Regularly used terms in Apex
Yesterday had my first ranked game (no smurfing, actual P4+ lobbies with last split Diamond players) that I won being solo from the very beginning of the game:
(picture edited, thanks all for pointing out about the player names 🙂 )
As you can see from the stats, nothing great to show off, except the fact that I won the game - in my opinion, the ultimate goal of Ranked Apex.
Why I am mentioning it here - because this is an objective hard fact people will not be able to argue about. I made the right decisions to win the game. Sure there might be other "right" versions, but this was not wrong either and if followed by other team members, the result would be the same and even better (more kills, faster win etc. etc.) - meaning there was no way my team mates following my lead would impair the outcome.
Now to the point - during this game I was called:
- Newb, s-tty team player - because my colleagues dropped together with 2 (or more) teams on the small location and I first pinged alternative, then announced my suggestion via coms (audio), yet they still went for a much riskier option...died and started calling me newb for not landing with them and at least 6 more enemies, like it would make any difference given then took out just 1 of them.
- Rat - when I was not able to recover their banners due to other team still camping on them = going 1 vs 3 on ranked, they called me rat. Same happened when I was not engaging in fights at a close distance while having charge rifle available, avoid fights when I saw that I will not be able to rotate out of them / catch the zone in time = playing smart positioning, realizing that I am alone and have huge disadvantage, only can join 3rd party fights or look out for 1v1 in case of some random solo players in the game.
- Toxic player - after trying to explain the logic behind my decisions (including one stated above on landing and positioning), I was called toxic for criticizing - comparing my moves vs dead teammates moves - in the game. And this has happened oh so many times when I openly state my opinion on someone's gameplay in a structured feedback form e.g. you did this, better do that because of a,b,c.
The aim of this post is to maybe make more members of the community think a bit more about what these (and maybe other regularly used) terms actually mean.
And maybe rename these terms to something more objective and less offensive like low-risk taker / lower risk tolerance / not so good in a close encounter, chaotic fight player, passive, positioning oriented player, feedback, and structural criticism.
Plus most importantly remove the "negative" label from these terms - each of us has our own style and the fact that there is no 2 kill 1300 damage win badge does not make it less valuable than "so much desired" 4k 20 bomb etc. given I am pretty sure there were many people with these badges in this game who still in the end lost to me... 2 kill 1300 damage toxic ratting newb.
Let's use our heads a bit more and stop following brainless trends set by some community influencers because one or the other reason.
