PSA: PC won't have aim assist at release

RayVanDam · April 20, 2016, 2:17pm

What I forgot to add …

While I can understand anyone being disgusted by an aim assist function in such a game (as am I) and therefore being relieved upon hearing it´s not to stay, I don´t get what the problem of the casuals and single player ppl is now?

It´s not like you won´t be able to play story missions now or compete agains the average player in PvP … nobody is THAT bad … and aimassist didn´t help that much … so if you did fine with it, you will manage without … shouldn´t be a big deal.

For competive players this is huge though … because otherwise you would always be left with a bad taste in your mouth upon being killed by some shooter character … not knowing if it was his skill + your fault or just him playing with easy mode on …
Such a feature just “feels” bad in a game of this kind … no matter the actual impact.

Misguided · April 20, 2016, 2:46pm

It’s funny. I’ve never played a competitive shooter before. There were times during beta I would get annihilated by a Marquis without even knowing where they were. I know my situational awareness isn’t great, but I’d sit there thinking, how the heck did they just nail me like that when I was moving? Never occurred to me aim assist might be the reason (turned mine off).

Jythri · April 20, 2016, 4:45pm

Here’s a clarification on where we’ll be on retail launch for PC:

No Mouse and Keyboard Aim Assist on PC. You won’t have the option to enable it, it won’t be on. We accidentally let this slip into to the Beta build. It was not intended to be there.
If you use a controller on the PC, you WILL have the option of Aim Assist

We understand this issue is polarizing for some people, and have kept close attention to this thread and to other threads and videos talking about the issue.

Please understand - our goal is to make a game that is fun AND fair in competition. We’re looking at a lot of data and play, and will continue to watch this trend as the game goes live. I think you guys have seen that we’re very willing to consider and make changes to the game. If we need to make further adjustments to the aim assist to maintain the quality of the game, we will.

Thanks again for the discussion!

deemsss123 · April 20, 2016, 4:57pm

Thank you so much for the clarification on this!

A little dissapointed that controllers/consoles have aim-assist, but I get it’s only fair. ;p
I never use a controller on my PC, so I was wondering… Can’t someone still use the mouse and keyboard while a controller is plugged into the laptop? And if yes, how can the game recognize what one uses?

I’ll like this comment in 4 minutes by the way…

Jythri · April 20, 2016, 5:02pm

The game fairly seamlessly switches between the two schemes depending on where the last input came from.

if you have a controller plugged into the pc, and then use a mouse, you’ll even notice that the button glyphs in the UI change to m/k glyphs. If you tap anything on a controller, they change to controller glyphs (and I think, even for the type of controller you’re using).

FOUR MINUTES! PENCILS DOWN.

Jythri · April 20, 2016, 5:03pm

Crap. 5 minutes on submission. Sorry I missed the deadline window.

Derch · April 20, 2016, 5:07pm

Thanks so much for the clairification and just over all great communication with this game.

@fyrefox45 Does this help?

fyrefox45 · April 20, 2016, 5:08pm

Thanks for the clarification, at least 1 more copy of battleborn sold

While youre here… will the game have VAC or similar enabled? Thats whats way more a buzzkill in games than any controller users will ever be. So many bad battlefront memories lol

deemsss123 · April 20, 2016, 5:39pm

I totally forgot to like that earlier post on time. Oops. Liked it now, still don’t have enough likes to like everything I want to like.

I was not expecting an answer that fast, thank you for making that clear to me. No idea how tf it’s possible the game does this, but I am happy it does!

Jythri · April 20, 2016, 6:44pm

We do have anti-cheat measures in place. As you might guess, we aren’t keen in going into specifics on this. But it is important and already in our system.

pete8 · April 20, 2016, 8:16pm

@Jythri
What would prevent a PC player from using a keyboard/mouse controller emulator on his PC to gain aim assist while using his keyboard/mouse?

These are hardware emulators normally used by console players who hate controllers–you plug your keyboard/mouse into the thing, and it into your console, and the controller commands are sent on to the console based on your keyboard/mouse commands.

I imagine they’d work the same way on a PC (I’ve not personally used one as I don’t console game anyway, so I could be wrong and they just won’t work at all on a PC), possibly fooling Battleborn into thinking you were using a controller (gaining aim-assist) when you aren’t. That would lead to a competitive advantage for those who care about such things.

danielsilvanet · April 20, 2016, 8:52pm

I too thought of that but that’s such a specific scenario that i don’t care tbh. Unless they already have it for a console ( and if they do have a console they’ll probably just play BB on it ) i don’t see people spending money just to get that little of an advantage, a good hardware emulator ain’t that cheap.

A software emulator though … ªcoughªvjoyªcoughª. But i guess would just add complexity and input lag, worth it ?

RayVanDam · April 20, 2016, 9:31pm

Hush! … Don´t give the sissies any ideas!!!

pete8 · April 21, 2016, 12:45am

I figured it’s just something for the GBX devs to consider. Who in their right mind would use a controller on a PC anyway? Madness! But…some do.

Is it worth it to support aim-assist for PC controller users? Software emulation might be something that can be spotted, but hardware is another story. There will be players who try for whatever competitive advantage they can get, and that would flatly defeat the purpose of disabling aim-assist on PC’s to begin with.

saudademaru · April 21, 2016, 2:46am

I would like clarification if this applies to controllers as well. I prefer PC gaming but prefer (always use when available) using a controller instead of mouse+keyboard but one thing I hated personally was that mouse was still allowed since it provided an advantage. If it is allowed but Aim assistance turned off for that but not controller then I think that’s a decent compromise.

cnfan · April 21, 2016, 3:05am

What you said. When I was playing the beta I was thinking of al these people on PC who had it turned on and I was pretty pissed, because I refuse to use aim assist even though it puts me at a disadvantage(I turned it on for one game to see if they actually were mad enough to really put it into the PC version,and the fact that for Kleese’s taser all I had to do was hold the RMB once I got on my target was simply disgusting.)

fyrefox45 · April 21, 2016, 6:09am

Thats what they’re doing. Nice to see I’m not the only controller user on pc lol

jcfisher3rd · April 21, 2016, 10:40am

Unfortunately the aim assist is probably so high that it is still a competitive advantage to use controller on PC, same as it was in Titanfall.

reliikki · April 25, 2016, 1:56pm

For some games (usually due to bad KB/M support) a controller is better. I’m sometimes forced to use a controller due to wrist/finger/arm pains, or abrasions on my wrists. Controllers are simply more ergonomic than KB/M!

I didn’t really care about the aim-assist and whether or not people were using it, but controller support and aim assist even on PC I feel is required if you want to reach a wide audience, which multiplayer games need!

ssynesthesia · April 25, 2016, 2:51pm

PLEASE make sure if it is allowed on PC a player with a fusion reflex controller and aim assist does not dominate ranked. I think for ranked, aim assist should always be off.