Poll: The Auto-Aim feature...

[The Maddest March Hare]

I don't use auto aim, but aim assist, which works better. However, the difference between aim assist on and off is miniscule, but it helps streamline the gameplay and make it easie to snipe and hit moving targets.

I often find aim assist to be worse than full on auto-aim. The worst time I've had it on was after I got the RROD and all the defaults were restored when I got it back from repair. Without realising they were all reset I went back onto Halo for a bit of simple fun, only to find whenever I aimed at something the crosshairs slowly walked in the direction of a random grunt running in circles going "Whoowm!" rather than at the enraged Brute I was actually aiming at.

It's one of the main reasons I have my controls on fully manual.

 

[BladeOfAkriloth]

I just think it's kinda cheap, some may like it but running through a ditch just keeping pressed the shoot button and seeing everything dead before me without touching the second analog stick/mouse putts me off. Amusing to see brains flying without a guiding interference ? Most certainly. Feels like cheating? In my case yea.

 

[Rickyvantof]

Auto aim can work well. I liked it in Prototype, where it picked priority targets very well (i.e. if the objective is to kill target X, auto aim will always target that first).

 

[Uncompetative]

When I play shooters on PC, no I don't use auto-aim. For consoles, I have the feature on. This is because all thumbsticks have a "dead-zone".

What I mean by "dead-zone" is that little small area around where the thumbstick resets to when you release your thumb from it which doesn't have sensitivity. That dead-zone is detrimental to me, because sometimes I need that little tiny bit of movement to get a shot. When the thumbstick is moved out of that area, it's suddenly too much movement.

Regardless of your resolution; sometimes I need to turn this much to get a shot: I I. Thumbsticks don't give me that ability.

I also need to release the thumbstick before the crosshairs line up with my target, because information is still being sent until the thumbstick returns to the centre. It's something I haven't gotten used to, even after playing CoD4 on the PS3 since it's release.

On the plus side, the thumbstick lets me turn continuously, and move at a variety of speeds. Though I can adjust the sensitivity of the mouse, I can only move the mouse as much as my wrist, mousepad, or surface allows me. With the keyboard, I only have the option to stop, walk, jog, or sprint. With the thumbstick, I can move at 1 to 100% of the jogging speed; it's useful for those times when I want to peak around corners, or crawl through the grass undetected.

Good explanation of the "dead zone" there. I could be wrong, but I don't think Goldeneye 007 on the N64 had this problem when you were in its aim Quasi-mode, the trade-off was that you couldn't move, only lean and crouch. I thought it made the game more tactical and "mousier".

 

[Xrysthos]

I've never owned a console in my life - always been a PC gamer, and I definitely understand why people would want auto-aim for consoles, or at least something like in Gears of War for the 360, where I've come to understand that you pretty much hit everything that's within a rather large circle used for aiming. And as far as I'm concerned there's no need for auto-aim in PC games.

 

[The Blue Mongoose]

Some games force you to use auto aim, see Prototype and Devil May Cry, thus I use it.

If it is a feature of the game, I see no reason not to.

 

[CMon]

No it isn't needed, go into the game menu, and if it is a good game it'll allow you to adjust the sensitivity of the controller, then it's just down to skill. The main argument on here is PC gamers think console owners need auto-aim 'cos they're too shit to use analog sticks themselves.

Analog sticks are still quite harder to maneuver as you only have limited options for acceleration. You can push it slightly or you can push it fully, your character will still pivot according to different speed levels, while with a mouse you can easily choose the speed which you want your avatar to look around in, without too much sensitivity. You can easiliy peek 4 millimeters to the left through a crosshair, or quickly whip 180 degrees around based on your movements.

So yeah, analog sticks are harder to use, but saying it makes console gamers "more skilled" is just being an elitist prick. (Yes, I'm aware you didn't say that but I'm just trying to avoid having other people saying it.) I use auto aim for my PS3 games for the third person shooters, but I use manual movement for FPS's. (Although I only have one FPS for the PS3.) I still think the mouse warrants for more flexibility and thus it's hard for me to have auto-aim turned off.

Additionally, you can, of course, wire a keyboard and a mouse to a console without too much trouble. I don't know if this is considered cheating in multiplayer though, I've never really asked

 

[The Maddest March Hare]

I turn it off for multiplayer games / any fps.

But in GTA4 I leave it on for story mode.

I actually find the GTA4 auto aim to be one of the worst out there. It constantly fights you to get back to the centre of the body, so if you're aiming for a lot of neat headshots you're better off in manual aiming.

And then there are games that are sorely in need of some sort of aim assist feature, such as Dead Rising. It was a great game, but its gameplay was often unfriendly at best.

 

[Asehujiko]

It's a cop out used by developers too lazy to think up a decent way to use the controller. The prominence of AA is inversely proportional to the quality of the controls when it's not on on both consoles and the pc in the case of an especially bad port.

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

I use a trackball for my pc and found it to be more accurate than a mouse and auto aim tends to screw with it so I turn it off.

I don't use auto aim on the console because we have two analogs sticks. That reacts just like a trackball so auto aim is useless for me.

I don't hate it and like that there is option there just like I don't use invert controls but like that developers do have the option for it.

 

[spindle]

I find my accuracy increased when I switched to consoles. The xbox controller is extremely comfortable and well designed, keyboards are meant for typing and I only miss the mouse when some misguided company decides to release an rts for console.