NEW HALO 5 XBOX ONE "ADVANCED" CONTROLLER OPTIONS

An update for Halo 5: Guardians coming next week will introduce, as promised, some new "advanced" Xbox One controller options. With the update applied, players will be able to further customize shooting and aiming elements such as Look Acceleration, Inner Dead Zone, and Outer Dead Zone.

As explained on Halo Waypoint, the new Look Acceleration option adjusts the time it takes to achieve top look speed. When it arrives next week, the value for this setting will default to 3. If you want an experience that more closely resembles the Halo 5 multiplayer beta, you should use the 2 setting, 343 says.

Inner Dead Zone, meanwhile, pertains to the region around the analog stick's center position that disregards input; this is meant to prevent camera drift when you aren't actually touching the stick. Sometimes analog sticks don't return perfectly to the center (due to controller wear, etc.), and the new Inner Dead Zone customization options should help you have a better experience.

You'll need to test things out to find out what works best.

"Try turning the Inner Dead Zone down to 0 percent and test if you run into cases where after releasing the look stick, the camera continues drifting," 343 said. "If you do get drift, increase the inner dead zone setting a bit and try again. Ideally, you want as small of a deadzone as possible so that you're maximizing as much of the analog stick as possible."

The third new Xbox One controller option coming to Halo 5 next week is Outer Dead Zone. This will allow you to tweak the point at which the analog stick records 100 percent input.

"Outer Dead Zone is used to prevent slow turn (when you are applying 100 percent input on the look stick but not reaching top look speed). The larger the Outer Dead Zone, the sooner you will hit 100 percent," 343 said.

As with Inner Dead Zone, 343 provided some tuning recommendations to help you find out what works best.

"Try turning the Outer Dead Zone down to 0 percent and test if you run into cases where you can't hit the 'pegged state' and encounter slow turn," 343 said. "If you do get slow turn, increase it a bit more and try again. Note that the majority of cases we found where people were encountering slowturn were somewhat hard to discover as the problem tended to be inconsistent and were often happening only when clenching, torqueing, or rotating the analog stick around the edges a tad. So you might need to experiment with this one a tad more before settling on the proper setting."

343 also notes that the default values for Halo 5's three new controller options are unchanged from the settings as they exist today. That is to say, 343 is not changing how Halo 5 plays for everyone, but only giving players who do want more choices--and there seem to be quite a few--exactly that.

You can click through the images in the gallery above to get a closer look at the new options.

These changes come to Halo 5 through The Cartographer's Gift update, which is confirmed to launch sometime next week. 343 will showcase this update as part of a livestream event today.

We are excited to share with you that as part of next week’s update, we have added some additional options to the Controller Menu that will allow you to further customize your shooting/aiming experience. Included with the Cartographer's Gift update are customizable settings for:

Look Acceleration

Inner Dead Zone

Outer Dead Zone

Here is a quick overview of each and some guidance on using them.

LOOK ACCELERATION

Look Acceleration adjusts the time it takes to hit max look speed when you peg (apply 100% input in any direction) the look stick. The higher the setting, the quicker you will reach top speed, and the lower the setting, the longer it takes to reach top speed. 

Currently, this value defaults to 3. For Halo 5's launch, we made the Look Acceleration a tad faster than it has been in past games and the Halo 5 Multiplayer Beta. This was done in part to help you make large aim corrections a bit faster (for example, if someone is attacking you from behind it allows you to more quickly do a 180). If you would like the Look Acceleration to match the Multiplayer Beta, use a setting of 2 here. 

INNER DEAD ZONE

The Inner Dead Zone refers to a small region around the analog stick’s center position where we disregard input. Inner Dead Zone is used to prevent drift (camera movement when you aren’t applying any input to the look stick). This is caused because the analog sticks do not always return perfectly to center for a variety of reasons (manufacturing tolerances, wear and tear on the controller, etc). Note that the default we use here aligns with the platform recommended value and is what past Halo games have also used. 

Recommended tuning process: Try turning the Inner Dead Zone down to 0% and test if you run into cases where after releasing the look stick, the camera continues drifting. If you do get drift, increase the inner dead zone setting a bit and try again. Ideally, you want as small of a deadzone as possible so that you're maximizing as much of the analog stick as possible. 

OUTER DEAD ZONE

The Outer Dead Zone allows you to adjust the point at which the analog stick registers as hitting 100% input. Outer Dead Zone is used to prevent slow turn (when you are applying 100% input on the look stick but not reaching top look speed). The larger the Outer Dead Zone, the sooner you will hit 100%. 

Recommended tuning process: Try turning the Outer Dead Zone down to 0% and test if you run into cases where you can’t hit the "pegged state" and encounter slow turn. If you do get slow turn, increase it a bit more and try again. Note that the majority of cases we found where people were encountering slowturn were somewhat hard to discover as the problem tended to be inconsistent and were often happening only when clenching, torqueing, or rotating the analog stick around the edges a tad. So you might need to experiment with this one a tad more before settling on the proper setting

Finally -- note that the default values on these parameters are all identical to what we (and you) have been using previously. Therefore, you don’t need to worry about this update changing anything. If you don’t touch them, the game will play identically to how it has. But for those of you that want the ability to more intimately adjust your aiming experience, these parameters should provide more fine-tuned control that will help better adjust the game to your specific controller hardware and personal preferences.