Apex Legends Feature Removal Has Fans Split
One of the most popular battle royale games, "Apex Legends," has grown and evolved since it launched in 2019, but one new technique, tap strafing, has been the subject of a lot of discussion lately. The developers took to Twitter to announce that they would resolve the issue by disabling the ability, but that decision has also proven divisive.
Anyone who is not a top-tier "Apex Legends" player might need tap strafing explained, as the technique is only usable for gamers utilizing a mouse and keyboard and primarily only affects high-level matches. As is demonstrated in a YouTube tutorial from Dazs, tap strafing allows players to switch directions while in midair with minimum momentum loss. The benefits of this rapid direction switch can be increased by binding a command to the mouse wheel, allowing players to effectively reverse direction at full speed.
While tap strafing has been a controversial part of "Apex Legends" since it was discovered in late 2020, via Reddit, Respawn Entertainment's decision to cut it from the game has seen some surprising responses from players across the board. Here is why the removal of tap strafing from "Apex Legends" has fans split.
Some players feel tap strafing is cheating, others think it levels the playing field
The discussion about whether tap strafing is a legitimate technique is centered mainly around the fact that it is only performable using a mouse and keyboard. As such, it potentially gives PC players a built-in advantage, although some have pointed out that there are mechanics already in place that acknowledge imbalances between platforms.
On one Reddit thread regarding the debate, original poster u/VARDHAN_157 wrote, "Tap strafing is the only thing that's challenging for us controller users to track and that imo is good considering of how strong the aim assist is." Others took a more rigid stance on the issue, such as Complexity "Apex Legends" pro ReptarRB, who stated, "Tap strafing is cheating, can't change my mind." That statement got plenty of pushback, as @TrixX1020 noted, "Hard disagree, learning how to tapstrafe is easy, yes, but mastering it and actually putting it to use in fights and rotations etc... takes a different kind of skill."
Fans will need to wait until the official patch notes promised in Respawn's Twitter announcement to learn more about how tap strafing will change going forward. However, even the simple explanation described in the tweet, which read, "Our reasoning: It's inaccessible, lacks readability/counterplay, and is exacerbated by movement abilities," seems to indicate the developers have made a final decision on the matter.