AmusedApricot

This is something we've been thinking on for a while, and it's a tough problem!

Some history learnings: in season 2 with the DMR buff and season 3/4 with double sniper releases and WE being more sniper friendly, we were pushing to add more depth and long range combat to the game. There were some missteps and the execution definitely was not perfect, but what we learned (and unfortunately didn't have time to adjust in response to for sentinel s4), is that Apex players really don't like getting sniped. Being locked down into cover by sniper fire really frustrated lots of people. I think a lot of players like Apex out of the BRs because of the skirmish-y medium/close range combat, and that they don't spend 15 minutes in a game to get one shot by a sniper from someone they never saw. Lesson learned, we need to be careful with sniper lethality because a decent portion of the playerbase is very sensititive to it, and rightfully so!

Now onto the actual problem. Long range ...

I have some other ideas to run by you guys: 150 mag size devotion, no charge up charge rifle -- just instant beam, volt DPS buff, wingman lets your character move FASTER while ADS, mastiff damage increase, nerf moz!

Yea I'm definitely aware of this! Familiarity bias and just general subjective gun preference is something we think about a lot. In fact, it's one of the things we have been trying to push with the meta since s3! To me, it's great when there are people who use a gun because it's their favorite or something about it just clicks with them, and they've spent the time to master it. The hope is that the guns are even power enough that every weapon has an audience who loves it, even if not every gun is used at every skill level. The RE-45 and Alternator aren't high level competitive viable, for example, but tons of people use them and love them for their advantages at their skill level and time commitment. That's great! Sometimes a new gun comes out and it doesn't speak to you, and you go back to ol' reliable, and there's nothing wrong with that (to a degree, as long as it doesn't get too stale). Hopefully, there's people out there who the new gun does speak tho, and they really...

Because I want it to be stronger than it was in s5, but weaker than it was in s6. There are subtle important differences between what the hemlok is like in s7 and what it was like in s5. The burst damage is more respectable, so it's not only a single shot gun -- this was good, I like that each mode is usable at different distances. But the burst was a bit too spike-y at really high levels of play where people could hit full headshot bursts. Also, the first burst and like >3 bursts were a little too easy to control, so the range that the burst could be used as was a bit too far. We wanted to keep the increased damage of the burst so that it was more viable (s5 was less dps), but just reduce the range that the burst could be used at, and address some special cases for pro play.

The problem is that it's so open ended it doesn't have an identity. Selectfire was just the hopup that was like "you can press fire select and something different will happen", but fire selects is like the only button we have available for guns, so that describes a TON of different behaviors. Like isn't Double Tap basically also Selectfire? I think if we were to bring it back, we would redefine it to something more specific, like "making burst guns full auto" and also put it on the hemlok or something.

Something we have to think about a lot, and something that ends up being the test that kills lots of interesting ideas, is the concept of counterplay and how it feels to be shot with a gun/hopup. We can't make the havoc's beam strong, because it's just an instant hitscan weapon. If you're getting shot by someone who can aim it, there's just nothing you can really do to dodge and no way to anticipate it.

The prowler is pretty darn strong right now. We put the devotion in basically as a gold devotion, and the r99 was just a gold pre s5 r99 in the crate. Each of those got mag size increases though. We didn't for the Prowler in this case because the prowler's mag is already HUGE. Because of the 5 round burst, each mag has to increase by at least 5, so by level 3 it has 35 rounds and thats a TON. I worry about adding more ammo to it or it's just an LMG at some point. If it turns out to be too weak for care package we'll buff it!

Yea it was strong in that scenario! But only for a very very small group of players who used it, and only in that scenario, so overall it didn't give the weapon much power. We'll watch it, we can always go back to the old behavior if we need to!

Yea some players will have preferred the old one, because they played into that strength. The problem was that the strength was 1) too situational for most players to remember it or engage with the mechanic, and 2) too confusing, lots of players didn't even understand how it worked in the first place.

This will be weaker in some situations, but more powerful in many other situations, so hopefully it comes out to an overall buff. The Sentinel is something we're actively trying to tweak and pull up if we can do it in a way that's healthy and not frustrating for the victims (this is the hard part) -- we want to make sure we don't accidentally make it super OP because of those frustration problems. So, we're increasing the power in a more controlled way, where we can see the effects of each individual change; we 'll keep looking at it post 7.0 launch and make future adjustments as needed!

No it no longer does the shield shredding.

The data from casual players and the professional players we talk to regularly seem to think so! I answered above part of why we chose not to touch the volt, but suffice to say it's mostly because we want to see how it interacts with the r99. We thought a lot about nerfing it, but we're gonna hold off for a short. We'll adjust it if needed!

It's gone for now!

Thanks :D <3

We thought a lot about it, but seasons 2-5, especially s5, has been a nonstop r99 fest. I want to see how the volt is chosen while the r99 also exists, I didn't want to nerf it and have everyone flood back to the r99 and ignore the volt entirely. Additionally, the volt is quite strong, but it barely doesn't seem overpowered. It's right on the edge, but lots of guns have walked that line for a while (like the r99). Don't worry, if the volt is still too strong or is pushing the r99 out of the game, we'll adjust it!

To be honest, I think the recoil buff was only part of the reason it got popular and strong -- I think people also just realized how strong the burst mode has always been. It always had crazy TTK, people just weren't using it. Like how the Devotion didn't really change from day 1 until season 6, and it was only after it was in the care package that people actually realized how strong it was!

The alternator isn't a super competitive gun, but it has a good sized fanbase that uses it consistently. It's good for early/midgame and for players that miss more shots and have trouble with recoil. The alternator's easy recoil and high mag size are more valuable for some players than the pure DPS dropoff because neither they nor their enemies are reliably hitting every shot and dropping people in 1 r99 mag (Actually, this isn't just "bad players", a LOT of players would find surprising success with the alternator if they chose to run it even though it's not as good as the r99 at the top level). I think the alternator is an a decent spot right now for that reason, it performs well in the space it is meant to. Might be interesting to make it strong at some point in the future though, but lets see how R99 + Volt play together!

It can 1 headshot blue shields at 175 health (not fortified), but not if the victim has a helmet. Even low profile legends can't be one shot in the head if they have blue armor and a helmet.

This one-shotting potential was a huge worry and is a big reason why the sentinel didn't start this way -- with pure damage bonus on energize. Hopefully with new evo armor and since most people generally have helmets it'll be ok, but we may reduce the headshot multiplier of the sentinel if we need to!

Olympus is super gorgeous, it might be just because it's new but it's my favorite map art wise.

(Not an artist, just a fanboy)

*sadly puts away new character pitch* https://imgur.com/a/YvPsE7G)

Hopefully not! But maybe :)

OCTANE MAINS BEING GOOD TEAMMATES UNITE. WE'RE NOT ALL BAD I PROMISE!

... Although sometimes you just gotta jump pad into 3 people with 2 EVAs and a dream, It's just the need for speed, it compels me!