"Another thread like this? Are you out of your mind, NoAvailableUsername?"
"Why would I ever read about a nobody's opinion on this subject, which has been discussed plenty of times?"

I can understand your disappointment yet, please, allow me to attempt defending the purpose of this column


I think the biggest flaw of threads like "How to aim?" "Best sens?" "Everyone can QLhook" and others which I won't link is that these tend to overlook the most crucial (in my opinion) aspect regarding aiming, which is acceleration.
It's such a common, wide-spread cvar but hardly ever gets any recognition.
(More specifically, a combination of "Sensitivity" "cl_mouseaccel" (and its sub-cvars) and the keyboard usage, but I'll analyze this subject later on).

Your usual ESR thread regarding our beloved acceleration will do nothing but debate wheter to use it or not, 1 or 0, black or white, without indulging in the plethora of options it offers, and the consequences in aiming it leads to.

Reading about grips, arm positioning, posture and whatnot is cool and dandy, yet noone ever speaks about different aiming styles which are nothing but a consequence of a cl_mouseaccel value >=0.

Since I have nothing better to do, let me please bore you to death and elaborate on this opinion of mine, by starting from the end: technically speaking, I do believe that no accel is always better and easier than having it.
I think all of you will agree on this, since I tried to underline the word "technically": the good thing about posting on ESR is that I don't have to number the reasons behind this statement.


"Stop stating the obvious, NoAvail., I feel like I'm wasting my time here. Plus, you sound like an imbecile."

I won't try to deny that last part.

The problem is that some people just can't find that so much desired "sweet spot" some seem to have in an accel=0 scenario (Stermy, Czm, Fox and many others) , which ends resulting in either a too high sens for tracking or crippling the movements and situation awareness (please note this is from a ctf/tdm/ca point of view, duel is similar yet different) .

How I wish I were able to do that, it would be so easy: are my movements too slow? I'll just raise the sens!
Am I overshooting? I'll just decrease it then.


I'm one of those unfortunate people, and I've spent years looking for a good enough sens/accel combination, trying to find the answer to the dreaded question every acceleration user might ask himself in times of low accuracies and despair:
"Should I change the sens or should I change the accel?"

The general consensus regarding the classification of sensitivities tends to differentiate between high, med, and low.
I will dare to take a step forward and analyze few sens/accel combinations, and to estabilish their properties.

(please note:

-the combinations data I'm basing this analysis on has been gently provided by the user "ia" in this thread http://www.esreality.com/index.php?a=post&id=1907380, and exhaustively tested by me.)
-Test setup : WMO, qck+, 400dpi, in_mouse 2,m_yaw 0.022, cherry black switches
-these are personal opinions based on personal preferences: the reason I'm posting them is to start a discussion on this subject, not to crown any particular setup as the best.
-I'm leaving out of the picture extreme cases like Rapha and Strenx for obvious reasons.
-I'll analyze only the main weapons (RG RL LG) behaviours in these scenarios.



1) The "Thanks, but no thanks" combination

High/High-Med sens, Low accel

examples.:
DaHang - 4.6 sens, .048 accel, 22.59 cm/360
L1nkje - 3.338 sens, .074 accel, 31.13 cm/360

A good compromise, yet a compromise: movements are great and the gameplay feeling is much smoother, but it still suffers from the "sweet spot" problem for people like me, since it bases itself mostly on the (high) sens value.
Also, accel feels not high enough for faster turns (thus resulting in forced movement of the arm, which some might dislike) but high enough to break a "no accel setup" muscle memory "stability feeling" (sounds horrible, I know).
RG/RL are good except for >45° flicks, which have to be done by the arm and therefore are ineffective.
LG decent but too unstable for me, might benefit more from Red/blue switches and a faster left/right dodging.

L1nkje: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmDB-qLgaqc


2) "Flick me baby one more time"

High-Med/Med sens, Med accel

Cypher - 3.784 sens, .106 accel, 27.46 cm/360
K1llsen - 3.45 sens, .12 accel, 30.12 cm/360

It starts getting slightly better for non surgeon-wannabe aimers like me.
Movements are perfect till the 900/1000 ups mark, after that lifting the mouse is needed to get the angles.
"Sweet spot" problem still existing, especially when it comes down to tracking very small dodges (again, the red/blue switches question, I'll get back to it later).
The sens-only muscle memory is now completely lost, replaced by a not so subtle acceleration feeling, which might require time to get accustomed to, as it may lead to overshooting/overflicking.
RG starts getting better for some unknown reasons, allowing faster flicks.
RL becomes much better in close combat, but sens still feels too high and leads to overshooting: RL aiming style now switches to a more flicky style rather than the case 1) tracking.
LG becomes tricky for me, being used to lower sens values results in flicking the mouse too much at the enemy's direction changes during a fight, which makes the higher accel value kick in; might be perfect for those used to 1) , as the increased accel provides faster, larger turns, resulting in a fixed position of the hand and sensor always on the same mousepad spot.

Cypher: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-pW6A9F7nI
K1llsen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mpqSYPNkL0


3) "You spin me round"

Med/Low sens, Med-high/High accel

Cooller - 2.255 sens, .182 accel, 46.09 cm/360
Av3k - 2.327 sens, .291 accel, 44.64 cm/360
Noctis - 2.775 sens, .209 accel, 37.44 cm/360
NoAv. - 2.9 sens, .18 accel

As you see, I've been using a setup like this for a while now, thus I'll be able to describe better the advantages and flaws it has.

Movement: although it feels more stable, it starts deteriorating at around the 700/750 mark. Heavily characterized by wrist movement,it slightly hinders circle jumps due to the low sens/high accel jerkiness combination, and often requires mouse adjustements.
The "sweet spot" problem starts fading away, just to let you realize it'll never really disappear: in fact, the main problem within these setups is the inaccuracy at low angles deltas (at roughly 45° left or right from your crosshair) due to the brutal effect accel has when it kicks in. It basically gives the player different adiacent "cones" of 30-40° each in which tracking is great, but as soon as the "cone" ends a mouse lift or a flick is required, which might result in a drop of accuracy.
This means calm, patient, relaxed hand movements are required to not over/undershoot, something which doesn't always happen, especially in LG fights.
RG starts shining at lower senses, also allowing rewarding flicks.
At higher senses it's either flick or movement only.
RL is now totally flick-dependant, especially at lower sens values: this means it's great at closer range and reflex-shots, yet, being the sens so low, you don't have enough time to adjust the crosshair in time for example for a mid-air rocket, or to quickly calibrate accurate long shots, especially on the Y-axis (m_pitch > 0.022 in this case might help, but it's still a handicap).
LG at long ranges feels great due to the lowered sens, and chagning directions for such small angles doesn't trigger the accel curve that much.
LG at med ranges (thunderstruck from a side to another side) requires zen-like tranquillity, the smaller hastily direction switch might bring your crosshair to the other side of the map, especially in heated battles. (the lower the sens, the less it benefits from red/blue switches,and viceversa ill get back on this later)
LG at short ranges is good, high accels allow to go "Jules Verne" on the enemy, although the "cones" problem still persists.
This style stresses the wrist heavily, depending on how much you're willing to move the arm: therefore, a lighter mouse is preferred.

Cooler: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VUdNrq9RfU
Av3k: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOeKUtNSRK8
Noctis: I can't find any, if you have a link please share, although he fires with the keyboard which doesn't really make him an eligible example, in my opinion




Keyboard and Switches

This is another big thing that plays a vital role in accel-LG-aiming that is hardly ever mentioned.
For someone like me used to heavy black switches, giving red/blue ones a try made me open my eyes.
The possibility of having faster left-right patterns at will has so many consequences on tracking that I have no idea why everyone seems to neglect it.
I'm still fairly new to this, and I'll have to buy different keyboards for my tests as soon as possible, therefore I'm unable to be detailed on it: if you have some experiences regarding this I'd be glad to hear them.

The impressions I had so far:

-Black or heavy switches leaves a bigger "hole" on the X-axis. In short, a slower L/R pattern means that, given that you don't move the crosshair, you'll have a bigger X-axis "blind spot", as in more degrees between the final left position and the final right position.

This hurts against someone who tends to do smaller, faster dodge patterns: to overcome the situation, with these switches you'll have to move out from the center of the enemy's screen, thus widening his pattern in your screen,thus making it easier to track him.
It's a matter of basic perspective afterall, and I'm pretty sure this is old news for all of you.
This results in compensating with a lower sens, to cover the "blind spot" aforementioned.


Senscap: a useless cvar?

Another vital cvar that is never discussed.
Seeing that I've already written too much, I won't dare to go against these habits but will ask you instead to please share your experience on it.
I personally think it's really underrated and might really worth it at low/low-med accel values (case 1), to overcome the instability.



As a conclusion, I'd like to thank you for reading all of this,and ask you to please share your experiences regarding these subjects.

I'd also be interested in knowing how you (accel users) managed to find your current settings, step by step, one decimal per time.