How to survive your first Apex Legends match
Apex Legends is a high octane, intense concentration, three player team battle royale. The new season just released last week and guess what, it’s hard!
I finally put time aside to jump back into Apex Legends and I was not expecting to be so out of my element in Battle Charge.
But I guess that is what happens when you take long breaks from something that you didn’t really spend a lot of time in to begin with.
But I digress.
I went in with a full team of three and I quickly found out that there is a high learning curve and in order to be of some use to my teammates, who have played somewhat since season 1, I needed to “Git Gud”.
So if you are like me and want to give Apex Legends an actual place in your gaming rotation and don’t know how to get in the rhythm or you just want to giggle at the 3 things that became apparent to me in my first game, read on.
How to survive a match in Apex Legends:
1.Location
At this point, assume everyone is better than you because they’ve been playing longer and more frequently than you. Enter defense mode from the moment you choose a location to jump to. I found the road less traveled is kinder to newbies like myself. So choose Skull Town. Always choose Skull Town.
If you’re lucky, no one will follow you and you’ll be able to get body armor and a half decent weapon. I managed to save my life by throwing a grenade point blank. It was the first thing I found, my teammate was screaming immediately and I panicked! It worked out. Not for long but it felt good.
2.Button Configuration
Check your button configuration before you start the game. I know it sounds like common sense, but I didn’t realize that Apex Legends swaps around your buttons. When I finally picked up a weapon I didn’t think about my buttons. I ended up in a fight with another player, every shot I took was followed by a half-cocked melee attempt, and it got me killed.
That’s because my melee and shoot buttons were too close. I was told I was turning too fast.
HUH!
Anyway, I changed my butting configuration to Button Puncher and I had better luck for it.
3.Pinging can be annoying
Pinging is good sometimes, but you’re annoying if you ping too much. I was bleeding out. The incoming team sniped me and I was trying to be helpful, so I hit my R1 and pinged the enemy location.
How many times? More than a couple.
My pinging ended up being more of a hindrance than a help in that situation. My advice is to ping once or twice and then use callouts. Especially if you are in a party with people you know.
Honorable mentions:
A few things that happened to be very annoying during my first game included …
- Not understanding my teammates call outs because I don’t play this game. As a newbie, you just have to work on it. It’s not hopeless.
- Being knocked when my team thought I was up and able to help. The Gameplay starts to feel a bit more fluid the longer you play it, so don’t give up.
- Looting during a fight is no good. It’s tempting especially when you don’t have much to begin with but focus on the fight. Revive your teammates if they are knocked down and try to stay alive. Hopefully, the loot will be there when you are able to get it.
Granted, I am not a battle royale player per say. I’m use to a “regular” PVP environment, but I’m sure I can enjoy Apex Legends once I get down the basics. I played as Lifeline and I’m thinking she’s newbie friendly. You can judge for yourself.