devtrackers.gg
Great vid! I was in a weapons meeting recently and we discussed a lot of these ideas. I ultimately came to the conclusion that as long as it has a one shot crit, we can change hipfire, ammo, body shot damage, etc. and pros will still have an issue with it. And that's not a bad thing... I understand why. There's a give and take when it comes to RNG in a "competitive battle royale." Some might say that's a bit of an oxymoron, but RNG in some capacity is an integral part of any BR. That balance is part of the secret sauce that makes Apex what it is.
Ultimately we (the weapons team) concluded we're happy with the Kraber from a design perspective, and don't feel the need to change it really at this point. We're deferring the decision on whether or to remove the Kraber from comp to CGE, where they can better evaluate pros and cons from a viewer & player perspective.
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I'll give a bit of an overview of stuff we talked about and how we arrived at "do nothing" from a design standpoint:
HIPFIRE
It's already pretty bad. And blowing it up any further won't change much in common use cases where people are on top of each other in bubble fights. So if nerfing this won't change much of the output in pro play, why hurt it for casuals? We could do something crazy like disabling the ability to hipfire altogether, but the feelsbads for losing 360 no-scope trickshots and whatnot doesn't make that worth it.
AMMO
For the majority of players, I think the ammo count is already on the cusp of making the weapon as a whole too undesirable. I play with some friends who rarely pick it up just because they prefer the ammo availability of other snipers. I think the biggest issue is with the output of getting hit by a Kraber, and nerfing ammo doesn't get to the crux of that.
NO COUNTERPLAY
This argument holds the most merit. Getting blindsided by a Kraber and falling over is a tough pill to swallow for anyone, let alone pros playing at the highest level. We thought about adding a glint so that enemies in a certain FoV could know when there's a Kraber is pointing their general direction. But once again, I don't think this gets to the crux of it. I think in most cases where the Kraber feels bad, glint wouldn't help. Maybe you have your head in a death box or are focused on rotating. I don't know about anyone else, but in my games I generally know when my head's about to be blown off... I may have seen a Kraber in the feed, or I'm ADSing at someone that is acting unusally Kraber Konfident, or I see the gun massive gun model.
Let's say we make it painfully obvious and there's a beam of light shining down on the person with the Kraber. Now everyone in the area knows. I think a lot of the Kraber's power fantasy comes from that stealthy first shot. Once everyone hears that, the cat's out of the bag, and they'll be less likely to challenge. Pushing on that anymore could stagnate engagements. I'm reminded of BH ult. When players have perfect information, choices are more likely to become binary. At high level play, you hear BH ult, you turtle/run until it fades. Then you fight. That's not awfully engaging, although BH ult is fine for the average player, the design falls apart at the top end, which makes it tricky to balance.
All this to say, the lack of certainty surrounding the who/when/where of the Kraber is important for it's identity and creates more interesting gameplay in 95%+ of the time. There are still some cues if you're mindful, but it's also important that the Kraber user is empowered by the lack of certainty.
HEADSHOT/BODYSHOT DAMAGE
Nerfing either of these is problematic in my eyes. I get that there's a lot of wiggle room between the 132/88 of a charged up Sentinel vs. the 225+/145 of a Kraber. But a think a significant delta here is required to make up for the optic options, ammo availability, and ballistics differences between the two. The typical player should feel rewarded for making the decision to drop their trusty 301 for a high risk/reward weapon, headshot or not. If the Kraber didn't have one shot crit potential, or it didn't hit for a solid chunk of body damage, why pick it up? I'm hesitant to bring up it's low points because then we just water down its identity.
KNOWING WHAT'S IN CARE PACKAGES
I disagree that players should have perfect information on what's in care packages. And most of that reasoning would fall into the RNG secret sauce category. Besides, the uncertainty opens up opportunities for legend abilities to serve a purpose in offsetting that (i.e. Loba in this case. Or a team with Wraith can port to it and check it out with much less risk than a non-Wraith team). What I will say feels sh*tty about care packages is when you open one in late game that doesn't have a CP weapon. We're actually bumping up CP weapon spawn rates in Escape (don't worry, we're adjusting Kraber to stay in line with what it currently is).
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Personally, I could go either way on Kraber in comp. As a viewer, I love it. As a player, I totally understand their frustrations. As a designer, I am a little scared by the precedent it would set. We never want to get to a point where we're designing/balancing for two games. The Kraber does seem like an exception here though... it is the only thing item that can one shot crit in a game where you only have one life. So while I could go either way on the Kraber, I would draw a line there. Even things like gold knockdowns being disabled isn't ideal, and I think that's more symptomatic of a greater design issue if we have problems with something in comp.