Warning: tl;dr.
I've been a ghost on these forums and across social media in general for the last year, specifically in the silent hope of finding some concrete, credible response from someone "in the know" regarding the aforementioned sorts of mods because my enjoyment of late has been sucked out completely.
I'm short, regardless of what anyone says or how they'd like to justify it, the Strike Pack, Cronus, XIM, etc are all a form of cheating. Anything that bypasses the core mechanics of the game to a player's advantage where it is not readily available to new or unaware players, is undeniably cheating. There really is no argument there.
Paddles, button mapping, etc: perfectly fine. People get to use certain layouts that work best for them. I prefer "button puncher" layout on a standard controller and am effective at using that way, I take my hat off to those who can learn how to effectively use paddles because they're unnatural to me.
Anti recoil however (the single biggest cancer across online multiplayer games), is unequivocally nothing short of a disease, as are the players that attempt to hide or justify it. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I will encounter an anti-recoil user in every match now on PS4, easily proven via spectating after death, and on a plethora of video clips I've saved to prove it when the "time comes" (the report player button returns to PS4). We all play the game, we all know how a gun feels and looks by now. When a player laserbeams a Havoc across the map, or an R99, we all know factually that due to recoil patterns and human error and simple standard variation, no one on God's earth is able to physically do that consistently. Literally no one. Doesn't matter how long you practice with a gun, every fight is different, every distance will be different, your hands and mind will be different - the variables are infinite and volatile, but somehow, your aim is not?
I'm extremely pleased to see that someone from EA has noted and passed this stuff on (EA Kent in a recent thread), and that it is considered a known problem that needs addressing - and not something that is considered fair. That much has encouraged me a massive amount, because I actually had to take a break from Apex recently because of it - my enjoyment and happiness playing the game is so incredibly minimal now compared to when cheating wasn't so rampant and embarrassing, combined with the growing concern that maybe for ulterior business reasons, these cheats might even be considered to be fair or even encouraged. The primary reason I play now is because my partner plays with me, and during this lockdown it's one of the only ways we can have fun together. Lately however, and I hate to say it, but like most FPS games nowadays, the majority of this player base is sickeningly toxic, and have no sportsmanship nor altruistic tendencies about them as evidenced by the responses and attitudes of players online, on Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, etc. Using mods and then lying about it and claiming you're just "that good" and everyone else needs to get gud? Justifying it even, claiming that "Anyone can buy one so it's fair bro lmao"? Havoc'ing you across the map and teabagging your death box as if there was any actual skill involved in the kill, and then telling you that "EA and respawn won't do * lmao"?
It really has to change. I don't want to just come here to cry about it though, I want to offer constructive feedback on a possible temporary solution. I won't pretend to know anything about game code, development, or the ease of simply adding features. But from a purely mathematical and logical standpoint, my two proposed solutions for the anti-recoil plague is to either:
1) add variable recoil patterns to all full auto guns
Or
2) add variable bullet bloom or a "cone" effect to fired bullets based on distance that reduces accuracy.
That is literally all it should take. The anti-recoil mods rely on counteracting predictable patterns of each gun. So by altering the patterns to a state of pure unpredictability, no script is going to be able to accurately counteract it, and eliminate its recoil fully. Obviously the recoil patterns must be randomised otherwise they would still eventually be learned and countered by the basement-dwelling gimps behind the anti-recoil codes.
Either way, just please do something, and tell us about it. I promise you that there is an unfathomably large portion of your player base that are close to downing their controllers for good over this, and an equally large portion frustrated at the lack of communication and accountability regarding it. We just want to know that we're being heard here, and that these clowns with their cheats aren't the ones dictating things with all the streams, social media chatter, merchandise and skins and heirlooms they're buying.
Tl;dr, cheating sucks. Must end.
