Gaming hardware manufacturers have often walked the fine line between allowing gamers to develop their true abilities and simply giving them an unfair advantage. Sometimes, honest accessibility aids are Falsely accused of being tools of deception; other times, a monitor Play League of Legends directly for yourselfThis week, advances in gaming keyboards have sparked a fresh debate about what does and does not fall under the umbrella of fair play, with mechanical keyboard specialists Wooting declaring in unequivocal terms that “Rappy Snappy is not the same as Snap Tap.” Great, I'm glad that's cleared up.
If you're convinced that only half of that sentence is made up of actual words… you're right, but bear with me. A while back, Wooting announced the 80HEa super fast Hall effect keyboard which would introduce its new Rappy Snappy feature. This tracks two keys you choose and allows one of them to activate even when the other is already partially pressed, unlike how most keyboards only track one input at a time. In theory, this allows for faster lateral movement over rough terrain. FPS Games as Counterattack 2 either Valorantsince you don't have to fully lift your finger off a directional key before you can start moving in the opposite direction. Unlike your hapless, technologically inferior opponent, who will likely be riddled with holes before you can sort out their mutually exclusive feet.
The 80HE is set to launch in September, but Razer (the dark green Goliath to Wooting's presumably plain-skinned David) beat it to the punch and released a firmware update for its existing model. Hunter V3 Pro Keyboards that add a similar feature called Snap Tap. Much like Rappy Snappy (which happens to be very hard not to type as Snappy Tappy), Snap Tap allows for the same quick side-scrolling by letting you hold down a directional key and quickly hit the opposite key for optimal side-dodging.
However, far from ushering in a new era of meritocratic dueling, the near-simultaneous arrival of these dueling keyboard technologies has fueled concerns that these SnappyTapRapRapBabap systems are tantamount to cheating, with detractors citing similarities to similarly performing scripts that exist for games like Fortress 2 Team and parent CS2 CS:GOScripting, as a concept, tends to occupy that grey area between “using available advantages” and “being a cheater”, but I suspect most online shooters would agree that implementing it isn't considered particularly cool.
Wooting decided to go on the defensive, tXeeting a series of tXeets This explains why Rappy Snappy is functionally distinct from Razer’s Snap Tap, and therefore not as competitive as it might seem. In short, Wooting argues that Rappy Snappy only registers the input of the key that is pressed the deepest – this still allows for quicker transitions, because a key doesn’t need to be fully released before the next input can take place – but using it effectively still requires the player to put more force into a single key at a time. Snap Tap, on the other hand, only registers the most recent input, meaning a player could (for example) fully hold down the D key with one finger and simply press the A key to scroll.
In other words, Razer's system is more completely circumventing the competitive shooter rule that only one input is allowed at a time, while Wooting's is… I guess just manipulating it a bit. It still removes the need for a key to fully retract before the initial input is considered complete, but it feels like you'd still be manually and rapidly pressing both keys, as you would on a standard keyboard. Snap Tap, by allowing you to hold down a key and still register multiple inputs, probably veers closer to autoplay territory.
Either way, those looking to claim the supposed advantages of these systems may want to wait and see how they fare with anti-cheat systems. Valve doesn't appear to be handing out VAC bans for those using Snap Tap in CS2, but different games will have different rules about what hardware could be considered assistive. And it's not just shooters: rhythm game and minor internet sensation Osu! enforces a ban about “anything that decreases the skill required to play the game,” a rule these input-enhancing tools could very easily violate.
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