Sensitivity?

Talking about sensitivity always seems to spark a big debate where some people inevitably lose their cool and others start talking total nonsense. I am going to impart what advice I can give about sensitivity from my own experience, take from it what you will.

What I would call high sensitivity would be anything up to about 12 cm/360 degrees. I would say medium sensitivity was anything from around 12 cm/360 degrees to about 25 cm/360 degrees. Low sensitivity then would be around 25 cm/360 degrees to infinity and beyond. When I played UT2004 I knew players who used 70 cm/360 degrees (they were good), and until about a month ago I used 48 cm/360 degrees.

The bottom line and most important thing to realise about sensitivity is it really is purely personal preference. There are going to be advantages and disadvantages with using different sensitivities, but any disadvantages are potentially irrelevant if your play-style or technique accommodates for them. You can potentially be the best in the world with 5 cm/360 or 100 cm/360.

I made the switch from resting the base of my wrist on the mouse-mat to holding my arm in the air and aiming from the arm in the air. This was done as I lowered my sensitivity, as you can’t really move the mouse well across 20 cm of mouse-mat if your wrist is resting on the pad. The really low sensitivity of 48 cm/360 gave me really fantastic control in the horizontal axis, for scout duels and battles on flat ground like a lot of granary it was great.

I used 48 cm/360 for a long period of time, many months. I eventually switched up to 36 cm/360. Still being a low sensitivity it felt good and gave me the control I wanted, but it gave me some extra manoeuvrability when I needed to aim quickly in the vertical axis like around the badlands spire.

Maybe no sensitivity is better than any other per se. But possibly there is a better sensitivity for you personally. It is possible that as you evolve as a player you may need to change sensitivity to adapt your mouse control to your play style.