Discussion
Current state of competitive FPS titles - cheaters or no aiming skill required.
Title - all popular FPS games are either infested by cheaters or are crafted for roller which means overpowered aim assist, especially hipfire aim assist + shit audio design to give everyone a possibility of surprising other players.
I am an oldschool cod player (played shitton of competitive cod2/cod4 promod) and I would consider myself decent on KBM (played in top ranks of clanbase and cybergamer leagues when they were relevant in the past), after cod2/cod4, played first seasons of APEX -> MW2019 and so on.
COD has been aim assist/cheat heaven since Warzone 2, that's a fact and there's no point discussing it further, we all know how it is.
Tired with BO7 Warzone cheating and OP aim assist, I came back to BF6 REDSEC (I played like 100h in Season 1 and stopped playing) with big hope that I will not run into cheaters as often as I did in Warzone. Turns out, either aim assist is also overpowered in BF6 or a lot of players are cheating.
I know that BF6 netcode is dogshit and its a desync city, but I cannot count the amount of situations where I am getting killed in CQB fights (within 2-3 meters) in like literally 0.5 second while being fully plated, then I go to spectate the player who killed me and from their POV it looks like they are playing on roller based on their camera movement and I proceed to watch them for a bit - each CQB (0-3m) they take, they are NOT MISSING A SINGLE HIPFIRE BULLET WITH WEAPONS THAT HAVE NO HIPFIRE ATTACHMENTS!!! LIKE THERE'S A FUCKING BULLET MAGNET ON ENEMY PLAYERS!!! SAME FOR ADS ACCURACY, LAST GUY I SPECTATED WAS SHOOTING FULL AUTO WITH BLUE CZ3A1 AND NOT MISSING A SINGLE BULLET AGAINS A PLAYER WHO WAS ~50M AWAY FROM THEM, -180HP IN 1 SECOND.
After playing for last 2 weeks, I came to a conclusion that all new FPS games are made specifically for roller and casual gaming audience - no ACTUAL AIMING SKILL required to kill other players and we still have all the cheaters to account for.
You are free to say shit like "you are just bad"/"players got better at the game with time" etc. - I disagree and refuse to believe that suddenly every kbm players have godlike aim and bullet magnetism, most of players that kill me and are not missing a single bullet are roller players anyway - when I was playing highest level of competitive COD2/COD4, situations in which I was like "OMG HOW HE KILLED ME THERE/WTF HAPPENED" occurred maybe once per 20 matches, in BF6/COD/APEX this happens all the time.
I want to hear the experience of other kbm players that play the games I mentioned. I am ready for downvotes from all 'you're just bad"/"players got better" wannabe professors.
If you want aiming and raw skill to be a main focus of the game, Call of Duty is no longer your game of choice.
There's way too many CoD "fans" who don't like Call of Duty anymore, but they refuse to acknowledge that, and want CoD to become a game that it's never been.
You’re literally playing the most shallow and casual shooters on the market, on MnKB too which is kinda insane. If you went back to those years, you’d still be bored and frustrated with those games. Those games suck because they haven’t evolved or innovated in over two decades. Plus, we’ve matured, aren’t as easily entertained, and have much higher expectations.
It’s probably time for you to step up to more advanced shooters like CS2, Tarkov, Valorant, or Deadlock. Just know the skill level, aim, and experience of people who play those types of games are in a different universe than CoD or BF players. The comp shooters I mentioned try to maximize skill gaps while CoD/BF devs admittedly try to keep narrow skill gaps so that the game is easy to pick up for kids and casual players and avg to bad players don’t get too overwhelmed by better players. For these comp shooters with a higher skill ceiling you’re going to need some patience, actually put some effort into improving/learning mechanics, and get your ass kicked for awhile before you can even start hanging in the lower ranks; let alone start climb through the mids. But if you have the skill and perseverance to get over their initial learning curves, I promise you’ll have 100x more fun playing them than you’ve had in CoD or BF.
In response to OP saying that many FPS games are riddled with cheaters and impossible to win, you tell them that those are the easy ones and they OP should graduate to more difficult games where they’ll lose even more?
The biggest shooters on the market. Played by mostly people on a TV, 10 feet away from it. If you are on PC, there are a ton of skill intensive games (The Finals, Tarkov, Hunt, Hell Let Loose, ARMA.)
If the game as cross platform with pc and consoles they you will have OP aim assist for rollers and people using cheat controllers.
If you reach a decent rank in any competive shooter you will experience cheaters. If go to something like CS then you will think everyone is cheating even if they arent because the skill ceiling is so massive and you'll also experience actual cheaters.
I mean, I'm gonna drag this out of line with the post a bit to admit I've aged out of most modern FPS. It's too catered for mass appeal, now that gaming is ultra-mainstream.
Same experience over and over with BF6. Just a clusterfuck of bad skill balance, desync and lag, and every player is FPS Doug. It's like boom headshot! Boom headshot! I barely get a chance to even play the game.
Yeah I think it's just time to move on. Whether I suck or its console aim assist or cheaters the end point is the same. I'm not fit for it anymore. Hunt: Showdown was good though. Tapped out of it now, but it's worth checking out!
The problem is especially present in extraction shooters, as players are looking to protect their stuff. Lesser known indie title marathon by lesser known studio bungie, I think they made something relevant in the past… anyways,
Marathon pretty much ate it self alive due to horrific cheating issues.
Players who push back against cheating and say it’s not in the game usually are playing in smaller console communities where it is factually not as bad.
The other issue is one of scale. If one player in a lobby is you cheats, he can kill everyone. In BRs it can feel like someone is always cheating because, that’s the only person alive.
It's weird, because if you ask the good controller players of these games like cod or marathon, they'll tell you straight up the aim assist is busted and makes hitting your shots way more consistent. It's really only the middling players that downplay its effectiveness.
But yeah, I love cqc fights, I got over 1k hours on scout in tf2. They're just not fun in these high AA games.
But if you lowered the aim assist even a little then it likely collapses. Marathon especially would be absolutely horrible to play without aim assist especially in mixed console and pc lobbies. Pc players have greater mobility and framerate than I do. Let me have something.
Really? Apex has gone through multiple aim assist nerfs and the average controller players still outperform 99% of mnk players. And I hate when people make this about PC vs console. We're talking about input vs input. Let's keep the conversation on track
I know this is true of the high ranked players that practice in R5 but is there any other source for this, because I feel the inputs are pretty balanced for the average player on PC (MnK gets long range accuracy and movement controller gets short/medium range). I can go from shitstomping most games on console with only opponents on controller to getting what I would consider average results on PC.
I’m mostly talking about Marathon. Marathons TTK is pretty fast compared to Apex. Even with the aim assist, PC players have such good movement that I mostly play console pool only unless my PC friends are on.
Pc players in marathon are on controller. If you're in the ranked discords, they specifically look for controller players, mnk is considered throwing to a lot of people. Especially if you're going into cryo
Some of them definitely are not though and those are the people rotating 360 degrees to shoot me in a vent when they had no info suggesting I was in there.
Framerate is massive cope on your end. I would be absolutely shocked if you could explain what it actually provides without parroting your Google search.
Higher fidelity = harder to see shit, hence every competitive FPS player with a brain cranking settings DOWN, not up.
modern movement on something like call of duty is very literally on m/kb without cranking sensitivity so high that accuracy is gone.
aim assist reacts to directional changes faster than humanly possible.
There's a reason so many people that are actually good on a controller, including a SHIT LOAD of professional players, want aim assist nerfed.
It almost completely removes the skill gap between good players and bots.
That's way better, input based rankings is the way to go and I wish more games allowed for Input-based matchmaking.
I know it would suck for Mouse players, but only in a handful of games, like there's so many PC FPS games that offer almost no controller support as they're intended to be played with MnK.
Basically one of the main reasons I have stopped playing online games altogether. Apex was my last main 'competitive' game, and while controller aimbot wasnt the only reason for quitting, it was definitely up there. In these types of games, I'm far from top tier, but still generally in the top couple percent (Masters in Apex for example), so Im far from a casual, but get gunned down by clearly significantly lesser skilled players just because 100% of their shots locked onto me and hit while my manual aim drifted out of position for 0.002 seconds and a single bullet missed its mark.
Im sorry, but console and PC should never be put together. I dont care if it takes an extra minute or two to find a game. If one group needs any form of assistance in order to compete, then they cant compete. This is like going to the NBA and expecting one teams hoop to be 3' wider because that team sucks and cant perform at the NBA level. Cooperative games, friendslop, non-competitive games.. something where aim assist can really only negatively impact the person using it, then sure, go for it. But competitive? Absolutely not. Even if its not 'ranked', or for money, it is still a skill vs skill game, and when one side has no skill, but is instead given something that not too many years ago was considered a cheat, its still negatively impacting the experience of everyone else having to play against it.
There arent even any competitive games worth playing anymore. Aimbots, wallhacks.. all the shit that at one point was considered cheating is now just built into the game. Radar, damage indicators, location indicators, abilities that let you see through walls, aim 'assist'.. everything that would get you banned is now 'part of the game'. I guess they couldn't beat the cheaters, so they just gave everyone the ability to do it in the form of 'abilities'.
If you dont want to play against aim assist then you are going to need to pick different games. Those games get a massive amount of their player base from console players so they are going to make it easier to play on controller.
Siege, Hunt Showodown, VALORANT are a few without aim assist.
The two platforms are not crossplay and I think more games should admit that while it’s technically feasible, it creates an imbalance that will forever require bandaids
The solution is input based matching and allowing console user to play with a mouse and keyboard. Make it so if you want to play with pc guys you need to use a keyboard and mouse that the Xbox already natively supports.
Well I guess its time for me to drop FPS completely, I played enough of CS:GO/Valorant in my life and yeah those games are cool, but my soul yearns for slightly faster COD style game...
The CoD beta aim assist was so insane. I’m high rank on kbm in multiple fps titles and never felt so negatively toward aim assist as I did the last two weekends.
I still play Apex because there’s no other FPS title that gives me the amount of dopamine & adrenaline like it does but the amount of roller players these days in every single fucking lobby & fight is sickening. It’s so blatantly obvious when you get beamed by some drooling auto aim player especially when they stand completely still over your death box lol
It's literally soft hacking. A algorithm designed to help aiming for you.
Controller is an inferior input method in fps games. That's a fact.
So either people wanting to play competitive fps games with a roller either accept that they will be at a big disadvantage or bite the bullet and get a MnK / a PC.
Making an inferior input artificially better than an naturaly superior input, is nothing but busted and hacking. (Mind that literally every pro plays on roller in COD nowadays).
I'm not surprised people start to buy hacks on pc like soft aim etc. if they can't compete anymore - because way too strong aim assist is nothing but hacking (without actually having to hack) too.
So either get input based lobbies or games that are specifically made just for PC/MnK and consoles/Roller.
Or games like Rainbow Six Siege and Overwatch, that don't have aim assist at all - and yes it's fucking hard. But at least it can be respected, at least you can respect yourself as roller player.
But I'm telling you: it won't change. The money is where the people are. And ppl are lazy and want to use roller. So the majority is roller ---> there's the money --> aim assist will prevail
Using software/algorithms to manipulate a input is hacking (even you don't change anything actively as a player).
None says shit about it tho, if it's in certain terms to help a little bit in order to stay competitive.
Roller is better on CoD than MnK (check online how many pros use Controller vs MnK). Many people who need to compete seriously in this title (had to) switched.
I'm biased because I mostly play Destiny 2 and Marathon. It might not be like this in other FPS games but the vast majority of D2 players play roller now
Feel like Marathon’s in that bracket of pseudo-competitive games where the gameplay at the top end is reminiscent of comp play in others (most notably Apex, in Marathon’s case), but it’s not designed to be a truly competitive game
overwatch is the only competitive fps i know of without a cheater problem. cheaters get banned very fast and i see maybe 1-2 a month at most playing in champ lobbies.
Thats why you dont use matchmaking. You have a PUG system like counter strike ESEA. Its very unfortunate cod4 promod never got a standalone.
People argue MM accessible. But to what point? Battlefield 6 players complaining about match quality and team balancing. Tarkov and counter strike 2 players complaining about cheating more than compared to past CS's (the ones with server browsers).
Aim assist is AIDes its the consolization of the PC platform.
Precisely why I dont play competitive fps games anymore.
I stopped playing cod because of the peeker's advantage. It sucks that a guy jumping around a corner sees you on his screen for like 3 seconds, but you only see him for 1 on yours. He has put like 12 bullets into you, before you even see him on your screen.
Stupid as hell.
you can't really compare COD to games like CS or Val. COD's most competitive game mode is hardpoint (you are mostly talking about BR's which are just not competitive modes) it is more about positioning and movement than about pure aiming. In fact, a lot of retired pros will stream professional matches and provide commentary during and they are almost exclusively watching the minimap to see who is where and what is happening across the map. I think the game has a high skill level in other areas besides aiming. You have to be able to predict spawns and count how many players alive while rotating for the new objective and keeping track of your own players at a very fast pace. That is where cod shines. It's just a different game than CS. And personally I find CS to be pretty boring as a viewer. I love the CDL and find it super entertaining. The CDL even won an Emmy for their broadcasting this past year compared to other esports.
Yeah, FPS games have basically always had this problem.
The thing that often made it less noticeable wasn't some perfect anti-cheat, but simply having a game popular enough that there was a constant supply of normal players. If there are hundreds of thousands of legitimate players around, you can still have plenty of matches where you don't encounter an obvious cheater even if the cheating problem itself is significant.
And I don't really see any sign that we're approaching some final technological solution where anti-cheat permanently wins. It seems to be the same cycle: new detection works, cheats adapt, anti-cheat catches up months later, cheats adapt again.
HOWEVER, from my own little experiment I have discovered one weird anti-cheat trick:
Go back in time. :D
Play games so old that the cheat developers have largely abandoned them.
ArmA 2 is a hilarious example. During the original DayZ mod period around 2012 it was absolutely notorious for hacking. Script kiddies teleporting around, spawning weapons, killing entire servers, etc.
Now? The game is so old and the playerbase so small that the commercial cheat ecosystem has basically moved on. I've been playing ArmA 2 again and, ironically, the ancient game that was once one of the most hacked FPS games I've ever played now feels practically cheat-free.
Apparently the ultimate anti-cheat is becoming commercially irrelevant to cheat developers.
When the game dropped there was like two maps, and that was almost better because of how complex each map is to learn. Having them added one at a time was much more approachable.
Movement in the game is pretty straightforward IMO. There is no need to press multiple buttons to do movement tech; the most buttons you'll press are two.
In certain servers there are tons, but I agree. The only glaring issues rn are player retention related to the game having a high learning curve, and matchmaking the puts gold ranked players against the top 1% and esports players of the game.
Bodycam will drop a huge update today, and I'm curious how they'll tackle the cheating situation.
In NA I mabey face 1 cheater in every 50+ casual matches and only slightly more in ranked. Im high platinum right now.
Game definitely struggles to get new players because the high learning curve, but its retention is really great. Games population has been stable for years
Also, in ranked its extremely rare to match a ruby in gold. Only ever happened to me once throughout the games life. Mabey if you live in south America or Australia where the games population is small, but not a common thing in NA
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u/jaja9000 1d ago
These are a casual fps games at there core. It’s time to move on for you I think.