The Apex Legends Global Series Pro League is getting underway with the best teams around the world competing against one another as part of the beginning of the second year of Apex esports. However, the start this past weekend was not all positive as Apex Legends live coaching was an issue. 

Apex Legends live coaching was allowed during the opening weekend of the Pro League, which was a controversial issue for many teams, fans, and even players competing for various reasons. This was enough to garner widespread negative feedback across social media from the community. There were players who were commenting on the unfairness of the situation and how it could even be distracting at times for competitors. With all of the various reasons behind the disapproval of this method of coaching, EA has announced some new changes that are coming for the Pro League. 

Effective immediately, the Apex Legends live coaching rule has been overturned and is banned once again in the competitive scene. What this means is that it will not be allowed in future competitions, including the Pro League that we are in the middle of right now. This is great news for everyone involved as it will return the Apex Legends Global Series Pro League back to the integrity of the competition that it had previously during the first year of events. While it was only here for a short period of time, the removal is a welcome change that should help balance the league once more. 

The reveal of the Apex Legends live coaching removal was announced, not by the league organizers themselves, but randomly from some of the coaches and players who posted about it on social media, likely as soon as it was revealed to them. One such post came from Team Liquid’s Hodsic, a professional Apex Legends player, streamer, and coach for the popular esports organization. Team Liquid is one of the teams in the Pro League currently, and is also one of the most talented rosters around. 

A few days ago, Hodsic posted on Twitter about how he actually despises the new coach rule. He noted that during the opening weekend for the Pro League, he rarely used Apex Legends live coaching and it felt “absolutely disgusting” when he did. Live coaching is basically similar to sports where the coach is able to yell and communicate with their players, even in the middle of the match. This is something that is not readily available in most esports competitions, as coaches are, instead, able to usually communicate in between matches and rounds. 

Hodsic, a coach for the Team Liquid Apex Legends team, expressed that even he himself did not approve of the Apex Legends live coaching rule. Fortunately for him and others who did not like it, he was able to retweet that post and share the good news that it has been removed. According to Hodsic, the rule for coaches communicating with their teams mid-game has been banned, according to an announcement shared in the Apex Legends Global Series Discord channel. This is effective immediately and will be used moving forward in the Pro League competitions. 

This is not the only change, either, as a new rule is being implemented that means that the livestreams for the Apex Legends Global Series will now be delayed by 10 minutes, rather than only five minutes like before. This is also in conjunction with the other new rule as they are related. With the Apex Legends live coaching, this was problematic since players could hear the voice chat from rival teams’ coaches in the middle of a match, which is an issue all around. It is not only distracting, but it provides some unfair advantages for those who can hear that. 

More importantly, live coaching provides an advantage to the teams who have active, chatty coaches, which not every team has. There are even some pro teams who have worked their way up through the ranks to achieve their success and do not have an actual coach like the bigger teams do. 

What makes matters worse is the delay in the stream was only around five minutes, which is significant for sure, but still rife with issues when you have live coaching involved. While there is a delay in the action, a coach could presumably provide key, unfair info to their teams regardless. Let’s say that an enemy team is clearly headed to a particular point of interest on the map that is in the new circle and, along the way, they get in a fight. This could take up some time for the team and the coach could tell their team that, which could help them to make it to the destination where that team was headed and get the drop on them unfairly. 

That is why the Apex Legends live coaching method has been banned and that the delay is now 10 minutes, which will make these unfair situations impossible. We will be able to see a more balanced and fair competition begin shortly with the next portion of the ALGS Pro League scheduled to begin this weekend. For the next several weeks, the Pro League’s first split is going on, with teams competing in their groups every weekend right now. These changes will be implemented in this upcoming weekend of competition and, hopefully, any other unfair elements of the competition will be taken care of in swift fashion like this to improve the experience for everyone in the ALGS.