EA / RESPAWN - Servers and Aim assist on Consoles. [ Edited ]

[Popa2caps]

Please understand the views in this are mine. Because of the way that this site list text, I'll try to edit down to save people time on reading it.

Video game companies need to profit, and if they, they lose their business. Video game companies will (mostly) target the people who spend more on their product then the people who come and go. For example Apex Legend is 100% free to play. You don't ever need to spend money to play it. Most just play it, and move on. The updates for the most part will be for the type of players who spend money, with some additives adjustments to the overall experience to reach more players.

Apex Legends between PC and Consoles feels very different to me and I'm not sure as to why yet. COD, PUBG, Battlefield, but yet Apex Legends feels so different. Like I said above, I come from PC, but this feeling of difference is not hardware based, but seems to be coming from EA Respawn, themselves.

The servers on PC are nothing to brag about, but feel miles ahead of consoles. I still get inconsistency latency spikes on PC, but with console, It seems to be lacking and/ or limited. Could it be my network, Yes, but I don't experience the same issues on different titles using the same network. Any PC gamers try consoles and find the servers to be abnormal?

Issues I keep on experiencing are
1. Constant latency spikes
2. Opponent shots arriving on me within a short amount of time (like I'm taking all shots at once).
3. Getting shot behind cover.

I've tried
1. Resetting network
2. Changing DNS on the console to Googles and/ or 1.1.1.1

Wired 200 mbps down, 20 mbps up. I would also like to point out that this issue seems to be new on consoles to me. I tested Apex Legends and had no server issues before Cross play got forced on. I disabled cross play on the Xbox, but couldn't find a game by doing so.

AIM ASSIST

I could be across the map, and still see aim assist tracking my target. I have very good dexterity from 25 years of Piano, I can feel it everywhere in Apex Legends on consoles. I don't recall Apex Legends on PC having this much for controller users. I also  see people abusing it more than anything on consoles. In most fights on PC, I noticed people dancing around somewhat, but on consoles it's like everyone is in a mating call. It's like 2 dancing birds showing each other how pretty their feathers are. The point I'm trying to convey is more people are worried about dancing around as fast as possible to shake aim assist, than to aim themselves. No one seems to be trying to out aim the other.

Even though I don't agree with aim assist in video games, I understand why it's added. I stated above that video games are a for profit business after all. Consoles play a huge part in this profit. So much so that companies don't even need to release PCs to become profitable. Some blame it on analog sticks needing aim assist, I call that a myth. In my opinion it's just to make your community feel better about themselves with small dopamine kicks. COD has been doing it for years. It's the same principle behind smartphone games.

For example if Respawn removed aim assist, you would see a huge skill gap in players on controllers. The best players would go on to learn on how to cope without aim assist and the not so skilled would move on to titles that offer aim assist, like COD. You don't for example see a lot of casuals playing PUBG on consoles, Why? It doesn't have aim assist for controllers (this is not to be confused with the mobile game). EA wants Apex Legends to be as profitable as possible, not the most competitive.

Even saying the above as I understand aim assists use in casual video games, I would like some things from Respawn.
1. Unified aim assists experience between both PC and consoles.
2. A smaller hit box of when it activates.
3. A lower level of total aim assist.

I also would enjoy a non aim assist environment if possible, Like a non aim assist public server or something. I would like to point out that Apex Legends has a very good advanced controller setup menu, but not that much of a reason to use it while the game has this much aim assist.

[E9ine_AC]

@Popa2caps Folk lore says aim assist is 60% on console and 40% on pc. This may be the difference you are seeing. I agree though aim assist needs removed from pc platform. On console i can understand but also want to see how good these players really are without assistance.

Aim assist does not belong on a pc platform its a huge disadvantage to the competitive side of the game for a player to have no assistance and another have it.

As for the looting difference people are well how can i say this nicely... Just weird. Moving side to side saves not a soul. I will still light that user up like forth of july. It does nothing but make me aware hey someone is looting a crate do you hear that? Often times on my end it gets them killed because they make noise when they shouldnt. Can just hear little footsteps left right easy strafe noise to understand. So with that being said i completely do not understand consoles logic on you can move while looting. While im over here like yeaaa and they still die when looting.

[Popa2caps]

@E9ine_AC 
This might sound weird, but I'm for it, but also against it.

In my opinion aim assistance shouldn't work on people who don't have it enabled. So an aim assisted player aiming at a mouse user should have no effect. I also think controller users who choose to disable aim assist should get the same.

To your reply on aim assist and what I noticed on consoles.

It might be at different levels, but on my Xbox Series X it's crazy huge of an area around targets. I wasn't even trying to be funny when I stated everyone just hops around without a care in the world about aiming, that was very VERY true.

Console players are playing a very different game then what I played on PC. It's almost like Respawn designed it like this on purpose. I think they did it to make everyone feel good about themselves, so they spend more money on skins. If I get to the bottom of the server issues, I'll record some gameplay of what I mean.  I'm mostly just dealing with server and/ or networking issues.

Side topic, On reddit there were some developers taking questions about Apex Legends. The question was that Apex runs on 20 tick rate servers, I really hope they fix that first before anything.

[Cracjaw450]

@Popa2caps I believe, in response to the first part, that console servers have more lag than PC does, because consoles are not as powerful as PC. PCs have these massive towers and they can hold such incredible framerates and whatnot. However, on console, we basically get what the console gives us, and it is hard to modify and add these massive towers that make everything better. I understand there are ways to mod them, but it is much harder.

In response to your second part, I have some very developed feelings on Aim Assist, I personally have been playing controller forever, and I am pretty mediocre at the game. The only place Aim Assist really works is in the close game. R99 and Mastiff, those guns will murderize you on console, because they are so close. How many pro controller players do you see getting these massive Kraber shots? Not many. I do agree that MNK has superior aim over controller, but there is no need to complain about Aim Assist. I've turned off Aim Assist, and I was still just as good as normal, I would say it isn't that big of a difference, there is just a bunch of PC players who don't know how to combat Aim Assist.

This text wall was brought to you in sincerity by Cracjaw450.

[Popa2caps]

@Cracjaw450 
I totally disagree with you on a few things. PC stands for personal computer, it doesn't automatically mean better than anything. I still play PC games today and the first thing you notice when playing online, no one computer is the same as the next, That's why it's called a "personal computer" after all. I might be biased in saying it, but I blame RGB...

All jokes aside, a computer tower (case ) has nothing to do with the amount of the parts inside. It's just a box to hold the parts. It's down to what the user and/ or company (pre built) puts in the computer.

The main components of a PC

Motherboard (where most hardware connects to)
CPU (Central Processing Unit, Does calculations)
RAM (Random Access Memory, Like a faster storage, but is volatile (storage doesn't stay after power loss)
Storage (Holds data, non-volatile keeps data after power loss)
GPU (Graphics Processing Unit Does calculations)

Just speaking directly about 2013 - 2017 consoles, then I would have to agree that most personal computers would have better hardware in 2021. Now if we were talking about the new consoles Xbox Series S|X, PlayStation 5 respectfully, I say these consoles have the upper hand. I'm not saying they beat all personal computers, just the majority in video games currently.

Also on the term "MOD", It's kind of overused in today's world, with most not knowing what that means. Modified. Sure you can do this to the consoles, but the new ones your best of luck is changing a FAN and/ or adding RGB lights. The older consoles can have their internal HDDs changed (yes even Xbox) to something with better specs, but they won't utilize most of it. This is not to be confused with how you can modify a PC. A mod on PC could be a simple watercooler loop to an OC (overclock) of the UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) for overclocked speeds for the CPU and/ or RAM, it's really nothing the same as consoles.

Here is the best way to show you the heavy aim assist in Apex Legends I know of. In game - Settings - Controller. At the bottom is the advanced menu, go there. At the top it should say enabled it or something, turn it on. Once it's on go to the bottom of this advanced menu. You should see target compensation and melee compensation, turn the first one off (it should disable both).

Now in the shooting range. Aim at dummy bot like you normally would in the BR mode. Don't worry if it doesn't feel different. Now after some time, go back into your settings and turn target compensation back on. This time when you aim at the dummy, you should see the first effect of aim assist. It's mostly always called "Aim Slowdown". It's a slowdown effect around each target, and on consoles, it feels to me like a bigger range than PCs.

The second effect of aim assist is mostly called "Aim assist tracking". You need a moving target to get it to activate in Apex Legends, but oddly it doesn't always activate. I got it to track when I shot at someone then I took damage. the aim just started moving without my input, but needs to be close. You can use the bots to get it to work, just need to make the bots move around.

These 2 effects are in both Apex Legends consoles and PC, I'm just saying on consoles, they feel noticeably stronger.

[Cracjaw450]

@Popa2caps I have no idea what I just read lol, but the one thing I could pick out was the Aim Assist thing, I have tried that, and I can still track the dummies just as easily without Aim Assist than I can with Aim Assist, I know it helps a lot of players, but to me, it doesn't really have an effect at all.

[Popa2caps]

@Cracjaw450

So I was basically saying a PCs tower (case) means nothing on how fast a computer is. Someone could have a big tower, but weak parts in it. Someone could also have a small tower, but have good parts in it. PC is just that, personal, each is different. Also, most PC gamers don't have that good of hardware. The top 5% might have it, but most don't.

Next gen consoles by the way are not at all slow. They are amazingly fast for their price. The CPU alone in both Xbox Series S|X PS5 can be compared to a Ryzen Gen 2 3700, that's close to $330 alone.

Short answer.

Don't judge computers by their size.
Don't say consoles are just automatically weak.

That's all I was trying to say.

Yeah, true some don't see the effect of aim assist, others do.

[CrazyEyedOldMan]

@Popa2caps ,

Part of the logic behind “aim assist” isn’t actually to assist aiming whatsoever. Joystick modules are a class of dynamic potentiometers, and they degrade fairly quickly. What most people call “aim assist” is better called reticule stickiness. Basically, it acts as a spot in which input magnitude is exponentially reduced. It does not automatically seek. What you see when tracking occurs is that the device is still inputting data as it has not zeroed, thus it continues to have an adjusted magnitude.

If this feature were to be removed, only controllers less than a few months old would perform consistently. 

Until the manufacturer of the fundamental circuit element produces a more robust version, this type of software adjustment will continue to exist.