I am so incredibly hyped for Apex. I am just counting the days until the 11th. BI's work is truly amazing with this newest expansion.
But, there's a major problem that ruins the entire experience.
The SPAR-16 and the SPAR-17 are held the way an autistic Call of Duty player would hold a firearm - without shouldering the stock and with a front hand by the magwell.
If an HK-416 (SPAR-16) was held by the magwell and without the weapon shouldered, it would be incredibly awkward to hold. Just aiming it with the grip in the game would be difficult, if not impossible. Controlling the weapon while firing (even semi-automatic firing) would be impossible. Holding the weapon for more than a few minutes like that would fatigue the arms and wrists immensely. Extend the stock and move the hand forward, otherwise the great models, sounds and motions of the SPAR-16 and it's variants are completely wasted due to a complete inaccuracy in how the weapon is held. You've never made this mistake before with any other rifle platform, so why is it magically popping up with this highly anticipated weapon?
This is even worse for the HK-417 (SPAR-17). Imagine holding a baseball bat out by one hand with your arm extended from the side. Now imagine doing that for an entire operation - for 8 hours or more. It's not going to happen. Good luck holding it for more than a few minutes like that. That is EXACTLY how holding the SPAR-17 how it is held in game would feel. WHY is the character holding the weapon by the magwell???? The barrel is so long that aiming it like that for 30 seconds would tire your arm out completely. That's not even to mention how the stock doesn't even touch the shoulder of the player. You confuse me by doing that, BI. No other gun in ANY game you have created doesn't touch the shoulder. That leaves me with only 3 options of what could have happened. 1) BI intentionally made the player not shoulder the rifle to try and make the player look like some mega operator that is so strong he can maintain control of a huge weapon with just his fingers and only two points of contact - which would be mind-numbingly idiotic to do intentionally (I don't believe BI did this). 2) BI rushed the rifle out so much that they just made the model and threw it on. This theory is reaffirmed by the fact that in the Apex trailer, the characters have the weapon hovering in front of them without even touching the weapon at all. Or 3) BI simply missed the mistake. This theory isn't really believable because they would have certainly fixed that glaring problem by now... Right?
No matter what the reason is, the way the SPARs are held is ludicrous. No one with any experience with firearms would hold the weapon how it is held by the player in the game. This is doubly true for an experienced and highly trained and refined operator from the CTRG. According to the story presented in ArmA III, CTRG does operations so black that not even a Captain from the CTRG shows up on NATO files. An operator that is qualified enough to do that wouldn't hold the weapon like a two year old.
It's a huge shame because the CSAT's new weapons are AWESOME, the new AKs are great (despite some inaccuracies in animation), the new gear and vehicles are just plain bada** and the map is truly the best BI has ever created. Why mess up such a great expansion with such a simple but glaring problem like the way the SPARs are held.
Please, BI, please, fix the way the weapon is held. Either extend the stock and move the hand forward, or move the trigger arm back so the stock is into the shoulder and move the hand forward onto the hand guard of the SPARs. Or, add a foregrip onto the SPAR-17. That would be great and very cool looking.
No matter how you go about fixing it, just please, do fix it. It's a horrible problem that anyone who has ever actually looked at someone holding a firearm would notice right away.
Sorry about ranting. Apex looks fantastic right now and it's no doubt one of my favorite expansions for any ArmA game. The work is amazing on all fronts and it's another example of how amazing BI truly is. However, the mistake with the SPARs grip is not ignorable. It's not negligible. It's an immersion breaker, and simply looking at how the weapon is held immediately pulls me out of a pacific jungle firefight and straight into the pause menu to just exit the game because the mistake is so obvious and prevalent.
If you like photos, here's some edited things I threw together quickly to demonstrate my point.
