Season 17 of Apex Legends is starting soon, but the developer studio has recently fixed an annoying bug from the current season. A single line of code caused massive audio issues – the source was a new weapon aptly named “Nemesis”.
The fact that a developer studio had to conduct weeks of detective work to find a small bug is something Apex studio Respawn probably didn’t anticipate. The problem: grenades that don’t explode, weapons that don’t fire, damage without an apparent source.
Here you can see the story trailer for the new Apex Legends hero of the upcoming season:
At the start of the season, the studio received reports about grenades that did not explode but still added damage to players. In live gameplay, it was hard to reconstruct the sequence of events, as the cause was not always visible in the player’s field of view, according to Respawn community manager Amy Thiessen in a Reddit thread from May 3rd.
After a preliminary investigation, it turned out that the main culprit is the system used by our servers to send start/stop commands for various effects (like explosions and physical impacts).
Amy Thiessen in the Reddit thread
During gameplay, the server limit for particle and sound effects was overloaded, causing some sounds to be discarded. The conclusion was that the requested effects were overwhelming the engine. With each seasonal update, thousands of changes to codes, scripts, and levels were added.
Amy Thiessen compares the search for the bug to finding a needle in a haystack.
Respawn faced a complex problem that had never occurred in this form before, as despite detailed reports, it was difficult to reproduce the sequence of events but had enormous effects on the community.
In a tweet on April 26th, Respawn addressed the community’s frustration:
Tweet translation: A fix for significant audio and effects issues that have occurred since Season 16 launched has been provided by @PlayApex. We share your frustration. While this won’t resolve all the issues raised by the community, we are committed to improving the “experience” on the battlefield.
What happened next? Respawn decided to test the theory of overloaded effects on the Apex Legends servers, which they intentionally damaged. In a test, they spawned 50 characters who simultaneously fired their weapons and used their abilities until the server practically collapsed. It worked.
This allowed the team to reproduce the audio drops described by players. However, how it happened remained a mystery. According to the community manager, this is “proof that the sound effects drop, but only in completely unrealistic test situations.”
A breakthrough finally achieved
Respawn found that the reports about the sound issues tended to come from high-level players. The idea of providing a server update to track new metrics in games led immediately to a breakthrough.
With the completion of the server update, we found it. A single line of code was identified as the main cause of the problem: the new weapon from Season 16.
Amy Thiessen in the Reddit thread
The new energy assault rifle named “Nemesis” features a unique mechanic. The weapon “charges” with each burst and can shoot faster as indicated by an energy indicator on the barrel. However, this charge drops when not triggered.
And here’s the catch.
According to Respawn, every player on the server with an uncharged Nemesis created a stop effect of the charge with every frame, even if the weapon was not equipped at all.
Interestingly, this was also the explanation for why the audio drops occurred more frequently with high-level players. “14 users with a Nemesis in their inventory and a framerate of 180 FPS would be enough to cause the sound issues.”
In tests, there may not have been enough players with such a high FPS count or sufficiently equipped Nemesis weapons. A new weapon, which dominated another popular shooter, will also appear in the new season.
A bug that brings benefits
A patch provided last week was able to eliminate the bug once and for all. One benefit is certainly that an annoying audio bug with a complicated cause can help Respawn recognize similar bugs before they reach players. At least they want to keep this in mind.
Amy Thiessen concludes the Reddit thread with the note: “One minute of players playing Apex is equivalent to 10 testers playing the same game for a year.”
(Ironically, Nemesis is the name of the Greek goddess of vengeance. The term primarily refers to retribution, compensatory justice, or just punishment in today’s language.)
