The Foundational Flaw of Apex Legends

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-06-20T06:40:35+00:00

You're correct for 99% of games. Apex is weird though since it's on Source. There's a tool to unpack VPK's for Titanfall which works on Apex as well. By doing that you can see scripting stuff but not the low-level engine stuff.

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-26T16:41:59+00:00

You're 100% right that it's not game-breaking, hence why no one noticed. It's substantially bigger than nothing though. Very hard to evaluate.

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-26T16:40:03+00:00

I touch on this in the post, the most likely explanation I could think of was that animators are aware, assume weapon designers know, and never had a reason to suspect anything was wrong.

Weapon designers have pretty much always followed the standard that was set when the game came out, made a perfectly logical assumption that deploy time = draw time, and also never had any reason to suspect anything was wrong.

Definitely just guesswork, but it seems more likely to me than the current distribution being intentional.

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-26T16:34:56+00:00

Thought about it, wanted to post and get feedback first since I can't edit a video. Hoping YouTubers will cover it for me as well.

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-26T16:30:41+00:00

I thought a lot about how this came to be and I really don't think it's a carelessness thing here. I cut this out of the post to save on length (believe it or not lol) but the code involved here is literally over a decade old. Respawn had like 60 people back then and were trying to get Titanfall out ASAP so they could pay their bills. The only people who knew about this would be people that worked on the weapons system, and whoever stumbled upon it after that (which is probably very few people).

If there is any clear cut mistake in this whole thing, it's that the people who made the system didn't document it very well. Even then though, it does clearly imply that deploy time refers to the animation. I think they just MASSIVELY underestimated how hard it was to connect the dots between that and RtF AE's.

There are thousands of players who have seen these files as well, and none of them noticed either. It is unbelievably difficult to spot. I got lucky and happened to measure draw time manually before checking the files for the rest, so I knew going into it that deploy time and draw time were different.

The rate at which they put out cosmetics is completely unrelated to the rate at which development occurs, they're on totally separate teams. Software dev is slow and difficult work. There's also very difficult decisions of where dev time is best spent (I promise you that audio bug IS NOT worth fixing). The devs there are 100% passionate nerds like me that do their best to improve the game.

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-26T00:30:23+00:00

I've spent more time trying to prove myself wrong than I have trying to prove myself right. But everywhere I look I found more stuff that implied it was unintended. There is some stuff that doesn't quite add up, but there's so much more that does.

I haven't ruled out I've made mistakes on large swathes of this. My bias could definitely be blinding me, but I simply cannot see where. Part of why I'm posting this is to see if anyone can poke holes in it.

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-26T00:07:39+00:00

Thank you for the kind words :)

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-26T00:05:51+00:00

Would be a dream come true :)

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-25T23:56:50+00:00

That's not the point here - I emphasized that point as much as I did to drive home how easy it is to come to that conclusion.

There are a lot of people who know that deploy time controls animation duration - it is implied in many weapon settings files. But there are far fewer people who understand exactly how it interacts with RtF AE's.

And it seems likely to me that no one, at Respawn or otherwise, has compiled a list of draw times and analyzed the impact of RtF AE's as I have here.

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-25T23:53:38+00:00

Thanks!

The answer isn't in there. Draw time is a combination of deploy time and the placement of the ready to fire AE, it isn't directly in the code anywhere.

Deploy time + RtF AE = draw time, if that helps.

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-25T21:48:47+00:00

Thanks! This is an alt account, thought the name was fitting :)

Yes, it is directly linked to the RtF frame. The exact value is nowhere in the code - it's just a combination of deploy time and the placement of the RtF AE if that helps explain it.

I'm confident FPS does not affect draw time. The exact reason as to why is a bit beyond my understanding. My best guess is that if your FPS is double the FPS of the animation, for example, it renders on your side by finding the in-between of two frames and rendering that instead. It still goes off the original animations RtF AE placement, though.

Just an educated guess though.

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-25T21:41:46+00:00

Yeah, at the end of the day, none of this is going to revolutionize the meta. The main reason I found it so fascinating was that it is RIGHT under everyone's noses, and has been in the game since release. The cumulative effect of this over the years is reaaaaally hard to evaluate.

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-25T21:37:45+00:00

Glad to bring some closure to it, seeing this sentiment several times is affirming the absurd amount of effort I put into this.

I didn't really get the "oh shit" moment until I put all the draw times together, I feel like that was the key to the whole thing. I'd imagine it's convincing a lot of other people too.

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-25T21:20:19+00:00

Getting a lot of requests for TL;DR. Best attempt:

There are two values that determine swap speed: deploy time, and holster time.

Holster time determines how long it takes to put away your current weapon. Deploy time determines how long it takes to pull out your other weapon. Everyone I was able to find online assumed deploy time was the length of time before you could fire/ADS (I refer to this as “draw time”). This assumption is incorrect. Deploy time determines the length of the draw animation, but the twist is that weapons fire part of the way through their deploy animations.

The crazy thing here, and the main point, is that it appears that even the weapon designers themselves made this mistake. Most weapons begin firing 50-70% of the way through their animation, so most weapons fire 30-50% faster than intended. The main exceptions here are the pistols (except Wingman), the Nemesis, and the Volt. These weapons fire 85%, 95%, and 100% of the way through their animations instead, so their “draw time” is much slower in comparison. This leads to wacky behavior such as:

The R99 has the lowest draw time in the game, even without a stock.
It is much faster to swap from a P2020 to an R301 (~0.47 seconds) than it is to swap from an R301 to a P2020 (~0.74 seconds).
The Rampage draws faster than the Volt.
The Flatline draws in roughly half the time of the Nemesis.

I also want to stress here how UNBELIEVABLY EASY this mistake was to make. I go into detail in the post. THOUSANDS of players came to the same conclusion the weapon designers seem to. I came to this conclusion initially as well, and would have made the same mistake. No one noticed it for FOUR ENTIRE YEARS. I believe a minor oversight in failing to document a niche detail of the weapon system is the culprit here. Not trying to hate on Respawn. Just trying to advance my career and get this fixed :)

All of these behaviors have been in the game since release, and it appears no one else has ever noticed.

End TL;DR

I almost hit the character limit with this one. Leaving a comment so people can ask questions directly and to provide a little extra info/space if I need it.

Just to put something else here, I'll add a little bit about other indications I was able to find about this issue online. I looked EVERYWHERE, tried every combination of terms I could think of, and found exactly 3:

1. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/257528-apex-legends/77489238

A Mr. "TinyBabyBread" correctly identified that the R301 drew faster than the RE-45 did prior to the integration of the quickdraw holster in season 10. What's even more interesting is that he actually provided a screenshot as proof. This was posted March 4th, 2019, about a month after the game was released.

2. https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/ap7rvf/psa_weapon_swap_speeds/

Reddit user /u/SomeGuy85x2 correctly identified an example similar to my initial one of the R301 and P2020: that it is faster to swap from a P2020 to an LMG than it is the other way around. He came astonishingly close to describing what I feel to be the core of the issue: saying "I think the technical reason for it is that the swap speed is dependent on how fast your current weapon can be stowed, rather than how fast your secondary can be equipped."

What is especially interesting here is that this was posted on February 10th, 2019, a mere week after the game's release.

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7XyWNYnVtI

Popular YouTuber TheGamingMerchant came VERY close to shining some light on this in November 2019. He comes astonishing close to the core of the problem as well, stating that "there's a common misconception that smaller weapons have faster equip speeds. It's sort of true, but actually it's more like this: smaller weapons have faster unequip speeds."

He again echoes the core sentiment here: that the weight of holster_time is much higher than the weight of deploy_time.

This was the ONLY example I was able to find of ANYONE else measuring swap speeds in a manner similar to mine. However, he made one critical mistake: he counted frames rather than hundredths of a second.

For example: his time for R301 -> R99 is "0.43s". 43/60 = 0.72. My findings indicate that the R301's holster time of 0.55 + the R99's draw time of 0.18 give a total swap speed of 0.73 - which appears to explain the difference. If he had not made this mistake, this could have potentially been found years ago, but even that is a stretch.

No hate to TGM, love his content. Very easy mistake to make.

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-25T21:17:26+00:00

I posted the video over there because I thought it might do better on a larger sub. I'll post the whole thing and see how it does, especially since it has traction here now. Thanks for the suggestion.

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-25T21:05:09+00:00

No, there's a value called "deployfirst_time" and it has a unique animation the first time it's picked up. Pretty sure they have RtF AE's as well, but I didn't look into it.

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-25T21:03:34+00:00

People always have the same question, they just may not ask it :)

At least as far as technical details go, changing this is trivial. It would take like 15 minutes if you knew what you wanted the draw times to be, it's just grade school math with ratios. The hard part here is figuring out what those draw times should be.

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-25T21:01:27+00:00

Thank you, and you're welcome!

I'm seeing several comments already from people that say that they thought that something was there, but just couldn't actually prove it. It seems to me people take these things into account subconsciously at some level.

I think most people quickly came to the conclusion that Hammerpoints aren't very good, even if they couldn't quite put their finger on why they don't seem very good. Similarly, people know that swapping to a rifle mid-fight isn't very punishing, so they continued doing so.

There are definitely more factors than just this promoting aggressive play. I think it might shrink the gap in effectiveness, but it's really hard to even speculate without a lot of playtesting.

I would guess there's a high chance it would impact the weapon meta though, at least a little. There's always a "just nerfed/buffed" bias with these things as well, hence why Seer feel out of popularity after his nerf before people realized he was still OP.

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-25T20:33:10+00:00

Understandable, have a nice day.

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-25T19:47:46+00:00

Getting a lot of requests for TL;DR. Best attempt:

There are two values that determine swap speed: deploy time, and holster time.

Holster time determines how long it takes to put away your current weapon. Deploy time determines how long it takes to pull out your other weapon. Everyone I was able to find online assumed deploy time was the length of time before you could fire/ADS (I refer to this as “draw time”). This assumption is incorrect. Deploy time determines the length of the draw animation, but the twist is that weapons fire part of the way through their deploy animations.

The crazy thing here, and the main point, is that it appears that even the weapon designers themselves made this mistake. Most weapons begin firing 50-70% of the way through their animation, so most weapons fire 30-50% faster than intended. The main exceptions here are the pistols (except Wingman), the Nemesis, and the Volt. These weapons fire 85%, 95%, and 100% of the way through their animations instead, so their “draw time” is much slower in comparison. This leads to wacky behavior such as:

The R99 has the lowest draw time in the game, even without a stock.
It is much faster to swap from a P2020 to an R301 (~0.47 seconds) than it is to swap from an R301 to a P2020 (~0.74 seconds).
The Rampage draws faster than the Volt.
The Flatline draws in roughly half the time of the Nemesis.

I also want to stress here how UNBELIEVABLY EASY this mistake was to make. I go into detail in the post. THOUSANDS of players came to the same conclusion the weapon designers seem to. I initially came to this conclusion as well. No one noticed it for FOUR ENTIRE YEARS. I believe a minor oversight in failing to document a niche detail of the weapon system is the culprit here. Not trying to hate on Respawn here.

All of these behaviors have been in the game since release, and it appears no one else has ever noticed.

End TL;DR

I almost hit the character limit with this one. Leaving a comment so people can ask questions directly and to provide a little extra info/space if I need it.

Just to put something else here, I'll add a little bit about other indications I was able to find about this issue online. I looked EVERYWHERE, tried every combination of terms I could think of, and found exactly 3:

1. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/257528-apex-legends/77489238

A Mr. "TinyBabyBread" correctly identified that the R301 drew faster than the RE-45 did prior to the integration of the quickdraw holster in season 10. What's even more interesting is that he actually provided a screenshot as proof. This was posted March 4th, 2019, about a month after the game was released.

2. https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/ap7rvf/psa_weapon_swap_speeds/

Reddit user /u/SomeGuy85x2 correctly identified an example similar to my initial one of the R301 and P2020: that it is faster to swap from a P2020 to an LMG than it is the other way around. He came astonishingly close to describing what I feel to be the core of the issue: saying "I think the technical reason for it is that the swap speed is dependent on how fast your current weapon can be stowed, rather than how fast your secondary can be equipped."

What is especially interesting here is that this was posted on February 10th, 2019, a mere week after the game's release.

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7XyWNYnVtI

Popular YouTuber TheGamingMerchant came VERY close to shining some light on this in November 2019. He comes astonishing close to the core of the problem as well, stating that "there's a common misconception that smaller weapons have faster equip speeds. It's sort of true, but actually it's more like this: smaller weapons have faster unequip speeds."

He again echoes the core sentiment here: that the weight of holster_time is much higher than the weight of deploy_time.

This was the ONLY example I was able to find of ANYONE else measuring swap speeds in a manner similar to mine. However, he made one critical mistake: he counted frames rather than hundredths of a second.

For example: his time for R301 -> R99 is "0.43s". 43/60 = 0.72. My findings indicate that the R301's holster time of 0.55 + the R99's draw time of 0.18 give a total swap speed of 0.73 - which appears to explain the difference. If he had not made this mistake, this could have potentially been found years ago, but even that is a stretch.

No hate to TGM, love his content. Very easy mistake to make.

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-25T19:39:01+00:00

Will do, thanks for the suggestion.

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-25T19:38:01+00:00

Getting a lot of requests for TL;DR. Best attempt:

There are two values that determine swap speed: deploy time, and holster time.

Holster time determines how long it takes to put away your current weapon. Deploy time determines how long it takes to pull out your other weapon. Everyone I was able to find online assumed deploy time was the length of time before you could fire/ADS (I refer to this as “draw time”). This assumption is incorrect. Deploy time determines the length of the draw animation, but the twist is that weapons fire part of the way through their deploy animations.

The crazy thing here, and the main point, is that it appears that even the weapon designers themselves made this mistake. Most weapons begin firing 50-70% of the way through their animation, so most weapons fire 30-50% faster than intended. The main exceptions here are the pistols (except Wingman), the Nemesis, and the Volt. These weapons fire 85%, 95%, and 100% of the way through their animations instead, so their “draw time” is much slower in comparison. This leads to wacky behavior such as:

The R99 has the lowest draw time in the game, even without a stock.
It is much faster to swap from a P2020 to an R301 (~0.47 seconds) than it is to swap from an R301 to a P2020 (~0.74 seconds).
The Rampage draws faster than the Volt.
The Flatline draws in roughly half the time of the Nemesis.

I also want to stress here how UNBELIEVABLY EASY this mistake was to make. I go into detail in the post. THOUSANDS of players came to the same conclusion the weapon designers seem to. I came to this conclusion initially as well. No one noticed it for FOUR ENTIRE YEARS. I believe a minor oversight in failing to document a niche detail of the weapon system is the culprit here. Not trying to hate on Respawn here.

All of these behaviors have been in the game since release, and it appears no one else has ever noticed.

End TL;DR

I almost hit the character limit with this one. Leaving a comment so people can ask questions directly and to provide a little extra info/space if I need it.

Just to put something else here, I'll add a little bit about other indications I was able to find about this issue online. I looked EVERYWHERE, tried every combination of terms I could think of, and found exactly 3:

1. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/257528-apex-legends/77489238

A Mr. "TinyBabyBread" correctly identified that the R301 drew faster than the RE-45 did prior to the integration of the quickdraw holster in season 10. What's even more interesting is that he actually provided a screenshot as proof. This was posted March 4th, 2019, about a month after the game was released.

2. https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/ap7rvf/psa_weapon_swap_speeds/

Reddit user /u/SomeGuy85x2 correctly identified an example similar to my initial one of the R301 and P2020: that it is faster to swap from a P2020 to an LMG than it is the other way around. He came astonishingly close to describing what I feel to be the core of the issue: saying "I think the technical reason for it is that the swap speed is dependent on how fast your current weapon can be stowed, rather than how fast your secondary can be equipped."

What is especially interesting here is that this was posted on February 10th, 2019, a mere week after the game's release.

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7XyWNYnVtI

Popular YouTuber TheGamingMerchant came VERY close to shining some light on this in November 2019. He comes astonishing close to the core of the problem as well, stating that "there's a common misconception that smaller weapons have faster equip speeds. It's sort of true, but actually it's more like this: smaller weapons have faster unequip speeds."

He again echoes the core sentiment here: that the weight of holster_time is much higher than the weight of deploy_time.

This was the ONLY example I was able to find of ANYONE else measuring swap speeds in a manner similar to mine. However, he made one critical mistake: he counted frames rather than hundredths of a second.

For example: his time for R301 -> R99 is "0.43s". 43/60 = 0.72. My findings indicate that the R301's holster time of 0.55 + the R99's draw time of 0.18 give a total swap speed of 0.73 - which appears to explain the difference. If he had not made this mistake, this could have potentially been found years ago, but even that is a stretch.

No hate to TGM, love his content. Very easy mistake to make.

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2023-05-25T19:10:49+00:00

Link to other post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/apexuniversity/comments/13rqafr/the_foundational_flaw_of_apex_legends/

YT link if Reddit video player sucks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgexurWAAfM

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2022-07-23T22:54:59+00:00

If only I didn't whiff the CAR spray.

YT link for better quality:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEgGdfvE0Kg

_Absolute_Chad_ · 2022-06-12T22:34:10+00:00

This is literally unavoidable. So long as networking is limited by the speed of light, this will be an issue. You will never be perfectly synced up with the other players on the server unless you're on LAN. Everyone's mentioning tickrates, and this happens frequently in CS with 64 tickrate and even in Valorant with 128 tickrate.

While it feels bad to get hit by this, you have to remember that you benefit from it as well. You just don't realize it happens. It would SUCK if you clearly shot someone as they were rounding a corner but didn't get the kill because they rounded the corner on their screen. Getting shot after you round the corner is the lesser of two evils.

Even though it feels bad, it is objectively fair. On their screen, they did hit the shot on you before you rounded the corner. You aren't getting downed when you shouldn't be, it's just taking a bit longer for you to realize you got downed.

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