[AMA] Let’s talk about Lifeline Revived

1. When we started on the Lifeline rework, a number of seasons back, she was a popular pick, but only at lower skill and ranks. Her kit was often referred to both internally and in the community as being outdated and outclassed by other support Legends. Most importantly, she was not hitting the Combat Medic fantasy we wanted from her. We started out with the intent to replace the care package - which in today's Apex, with all the new ways of getting loot felt the most left behind. During development, we found opportunities to improve her entire kit, and make her feel more like the Lifeline we see in trailers and hit on her combat medic fantasy wholesale.

2. Glide was inspired by Lifeline's interactions with D.O.C. in the various trailers and lore segments we've seen through Apex's history, and is something we always wanted to add. From a gameplay standpoint, it let Lifeline keep up with her aggressive teammates more easily and help her shortcut difficult terrain to get into action. It not only fulfilled an aspiration for the character, it also helped with her gameplay fantasy as well.

3. You're right, we can't say what might be coming in the future - and there are no current plans for another rework on whole. But that doesn't mean we aren't looking at ways to improve under-performing Legends or those who aren't fulfilling their fantasy completely. If you're feeling a character's not living up to their potential, or seeing a Legend with a very low pick rate - chances are we're looking into options for them.

4. Legend reworks take a LONG time to develop - almost as much time as creating a new Legend from scratch. So Lifeline came first, and as we moved into the direction of looking for more ways to provide meaning to the classes, timing the Support Class changes alongside Lifeline felt like they would compliment each other and bring something fresh to the game

5. Yes - that was the intent, the release of Launch Royale was meant to let players who didn't experience the surprise of the original both on the gameplay front and the unannounced drop.

Lot to unwrap here!

We wanted Lifeline and the Support Legends to come out strong in this Season of Support.

When looking at Lifeline's Ultimate, we felt it was important that her newest ability didn't have strong hard counters that instantly made it obsolete - it's an ultimate after all - not a tactical like Gibraltar's dome.

For Newcastle, the change to make Newcastle's Tac Invulnerable was independent of any interaction with Maggie. Since the Mobile Shield only took damage before - once damage was also ignored it became a stronger counter to her Ult - we've been talking about this and may revisit this interaction in the future!

Gibraltar was a calculated choice to return him to some of his glory days for the Season of Support. We saw a lot the hard counters ruling him out as a potential pick, and before the season he was second or third from the bottom of the dream pool, so easing off on his hard counters this season was a chance for him to stand tall once more.

Overall, the team has been discussing the Maggie Ball and we'd like to make some adjustments to it in the future to give it a more consistent identity.

Previous to this Season, the Support Class's identity was around banner crafting - which was nice, but we wanted a stronger identity that the support role could be known for, so I believe a change was needed.

And with that change, we could also move banner crafting to everyone - which gives everyone a better chance of getting back into the game.

However, while our intent was to land strong with this season, it is also our intent to ease off at this season's conclusion and leave the support class with a strong identity that stays in a healthy place for the game moving forward. So don't expect the current power level to remain in the game for the class forever.

As for Lifeline, we strongly believe she's a better combat medic with these changes than she was before, and the static and more outdated elements of her kit did warrant a change. Is she powerful right now? Yes, and there could likely be more changes to reign in that power while still keeping her new angles of support ownable and lively.

We could, and we've done so in the past, but it has led to pretty poor reception and uptake on Legends before. Look at Rampart, for example, she was released in what we considered a fairly balanced state - but without the excitement and draw of the power to show people what she could do and how she could be effective, she fell quickly from the limelight of her launch - and it look a long arduous amount of buffs to eventually pull her into relevancy.

It's generally much more viable to launch a character or change strong, let people play with it, experiment, have fun and then learn where to reign in the parts that are overpowered, rather than aim for perfect balance out the gate and have no one give that character a shot.

So are the Support Legends and perks strong, absolutely. Will they stay that way? No. We've been making strides towards giving each class it's own gameplay identity and revisiting their perks - we've hit Recon, Controller and Support so far. You can probably guess what classes might be next.

1. Aside from...maybe Wraith, Lifeline is a pretty marquee Legend for Apex - and when we started her Rework she was feeling incredibly outdated, outclassed by other supports and most importantly not hitting her fantasy as a Combat Medic ( more than any of the other OG Legends ).

Wanting our favourite healer to not be brushed aside made her stand out and as the game changed pace through the seasons it made her an ideal target, regardless of her high pick rate at the lower skill brackets.

1. Nothing's meant to last. Different players have different perspectives on what makes the game enjoyable. This season has brought a new style of play to Apex, but that may not be for everyone. We want players to encourage and expect change and to enable them to explore new ways of playing the game, but that does not mean it will last forever!

2. We've been working to infuse new gameplay into each class. To date, Recon, Controller and Support have all seen changes - so you could posit the other two may see some love in the near future. We definitely took a bold approach to the meta changes this season. We wanted to disrupt and shake things up, allow players to look at the game differently and have it feel less stale, but that doesn't mean we're not wanting to continue to push new angles of play into the game and shift it again in the future.

It's true, Lifeline, Newcastle and Gibraltar feasted with this changes. And we've made some adjustments these past couple weeks that release the pressure on these core Legends before the holidays kick off.

For Conduit - she's still doing well, and was doing well beforehand, so her benefits from these changes may not have been as exciting as the others, but she also benefited significantly this season.

Mirage and Loba were intentionally left from the big kids table, however, and you should expect to see them start to make some noise in the new year as the latter half of the Season of Support comes online. So, trend of "wide buffs"? Kinda? It's a subjective statement. Would more likely state that we can expect more bold changes to keep the game from feeling stale.

Yes, there's a push to make each class have a unique benefit and distinction from one another.

So Controller Legends should feel like they have strength playing zone, Support Legends should feel like they have strength helping their team recover.

The Support perks are not meant to help stall in the ring - which is why there's a crazy long cooldown on being able to gain the benefits of the support res again if you do so in the ring. And we're adding additional measures to prevent against exploitative behaviours.

We're aware of the combative advantage the double-med heals has on the game, and this may be something we look at in the future.

It was expected. We wanted these changes to come online together to change the way players would need to think about and play apex.

For the last few seasons, the game has been kill race dominated by Pathfidner and Revenant, and we wanted this support meta shift to change the nature of the way players think about and take fights. Make the game feel fresh, new, different. Give players a chance to learn Legends like Newcastle and Gibraltar and see what tactics they actually bring to the table.

We internally were pretty sure that Lifeline-Newcastle was going to be a thing, with a flex pick for rotations & push utility. What surprised us was how much the Gibby changes pushed him up. We knew he'd rise, but it was frankly more than expected.

In hindsight, it might have been cool to roll out the character changes at different times, we've talked about things like that. And to an extent, you might see some of this in the new year as Loba and Mirage come online in the back half of the support season.

To be honest, we've been talking about this perk. It's been a powerful addition to game, but it adds a fairly significant amount of combat power on an axis that isn't exactly unique to the support role or identity. It's been a welcome help for support legends staying viable in the fight - but the more evasive combat power it gives might be something we look at in the future.

Glad you like the changes - and yes, good note on how the drone impacts early game significantly when you more rapidly eat into flesh health. It's a note we called out internally too, and liked that she would provide use immediately out of the gate, alongside no longer having to stay flat-footed to get that benefit.

We are... "satisfied with her care" ...for now. We generally want new legends to have their core abilities shine through on launch, and have made an intentional stand to not have the upgrades fundamentally change the nature of the ability. This is so players don't get confused when the output of the ability changes while they are learning the nuances of it. But I think there's room to have her upgrades grow and lean her into different angles of her playstyles in the future.

We believe she did.

Her kit was very outdated and made her very static - which didn't enable her to fulfill her combat medic role and fantasy well.

The Upgrades System DID infuse new life into her, but objectively we had to stock the care package with powerful gimmicks ( free level, gold items ) and give her self revive to get her there, and were band-aids to the core issues with her kit.

We made the call for Crypto EMP to not destroy Lifeline's wall because of it's Ultimate status and the importance of its protection to the resets she's wanting to perform. Denying her ult wouldn't just remove a barrier - it slate her and her recovering teammates into an incredibly vulnerable state - and we didn't want her Ult to be unreliable from a single legend's hard counter. There may be options we can pursue for the EMP to shut down components of the Ult ( similar to how it works with Newcastle ) in the future - but we also wanted Lifeline players to feel strong and not instantly denied on her revival season.

Primarily, she needed to evolve past her Care Package.

We tried a number of different Ultimates before settling on the Halo. In the end, we were looking at what Lifeline and her players wanted to do when playing as her and where her shortcomings were. Protecting that reset and buying time for her hapless allies was just fundamentally too important to her character and her kit. So leaning into the old aspects of her Res Shield and Fast Heals, but placed into a measured ultimate cadence instead of an on-demand high-skill passive ended up being the strongest way to fulfill on that fantasy.

We made efforts to ensured that it had unique counterplay options and was effectively different than a Gibraltar dome, or a Newcastle shield. But being her Ultimate, it needed to be a strong zone for her team's recovery. So yes, it can be better than other shields depending on the situation, but it's up to the Lifeline to use it effectively and ensure it can't be easily dunked on, and up to the assaulting team to know how to pressure the ult to deny it ( use it for yourself ).