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Tuning Difficulty

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Sourced from research and clinical guidance, and vendor documentation. Checked against its sources. Not yet reviewed by a person.

Difficulty is not one slider. A scenario has several, they do different things, and turning them all up produces a drill that teaches nothing.

  • Size and distance are the core pair. Both follow the same trade-off.1
  • Speed costs accuracy. The exchange is measurable.2
  • Aim for hard, not survivable. A run you barely survive gives no usable feedback.
  • Move one dial per version. Two changes at once explain nothing.

The dials, and what each one does

Dial Where it lives What it changes
Target size Character profile, Boxes6 Precision demanded per shot
Spawn spread Character profile, Spawn6 Distance between targets
Dodge speed Dodge profile7 Correction rate demanded
Reactivity Dodge profile, React7 Whether the path can be learned
Bot count Edit Scenario, Challenge8 Target selection pressure
Time limit Edit Scenario, Challenge8 Pace, and tolerance for a reset

Size and distance are one relationship, not two. The time a movement takes grows with how far it travels and how small the target is.1

That means shrinking a target and spreading spawns further apart push on the same thing. Doing both at once doubles a change you may have meant to make once.

Two panels sharing a spawn marker. With offsets at zero every target appears on the marker itself. With the offsets widened, targets appear one after another at scattered points inside a box around the marker.Bassel Bakrhttps://github.com/Bassel-Bakr/aimOffsets at zeroevery target on the markerspawn pointOffsets wideneda target anywhere in the boxspawn point
Offsets at zero stack every target on the marker. Widened, the same marker covers an area.
Three panels, each with a crosshair and a target, and a bar showing how much the shot demands. A baseline panel. A panel where the target is smaller at the same distance. A panel where the target is the baseline size but further away. The second and third panels show the same raised demand as each other.Bassel Bakrhttps://github.com/Bassel-Bakr/aimBaselinedemandSmaller targetdemandFurther awaydemand
Two different settings, one raised demand. Change both and you have moved difficulty twice.

Pushing speed

Speed and accuracy trade against each other. The exchange is measurable rather than a matter of discipline, so a speed increase has a predictable accuracy cost.2

A curve of accuracy against pace. It stays high while pace is low, then falls away steeply. A marker rides along it, and a band over the middle marks the range where accuracy is worth building before pace is pushed further.Bassel Bakrhttps://github.com/Bassel-Bakr/aimPace against accuracythe exchange is measurableaccuracypacebuild accuracy here, then push
Pace is cheap until it is not. The band is where accuracy is still worth building.

Build accuracy at a pace you can hit, then raise speed. Chasing speed before accuracy is solid builds habits that are harder to undo than they were to avoid.2

Slower variants are not a waste of a session. Running a scenario at a pace where the crosshair lands cleanly builds the technique that survives when difficulty goes back up.2

Two panels with the same target and the same distance to cover. At a manageable pace the crosshair travels once and stops on the target. Pushed past it, the crosshair overshoots and corrects back twice before settling.Bassel Bakrhttps://github.com/Bassel-Bakr/aimAt a pace you can hitone motion, lands cleanone correctionPast itovershoot, then saw backthree corrections
Same distance, two paces. One lands. The other overshoots and saws back onto the target.

How hard is hard enough

A scenario should be uncomfortable and readable at once. If every run is noise, nothing in the score tells you what to fix next time.

Practice that works gets harder as you improve, rather than starting at the ceiling.3 A drill fixed above your level has no harder step to move to.

Skill level changes what difficulty should do. Early on, a learner needs conditions that let the movement come together at all. Later, the useful work is at the edge.

The earlier stages are worth revisiting, however accomplished you are.4

Two difficulty scales running from easy to past you. While learning, the useful band sits toward the easy end, where the movement can come together. Once the skill is owned, the band sits near the far end, at the edge of what still holds.Bassel Bakrhttps://github.com/Bassel-Bakr/aimLearning itroom to get it righteasypast youset it where the motion holdsOwning itwork at the edgeeasypast youset it where it just stops holding
The useful band moves along the scale as the skill becomes yours.
Two panels with the same target and crosshair. On the left a single pip fills and the target dies to one hit. On the right three pips fill one after another, so the shot has to stay on the target after the first hit lands.Bassel Bakrhttps://github.com/Bassel-Bakr/aimOne hitacquisition only1 hit to killThree hitsacquire, then stay on it3 hits to kill
Health is the dial that changes the question, not just the answer: acquire once, or acquire and stay.

Change one thing

Keep the version you started from. Two scenarios differing in one setting tell you what that setting does. Two differing in five tell you nothing.

Two second versions of the same scenario, each shown as five dials. In the first only one dial has moved and the result says what that dial does. In the second all five have moved and the result says nothing.Bassel Bakrhttps://github.com/Bassel-Bakr/aimOne dial movedsizespreadspeedbotstimeyou learned what size doesFive dials movedsizespreadspeedbotstimeyou learned nothing
One dial moved is an experiment. Five moved is a new scenario with no explanation.

Name versions so the difference is visible without opening them. A name carrying the changed dial and its value beats a version number.

Common mistakes

  • Raising size, speed and spread together, then not knowing which one broke the drill.
  • Building at your ceiling, where every run is noise.
  • Treating a slow variant as a wasted session.2
  • Judging a change on one run. Two or three reps give a fuller read.5

In practice

Tune until the failure is specific. A good difficulty setting makes you fail in one identifiable way, not in an unclear one.

Do this next. Take a scenario you made, copy it, change one dial by a small step, and play both in the same session.

Resources

References

  1. Human Kinetics, Understanding Fitts's law · REF-27 ↩↩

  2. Aimlabs, The speed-accuracy tradeoff and what it means for your aim training · REF-17 ↩↩↩↩↩

  3. Ericsson & Harwell, a 2019 review examining Ericsson's original definition of deliberate practice · REF-36 ↩

  4. Human Kinetics, Understanding motor learning stages improves skill instruction · REF-28 ↩

  5. Aimlabs, How to build a well balanced aim training playlist · REF-8 ↩

  6. KovaaK's, Character Profiles, KovaaK's Wiki · REF-81 ↩↩

  7. KovaaK's, Dodge Profiles, KovaaK's Wiki · REF-83 ↩↩

  8. KovaaK's, Edit Scenario Window, KovaaK's Wiki · REF-80 ↩↩