does the method in this video transcript work based on science? Intro
I think by now, most people agree that aim trainers
do help you in real games.
There are so many testimonies of improvement
because of the focused practice they promote
and there are countless pros across basically
every big esport at the moment
who use them actively.
But there is another question I've seen fairly often over the years
which doesn't have that same unified consensus
which is, "when do aim trainers stop being useful?"
At what skill level is improving in aimtrainers
all about getting better at aim trainers
instead of getting better at aiming in fps games?
and its kind of intuitive right?
There are a lot of mechanics within fps games that
you can't train within an aim trainer
so it makes sense that there would be a point where
your raw aim is good enough for whatever game you're training for.
and that your time would be better spent playing the game
than in an aim trainer.
This idea is further supported by aimtrainers
pushing aim so much further than it usually is within games,
with faster and smaller targets.
But, is that actually the case?
Is there actually a point where your raw mechanics can be so good
that any improvement on top of that is only visible in aim trainers
and if there is, where is that point?
My introduction to aimtraining
The first time I saw this question was when I was initially getting into aim training
this was maybe 4 years ago now?
The community was a lot smaller at the time and because of that
there wasn't really anywhere to go for information about aimtraining
other than a few discord servers.
I remember the answer given was something along the lines of
"It's very useful when you're new but trails off as you get better,
I honestly can't tell a master ranked player apart from
the best aimtrainer players in actual games."
At the time I was twenty hours in, and had just hit platinum on the voltaic benchmarks
and I was improving my scores every day
with my in game performance following suit.
I was honestly a little shocked just how much it helped me
I'd already ironed out so many issues with my mechanics
and I didn't see how that improvement could just...
stop.
That being said though, I was only two ranks away from master
which was scarily close to their proposed limit of how far it's worth climbing on these benchmarks.
This was in the back of my mind as I kept playing
but the benefits I felt in game didn't stop when I did get master.
After 80 hours it still felt like I was getting better each day
and watching old clips made it very easy to see my improvement.
This was also around the time I began to really enjoy aim training,
it was satisfying to see my scores go up overall
but I especially liked speed focused scenarios.
By 400 hours I was still master overall
but had pushed my speed target switching to the very top rank.
I began to put more time into aimtraining than actual games and
when I did play fps' I...
Dimishing returns
didn't do much better than I did 300 hours of traiming earlier.
Sure, my flicks felt faster, from all the speed practice
but I lost a lot more gunfights than I did even before aim training at all which honestly
really affected my confidence.
After all this time practicing
I still couldn't win my duels.
I remember thinking back to that comment, about how master was the cutoff point
and realising that it did mostly align with my experience
my progress slowed down around master II.
The reason why I started all of this was to get better at fps games
and if aimtraining wasn't going to help me anymore...
why bother?
Because of that I mostly stopped playing aimtrainers and went back to putting all of my time into fps games
and I started seeing improvement in them again.
Why I stopped aimtraining
I hit new peaks in csgo,
my flicks felt sharp in battlefield
and my confidence slowly started coming back.
I felt like that original comment was right, and that aim training had no value in games after around masters.
But, if that was the case, what would be the reason?
My guess was that no game I played stressed raw mechanics enough for it to make a difference
csgo focused more on crosshair placement microadjustments than wide flicks
and the same was true for valorant
but my flicks were already good enough for battlefield and cod.
Even in a game like apex with a longer time to kill
my tracking improved more from just playing the game than it did from aimtraining.
I had already gotten my underlying mechanics to a high enough level, with every skill being at least masters
and any extra time spent aimtraining would be wasted just like the last 300 hours were.
I did play a bit more after this but it was exclusively for fun
not with the goal of improving in games.
Returning to aimtraining
I'm sure some of you can see the flaw in my logic already
but it took until mid 2022 when I finally came back to aimtraining for me to spot it.
I started playing again to compete with a friend and one of his friends
he challenged me to beat their scores in a few different tracking scenarios.
This was one of my weaker skills, mainly since I barely played it when aimtraining prior.
It was a bit of a grind with some back and fourth between us but
I did eventually match and even surpass them both
bringing my tracking up to the same rank as my old target switching scores.
And, to my surprise, when trying out apex again after all this
I felt a massive in my ability to read and track enemies movements
I was so much more consistent!
Throughout that entire competition I was just doing it, well, to compete!
I had a fun time trying to beat my friends scores and pushing myself further
but I honestly didn't think it would help since my tracking was already pretty good in aimtrainers.
Ever since I first heard the idea of a limit to aim training's helpfulness
I'd seen that idea mirrored by so many people
placing that limit around the jade or master ranks.
That was meant to be the point where any progress further was just getting better at aimtrainers, learning the scenario and whatnot
but if that was true, then why did I improve so much going from grandmaster to astra?
Watching back my old clips, my flicks actually did improve a lot after playing aim trainers
but it was the other parts of my aim that made it feel like they hadn't
So now, I've trained both reactive tracking and speed target switching up to an astra level and felt benefits in game from both
so where does that put our limit of aim trainings usefulness?
The intuitive answer is astra, but does my experience really prove it?
What if it was just placebo?
What if it was just those two categories that transfer over well?
What if getting into the top 10 helped further still?
I don't feel like I'd do the topic justice without putting these questions to the test myself
One of my longest goals in aimtraining has been being in the top 10 worldwide on the season 3 voltaic benchmarks.
This is my scoresheet currently, placing me at #54 on the leaderboard.
To get into the top 10, I would have to push every scenario to astra as well as pushing around half to celestial.
I.. don't even know if it's possible for me
its a very far out there goal but I think it's needed if I want to properly answer this question.
Did it help?
So, after reaching top 10 worldwide as well as pushing
all of my scores past my old peaks, I can say that honestly
it helped me way more than I thought it would.
It felt like most of the scenarios had their benefits in game and
while there were a few scenarios that didn't help much
these were the exceptions.
This improvement is even more crazy to me considering that I was doing something I don't normally do
and that you're not meant to do for in game improvement
even though I did play other scenarios to practice
most of my time was spent grinding the benchmarks.
This does raise the question though,
What I did differently
if getting to the top 10 helped me so much, why was I losing more duels even after reaching a high rank in aimtrainers in the past?
I think what it came down to was that while I had pushed the ceiling of my mechanics higher through all the speed practice
because I was going for those faster flicks I lost some of the consistency I had before when flicking slower.
When I stopped aimtraining I stopped trying to flick as fast and because of that, got some of my consistency back.
After playing them again recently though, I have the consistency to go for those quick flicks and if I do miss
I can fall back on my strong microadjustments to secure the kill which I just didn't have developed before.
I think consistency really is at the center of all this, it's the main thing aimtrainers help with for me
and also rebuts another one of the explanations I had for why aimtrainers didn't work in the past.
While games don't push aim as far as aimtrainers do in individual situations
that doesn't matter since what you're searching for is consistency
which can almost always be improved.
Even if you can aim at a target way smaller or more evasive than anything seen in any fps game
could you do it every time?
Because in games you have to.
You can't reset the run or load up a different scenario
when you are placed in a situation that calls for good mechanics you have to aim well in it, every time, or lose.
This is why I think aimtraining will always have its uses at any skill level
while it's exceptionally useful for new players even very experienced players will benefit from building that consistency
which is easier in aimtrainers due to it's long scenario times.
On top of that, they help you stay consistent by removing the downtime between aiming present in games
especially compared to a battle royale like apex.
Another big mistake I made was in my scenario selection.
when I was aim training a lot, I was putting along all of my time into target switching and barely any into my other skills.
This was honestly really visible watching my gameplay
my flicks were sharp but my microadjustments were really inaccurate.
In games like counter strike though, those microadjustments are what really matters
most of the time you'll be correcting to someone near the angle you are preaiming
so the total amount of mouse movement is very minimal.
The same thing applies for apex, I should have been focusing on my smoothness
instead of trying to work on my adjustment speed.
That game has relatively slower acceleration so being able to snap back onto a target instantly when tracking
isn't as useful as maximising your damage on strafes.
I think this is something a lot of people get wrong when trying aimtrainers
while lower ranked players can play all aiming categories equally and see improvement in game
if your already above, say, diamond on the voltaic benchmarks
the general mouse control gains will stop being as visible from day to day
and you'll benefit from specializing a little.
Watch some gameplay and see what kinds of movements your making when aiming
and choose scenarios in aimtrainers that contain similar movements to isolate them
it doesn't have to be 1:1, as long as its hitting the same general skillset it'll be so much more effective than exclusively focusing on fundamentals.
That doesn't mean the other categories are useless, it's important to bring your fundamentals up to a strong level
to provide a solid base to build upon when trying to lean into niches.
It loops back around to consistency in a way
just as you need to in games, building fundamentals is about making sure you can do simple movements perfectly, every time.
Mouse control vs in game aim
Aiming really is a lot more in depth than most people think
even at a very high level there is still so much to isolate and improve upon
and the results of that training do shine through into fps games.
It's a skill with basically no ceiling, and while it isn't the only deciding factor in most games
there are a lot of duels that basically just come down to who can click on the target better.
That doesn't mean you can just neglect playing fps games if you want to have good aim within them though.
The way I see it, aimtraining builds your raw aim, or mouse control
which is an underlying skill that supports game specific skills.
The better your raw aim is the easier it is to develop these skills
but they still have to be developed independently.
This is another thing that I did wrong before, I played more aimtrainers than fps'
and thought that since my raw aim was good it would just carry over without any effort
but without learning the game itself I couldn't fully leverage my aim to excel within it.
Looking at the finals as an example, when trying to pick it up recently
I focused on learning the recoil patterns
finding out about techniques like recoil smoothing
getting familiar with how fast different characters accelerate
and adapting to aiming at bounce pads, grapples or dashes.
I could isolate all of that from my raw aim since I didn't have to think about my underlying mechanics at all
which along with spending far more time playing the game then I did aimtraining led to me picking it up rather quickly.
At the end of the day, aimtraining should always be supplementary to playing the game.
Now that I've reached my goal on the benchmarks I spend about 15 minutes warming up before I play
Closing thoughts
and 30-40 minutes focusing on issues I noticed during the play session afterwards
and only benchmark myself for about an hour once a week.
This is what I think works best for me and gives me the most value for my time, but that will probably be different for you.
Different games place different levels of emphasis on game specific mechanics vs raw aim
and it's best to decide how to balance your time based on that.
Generally though, I wouldn't recommend spending more than 20% of your playtime on an aimtrainer.
To end this off I just want to say that, even if this hadn't of helped in game I wouldn't regret the time I spent.
Setting myself and slowly working towards it was so rewarding
and the payoff of actually achieving it was more than worth the hours I put in.
I learned a bit about what methods work best for me when striving for something like this as well
from how to discipline myself into doing somewhat tedious tasks
to breaking the task into smaller chunks and hyperfocusing on each
which honestly will help me in other areas of my life too.
It's already helped me when making this video.
This project has been very fulfilling for me and its reminded me of the power that setting clear goals
and chipping away at them can have, both in and outside of fps games.