RSPN_JayBiebs

Yeah we thought about it, but similar to why we didn't reduce stack sizes, we still want people to be encouraged to experiment with them over MRBs for awhile. If we overcorrect on balance changes, we could easily see them fall to the wayside for the familiar MRBs. With ring flares removed, we still want to encourage Heat Shield use so that players get comfortable with them before we dive deeper into specific balance changes. Fast Heal was the biggest source of power that we saw leading to some degenerate gameplay just a few days into Ring Fury, so that was an easy target.

We thought about tuning this as well as dialing it back from two per stack, but ultimately decided on a wait and see approach before tackling issues that may not manifest. If we were turning it on in comp right away I’d definitely be more wary of late game shenanigans.

😧

Path’s great, and LP removal will be big for him. As a player, one of my favorite parts about Apex is switching up legends and realizing how fresh the game feels once you start to master different kits. My friends can attest to me saying, “yo I think x is my favorite legend in the game,” with x changing on a weekly basis. Once you start to predict how enemies will react based on what character they are, you start to observe the field from a plateau others cannot even comprehend ;)

But seriously, if Caustic was your first love in Apex, we don’t want to strip that away. He needed a nerf, and we can adjust if we overcorrected. That’s the beauty of a live game

This is why we specifically targeted a damage reduction before hitting the slowing effect. The comparisons regarding gas lethality after 10+ seconds don’t seem very applicable to me; Caustic or his teammates should be able to capitalize on enemies that are tanking gas for that long given the vision obstruction and slow. It will be harder for a Caustic to pop ult and rez a teammate or two, but the goal of the change is to give the enemy team some power to close out fights against Caustics once they have a numbers advantage. The fact remains that triggered barrels can’t be destroyed unlike Wattson fences or Rampart walls, which is extremely powerful for area denial, obstructing vision, resetting, etc. All in all, gas still does direct health damage and there are plenty of reasons to not fight in gas unless you’re a Caustic. In our balancing conversations, this seemed like the fairest way to remove some power and frustration without being pattern breaking from a Caustic play style per...

I still see everything. In the end, the strong will filter out the weak...
But seriously, if he pans out to be too weak after these changes, we'll act accordingly. Granted the ult got hit hard with the minute increase + damage nerf, barrels and gas in general still offer a ton of utility in a lot of scenarios. We had considered making nades disable untriggered traps instead of setting them off, but I think that would potentially be a tougher adjustment as a more significant pattern break for Caustic players. For those concerned about out healing the gas tick rate, I would argue players have bigger problems on their plate if they're tanking gas while healing. A Caustic will see those damage numbers and should be able to capitalize while that player is slowed/blind in gas.
I go more in depth into our reasoning in the devstream, and I'm happy to address some concerns here. Caustic needed a nerf, and I anticipate this will bring him more in line with other traditionally defen...

Too late. Looks balanced. We’re done here

Oh my, looking at the death recap it looks like you got Fused. Was this from an Air Base ending?

I saw this and booted up the game to try to repro it and I couldn't... can anyone else do this with perfect accuracy?

I will humbly accept the role of sweatiest player in this AMA. I was Pred back in Season 3 before Masters was a thing. Some of you may have come across Redkulaid in PS4 Pred lobbies, he's an environment artist for us and he goes hard in ranked every season.

I agree that it can be difficult to predict where Horizon will be at any point during an engagement. Right now her lift gives her full control about how long she can stay up the sky before dropping down. We're working on a resolution for that, so that it doesn't feel as bad or unpredictable on the receiving end. I agree that the strafe speed in the lift is extremely strong. We're looking at that as well.

Horizon is strong. And now her lift cooldown is now more in line with other relocation abilities (Wraith phase, Path grapple). Her grav lift offers sooo much utility, and her black hole coupled with ordnance/other abilities can be inescapable at times. We're playing around with tweaks to her abilities to remove power without gutting what it feels like to play as her. Her passive and ultimate have really nice synergy with her tac, and we don't want to lose that.

Wall-jumping comes to mind. Definitely 100% a feature.

Wraith came into the game with the smallest hitbox, hard to hit animations, and a kit stacked full of combat and team utility. It's no surprise she's been the poster child of Apex. I fell in love with her early and 10,000 kills later she's still my all-time favorite. We do look at stuff like win rate and encounter win rate across skill buckets, and there is a correlation between good players and Wraith. Balancing abilities should be looked at first and foremost, but Apex is a gun game and the variables that effect metrics the most are hitboxes and low profile/fortified. So after modifying abilities and animations and not seeing her come down at all as an outlier, we had to look elsewhere. We don't shoot for 50% encounter win rates across the board, and we know that players with different skill and gameplay styles will be drawn to different types of legends, but outliers on both the high and low end should be brought in.

Octane was in a pretty good place before this buff, and I think he's received plenty of love lately. I'd argue his jump pad offers a lot of team utility now considering you can essentially traverse more ground than a Wraith portal, heal while doing so, and are hard to track with how fast you fly. If there was doubt before, I think it's clear now that he's solidified himself as the speed demon of the Outlands.

You're not wrong. Lifeline's ult is often underwhelming, to say the least. On the flip side, her passive is the root of a lot of player frustration. Seems like a prime candidate to receive some ability power shuffling...

Good question. I think ever since the change to gas allowed teammates to play in gas with relatively no repercussions, there was a lot of unrealized potential that was quickly tapped into within the past couple months. Caustic is undeniably strong, and has the highest win rate in matches that last longer than 20 minutes. Caustic plays a unique role as a defensive legend that can act offensively in certain scenarios, and we have to make sure we tweak him in a way that removes frustration without hurting how it feels to play as Caustic.

Long story short, we hear the community feedback, as a player I feel it's valid, the data backs up that he's strong, and he'll be getting some attention in the near future. In regards to Apex becoming "Ability Legends," as new characters are introduced, it's important they take up a unique design space. This opens the door to potentially devastating synergies between legend abilities. I've seen (and experienced myself) the clips of chaotic a...

In the few days since it's released, I've seen everything ranging from: "This thing's OP!" to "Eh, it's whatever I'd rather use longbow/Scout/TT." Considering people are still learning how to use it, it's way too early to tell where it stacks up against other weapons. But, we're definitely happy with the power level it released at and seeing people familiarize themselves with it is awesome.

Certain bigger changes didn't make the cut in time. I think we make up with some spiciness in the midseason update and the start of Season 9.

Coming from a reformed TTV Wraith, this is amazing