So, Aim Assist, huh?
Since Ranked became crossplay in Split 2 of Season 6, we've heard feedback from players & watched the performance of various Champions across inputs closely. As we look forward to Season 7, we want to demystify aspects of our Aim Assist as well as adjust it for the future.
Aim Assist is a complex combination of systems designed to help gamepad feel closer in both experience and viability to keyboard & mouse, and we feel that's an important goal as Paladins has a near equal amount of players on both inputs. That being said, we know players have felt pain points around a specific aspect of our Aim Assist.
Bullet magnetism is a common assist in the genre that forgives pinpoint accuracy on critical hits due to the crude nature of joystick aim, specifically on hitscan weapons. Basically: it compensates for the fact that gamepad players can not track and land headshots as easily as a mouse. As players continued to compete in Season 6, this system stuck out as a frustration point among PC players, as those on PC with a gamepad received the benefits of platform & input while also discovering specific Champions where this system was strongly tuned.
In order to address this, we spent months building new tools to measure all our Aim Assist systems as well as track how the current settings fared in actual gameplay. We even made this special reticle for developer testing! The line represents the amount of bullet magnetism the Champion receives relative to their position and reticle location. This video is of Talus in the Wild Hoard Update:
[previewyoutube=PMFgX4dX-ho;full]Pre-7.2 Bullet Magnetism[/previewyoutube]
As you can see, he was by far an extreme example of this effect. It still requires good accuracy and tracking, but it felt far from fair due to his fire rate and recoil. This is why after testing across the entire cast, we're planning to reduce the minimum amount of magnetism by 25% universally. That means all Champions will have to be closer to the critical zone to begin receiving headshots.
“What about Talus, Lex, and Koga? They are the worst offenders!” For Champions that have fast-firing close ranged weapons, we've also reduced the maximum amount of bullet magnetism they receive by 25%. That means that even at higher framerates, with lucky recoil, or any other factors: they benefit less from this system now. Here is footage of Talus in the 7.2 Update:
[previewyoutube=54_H7uYx0b8;full]7.2 Bullet Magnetism[/previewyoutube]
The system is still there, but is much more normalized and doesn't creep into the red territory of our tool. It also falls off much quicker at a medium distance compared to current values. This is our goal, as we feel this system is important to keeping Paladins a great controller shooter, but want it to have less of a factor in high level players' input choice. These values are still in testing, and will be available for players to experiment with on PTS and give feedback on. We know players have been anxiously awaiting us to act on this front, so we appreciate the patience as we worked on this.
This change – alongside other adjustments we are making in 7.2 – is designed to help improve the game overall, but especially the Ranked queue. Season 7 will be a great time to party up and compete to climb the Tiers, no matter what input or system your friends play Paladins on. 7.2 has plenty more for us to show, so stay tuned as we prepare for the full reveal!
This Week's Community Creations
High Priestess of the Moon
Artist: Emma Marie
Turbo Kitty Maeve
Artist: Blerpsnurp
Fallen Willo...w
Artist: IngreseNombre
Weekend LTM: Test Maps + 3x Champion XP
As voted by the community on Twitter, this weekend's LTM will be Test Maps! Explore the maps that never came to be in this experimental mode. Balance will be wacky, hazards will be plenty, and XP will be triple for Champions across the game!
- EvilMojoKryptek
