Apex is just broken

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@Sand_spitter wrote:
@warslagIt happens to me all the time. If I'm surprised by another player and we trade shots there's no getting out of it. Either he falls or I do, every time I try to get out of it by going around a corner or running or sometimes even ducking I will lose that fight.

One thing I'm noticing now is when I go down very quickly and looking at the recap tab is that according to it I was hit multiple times instead of just the one hit I'm seeing on my screen. I was literally killed by 1 bullet the other day. And I'm thinking what gun is that dude using? According to recap screen it was 3 hits from a G7 scout. I saw 1 and 1 only.

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I've always found this to be an issue with Apex, mostly due to the Predictive Engine that Respawn uses in game.  Below is an image showing the different Red icons you will see in game:

Latency and Packet Loss could be anyones issues, either user or Apex or ISP, etc..  Congestion is an Apex issue only, but the Prediction Error threw me for a loop because I see it constantly.  The way Apex works is the game will try and predict all enemy movements and render them on screen before waiting for the other player(s) to actually make those moves.

In case anyone missed that, let me explain further.  When you are playing Apex, you aren't actually shooting at other players, you are shooting at the game engine rendering other players movements/shooting based on what the game THINKS those other players will do.  Now this would be fine except what happens when a player makes a move the engine didn't/couldn't predict?  Like if I see a Valk slide towards a doorway to cover and then for some reason they would cancel the slide, jump up and drop all their loot and then emote, what would it look like?  You would see the slide and then once the system realizes that the Valk didn't slide through the door to cover, my game engine is going to start acting up.  I may see the Valk slide in the door, then zip back out and then magic loot appears on the ground (has happened to me before).  Or maybe the system catches the change in the Valk's movement and render it 100% correctly.   Or maybe the Valk is basically a cardboard cutout and on my screen I get 4 hits with no Regs because I'm shooting at a Valk who is no longer there (has happened more often than I want to remember.)

If players look out for the Predictive error in game, they will see it happening more often then they would like.  This means that if you are downed, and you have your shield up and a Rev comes up to finish you off, you ever notice how you can keep them in your view 100% of the time but you still can die with shield health remaining?  It's usually due to the fact that you are aiming your downed shield towards where the enemy was .5 seconds ago on your screen, but to the Server they have run up beside you and are shooting your body directly.  Now in your game the Rev will still be in front of your shield, but you'll see your health takes the hits.  Just look for the Predictive Error in those cases of "How am I getting hit?" and if you see that error you know you've died to the Predictive Engine not showing you what is happening on screen until the server sends your client a kill/wipe confirmation.

The reason this engine is used is to improve the gameplay feel, it would look very choppy/glitchy if each action/movement needed to be rendered back to the client by the server.  And it does the job, the game can feel very smooth.  But the existence of such a game function precludes Apex from being a serious shooter because you aren't playing against other players, you're playing against NPC's that are only mostly controlled by other players.  The only reason it's smooth is because it's not actually showing you what other players are doing, it's only showing you what they think they are doing right up until the engine can't predict movements and then it's just a matter of who has the better connection to the server.