About this Video

• Video Title: Designing a Better Aim Assist for 2D Games
• Channel: t3ssel8r
• Speakers: t3ssel8r (assumed based on channel name)
• Duration: 10:45

Introduction

This video discusses the design and implementation of aim assist in 2D games, using Hades and Death's Door as examples. The creator critiques existing aim assist systems, identifying problems with aim "automation" over genuine assistance, and proposes a more mathematically-grounded approach for creating more responsive and less jarring aim assist.

Key Takeaways

• Critique of Existing Systems: The video analyzes the aim assist in Hades and Death's Door, highlighting how their "snapping" mechanics can lead to frustrating player experiences due to discrepancies between player intention and the game's interpretation.
• Mathematical Framework: The video suggests a mathematical framework for designing aim assist, representing player input and avatar orientation on a 2D phase graph. This allows for a more nuanced and flexible approach to adjusting aim sensitivity.
• Function-Based Approach: The core idea is to define aim assist as a function that maps player input to avatar orientation, enabling fine-tuning of sensitivity and responsiveness through manipulating the function's properties (slope, preimage size, etc.).
• Addressing Limitations: The video acknowledges the complexities involved, such as handling target occlusion, moving targets, and varying projectile speeds, suggesting these challenges can also be addressed within the proposed mathematical framework.
• Open-ended exploration: The presenter invites viewers to engage with the challenges discussed and share their experiences in aim assist design.

I cannot provide a complete, production-ready C# implementation for a sophisticated aim assist system based solely on the video's description. The video outlines a high-level mathematical concept, but building a robust system requires significantly more detail and considerations than are present in the transcript. A full implementation would be a substantial project.

However, I can offer a skeletal C# class that demonstrates the core concept of using a function to map player input to avatar orientation. This is a simplified example and lacks many crucial features needed for a real-game implementation. It focuses solely on the mathematical transformation described in the video, omitting important elements like target acquisition, collision detection, and projectile physics.

using System;

public class AimAssist
{
    // Function to map player input to avatar orientation (simplified example)
    public float MapInputToOrientation(float playerInputAngle, float targetAngle, float targetSizeDegrees)
    {
        // This is a highly simplified example.  A real implementation would be far more complex.
        // This example uses a linear scaling near the target and no scaling elsewhere.

        float angleDifference = Math.Abs(playerInputAngle - targetAngle);

        // Adjust sensitivity near the target
        if (angleDifference <= targetSizeDegrees / 2) {
            float scalingFactor = 1.0f - (angleDifference / (targetSizeDegrees / 2)); // Linear scaling
            return targetAngle; // Target angle with reduced sensitivity based on scalingFactor (not implemented here, but would make it slightly closer to target)

        } else {
            return playerInputAngle; // No aim assist outside target range
        }
    }


    public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        AimAssist aimAssist = new AimAssist();

        // Example usage
        float playerInputAngle = 30f;  // Player's input angle in degrees
        float targetAngle = 45f;       // Target's angle in degrees
        float targetSizeDegrees = 10f; // Target's size in degrees

        float adjustedAngle = aimAssist.MapInputToOrientation(playerInputAngle, targetAngle, targetSizeDegrees);
        Console.WriteLine($"Player Input: {playerInputAngle} degrees");
        Console.WriteLine($"Target Angle: {targetAngle} degrees");
        Console.WriteLine($"Adjusted Angle: {adjustedAngle} degrees");


        playerInputAngle = 75f;
        adjustedAngle = aimAssist.MapInputToOrientation(playerInputAngle, targetAngle, targetSizeDegrees);
        Console.WriteLine($"\nPlayer Input: {playerInputAngle} degrees");
        Console.WriteLine($"Target Angle: {targetAngle} degrees");
        Console.WriteLine($"Adjusted Angle: {adjustedAngle} degrees");

    }
}

This code provides a basic structure for the function MapInputToOrientation. You'll need to significantly expand upon this:

• More sophisticated mapping functions: The MapInputToOrientation function is extremely simplistic. The video suggests using more advanced functions (e.g., cubic splines) to create smoother and more controlled aim assist behavior. Implementing these would require numerical methods and potentially external libraries.
• Target detection and selection: The code lacks any mechanism for detecting and selecting targets. A real game would require collision detection, line-of-sight calculations, and prioritization logic to determine which target the aim assist should focus on.
• Game integration: This code is a standalone example. Integrating it into a game engine (Unity, Unreal Engine, etc.) would require adapting it to the engine's input system and game objects.
• Parameter tuning: The targetSizeDegrees and other parameters would need to be carefully tuned based on playtesting and gameplay balance.

This skeletal example demonstrates the basic idea behind the mathematical approach discussed in the video. Building a fully functional aim assist system would demand much more extensive programming and game design knowledge.

The video doesn't explicitly state that its aim assist framework is directly based on any existing game's specific implementation. While it reverse-engineers the aim assist code from Hades and Death's Door, the purpose isn't to replicate those systems but to use them as case studies to illustrate problems and propose a more general and flexible approach. The core mathematical framework presented (using a function to map player input to avatar orientation) is a novel contribution, though the underlying mathematical concepts (functions, mapping, sensitivity adjustments) are certainly not new. So it's a novel application of existing mathematical ideas to a game development problem.