My first week back after giving the game up a month ago I've noticed the problems are back and are worse than before.The cheating is off the charts. In gun run a loba was one shotting me and one other person with her fist, we both went down with one punch and took no gunshots or other hits. Autokill needs to be banned permanently. Then, we had people using those zero recoil devices in tdm. In the replay you could see guns that normally have an upward pull with no recoil at all.Then, the lag us making it near impossible to do movement. The nerfs to the guns this season need to be undone. The flatline does about half the damage numbers it used to, and the havoc does 90 damage per clip to the dummies on the firing range, when pre season 20 I used to one shot people with a head shot with the havoc.Also, please put the old gun noises back. It sounds like someone banging on tin cans when a gun hits and its annoying.I have an idea to get rid of cheaters and give more funding to improve the servers and get rid of the lag. Make this game a paid service! Charge $20 to $50 per month to play the game and make a rule that cheaters will be banned. Also, make people identify themselves via text message to start an account. That way, it will solve the cheating problem and the game will be profitable enough where more staff can be hired. Also, please put the shields back in the loot drops. Unless you hot drop (which with the lag I can't survive one right now) you have a white shield all through the match until you get a kill, that makes no sense. I miss how this game was last year when I first got started. I'm not sure if I'll quit again, but I can't see myself playing seriously ever again until the game is fixed. The sad thing is on paper it's the best idea for a game I've seen in years.

@Asmodeus566 Well said. And based on how many posts you see day to day here about accounts being stolen, imagine the feeling of you have opted to pay for a full year on some small discount and somebody hacks & steals your account. GENERAL RANT: Spoiler (Highlight to read)I wouldnt even pay 50 dollars for a year to play. This you own nothing and everything is subsciption based only is mixing peoples heads. You buy a skin in a game. Is it now your property and what rights do you have for it? You cant really sell it onwards let alone download it to your computer to use on a another account. I personally rather (and actually chose to) support Respawn in their business by buying Jedi: Fallen Order from steam sales for 4€ which is about the same as 1000 apex coins. You cant really get even a Legendary skin from the store for that money and in return you get about +30h single player campaigns worth of gaming.Steam has the same that even though I bought the game I cannot sell in onwards or even play it offline and if I dont play by their rules they can "remove my property" from my account but I feel this "rented" life is unavoidable and I just have to cope with it the best I can.I wouldnt even pay 50 dollars for a year to play. This you own nothing and everything is subsciption based only is mixing peoples heads. You buy a skin in a game. Is it now your property and what rights do you have for it? You cant really sell it onwards let alone download it to your computer to use on a another account. I personally rather (and actually chose to) support Respawn in their business by buying Jedi: Fallen Order from steam sales for 4€ which is about the same as 1000 apex coins. You cant really get even a Legendary skin from the store for that money and in return you get about +30h single player campaigns worth of gaming. Steam has the same that even though I bought the game I cannot sell in onwards or even play it offline and if I dont play by their rules they can "remove my property" from my account but I feel this "rented" life is unavoidable and I just have to cope with it the best I can.

@AymCTL "I have an idea to get rid of cheaters and give more funding to improve the servers and get rid of the lag. Make this game a paid service! Charge $20 to $50 per month to play the game and make a rule that cheaters will be banned. Also, make people identify themselves via text message to start an account. That way, it will solve the cheating problem and the game will be profitable enough where more staff can be hired." 50 dollars a month to play? that's 600 a year. Are you out of your mind? That would kill the game in an instant. Even 240 a year is a bit steep since most AAA a games will run about 70-90 and you pay once and have them forever (Baldurs Gate 3 is a great example). If EA implemented a 20+ dollar a month Charge to play Apex they would get exactly Zero (0) month's of play from me. "Make a rule that cheaters will be banned" This is already in place, EA bans confirmed cheaters. "Also, make people identify themselves via text message to start an account" We have 2FA for this, along with e-mail etc. Ideas are great to have but they should be reasonable and a 600 a year sub to play is not reasonable the hardware to play the games is already not cheap. console will run you just under your suggested sub price and a decent PC is = or > than double that.

This is actually the first FPS I've played and I normally play games in the turn based gacha rpg variety, where I buy subscription plans that include premium currency and various perks. For instance, I pay $47 per month at Another Eden and $15 per month at Honkai Star Rail, each game for two tiers of subscriptions, though both of those games have the option of free to play.Gacha game Epic Seven has a PvP and e-sports division, I too buy a pack each month for this game, I think it's like $5 to get extra login rewards each day. They do ban waves a few times per year because they too have had cheating issues in their real time arena.Apex Legends only income seems to be for cosmetic items. I personally do not care what my units look like during gameplay and most that I play with feel this way too. Since I don't understand the fps industry the way I do gacha rpgs maybe $20 to $50 was a little too steep. However, maybe some kind of monetization scheme would work for this game that would discourage people from cheating while also making the company more money.Maybe add more modes that people can add, I've heard Youtubers say Apex is part of a game series called "Titanfall?" Maybe add a new PvE mode in line with that game that Apex players can pay an upcharge to add, and connect it somehow to the PvP accounts. I don't know, maybe a much less charge than what I suggested that is affordable would work, and enable more staff to be hired and more server maintenance.

@AymCTLWell, I'm seldom in a majority but I have to back the others on this one: "Charge $20 to $50 per month to play the game" is really not a good idea. I see where you're headed and I can agree with you in principle, but the only thing keeping me in this game is the fact that it cost me nothing to start five years ago and it costs me nothing to keep going. Except my dignity, which is a different problem entirely.I'm wondering if the server issues are platform-specific, or possibly related to specific servers. My experience (xbox one x on east coast U.S. servers) is same as it ever was. The only thing I've noticed lately that may be related is that the game seems once in a while to react slowly to a button strike. I'm inclined to believe it's a controller issue since it's only buttons (not triggers or thumbsticks) and it may even be only one single button. Still trying to sort that one out.I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't noticed any of the weapon nerfs. I guess if they don't nerf the tripletake then I'm unlikely to notice."Also, please put the shields back in the loot drops. Unless you hot drop (which with the lag I can't survive one right now) you have a white shield all through the match until you get a kill, that makes no sense."I could go on all day. It isn't strictly true that hot drop is the only way to a better shield. I never hot drop, and never even engage until the final four or even three, but I almost always have a level three shield. The problem is that the path to it is narrow and fast, and it never involves teammates because they're busy trying to shoot their way to victory. If the drop is too far from harvesters, if there are no ready tridents, if the path to harvesters doesn't take you near good loot or leave you time to loot, if, if, if... there are just too many irons in the fire anymore. I get to mid-game and I do the math. Do I have a shot at a decent shield, do I have weapons I want or at least a few more loot opportunities, do I have good position, can I get good position while still being able to harvest/loot... if the math doesn't add up then I quit. It isn't happening a whole lot more than normal, but if I was Respawn I'd be asking myself if the metrics are showing that gameplay is headed in a good or bad direction. I don't know what the answer is over all, but for me it's questionable at best. Not a great season, imo.

@Airish85 wrote:@RaginSam Interesting take. Like you could buy anti-cheat to protect you in all online games as you buy anti-virus for your PC?BTW its not just FPS games. Anything you play online with another human being has most likely cheaters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h6zLO-QaQ8 On free-to-play games the number of cheaters gets multiplied. Transparency is certainly needed but asking a company about their spending is like walking to your local supermarket and asking about what margins they apply = how much money are you making from this potato etc. They are never going share that.Devs have tried to add transparency but the forums are wrong. They host Q&A in reddit / Twitter and it becomes a troll & hate fiesta. How about using the in game News to communicate these actions? I suspect that bureaucracy also probably holds a quite big factor as I dont think there is a publisher etc employed on the Anti-cheat team. And these engineers actually doing the work might not be the best for that kind of stuff. So I feel it fails due to "Not my job" thinking. Perhaps one could be allocated from another team to publish some info on the war against cheaters. And yes, situation is far from good even for us casuals let alone someone fighting in the high MMR/Pred ranked lobbies. I think you're overthinking it a bit. They don't have to disclose sensitive information or even share in great detail. More like, we spend 5-10% on anti-cheat. We invest 50% more then our competitor in anti-cheat development, or whatever.Plus, there are games that already do this. CSGO, when it went F2P, you could buy some sort of subscription, and it was supposed to be better regulated. Same thing with Destiny 2, you have to buy the season pass in order to play Trials. I'm going off of memory here, but I think that's correct.I'm just trying to say, as a community, we need to be clear that anti-cheat is something we hold in high regard as a feature. It's a must. Right now, it's just expected, but are we truly happy with how far they've gone with it? I'm not. I'm willing to pay, some amount, in order to get cheat free games. It's important to me, and I rather them spend extra in that department rather then a new map, animations, new modes, or whatever. I understand different departments work on different aspects of the games as well. With more funds for anti-cheat, they could dedicate more to that though.

This is ridiculous, some suggestions

21 Replies

Asmodeus566
Hero+
2 years ago
@AymCTL

"I have an idea to get rid of cheaters and give more funding to improve the servers and get rid of the lag. Make this game a paid service! Charge $20 to $50 per month to play the game and make a rule that cheaters will be banned. Also, make people identify themselves via text message to start an account. That way, it will solve the cheating problem and the game will be profitable enough where more staff can be hired."

50 dollars a month to play? that's 600 a year. Are you out of your mind? That would kill the game in an instant. Even 240 a year is a bit steep since most AAA a games will run about 70-90 and you pay once and have them forever (Baldurs Gate 3 is a great example).

If EA implemented a 20+ dollar a month Charge to play Apex they would get exactly Zero (0) month's of play from me.

"Make a rule that cheaters will be banned" This is already in place, EA bans confirmed cheaters.

"Also, make people identify themselves via text message to start an account" We have 2FA for this, along with e-mail etc.

Ideas are great to have but they should be reasonable and a 600 a year sub to play is not reasonable the hardware to play the games is already not cheap. console will run you just under your suggested sub price and a decent PC is = or > than double that.
Airish85
2 years ago
@Asmodeus566 Well said. And based on how many posts you see day to day here about accounts being stolen, imagine the feeling of you have opted to pay for a full year on some small discount and somebody hacks & steals your account.

GENERAL RANT:
Spoiler
I wouldnt even pay 50 dollars for a year to play. This you own nothing and everything is subsciption based only is mixing peoples heads.
You buy a skin in a game. Is it now your property and what rights do you have for it? You cant really sell it onwards let alone download it to your computer to use on a another account.

I personally rather (and actually chose to) support Respawn in their business by buying Jedi: Fallen Order from steam sales for 4€ which is about the same as 1000 apex coins.
You cant really get even a Legendary skin from the store for that money and in return you get about +30h single player campaigns worth of gaming.
Steam has the same that even though I bought the game I cannot sell in onwards or even play it offline and if I dont play by their rules they can "remove my property" from my account but I feel this "rented" life is unavoidable and I just have to cope with it the best I can.
Asmodeus566
Hero+
2 years ago
@Airish85

Well said as well.
RaginSam
Seasoned Ace
2 years ago
@Asmodeus566 Personally, I want them to consider anti-cheat a feature. I'm willing to pay in some form for that. Maybe these companies need to be more transparent on how much they're spending versus other things. How they plan to further combat it? I'm not sure what the answer is, I just know it's a huge problem across all FPS games currently. So if spending a little money to gain a piece of mind, I'm for it.

Right now, I don't spend money on the game because I'm seeing too many cheaters, people colluding, and the low tick rate/networking is abysmal at times.
Airish85
2 years ago
@RaginSam Interesting take. Like you could buy anti-cheat to protect you in all online games as you buy anti-virus for your PC?

BTW its not just FPS games. Anything you play online with another human being has most likely cheaters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h6zLO-QaQ8
On free-to-play games the number of cheaters gets multiplied.

Transparency is certainly needed but asking a company about their spending is like walking to your local supermarket and asking about what margins they apply = how much money are you making from this potato etc. They are never going share that.

Devs have tried to add transparency but the forums are wrong. They host Q&A in reddit / Twitter and it becomes a troll & hate fiesta. How about using the in game News to communicate these actions? I suspect that bureaucracy also probably holds a quite big factor as I dont think there is a publisher etc employed on the Anti-cheat team. And these engineers actually doing the work might not be the best for that kind of stuff. So I feel it fails due to "Not my job" thinking. Perhaps one could be allocated from another team to publish some info on the war against cheaters.

And yes, situation is far from good even for us casuals let alone someone fighting in the high MMR/Pred ranked lobbies.
reconzero
Seasoned Ace
2 years ago
@AymCTL

Well, I'm seldom in a majority but I have to back the others on this one: "Charge $20 to $50 per month to play the game" is really not a good idea. I see where you're headed and I can agree with you in principle, but the only thing keeping me in this game is the fact that it cost me nothing to start five years ago and it costs me nothing to keep going. Except my dignity, which is a different problem entirely.

I'm wondering if the server issues are platform-specific, or possibly related to specific servers. My experience (xbox one x on east coast U.S. servers) is same as it ever was. The only thing I've noticed lately that may be related is that the game seems once in a while to react slowly to a button strike. I'm inclined to believe it's a controller issue since it's only buttons (not triggers or thumbsticks) and it may even be only one single button. Still trying to sort that one out.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't noticed any of the weapon nerfs. I guess if they don't nerf the tripletake then I'm unlikely to notice.

"Also, please put the shields back in the loot drops. Unless you hot drop (which with the lag I can't survive one right now) you have a white shield all through the match until you get a kill, that makes no sense."

I could go on all day. It isn't strictly true that hot drop is the only way to a better shield. I never hot drop, and never even engage until the final four or even three, but I almost always have a level three shield. The problem is that the path to it is narrow and fast, and it never involves teammates because they're busy trying to shoot their way to victory. If the drop is too far from harvesters, if there are no ready tridents, if the path to harvesters doesn't take you near good loot or leave you time to loot, if, if, if... there are just too many irons in the fire anymore. I get to mid-game and I do the math. Do I have a shot at a decent shield, do I have weapons I want or at least a few more loot opportunities, do I have good position, can I get good position while still being able to harvest/loot... if the math doesn't add up then I quit. It isn't happening a whole lot more than normal, but if I was Respawn I'd be asking myself if the metrics are showing that gameplay is headed in a good or bad direction. I don't know what the answer is over all, but for me it's questionable at best. Not a great season, imo.
AymCTL
Seasoned Ace
2 years ago
This is actually the first FPS I've played and I normally play games in the turn based gacha rpg variety, where I buy subscription plans that include premium currency and various perks. For instance, I pay $47 per month at Another Eden and $15 per month at Honkai Star Rail, each game for two tiers of subscriptions, though both of those games have the option of free to play.
Gacha game Epic Seven has a PvP and e-sports division, I too buy a pack each month for this game, I think it's like $5 to get extra login rewards each day. They do ban waves a few times per year because they too have had cheating issues in their real time arena.
Apex Legends only income seems to be for cosmetic items. I personally do not care what my units look like during gameplay and most that I play with feel this way too. Since I don't understand the fps industry the way I do gacha rpgs maybe $20 to $50 was a little too steep. However, maybe some kind of monetization scheme would work for this game that would discourage people from cheating while also making the company more money.
Maybe add more modes that people can add, I've heard Youtubers say Apex is part of a game series called "Titanfall?" Maybe add a new PvE mode in line with that game that Apex players can pay an upcharge to add, and connect it somehow to the PvP accounts. I don't know, maybe a much less charge than what I suggested that is affordable would work, and enable more staff to be hired and more server maintenance.
RaginSam
Seasoned Ace
2 years ago
@Airish85 wrote:
@RaginSam Interesting take. Like you could buy anti-cheat to protect you in all online games as you buy anti-virus for your PC?

BTW its not just FPS games. Anything you play online with another human being has most likely cheaters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h6zLO-QaQ8
On free-to-play games the number of cheaters gets multiplied.

Transparency is certainly needed but asking a company about their spending is like walking to your local supermarket and asking about what margins they apply = how much money are you making from this potato etc. They are never going share that.

Devs have tried to add transparency but the forums are wrong. They host Q&A in reddit / Twitter and it becomes a troll & hate fiesta. How about using the in game News to communicate these actions? I suspect that bureaucracy also probably holds a quite big factor as I dont think there is a publisher etc employed on the Anti-cheat team. And these engineers actually doing the work might not be the best for that kind of stuff. So I feel it fails due to "Not my job" thinking. Perhaps one could be allocated from another team to publish some info on the war against cheaters.

And yes, situation is far from good even for us casuals let alone someone fighting in the high MMR/Pred ranked lobbies.
I think you're overthinking it a bit. They don't have to disclose sensitive information or even share in great detail. More like, we spend 5-10% on anti-cheat. We invest 50% more then our competitor in anti-cheat development, or whatever.
Plus, there are games that already do this. CSGO, when it went F2P, you could buy some sort of subscription, and it was supposed to be better regulated. Same thing with Destiny 2, you have to buy the season pass in order to play Trials. I'm going off of memory here, but I think that's correct.
I'm just trying to say, as a community, we need to be clear that anti-cheat is something we hold in high regard as a feature. It's a must. Right now, it's just expected, but are we truly happy with how far they've gone with it? I'm not. I'm willing to pay, some amount, in order to get cheat free games. It's important to me, and I rather them spend extra in that department rather then a new map, animations, new modes, or whatever. I understand different departments work on different aspects of the games as well. With more funds for anti-cheat, they could dedicate more to that though.
ComicBookGuy2727
Seasoned Ace
2 years ago
I don't see an issue with the the player base that actually made the billions Apex has made to date, be given some information as to what their money is doing for the game we had a huge part in making successful.
CCbathwater
Seasoned Ace
2 years ago
I fail to see how paying gets rid of cheaters. Can't the cheater just pay too and be in your lobby anyway? And what sort of anti-cheat tools are they withholding atm but would employ on a "paid" server to ensure it would cheater-free?