Finding the right sensitivity with your mouse or controller is one of the most important settings you can make in a shooter. It significantly determines how well you can hit your enemies. Many gamers adjust their sensitivity only roughly based on feel and then don’t touch it for years. Here you will find out how to find a good sensitivity for yourself.
Why should you find a perfect sensitivity? I often see players struggling to stop precisely on an opponent or that the crosshair even “twitches”. This is almost always due to an unsuitable sensitivity. If it’s set too high or too low, it negatively affects your aim and consequently your gameplay performance.
This is also the reason why you should not simply adopt a professional’s settings 1:1; they may be too slow or too fast for you. Instead, I will show you three ways to find the perfect sensitivity for you.
Mini-test to improve your sensitivity
How to find the perfect sensitivity: Before you start a (new) sensitivity in a PvP match, you should test it in a calm environment like a training area or a deathmatch against bots and increase or decrease it based on your test results.
For fine-tuning your sensitivity, find small reference points on a map/in the training area and try to flick quickly and accurately to them. Additionally, the following test helps:
- Find a point on a map that offers you at least 2 reference points: one “at 12 o’clock” and one “at 3/9 o’clock” from your position.
- Now aim back and forth between the two points. This doesn’t have to start off as a fast aim or flick.
- If you oversteer when aiming at one of the points, your sensitivity is too high and you should reduce it a bit. If you understeer when aiming at one of the points, your sensitivity is too low.
- Adjust your sensitivity in tiny steps and repeat the test
- Do this until you are satisfied
Finding an ideal sensitivity is, however, a lengthy process. You will not find the perfect value overnight. It may be that you continuously fine-tune your sensitivity, increasing or decreasing values, until you are eventually satisfied.
For all mouse players among you: If you perform a 180° turn in the game with a “normal” movement of your arm over the mouse pad (about 20-30cm), you are on the right track.
Determine sensitivity with other shooters
If you have found a sensitivity in a shooter that you feel very comfortable with and perform well, you can transfer it to other games. To do this, you need to convert your sensitivity from game A so that it works in game B – this is significantly easier for mouse and keyboard players than for controller players.
How to convert your sensitivity: There are various websites for converting your sensitivity, such as mouse-sensitivity.com. Here, you simply enter your values such as the sensitivity of the source game, your DPI, the monitor resolution, and the FOV used and get the converted sensitivity for the current game.
Is it possible to convert controller sensitivity? This is rather difficult and unfortunately I cannot recommend a corresponding converter (if controller players know a secret tip, please let me know and I will add it to the article).
However, there is a small workaround you can try with some time investment:
- Go to the game where you have found an appropriate sensitivity, and access a map/training area.
- Have a stopwatch ready.
- Find a reference point to aim at.
- Do 10 360-degree turns and time how long it takes you to complete the ten turns.
- Repeat the process in the game where you want to find a sensitivity.
- Adjust your sensitivity: If the 10 turns were faster, you need to lower the sensitivity. If they were slower, you need to raise it.
- Repeat the process, including sensitivity adjustments, until you take the same amount of time in both games for the 10 turns.
Keep in mind that you also need to adjust all other values that have an influence before your turns. This includes the deadzone of the sticks and the field of view. Both need to be matched. Additionally, for easier conversion, it is best to turn off target acceleration. However, this can lead to issues because if you have been using this, your sensitivity will not match, and you will lose the muscle memory you’ve built up.
About 2 years ago, I tried to improve my aim through training and for that trained every day for 100 consecutive days with an aim trainer. But does this really help to get better in shooters? I have recorded my experiences on MeinMMO: I played an aim trainer for 100 hours to get better in shooters – did it really help?
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