Hey what is going on guys, in this video today
we're gonna be discussing aim assist and more
specifically a seemingly major change regarding
aim assist, thats almost totally flown under
the radar, with not many people knowing about
it.
For a very long time, players have believed
that aim assist in Fortnite is directly tied
to the amount of frames per second you get
while playing the game.
And this wasn't just some crazy myth or anything,
it was proven multiple times, and pretty much
accepted as fact.
What this meant, is that controller players
that played on PC at something like 200 or
300 FPS, would get much stronger aim assist
than controller players on console who could
get 60 FPS max.
And the difference in aim assist strength
wasn't some super small thing, it was actually
very apparent.
So much so, that the stronger aim assist was
pretty much always the first thing that a
controller player would notice, if they switched
from playing on xbox/ps4 to playing on a PC.
However, based on some recent evidence, it
appears that aim assist is actually no longer
directly tied to FPS.
So, without further ado, let's get right into
showcasing that.
Alright, so the first thing I wanna show you
guys in this video is a clip of upshall's
original little experiment, that proved that
aim assist was tied to FPS.
He originally showed this about 4 or 5 months
ago, and even if you guys have already seen
it in the past, I'd still recommend paying
attention, so you can compare it to the clip
I'm going to show later.
So
that 
testing done by upshall showed, pretty much
as clearly as possible, that aim assist strength
was directly tied to your FPS.
And as I mentioned in the intro, even though
that experiment basically proved it once and
for all, aim assist being stronger on PC was
something that a lot of people already felt
was true.
However, a few days ago I stumbled upon a
post on the competitive Fortnite reddit tilted
"Aim assist not tied to FPS anymore?"
The post was by the owner of a Youtube channel
named S10Px, and it contained footage that
basically tried to re-create upshall's original
aim assist test from a few months ago.
Now, he did it on both targets in creative
mode and an actual stationary player, but
I'm only going to show the footage from the
test with a real person, since it's incredibly
similar to what upshall did.
He's first gonna show the distance aim assist
pulls on 30 FPS, then 240 FPS, and finally
60 FPS.
So even though I wouldn't describe that as
indisputable evidence, I think that clip at
the very least creates some doubt about whether
things have changed regarding FPS affecting
aim assist.
Because in that clip, it sure seemed like
the aim assist strength at 30 FPS was pretty
much exactly the same as the strength at 240
FPS, and that definitely wasn't the case in
upshall's testing.
However, as convincing as that may be, it's
still only one piece of evidence, so I decided
to dig a little deeper.
And in doing so, I found a comment in a different
post discussing PC aim assist vs. console
aim assist from a user named approved player.
He said "The difference between console and
PC aim assist isn't that much.
I've done tests on an Xbox 1x at 60fps versus
on a PC at 140-180fps in a pretty scientific
manner, and the aim assist for both is very
close.
If you really care how I can test this systematically,
I'll elaborate.
Basically I repeat the same exact ads spam
speed on both console and pc through an external
device/script.
I set myself up X tile distances from target
to determine how far the aim assist pull extends,
and its nearly identical.
Anyone saying that there is a major difference
has something else going on to cause that
to happen."
So what I think is most interesting about
that post, is the fact that this guy didn't
test it by hand, he used what he refers to
as "an external device/script", which should
in theory lead to less variation, and more
conclusive results.
So although I'm still not sure if this is
enough proof to 1000% say, "yeah aim assist
is definitely not affected at all by FPS anymore",
I'm starting to at least lean towards that
being true.
And the more I think about it, the more it
makes sense that Epic would do this.
I'm not sure how many of you guys remember
this, but around the same time it was proven
that FPS affects aim assist, Dr. Lupo showcased
that FPS also impacted the fire rate of fully
auto weapons in Fortnite.
A few weeks later, it was discovered that
Epic had fixed that issue, and I believe they
even mentioned that they did in a certain
update's patch notes.
So, it just logically makes sense that if
Epic would fix that, they'd probably also
want to fix the strength of aim assist being
tied to FPS as well.
So, if aim assist strength truly is no longer
affected by FPS, or at least affected way
less than it used to be, that raises a few
questions.
The first is, if that's the case, why does
aim assist and aim in general still feel a
lot smoother and better on higher FPS?
Even the reddit user who personally tested
aim assist strength with his external device/script
says that, even though it doesn't show up
in the results when he tries to measure it,
to him it still feels like aim assist is stronger
on PC.
I also agree with him based on my experience,
so my best guess would be that even though
FPS may not directly make aim assist stronger,
it does make aiming in general feel a lot
smoother, and therefore properly taking advantage
of aim assist is easier.
The second question is, if it's true that
the strength of aim assist was changed since
upshall's original video, when exactly did
that happen?
Although this is pretty much purely theory,
here's my best guess.
Towards the end of february, so roughly a
few weeks after upshall's video, Fortnite
released a very controversial change to aim
assist, which basically involved making it
so that if you ADS spammed more than once
or twice in a row, you wouldn't get any aim
assist at all for the next few seconds.
This change was heavily opposed by the community
right away, and ended up getting reverted
within the first 8 hours or so.
But that change clearly showed that Epic was
so unhappy with the state of aim assist, that
they were willing to try a very dramatic change
to alter it.
And when I saw that update, I even said in
a video, that even though that specific change
ended up not really working out, I'd expect
them to try something else in the near future.
A few weeks later, after one of the updates
in season 8, I noticed a lot of players were
saying that aim assist felt different than
it did before the update.
So my little conspiracy theory is, in that
specific update they made it so that aim assist
was no longer affected by FPS, which therefore
made it feel different for a lot of players.
And as to why they wouldn't announce it, well
first off they make changes without including
it in patch notes all the time, and second,
after all the backlash they got from their
first major change to aim assist, I could
see why they'd think it would be better to
just let this one slide under the radar.
So, I hope you guys enjoyed this video and
if you watched the entire thing be sure to
let me know with a comment down in the comment
section below.
Based on what you've seen here, do you believe
that aim assist is no longer tied to FPS,
or are you still not convinced?
Be sure to leave a like, leave a comment,
subscribe, turn on post notifications, do
whatever the heck you want, and I, will catch
you guys next time.
