The Apex Legends Global Series has been subject to many technical issues throughout the years, and the Championship has been no different, with problems starting as soon as day one of the Groups Stage.
Server crashes, player disconnects, and match restarts have caused headaches for Apex pros and spectators alike, though the biggest complication came from a newly implemented feature: the in-game pause function.
The use of pauses during groups at the ALGS Championship in Birmingham has been met with overwhelmingly negative reactions from pros, who saw some pauses as clear violations of competitive integrity. In response, EA created an official blog clarifying how appeals are submitted and pauses are enforced.
The use of in-game pauses is solely made by ALGS officials, and cannot be requested by any players or team staff. Once problems are detected based on server information, the referees will decide if the may should continue to be played or call for a pause.
If the referees decide to pause, a request will be submitted to the server, where the game will come to a full stop once no player-on-player damage has occurred for more than two seconds, not counting knocked down players.
While the pause is active, players and coaches are not allowed to communicate with each other by any means until the technical issues are resolved.
Related: Apex server crashes plague ALGS, and the pros aren’t happy about it
Once problems have been fixed, on-site referees will notify each team the game will continue, following a 30-second countdown.
Unfortunately, these issues were brought to light on the opening day of the Championship, where the servers experienced multiple issues at every stage of the game. Some pauses were seen in a positive light, like when individual players disconnected when there was no direct fighting, and a reconnect to the server was allowed.
However, other uses of the feature were widely criticized, such as in game four of the Group C vs. D play day. In this particular case, FaZe player Joesph “Frexs” Sanchez engaged DarkZero Esports, before a pause interrupted the fight and left Frexs completely exposed in the air without any cover for when the game resumed.
Once the pause resolved, additional server issues caused DarkZero’s aim to shoot upwards, completely missing Frexs and ruining DarkZero’s chance to end the fight and reset.
Team Singularity went on to capitalize on this opportunity, eliminating DarkZero to claim first place in the match—all due to a controversial pause feature that the players had no way of knowing why it even happened.
Related: ALGS Championship 2023: Scores, standings, and results
The community response to EA’s statement following the group stage has been widely positive, with many acknowledging the need for the feature and the positive impact in-game pauses have already had in fixing player connections and server issues, despite the poor day one implementation at the largest tournament of the year.
Samy Duc, Technical Director at Respawn, also noted that the feature is available for use by all Apex players through the live api, allowing for in-game pausing for custom matches, which can help protect competitive integrity in any future community-run tournaments.
The ALGS Championship resumes with the Bracket Stage on Friday, Sept. 8, at 10am CT, with 10 of the bottom 20 teams from the Groups Stage facing elimination from the tournament. Despite the technical problems that affected FaZe and DarkZero, both teams will return to the stage on Saturday, Sept. 9, in the Winner’s Bracket at 6am CT.
Published: Sep 7, 2023 10:14 pm