Dumb Things About Apex Legends Everyone Ignores

When a game like Apex Legends bursts on the scene and has an immediate impact on the gaming industry, you'll find a perplexing mixture of overwhelming positivity and toxic vitriol aimed at it, the developer, and the community as a whole. Because Apex dropped in such a unique way, propped up by some of the biggest streamers and content creators in the world, the player base ballooned more quickly than anyone at Respawn Entertainment could have predicted. Since then, plenty of players have abandoned the game, citing cheaters, a lack of content, and game-breaking bugs as the reasons why this game won't last long-term.

Still, a large community remains loyal to the battle royale despite the warranted complaints. In fact, there are plenty of things about Apex that are worth complaining about that mostly go unnoticed. From balancing to UI quirks, the game still has many issues that players let slide. Here are some of the dumb things about Apex Legends everyone ignores.

If there's one aspect of Apex Legends that captured people's hearts right away — outside of the ping system, of course — it would likely be the fact that there's no fall damage in the game. Unlike its competitor Fortnite, no matter how far you fall, you'll keep on going. This makes tactical retreats and traversing large portions of the map much easier and quicker than in other battle royales. If you need to escape a battle, jump off that cliff. Need to make it into the ring in time? Leap off that building. It's a refreshing characteristic to have in the genre.

But because of this mechanic, it makes another aspect of the game seem extremely silly: you basically can't touch water. There are a few areas of the map where, if you jump off, you'll fall straight into the sea, which eliminates you instantly. Shallow creeks and stagnant water throughout the map won't harm you, but anything deeper sends you to your doom. It's not something that comes into play often, but every novice player makes the mistake of falling off while scrambling away from a fight at least once. Frankly, it's just funny that you can leap from a giant mountain and land without harm, but a bit of water can kill you.

According to the game's lore, the 60-player competition that your legend drops in on is actually a televised game show called the Apex Games. Created as a way for the pioneers and outlaws of the Outlands to settle their differences, the competitive sport has become the way for legends to vie for fame, money, and the glory that comes with being crowned a Champion. It's quite the cool setup for a battle royale game, yet when you find yourself on Kings Canyon in the heat of battle, it doesn't exactly feel like a TV show.

For one, where are the cameras? Calling it a show implies that there are plenty of cameras throughout the island that fans are watching, but you never see any of them. You don't see camera feeds outside of your own or your squadmates' when you die. The game doesn't offer any death cam or kill cam like many competitive multiplayer games do. It's odd to think of Apex as having a TV premise because you don't really get that vibe in-game.

Realistically, few gamers go into multiplayer shooters with the goal of racking up assists. Sure, you want those kills, but when you're on a team with other good players, chances are that they'll get some of them regardless. Yeah, it's ultimately about the W, but people want to pad their stats. That's why keeping track of assists is actually very important. High assist totals can show potential teammates that you have a willingness to work hard and help your team win in any means necessary. Nobody likes those players who are just out for themselves.

In Apex, you'll get notified of your assists onscreen. Basically, if you don't knock an opponent down, you're not getting credit for a kill. You could do quite a bit of damage, but you won't see that kill number go up. Still, it doesn't make assists any less important. You can be a vital part of your team and end up with zero kills, but a high damage number. Except you'll probably never know how many assists you actually get, because the game doesn't keep track of them. There's no tracker you can add to your legend and there's no stat column after a match ends. Why give players an onscreen alert if the game won't keep track of them?

There's no pay-to-win option in Apex Legends, something that immediately catapults the game into the upper echelon of free-to-play games. Unfortunately, that's where the positives about its microtransactions end. While you can't purchase anything except cosmetics, the pricing structure for doing so is pretty egregious, and people aren't spending enough time talking about it. When Season 1 of the Battle Pass released in March, players immediately maligned Respawn for the slow progression and mediocre rewards. Yet, people haven't really talked about the ridiculous discrepancy between the Battle Pass cost and the cost of the premium cosmetics available in the store.

When you look at the available legendary items — usually a couple of legendary weapon and character skins — you'll notice that each one costs around 1,800 Apex Coins. A set of 1,000 of these coins will set you back $9.99, which means that a single legendary skin will run you about $18. That's crazy in and of itself, but it's even more outlandish when you compare it to the entire Battle Pass, which has a basic version that costs 950 coins (about $9.50). A cosmetic item costs nearly twice as much as the pass, and that's an awful pricing structure.

Mirage, aka The "Holographic Trickster," doesn't seem to be one of the more popular legends in Apex. If you watch any high-level squads, especially in the pro tournaments featured on Twitch, you won't see him very often. His skills don't exactly fit within the game's current meta — it's all about Wraith, Bangalore, and Lifeline these days. Still, in casual play, you'll find the occasional Mirage player. He certainly brings some quirkiness and personality to a squad. Some would argue that's all he brings, though, as his abilities aren't exactly killer. His character focuses on decoys, duplicates of himself that serve as distractions. His Tactical sends out a single, moving decoy which offers up a distraction that, when hit, pings an opponent's exact location. It's useful, but pretty easy to avoid if you're an experienced player.

His ultimate is arguably one of the weakest in the game, as it sends out a cluster of decoys that don't move. Well, at least on flat ground. If you're running on level terrain and pop your ult, the decoys will stand in one place, and that rarely fools opponents. However, you can get them to run upon deployment if you're on a decline or jumping off of a cliff. It's an odd design choice that renders it less than useful. Mirage would instantly become a better legend if those decoys would move no matter if you're on flat ground or not.

Hardcore battle royale players care about statistics, and not just the number of wins. If you look to some of the high-level competitors and streamers, you'll notice that they seek out firefights, hoping to tally lots of kills on the way to victory. For the casual players, these stats are still important, but plenty of them would trade in a ten-kill game for a taste of a win in a heartbeat. Regardless of how you play the game, you likely want an easy way to check out your kill/death ratio, games won, top five finishes, etc. Unfortunately, that's simply not an option in Apex Legends, because the only way to check out those numbers is in the Banners menu.

Respawn designed its stat tracker system in a very odd way. You have to unlock various trackers for each of your legends so that you can add them to your Banner. The caveat is that you can only have three trackers on a character at any given time, so you and your squad can only see a small selection of your statistics during the pre-game. If you want to look at every available tracker, you have to be in the menu and ready to scroll through each legend's trackers. It's a weird, clunky design choice and one that will hopefully change in the future.

When you have a game featuring multiple characters with different traits and abilities, the mark of a strong training mode is one that lets you test out each one to get a feel for them and start learning their various intricacies. Bizarrely, Apex Legends' training mode doesn't let you do this. When you boot up the game for the first time, you'll be introduced to the training, which will take you through the basics with Lifeline. This five-minute tutorial gives you a look at healing, respawning, and lets you test out the various weapons on the firing range. It's well-designed and to-the-point. If you never want to use that mode again, you don't have to.

And, unfortunately, there's really no need to unless you want to test out new weapons when they're introduced into the game, because you can't actually train with any legend besides Lifeline. No matter what character you select in the menu — the one that appears on your squad screen before you select "Play Apex" — you'll always load into the training mode with Lifeline. If you want to learn the other characters, you'll just have to get experience with them in-game.

As a developer formed by Vince Zampella and Jason West, the two founders of Infinity Ward who also created Call of Duty, it's no surprise that one of the best aspects of Apex Legends is its shooting mechanics. With great gun design and balancing, as well as tight, controlled shooting, the competitive battle royale keeps the traits that so many people loved about the Titanfall series. However, even the best in the business don't always get everything right, and Respawn certainly missed the mark when it comes to one aspect of the game's gunplay. When aiming down a scope, your teammates' names will disappear if they're in your weapon's sights.

On a surface level, this might not seem like a big deal, but it can absolutely lead to some confusion. As soon as those names disappear from above your teammates' heads, they look no different than your enemies. This can result in stray gunfire or, if opponents are close, missed opportunities for kills. There's no worse feeling than shooting at a friendly when you're hunting an enemy.

"The hot drops are stupid as hell. Everyone is hot-dropping, but they don't realize how dumb it is to hot drop." That expert insight comes directly from Shroud, a prominent streamer and one of the most high-profile Apex Legends players on the planet. Whether you're familiar with him or not, you should know that his opinion carries a lot of weight, especially because he was a consultant on the game during its development. The man knows what he's talking about, and he certainly knows that the map's hot zones — those blue circles you'll see on the map as you prepare to drop into Kings Canyon — aren't worth the hassle.

Hop into a game of Apex and watch how many people head for that blue circle — it's often half of the 60-person squad. Whether you're a pro-level player or a novice, it's really not worth it to drop with half the players and duke it out for a small amount of gear. "There's no reason to hot drop in this game at all," Shroud went on to explain. "There's loot everywhere, right? It's all about the same. And each game lasts 15-20 minutes long, it's not like a [expletive] hell of a commitment. You're going to find action regardless." Listen to the expert and stop dropping in the hot zones. You'll live longer.

Apex features two legendary weapons that you can only get one way: random supply drops. You know when these are coming. Your legend or your squadmates' legends will shout them out and you can see them as they careen toward Kings Canyon. Players make mad dashes for these things, hoping to get a shot at the Kraber sniper rifle or the Mastiff shotgun. To many gamers, these weapons are the differences between victory and horrible, tragic defeat. However, while you may want to get your hands on one of these as you enter the later stages of a match, don't worry about picking them up early on.

Why? Because you can't find ammo for either weapon on the map. The Kraber .50 cal and Mastiff shotgun both utilize proprietary ammunition. They have a set number of bullets when you pick them up and once they're gone, you're out of luck. Finding one early on essentially means you'll either burn an inventory slot and have to use your other weapon for the majority of the game, or you'll burn through your legendary weapon ammo very quickly and have to drop it regardless. Players know this and yet still focus on finding them early. If you're guilty of this, stop worrying about these weapons. Remember that both the Kraber and Mastiff only come with four-round mags.

No one likes a quitter, especially in a cutthroat game like Apex Legends. Without a full, dedicated three-person squad, winning won't come easy. That's why players that quit early are hated in the community. During your Apex journey, you'll likely encounter teammates who quit your game the moment they get knocked down, and that's frustrating if you have a good shot at reviving or respawning them. It's the risk you take every time you join up with randoms. It's an even bigger risk because there's not currently any penalty for quitting.

Peculiarly, Respawn accidentally implemented a feature back in April that penalized quitters. This feature forced players into a five-minute "cooldown" after every three matches they quit early. After the community started to notice this, Respawn patched it out and essentially said that the team was working on that feature but didn't have any intention of going live with it at that time. You have to wonder why, because it seems like something that should have been a part of the game from its inception. Despite the accidental addition of the feature, Apex remains without a penalty for quitters, and that's a problem.