by iFluvio

So a lot of people are super confused about the new sensitivity system and exactly what and why Ubisoft have done it the way they have, well, fear not, I shall explain. To the best of my ability, it’s complicated, but I will try my best.

The TLDR is that it’s better overall and once we get used to it, the community will LOVE what it can do for you.

This is gonna be long so if you don’t care for any background information and just wanna know what to do, skip to “HOW TO USE THE NEW SYSTEM”

HOW THE OLD SYSTEM WORKED

So, in the old system, when you ADS’d, your sensitivity used to be affected by a multiplier that was hardcoded within the game that you could not change.

What you will notice here, is that ACOG and Glaz scale proportionally for the FOV decrease (they have the same multiplier), this means that by running the default 50 ADS, you will in fact have a 1:1 FOV conversion between your Hipfire sensitivity and ACOG/Glaz sensitivities. BUT, as you can also see, the 1x FOV modifier and it’s sensitivity are not the same. This means that you are forced to choose between having your muscle memory translate perfectly between Hipfire and 1x, or Hipfire and ACOG. But never both.

You can find more information about the old system here: https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/rainbow-six/siege/news-updates/6kY6b5JByBY3P6vQWWinla/fov-and-input-sensitivity

That is what this new sensitivity system changes.

WHAT THE NEW SYSTEM DOES

What the new sensitivity system changes is that instead of it using FOV to adjust sensitivities at ranges. It now uses Focal Length, specifically, it uses a method called Monitor Distance.

Now I’m not going to get into the specifics of Focal Length/Monitor Distance, but here’s the guys over at Mouse-Sensitivity.com explaining it. https://www.mouse-sensitivity.com/forums/topic/4704-conversion-method-guide-and-other-faqs/

The maths behind it is convoluted and you don’t need to know it. Basically, if you imagine cutting your monitor in half vertically, the system picks a point on your monitor from the centre upwards and it matches all of your scopes sensitivities so that your physical movement to get to that that point is equal across all the scopes.

In other words, it’s really good for getting 1:1 muscle memory across hugely different FOV’s.

Where is this useful you might ask? Why would I use Monitor Distance instead of 360 distance?

Well, simply put, using 360 distance across large FOV changes, doesn’t actually work. You will not maintain any actual muscle memory really. You’ll just learn the two sensitivities independently and that’ll be that.

Muscle Memory you see, isn’t actually your muscles remembering anything, it’s your brain learning how to instruct your muscles to move from point A to point B in order to line up a target. Field Of View, is actually a fairly large part of that.

If you used 360 distance to transfer your sensitivity from 1x to ACOG for example, it would not translate your muscle memory and the ACOG would feel way too fast. Why? Because the focal length is so wildly different due to the FOV difference.

So using Monitor Distance to match 1x sights to your scoped sensitivities. Is actually incredibly useful for maintaining muscle memory.

Is there any evidence backing this? Absolutely. Monitor Distance is already a staple in modern FPS games. Some examples of games that possess this already are:

• Battlefield’s “Uniform Soldier Aiming” option (It was also the default in BF3, not sure about the rest)
• Call Of Duty’s “Relative” Aiming option.
• Apex Legends default ADS settings.
• CSGO’s default zoom sensitivity
• Valorant’s default zoom sensitivity

So in other words, trust the new system, it’s banging once you get used to it. Now. Onto how to use the damn thing.

You can find more information about the new system here: https://www.ubisoft.com/da-dk/game/rainbow-six/siege/news-updates/77PNM7F9qztJpYi0WkRxoY/dev-blog-sights-scopes-in-y5s3

HOW TO USE THE NEW SYSTEM

Well, the technical best way to use the new system, is to keep it at 50 ADS on standard. What this does, is it actually, by default, makes EVERY sight 1:1 by Monitor Distance compared to your Hipfire, so every sensitivity translates from the Hipfire’d sensitivity. So as you increase magnification, it scales proportionally and you in turn, maintain absolute muscle memory across absolutely everything.

However, as most players likely didn’t use monitor distance 1:1 previously, and have no intention of starting. How do we use it to get our old sensitivities back?

Well, you’re gonna need to do a little maths, but, I have a handy table to help you.

I confirmed this using Mouse-sensitivity.com‘s calculator as well which has been updated to accompany the new test server’s system. https://imgur.com/a/nzkzLhe

And that’s all you need to do. Find both of those values, and copy them across to every sight you’d like to feel the same.

If I want my 2.0 and my 2.5 to feel the same, I’d set them both to 60.

If I want my 1x and 1.5x to feel the same, I’d set them both to 35.

This looks un-intuitive, but remember, the game automatically adjusts the sensitives for Focal Point at 50 ADS, meaning they always scale proportionally. So setting them to the same value, will make them the same Focal Point and in turn, maintain muscle memory.

Here is my current setup. https://imgur.com/oHi8Fol

Mine is setup for 50 ADS from the old build. My 1x is transferred across just to my 1x because of preference, but, I’ve actually transferred my ACOG sensitivity across to ALL the other sights.

So all of my 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 etc are all set to 60, which, thanks to the new system, means they all have the same focal length, so the muscle memory will transfer between them perfectly.

So, what I’d recommend doing is finding out your 1x and ACOG sensitivities using the method above. And then set everything else to those two accordingly.

I’d recommend testing both settings for 1.5x, and come to a conclusion based off of that.

In conclusion, the new sensitivity system is sick, and is actually incredibly useful IF you know what you’re doing.