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No patch notes for this update, just the release of Winter Express LTM and cosmetics.
No patch notes for this update, just the release of Winter Express LTM and cosmetics.
Correct! No changes or new content in this; we're just turning on WE. (Not sure what's going on with games not starting yet)
Next patch is scheduled for January.
So that means no major update in two months. Oof. :(
That's how it's always been tho! Nothing new or particular to this season.
quick question
to my knowledge were supposed to get more lore on the source code situation this season
at what point can we expect that?
I have NO idea! Very much not my department, sorry! I just fiddle with numbers on Legends.
This was Respawn’s idea of dialing back bundles?
Sorry, also not my department. I generally learn of what's going on with bundles at the same time you all do. There's really a lot of people involved in making a video game and all you can do is try to be as good as you can at doing what you do. Sorry this isn't the answer you were looking for!
I am so sorry to say, but we get a recycled mode with mostly recycled skins, and we dont even get a small patch with it?
I am starting to get worried
I really wouldn't call Winter Express a recycled mode. Mark worked his ass off to make it so much better. Between the supply ships and the new stations and a LOT of behind the scenes changes to reduce downtime it feels so much better to me. (I also spent a few days working on the weapon loadouts to make them more spicy and interesting; if you hate any of those, that's on me!)
I was sleeping on the longbow till you put that on wattson. Fire load outs my dude, good job
Reminder that loadouts still rotate every 24h! Tomorrow it'll be on someone else.
thx and speaking of revanent. If you plan to buff him next season giving him fortified is a great place to start he has a pretty sizeable hit box
No plans for next season
Without being too critical, if that is true then the cohesion of your team needs to be better, these bundles are predatory and feigning ignorance is an embarrassing defence
No offense but have you worked in game development? Because I don't think you understand what you're asking for and why that would be hard.
Are there patch notes with the update?
No patch notes because nothing changed other than us turning on Winter Express.
Bruh can you make dailies count in the winter express mode? :(
Unfortunately this turned out to be a little bit harder than we anticipated. Definitely want to look into this for future modes. The TLDR is that under the hood the systems for badges and for challenges are the same system, and we do NOT want Winter Express to count for badges. We would want it to count for dailies, but we couldn't make that happen without doing some re-engineering under the hood to separate them into two systems. We discovered this too late to get it fixed for Winter Express :(
No offence but have you seen the state of your game? You’re the lead game designer, acting like this is out of your knowledge and control is very confusing to me, please explain instead of asking patronising rhetorical questions.
I am a lead designer. Lead is a job title; it means I have direct reports. My direct reports work on Legends. You're right, though, as much as possible everyone should feel full ownership over as much of the game as possible. You just have to balance that against barging in on someone who works on this stuff and telling them how to do their job. The only way to deal with this is to default to trusting that everyone has the best intentions but may have constraints you personally don't understand. There are not enough hours in the day for me to learn all the ins and outs of how the people who work on the store come to their decisions.
I did not check yet, but please tell me you included the sentinel with an alternator as one loadout
There's a Sentinel/Mastiff, currently on Horizon!
Does this mean the gun loadout itself changes (the mag/scope/etc) or is it just the same thing but rotating to different legends in different combinations?
Correct! There's 14 loadouts and each day each loadout will be on a different legend. Same as last year.
Out of curiosity, what was the reason behind the havoc + alternator? I have a feeling it might be too OP. :)
Thank you for your time.
That group of loadouts was S-tier gun but B-tier secondary. I decided Havoc+Supercharger was S-Tier, but even the fully kitted Alternator isn't more than B tier. I might be wrong!
Why is it set so that some of the challenges for Holo day bash can't be completed in the LTM such as the number of top tens achieved or one game played?
I replied to it somewhere else but basically the systems that do challenges and badges are... the same system. We didn't have time to disentangle them, and we definitely don't want you to get badges in WE.
I appreciate the work that went into improving it (shoutout to Mark, great job), but this is absolutely a recycled mode. That's not a bad thing because it's a fan-favorite mode that most of us have been begging for a return of, but it's still recycled.
Real talk, this took more effort than making a mode like, I don't know, Armed and Dangerous. It's hard to figure out where to put our effort with LTMs because we know that with most of them, play rate craters after like 3-4 days. Everyone ASKS for game modes but looking at our numbers, it doesn't seem like people play them nearly enough for us to put the amount of effort required to make a new mode in.
We're still figuring out what we want to do; Winter Express seemed like a no-brainer because it didn't show quite as steep a dropoff (if I remember correctly) and it's clearly a very different experience. We put a lot of effort into v2; I think a lot of that was also that we subjectively love the mode ;P We'll see next year how it performed.
It's really hard because we do want to give you the thing you ask for, but when we see that there's such a discrepancy in what you ask for on Reddit and what you end up playing, it gets to be a hard decision where to spend our very limited time.
You should try doing other non-br LTM's. Thats why people like Winter Express. It is something different.
Compare it to fight or fright or armed and dangerous, they are just BRs with a twist. And i think this might be the problem with ltm's. They don't feel that great in the end.
I think it's really easy to dismiss how much we get from BRs. I came to Respawn as someone who really didn't like BRs (I said as much in my job interview; which uh is not a strategy I would recommend. In their defense, they asked if I thought this would get in the way of me being an effective designer on a BR title, and I told them pretty truthfully that I expected to become a fan as I spent my entire days thinking about the game and playtesting it--which is pretty much what happened). I have since learned that BRs:
From a game design perspective, this is nothing to sneeze at and it's no wonder BRs came to dominate the shooter space as they have.
Now with all that said I agree we should continue exploring non-BR modes because they have their own unique set of advantages (such as way more fighting, less downtime, repeat engagements against the same squad where your strategy can evolve round to round etc). I just don't think a non-BR mode would ever replace the BR, but hey if we can find a sustainable non-BR mode that allows you to have fun with our Legends and guns in a different way, that'd be awesome.
Hey Daniel, I agree it must be tough to balance that. What was the playmate for flashpoint, I feel like everyone was playing it.
Fell off brutally after the usual delay. I know, I was surprised by that as well. Anecdotally from watching streamers and youtubers and from playing myself it felt like people really liked the mode, but it's not born out in the data.
Next time devs show up, can you guys bring along someone who can speak to the pricing model, bundle trend, and generally horrible store?
No offense, but many of the people who make those decisions just don't want to come to reddit for how they're treated here. It should be clear that it's not in my job description to be here either: I do it because I want to, but I want to be very careful not to make it into an expectation for other devs.
Excuse me for going down a rabbit hole for a bit. This is one of the things I like to think and talk about a lot. So being a gamer in 2020 is very different from being a gamer in the 1990s, when I was growing up. The Internet connects us, social media allows us to directly talk to people who play the games we work on, streaming allows us to basically be in your living room watching you play. This can be amazing and a curse at the same time. Unfortunately some people are irredeemable assholes on the Internet and will let their rage at a game make them do some pretty awful things. (content warning; I'm going to describe some awful things me and my spouse have experienced. If you'd rather skip the description of human awfulness, skip to the next paragraph). For instance, I've had credible enough death threats against me that a former studio cancelled all studio tours for good, my spouse has had nearly daily emails sent to their (entirely non-gaming) employer yelling that they should be fired, they're a pedophile or whatever, my spouse's parents were doxed and a swatting was attempted, I've had people send me photoshopped images of execution victims with my face swapped in... it's rough.
For those reasons, I think it's wrong to ever require your employees to go out onto social media and directly interact with players. Even if it's not as bad as the stuff I quoted, the constant barrage of negativity and people telling you you suck at your job, asking for you to be fired, calling you names, etc--it will wear you down and people sometimes have serious psychological trauma when they feel pressured to expose themselves to this negativity even when they don't feel up to it.
Personally I've decided after a little over 14 years in game development that I'm okay with the tradeoffs. Talking to players directly about the stuff I'm working on gives me so much energy and happiness that I've learned to block out the negativity; and when I feel I can't, I just take a break from gaming social media. I do know that not everyone functions this way, and now that I'm a lead I want to be very careful to make it clear to more junior devs that this--being on here and fielding questions--is not a thing we will ever require of them. Because it can be inhumane, and it's not what they're getting paid for, and our support systems to deal with the resultant damages are insufficient. And finally, if we did require it, we would gatekeep so many marginalized people from working in game dev. Not that there's anywhere near enough of them as it is, but consider this: I'm a pretty standard nerd looking (that is, white, bearded, longhaired) dude. When you see me on a dev stream, chances are 9 times out of 10 you're looking at someone who looks a lot like you (only older). Imagine how much worse game devs of color have it; imagine how much more harassment women get; try imagining being trans in this space.
So all that's why we should never demand devs go out there and talk directly to players, and also maybe something for you to keep in mind when you interact with those of us who do choose to come here. Again, I've got hella thick skin; I've been fired for pissing off a determined enough group of bad actors, I've had to take some drastic steps to hide personal information after hacking attempts, and I experienced all the stuff I mentioned three paragraphs ago. You all here are wonderful and nice to me most of the time, and it's a privilege and a gift to have an entire subreddit of passionate people who really want to talk to you about what you do for a living, IMO, so I'm not going anywhere; but most of the time when you wonder why certain other people aren't here talking to you, the answer's in this post somewhere.
Thats so crazy to me, Me and my buddies only played that mode for the entire time it was out. It was SOO fun
Yup, same for me! And there's some indicators in the data that some people attached to it super hard, but when we look at the overall playerbase (there's a whole bunch of people all over the world playing this game), it wasn't great in terms of how many people were still playing it 7 days in. I personally thought the design of it was fantastic. I don't have a good theory to explain the falloff other than people like what they like and will gravitate back to comfort.
Like the other commenter said, your reply leaves much to be desired. You're basically saying, "some people at Respawn have thin skin and would rather avoid player feedback entirely than attempt to be accountable".
That's pretty disheartening to read.
Nah I'm saying people aren't getting paid to have insults yelled at them and I'm here as an extracurricular. No one owes you their time.
I just don't think a non-BR mode would ever replace the BR,
Probably not, but I don't think anyone is asking for a replacement. I'm not a huge fan of BRs, but I do enjoy Apex. I've become a fan of the game, but still much prefer non BR game modes. I think it's also harder to get better at a game without faster paced game modes such as WE. I'm relatively new, ( been playing since 2 weeks before season 7, just hit lvl 100), and WE has drastically improved my gameplay. I relate it to COD, where I would play 2v2 gun fight a lot, and that really improved my warzone game (warzone still not my favorite, but I play with friends)
Yup, all that makes sense and you'd get a lot of agreement in the design team. Like I said, nothing I can announce now, but we're definitely thinking about this.
I love this loadout. I think it's very, very strong. The digi sight on the alternator makes it great for caustic gas. I think that's fine, but it's kinda lame that my favorite legends often have non competitive loadouts.
That being said, it's made me branch out to some other legends, and that has been fun, too.
I absolutely love this game mode. You all killed it here. Love the abundance of fast paced action.
It's mostly been Mark's baby. He polished the sh*t out of the mode. He also shipped crafting and prototyped the first version of Olympus vehicles this year. Also he's like 24.
I'm saying I hate Mark. f*ck that guy. Stop making the rest of us look bad. (And just wait until you see what he's working on next. The guy's got no chill)
Hey Daniel, I’d just like to tell you and the rest of the Apex dev team that I think you’re doing an amazing job with Apex Legends, I’ve played Respawn games since december 2016, starting in titanfall 2 where I hit G100 mid january in 2019. I’ve played Apex Legends since day 1 and have pretty much gotten max level in all battlepasses except season 6 due to personal reasons.
Apex has been one of my favorite games since launch and I’m close to hitting lvl 500. I think you’ve all handled Apex Legends the best you can and I want to thank all of you for such an amazing game. Happy holidays to you and the rest of the dev team :)
Thank you for your kind words :) I hope Apex continues to be a fun game for you.
Thank you for saying this. It is unfortunate that this comment has sort of flown under the radar, because it should be a huge wake-up call to a lot of Gamers on this sub and on reddit as a whole. As long as Gamers continue to treat game developers like garbage, don't expect them to be willing to come here and talk with us and don't act surprised when most game developers choose to stay away from our community.
The ones who'd need to hear this won't listen is the unfortunate truth. Thank you for saying what you said though. I hope we can change this mindset over time.
Thank you for all that you do, bro. Your post and what you've experienced is harrowing, but unfortunately, just speaks to the experience of the Internet, in general.
To all the people demanding all this talk time, I can't help but wonder, I don't peruse or even play COD:Warzone that much, but I can't help but wonder how much the devs of that game on the subreddit.
I honestly think you Respawn devs communicate to us pretty frequently, and I truly appreciate it.
<3
Got any personal opinions on solos?
Yeah! My personal opinion is Apex is a team game.
What about solos? Did it have the same usual drop off rate?
Don't have the data in front of me now but if I remember correctly, they all behaved very similarly.
edit: f**k this comment, i'm deleting it.
employees are trying to draw people into "gamer mindset" and community management discussion instead of discussing monetization. it's a problem with EA companies. don't get baited
Exhibit A right here
That’s horrible to hear.. I know people can be pretty “undesirable” (for lack of better words) but that’s not ok. I’d be surprised if that wasn’t illegal. I sincerely hope you and everyone you care for is healthy and safe, especially in times like this.
Some of these definitely veer into questionable legality land, but if you've got laws the police just aren't interested in enforcing there's not much you can do. I did go to my local police station once when there was a credible swatting threat and explained it all to them and predictably the answer was "just stay off the internet".
Hope you all do everything you can to keep Mark. That kind of drive isn't commonly found.
I'm a software developer, and my team lost a "Mark" earlier this year. He taught me a lot.
I've seen it too, highly motivated and talented devs leaving for a variety of reasons, often entirely preventable. I think a lot comes down to both creating an environment devs feel happy in and also making sure there's proper career advancement paths for them. It sucks that in our industry, the quickest way to get promoted is to switch companies, to the point where the "leave and come back" strategy is common enough we have a name for it.
Can I ask then why not discuss aspects you do work on? I will assume there is discussion there hopefully civilised
I'm very happy to discuss the things I do work on! At the moment that's mostly balance changes to Legends, smaller reworks, and at some point in the medium future there'll be a Legend I worked on.
I don't get mad over cosmetics costing 40 bucks. If I don't like them I can just ignore them and it doesn't deteriorate my experience. Yes I would prefer to pay for the game, so the devs cater to me as a player and not focus their attention to the skin buying crowd that hauls in the cash. And also legally from a customer protection perspective I think it would be better if the consumer would pay for the game. But that's something that is a bigger problem than just Apex Legends.
What really gets me rattled up is the bugs that remain unaddressed for months. How is it still a thing that I start a Christmas special game and the matchmaking puts me in the ranked game that I had looked for but canceled earlier? That one is unaddressed since at least when I started playing in April.
Tough questions or bugs are generally ignored. But if there is a tree to remove oh boy. The game is too much fun to leave behind but I get the feeling that the devs consciously make the tradeoff to not fixing jarring bugs. I just feel disrespected.
And also the one Respawn dev that posts here about how he banned x people who exploited bugs in the game. As a competitive player I should never have to second guess if something is a game mechanic or an unintended bug that might get me banned.
That is the reason I am not idolizing the devs posting here.
Just to jump on that last point: NO ONE should be idolizing us. I'm seeing that too and it's just as wrong as assuming we're evil villains out to ruin your day / steal your money. It turns out devs are people; people who make mistakes, who sometimes have an off day, people who just want to put in their 8 hours of work a day and be able to pay rent and put food on the table for their family. It's not healthy to form a parasocial relationship with the people who make the games you like over some posts on social media. Absolutely do geek out with us and talk about the games we make! But don't put us on a pedestal or whatever the opposite of a pedestal is. At the end of the day we're just nerds who put stuff into an IntelliJ window hoping not to break the game ;P
Damn i really thought more people played solos then any other Ltm, considering it was the most requested
Thats a shame .. Apex is a team game sure, but for me solos apex was insanely fun - the movement/gunplay alone hold up incredibly well in solos
I've not spent much time thinking about this but no-fill in duos/trios might give you some of what you want. Sure you'll be going up against squads, but you'll be able to fend for yourself at least.
I fundamentally don't think the combat in Apex holds up for 1000s of hours as a solo game. It's built around the pacing of 3 people fighting 3 other people, with all the knock downs, revives, and respawns that comes with that.
Hey mate, is there any specific reason why Revenant may not be getting buffs next season?
Yeah! His playstyle is what we call sharp: as in, success and failure are keenly felt, and when his tactical and ultimate work, they work so well they make the enemy MORE frustrated than they make Rev & his team happy. That's a dangerous pattern. He absolutely should be getting buffs, but we didn't have the time to find the right buffs.