There are plenty of free-to-play competitive shooters that have captured the attention of gaming enthusiasts with the rise of the battle royale genre. Out of all the hits, Apex Legends is one of the most popular. The team at Respawn Entertainment has done plenty of work on making the game better with each consecutive season by adding more content. However, when it was announced that Respawn would be removing tap-strafing with the 10.1 update earlier this week, the game's community was divided.
The division in Apex Legends fans might not be what it sounds like on the surface. While the move to get rid of tap-strafing is controversial, it essentially placed Apex players into one of two camps: those who are upset about the maneuver being removed, and those who don't know it existed in the first place. With a game as widely popular as Apex Legends, there are bound to be different levels of engagement with its mechanics and meta. More diehard PC fans are the ones using the move, and as a result, are the ones upset about its removal. Meanwhile, console players and casual fans might be hearing about tap-strafing for the very first time this week.
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What is Tap-Strafing in Apex Legends?
The movement mechanics included in Apex Legends allow for some intricate maneuvers, oftentimes only available to those playing on PC. While not technically considered cheats, some of the available moves could technically be considered exploits, as they're usually only available by remapping certain input commands in a way that the game doesn't necessarily intend players to use.
Tap-strafing allows a player to turn faster by remapping the forward movement button to the scroll wheel when playing with a mouse and keyboard. It essentially gives players the ability to turn 180 degrees without losing any momentum, greatly increasing their maneuverability. Some people have claimed that tap-strafing can be done with a controller, but the results are mixed and cannot be replicated as easily as it is for Apex players on PC.
There are plenty of Apex Legends movement guides, but YouTuber Fingle breaks down tap-strafing simply in a tutorial for the technique. Essentially, each time a movement input is pressed coming out of a slide jump, the Source engine "slightly changes the vector of your momentum.” By adding those vector changes with a button input multiple times per frame, the movement can allow for very fast changes in direction.
Tap-strafing is a tricky skill, as it requires a mastery of other in-game exploits, but because of how fast the forward movement button needs to be pressed it can't be done easily on controller. Instead, like many other in-game tricks, it requires movement to be bound to the scroll wheel to consistently pull off. It can also be paired with other tricks to confuse attackers and lose pursuers with relative ease.
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Certain Legends like Horizon are able to get more mileage out of tap-strafing, particularly with her passive ability that reduces the speed lost by taking major falls. This means that someone could quickly dart around and over a high ledge, and then immediately turn around and run into a cave or building.
Why is Tap-Strafing Being Removed from Apex Legends?
When console players discover the disadvantage they're at when playing against those on PC who've mastered tricks and exploits, they often get frustrated. It's bad enough that aiming with a mouse and keyboard is more accurate than with a controller in most cases, but the use of other exploits makes console players question just how balanced Apex Legends might actually be. It seems like Respawn wants to start addressing that issue, beginning with the removal of tap-strafing.
The developer explained three issues that tap-strafing has brought on in an announcement on Twitter. Respawn Entertainment said, "It's inaccessible, lacks readability/counterplay, and is exacerbated by movement abilities." It goes on to say that the studio would be going over the issues that the movement ability has brought on in further depth in the official patch notes for the 10.1 Apex Legends update, but the notes haven't been made public yet.
While those in-depth notes remain a mystery, it seems clear that every time Respawn adds something new to Apex Legends, the studio wants it to be counterable by another ability. When playing on console with crossplay enabled, it isn't clear who can and cannot use tap-strafing until it's too late, and as it's a useful tool not available to everyone, it makes the game more unbalanced. Plus, there are already plenty of other benefits that playing the game on PC has compared to playing on console, so it makes sense Respawn might view allowing PC players to use tap-strafing as one step too far.
Plenty of Apex Legends PC players are upset about the removal of the technique in the 10.1 patch, as it's an extremely useful tool if used properly. However, it doesn't seem like Respawn is going to be touching other movement exploits, as they don't provide quite the same advantage as tap-strafing. At the end of the day, it makes sense why fans might be upset that some of the movement options for PC are being taken away, but hopefully it makes for a better game that everyone can play in the end.
Apex Legends is available on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One with PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions in development.
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