RSPN_JayBiebs

Well, let’s take a look at Path. His grapple cooldown has changed more than any other ability in the game. Through it all, his win rate and encounter win rate remained relatively stagnant, up there as an outlier with Wraith. What did change, however, was people’s enjoyment while playing as him. I often play with a 20k kill Path and he was a hollow shell of a man when the grapple had a flat 35 second cooldown. I saw plenty of streamers making jokes about how they used their one grapple for the game. That’s not fun. We never want to nerf legends to the point where they lose their identity.

The most recent hit box change to Path was the first time we conclusively saw his win rate and encounter win rate come down from the stratosphere a bit. Anecdotally, my sweaty Path friend is having a blast with him again, even though he claims he gets beamed more easily now. That trade-off seems worth it to me. If hit boxes and animations can be tuned for balancing, that's somethin...

I’m saying this as a fan of the game who only recently joined Respawn. I have 10k kills on Wraith, about a third of my total kills in the game. To all the sweaty wraith mains out there, I have your back. Wraith’s kit has been nerfed and tweaked more than any other legend’s, but her win rate and encounter win rate has remained an anomaly. The common argument is that mechanically gifted players are drawn to her kit, but when we filter by skill brackets (rank, average damage, you name it) she’s still head and shoulders above everyone. So what does this mean?

Edit: I think I know what this means, but 75% of my comment is missing because I don't think reddit liked how long it was. Trying to get that cleaned up with the mods

I’m saying this as a fan of the game who only recently joined Respawn. I have 10k kills on Wraith, about a third of my total kills in the game. To all the sweaty wraith mains out there, I have your back. Wraith’s kit has been nerfed and tweaked more than any other legend’s, but her win rate and encounter win rate has remained an anomaly. The common argument is that mechanically gifted players are drawn to her kit, but when we filter by skill brackets (rank, average damage, you name it) she’s still head and shoulders above everyone. So what does this mean?

Well, let’s take a look at Path. His grapple cooldown has changed more than any other ability in the game. Through it all, his win rate and encounter win rate remained relatively stagnant, up there as an outlier with Wraith. What did change, however, was people’s enjoyment while playing as him. I often play with a 20k kill Path and he was a hollow shell of a man when the grapple had a flat 35 second cooldown. I s...

That’s gotta be the deadliest spot in the game. I fall off that corner on a near daily basis. Nice save though!

That’s a feature, not a bug ;)

Long story short, my job is to alleviate some of the balancing responsibilities that our current legend/weapons designers face once new content goes live. They have a lot on their plate tuning abilities and metrics for new legends and weapons. And they do an awesome job, it’s just a lot. So once content is “live” and in-game, I can act quickly to balance things (e.g. charge rifle or disruptor rounds and how strong they were on release). This involves staying in touch with the community, competitive, and playing the game myself with people of all skill levels. I’m a day one player. I like to think I play the game at a high level, and when I’m not playing, I’m perusing the latest here or watching streams/tourneys. I think of myself as the people’s ambassador when it come to live balance, so expect to hear from me more often and know that I’m lurking in the shadows.

I just joined the Apex team a couple weeks ago, so unfortunately I don’t have the answer. But I’m sure this will be a topic of conversation when we get back into the virtual office tomorrow!

Marvelous, simply marvelous