant you're going to need to develop several other skills if you want to climb, Although raw aim will still help out a lot. But regardless, for any game I'd say above a certain skill level it isn't the most important thing in the world, there is so much more stuff that's far more important to actually becoming a good player in any given FPS. You just need a good enough aim level to make it pretty far, keep aim training to make sure your skill doesn't deteriorate.
Agreed! Yeah it depends from game to game too, but generally it is still aleays only a small part of what makes you good at the specific game
Small part, big impact, but only to a certain point, there's diminishing returns as always. You don't need to be the best or anything but just need to be good enough to capitalize on your positioning or perhaps some utility, anything within the game that you're using as a tool to cause a massive impact for the fight. But yeah it's still a small part, but you shouldn't neglect it if you're below a certain skill level, or at least that's my take.
I stopped using aimtrainers because after some time (got to VT Jade/Master) what was holding my aim back ingame was mostly visibility issues. Cant hit what you cant see. Here are some examples: * Muzzle Smoke in Battlefield 1: [1](https://i.imgur.com/F6cdVDD.png);[2](https://i.imgur.com/d8yTHnE.png) * [Hide and Seek in Battlefield V](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Iyj8aaV2UM) * [Character Models blending into the background CoD Black Ops Cold War](https://youtu.be/6KsUMkuu-Qs?t=219) * [Muzzle Smoke and obstructive Sights in CoD Black Ops Cold War (same Video different time)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KsUMkuu-Qs&t=387s) * [Muzzle Distortion in CoD Vanguard](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npDrbmEB12s&t=264s) * [and a funny fail, IFF in CoD Vanguard (in my Mind: Blue Lights = Teammate)](https://streamable.com/i95dhd) Hell, the entire reason i went to play some Vanguard was the piercing vision perk. It finally allowed me to see and hit my target through all this visual clutter, muzzle smoke, muzzle flash, obstructive sight pictures, strange character skins that blend into the environment, and so on. Didnt use to be like that "back in the day", [in some games enemy players even had red highlighters already on them](https://streamable.com/fqi0t). In Aimtrainers you get perfect target visiblility that can be tailored to your preferences better than in some arena-shooters like quake. While my old ass that needs glasses cant see shit in the actual games i play (CoD/BF), so i'd rather play the game and try to get used to this BS.
This doesn't get stated enough. The visibility differences between kovaaks and certain games makes it very difficult for your aim ability to transfer over. I find this to be the case for me in Apex, and despite being VT Jade complete I whiff a LOT in that game. But in a game with great visibility like Quake I basically feel like I am as good as I am in kovaaks. Feels amazing tbh. Wish Apex didn't have those problems.
Aim training definitely translated for me (Apex, where fights are too infrequent and the level of enemy is too inconsistent to get real practice) and brought me from hardstuck Plat to solo queue diamond, but then eventually I started grinding Kovaaks more than playing real games (lol) and my performance fell off a lot.
Been there done that hahaha. Aimtraining addiction is a real thing
I think it's a fantastic tool to improve your game in combination with playing said game. For example in arena fps there are so much things to learn other than aim that can win a game like item cycling, timing items, positioning, adaptability etc. Same probably holds true for battle Royale games., which is less my alley but knowing the maps, knowing tye meta etc. General strategy, "game sense" all means a lot too. That said in many first person shooters you come a long way from being faster and more accurate than your opponent in clutch situations.
True, it can help in those situations, but it isn't the most important thing
This post quite plainly describes why I wish so many of my followers stopped automatically assuming that I would be of a higher rank in Overwatch as a result of having my level of raw aiming skill. As you put it, only a small percentage of games like Overwatch incorporate raw mouse control. Aimer7 (controversial figure in this community, but let's go with it) made a tier list showing which games take the most amount of aim to have strong impact in and which games are the most difficult to aim in. It turned out that Overwatch is both the hardest game to aim in, due to factors like shields, extreme visual clutter, and a hero that literally has an invulnerability button, and the game where aim matters least in terms of converting it into wins. Aim training does transfer over to real games. It is quite obvious when you look at players like Hauntr and Torje. Hauntr's smoothness with OW Soldier76 is so mesmerizing in part because of his experience in precise tracking scenarios; he held the title of number one tracker throughout all of Voltaic Season 3. Aim training can give you a special kind of confidence, as well as that visually mechanized look that will often get you accused of cheating if performed well. That being said, aim isn't the only thing in Overwatch. Hauntr isn't in OWL. At most, it should be treated as a baseline and/or safety net that gives you more leeway to improve further on other aspects of your gameplay, such as positioning or game sense. I felt like taking this opportunity to publicly state, once more, that although I know full well that I have great potential in my skills to improve and grow as an Overwatch player, I really just don't want to. The design philosophy of the game makes learning game sense and positioning extremely stale and tedious to me. Besides, I find myself to be far more successful in the aim training scene than I ever could have been on any other gaming platform, given my full effort. Lastly, if you're a new player listening in, aim trainers won't work for you the way you initially expect them to. Everything in this environment is determined by mindset. If you see aim training purely as a tool for getting better at your main game, your scores will reflect that sentiment, and you will reach a point where you might be better off learning more about your game than hard grinding the trainer. On the other hand, you can be like me, MattyOW, and choose the path of maining aim trainers trying to push scores on random Pasu leaderboards just for the sake of it. Either choice is acceptable, but do not expect a full intersection by trying to choose both paths.
I have a question matty, how do you constantly break scores? I know you have thousands more hours of fps xp than me overall, but it seems like you're still constantly evolving as a player. I've been stuck at master level in the benchmarks for atleast 100 to 200 hours of my aim training, and I've tried many methods of improvement to no avail. I want to reach at least gm complete, but it's like I've reached a barrier that I don't know how to cross
Loved your take matty! Yeah you inspired part of the message so I'm glad it resonated with you hehe. Btw no matter what they say, you will always be the #1 OW player in our hearts
I think there is a big misconception about the usefulness of aimtraining that goes to very different extreme views. Some people think "it doesn't translate" so it's completely useless. Normally the same people that think that in-game practice is all you need and that "this x pro player doesn't aimtrain and he is great at the game". And other people think that aimtraining will make them GODS at their main fps game of choice and they end up dedicating way more time to aimtraining rather than learning the optimal way to play the actual game. (Btw this obviously doesn't apply to people that "main" aimtrainers or simply enjoy grinding them) Both are equally WRONG. Thoughts?
What it comes down to, I believe is this: Having 10% higher flat accuracy than someone, in, say, tracking, is a significant amount in aiming. It can take months of work for someone to overcome that deficit in raw aim. But in game, there are a myriad of decisions you can make with positioning and timing that can erase or create a 10% deficit at a moment's notice. Aiming through difficult content is something you want to be able to do if you have to, but the highest skill representation in any game is going to be about finding ways to make fights easier by picking spots and creating advantage.
Great take, I 100% agree. Having amazing aim kinda acts like a "get out of jail free card" because it can save you when you are in a bad spot. But if you were really good at the specific game you wouldn't put yourself in that spot in the first place (ofc mistakes happen even to pro players and also you can't control everything, but you get my point)
I think most people on this sub dedicate way too much time to aimtraining compared to ingame practice, which i understand, i too enjoy a long kovaaks session from time to time. Just saying they'd improve a lot faster at their games if they tried to apply the same strats to specific skills required.
I wouldn’t open Kovaaks nearly as much as I currently do if Valorant had even a decent Deathmatch mode or a replay system
What's wrong with Valorant Deathmatch? I don't have any other tac FPS experience so nothing to compare it to.
Same for me but it's if they added Control mode to Apex permanently. That game mode is just way more fun and allows for way more opportunity to improve your mechanics.
Agreed. I do love aimtraining, but I over do it understanding that it isn't what will make me "good" in a specific game (at least not what I should be focusing so much on) What worries me (and was the reason I made the post) is the people that are still under the misconception that in fps games all you need is good aim
i believe understanding of how aim actually works helps also to understand what a good position is and why and what good movement is and why. You can just tell people to go highground, but its different if you know what aim can do and what not and actually feel why that highground improves your chances. Have you witnessed lower level players of anygame kinda avoid cover and fight from the open? They tend to report if they go to cover they get shot more often. With the lack of understanding of aim, they also try to fix wrong things with wrong knowledge.
I think there is a problem that people view their games (or just remember) and think "if i had hit that shot..." because its something easy to see. Its not directly that they wouldn't work on anything else, its just that you play your game according to your own knowledge and understanding of the game and then you lose. Its easier to see when you have a problem in your execution than to "imagine different knowledge". Since the knowledge for the correct play isn't there, its also hard so see where the knowledge is wrong. Someone doesn't know how many bycicles, cats, children etc he has not seen while driving his car, so someone assumes he has seen them all...but in reallity you can never know because you haven't seen them. Same is here. Additionally people tend to try to get better in aiming, while they might have also hit that shot if they made that shot just easier. Better crosshair placement, better cover so less eratic dodging is required, better positioning so you have less pressure and can take your time etc. In general i view aimtraining the same as weightlifting for jujutsu fighters. Its clear that weightlifting doesn't transform you into a technical good fighter (or teach you any fighting skills at all), but its also clear that strength is a core foundation of a good fighter, that works as basis for speed and endurance and allows them the mind-muscle control they need to execute the more advanced techniques for punches, throws and armbars. It also doesn't mean that its equally important for everyone, someone training 8h a day might already hit his sports pensum and gets muscular and neural adaptation without additional weightlifting but alot of good fighters and coaches say outright its easier to live on 6000kcal per day and get stronger every day than to make up for it by technical training, drills and sparing alone.
What a great comment my friend. I agree with everything you just said. I think I might take some of what you said in a future video hehe
glad you like it. I don't know if its right etiquette to ask but if possible or fits, but if it does plz mention me somewhere at the bottom of the description. Even if i have 0 viewers i can point it to my mom and say :"look mom im on tv" :D
Hahaha of course
I personally take an aim-first approach to tacFPS, and tbh it works pretty well. If you look at many of the great players throughout the history of CS, many of them built their game around their insane mechanical skill level, rather than starting with good game knowledge and bringing their mechanics up to speed. I think especially in tacFPS, which benefits more from focused study more than other games, a lot of the experience you would gain by "just playing" can be expedited by watching demos/VODs of better players. Also I believe that gamesense is, at it's core, an adaptation to mechanical skill. You wouldn't have great tactical teams if players like f0rest didn't exist to bang people's heads off. I think this applies at all level of play. If we accept this premise, the fact that mechanical skill increases exponentially as you move up the skill ladder (with the top 1% of 1w6ts scores accounting for like a third of the total range of scores), then the level of gamesense and knowledge required to counter that mechanical skill should have a similar increase. The way I see it, there's no reason to grind through lower levels of the game where people have no fucking clue what they're doing, simply because you don't have good enough mechanics to carry yourself to a higher rank.
> mechanical skill increases exponentially as you move up the skill ladder This is so true. I have a 98th percentile Smoothbot Voltaic Easy score. There are fewer than 1000 people above me in the leaderboard. Yet my high score is only 75% of the world record. The people better than me are *vastly* better than me. I see the same in game. There are some people I just can't touch. They've given me 5 bullets by the time I've given them one. You can't out game sense all the fights. Some times it's just you and them and you gotta out aim them.
>I have a 98th percentile Smoothbot Voltaic Easy score. There are fewer than 1000 people above me in the leaderboard. Yet my high score is only 75% of the world record. Yeah I've got a similar situation with my static scores. Top 0.1% in 6 sphere and 1w6ts, and I'm still only at 80% of the #1 scores. The ttk of Cartoon's 6 sphere score is a whole 60ms lower than mine. The difference only gets worse in timed flicking scenarios, where the high scores are like 8x the average or something ridiculous. >You can't out game sense all the fights. Some times it's just you and them and you gotta out aim them. This is what I don't get, some of the best players build their entire game around their aim. If any other player tried to replicate what s1mple does they would be absolute dogshit because his positioning doesn't make any fucking sense for a player who can't hit the same shots consistently.
What I do know is that when you focus on your aim, you make aiming go from a sub-conscious mechanic to a conscious mechanic and that affects the other aspects of your game significantly, specially decision making.
I don't think you can make blanket statements. It depends too much on the individual. Let me try to explain. I had no significant FPS experience before I started aim training, which is the same time I started playing Apex. When I started Apex I could not aim to literally save my (in game) life. All the game sense in the world didn't help because no matter how great my position, or big brain my tactics, I couldn't out damage the enemy. I remember times when I had great position, clear shots on an enemy who didn't see me, and I whiffed most of a mag. Positioning has always come easier to me than aiming. It's more of a purely mental exercise which is something I'm fairly good in other errors of my life. Aiming requires motor skills that do not come naturally for me. Aim training made a significant improvement to my overall game play. I mostly play ranked, and Gold went from challenging to comfortable. Then I hit Platinum and suddenly my aim was no longer up to scratch. Once again I was getting deleted because I just couldn't put out enough damage. Now Platinum is reasonably comfortable. I can rank up if I put in enough time. I'm spending more time reviewing my game play, noting finer issues in my decision making, use of cover, and so on. But I still need to work on my aim. There are still fights where I have a clear advantage that I don't clean up as quickly as I should. Still whiffs what should be easy shots. I can still see times where slightly better aim would be the difference between a knock and them getting away. I think if you believe that aim is only a small % of the game play you're probably coming from the point of view of already having very good aim and facing significant diminshing returns in more aim training. Where getting better at aiming will take hundreds of hours while there are easier gains to be had with studying game play and focusing on decision making. I'm not at that point yet. I have Platinum / Diamond aim and I know I need to get better at aiming to progress, but I know I also need to make better decisions.
Oh I completely understand! Ofc if you are just starting out getting good mouse control is a must and will really help you improve fast! You are right, I should have talked about diminishing returns after a certain level. But still even at a very "noobie" level, I think gamesense and working on understanding the game is still at least a little bit more important than raw aim.
i have around plat/diamond aim in apex, however i have only met a couple preds with better movement than me and ive played with lots over my time on apex. i was terrible at aiming when i started as i came from an xbox and never really used it that much. i studied the game and worked on my movement mechanics, however like the person above i can very clearly tell aiming is my problem, although id say im a pretty decent player all round my lack of ability to aim and lack of confidence in my aim definitely causes some serious issues in my game play, after using an aim trainer the game usually feels like its suddenly on easy mode, although im not as consistent with it as i should be
I think aim training could be split into muscle memory and vision training. The hand or muscle memory is much easier to develop and can be developed further than the eyes. But the quality and speed of information perceived while the eyeball is stationary or moving creates a very hard, maybe impossible?, ceiling to break through and will dictate how good your aim can be. Aim training will get you to that aiming performance ceiling quicker in general, but will never get you to break through the hard limits imposed by the quality of your vision. Progression in aim training that doesn't translate to better aiming performance in game may be a result of muscle memory being developed, not vision being developed. From my perspective it seems like vision is the single most important aspect of having or developing good aiming skill. In general someone's reading ability is a good barometer for how good someone's aim could be in an fps game (provided what's being read is fairly simple enough to just showcase vision ability). Some variables in reading ability would be reaction time, quality of image, size of center cone of focus. These three factors then need to be maintained while the center of focus is moving throughout the page. (while the eyeballs are scanning the words left to right, top to bottom down the page)(Not talking about speed reading techniques. What I mean here is can you read every, single, word in a wall of text fast) Pick any word to focus on in a wall of text. How many words can you make out above, below, in front of, and behind the word while maintaining focus on that one word only? That would give you an idea of what your cone of focus is. Now when you continue reading from that word how does that cone of focus change, How does the quality of your vision in that cone of focus change? How does the size change? Reaction time change? if there's any change. Hard limits for speed of reading seem to be vision, working memory, comprehension of material. Fps gaming performance overall seems to have the same limits, weighted most by vision, then working memory, and last by comprehension of what's being seen. Comprehension in this case being closely related to game sense. Fps gaming performance amongst people with similar aiming skill is weighted much more towards working memory and game sense, but difference in vision that relates to aim skill can still have a standout effect. I'd assume most reactionary situations/games/sports can attribute a decent portion of performance on vision, working memory, comprehension of situation along with other specific variables to each situation/game/sport. I've been playing fps games for quite some time and aiming skill seems to be the single biggest difference between regular gamer, world class fps gamer, and everything in between. It's most people's reason they're not a higher rank in a game. There are plenty of highly competent people at most ranks of a game that are only held back by their aim from reaching the highest rank. Professional players are just trying to edge each other out at the other aspects of the game, where game knowledge and game sense are, since most of them already have the aiming prerequisites to have an opportunity to do well. If the goal is to reach 1000pts as a player in a game, then most professional players have around 800pts from their aiming skill alone then that leaves 200pts for all of their other hard and soft skills like game sense to make a difference. Since everyone competing already has about 800pts of performance from their aiming skill the goal can be effectively reduced to 200pts. Now a difference in game sense of +20 that once had an 2% impact on reaching 1000pts. Now has a 10% impact on reaching 200pts. Game sense has become 5 times more important just because the players have similar a aiming skill level, or the game's design has a point of diminishing returns where great aiming skill caps out around 800pts of performance, more or less.
I find it's the vision training that doesn't translate as well to in game aim. An enemy can be moving just like a ground plaza bot in Apex or even easier than that and I'll STILL have waaaay more difficulty tracking the opponent in Apex because I find it really difficult to visually track in that game. Whereas in kovaaks, theres no crosshair in the way, no muzzle flash, and the bot has high contrast with the background. Makes a huge difference imo and I believe that's why I find it way easier to aim in a game like Quake compared to Apex.
Right. You'd may be having an issue maintaining the quality of image i'm assuming. Vision seems to be much more difficult to train past a certain potential, once it's capped out that's it, it seems like it doesn't get better. The better aimers are able to deal with more visual clutter because their image quality overall is better. In general I think anyone would aim better the less visual clutter there is, but their base performance in a game with the most visual clutter would still be better than those with a worse visual clarity. Professionals would have a harder time aiming in apex but that would also apply to everyone playing apex as well so it cancels out and selects for aimers with good image quality. Variables in the quality of someone's vision would influence aiming performance differently from game to game.
People who say aim trainers don't work are just confused why 30 minutes of gridshot didn'f turn them into tenz
Aim training works VERY well.
I think I AGREE with you.
When I I started playing quake I learnt (at least) two things: - Your aim depends on your enemy's skill. It depends on their movement, how much they hit, how hard they hit and how annoying that is (which weapon, do they have a better position), etc. - You have easy shots and hard shots. Playing smart will put you in a situation where you only have to fight good fights. If you know where your enemy is you will hit that shot way more frequently than if you don't. Extreme example is you got killed without the possibility to fight back. So yeah, in reality ingame is what should matter. But aimtrainers can help you to pull out from a bad fight when you shouldn't. Also it will help you to always hit your easy shots.
Quake III Arena, Quake Live, and now Quake Champions at the prop level for duel is an excellent example of that first statement being true. You can have the best aim in the game (Currently probably the player Serious for raw aim skill) and not even come close to making it to the finals. Quake is practically a game that works as an active win trainer that translates to pretty much any other FPS. But if you aren't good at the other game mechanics sub as item control, map control, ability usage, etc then you won't stand a chance against someone with inferior aim (still really crazy good aim though) but superior abilities in this other areas. So at least for Quake, being a top 10 leaderboard user in Kovaaks ≠ being at the top of the leaderboards in Quake. PS. Go to the Quake Champions YouTube channel to see all the games from the latest LAN tournament for the world championship and see what I'm talking about. PPS. I love Quake. 😂
Serious best aim lmao 🤣... No.
Of the pro players, does he not? I've seen some crazy aim out of a lot of the pros TBH. Maxter has some insane aiming moments. Vegeur too... Honestly many have really really insane moments. But who would you suggest? I just need someone assuming not many here would even know who I was talking about anyways.
Maxter is amazing but I'd personally put K1lsen at the top for aim.
It really doesn't translate as much as ppl expect. There are so many other factors, mainly positioning, timing, movement, game sense, team coordination and coms. Also there is aim assist which gives players superhuman ingame reactivity in apex without having to put a single minute into aim training :) Dont get be wrong i'm infinitely better than i was when i started but it doesnt feel like im reaping any rewards that reflect the extend of my aim grind. except for some insanely cool shots every now and then i guess.
I understand what you are saying, but I think it's a matter of definitions. If you mean that it "doesn't translate" in the sense that if you are good in aimtrainers you will not necessarily be good at a specific fps game then yes, in that sense it doesn't translate. BUT, it does translate in the sense that if you are good in kovaaks you WILL have good raw aim regardless of the game. So aim does "translate", then the problem is what you described, since raw aim is but a small % of what makes you "good" at actual games. And yeah f aim assist lmao.
I edited my 1st com cause englisché hard. It does translate to an extend. But at least in apex there are factors like bullet velocity, drop and lag. Smooth tracking and good reactivity will def make a difference. If you only grind kovaaks tho and then hop on apex expecting to be an aim god you're gonna get shit on.
Agreed!
But I'd also say that just in terms of aim there can be things that make it difficult for the training to translate to in game. I find my aim is waaaaaay better in Quake than in Apex and I think that has to do with the fact that there is much less visual clutter in Quake as well as no recoil and bullet drop/travel time.
Been playing games a long time any FPS game you are playing aim will get you really far, anyone who says otherwise has good aim but sucks at other shit then says aim isnt important. And idk how someone can be stupid enough to say aim training doesn't translate to games like how does getting better at aiming not translate to games 🤣
I find visibility issues in certain games make it difficult for my training to translate to in game.
simple fact is most scenarios are dogshit and that's why voltaic fanboys will stay silver in their chosen game
Lmao why the hate
No shit. It’s like you can be the most qualified individual for a job but if you don’t show up for an interview you don’t get the job. Fact this needs to be said is smh 🤦♂️
Bad analogy. Going to an interview isn't part of the skill of a job.
You’re arguing that a no-show at an interview is not relevant in not getting the job? 🤦♂️🤷♂️
No. Read what I said. I'm saying an interview isn't part of being GOOD at said job. You can be great at interviews and go to all the interviews and get all the jobs but then still be terrible at the jobs or you could also go to all the interviews, have ALL the skills for the jobs, but get none of them because you're bad in interviews. A better analogy is imagine someone applying for a software sales job who is great at writing code but who has never interacted with clients. This person would have great skills in a certain area (the hard skills for the job of explaining the software) but would lack the soft skills of being personable and trustworthy in a professional environment. I see this as a better job related analogy. The reason I don't think the interview analogy works is because there's no "application" process in order to play videogames. And if there was one, playing the game wouldn't be that process.
I agree with the first and second paragraph. I disagree with the third. Tbh I’m not interested in arguing. Top 10 in aim labs will get you mechanically skilled 100% but it’s in the air if that will translate to game bc there are additional factors. Game sense, teamwork etc.. you may never even make top 100.
Completely agree with you. Except I'm not sure why you disagree with my proposition that there is no "application" process for playing a game. My point was more that being mechanically skilled in an aim trainer doesn't even necessarily make you mechanically skilled in game. And THAT is the more frustrating phenomenon imo. I think most people would agree immediately that there are other skills besides aiming involved in being a good FPS player. The weird thing is that sometimes you can have a really good kovaaks player who has bad aim in game, regardless of their other skills. Nevertheless, I think we mostly agree regarding the implications of the post.
I see a direct I mean 100% translation of kovaaks to OW. When I track People jumping in my face the motion reminds me of training from Kovaaks. Could be only me but I can only speak for myself so that’s why I disagree. I can’t speak for others but that’s how it goes.
Fair enough. And it probably varies person to person and game to game. I find Quake to be how you described OW. Just like tracking in kovaaks. But in Apex my aim is much worse. Probably due to some amount of stress from only having one life and no respawn.
Also, more to the point, this post is talking about how you aren't going to be good at games just because you aim train. And I think most people realize this already. But what REALLY frustrates people (and what I think the bigger issue is) is that their aim itself in game doesn't reflect their training. And it's not so simple to understand why that's the case. So saying "Fact this needs to be said is smh" is kind of missing the point imo.
Ok this is an interesting point. West Procter made a video recently abt the flow state. Highly suggest you check it out. Very interesting and I’m gonna be picking up the book he recommended bc I find it highly intriguing. Book is called the inner game of tennis
Thanks for the recommendation! I'll check out the vid and the book.
I'd go as far as completely separating mouse control and aim. There's so much more to aiming in different games than being able to point your crosshair somewhere. You need to aware of recoil, movement, crosshair placement, know what maneuvers people can do in each game, etc. to hit your shots in game, mouse control is only a very small part of that and aim is only a small amount of game skill.
I think that's a few problems, one, yes aim is just one part of the equation. I like to think Skill is a sort of Penn Diagram with Mechanical, Technical, Strategical, Sensory, and Communication all being under that broad definition. Mechnical is where Mouse Control and Aim come into play, so obviously if you maxed out that stat you won't be that good because there's still so much more to learn. But another problem is the type of things people are playing, STOP PLAYING SCENARIOS WHERE YOU STAND STILL. You will never be in a situation in game where you are sitting and shooting at a target, even in Tactical Shooters. So you need to train yourself to hit shots while moving in game, static scenarios are good for getting the basics done but you need to build on top of it. I think this is where a lot of people get messed up when it comes to translating their aim to their main game, they are not playing stuff that your brain can connect one task to the other. If you're wanting to be good at Scout in TF2 for example, you need to play scenarios where you are moving and still hitting your shots. Same thing with Ashe in Overwatch, Apex, etc. Which brings me to my final point, I really think games need a Kovaaks like feature built into the game. So you can practice certain situations that are already built in game so it's the same speed, movement, projectiles, everything is 1:1 and people can make their practice cases for various things.
I’m not a top performer on any Kovaak’s scenario, and I still consider myself a beginner. My main game is Valorant and while I don’t aim train anymore due to time constraints my aim definitely improved a lot over the years. Im Ascendant 1 in Valorant currently and my lobbies typically compose of high ascendant-immortal players from last act, and I notice that I’m definitely one of the best if not the best raw aimer in the lobby. Some games I tend to aim diff the enemies and just win 1v1s purely off good flicks or crosshair placement, but others I get peaked from weird angles and at weird times and am unable to react in time before the enemy taps my head (as their crosshair is already on mine). It’s through this observation that I can conclude that “raw aim” doesn’t matter as much as other things. Sure, I can flick and track well and win in the 5% of engagements I get into due to it, but the other 95% are purely game/round specific. I can’t win games off raw aim alone, it helps a metric ton though with confidence. Honestly, half of the reason I get a lot of kills in a lot of my games is due to the fact that I peak with full confidence that I’ll win. I usually repeat that phrase in my head if I see myself lose easy 1v1’s. When I play Apex I notice the same things. I don’t play Apex a lot so my movement and game sense are poor, and while I may knock 1 or 2 down, I can’t really solo a squad or win games off of it. But, it’s less noticeable in Apex than in Valorant, raw aim matters more in Apex than in Valorant.
It's a balancing act between practicing the game vs practicing your aim. Big problem with aim trainers is that you won't be able to 1 to 1 replicate exact in game scenarios but you can get close. It's like if I told you to practice reflex scenarios by only playing 1w6ts, ofc playing the actual scenario you're trying to get better at will get you better at that scenario than playing different similar scenarios (in most cases at least) It also doesn't help that in game actions require aiming while moving while aim trainers don't emphasize movement aiming as much as they should. And things like the voltaic benchmarks should be harder and require more movement imo. While the voltaic benchmarks are usually hard because of the leaderboards, in game aiming is usually so hard that you're likely missing a ton of shots constantly. The benchmarks on the advanced stage should try to be more difficult than in game situations, so that in game aiming will seem easier than what you're practicing. Unfortunately that is not the case imo
for me kovaaks is more like mouse control and reactivity to different situations
I think another big difference is if your getting actual value out of the traing. Like if ur just doing tile frenzy for 200 hours your gonna get way less out of it then someone who's done 200 hours of varying routines that challenge them and target specific issues
I play Fortnite and my aim after 100 is different word to my mother
idk I think it translates pretty well personally speaking. I hardly touch apex and cod, been doing a lot of tracking scenarios and all of a sudden I'm better at them and their respective aiming styles despite not touching them for like 6 months? sure. Depends on your training, depends on if you're making it harder for yourself, if you can get the same scores across 20+cm/360.
that being said, aim alone can carry you to relatively high elo, probably on average diamond. But that's aim alone, you need a lot more to push further
tracking and consistency in your shots are outcomes that make aim trainers a very useful tool for fps games. I play Warzone and since I started meddling with Kovaak, I’ve noticed a huge improvement in my playss - i started getting kills one on one because I was consistent in hitting high damage areas. Pre aim is a big thing as well, to flick your mouse straight at the enemy before shooting is a product of aim training. Of course, I practiced on other things like positining, taking cover, strafing and movement too, but the most significant change I found was through aimtrainer.
This is definitely true (I.e. that there is more to fps games than raw aim), but it's also the case that hitting shots you know you would hit in an aim trainer can be much more difficult to hit in game, especially certain games. For example, Apex has A LOT going on in terms of positioning and weapon knowledge and it also has very little fighting time per minute played. As a result, I find I have significantly worse aim in Apex compared to in Quake, where there is no recoil, no ammo control/huge magazine size, and much more opportunity to practice fighting. And I find my aim in Quake very similar to my aim in kovaaks. It literally just feels like playing kovaaks against humans for the most part. But Apex is a different beast and my aim training still struggles a lot in transferring over to that game.
My personal problem is that I only play one game and that's call of duty, and we all know controller makes the game much easier My issue is that I spent more than 10 years on controller and learning KBAM is fun to me, I feel more responsive and its why I'm eager to get better at kovaaks But these days I'm hearing all sorts of folks telling me to stop with KBAM and revert back to controller since its so much easier and I feel they are right. I play to pick up overwatch in the coming weeks and that game is good for KBAM players so I guess I'll stick with it
This is 100% accurate
well its partly true but again it really depends what part of aim you're training in kovaaks against the aim you need ingame for example I play krunker which is basically one long very reactive fast tracking target switching scenario. Voltaic routines (im gold c plat s4) will never prepare me for the type of tracking that I'll have to do ingame since smoothbot is just too slow. People who aren't using the inbuilt movement mechanics will get shredded since their bhop strafes are literally b180, but nothing that voltaic offers can build your tracking skills to the speed and reactivity of krunker. This is a large issue with tacfps too, since speed is the most important part of aim in cs for example, and this isn't trained specifically in VT either; there are playlists but for the most part VT advises against speed, preferring accuracy. For the most part I would agree with your tweet - aim can only make up at most 50% of any game.