We're back on this again? *sigh*... alright...
To be honest, when they first forced cross-play on us, I thought aim assist was free aimbot. I was annoyed to have to deal with console players in my matches and wanted to opt out of cross-play. Then I was googling what kind of things you can do on consoles and noticed people talking about "strikepacks", which are controller add-ons that further assist the player by being programmable to learn a recoil pattern and then negate that pattern when the player starts shooting. Strikepacks also have things like extra buttons to further support the player who's using them. These sort of things were mainly meant for single player games. Games in which the player doesn't get aim assist and ones with difficult recoil patterns. However, players just use this to take further advantage of aim assist. They already have reduced recoil because they're on a console, and the strikepack just completely removes that recoil.
I thought strikepacks was all there was, however friends of mine and even people on here have also mentioned xim, (which is a plug-in type of mod), and that's also part of the issue.
Xim in particular tells the console "hey, I'm so using a controller right now... no need to check! 🙂", as the player actually has a keyboard and mouse plugged in. This gives the player reduced recoil, (which would be easy to negate with a mouse) and the same movement as a PC player. If you ever see a console player loot a deathbox and they're doing that side to side moment to avoid getting shot, (and this feature hasn't come to console at that point yet), its xim. When a player plugs in a mouse and keyboard into a console, as far as I know they would get a warning saying to unplug the mouse and keyboard or risk a ban, (or something like that). This already tells you that consoles aren't meant to allow a keyboard and mouse, so players are basically spoofing their USB ports to trick the console into allowing it.
Since these sort of things aren't modifying or messing with the game's files directly, its "allowed" and "undetectable". Instead strikepacks mod the controller, and xim mods the input by telling the console that the mouse and keyboard inputs are controller inputs.
Strikepack's google definition: "a breakthrough controller adapter that adds advanced gaming functionality to your existing controller. The strikepack adapter gives you on the fly button mapping and the latest shooter mods without any permanent modification or voiding of your warranty."
Xim's definition according to someone on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/ebozu5/what_is_xim_and_why_do_some_players_use_xim/): "Xim is a device that's translates mouse and keyboard input into a controller input so that the Xbox understands m+k as a controller. For PlayStation or Xbox or pc."
Before we go blaming the aim assist again, (which causes more problems than it does solving them) lets take a step back and look at the things a console player could use, and understand that its the equivalent of cheats on PC. Aim assist isn't the "problem", and its not quite the issue either, but it is being taken advantage of by 3rd party equipment.
