Respawn Entertainment has disclosed a significant update with regard to its Trident vehicle in Apex Legends, which has been dubbed a “glow-up” for the entire game. The gamers’ reactions, however, have been nothing less than chaotic, to say the least.
The official Twitter account of Apex Legends first revealed the new Trident control aspects through a teaser video that characterized ‘chaos’ to be the main driving factor of the vehicle and so on. Wouldn’t it look awesome? Maybe they solved the problem of the wobbly physics to a degree or they facilitated the controlling of the vehicle during the intense gunfights. But, the community reaction has been… to put it mildly, very unenthusiastic.
There are countless gamers’ requests like “Please, fix the other things first before you mess up the Trident!” in the comments of the announcement posts. A gamer has even commented, “Who wants to drive a cheater-free Trident? It goes like this: 1) get rid of the cheaters….197860) get rid of the cheaters 197861) glow up the trident.” Ouch! That’s pretty much the general feeling among commenters.
Also, some players are spotting the negatives on the behavior of the Trident. According to many players, the car is now much slower. One user, called LasherRL, even referred to the new update as ‘terrible’ and said it made the situation worse. Another gamer suggested that the boost wasn’t as good as before when he said, ‘I really miss the original boost’ thus indicating that this ‘glow-up’ might really be a downgrade in the eyes of some players.
But that’s not all, even more complaints about the boost have been reported. A player even posed the question about the condition of the boost, asking ‘is it still bugged such that it makes you slower when going up slopes?’ If yes, then what did this update actually fix? Another gamer humorously described the current situation as: ‘Hit boost TO GO FUCKING NOWHERE’ and attached a funny clip. So, that whole ‘refined handling’ thing surely doesn’t seem to be taking place after all.
Simultaneously, players are requesting everything except the updates for Trident in the comments section. The players have already asked for ‘reviving the solos’ mode, which has become a common demand among the community for quite some time now. Others are really asking for character buffs like ‘please buff crypto’ and call for nerfing other legends. A user even said Wraith should be ‘less hair more bald’ which is… definitely a take.
Cheating issue seems to be very high on the players’ wish list. One user talked about ‘too many kids using havocs with no recoil’ which strongly implies that the hacking problems in Apex are still going on. When the players are more worried about cheaters than the new vehicle, it could signal a change in their priorities.
Still, the negativity doesn’t represent the only response — some players come up with wacky ideas what to do with the Trident. A user has proposed a competition with Tridents doing Kart that utilized Rampart turrets while racing in and out of the maps; honestly, it sounds really awesome. Besides, there were others thinking that the Trident would be fun if ‘gets a team up with which ever legend is riding it’ for the special interactions.
The whole saga showcases the confrontation that sometimes takes place between developers and players. On the one hand, Respawn Entertainment has got it right with vehicle handling, whereas the players on the other hand are ranting about the presence of cheaters, missing game modes, character balancing issues, etc. This is one of those classic situations of ‘devs working on X but community wanting Y’ that sometimes occur in live-service games.
Interestingly, users sometimes report bugs in the comments with extremely precise details. One main Caustic narrated a particular shameful bug with gas traps that came with the new season in very elaborate terms. When you have your players giving you such specific bug reports in the comments of an unrelated vehicle update tweet, then you can be certain they are deeply concerned about the game’s technical condition.
So what does this whole thing mean for the Trident? The simultaneous feedback from the community is that it is still ‘slow as hell.’ The handling can be ‘refined’ but if the vehicle cannot be used for fast commuting through the maps, then what is the point? It’s like putting fancy rims on a car that doesn’t run smoothly.
The whole case just serves as a reminder that game dev managers sometimes fail to recognize what the community really wants. The players are suffering from cheaters, requiring balancing, and wanting the old modes back – and they get a vehicle handling update that is perceived as a worse one. This scenario is really tough for the development team.
In the end, Apex Legends can still be regarded as one of the most popular PlayStation and Xbox games.
