13 replies to this topic

[MechWarrior3671771]

So what (if any) drills do you do to improve your aim?

And is there a 3rd party trainer?

What about good guides?

[jss78]

I like the new Shooting Gallery a lot. It's very useful for getting a feel for target leading, when you drop a new weapon in a mech. With all these projective velocity quirks, you often have to do some re-learning, even with otherwise familiar weapons.

[JigglyMoobs]

Fenrisulvyn, on 22 November 2015 - 09:00 AM, said:

So what (if any) drills do you do to improve your aim?

And is there a 3rd party trainer?

What about good guides?

Quick guide:

Aim mostly with your elbow with a little bit of wrist mixed in for fine control. Dont do it the other way around. Its less consistent and more importantly might hurt your wrist.

Use a low sensitivity. How low? Low enough that you can track a moving enemy without constantly overshooting pr having any reticle jitter at all. You can get a feel for how slow by watching someone like TwinkeyOverlord (or me ) in game. Focus on the way our reticles are moving. See how fast they move and how far the arms deviate feom the torso? Adjust your sensitivity until you get about the same naturally, without consciously trying.

Next do three brief excercises:

1. Snap your arm reticle from two points separated about 25 to 45 degrees in front of your vision. Try to keep track of both your target and your reticle but focus more on your target. Your reticle should snap true without over or undershooting too much.

2. Trace the outlines of buildings and other irregular objects as accurately as you can whole movimg your reticle at a pace similar to the speed of a light mech appears to move at close range. If you are good you should be able to nearly draw the landscape with your mouse.

3. When in game, follow your teammates components with tour cursor as you walk behind them. Try to keep your cursor in the center of their rear ct or some other small feature as the both of you are moving. Try to track each wiggle as you are moving over uneven ground.

Finally, when you get into battle, train with a laser build to hit a specific component on enemy mechs. Do it quickly without taking unacceptable return fire - meaning fire immediately once your cursor arrives do not hesitate do not "carefully" aim. Do his with both arms locked and unlocked. Aim small to miss small. Focus mostly on the eemy with your eyes but maintain awareness of your cursor. Swith your eye focus back and forth if necessary.

Most training should be in game against live opponents. Do not train in simulated scenarios as both you and your opponents act differently and you need to accustom your reflexes to the way actual enemies move.

Once you get lasers down, ballistics will come naturally with a little bit of practice.

[JigglyMoobs]

Gratuitous plug for my own video so you can see how fast to move your cursor and how soon to fire, etc.

This was in a tbr-c. I lock arms using a hold button not toggle.

Edited by JigglyMoobs, 22 November 2015 - 05:51 PM.

[TheCharlatan]

As silly as it sounds, i train my aim on friendly lights at each match start.
I move away the crosshair, then get it on the light mech and try to keep it trained on the team-mate for as long as i can, hwile moving around.
Rinse, repeat.
Of course i do not fire a shot

[JigglyMoobs]

TheCharlatan, on 23 November 2015 - 08:36 AM, said:

As silly as it sounds, i train my aim on friendly lights at each match start.
I move away the crosshair, then get it on the light mech and try to keep it trained on the team-mate for as long as i can, hwile moving around.
Rinse, repeat.
Of course i do not fire a shot

But once in a while you sneeze and.....

[JC Daxion]

Have you tired playing Quake or Half-life, or unreal... tons of shooters around you can practice with.

Another game that can help, which im sure many never heard of, or will laugh, But it is a classic called missile command. Old school, game that you shoot down missiles, with your own missiles. The game is entirely twitch, and takes pretty good aim, and dynamic thinking about where to shoot, and in what order. If that game can't help you speed up, nothing will.

[TercieI]

Play. A lot. Honestly, I can't do drills, I've just played a lot. Though I'm only an OK shot, really...

[Elizander]

I don't run away from lights even in an assault mech. Even if it's 1v2 I'll take them on and try to pop them with AC/10s and PPCs and Gauss Rifles or even my AC/5s.

I notice a lot of people think light vs assault is a done deal but in my experience it isn't if your aim is good and you know how to reverse turn. A lot of my kills are light mechs and if I don't get to kill them I have a good chance of making them run away with half their mech missing.

Once you are comfortable with shooting light mechs, hitting a 75 ton mech isn't going to be a problem.

[JigglyMoobs]

Elizander, on 24 November 2015 - 05:15 PM, said:

I don't run away from lights even in an assault mech. Even if it's 1v2 I'll take them on and try to pop them with AC/10s and PPCs and Gauss Rifles or even my AC/5s.

I notice a lot of people think light vs assault is a done deal but in my experience it isn't if your aim is good and you know how to reverse turn. A lot of my kills are light mechs and if I don't get to kill them I have a good chance of making them run away with half their mech missing.

Once you are comfortable with shooting light mechs, hitting a 75 ton mech isn't going to be a problem.

It really depends on how much torso twist you have. If you are a Dire Whale.... you are done

[Elizander]

JigglyMoobs, on 24 November 2015 - 05:47 PM, said:

It really depends on how much torso twist you have. If you are a Dire Whale.... you are done

I disagree. I kill them just as much on my Dire. Sometimes it's positioning and sometimes gotta outwit them into running into a bad spot like a wall. Lights tend to tunnel vision dires and panic if you're anywhere near facing them that they forget where they are.

It's harder yes, but I've killed my share of Locusts, Firestarters and Cheetohs on my Dire. I just need 1 shot after all with my 78 point alpha :3

[purplewasabi]

Fenrisulvyn, on 22 November 2015 - 09:00 AM, said:

So what (if any) drills do you do to improve your aim?

And is there a 3rd party trainer?

What about good guides?

Hey OP, I don't think they are any 3rd party trainer at the moment. Best you can do is design the training yourself for your intended mech and playstyle. What I do is that I aim with my secondary energy weapon before firing my primary.

For instance, in my Atlas, I'll use the arm MLs first. When the crosshair turns red, or when the lasers are hitting the desired component, I fire my CT weapons AC20 + 3SRM6s. When sniping with my King Crab, same idea, I'll first fire a weapon group with 2Gauss + 1 ERLL. If the crosshair doesn't turn red or the laser is not even hitting the enemy or the required component, I'll hold until the Gauss rifles discharge. But, if the crosshair turns red, I'll release the Gauss rifles and fire the remaining 2 ERLL simultaneously. Weapon groupings are something like below.
KGC weapon groupings:
1. 3xERLL
2. 2xGauss Rifles + 1xERLL

I won't say its ideal, just food for thought. My mouse only have 3 buttons and its the best I can think of at the moment. So find out what you can and cannot do in terms input. ie my 3 buttoned mouse restricts my loadouts and weapon groupings for simplicity and alpha brawling. The rest is just more practice. "How" to practice, IMO its better to depend on your own creativity because PGI is doing a really bad job at the moment with their training academy programs. Design your own. Make sure progresses are measurable. I used to do it on the old, smaller forest colony map in testing grounds and I used 'time spent' to measure my progress. I'll run a few initial test, set a benchmark and then figure out how to improve. This is just the general idea.

Its similar to the training program in the MWO Academy I think, but you get to use your own mechs (unless they changed it recently), and you get to see how your own mech's output performance measure against other mechs, not turrets. Be sure to simulate a real game as much as you can, for example, torso twisting after every alpha strike for an Atlas. Identify meta-tactic players are using and find ways to counter them. Or even piloting with the mini map, torso twisted, leading with your shoulder. You can take it to quite the extreme but I'd say that's up to personal preferences.

Have a go, and good luck!

Edited by purplewasabi, 24 November 2015 - 08:35 PM.

[JigglyMoobs]

BTW, this here is twitch:



We dont do twitch in this game. What we do is more of a leisurely and dignified movement of the cursor to a point in space.

[InspectorG]

JigglyMoobs, on 22 November 2015 - 11:42 AM, said:

Gratuitous plug for my own video so you can see how fast to move your cursor and how soon to fire, etc.

This was in a tbr-c. I lock arms using a hold button not toggle.

^ Getting Jiggly wit it.

Keeps it Jiggly.