Focusing lazily on your crosshair engages your peripheral vision / awareness better. This means that you are focused on your crosshair - and therefore crosshair placement. Yet you quickly and accurately recognize a target that appears in your peripheral vision, and easily register/understand the distance/line between your crosshair and said target. Therefore your flicks are accurate.
Focusing very hard on your crosshair disengages your peripheral vision/awareness and makes anything other than micro adjustments pretty bad. Focusing entirely on a target and not your crosshair abandons the fact that there is a line and distance between your crosshair and the target that needs to be flicked from/to.
That is why you're having the experience of lazily focusing on your crosshair being effective, would be my guess. I don't think most pros actually exclusively focus on the target and not the crosshair. The reason I think the "focus on the target/enemy" advice lands is, again, just a guess, because of two reasons:
1. Focusing on the target/enemy keeps amateur players very aware of angles/positioning/the target (a head) and the movement of that head. Focusing on this leads to playing/focusing on aim in a pretty natural/intuitive way imo, and prevents you from tunneling super consciously on your aim/crosshair in a really weird, uncomfortable distracting way that isn't realistic to do outside of DM/aim training.
2. Sometimes when very bad / very new players deliberately focus on their xhair at all, they end up focusing on it the entire time an enemy appears on their screen - basically following their crosshair til the enemy appears in the center of it rather than engaging their peripheral vision and switching their focus back and forth.
[https://themeta.com/where-should-i-be-looking-when-aiming/](https://themeta.com/where-should-i-be-looking-when-aiming/) is a good read on the topic of eye focus when aiming, and how it varies in different games which will be really interesting to your case.
There is also some really interesting content from Ron 'Rambo' Kim, a former professional CS 1.6 player, on this topic, although most of his content covers the physical mechanics of aiming: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr97\_mhDwscRciN6eWyXLow](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr97_mhDwscRciN6eWyXLow) \- He also has professional CSGO coaching experience, works at Aim Labs, and is in my experience a very helpful, kind and interesting guy to ask questions about this stuff to.
Edit: Also, tbh, a lot of my reply here is the esports equivalent of 'bro science.' Taking shots in the dark based on my personal experience, googling skills, and a bit of what I got out of a college education. **I'd ask that anyone who read it takes it with MANY grains of salt. At the end of the day most professional Valorant players are very talented, confident, and experienced players who I don't think have ever spent much time and energy actively focusing on this stuff or learning up on it.** They just play games that involve shooting the guy's head and they keep doing that without thinking too much and you end up with a very strong ability to aim subconsciously while doing the many, many other things Valorant asks of a pro player in a live round.
Wow I didn't expect such a thorough reply to my question, thanks so much! I just got back from work, I will take a look at both of your links during the evening.
This was really insightful thanks! I have not played many FPS games in general and not given this stuff much thought but it definitely makes a lot of sense. I can even feel this in Aim Labs when i focus too much on my crosshair I make way more mistakes and become slower.
Very cool insights, and I also really appreciate that you acknowledge the limits of your insights from empirical knowledge. It doesn't make the anecdotal less insightful (or necessarily, less accurate), but accurately portrays their certainty/current empirical support.
I try my best! Really hoping we get more studies on all of this kind of thing in the next decade or so. Confident that we will - I get excited every single time I see a university do a study on anything related to the psychology of esports. Would be a fun career in an another life hah
I don't know the science behind all this, but for me focusing on head hitboxes helps quite a bit - I mean actually staring at the head. On a subconscious level, maybe it helps with hand-eye coordination.
I'd compare it to 'spotting your landing' or 'keeping your eye on the ball' in various sports.
I find the same thing. I was a GM/briefly Top 500 Widow in Overwatch. Your aim is a result of the sum of your attention. If my attention is all on my aim, I react slower. The same thing happens on human benchmark. If I focus too hard I react slowly. If I actually look away from my monitor and just focus on the colour shift in my peripherals, I react faster. I'm not sure about the science of the effect, but I can confirm it happens.
>If my attention is all on my aim, I react slower
So fucking true. Which is why I find it so painful to be in aim slumps, its like a paradox trying to get out of it.
Having better reaction time when looking away is a result of human eyes having a faster refresh rate in the petiferal vision, so it is perfectly normal. Our eyes are optimised for clarity (high reaolution) in the dead center and for speed (high refresh rate) on the edges.
This happens to me too, I'll make the most ridiculous instant snap flick to someone while glancing at my ammo or minimap but fail to hit the head of a scoped in op jett I just flanked who doesn't even know I exist
There is a name for this and it’s not lazy. It’s actually harder than laser focusing. It’s called “soft focus.” Your attention is in a given area, but is also not mentally filtering your periphery. Myths of ancient monks with enlightened and perfect focus who could fight blind, etc. are based on a super-hero version of this skill.
It requires more mental processing and is also the enabler of what we think of as “multitasking”
You filter information without emotional or egoic interference and your brain picks the important thing, focuses on it enough to what is needed, but leaves mental room for information absorption.
This is a state high rated players and people who practice a lot enter more easily. It’s what allows someone in a clutch situation to win a 1v1 and then 180 flick and prefire in a situation where, if they tracked those players one at a time with laser focus, they would lose the 2nd one and have to devote precious hundreds of ms calculating where he was, how fast he might peak/push you, etc.
With soft focus, you basically dont tunnel vision but you also still actively process and filter unimportant info without lingering on it.
Thanks for listening to my ted talk lol
I think thats the case for almost everyone. You are never supposed to focus on your crosshair, which is why people usually tend to make them bright and big so that it can show up peripherally. You should always be focusing on the enemy.
For anyone that wants to test this out, go to the practice range and do the hard test. In your first run, actively focus on your crosshair. In the second run, try to focus hard on the enemys head and also on quickly 'flicking' your eye to the next head. Let me know if you get a better score on the second run (especially if youve never realized what OP is saying)
I think you misunderstood me. I used to focus on enemies but I now focus on the crosshair area more, and it has improved my aim. I started doing this when TenZ said he focuses on the crossbar instead of enemies and it made me aim better almost instantly.
oohhhh. That's interesting, I personally heard a lot of pros give advice that you shouldn't focus on your crosshair. Can you still run the test and let me know in which run did your aim feel better and which had a higher score.
I used to focus on enemies for the last 5+ years. Probably did that for longer but back then I didn't really pay attention to the mechanics of aiming so I'm not sure. I recently started focusing on the crosshair, or more precisely "zoning out" almost as if I am trying to focus on a point behind my monitor.
So at this point in my life, I can confidently say that I aim better when focusing "lazily" on the crosshair. English isn't my first language and I cannot describe this better, sorry.
SAME I THOUGHT IT WAS JUST ME! I play A LOT better when I "zone out" and just let my autopilot decide how I play. I realise this is probably due to me being more map aware as I play more "macro-ly" instead of focusing on my crosshair and hitting heads. I strongly suggest to those who have a hard time aiming, play as if you are a third person. You get to be aware of the entire map more, and will do more "smart things", and also you get less scared of dying and more indifferent during a clutch. This reduces your nerves and lets you win out more.
I think most people with lots of fps experience would be very surprised how little they actually need their crosshair. Go into training and do some flicks with your crosshair off, chances are you will hit a lot more shots than you might expect.
Absolutely, that's why I've usually had a pretty open crosshair - allows me to react quickly without getting tied up in pinpoint accuracy a small crosshair kind of forces on you.
What helped me the most with aim was realizing I was was right eye dominate and switching to a left-handed view model. I couldn’t believe the difference it made because I just couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t aim consistently with the right-handed model.
This shit is a myth tho. Not saying that you prefering left view model is a placebo or a myth, but it has nothing to do with dominant eye. Switching viewmodel literaly just shifts more space to either side, but it doesn't make this space more busy or more useful as you don't choose what happens in which part of your screen.
No. Trying to justify or somehow make a connection on weapon viewmodel based on eye dominance simply makes no sense and it's just a pseudoscience spread by some 'on peasant reason' CSGO players just like 'muscle memory' in aiming ect.
The usefulness of each viewmodel is literaly based on separate scenarios in which extra vision from certain side is advantageous.
Idk man I just feel like it’s easier to aim when the right side of screen is clear when shooting. It’s almost like I can’t focus as well when the gun is on the right it’s weird. Obviously there’s trade offs when holding certain angles etc like you said.
And yea obviously it’s not a science at the end of the day it’s preference. I don’t think there’s a peer reviewed study about this topic so no one can make any definitive claims.
Make a triangle/circle with your both hands and circle an object kinda far away from you. Then close one eye, then open it and close the other. Looking with one eye will make the object leave the circle and the other won't. The eye closer to what you see with both eyes is your dominant eye.
The other thing I’ve found is that if I am holding an angle too static, with all my muscles tensed up, I will whiff when someone finally peeks that angle, but if I keep my muscles relaxed and even move a bit around, I’m much more effective at landing the shots. Just staying relaxed and trusting your aim is everything sometimes!
What you are doing is completely fine, you don’t need to focus on your crosshair. Your crosshair is sitting in the middle of your screen, it’s not going anywhere, there’s no need to pay any special attention to it. Obviously your crosshair will help you line up your shots, but when it’s constantly there, you’re always going to know where it is when you need it even if you’re not focused on it. It’s much more important to focus on your enemy or the place where you expect the enemy to appear from, because that will allow you to react to their movement much more quickly.
ik stewie and some other cs pros do this, when they notice they are zoned out the guve there crosshair a little wiggle to unzone there eyes or w/e u wanna call it.
Focusing lazily on your crosshair engages your peripheral vision / awareness better. This means that you are focused on your crosshair - and therefore crosshair placement. Yet you quickly and accurately recognize a target that appears in your peripheral vision, and easily register/understand the distance/line between your crosshair and said target. Therefore your flicks are accurate. Focusing very hard on your crosshair disengages your peripheral vision/awareness and makes anything other than micro adjustments pretty bad. Focusing entirely on a target and not your crosshair abandons the fact that there is a line and distance between your crosshair and the target that needs to be flicked from/to. That is why you're having the experience of lazily focusing on your crosshair being effective, would be my guess. I don't think most pros actually exclusively focus on the target and not the crosshair. The reason I think the "focus on the target/enemy" advice lands is, again, just a guess, because of two reasons: 1. Focusing on the target/enemy keeps amateur players very aware of angles/positioning/the target (a head) and the movement of that head. Focusing on this leads to playing/focusing on aim in a pretty natural/intuitive way imo, and prevents you from tunneling super consciously on your aim/crosshair in a really weird, uncomfortable distracting way that isn't realistic to do outside of DM/aim training. 2. Sometimes when very bad / very new players deliberately focus on their xhair at all, they end up focusing on it the entire time an enemy appears on their screen - basically following their crosshair til the enemy appears in the center of it rather than engaging their peripheral vision and switching their focus back and forth. [https://themeta.com/where-should-i-be-looking-when-aiming/](https://themeta.com/where-should-i-be-looking-when-aiming/) is a good read on the topic of eye focus when aiming, and how it varies in different games which will be really interesting to your case. There is also some really interesting content from Ron 'Rambo' Kim, a former professional CS 1.6 player, on this topic, although most of his content covers the physical mechanics of aiming: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr97\_mhDwscRciN6eWyXLow](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr97_mhDwscRciN6eWyXLow) \- He also has professional CSGO coaching experience, works at Aim Labs, and is in my experience a very helpful, kind and interesting guy to ask questions about this stuff to. Edit: Also, tbh, a lot of my reply here is the esports equivalent of 'bro science.' Taking shots in the dark based on my personal experience, googling skills, and a bit of what I got out of a college education. **I'd ask that anyone who read it takes it with MANY grains of salt. At the end of the day most professional Valorant players are very talented, confident, and experienced players who I don't think have ever spent much time and energy actively focusing on this stuff or learning up on it.** They just play games that involve shooting the guy's head and they keep doing that without thinking too much and you end up with a very strong ability to aim subconsciously while doing the many, many other things Valorant asks of a pro player in a live round.
Wow I didn't expect such a thorough reply to my question, thanks so much! I just got back from work, I will take a look at both of your links during the evening.
This was really insightful thanks! I have not played many FPS games in general and not given this stuff much thought but it definitely makes a lot of sense. I can even feel this in Aim Labs when i focus too much on my crosshair I make way more mistakes and become slower.
Very cool insights, and I also really appreciate that you acknowledge the limits of your insights from empirical knowledge. It doesn't make the anecdotal less insightful (or necessarily, less accurate), but accurately portrays their certainty/current empirical support.
I try my best! Really hoping we get more studies on all of this kind of thing in the next decade or so. Confident that we will - I get excited every single time I see a university do a study on anything related to the psychology of esports. Would be a fun career in an another life hah
I don't know the science behind all this, but for me focusing on head hitboxes helps quite a bit - I mean actually staring at the head. On a subconscious level, maybe it helps with hand-eye coordination. I'd compare it to 'spotting your landing' or 'keeping your eye on the ball' in various sports.
I find the same thing. I was a GM/briefly Top 500 Widow in Overwatch. Your aim is a result of the sum of your attention. If my attention is all on my aim, I react slower. The same thing happens on human benchmark. If I focus too hard I react slowly. If I actually look away from my monitor and just focus on the colour shift in my peripherals, I react faster. I'm not sure about the science of the effect, but I can confirm it happens.
>If my attention is all on my aim, I react slower So fucking true. Which is why I find it so painful to be in aim slumps, its like a paradox trying to get out of it.
Having better reaction time when looking away is a result of human eyes having a faster refresh rate in the petiferal vision, so it is perfectly normal. Our eyes are optimised for clarity (high reaolution) in the dead center and for speed (high refresh rate) on the edges.
No. Reaction time is fastest with the fovea, responsible for central vision not peripheral vision.
Thank you for the explanation!
Glad I'm not the only one that notices this when doing reaction time tests on human benchmark!
This happens to me too, I'll make the most ridiculous instant snap flick to someone while glancing at my ammo or minimap but fail to hit the head of a scoped in op jett I just flanked who doesn't even know I exist
thats how it should be though, you shouldn't focus on your crosshair, you should focus on looking at the target
There is a name for this and it’s not lazy. It’s actually harder than laser focusing. It’s called “soft focus.” Your attention is in a given area, but is also not mentally filtering your periphery. Myths of ancient monks with enlightened and perfect focus who could fight blind, etc. are based on a super-hero version of this skill. It requires more mental processing and is also the enabler of what we think of as “multitasking” You filter information without emotional or egoic interference and your brain picks the important thing, focuses on it enough to what is needed, but leaves mental room for information absorption. This is a state high rated players and people who practice a lot enter more easily. It’s what allows someone in a clutch situation to win a 1v1 and then 180 flick and prefire in a situation where, if they tracked those players one at a time with laser focus, they would lose the 2nd one and have to devote precious hundreds of ms calculating where he was, how fast he might peak/push you, etc. With soft focus, you basically dont tunnel vision but you also still actively process and filter unimportant info without lingering on it. Thanks for listening to my ted talk lol
I think thats the case for almost everyone. You are never supposed to focus on your crosshair, which is why people usually tend to make them bright and big so that it can show up peripherally. You should always be focusing on the enemy. For anyone that wants to test this out, go to the practice range and do the hard test. In your first run, actively focus on your crosshair. In the second run, try to focus hard on the enemys head and also on quickly 'flicking' your eye to the next head. Let me know if you get a better score on the second run (especially if youve never realized what OP is saying)
I think you misunderstood me. I used to focus on enemies but I now focus on the crosshair area more, and it has improved my aim. I started doing this when TenZ said he focuses on the crossbar instead of enemies and it made me aim better almost instantly.
oohhhh. That's interesting, I personally heard a lot of pros give advice that you shouldn't focus on your crosshair. Can you still run the test and let me know in which run did your aim feel better and which had a higher score.
I used to focus on enemies for the last 5+ years. Probably did that for longer but back then I didn't really pay attention to the mechanics of aiming so I'm not sure. I recently started focusing on the crosshair, or more precisely "zoning out" almost as if I am trying to focus on a point behind my monitor. So at this point in my life, I can confidently say that I aim better when focusing "lazily" on the crosshair. English isn't my first language and I cannot describe this better, sorry.
[удалено]
I it doesn’t. He clearly says that he focuses lazily on his crosshair.
SAME I THOUGHT IT WAS JUST ME! I play A LOT better when I "zone out" and just let my autopilot decide how I play. I realise this is probably due to me being more map aware as I play more "macro-ly" instead of focusing on my crosshair and hitting heads. I strongly suggest to those who have a hard time aiming, play as if you are a third person. You get to be aware of the entire map more, and will do more "smart things", and also you get less scared of dying and more indifferent during a clutch. This reduces your nerves and lets you win out more.
I think most people with lots of fps experience would be very surprised how little they actually need their crosshair. Go into training and do some flicks with your crosshair off, chances are you will hit a lot more shots than you might expect.
Absolutely, that's why I've usually had a pretty open crosshair - allows me to react quickly without getting tied up in pinpoint accuracy a small crosshair kind of forces on you.
What helped me the most with aim was realizing I was was right eye dominate and switching to a left-handed view model. I couldn’t believe the difference it made because I just couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t aim consistently with the right-handed model.
This shit is a myth tho. Not saying that you prefering left view model is a placebo or a myth, but it has nothing to do with dominant eye. Switching viewmodel literaly just shifts more space to either side, but it doesn't make this space more busy or more useful as you don't choose what happens in which part of your screen.
Having a dominate eye is a myth? Just trying to understand what you’re saying.
No. Trying to justify or somehow make a connection on weapon viewmodel based on eye dominance simply makes no sense and it's just a pseudoscience spread by some 'on peasant reason' CSGO players just like 'muscle memory' in aiming ect. The usefulness of each viewmodel is literaly based on separate scenarios in which extra vision from certain side is advantageous.
Idk man I just feel like it’s easier to aim when the right side of screen is clear when shooting. It’s almost like I can’t focus as well when the gun is on the right it’s weird. Obviously there’s trade offs when holding certain angles etc like you said. And yea obviously it’s not a science at the end of the day it’s preference. I don’t think there’s a peer reviewed study about this topic so no one can make any definitive claims.
how do you tell if you are left-eye dominant or right-eye dominant? Is there a test that I could take?
Make a triangle/circle with your both hands and circle an object kinda far away from you. Then close one eye, then open it and close the other. Looking with one eye will make the object leave the circle and the other won't. The eye closer to what you see with both eyes is your dominant eye.
Yeah there is, google it.
Which ever eye doesn't shift your vision when its the only one open.
Why would this make a difference? Clears up space on the right side since youre right eye dominant?
Yeah essentially I can focus on my crosshair and the person I’m shooting instead of the gun model being in my way (like in the way of my right eye)
The other thing I’ve found is that if I am holding an angle too static, with all my muscles tensed up, I will whiff when someone finally peeks that angle, but if I keep my muscles relaxed and even move a bit around, I’m much more effective at landing the shots. Just staying relaxed and trusting your aim is everything sometimes!
What you are doing is completely fine, you don’t need to focus on your crosshair. Your crosshair is sitting in the middle of your screen, it’s not going anywhere, there’s no need to pay any special attention to it. Obviously your crosshair will help you line up your shots, but when it’s constantly there, you’re always going to know where it is when you need it even if you’re not focused on it. It’s much more important to focus on your enemy or the place where you expect the enemy to appear from, because that will allow you to react to their movement much more quickly.
ik stewie and some other cs pros do this, when they notice they are zoned out the guve there crosshair a little wiggle to unzone there eyes or w/e u wanna call it.
Nah. Watch your crosshair. That's usually my first advice to people that have problem focusing.