Are gaming pens the future instead of mice? Drawing tablet to reach Immortal in Valorant ft. Kariyu

Imagine playing a first person shooter with a pen and tablet combo, usually used for graphic design (and osu! these days), now imagine actually reaching Immortal rank in Valorant with it. That's what Kariyu managed to do, so I jumped on a call with him to talk about what it could mean for the future of gaming.
I started this channel because I realized I could aim better with smaller mice and wanted to share the experience... and I've found that having a thinner grip width, along with lower button height really helps aim. So what if we used something even smaller like a pen?
Kariyu has some answers, so hope you enjoy the chat!
Kariyu's links:
KZbin / @kariyu101
Twitch / kariyu
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And my books theheroesfall.com
Rocket Jump Ninja website links:
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Mouse Search - www.rocketjumpninja.com/mouse...
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[@Kariyu101]

Thanks for having me on this video RJN!! 🔥✍

[@Jarran2R]

ask him to uncapitalize osu in the description

[@Ztylish]

Try using elgato pedal to shoot

[@RocketJumpNinja]

@JARRAN2R ok done!

[@RocketJumpNinja]

@Kariyu101 Appreciate the convo, was awesome, thanks again for the chat and the insight!

[@daishin8492]

hey its the osu nerd

[@CosyPigeon]

As a digital artist and a gamer, I really think it would be worth reaching out to Wacom and other companies that make digital art tablets and showing them this, because I'd love it if my wacom stylus had a scroll wheel and extra buttons, because that would be useful for both art, and potentialy FPS games.

[@WARnTEA]

I think this is probably a limitation of Wacom’s technology because their pens don’t have a battery in them. The tablet sends electricity to the pen with a magnetic field and its not a lot of electricity. It’d be almost impossible to cram a small mechanical scrollwheel into the pen, and also the scrollwheel would have to be near where the buttons are because the bottom half of the pen is a charging coil that receives electricity from the tablet. The only viable way to make a scrollwheel work would be with an optical sensor, but those use a lot of electricity, which the pen probably can’t spare. They’ve have to switch to a battery and force users to charge their pens if they wanted to put a scroll wheel on it. Wacom probably thought about and tried to put a scrollwheel on the pen because they basically ended up putting a scrollwheel on the tablet itself, using a scrollwheel is so useful in art programs be it for zooming, rotating or changing brush size.

[@takaga2236]

osu! community tried doing that a long time ago (back in 2016 when ctl490 got launched and had a ton of useful features for drawing that added huge input delay) iirc wacom didnt want to be associated with the gaming market, even though they were fine with people using their products for that

[@creaturedanaaaaa]

@@WARnTEA a thin capacitive touch pad could probably be low enough power and send scroll inputs from rubbing your finger on it

[@WARnTEA]

@@creaturedanaaaaa I'm doubtful. The actual touchpad might be low power, but you would need a MCU in the pen powerful enough to process those inputs. To give you an idea of how power limited wacom is, their most recent super expensive Cintiq adds a 3rd button onto the pen, but had to remove the eraser to do it, so the number of buttons remained the same they just changed the positioning of that button.

[@spamspasm8183]

@@WARnTEAWhat about a small 2.4ghz circuit powered by LR44 batteries just for the scroll function? And make it optional. Like don't put a battery and scroll won't work but the rest will.

[@austinkomachi]

You can tell kariyu is such a smart guy. The responses he gave in the interview are full of great insight and very digestable for people not familiar with drawing tablets.

[@Iuffycs]

🤓🤓🤓

[@prestoiidx]

Idk, thats how every osu player would describe the distinction between absolute input on 2d osu and relative input on 3d games

[@testtube173]

Yeah no. Kariyu did not come off as a smart guy at all. Knowledgeable about this particular subject but a far cry from intelligent.

[@champ1915]

@@testtube173 "A far cry from intelligent" You based that off one video? Make it make sense, you're just contraddicting yourself at this point.

[@happygofishing]

Tell me you are below 18 without telling me. @@Iuffycs

[@CosyPigeon]

Hypothesis: it's not that the mouse is smaller that makes you aim better, it's that a smaller mouse means you have a more intuitive understanding of where the sensor is relative to you hand. I'd be very curious to see how precise you could get with a mouse that has the sensor sit directly under your index finger, so that you have a better understanding of where the pointer is, and the pointer feels like an extension of your index finger, rather than a dot that's attached to your hand somewhere.

[@SayoojSojenSpell1612]

I feel you're on to something. Maybe have the sensor sit beneath the left click/index finger, instead of the middle of the palm/mouse.

[@-nomi.-]

yo this is smart

[@mattj8784]

the only difference that would make is if you aim in an arc (moving your wrist) it would have more movement (and more variable height), would probably be harder to aim with at least at first. imagine trying to do a somewhat straight line with just wrist aim like that. the reason pen aiming is so intuitive is that we all write and know when you write where the line will be (as we've done it millions of times) and it's easier to manipulate a small tube because you can use all your fingers around it, not just on the top guiding it. by that logic since we all have used mice with the sensor roughly in the middle for years changing that location would probably do more harm than good

[@Robin-ou1gg]

there are mice with sensors at the top and they feel like shit. Even just a bit off the center where you grip with your thumb feels off. Also i imagine itd be weird having the sensor off the y axis but of course i dont know for sure Edit: dont wanna come of as a toxic besserwisser, its a good idea :)

[@WARnTEA]

It actually wouldn’t improve anything because mouse aim is relative. It looks like we are moving in a straight line across the screen but in reality the mouse is pivoting around the wrist or elbow joint and rotating slightly. So since the entire mouse is pivoting in the exact same way it doesn’t matter where the sensor is on the mouse, the arc is the same. The only difference comes from changing Y axis positioning. However you can basically just think of Y axis position as a way to adjust wrist aim sensitivity. Being under your index finger really doesn’t matter because like I said your mouse movement is tied to your pivot point. The main difference is that a sensor position further away from the pivot point has a bigger arc and travels a further distance across the pad. This is why you can think of it as changing wrist aim sensitivity, because moving the sensor up only makes wrist aim harder to control. Sensor position doesn’t really effect arm aiming because the pivot point is so far away from the sensor the difference in arc sizes become almost unnoticeable, especially because you are limited by your mousepad size. You could do sort of a fingertip aim style that doesn’t rotate around a pivot point and doesn’t move the wrist but almost no one uses this method because its too restrictive. You wouldn’t be able to move the sensor far across the mousepad with this style, which will make it harder to be accurate as you would need to increase dpi to compensate for the lack of movement and at higher dpi, small movements are more noticeable. Even your heart beat might cause the cursor to move if your dpi is high enough. The idea of using the index finger to aim really isn’t a new idea. Thousands of people have had this same thought. If it actually was a viable way to aim it would exist by now. Also, smaller mouse is so pointless. Other than weight reasons, smaller mouse really doesn’t do anything. If anything larger mice are better because a larger surface area contact equals more friction/grip. With more grip its easier to prevent the mouse from falling out of alignment with the pivot point. The one any only good improvement RJN made on his mouse were the rails. The rails increase surface area, but beyond that they allow the fingertips to help the wrist pivot. The wrist going side to side isn’t a particularly accurate movement, idk if you noticed but the wrist pivots so much more to the right than it does to the left. With the rails the fingertips can aid in smoothening out that movement and making small microadjustments because the fingers have a small amount of range that they can also pivot that is separate from the wrist movement. The sad thing is that the success of Zy’s rails has made him into a fanatic about small mice and low button clicks. He thinks those two things contribute to why his mouse provides a better aim than the competition, but in reality its the rails that do all the work. Its pretty easy to test these things too, just stack a bunch of tape on the side of the mouse or on the triggers and you won’t find a noticeable difference the further away from the sensor you get.

[@phizaal]

Kariyu seems like a proper gamer, just out to have some fun! love it! Cool idea for sure, interested to see if any gaming companies have anything in the works. TY RJN!

[@RocketJumpNinja]

Yeah he really is, just has that natural curiosity of how to improve and enjoys the journey of figuring things out, isn't afraid to be bad while he tries new things. Great attitude, not to mention the awesome skills he's developed from all the practice across multiple games. Looking forward to seeing what he gets up to in the future!

[@drahsid2]

I've played FPS games on a tablet for fun as well. It's a lot more precise in terms for micro-adjustments over even using a super speed mouse + pad. Besides other issues, I'd like to see higher polling rate tablets.

[@kiyu_u6009]

You can set at least the CTL472 to 500hz on opentablet driver. I haven’t tried 1000 extensively but I think that works too.

[@drahsid2]

@@kiyu_u6009 Oh that's really cool. Do you know if that's actually 500hz, or if it's doing any sort of smoothing?

[@TunaIRL]

Polling rate is largely irrelevant to a tablet when using it normally because they check for the pens position constantly in tablet mode. That's why they don't have a reason to increase it. The CTL472 has a polling rate of a 133Hz. It will not send data any faster no matter what the software says lol

[@tbqhwyf]

​@@drahsid2they're talking about interpolating, yes

[@xKaz]

I tried gaming with a pen and the challenging thing was definitely the hover distance. Very happy that was covered because needing to readjust is very vital and having no contact felt really weird.

[@garrettlison4992]

This reminds me of the evolution of fighting game controllers from the typical arcade layout to leverless (joystickless) controllers. I think it grew out of the precision needed for controls which a digital button better provides over the traditional stick. Now these leverless controllers are very popular, using buttons for the cardinal direction inputs as well as your normal attacks/inputs. While "gaming pens" might not be on the horizon soon, there could be something similar that comes down the pipe in the future.

[@garrettlison4992]

@@Jordan-rNvgQ I mainly play OW2 with a bit of CS2 mixed in as well as SF6 and GGS. I loved +R but it got a little too difficult for my stupid fingers to keep up. I've actually wanted to just stick with one over the other just to see if I can get better, but it's hard to pull away completely. Cheers!

[@matthewskullblood9778]

What's a leverless controller are you talking about those fight boxes

[@garrettlison4992]

@@matthewskullblood9778 Yea, there are some that have specific names like the Hit Box, but I think that's a brand.

[@Fate025]

We used to say the pen is greater than the sword Now we can say the pen is greater than the mouse......

[@BOZ_11]

Very insightful. Getting a scroll wheel and 2 buttons is the challenge

[@RocketJumpNinja]

And done in such a way that doesn't "push" the pen when clicked/used, that was the major issue that he showed. I wonder about this with mice too, like I never bind my side buttons to something I would use while aiming because of the slight movement you get, not to mention repositioning your thumb/grip. Downward force seems to be fine on mice, doesn't effect aim with mouse1 and mouse2, so can we use a downward force button with a pen? I think if we do get gaming tablets, they won't actually be traditionally shaped pens because of the button problem.

[@BOZ_11]

@@RocketJumpNinja "I never bind my side buttons to something I would use while aiming because of the slight movement" ---you usually have to wait a second for the weapon to switch, by which time your x-hair is back on the target. I don't think I've ever found it to be the culprit for missing a shot, but you never know "they won't actually be traditionally shaped pens because of the button problem." ---The hypothetical mouse we're talking about might have an L shape, where the foot of the L is in contact with the desk/pad (which is also where your grip is), so the longer part of the L, you can engage the pinky and ring fingers. Maybe get a scroll wheel on there for the ring finger, and a button for the pinky.

[@PxEclipse]

The razer tartarus has a scroll wheel.

[@mitsuracer87]

​@RocketJumpNinja that's interesting. I'm a high level Xonotic player and I bind thumb 1 to secondary fire, thumb 2 to zoom, and right click to jump. It hasn't negatively affected me really. Although it would be interesting to try a foot pedal for zoom or use my left hand for some of those things..but my left hand is already too busy with WASD, Grapple and crouch.

[@incediumignis]

just bind scroll wheel down and up to keyboard keys with autohotkey and adjust the scrolling speed in windows. For ads you can use hold on on the front side pen button and for shoot you press the tip on the pad.

[@VontezDecreamy]

This is actually insane to hear he got this far with a pen and tab lmao just continues to blow my mind. Props, dude has mad skill! thats such a cool concept.

[@HalfinchLonomia]

This would be very awkward for me to switch to, as i'm a left-handed writer but a right-handed mouse user 😅

[@RocketJumpNinja]

Edit: Ok Kariyu is right handed, never mind hah That said, Rafael Nadal is right handed but coach told him to play left handed apparently, to upset his opponents, and look at his success. It can be done!

[@yoshi555king]

same as me mumsy really, she writes with left but usually used a right handed mouse (although my M42 could change that for her)

[@uhhhhhhhhh333]

SAME

[@NeedMoarRage]

I am right handed but use mice on my left 😄

[@adamdunne6645]

​@@RocketJumpNinjaNadal is a genetic freak of nature. The top 1% might be able to do it but the rest of us are plebs

[@JimmyNuisance]

If no one has mentioned this: Wacom makes an Airbrush pen (expensive..) with a scroll wheel on it. It's pretty sweet, very ergonomically sound. I think it could be great for pen gaming. Also, gotta put your fire button on the keyboard so you don't accidentally move your pen around while shooting. Just like with flight sims, moving the fire button to the throttle gives you way better precision. Takes a bit of time getting used to, but it's well worth it. Even for mouse players it's pretty sweet cause you never need to grip your mouse harder to click.. you just hold the mouse with the exact same grip pressure all the time, which gives you absolutely stable and consistent aim. If you don't want to shoot with your keyboard hand, get one of those foot switches... I know this way of controlling seems ridiculous, but it really does work. Decoupling your trigger hand from your aim is great.

[@DamnAwesome]

This is such a cool video! I hope we can see more people testing this out!

[@mattsbroadcasting]

Great video. I love the different ideas for trying different inputs and thinking outside the box.

[@brodriguez11000]

Macropad with knobs for replacing the scroll-wheel.

[@Titanmster21]

I really hope this blows up and pens get more mainstream I need pen support already.

[@JulianGoddard]

The few times I've tried my drawing tablet with csgo it has felt like aimbot

[@Skiptrac3]

I think part of the reason why is that you can compensate for CS’s fixed aim pattern even more precisely than with a mouse if you use a drawing tablet. You’re literally just drawing the AK spray pattern when you are trying to compensate for it.

[@TunaIRL]

​@@Skiptrac3You're also just drawing it with a mouse too? Just with a mouse lol. You could say you can draw it more precisely with a pen, if you're used to using a drawing tablet. But that's not always the case either

[@SianaGearz]

@@TunaIRL Yeah but drawing any intricate shape with a mouse is pretty much a torture. This is why art/digitiser tablets were invented pretty much.

[@TunaIRL]

@@SianaGearz Yes obviously, and that's why I too said it's more precise. But you're also drawing the pattern with the mouse. A tablet if you're not used to one is not going to be better instantly either. It requires practice to get used to the eye hand coordination. It's a much different experience to not look at what your hand is doing and instead look at the screen so the experience is never "just drawing" in that sense anyway. I just find it funny when people say that "you can just draw the recoil". Duh, that's how you've always been controlling recoil. You can potentially draw it more precisely with a tablet though.

[@SianaGearz]

@@TunaIRL I have been using tablets for longer than most people here have been alive, having dumpster dove myself an RS232 Wacom PenPartner CT-0405 (light grey-beige) in the late 90s. Some things absolutely do work better from the first moment, you can do a shape of any letter, any simple squiggle, on a tablet much better than on a mouse. Larger scale movements do present an issue, particularly with angle orientation. Hand eye coordination training is advised where you get yourself a grid and then circle every intersection. It takes a couple weeks to become comfortable with indirect drawing like this. But basic tasks like software control mostly don't pose issues from day 1 either, since mouse based office/productivity software actually avoids being too demanding. Like once you start dragging a control, you don't just slip off if you veer off.

[@argonaut502]

I feel like this also depends on the pace of the game as I tried this in Overwatch 1 for about 4 months and I thought my wrist was going to die. After watching this though it has made me want to pick it up again.

[@TheDioginese]

My man Zy, The OG. Trailblazing the mouse enthusiast community. Seriously im confident if you never created your channel we would all still be using the same old repacked heavy mice and be none the wiser. Id go as far to say that you have shaped a generation of PC gamers from casual enthusiasts to the professional scene. I believe i was subbed to you when you jad under 500 subs. I drove a truck overnights, and when you dropped a video id be sroked to listen to it through my bluetooth headset. You motivated me to buy a logitech g303 and the Gigabyte xm300. Thanks for making the hobby what it is today, and always thanks for the content and entertainment. Cheers!

[@RocketJumpNinja]

Ey, appreciate the support all these years, thanks for sticking around! Yeah the mouse companies did the work, all I did was offer a "Quake veteran's" guiding voice, which was supported by you guys. If you all didn't watch my channel, the companies would never have listened to me. I also took advice from the community to the companies, so I acted as a bit of a mediator too. But you're right, if we didn't form this community and make the requests to the companies, we'd still be getting: - Heavy mice - Unsafe / over-designed shapes - Terrible jittery laser sensors that would then use angle snapping and smoothing to fix it - High latency/debounce - Rubber cables (thanks to paracords for leading the way there) - Wired mice (wasn't long ago people were still afraid of wireless, we converted them!) And a bunch of other stuff, but they're the main ones off the top of my head. So yeah it's been quite a journey, definitely cool to see how far we've come as a community/industry!

[@DustyyBoi]

17:11 that's actually kinda smart

[@Omaryllo]

The filters he's talking about is some of the hallmark features of high-end gaming mice. particularly smoothing and noise reduction. Also I have an idea for the primary fire issue. If you make a pen with a thicker tip such that it has space for 2 buttons where you'd rest your index and thumb on, but still have the stem of a pen, that would probably be the most ergonomic way to do it. Really hope to see it!

[@axis2066]

i was thinking of this, cool that you’re talking about this subject

[@imalsoTOMATO]

Remember the Razer Tarturus? If I recall correctly that has a scroll wheel near where your thumb would lay, something like that but modified for shooters would solve some of the issues for buttons on the pen. Another thing I can think of that might help is having pressure sensitive buttons, similar to those android phones a couple years ago where you would squeeze the phone for certain actions, perhaps something like that would be better than a button for a pen.

[@ox4tune]

Very interesting, hyped to see how our input devices will change and inovate :)

[@shiryonai]

I tried this out before covid in CS for a few games using default drivers and no filters. My main issue was the polling rate on the tablet as it made my flicks feel weird. Cool to see someone actually push it to a high level

[@ClowdyHowdy]

The steam controller had a mode for fps gaming that emulated a trackball when you flick it, but would then go into relative mode as soon as you touch the pad with your thumb. It ends up feeling really intuitive. I think a trackball emulation mode for a tablet would do a lot to allow quicker movements alongside fiber aim controls. It would involve creating a custom driver for a tablet though.

[@tapyinz]

I love this interview. His explanations make my brain tingle. He's smart.

[@Never-began]

8:08 That can be solved with an adjustable acceleration curve using something like raw accel if you don't want to give up the low sense advantage. Unlike laser sensors acceleration, raw accel allows you to set the curve exactly how you want it to be giving you the benefits of low and high sense at the same time, which is also better for your wrist in the long run. Your wrist will appreciate it when you're in your 60's.

[@crettywap2981]

I been waiting for people to do this

[@LlamaSurvives]

this idea is going places, hope the idea comes to consumer market and that he gets the benniees he deserves. this is a legit good idea

[@Robin-ou1gg]

Ive been waiting for this for a long time

[@NorroTaku]

I like when you do collaborative stuff break out the bubble and more science / idealism themed keep it up

[@EbolaBearr]

You should see the guy who plays csgo with controller, he uses the gyro inside to get really precise movements from actually tilting the entire controller and stuff, really cool

[@zinzyk]

Since you're exploring other ways to aim you might be interested in SolarLight's video on using the gyro function in controllers to aim in TF2

[@jabba969]

I feel like adding a gaming keypad like a razer tartarus could solve most of the problems (it also has a scroll wheel!)

[@1oneguythat]

Macro software could fix this but unlikely they will release said update.

[@BigWaterDrinker]

I remember first learning about this after TI9 when Jerax did a stream and then he said he wanted to be the first person to reach immortal in valorant with a tablet and I thought there was no way. I can't believe someone actually did it.

[@639wheeler]

That's pretty awesome, I need to lean how to use a pen right handed, or get a one handed gaming keyboard and learn how to use my right hand for movement, it's weird I'm left handed, but I use keyboard and mouse right handed, but because it's a pen, my brain would treat it like I was writing instead of playing a game... I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've come across this channel, good work man! You got another subscriber

[@martingreer2714]

I love that he showed the stability/drift issue with inbuilt buttons on the pen. When the scroll wheel issue for Apex came up I started thinking if you could just add M1, M2 and a scroll wheel to a pen. I ended up thinking it wouldn't work well because of the reduced stability of the pen when compared to a mouse. Due to the form of a mouse it's (mostly) stuck on a 2D plane with the sensor kept parallel to the surface, this keeps it pretty stable. The pen however rotates and sways around with your hand movements, and any button presses would necessarily "drift" the sensor. It would probably be a bit like firing while using hold to crouch on an analog stick controller, not impossible but uncomfortable and negatively affects accuracy.

[@p.4lvv]

add scroll wheel to the keyboard instead and viola problem solved XD, I have a weird ass keyboard with scroll whell and 6 reachable tumb button with an extra pinky button, so I can just spam everything in my keyboard XD

[@I86282]

One of the best KZbin videos I've seen in a long time.!!! 👍👍 And I watch a lot of KZbin.

[@josh22920killer]

Iv always been so curious about this 😂 man that's fucking awesome what a pioneer

[@TontonGahu]

This is so fun, I had thought about that a while back when playing Metroid Prime Hunter on the DS after seing people playing OSU with a tablet. I would definitely want to try this if I had the cash to burn on the tablet for this experiments.

[@portia9191]

this was such a great conversation to listen to - great video!

[@PlayItLikeABoss]

I played the original StarCraft with a pen back in the days. It was an.. interesting experience. Actually got used to it quite quickly which was surprising.

[@i_are_penguin805]

Bravo, I was waiting for a top quality mouse reviewer to do a vid on this topic. You certainly delivered good job.

[@bilboshaggins6553]

Make a mouse pen. Car painters especially the ones that do more intricate paintjobs into cars and bikes use these things called airbrushes for very precise work, the grip is almost the same as using a pen. Make it a little bit bigger, change the shape slightly but keep the design of a pen as a base so that ur precise grip doenst change that much, but make it bigger in a way that would make it possible to for example keep using ur thumb and middle finger as the guiding and aiming fingers and then make buttons for ur other fingers depending on how many u want. Dont make the shape too big or uncomfortable so that u dont loose precision in ur movements, also maybe try to make the shape in a way that even tho ur other fingers would be ready to press buttons make it so that the finger is gripping around something with their lenght. This way ur buttons fingers would be still supporting and be used in ur grip and only the tip of those fingers would able to press a button, this might also prevent some of the small movements when pressing a button on an osu pen like he said in the video as ur fingers would be supported by the shell. Or use an upright ergo mouse as a base and put a pen at the end of it that u can move XD

[@armin3419]

Me playing Metroid Prime Hunters and CoD on the Nintendo DS 10 years ago: _I am five universes ahead of you_

[@imromano2448]

5:28 Razer Keypads (and probably other keypads) have scrollwheels on them. That could be a way of going around it :)

[@aditmaul3]

it's so interesting, I was wondering is there any mouse with the optic right below the mouse left button? at least near that area, not in the middle of the mouse

[@dudeguy556]

Wolfenstein ET was also my first FPS! that was a fun game

[@Shaymin7]

How do you shoot with a pen - or even zoom with a sniper rifle? Does the pen also have buttons (mouse 1 and mouse 2) or do you have to bind shooting on spacebar for example?

[@connor_the_otter]

There were a couple of FPS games on the DS that had you use the touchscreen with the stylus to aim. One of the best examples being Renegade Kid's (Now known as Atooi) Dementium 1 & 2, and Moon. Aiming in those games felt so responsive and accurate, i loved it so much. The games ran at 60fps as well. It would kill to try a gaming pen/tablet accessory if i could find something like it.

[@thecandyrain]

the OG nintendo DS had a metroid prime FPS game with online competitive multiplayer, you aimed with the stylus on the bottom touch screen and I swear to this day that was the best non-pc aiming method i've ever felt

[@Kasspirr]

After I switched from palm to claw grip my hand naturally want to grip a mouse like a pen. I tilt my hand very much and have almost no wrist extention if I can. Thats also a reason I struggled to find good shape for me. I had a thought about trying out pen but never did it. Nice to see someone explain topic in such a detail.

[@Terra101]

This is the reason you want the sensor about parallel to the point where you apply pressure with your thumb, it makes it feel like writing with a pen in your fingers, instead of it feeling like you're writing with your palm or from literally your wrist (With lower sensor mice). The reason you would want to grip your pen further down is that with a pen you can tilt it to the sides, which you cannot do with a mouse, so a low mouse isn't really as important as gripping a pen far down, because that dimension is locked with a computer mouse, because it lays completely flat on the surface. With a pen, you kinda "lock" this dimension with gripping it further down, which isn't necessary with a mouse. This could be a problem if your base is skewed or your mouse skates are uneven or unstable, because then a higher grip would accentuate the unstableness. While grip width and grip height matters, I don't think it matters as much as sensor position. Which few people seem to have experimented with, sadly.

[@jadedbreadncircus9159]

Leverless made me switch from casual to FGC lover, & honestly aiming like this sounds like a joy. I just wonder about buttons, but I'm sure that can be designed. I was thinking of the fire input being like you increase drawing pressure. That way you're going straight down to input instead of a button press. The cost is drag on speed. It seems like an alright sacrifice.

[@Krystalmyth]

S4 League is such an underrated game. The execution level for that game is insane.

[@SianaGearz]

Half time is fumbi time.

[@SCP-3090]

Awesome video man

[@shinejnn2]

I agree soo much on this idea and this myth. Pen tablet are soo much more compatible and precise, and probably more comfortable to hold in hand, and It'll look dang cool. If I were a engineer myself, I would have go create new design with it and make new tech with it, seriously very good idea. Hopefully someone out there would take note of this.

[@Mr.Beanis]

I’ve been doing this on and off for a while too. I’ve definitely felt limited by the drawing tablet I have. Mine is small like his, and unless you want to play on a high sense you have to reset a lot. Also, pen shapes as well as the game you’re playing have a large impact on play style. I had to rebind almost all of my overwatch skill keys and ended up using my keyboard for right click. Star Rain, another high level drawing tablet player, uses their keyboard even for left clicking as to not have aim deviation when pressing down the pen.

[@keix]

the moment i saw the topic of the video I thought of kariyu, nice to see he was in this

[@Gornius]

Once my mouse broke, but as I was an osu! player I had tablet laying around, and tried playing Overwatch with it. It took literally no time to readjust and it felt like an aimbot (at least if you had osu! tablet experience), but it was too tiring to hold the pen whole the time for me, so switched back to mouse. In my opinion, the ultimate factor why it's so easy to use it is a weight. The pen is several times lighter than the lightest mouses and you can immediately start and - more importantly - stop movements.

[@DaraulHarris]

Your rationale at the beginning makes perfect sense. My problem now is that I'm left handed 😆

[@Bombzy]

I been playing different games with a Pen for about a year now and i love it. play a lot of COD, OW, CS.

[@bstrxn]

Pens can utilize gyro, meaning you can have selective acceleration when you flick the pen to aid ergonomics. When upright, and tracking, no acceleration

[@joeytmandude]

To solve the button push issue without using keyboard to shoot, what if you used a foot pedal/foot button to shoot?

[@lukiworker]

i learned to play and navigate through my right hand with the mouse. I only use my left hand when holding pens or spoons in cups. That seems to be the first possibility for me to try out.

[@DalanSjet]

Hey, RJN, I haven't tried it myself, but how about the Swiftpoint ProPoint Wireless Ergonomic Mouse? it's pretty tiny, and also kinda simulates a pen grip?

[@MinhTran-freespirit]

With a touch sensor as scroll wheel on the "left pen button", this would probably revolutionize FPS games

[@poobalu]

I think a touch sensor instead of a physical wheel could work if tuned right, like a fingerprint sensor on phones

[@Visstnok]

Much interesting! I think you can always make input better, if you optimize for the particular game and even person. In PUBG, I use my thumb on Z and X for lean. My thumb also does prone on C and jump on Space. It's a smart solution for the keyboard that's already there, but if I had complete freedom to manufacture my own device, the keyboard would look clunky pretty quick. If it instead was Apex I designed for, the device would take on a new form. Maybe deep in the future we're all hooked up to some elliptical-trainer-looking device to play our games. I would like to exercise more parts of the body to gain an advantage. I suppose gaming, sports, AR and VR will converge eventually.

[@nekomito3]

About the scroll wheel thing: Usually, pens come with 2 buttons. Now if you aren't shooting or doing anything else on those buttons already, wouldnt it be possible to bind the buttons as "scroll wheel up" and "scoll wheel down"? I haven't tried it yet, and there is probably not enough driver support to do it, but it should be possible, no?

[@djvidual8288]

Such an interesting concept!

[@MetalHips]

Would an up/down buttons/slider selector be a better replacement for scroll wheel. Smaller profile less abrasive

[@FlameForgedSoul]

We've been interested in this ever since CGP Grey mentioned it on a podcast(he has RSI and a pen tablet was his ergonomic solution to gaming). As Kariyu mentioned you're going to need boutique hardware to make it viable for a wider user base. Edited to also suggest pairing with a programmable gaming keypad, which might solve the "which keybind to shoot" issue.

[@davidjdunham]

for a scroll wheel, you could just have a button on the pen where if you press it, all of your pens up and down movement would just be scrolling.

[@nuhuh9455]

i was thinking of some sort of tandem usage of a drawing tablet and an analog stick (used as a sort of "flick stick" to compensate for the tablet's lack of range of motion) just putting the idea out there, i dunno how it'd be ergonomically

[@kenny1021]

Awsome seeing some light being shed on these ideas... btw, when mz2?

[@IStratz]

I thought about this a couple years ago as well. There's no way the bigger companies like Logitech and Razer haven't already tried prototyping "gaming pens" already. Since it's already been researched and we haven't heard anything, I would imagine that it didn't go very well. I'm a believer as well that things will eventually move into this direction as well, but it would definitely need some pretty extreme innovation.

[@WARnTEA]

I agree. The more you dive into how mouse sensors work, it becomes more obvious why this is a bad idea. Tech that might actually be beneficial for improving aim might be putting a small touchpad on the trigger. The touchpad could be locked to absolute positioning like a tablet and just be sensitive enough to move the crosshair across 5 pixels on screen. So you’d basically be able to aim in a 5x5 25pixel grid with just your fingertips rocking side to side/up and down. Maybe this could improve long range precision, but also maybe it doesn’t. It also would be a pain in the dick to calibrate unless game devs adopt the feature and include an adjustment setting in their game. The problem is that changing dpi or sensitivity would massively change the number of pixels moved when using the touchpad so you would have to manually turn down/up the sensitivity of the touchpad everytime you changed ingame sens. The one good benefit of this type of system if it became standard would be that the trigger’s touchpad could be used as a scrollwheel in other programs instead of needing a physical scrollwheel. Kind of like how the scroll works on a magic mouse.

[@TunaIRL]

You'd also have to be super relaxed with the pen to not cause strain on your wrist. I tried using my tablet for CS and valorant for a few hours yesterday and having to tense my hand a lot more compared to drawing because of the ultra precise movements you have to make caused my wrist to start hurting quite fast. It could probably cause even more wrist problems in people than mice do already.

[@datwolfe3512]

Infrared sensor on the pen, when finger is not covering sensor it counts as clicking? Perhaps good idea perhaps trash let me know

[@jointercz]

I was using a Wacom tablet about a decade ago at work, when I had wrist issues. Just to control Windows. Interesting use, nice.

[@zombiedeathrays8862]

I’ve started warming up doing drawing exercises with my mouse to improve my fine mouse control. Are you could do writing exercises. It helps get the rust off before aim training.

[@iVynlz]

what about a mouse sensor at the bottom of the pen, so essentially a pen shaped mouse? itd eliminate the tablet an would allow you to use the pen on any regular mouse pad

[@grimm_gen]

For me the best Aiming experience was playing COD MW and Black Ops on the Wii back in the days, the nunchuk felt so natural in fps games

[@Ebrahim766]

I think future aim device would be something that track you palm ( any part of your palm that you want it to be )and all your fingers are free to click or anything else

[@ranger_1472]

I remember WarOwl made a video about playing with something like a Wacom tablet. Being able to intuitively "draw" the spray pattern is pretty cool.

[@TheSast]

I'll try this out too, hopefully the tablet I can use still works

[@RocketJumpNinja]

Good luck with all the filters, sounded intense hah

[@Ghostdoge]

The Razer Tartarus pro has a wheel he can use. I might try the pen with that. I been using Tartaras and Orbweavers for ages. Highly reccomended for players coming from consoles to pc.

[@profosist]

yeah the whole time I was like a Tartarus/orbweaver with a pen would solve all that. I just prefer it since witha keyboard your thumb, your most useful digit is barely doing anything

[@SevaHacks]

Tartarus LIKE GD?

[@randy343]

What about using with the razer Tartarus? It has a scroll wheel.

[@MaximilianKohler]

RJN I like where you're going with this. I made a thread about it on the OC net forums. I also suggested many years ago on the OC forum that having no mouse and simply using your hand on a mousepad would be the ultimate goal. This gets pretty close to it, and a pen grip also allows for a much wider range of vertical motion than any of the 3 main mouse grips. The one critique I have about your video and comments are that they're in reference to your specific grip. In comparison, I use palm grip for FPS, and your low front end of the mouse and thin width make it much harder to grip in palm grip.

[@RocketJumpNinja]

For sure, have you tried to get used to fingertip or claw grip before? I was palm grip on DeathAdder for years until realizing I played better before, later figured it was because I was using smaller mice ... which then forced me into fingertip grip, and of course aim has never been better. Worth a shot if you haven't already, let me know how you go!

[@MaximilianKohler]

@@RocketJumpNinja It depends on the game. I use different grips for different purposes/games, and have experimented with lots of grips and mice. CS 1.6 was my main game and most of the movement is lateral, so I used palm. I suspect that claw/fingertip might be more popular for games like quake where there's much more vertical mouse movement. The more contact points your hand has with the mouse, the more control you have over it.

[@e2rqey]

After seeing people play OSU! I've always thought that it would be really good for FPS games if someone ever put the work in and actually got it to function. Because the consistent speed, accuracy, precision, and reaction times I've seen from top level OSU players are insane.

[@WhenTheUhh]

I have an older Wacom Intuos tablet that has a pen with a scroll wheel. I believe they called it an airbrush pen. Unfortunately they don't sell it anymore, but it exists!

[@seebarry4068]

Ooh that’s something to look into.

[@GiggaGMikeE]

Wolfenstein ET was my jam in HS. Had my entire Digital multimedia class playing matches during class(as long as we finished classwork the teacher was cool with it)

[@BigBoootyBass]

You can reach immortal in Valorant with a full lobotomy using a track ball.

[@ninetenduh]

i did try to play with a tablet in multiple games, for fun obviously, but all i got was extreme jtter, i have a Wacom Bamboo Pen, it works, but as i said, insanely jittery. Wonder how i could fix that, maybe a fix for the button issue would be a small keyboard with scrollwheel and buttons, like a Razer Tartarus Pro.

[@fpdomain]

would be amazing to see that level of sensor customization that you have in the tablets p.e wacom like granular lod, noise and many others could be made...

[@xaytana]

I feel like the biggest issue here will be the learning curve that comes with blind tablets, even digital artists have a hell of a time adjusting to them. The main problem is that you have the tablet mapped to your screen, a tap in a certain spot will make the cursor jump to that part of the display, it's this unintuitive link between two matched regions yet one region is purely visual and the other is purely touch where you have to make a mental connection of what is where. Part of this will also be muscle memory, you need a completely static setup where you know where your tablet's center and boundaries are by memory, else you'll be readjusting to it if your tablet or your seating position or posture moves. I feel like the solution to this is a trackpad-like approach, where instead of region mapping it instead works off of vectors just like a trackpad and mouse do. I know some tablets have a 'trackpad' feature but from my understanding they're jank as all hell, and I remember a kickstarter project from years ago of some company trying to combine a trackpad and blind tablet into one device. If we could just get a trackpad of the same kind of fidelity and surface area, while also retaining pressure sensitivity and other features (hover, angle, etc.), then I think there's a higher chance of adoption, mostly because they're more intuitive to use out of the box, not to mention there's potential for them to be cheaper. Though this should also come with the fact that you need a secondary peripheral to make up for all of the functions you lose with a pen. As demonstrated, pen buttons don't work as you have to apply force to the button, and I don't think there's much hope for touch-based buttons as you'll have a hell of a lot of false positives inputs, and for similar reasons I don't think a scroll on the pen itself will fix this as you also have to apply force to the object in some way; there may also be some awkwardness, as you're modifying the hand's tripod-like grip just to use a scroll wheel. You essentially need a macropad that has at least a scroll and dedicated buttons for hard clicks (as opposed to hover and tap), though I'd also go as far as also including a pointing device (joystick, trackball, trackpad, mouse sensor under the device alla @lynxware-org peripherals or Azeron's Cyro) rather than just relying on WASD for movement. Since you're removing so much usability from one hand, you need to assign that functionality to your other hand; it's the same mentality of controllers having rear buttons so that your thumb can always remain on the stick, rather than switching between the stick and face buttons. I also think pen features themselves are important, hover and pressure sensitivity at the least. Not only does this give you some amount of finite control, but there's also interesting modifiers that could come out of this. For example, since we're talking about trackpad-like vector inputs rather than region mapping, imagine if you could bind pressure sensitivity to scale the vector's magnitude, where a light press and some movement can give you sniper accuracy, and where a hard press and the same amount of movement results in massive 360° sweeps; of course this makes hovering unusable, but everyone would have different playstyles. Similarly, if you're not using hover and tap, you could use drag and apply pressure to click; though I still think clicking should be relegated to your off-hand, just to not mess with cursor input. I know it's not widely supported, but pen angle could also be interesting, imagine binding that to peek functions, etc. There's potential here, but that potential relies on intuitive usability, proper implementation, a good feature set, and a coherent peripheral ecosystem that supports it. Is it the future of gaming? I'm not sure. We've seen some people pop off with controllers that have gyro aiming, or gyro + stick aiming. I personally did fairly well competitively (in multiple genres) using a Steam Controller, I also used to use a trackpad before that and trackpads themselves have come a hell of a long way since when I was gaming on them. We've also seen people do incredibly well on trackballs. There's also other alternative peripheral designs that could have potential. I think the future is that pens could be a worthwhile option, but not a full replacement or the mouse, there's a lot of potential for pens but you also need to rethink how you're playing and your choice of off-hand peripheral given the setup's quirks.

[@robbytherob]

The issue you demonstrated in paint with buttons on the pen is a real world issue when firing guns. You can have the iron sights perfectly lined up but when you press down on the trigger a lot of inaccuracies occur. My hands are too shaky for a pen and wouldn’t work. I’m surprised I don’t see my tremors in game. It might be due to the sheer volume of the mouse itself it’s big enough to absorb it.

[@Dah_J]

Bro is actually reading my mind. I’ve been thinking about this concept a lot recently.

[@freedomfighter8883]

Take a shot every time he says the word like. I'm dead.