Yeah when I get into a straight-up twitch firefight, I almost always lose. I can’t snap aim well, and I know this, so I try to only engage when I have an advantage. I’m not great at shooters but I’m not bad either, and I think it’s because I understand my limitations and play around them.
In other words, powersliding into a room and cranking off headshots ain’t happening for me :)
It’s up to you to try of course, but one thing I’ve done over the last couple years playing Call of Duty, Fortnite and now Apex is to force myself to play faster. That’s really helped me get better. It’s on PlayStation with a controller for the most part, but it works on PC too.
The best players are doing everything quicker than we are. If you can up the pace while retaining your tactical knowledge from being too old for this shit and knowing it, you can really improve your game.
I watch my boys play shooters and that’s the one thing they always have on me. They just do everything faster. They also miss things I see. They’re not as tactically sound, but their speed of movement makes up for it.
One reason I’ve gone with Spitfire and Devotion lately is to mitigate the speed problem. They have to make it through a wall of lead to get to me and speedy dudes will run away from that. :)
I usually have armour, yes, although that obviously varies based on what available around where I land. The thing I’m most often missing is any kind of gun, where I seem to be hilariously unlucky with early loot in hot zones. I love going into combat carrying four scopes, an upgraded stock and an arc star.
Ultimately my problem is that my skill level doesn’t allow me to win fights where I have an equipment disadvantage. With pre-mades we can mitigate somewhat by dropping off the beaten path, or reversing away from an early fight if we’re not lucky with loot. But with randoms, I go wherever they go because short-handed fights never end well unless your teammate is an alien.
For a while I changed my banners to hide this awfulness, but now I’ve started embracing it. My teammates know not to expect too much when they see the level 51 stamp combined with… eight kills.
I’ve been getting one win during every play session lately. They’re not always epic accomplishments, but a win’s a win, right? The last two times it’s been a full squad with me and one guy to clean up at the end. Total kills for my squad have been around six to eight and maybe 1-3 for myself.
I highly recommend dropping in the Swamps, Relay or Artillery for your starting points. Swamps and Relay especially always have good loot and you can see where your opponents are more easily if people do land with you given the open nature of those areas. High Tier loot is what you want. Once you’re geared up, head towards the circle by staying on the edge and follow the sound of gunfire to pick off wounded teams.
I read this while I was queuing for a game and was about to say “I don’t know when my last win was.” Then this happened.
I’ve been keeping track of my results for the past few days to back up my bold “worst Apex player” claim. So I can now present two days of futility!
Damage/(Kills)
13
72
147
57
25
62
49
28(1)
67
5
70
65
84
195(1)
175
85
230(2!)
102
82
191
52(1)
6
31
160(1)
98
27
28
25
64
115
142
87(1)
36
87(1)
112
120
0
142
30
20
44 (This was my favourite, because we lasted 22 minutes, came third and I had the top damage on the team)
101
26 (Top damage again!)
36
0
95(2) (VICTORY!)
I’m going to get to the season pass rewards through quantity of games only. Quantity has a quality all its own and all that.
Not as long as I’m playing! I’ve played maybe a dozen rounds and haven’t killed anyone yet.
Nice! The R301 is a great weapon. You guys even went 2 v 3 there for the win.
How often are you landing in an area with a number of players? Are you always alone at the start? Those are really low damage totals so I’m going to guess you’re often not encountering other players for awhile?
It’s a mix. Either we land somewhere quiet and some time later I die in the first engagement, or we land somewhere busy and I quickly die in the first engagement.
Some of my best results actually come before anyone can get a gun, because for no reason I can explain I’m fairly good at the hand-to-hand stuff.
That 230 damage round with two kills was in Bunker as Caustic. I dropped a gas tank and then had it chip away while I was punching. I punched out a Bloodhound and a Pathfinder, but then their friendly Bangalore had found a gun and put me down.
I found it much easier to get wins on PUBG than Apex.
That’s funny as I found my random squads in PUBG we would rarely ever win. In Apex I usually get at least a win a night usually more. I guess maybe you aren’t playing random groups? If I get one really good player we tend to wreck house. I’m a good support to a great player. Not good when the team is leaning on me.
The main thing I did to get better with these games is to watch A LOT of other people playing. There’s so many times I see them do something that I would have never thought of otherwise.
The only place I don’t like landing is artillary. I find the loot spawns are really kind of crappy for the amount of people that drop there and the placement means you can’t always get to the loot quickly. None of the hot drops compare to the insanity that is School in PUBG that’s for sure.
I really like playing with good players. That’s the plus of no matchmaking. I can get wins that I otherwise wouldn’t get. And I can learn by watching and trying to do what they do. Without a clear boss/alpha dog… things often go terrible wrong.
I’m under the impression no one, not even the players that are clearly new and bad, is willing to follow me… I certainly can’t carry a team, but good lord, I’m so fed up with the average player shooting across the goddamn whole map… to give up our position, achieving nothing - well, sometimes they down a guy, but… before our squad would get there…he’s come to life like three times… - and not understanding it’s plain stupid what they do. Some seconds ago we made 3rd because my clever team did exactly what I just described and then got shot from behind while pushing another team. What a surprise! What an unforeseeable ambush from behind!
I don’t keep detailed stats for myself as you do, but I can tell you by seeing your numbers that you are NOT the worst Apex player and now I feel really bad about myself. I have more ‘zero’ rounds than you, because when I get shot from a million miles away I am slow to react/understand where the fire is coming from. And by then I’m dead.
I hate when people don’t use mics and even worse when they drop. Dropleader dumped us in a hornet’s nest. I had no weapons and both teammates when down. I hid while the team went through their boxes. I said don’t quit. I’ll get you. the other team moved to the next builidng and I made my break. I grabbed their boxes and bolted. Gunfire followed but I got away. Got armed and got to a beacon very quickly I tried using it only to see both teammates had dropped after I picked them up. JERKS!
Next game had a similar fight. I was caustic thanks to someone taking my Octane. I kill one player, ganked by 2 more. One teammate goes down, but this octane player is pretty good. He heals me up. I have no weapons and I go looking for something. Octane is immediately downed. I hide in a corner and place 2 traps hiding me. I get octane to crawl over I heal him and give him a full health kit so he can fight and I can grab our teammate 15 seconds left and a weapon. Octane cleans house and I help. It was a crazy battle with 4 squads and when we were done our teammate had quit. I get being impatient and wanting to jump back in, but come on.
I think they should implement an XP penalty for quitters tbh.
Yes, quitting has become a thing. It’s frustrating. And so are the disconnects. And so is a missing squad mate right from the start. Today I had to play around ten matches with just one mate… annoying as well.
I know that feeling very well. My adivce: Just run… get away, do crazy stuff…but do something… don’t just stand there. And don’t think! (“Where are the shots coming from?”)
What gets me killed the most is standing stiff and firing (and hoping for a miracle(??!)). Too often I forget to reposition, heal or looking for some advantage. I get very stiff and focused on my shooting, not paying attention to my shields/health or even my remaining ammo. Not moving and being ‘stiff’ is the worst one can do in most situations. (I think.)
Not until or unless they can identify the difference between a quitter and a broken-game disconnect. I still get disconnected for no reason waaaay too often, and would rage if I lost XP from that.
And to gingerturtle, you’re entirely right - being too ‘stiff’ is exactly my issue. I even forget to do obvious stuff like using my abilities to scoot out of the way/hide/shield/whatever. Sigh.
I will say that sometimes that’s not the players fault. I’ve been in parties we start the match and my teammates will be choosing characters and I’m still in the private lobby. Sometimes it will go to the character screen. Sometimes it wont.
The game can be multiple rounds of frustration because of terrible teammates who force a landing when another team OR TWO gets their first. Or they ignore and just run off wherever starting a fight immediately only to get downed because its 1 v 3 etc…
Then you get paired with even just just one really good player which makes for a fun exciting round. Follow them and support however I can. Usually get a top 3 and a decent shot at a win.
Octane’s background story is pretty cool, and sort of tied into TF2. He blew his legs off with a grenade running the Gauntlet trying to set the fast time. Nice.
He’s got some good quips in game too. I think all the characters have some really great lines and I think that’s an underrated aspect of this design. There are a ton of verbal cues given to players while playing and it’s done with a lot of personality.
Also, I got paired up with a couple guys playing together last night that were tinkering with Octane’s jump pads. We were… lots of places. :D You can get up to some very interesting spots using those. They are the very definition of the way great games set a bunch of rules and then break them in very cool and interesting ways. :)
