Question on Splatoon's Aiming

[Aromaiden]

I do not personally have Splatoon but am planning to get it for myself in the future. While researching a bit on Splatoon I came upon an interesting critique on Splatoon's aiming that I had not heard before and I was wondering if someone could verify if whether what was said is true or not. So the individual stated that the game's aiming was very poor and in a sense, broken. That it was basically impossible to actually have proper control over where you are aiming, because the cursor is jumping on and off a target you are aiming at, completely outside of your control, by about an inch each time. It affected the overall satisfaction of the game and is a large fundamental flaw due to the imprecise and clunky design.

He also said that this could be tested and examined by going into the weapon trial mode (using a Splattershot), lining yourself up in front of one of the practice dummies and aiming the cursor over it. Then you start moving the cursor slowly, on and off the target (he said that at this point the cursor should jump a on and off the dummy when you near its edge).

Apparently you could further test this by lining up two dummies in front of each other, so that half of the second dummy is visible and to try moving the cursor smoothly and slowly from one target to the next, or by positioning yourself in a way that you can naturally slide the cursor across different surfaces (such as the wall to the floor) while still having one of the dummies positioned in front of you.

So I would really appreciate it if someone could test this as I can't seem to find any place mentioning this. Thanks in advance.

 

[cwjakesteel]

The aiming is fine. You aim just like any other shooter, the direct center of the screen. The cursor appears to jump around because seeks to tell you other information than what is in line with the center of the screen. It tells you where on thing that the ink will land, whether it be the ground, or the wall, or the target. These things are not parallel to the screen, which is why you experience strange cursor acceleration.

The way the cursor behaves therefore depends on your weapon's range. Th farther the range, the longer it will travel on the ground, the shorter, the quicker it will snap back up to center (if you start by looking on the ground, then slowly moving up).

 

[LMG]

As far as I can tell, the aiming reticle "attaches" to whatever you're aiming at if it's within your weapon's reach, but the cursor itself always remains in the center of the screen regardless. If you aim at one dummy, the reticle will indicate your weapon's spread at the position of the enemy (the spread works like a Cone; the farther the shot goes the less accurate it can get), so if you constantly switch between two targets at two different distances very quickly it will appear to go all over the place, but the place you're aiming at (indicated by the circle in the center of the screen) doesn't glitch out

 

[Inyo]

The person is talking out of their blowhole, friend! Once you pick up the game, you will realize that aiming is as precise as German engineering.

 

[Rei Keima]

The aiming reticle does "jump" in the way you describe.

However, this is the game's way of telling you something's in the way.

I'll use the example given in the opening post. (This may be slightly off as I left motion controls on...)

Here's how the reticle looks normally. (Or rather, aimed at a wall...)

And now to move it slightly to the left, and shoot a little...

Yes, it does jump, but to benefit the user. If it didn't, it would have look liked I would be shooting over the target instead of at it.

Now, with that said, this only happens at close range and the effects of it lessen the farther away you are.

 

[Gameboy224]

The aiming reticle only jumps around as a means to giving you more information. If you are staring straight into an open area the aiming reticle will always be dead center, the change in place is due to it coming in contact with an obstruction within you're weapon's attack range in which the reticle adjusts its placement accounting for depth, when your weapon is also in place to hit a target the reticle will also change shape to tell you that an enemy is withing firing range.

 

[Sunstone]

The movement is also an aid in clearly indicating where you ink will land as you fire. The covering of objects in ink is unique to Splatoon and vital to it's gameplay, so it's weapons and aiming are tailored toward this mechanic.

I'm assuming the person hedging these complaints was likely very confused by the reticle's movement as he wasn't thinking terms of what the ink would come into contact with verses simply firing in a straight direction as with most shooters.

 

[Rob]

The aiming is fine, especially with motion controls.

 

[Aromaiden]

Thank you all for the responses and information. It was very helpful.

 

[Berentxo]

To be honest, I'm **** at shooters in general but I do well above my personal average in Splatoon and rather decently when compared to the crowd too. The reticle is spot on and the motion controlled aiming is a godsend, other consoles should be using this kind of controller too, even if it didn't have a screen on it.

 

[Sunstone]

Ps4 controllers have motion controls, dunno about Xbones, but it's possible that it could catch on.

 

[cwjakesteel]

Ps4 controllers have motion controls, dunno about Xbones, but it's possible that it could catch on.

Steam controller also has motion controls of a high precision.

 

[Deleted Member]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've heard that the motion controls are calibrated upon launching the game. If you want to have precise calibration, you should lay the GamePad on a flat surface such as a desk or table when starting a game that uses motion controls like Splatoon.

Its like when you would start up a GameCube game and the controls would sometimes malfunction. Its because the control stick needs to be in a neutral position (untouched) when starting the game so that it is registered as the neutral position and doesn't move on its own.

 

[NotAPerso]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've heard that the motion controls are calibrated upon launching the game. If you want to have precise calibration, you should lay the GamePad on a flat surface such as a desk or table when starting a game that uses motion controls like Splatoon.

Pressing Y at any point will reset callibration to neutral. So you can always reset to a comfortable neutral position even mid-match.

 

[YFNGBVC]

The motion controls are almost as precise, or as precise even as a PC shooter. The analog controls are definetly worse in Splatoon then in other console shooters as the game was designed to use with motion controls but most people don't notice because the difference is so small anyway.

 

[Silver_1357]

I'm just tired of moving my Wii U gamepad around just so I could get one kill.

It hurts.

Even if I press Y to reset my position, it sometimes just does what it wants.