I've been playing shooters since I first put my hands on Goldeneye. Since then, I have never stopped playing shooters. I remember my first time playing SOCOM Navy Seals online. From years of COD, 1.6 to Source to CSGO, Battlefield, R6, Halo, to Half-Life mods you name it, I've put decent hours into it. On PC I feel like my aim has always been more than good enough. Maybe not insane like really high competitive players who always tap heads every time, but if it comes on my screen I aim at it and am able to hit it no problem. I'm able to compete.

Then Valorant comes out, and it literally feels like I cover myself in butter before going on the battlefield. My aim just does not compete with the other golds that I play up against. They aim and shoot consistently like I would in any other game, they see me, they shoot me, I die. I don't consider my game sense to be bad. I've played shooters for years. I understand how to properly hold angles to mitigate perspective. I understand and fully practice good crosshair placement. I understand abilities and how to try to predict where an enemy might be, and it does not matter. They peek, I die. They hold an angle, I die.

It has utterly destroyed my natural confidence in this game that I normally have when playing. I've never felt utterly helpless every engagement like I don't even know how to shoot a gun. Everything about this game feels off, yet so many people say they enjoy it and I don't understand. The FOV feels incredibly wide and the models very small, but even then that shouldn't be too much of a damper on my ability to hit things, yet I can't hit ANYTHING. I've been playing since beta so I can't imagine that almost everyone I play against just magically has infinite more hours in this and know the game better.

Obviously when it comes to my aim, I blame myself first, but sometimes I feel like that isn't fair. My aim is fine in literally everything else but this game, and have never had such an inconsistent existential crisis before I stumbled upon this game.

So uh, what do? I don't feel like I'm getting better regardless of how many hours I put into the game, and just feel like this game isn't for me.