My current take on movement
So generally speaking, Apex's character movement is smooth and on the faster end of FPS games. It's not Quake (thank goodness) but it's certainly faster than the 'standard' FPS series like CoD & Battlefield.
There are some issues I see, however.
First, there doesn't seem to be any kind of 'momentum' or 'cooldown' on jumping - you can just spam jump as much and as often as you like and hop around like a caffeine-addled young child that's just been let loose onto the playground trampoline.
It's a bit much, and when you combine that with the gross hitbox disparity (why, why does Wraith and Lifeline have to be so tiny compared to the others?), it becomes a rather big problem.
Adding to this is the animations, which are a bit janky, unpredictable, and certainly not intuitive to follow. It all has a somewhat "cartoony" feel, in the nature of Bugs Bunny & Road Runner. (Maybe this appeals to Fortnite players, but it doesn't appeal to me.)
Second, the ability to go faster by sliding - and then jumping - is strange. It's fun to an extent, sure, but nothing about it makes sense - sliding on the ground adds friction, which should slow your speed, and would in turn make distance-jumping that much less effective. It's unintuitive to how I would expect sliding & jumping to interact in any video game, and it adds an aspect to fight movement that I'm not sure I entirely enjoy. Knowing that I got flanked - or got the flank my self - because I slid and jumped instead of attempting to sprint normally or use a Legend's movement ability, doesn't feel the best when I know that it's because of a janky movement interaction.
Like, why does momentum during *sliding* get preserved (thereby adding to your speed and jump distance) but not when jumping around?
This strange behavior is the ultimate cause of the cheesy "heal bunnyhop" glitch phenomenon, which I'll absolutely be happy to see go away.
I'm also not entirely convinced that it's all that healthy for that much of a movement boost to be possible for the game outside of legend abilities. I'll note that watching Titanfall 2 streams have rather turned me off from approaching that game, because I've no urge to join multiplayer and see it turn into a Quake-alike high-paced movement glitch-fest. (Someday I might still play it for the campaign, which I've heard is great, but still, just saying.)
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What I would like to see:
- A tiny 'cooldown' and/or momentum added to the jump action, to make it more difficult than it is now to reverse direction and jump quickly in multiple unpredictable directions.
- Improvement upon movement animations & transitions to look smoother, more natural, and more intuitive than they are currently.
- A review of the "slide + jump" interaction and considering alternatives, or simply reduce its effectiveness.
I anticipate other players will have a mixed reaction to my view on it; I just want to make clear that's understandable, because it is fun to an extent to play with the current, somewhat janky and unique movement aspects that Apex has currently. Nonetheless I stand by my view and suggestions here.
