Apex Legends

Apex Legends

36 ratings
Newcomers - Sportsmanship and communication
By Alcator
If you are totally new to Apex legends, or if you are inexperienced and are struggling with basic things, read this guide. It covers basics like Legend Selection, Communication, Initial Jump, Pinging, What to do and what not to do.

This guide does NOT assume any skill. It does NOT assume that you are able to shoot well or use abilities effectively. This is the very basic stuff.

It also covers basics of Sportsmanship - "how to behave towards your squad mates".
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Legend Selection screen
  1. Once the 60-player lobby is established and you're taken into the match, you will first go through "Legend Selection". On this screen, you SHOULD place your cursor (pointer) over the legend you want to play as. If you do, others see your preference and can plan their choice accordingly. That said, make sure you do not accidentally point at a random legend which you DON'T WANT to play - because some players will let you have a legend you're aiming at, and if you then choose some other one, it frustrates them.
  2. Say hello during Legend selection. You can use text chat or voice chat. Typing "Hello" in chat humanizes you, and your squad mates are more likely to be considerate towards you.
    If someone says Hello to you, say Hello back.
    And for Russians/Ukrainians etc. - Please, don't use Cyrillic (Azbuka) to write "Privet", it makes you look arrogant and uncooperative. You're playing on German-located servers with people from Germany, Poland, Austria, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary... - most of whom can't READ (let alone understand) your alphabet. Speak/Write English.
Initial overflight (and Jump)
Each match starts with the overflight of the drop ship, from which all squads / players have to jump.

  1. When the overflight begins, look at the map, and PING (click) where you'd like to land. Ideally, there should be 3 pings occurring during the very beginning of the overflight. If you are the Jump master, definitely ping BEFORE you start the drop. With that said...
  2. Old Klingon Proverb: "A caravan moves at the speed of the slowest member". If you are a Level 500 star, and someone on your team is a Level 25 newcomer, don't force them into some hot zone or popular highly contested drop location, where they will die within seconds. Especially if you see that they pinged some periphery location away from others, it means they want to familiarize themselves with the game, and dropping into combat prevents that. It doesn't matter that YOU can kill 20 enemies in 5 minutes and win the game solo - the other players need an opportunity to learn. If you want to hot drop every match, find 2 other guys like you and match with them.

During the jump, hold the FORWARD key/button to maintain an aerodynamic position; without it, the legends spread their arms and slow down.

There are, roughly speaking, three types of locations in relation to the flight path of the drop ship, and each of those requires slightly different jump approach.
  • Directly at the start
  • Along the flight path
  • Far from flight path

If you agree on jumping at the very first opportunity (perhaps because the drop ship is starting its flight over the location where you all want to go), you want to begin your jump in a straight dive to reach a top speed. Be prepared that at least one other squad will have the same intention, and whoever lands first and grabs a weapon first gets a huge advantage, possibly eliminating a full squad without suffering any damage.

If your intended landing zone is directly below the flight path or very close to it, then you want to jump when you are 450 or fewer distance units away from it. This will allow you to reach a speed of 145+ in a direct line. Many jump masters are unaware of this and are jumping towards the same location while sitll 600+ away, which means you will land at least 4 seconds earlier than them! This can be huge! In 4 seconds, Caustic can deploy all 3 traps, you all can grab a weapon or a grenade and start killing.

If your intended landing point is far from the flight path, you'll need to perform efficient gliding maneuvers. Maximum reachable distance of course depends on terrain obstacles along the way, but with practice, you may reach up to 1200 meters. The trick is to use short sharp dives to increase speed to ~145, and then level your flight as much as possible, and keep flying at almost the same altitude until the speed dips to 135 - 130 range. Then you repeat the short dive to boost your speed and once again level the flight.
Movement pings
  1. Ping where you want to go BEFORE you start going there.
  2. If someone pings "Let's go here" and it's not one of several houses in the same area where you are, they are PROPOSING where to move next. You should look at that marker and choose one of two reactions - either ping it as well to say "Yes, I'm ready, let's go", or ping the "No" option to say "I don't think it's a good idea / I'm not ready yet". Then, express WHY you did it -- perhaps by pinging your empty weapon slot, which serves as "Sorry, I still haven't found a (2nd) weapon, give me more time", or by pinging some other direction/location proposal to say "I think we should go this way".
  3. Don't ping more than 300 meters ahead. It makes no sense to be in South East corner of the map, open the map and ping 800 meters to the North West, just because that's where the ring is. When you do something like that, it doesn't propose any specific route, and depending on where each member of the squad is, they are likely to take very different routes, thus being exposed and vulnerable to ambushes. Ping 150 - 200 meters ahead so that the marker is actually still visible on the minimap. Ideally, place these "let's go this way" markers into iconic choke points to say "Yes; I really propose we go through this area together".
Combat related pings
  1. If you see enemies, press "F" on your keyboard to ping "Enemies [there]" before engaging. Don't just start shooting, because if you start shooting, your friends cannot effectively join you unless they first get a visual of you, then recognize where you're shooting, and then look in that direction. Whereas if you ping enemies properly, they can immediately start flanking, throw grenade there or simply do any number of other effective things to help you in combat.
  2. Please, DON'T ABUSE the ping. Too many players spam their ping to express "Hurry" in situations like "Come on, let's go towards the ring". But when you spam ping, it gets turned into "Enemies here", and that stops many newcomer players in their tracks, paradoxically working AGAINST you. Furthermore, pinging like crazy drowns out other noises, like footsteps, so your team mates cannot hear if someone is sneaking up on them or preparing a trap or readying a grenade/Nox gas ultimate. You're hurting your chances of survival if you ping-ping-ping-ping-ping.
Miscellaneous
  1. Old Klingon Proverb: "It's a Battle Royale, not Team Deathmatch." Your objective is to be the last man standing, not to rake in 5 kills in the first minute. Sometimes, the smartest move is for your last living squad mate to pull back, wait for the winning squad to move away, then pick up your respawn banners and go respawn you at a beacon. Perhaps next time you won't engage aggressively with your squad mates still 200 meters behind...
  2. Above all else, please remember it's just a game. The "HORRIBLE" team mate you are angry about because they failed to clutch 1v3 against Platinum+ premade squad is doing the best they can. Telling them to uninstall the game or screaming insults about their mother is not going to make them better.
11 Comments
hornyandupset 2 Nov, 2023 @ 2:38pm 
This is really helpful! Thank you! I still feel like such a noob tio this game and this really does help out
MsterGaMer1 30 Oct, 2023 @ 2:10pm 
thx i just got the game and i am struggling with combat could u make a artcle about that?
this one was great!
Alcator  [author] 23 Oct, 2023 @ 8:28am 
@Trippy, @Shrine: Thank you!
Fordon Greeman 23 Oct, 2023 @ 8:25am 
I've been playing since Season 0 and after coming back to Apex in Season 12 (took a break after Season 5), I've noticed a decline in basic communication and teamwork. Unranked feels more like a TDM, even when the jump master doesn't hot drop. Teammates treating you like an NPC instead of a human being, shooting before pinging/running around the map without a plan on where to go, and not sharing loot when someone is lacking shields/ammo.

Even though this guide is aimed at newcomers, to me it serves as a great reminder on how we should treat other players regardless of skill and in-game experience. And to the top-fraggers out there, lead by example and exalt your less experienced teammates rather than berate them for being slow to a fight or not having the same mechanical skill you do.

10/10 guide :ccknight:
Trippy 22 Oct, 2023 @ 1:03pm 
I wish much PPL would read this
Muhammad Rifky 19 Jan, 2022 @ 9:26pm 
nice one. as a new player, I learn quite a few from this. It helps:steamthumbsup:
AppleTek 15 Jan, 2022 @ 4:48am 
english comment was perfect, dont listen to these dudes. Its not that everybody should speak fluently, but at least know a common language enough to get across general ideas. "here" "no" "hurt" "need ammmo/gun/help", etc
ded4ss 11 Jan, 2022 @ 8:07am 
More ppl should learn how to speak english and I'm not saying to speak it perfectly just the basics.
BrokenCTRL 18 Mar, 2021 @ 10:20am 
Russian part bit racist tho
BiG_FooT 13 Mar, 2021 @ 5:03pm 
Good guide despite reservations on the Russian comment. Some people don't speak En/not comfortable with it. I get that it's a common issue on EU servers for any team game.