Of Mice & Frags
Mouse settings that actually make a difference.
Sniper sensitivity. That’s what I brazenly dubbed the incredibly high mouse sensitivity I used to use in online shooters of yesteryear. The logic was simple. When zoomed in, minimal hand movement could result in faster, snap-to headshots. At least, that was the theory. In execution, it led to a lot of cries of “bullshit!” as I felt I’d been robbed of yet another frag. The reality was this: I was likely missing.
Fast-forward a few years, and I started messing around with a moderate mouse sensitivity. Back then, mouse mat sizes ranged from tiny to average, and I was determined to use all of the cloth real estate. The problem with impossibly high mouse sensitivity, for those who swear by it and miss out on easy kills, is the inherent inaccuracy. Tap your mouse a modicum, and you will likely notice a dramatic on-screen movement.
By comparison, Moderate sensitivity is a safer space, but it’s got nothing on low-sensitivity aiming. Lower mouse sensitivities are favoured by the pros, and with good reason. That same soft mouse tap equates to a much smaller movement. This means you can, with practice, aim with pinpoint accuracy, shooting past teammates on friendly fire shooters like Rainbow Six Siege, covering impossibly tight firing angles. If you’re like me, you’ll get to a place where your mouse sensitivity isn’t letting you down.
But it’s not as simple as dropping your sensitivity. First, you need the right mouse. My current preference is a Logitech G900. This is the wireless mouse that actually performs like a wired one. It also means that subtle inaccuracies introduced by hardware factors such as a mouse cable scraping on a table, or pulling up slightly short on a dramatic tug, are things of the past.
After all, your muscle memory is attuned to idealised movements, not the times when external factors mar the physical translation of your aiming intentions. I’m not saying a wireless mouse is essential, but I am saying it’s helped. The other crucial part of the low-sensitivity shake-up is a big ol’ mouse mat.
As far as my tests are concerned, hard and soft mouse mats are down to personal preference. Me? I’m all about the soft ones, and I’ve got a 900x420mm Battlefield 1-branded one that’d look more at home atop an EA office bar than on a computer desk. Because of the size, you also need to be diligent with keeping your desk clear. Adapting a wider posture between keyboard and mouse helps more so. While the OCD part of me prefers to keep the keyboard in the centre of the mouse mat, that’s a whole lot of wasted space. And if you’ve got a wired mouse to worry about, you definitely want the mouse mat and your mouse movements as far away from the keyboard as possible. It also helps to have a slim keyboard, like the HyperX Alloy FPS. Or, at least, one you’re happy to push up and away from the mat so the position of your hands while gaming is closer to Superman’s iconic flying pose, rather than the symmetry of an old-school zombie searching for a deadly hug. Messing around with the mouse DPI is important, because higher isn’t necessarily better. I dropped my DPI from 1,000 to 400, then incrementally lowered the in-game sensitivity in whatever shooter I was playing to find a sweet spot. These days, I usually stick in-game sensitivity on three, test it, and adjust up or down accordingly. My G900 has the option to physically switch sensitivities higher or lower. I keep the two-speed option faster aiming inside vehicles in Battlefield games, and the onespeed option for most shooters. The most challenging factor is that mouse sensitivity is, unfortunately, inconsistent across shooters. This means there’s always an adjustment period, at least for a few minutes, when I shift between, say, Battlefield 1 to Rainbow Six Siege, then on to PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. After that adjustment period, though, the result is the same: an accurate conversion of intention to actuation, greater confidence and, therefore, more frags. There’s no accounting for external factors such as bad netcode or iffy hit registration, but when everything in an online shooter is operating smoothly, lower mouse sensitivity incentivises me to take fights and make shots that felt like, in comparison, more of a risk/ reward coin toss on higher sensitivities. The amoun t of VAC shots I’ve pulled off in shooters since lowering the sensitivity is astounding, and it helps cement my understanding of why pros bring their own keyboard, mice, and mouse mats to official tournaments. Ultimately, it’s bloody hard to go back. And while I’m certainly not close to being a pro player, I feel that lower mouse sensitivity has helped improve my aim and my game.