RSPN_JayBiebs

This is sick

We'll talk more about this in the devstream and details will be in the patchnotes. When I first heard gold magazines associated with the words "automatic reload," my reaction was: 😳

After understanding the details and playing around with them it changed to: 👍

It honestly seems like more of a QoL attachment more than anything, but if it breaks things we'll balance accordingly.

I think those who are against a nerf are justified. I always want to tread carefully when tweaking abilities that provide combat utility. I don't think there would be much incentive to pick her if we hit that passive too hard (other than small hitbox). She would just be a decent medic instead of combat medic. So instead of giving her the Pathfinder treatment (initial 35s grapple change) and straight up nerfing her kit, we want to move power around. Unlike old Path, Lifeline has a stable/reasonable pick rate. Her win rate, however, has crept pretty high particularly in higher MMR lobbies. It's not surprising that the the true potential of abilities are fully realized at this level, and statistically significant changes in win rate amongst legends don't really occur until you look at the top 5% (this is good, it means gunplay is more important than abilities for the vast majority of the player base). So Lifeline's high win rate at high MMR aligns with the frustrations that many playe...

Both fair ideas. We're looking at helping out the ult in particular, perhaps having it look at your squad's loadouts and give you a guaranteed upgrade. In its current state it's often useless past midgame. And like you mention it sometimes is actually a hindrance to rotations and can bring unwanted attention. Regardless, there's a lot of room for improvement there that we're experimenting with for introducing alongside the passive tweaks.

Unfortunately a couple meaningful tweaks to the gun shield just missed the cutoff for next week’s patch: (1) Bleed through and (2) damage counting towards stats/evo to mitigate some of the shield economy difference in poking engagements against a Gib.

Nothing at the start of the season for Lifeline, but we are exploring options to reduce some frustrations surrounding her passive. Taking some power from that and giving it to her underwhelming ult is what we’re looking at in particular. We didn’t want to act too hastily in nerfing the combat utility part of her kit without giving her a bump elsewhere. The other aspect is with communication. Let’s say we add a cool down to it: how do you best communicate it’s on cool down to the Lifeline, downed teammate, and enemy? That requires testing, getting feedback on what feels right, iterating, etc. Did want to let you know we are working on reducing that Lifeline frustration without discouraging people from using her.

Edit: W...

Unfortunately a couple meaningful tweaks to the gun shield just missed the cutoff for next week’s patch: (1) Bleed through and (2) damage counting towards stats/evo to mitigate some of the shield economy difference in poking engagements against a Gib.

If he’s too strong on release this is how we’ll balance him. EZ

This is a bug. I reiterated it to the team today with the Hal clip attached. I agree that it’s the absolute worst, and we’ll look to implement a fix soon

It’s safe to say she’ll be getting nerfed, but how we do that is important. I’m adamant about not gutting her kit; the synergy between her passive and tactical is awesome. Looking at her tactical alone there are all sorts of dials we can turn including vertical lift speed, horizontal speed/acceleration, ejection speed/time, cool down, weapon accuracy, and the list goes on. You name it we got it, but some changes are easier to tweak, test, and iterate on than others. It’s a work in progress but staying true to her design intent and how it feels to play as her is something at the forefront of our balancing conversations.

I also feel it’s important to point out that Wraith and now Horizon are neck and neck in regards to encounter win rate; both are head and shoulders above everyone else. I’m happy that Wraith finally has some company, and there was a deliberate goal to have Horizon release strong given the track record of legends getting introduced to the game as underpowered....

This is the dumbest and greatest thing I’ve seen in awhile

Sooo when/how can I buy one??

👋

Glad there were people that found value in that thread. As I continue getting up to speed I plan on being more active on the socials in general. I've been a daily lurker here pretty much from the inception of this sub, initially as a player with a love for comp and more recently as a dev. I appreciate you.

It came with a patch we pushed for winter express but we’re tracking it

Yeah, if you're able to send a clip that's the best way for us to diagnose what's going on

I hear you. We don't want Apex to feel too cartoony with a rainbow of colors for friendly/enemy abilities. However, something like Gib bubble and Wattson fences do appear differently, so there are some inconsistencies here. Something on my radar for sure as something we could use to help teammates feel more inclined to support their Caustic teammates.

If you want to tag me on twitter in some of those bug repros, I can make sure we're tracking them. My twitter handle is the same as my username here.

Power creep is definitely on my mind. At it's core Apex is a game where gun skill should matter most. When we encounter stuff that feels bad in playtests, it's often times because legend abilities feel OP or overtuned. Abilities should generally compliment teamplay synergy, but not be the sole reason a fight is won/lost. There are niche scenarios where legends are super strong, but as long as that's mitigated it keeps the game fresh while staying true to its core

Sort of reposting what I put on Twitter:

As someone in the room with u/danielzklein when we initially decided to reduce Caustic's tac cooldown, I want to clear the air regarding our balancing approach and provide some context as to why we're now keeping Caustic as is. First and foremost, I look to the community and my own playing experience to gauge what I think could be on the table for balance changes. If I'm not working, I'm playing Apex, perusing Twitter/Reddit, or watching Apex. These are my most valuable resources.

Some of the stuff we measure like pick rate, win rate, and encounter win rate serve as auxiliary tools. We break these metrics down by skill brackets as well. They rarely drive balance discussions, but rather compliment intuitions we have about legend meta. Regarding Caustic:...

Another interesting element in all of this is regional differences exacerbated by the pandemic with the lack of LANs, at least from a competitive standpoint. With strictly online tourneys, we see unique metas develop in different regions. In the latest ALGS, Caustic had a 30% pick rate in EU and less than 5% in NA. Bloodhound has been on the up and up with a nearly 60% pick rate in NA but right around 30% in EU. APAC leaned heavily on Rev during the summer circuit with nearly a 90% pick rate but more recently has resembled NA and EU team comps. This mirrors the feedback we get from pros in different regions when they claim fill in the blank legend is overtuned.

This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just interesting that the lack of LANs has had this great of an effect on what the hot balancing topics are for pro communities around the world. I’m curious to see if team comp variation flattens out when LANs return.

We heard your concerns over the ambient noise in places like Solar and Turbine so we disabled the fans /s