NICKMERCS explains his thoughts on Apex Legends aim assist
Aim assist has been a topic of discussion in the Apex Legends community since the upcoming removal of tap-strafing was announced, leaving NICKMERCS to share his opinion on the situation.
In the most recent news for Apex Legends, the developers officially announced that the movement tech “tap-strafing” would be removed in the upcoming Collection Event update expected on September 14.
This was highly controversial and even caused further tension between controller and mouse and keyboard players.
The developers justified their decision and mentioned potential changes coming to aim assist, which seems to be a concern for many mouse and keyboard players now that tap-strafing will be removed.
Tap-strafing is a movement tech in Apex Legends that can only be performed on mouse and keyboard on a PC. This was ultimately one of the reasons the devs decided to remove it, claiming it was inaccessible due to its restrictions.
However, mouse and keyboard players were up in arms about the announcement, so much so they began claiming that controller was now the superior input due to aim assist.
Mouse and keyboard’s benefit has mostly been the freedom of movement, but now tap-strafing will be removed. Many are claiming the benefits are lessened.
NICKMERCS shared his opinion on potential changes coming to aim assist in a recent video, which, as you could guess, may not go down too well with mouse and keyboard players.
In the video, Nick mentions the developers worry around players feeling as if they need to use a particular input (controller) to thrive in Apex Legends.
The developers want both inputs to be on a level playing field, hence the reasoning of inaccessibility behind the removal of tap-strafing, as controller players are unable to perform the movement.
NICKMERCS isn’t sure what changes they’re thinking of doing, whether they want to “nerf aim assist or buff aim assist.”
Of course, the potential changes would be to nerf somewhat or lessen the effect of aim assist in response to the uproar surround tap-strafing. It seems Nick is just trolling those players upset with the removal of tap-strafing, asking all his “controller gang” to type “buff” in the comments.
The overall opinion from NICKMERCS is summarized in this sentence: “It’s funny all these keyboard and mouse guys are talking about aim assist being broken, right, but they’re on keyboard and mouse.”
Clearly, Nick feels that both inputs have their strengths and weaknesses, but nerfing aim-assist isn’t the answer. Ultimately, controller players have aim assist as the degree of control over recoil and aim is much higher on mouse and keyboard, especially at longer ranges.
Aim assist does help players a lot in close combat, so perhaps this is what the developers are looking into.
Either way, we’ll have to wait until the update to see just what the developers are planning to do with the aim assist controversy and whether they will decide to change it. For more, check out our article on Octane’s stim glitch in Apex Legends Season 10.
Image Credits: NICKMERCS / Respawn Entertainment
