Firefall PvP Settings Guide

Firefall PvP Settings Guide by Tempestlol

While I assume most of the people that frequent the PvP forums here are likely veterans of other arcade shooters like I am I decided to make this quick post since I have some friends who would rarely break even in KDA in the PvP setting of this game as they weren’t as traveled in the FPS genre so I decided to tell them to change their settings a bit to see if that did anything, and most of them saw an instant increase in their performance during matches. So I figure on the off chance that I help out a couple more people I’ll write this up.

Graphics

If you care about how your game looks then I recommend checking the “Custom Video Settings” for PvP

In video turn up refresh rate to 60hz. With any luck they’ll increase it to more, but for now max that baby out.

Not going to get overly specific, but I recommend everything, but character models being on lowest setting so that your enemies, and allies will stand out (in some of the other shooters I played we would basically make our game world look like minecraft while the characters still remained the same).

You will want to keep certain options on as well such as bloom as it does help keep track of assault projectiles, and keep particle effects at medium to be able to barely see poison trails, or other similar effects so you can avoid them, but they won’t control your vision. (If anyone knows any console commands to control the particle effects with more detail/precision please let me know).

You’ll also want to set your gamma reasonably high. Don’t worry about the glare that can be fixed with this easy guide:

http://astrekassociation.com/guides/fix-your-firefall-brightness/

NOTE: If you had low frames like I did when I first started playing this game (average 12-25 with all on ultra) then the biggest thing you can do outside of turning off those damn shadows is to lower your resolution (which can make enemies wider on your screen as an added benefit). I didn’t treat this like a real FPS for a while because I was caught up in the fact that it was an MMO so I payed my low frames no credence for far too many embarrassing matches where I was having trouble even keeping my reticule on my enemy.

The most important thing you want to get out of your video settings is more frames per second. It’s not a coincidence that FPS stands both for frames per second, and first person shooter (ok it probably is). Reiterating what I said earlier keeping your reticule on a target tends to be difficult when you are watching a sped up slide show of a PvP match instead of actually playing one.

Gameplay

While these are mostly recommendations/opinions they worked well for my friends, and they work well for me no matter what shooter I play.

-Play in first person. …Or at least most of the time aka when you are trying to murder someone in the face. Third person has it’s very clear uses, but mostly as a navigational tool for better movement, and not outright combat. Ideally you should only be using it for 1-2 seconds at a time before swapping back to first person.

-Turn off toggle on scope, and rescope on reload.

-Set low sensitivity. Guidelines to setting it: You should not be able to turn 180 degrees with a small wrist flick. There should be some actual arm movement. If sensitivity is too high you will overshoot your target if you try using anything that requires precision.

To have a rough idea of what pro’s run with sensitivity wise is around 15-22 cm for a 180 degree turn. (ie The distance that their mouse sensor needs to travel before a 180 degree turn). Obviously this can vary though, and what they do works for them because they are comfortable with it, but I do highly recommend running low sensitivity even you are used to high assuming you overshoot your targets quite often.

-FoV sliders. Lower them. Have you seen how tiny targets can be when you set FoV at maximum? They look like they are much further (smaller target), and thus harder to hit therefore if you lower them they will seem closer (bigger target), and easier to hit. Simple logic.

You can keep third person FoV high as long as you don’t use it for the actual shooting part of the game, but quick swapping between the 2 views, and both of them having extreme differences (such as 1st person being -16 FoV, and third being maxed at 30) can be quite jarring visually speaking and possibly disorienting, but if you can handle it then it would be optimal.

-Turn off weapon in first person. You don’t need to see it, and it takes up too much space plain, and simple.

Interface -> Reticule Manager

DOT ALL THE WEAPONS. Nothing beats the all mighty Dot reticule in any FPS. I recommend also changing the color to something you can see very easily. Bright green is my personal suggestion for that. (I also didn’t like the glow on the reticule, but you can turn that off in advanced video options by checking off the UI glow).

Minor Recommendation

Turn off health bar. You should be able to easily keep track of your health, and make your energy bar small (minimum size), and make it occupy bottom directly above the charge bar so you can easily keep track of your energy in combat without it being too distracting. This also makes your peripheral view better.

TL;DR

Get more frames per second. Set low sensitivity. Play in first person. Set low FoV.