Quite a long article to basically say: “A game mode without aim assist for controller, and if you participate you get better loot/more XP”

There are like a billion (ok not a billion) factors that determine how balanced controllers and mouse are. Unless you have played competitive modes for a long time and (unfortunately I have to be honest) have an ability to be analytical/honest you will always fail at balancing them.

Things like strafe speed, firing mode for each gun (single, burst, auto), and bullet magnetism all impact how much auto aim is necessary for a controller. That’s not a complete list, but are some of the main factors.

In other words, every different game has to come up with its own way of balance, and then after player accuracy data from high level gameplay has been analyzed, begin to come up with solutions based around the aforementioned factors.

One example of failure in this regard is Halo infinite (and even the master chief collection). Old heads brought on to help the competitive side of the game were desperate to bring back old school halo (so they were already biased from the start) and wanted the battle rifle to be the starting weapon(it’s a weapon with a 3 shot burst). The burst fire requires tracking style aim to fully optimize kill time. What the competitive development team didn’t realize was that controllers already track well, so combined with the auto aim this was an awful choice for trying to bring competitive mouse players into the fold.