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HiLife

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
39,610
I just played my first few matches of Plunder....You're correct. It's a shit load of fun.

Still love my Apex but this is a nice break for now.

Yeah I was digging the mode for the most part. I still think an increase of players would be a sweet spot because 150 on a map with no area restrictions at all for 30 whole minutes ended with my team wandering around for a few consecutive minutes without even firing. I might just avoid the BR option altogether and keep this solely for Plunder. It's solid off first impressions.
 

Duffking

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,693
How is it that there are so many players with uncannily good wingman aim in Plat? What's that you're in the air 100m away? DOUBLE HEADSHOT DEATH FOR YOU THEN
 

Love Machine

Member
Oct 29, 2017
4,216
Tokyo, Japan
One thing that I would like Apex to copy from Warzone is spawning in with a pistol. It would even things out a bit more if you land and happen upon bad RNG.

Maybe you could spawn in with an evo shield, too? But I'm less sure about that.
Sounds like a good idea. Evo shields aren't very appealing after the first 5 minutes. Perhaps dropping with one (plus a pistol) would incentivise their use.

Definitely appreciate dropping with a pistol and some armour in Warzone. Also Plunder is a really nice change of pace.
I feel Apex and CoD are both fun in their own way, but just similar enough to comfortably juggle between. I know I'll be escaping to Warzone on nights when my Apex buddies get too sweaty and/or toxic.
 

Trisc

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,485
I'm so sick of the R99 dominating every single fight I get into. It's extremely obnoxious and super frustrating to have to fight against it, since it can poke super efficiently at all ranges and hoses with ease up close.
 

TestMonkey

Member
Nov 3, 2017
1,177
What's everyone's preferred endgame weapon load out (excluding care package weapons) this season? I've tried a bunch of different combinations but still haven't found anything that really clicked.
 

ty_hot

Banned
Dec 14, 2017
7,176
I had no idea I missed the first map this much. I played a few matches today and was pleasantly surprised that we are back to the old one!
 

Papercuts

Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,007
What's everyone's preferred endgame weapon load out (excluding care package weapons) this season? I've tried a bunch of different combinations but still haven't found anything that really clicked.

Hemlock/R99 or Prowler.

Hemlock was my least favorite AR until this season, but I really like it now. Prowler rips but still can't always find select fire, while r99 is always good.

R99/PK is still pretty common for me too.
 

Aldi

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,634
United Kingdom
Played 5 games of the KC deja loot map, never been jumpmaster and never lasted longer than 20 seconds.....

Not the greatest first impression.

Edit: 6 games and I got matched with a predator player who insta killed himself by jumping off the edge of airbase as jumpmaster. Wtf.

Double edit: the loot is fucking awful. My god. Back to call of duty. Haha
 
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Trisc

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,485
I'm curious how Respawn and Epic intend to respond to CoD: Warzone, given it was known to exist for months now, but only just came out.

One of my biggest issues with this game is that the feedback on hits doesn't feel all that great, and up close it can be difficult to tell where your shots are going. I don't hate it, but it can be irritating. Moreover, the movement can often get really "sticky", and when I try to do things like sprint and slide, I'll often just go from a sprint to crouching in place. Warzone doesn't have those problems. It has its own issues, of course, but when it comes to movement and gunplay, I never feel like I'm cheated by packet loss or tickrate, and the feedback from shooting a gun and moving around the map is great (as expected of Call of Duty).

Moreover, in spite of being leagues beyond Apex in terms of visuals, Warzone still runs better. At a full 1440p with high settings on my 1080 Ti, I can easily hit 120FPS (with some drops when in seriously packed areas). In Apex, meanwhile, I had to go into the config files to increase the dynamic resolution's bounds so it can target 165FPS. One would expect that, given the game doesn't look particularly amazing, it'd be able to run smooth like butter on a 1080 Ti, but that's simply not the case. Very commonly, even in areas that aren't particularly "busy" visually, the resolution can dip so low, it feels like my screen is coated in vaseline.

I don't expect Respawn to reinvent the wheel to keep up, but with this season being pretty underwhelming insofar (and yet another cash grab "collection event"), I'm not all that interested to continue playing when Call of Duty is offering a more refined, more compelling, more exciting Battle Royale.
 

Rosé Fighter

Alt Account
Banned
Aug 23, 2019
837
I don't think Warzone runs better. It ran like shit on my computer. The dithering in the game was horrendous. 50 meters out? Fucking dots for buildings.
 

Zoidn

Member
Dec 23, 2018
1,711
My PC is pretty old so that might be it, but Warzone doesn't run great for me either and is ugly as well. Especially the shadows look actually glitched, not sure what's going on there.
 

Salty AF

Member
Oct 30, 2017
6,102
I'm curious how Respawn and Epic intend to respond to CoD: Warzone, given it was known to exist for months now, but only just came out.

One of my biggest issues with this game is that the feedback on hits doesn't feel all that great, and up close it can be difficult to tell where your shots are going. I don't hate it, but it can be irritating. Moreover, the movement can often get really "sticky", and when I try to do things like sprint and slide, I'll often just go from a sprint to crouching in place. Warzone doesn't have those problems. It has its own issues, of course, but when it comes to movement and gunplay, I never feel like I'm cheated by packet loss or tickrate, and the feedback from shooting a gun and moving around the map is great (as expected of Call of Duty).

Moreover, in spite of being leagues beyond Apex in terms of visuals, Warzone still runs better. At a full 1440p with high settings on my 1080 Ti, I can easily hit 120FPS (with some drops when in seriously packed areas). In Apex, meanwhile, I had to go into the config files to increase the dynamic resolution's bounds so it can target 165FPS. One would expect that, given the game doesn't look particularly amazing, it'd be able to run smooth like butter on a 1080 Ti, but that's simply not the case. Very commonly, even in areas that aren't particularly "busy" visually, the resolution can dip so low, it feels like my screen is coated in vaseline.

I don't expect Respawn to reinvent the wheel to keep up, but with this season being pretty underwhelming insofar (and yet another cash grab "collection event"), I'm not all that interested to continue playing when Call of Duty is offering a more refined, more compelling, more exciting Battle Royale.

They could start by dropping you with level 1 armor and a P2020 instead of the ridiculous mad dash to finding a gun and armor which due to their RNG might net you none of those things on drop. The looting in Warzone is cooler than Apex since you just run over an item like ammo or shields and it automatically just picks it up. There's no digging through death crates. The ping system in Warzone isn't as good as Apex but it's certainly good enough to get the job done if you're with teammates with no mics.

I'll say this about Warzone - you never feel like you're getting rushed like you do in Apex and that all comes down to the speed of movement and the abilities in Apex. There's no Pathfinder or Wraith creating a direct line into the fight in Warzone.

Also - Plunder is fucking incredible and the sleeper mode that no one saw coming.

Again, love Apex. Always will play it but I think there's somethings Respawn could learn from IW on this one.
 
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jorgejjvr

Banned
Oct 31, 2017
8,423
So every time kings canyon comes as a limited time mode, people play it so differently, only landing in a couple of loved places because they know it will go away

And hence the return of kc has been meh for me, both time it came back. I just want in a normal rotation, so people don't feel they will lose it and only land in skull and lab

Hasn't been as fun as I expected. I was getting 8-9 kills on Worlds edge deja loot, and now on the smaller maps I never see anyone till the end and a couple of kills
 

Bauer91

Member
Oct 26, 2017
1,206
The more I play Warzone the more obvious it is how miles ahead Apex is.

What I like about it is the 1vs1 chance of getting back in the match, the fact that you're not letting everyone on the map know when you're parachuting back in (respawning), that you have a pistol on drop so you kinda have a shot if the RNG screws you over.

But the movement, FOV on console, waiting time until you get into a match, shots and explosions everywhere yet you can't see anyone unless you look at the minimap (?), pinging which is not easily accessible since it's up on the d-pad, gameplay that promotes camping and waiting with little action...

Pathfinder's hitbox is so fucking bad and his abilities are annoying. Wish he would get nerfed.

Pathfinder is tall and has one of the worst hitboxes in the game, movement is all he's got. The most annoying abilities goes to Caustic easily, best hitboxes to Wraith, Lifeline, Wattson.
 

btkadams

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,313
I don't remember that underground bunker with the warp gate. Is that new to King's Canyon in this mode or was that how the map was before they changed over to World's Edge? I didn't play Apex much during the time when there was a wraith-focused event, so that might be why I don't recognize it.
 

jorgejjvr

Banned
Oct 31, 2017
8,423
Any recommendations for drops in kc? Maybe for purple armor, r99, prowler with select fire etc? Best drops so far?
 

Salty AF

Member
Oct 30, 2017
6,102
The more I play Warzone the more obvious it is how miles ahead Apex is.

What I like about it is the 1vs1 chance of getting back in the match, the fact that you're not letting everyone on the map know when you're parachuting back in (respawning), that you have a pistol on drop so you kinda have a shot if the RNG screws you over.

But the movement, FOV on console, waiting time until you get into a match, shots and explosions everywhere yet you can't see anyone unless you look at the minimap (?), pinging which is not easily accessible since it's up on the d-pad, gameplay that promotes camping and waiting with little action...



Pathfinder is tall and has one of the worst hitboxes in the game, movement is all he's got. The most annoying abilities goes to Caustic easily, best hitboxes to Wraith, Lifeline, Wattson.

Adding FOV will come in time, I'm sure. It's their first release of Warzone. It will get updated, refined and improved. As a first go they've done a lot of things right.
 
OP
OP
Delphine

Delphine

Fen'Harel Enansal
Administrator
Mar 30, 2018
3,658
France
I don't remember that underground bunker with the warp gate. Is that new to King's Canyon in this mode or was that how the map was before they changed over to World's Edge? I didn't play Apex much during the time when there was a wraith-focused event, so that might be why I don't recognize it.


It has been added to Kings Canyon for the Voidwalker event at the beginning of September, and stayed there until S3 started with the new map.
 

Ctrl Alt Del

Banned
Jun 10, 2018
4,312
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Finally managed to play some games of Warzone on PS4. It's.. fine, I guess. I find some of the innovations refreshing and other mechanics terrible. All in all, this feels like a game where you can't exactly keep track of how many people are left in the game as everyone gets a second chance, plus the games have been fairly long in my experience, more akin to PUBG than Apex. Playing solo in squads feels as bad as Apex from the get go, whilst I could solo queue on early Apex and have a extremely good time.
 

SixtyFourBlades

Teyvat Traveler
Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,864
Any recommendations for drops in kc? Maybe for purple armor, r99, prowler with select fire etc? Best drops so far?
There's this little town in between Bunker and Air Base that has a purple armor at the bottom portion, and then head up top for a Prowler with select fire and a Peacekeeper with choke. In the little shed area under the hill in the town there's a level 2 extended heavy mag too.

It's my go to landing spot if I'm the jump master. Depending on what's happening, we either head to Bunker or Air Base to clean up. That is if we don't get into a fight ourselves in the town.
 

CruJones33Rad

Member
Apr 22, 2019
865
I would love it if Apex would have a mode like plunder, where you can auto respawn and are trying to accomplish some other objective other than being the last person alive. It's just so much more fun to play one game straight for 30 minutes. Even if you're not leading and will lose, you can get tons of XP, kills, and explore the map and not have to worry about your idiot teammates.

The sound is difficult for me, compared to Apex, I have a hard time hearing where people are in Warzone. There's a lot of noise everyone that sounds close, but it's hard to figure out where the enemies are.
 

Trisc

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,485
They could start by dropping you with level 1 armor and a P2020 instead of the ridiculous mad dash to finding a gun and armor which due to their RNG might net you none of those things on drop. The looting in Warzone is cooler than Apex since you just run over an item like ammo or shields and it automatically just picks it up. There's no digging through death crates. The ping system in Warzone isn't as good as Apex but it's certainly good enough to get the job done if you're with teammates with no mics.
I like all these ideas, but how about I take it a step further:
  • Players no longer need to find shields, period. Every player drops with three bars (four bars?) and two pre-filled. Using cells and batteries recharge you up to max shields. Health regen is passive outside of combat, so medkits and syringes would remain useful in the midst of a fight (and be used a bit quicker).
  • Weapons drop in tiers. No more opening a supply bin to find no gun (or worse, a Mozambique). Furthermore, most attachments would no longer be necessary, as weapons of higher tiers (Fortnite/Warzone style) would have more attachements, greater magazine capacity, etc. The only attachments that would need to stick around would be optics, as nobody would like a high-capacity flatline with a 3x optic.
  • No more death boxes. Players drop all their gear at their feet when they die, and their banner is given a distinct glow for their teammates to pick up quickly and easily (with the same pickup animation, so as to prevent folks from aggressively putting down fire while grabbing a banner).
 
Oct 31, 2017
9,620
I like all these ideas, but how about I take it a step further:
  • Players no longer need to find shields, period. Every player drops with three bars (four bars?) and two pre-filled. Using cells and batteries recharge you up to max shields. Health regen is passive outside of combat, so medkits and syringes would remain useful in the midst of a fight (and be used a bit quicker).
  • Weapons drop in tiers. No more opening a supply bin to find no gun (or worse, a Mozambique). Furthermore, most attachments would no longer be necessary, as weapons of higher tiers (Fortnite/Warzone style) would have more attachements, greater magazine capacity, etc. The only attachments that would need to stick around would be optics, as nobody would like a high-capacity flatline with a 3x optic.
  • No more death boxes. Players drop all their gear at their feet when they die, and their banner is given a distinct glow for their teammates to pick up quickly and easily (with the same pickup animation, so as to prevent folks from aggressively putting down fire while grabbing a banner).
All of your suggestions in your post sound totally unappealing to me personally.

- Armor/Health: A fun part of the game is the excitement of finding better tier armor. The sensation of seeing a purple armor (or gold, even better!) laying there is great and this would totally remove that. Not to mention the awesome feeling of winning gunfights when you are in an armor mismatch disadvantage (white/blue vs purple), and how this compounds to incentivize moving in to kill opposition then acquire their gear or fleeing from fights where you are at too much of an armor disadvantage.

Passive health regeneration would make Lifeline's utility to a team essentially useless, and take away one of Octane's unique traits too. Not to mention it would hurt the resource management of balancing ammo versus healing items as players would just hoard much more ammunition/grenades instead of keeping a balanced inventory. And making health regen passive, I feel, would just encourage teams to disengage from fights more rather than committing as they would know they could just recover health if they break away rather than having to make a fight or flight decision mid combat.

- Guns as tiers rather than attachments as tiers: This would just collapse the loot pool even further and even further place weapon success more in the hands of RNG rather than individual skill. Yes there's RNG in finding attachments to improve the weapons a player holds, but done via attachments rather than built into the guns themselves encourages the players to continue to move around the map/get into fights and try to improve their gear. It's a feedback loop that incentivizes moving and fighting both. Pre-built guns would de-emphasize this gameplay loop I feel. Once you found a good gun, you'd be set, especially if it was joined to your first point about everyone having decent armor from the word go.

- Death Boxes: The idea that all of the loot should just spill onto the map is terrible IMHO. It would make the maps more cluttered, and players would spend more time looking at the ground rather than scanning the horizon/surroundings. Whereas the death boxes are not only elegant in loot management, but they force people to congregate in a specific point and take a chance at finding loot they need by sifting through a menu. It presents a risk/reward opportunity for the victor of a firefight, and presents an opportunity for third-parties to come in and keep the action going (which is a key part of the game's design, fights on fights). The color of the death boxes indicates just how worthwhile it is to approach and spend time sifting through one, even from a good distance away via a quick glance. If you see a Gold box, you are going to want to check it out, even if the gold item is just an attachment. That's a risk you have to take.

The loot spilling out on the ground is one of the clunkiest looking things about that Warzone. I'm not going to bother rewarding Call of Duty with my time/download, so I have no plans on playing it. But the game just looks both far uglier art direction and design-wise and far less elegant, and things like this contribute to that in my opinion.

I think that right now, Apex is probably the best designed FPS in terms of gameplay, mechanics, and systems on the market and they don't really need to do much, if anything, to alter its systems balance. I think the tweaks/balance adjustments they've applied have been pretty intelligent and they just need to keep doing what they are doing. Nothing done in the new Call of Duty BR should be aped in Apex I think.
 

Swiggins

was promised a tag
Member
Apr 10, 2018
11,444
All of your suggestions in your post sound totally unappealing to me personally.

- Armor/Health: A fun part of the game is the excitement of finding better tier armor. The sensation of seeing a purple armor (or gold, even better!) laying there is great and this would totally remove that. Not to mention the awesome feeling of winning gunfights when you are in an armor mismatch disadvantage (white/blue vs purple), and how this compounds to incentivize moving in to kill opposition then acquire their gear or fleeing from fights where you are at too much of an armor disadvantage.

Passive health regeneration would make Lifeline's utility to a team essentially useless, and take away one of Octane's unique traits too. Not to mention it would hurt the resource management of balancing ammo versus healing items as players would just hoard much more ammunition/grenades instead of keeping a balanced inventory. And making health regen passive, I feel, would just encourage teams to disengage from fights more rather than committing as they would know they could just recover health if they break away rather than having to make a fight or flight decision mid combat.

- Guns as tiers rather than attachments as tiers: This would just collapse the loot pool even further and even further place weapon success more in the hands of RNG rather than individual skill. Yes there's RNG in finding attachments to improve the weapons a player holds, but done via attachments rather than built into the guns themselves encourages the players to continue to move around the map/get into fights and try to improve their gear. It's a feedback loop that incentivizes moving and fighting both. Pre-built guns would de-emphasize this gameplay loop I feel. Once you found a good gun, you'd be set, especially if it was joined to your first point about everyone having decent armor from the word go.

- Death Boxes: The idea that all of the loot should just spill onto the map is terrible IMHO. It would make the maps more cluttered, and players would spend more time looking at the ground rather than scanning the horizon/surroundings. Whereas the death boxes are not only elegant in loot management, but they force people to congregate in a specific point and take a chance at finding loot they need by sifting through a menu. It presents a risk/reward opportunity for the victor of a firefight, and presents an opportunity for third-parties to come in and keep the action going (which is a key part of the game's design, fights on fights). The color of the death boxes indicates just how worthwhile it is to approach and spend time sifting through one, even from a good distance away via a quick glance. If you see a Gold box, you are going to want to check it out, even if the gold item is just an attachment. That's a risk you have to take.

The loot spilling out on the ground is one of the clunkiest looking things about that Warzone. I'm not going to bother rewarding Call of Duty with my time/download, so I have no plans on playing it. But the game just looks both far uglier art direction and design-wise and far less elegant, and things like this contribute to that in my opinion.

I think that right now, Apex is probably the best designed FPS in terms of gameplay, mechanics, and systems on the market and they don't really need to do much, if anything, to alter its systems balance. I think the tweaks/balance adjustments they've applied have been pretty intelligent and they just need to keep doing what they are doing. Nothing done in the new Call of Duty BR should be aped in Apex I think.
Agreed on all fronts.
 

pixeldreams

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,036
I'm so sick of the R99 dominating every single fight I get into. It's extremely obnoxious and super frustrating to have to fight against it, since it can poke super efficiently at all ranges and hoses with ease up close.
Agreed, I feel like if I don't have this (or an Eva-8 with DTT), I never feel as confident in a close gunfight as I would with it. Balancing it would be tricky since it only really shines with extended mags, so lowering the overall mag size would be too much and make it useless without the attachment, but maybe drop the damage or fire rate a few points. Far too often I roll up on someone when I have 150+ health and I'm downed in 2 seconds by one.
 

Trisc

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,485
All of your suggestions in your post sound totally unappealing to me personally.

- Armor/Health: A fun part of the game is the excitement of finding better tier armor. The sensation of seeing a purple armor (or gold, even better!) laying there is great and this would totally remove that. Not to mention the awesome feeling of winning gunfights when you are in an armor mismatch disadvantage (white/blue vs purple), and how this compounds to incentivize moving in to kill opposition then acquire their gear or fleeing from fights where you are at too much of an armor disadvantage.
So what you're saying is the current shield system we have, which can make fights extremely lopsided based entirely on luck should be retained because... you get excited to find better shields, and you think it's exciting to run away from a fight simply because you didn't get lucky enough?
Passive health regeneration would make Lifeline's utility to a team essentially useless, and take away one of Octane's unique traits too. Not to mention it would hurt the resource management of balancing ammo versus healing items as players would just hoard much more ammunition/grenades instead of keeping a balanced inventory. And making health regen passive, I feel, would just encourage teams to disengage from fights more rather than committing as they would know they could just recover health if they break away rather than having to make a fight or flight decision mid combat.
I said passive regen outside of combat. That doesn't mean Lifeline isn't suddenly allowed to be reworked so her drone has a slightly longer reach and becomes a more useful tool for teams needing healing during combat. Remember: just because Octane has passive health regen doesn't suddenly make Lifeline useless when she's on the same team as him. It doesn't need to be rapid passive health regen.

You also assume inventory size wouldn't get downsized to adjust for changes to how healing items work. It happened before, and it can easily happen again.
- Guns as tiers rather than attachments as tiers: This would just collapse the loot pool even further and even further place weapon success more in the hands of RNG rather than individual skill. Yes there's RNG in finding attachments to improve the weapons a player holds, but done via attachments rather than built into the guns themselves encourages the players to continue to move around the map/get into fights and try to improve their gear. It's a feedback loop that incentivizes moving and fighting both. Pre-built guns would de-emphasize this gameplay loop I feel. Once you found a good gun, you'd be set, especially if it was joined to your first point about everyone having decent armor from the word go.
Warzone and Fortnite both show that you can have your cake and eat it too when it comes to engaging in fights to improve your gear. Also, do you suddenly just stop engaging in fights just because your gear is better? Having more resources at your disposal is a key part of the gameplay loop as well, and getting in fights encourages that, too. You don't always have the option to avoid fights due to the nature of the game, either.
- Death Boxes: The idea that all of the loot should just spill onto the map is terrible IMHO. It would make the maps more cluttered, and players would spend more time looking at the ground rather than scanning the horizon/surroundings. Whereas the death boxes are not only elegant in loot management, but they force people to congregate in a specific point and take a chance at finding loot they need by sifting through a menu. It presents a risk/reward opportunity for the victor of a firefight, and presents an opportunity for third-parties to come in and keep the action going (which is a key part of the game's design, fights on fights). The color of the death boxes indicates just how worthwhile it is to approach and spend time sifting through one, even from a good distance away via a quick glance. If you see a Gold box, you are going to want to check it out, even if the gold item is just an attachment. That's a risk you have to take.
I dislike how the game encourages third partying due to how slow the healing process is and how difficult it is to get back on your feet after a tough fight. Having a chance to get what you need and split in a pinch is something that I feel Apex could do with more of. It's part of why I enjoy the loop of Fortnite and Warzone, since Fortnite lets you fortify and heal while Warzone allows you to retreat and replace armor plates. Apex lets you stand slowly in one place and wait ten seconds to have a fighting chance against a third or fourth team of opportunists joining the action. Speeding that process up so you're not completely fucked when another team shows up after a tough fight seems reasonable.
The loot spilling out on the ground is one of the clunkiest looking things about that Warzone. I'm not going to bother rewarding Call of Duty with my time/download, so I have no plans on playing it. But the game just looks both far uglier art direction and design-wise and far less elegant, and things like this contribute to that in my opinion.

I think that right now, Apex is probably the best designed FPS in terms of gameplay, mechanics, and systems on the market and they don't really need to do much, if anything, to alter its systems balance. I think the tweaks/balance adjustments they've applied have been pretty intelligent and they just need to keep doing what they are doing. Nothing done in the new Call of Duty BR should be aped in Apex I think.
You should try it before arguing against it. Many of Warzone's features, such as dropping into the fight with armor and a gun, are really smart and make the initial run for a better weapon a lot less stressful.
 
Oct 31, 2017
9,620
So what you're saying is the current shield system we have, which can make fights extremely lopsided based entirely on luck should be retained because... you get excited to find better shields, and you think it's exciting to run away from a fight simply because you didn't get lucky enough?
Yes, I think the excitement of the luck-based nature of finding better shields is a fun part of the game and feeds into the combat dynamics and the decision making process of fighting/flighting. It allows for really clutch moments that baselining the armor would remove. I say this as someone who typically doesn't like RNG in my games as I'm primarily a Halo FPS player.

I said passive regen outside of combat. That doesn't mean Lifeline isn't suddenly allowed to be reworked so her drone has a slightly longer reach and becomes a more useful tool for teams needing healing during combat. Remember: just because Octane has passive health regen doesn't suddenly make Lifeline useless when she's on the same team as him. It doesn't need to be rapid passive health regen.

You also assume inventory size wouldn't get downsized to adjust for changes to how healing items work. It happened before, and it can easily happen again.
I know you say outside of combat, but I still think this shouldn't be done. It would lessen the necessity of holding more health items if players knew that they could just regenerate, even if regeneration is slow. If players regenerated health and it was slow, they would hold less heals and it would make them more prone to play much more slow coming out of fights so they could recover naturally without expending the health items they did decide to carry. Players would naturally move into this state because functionally, it would just make sense to do so. Why carry more health items when you can recover? Especially at the expense of holding more grenades/ammunition.

Yes, they could rework Lifeline, Octane, and the inventory system as a result of doing this, but why should they do any of this to begin with? I don't see the advantage or the appeal and I think it would only serve to slow the game's pace down, on the whole.

Warzone and Fortnite both show that you can have your cake and eat it too when it comes to engaging in fights to improve your gear. Also, do you suddenly just stop engaging in fights just because your gear is better? Having more resources at your disposal is a key part of the gameplay loop as well, and getting in fights encourages that, too. You don't always have the option to avoid fights due to the nature of the game, either.
For the average player, I would say that yes, they would become disinclined to engage in more fights if they are at peak gear level. Me personally? I wouldn't, because I'm all about that action, pedal to the metal; and it's a big reason why I think Apex is so good.

I dislike how the game encourages third partying due to how slow the healing process is and how difficult it is to get back on your feet after a tough fight. Having a chance to get what you need and split in a pinch is something that I feel Apex could do with more of. It's part of why I enjoy the loop of Fortnite and Warzone, since Fortnite lets you fortify and heal while Warzone allows you to retreat and replace armor plates. Apex lets you stand slowly in one place and wait ten seconds to have a fighting chance against a third or fourth team of opportunists joining the action. Speeding that process up so you're not completely fucked when another team shows up after a tough fight seems reasonable.
I think third partying, fights-on-fights is a big part of the appeal of Apex, and that the game is at its most fun when you are in hectic, fast paced, fly-by-the-seat-of-your pants engagements. A lot of your suggestions, I feel, would slow the game down, de-emphasize map movement, and cause the game to lose a lot of its dynamic play.

Forcing players to be vulnerable in order to heal, and to have to carefully consider their resources and their resource management, is a big reason why gunfights are so satisfying in the game. It forces teams, both the aggressors and the defenders, to evaluate mid-engagement (do we assert ourselves, or do we live to fight another day?). Forcing players to back out and heal opens up opportunities for people to sick the weakened teams to finish them off, plus presents opportunities for third parties to come into the fray (which, like I said, I think is a good thing). Plus, slow, out-of-fight heals also incentivizes the usage of the games ordnance items.

And speeding up the healing windows would just make it so fights would go on until players exhausted their resources, which would then cause an item drought for those who were successful in the fight. I don't think that would be great.

Being punished for taking damage and being rewarded for dealing damage is good, IMHO.

You should try it before arguing against it. Many of Warzone's features, such as dropping into the fight with armor and a gun, are really smart and make the initial run for a better weapon a lot less stressful.
I know that it can be frustrating to land and die quickly without a chance to fight back in Apex. I experience this a lot. But at the same time, it is also very fun to be the one on the other end of the situation, where several of you are running to a gun and you get to be the one who has it in your hands. Not to mention how fun it is to hound fresh respawners precisely because you know they are chum in the water.

If the game was slow to get into matches, and the games themselves were slow to unfold like Warzone appears to be, maybe it would make more sense to have players equipped with some weapon at the onset. For Apex though, I don't think it's a great idea.

I also think the initial bum rush to find weapons is exhilarating, and it's also really fun and funny to gang brawl people with your squad when you all don't have firearms but an enemy does.

I don't plan on playing Warzone because I straight up don't want to reward Call of Duty. I don't care for its gameplay or its art. I learned, after Infinity Ward blew up originally, that it wasn't Call of Duty that I was interested in as an intellectual property, it was the games made by Infinity Ward, now Respawn. I've never particularly wanted to reward IW's/Respawns imitators.
 

Trisc

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,485
I know that it can be frustrating to land and die quickly without a chance to fight back in Apex. I experience this a lot. But at the same time, it is also very fun to be the one on the other end of the situation, where several of you are running to a gun and you get to be the one who has it in your hands. Not to mention how fun it is to hound fresh respawners precisely because you know they are chum in the water.

If the game was slow to get into matches, and the games themselves were slow to unfold like Warzone appears to be, maybe it would make more sense to have players equipped with some weapon at the onset. For Apex though, I don't think it's a great idea.

I also think the initial bum rush to find weapons is exhilarating, and it's also really fun and funny to gang brawl people with your squad when you all don't have firearms but an enemy does.

I don't plan on playing Warzone because I straight up don't want to reward Call of Duty. I don't care for its gameplay or its art. I learned, after Infinity Ward blew up originally, that it wasn't Call of Duty that I was interested in as an intellectual property, it was the games made by Infinity Ward, now Respawn. I've never particularly wanted to reward IW's/Respawns imitators.
I realize we're not likely to agree on any points, but I want to focus on this last bit in particular.

1. Landing without any means to defend yourself only to instantly die isn't just frustrating, it's a complete mood killer. I straight-up don't want to play as a result of dropping and not being able to arm myself immediately to respond to enemies attacking.

2. Warzone seems slow, but with almost triple the playercount of Apex (soon to be quadruple), it's actually quite easy to find fights. Add onto that the bounty system encouraging players to actively seek other teams out, and the pace winds up (surprisingly) being on-par. The only thing that's truly dramatic is engagement distances.

3. There's still a rush for arms. Difference is you at least have a gun to defend yourself if you manage to get beaten to the punch by an enemy, instead of being forced to defend yourself with a shitty, awkward melee attack.

4. You realize that Respawn had a mass exodus to Infinity Ward last year, right? A number of former Infinity Ward employees who went to work at Respawn went back to Infinity Ward, and many new employees Respawn picked up (such as Hyper, everyone's favorite gun meme animator) are working at Infinity Ward as well.
 
Oct 31, 2017
9,620
I realize we're not likely to agree on any points, but I want to focus on this last bit in particular.

1. Landing without any means to defend yourself only to instantly die isn't just frustrating, it's a complete mood killer. I straight-up don't want to play as a result of dropping and not being able to arm myself immediately to respond to enemies attacking.

2. Warzone seems slow, but with almost triple the playercount of Apex (soon to be quadruple), it's actually quite easy to find fights. Add onto that the bounty system encouraging players to actively seek other teams out, and the pace winds up (surprisingly) being on-par. The only thing that's truly dramatic is engagement distances.

3. There's still a rush for arms. Difference is you at least have a gun to defend yourself if you manage to get beaten to the punch by an enemy, instead of being forced to defend yourself with a shitty, awkward melee attack.

4. You realize that Respawn had a mass exodus to Infinity Ward last year, right? A number of former Infinity Ward employees who went to work at Respawn went back to Infinity Ward, and many new employees Respawn picked up (such as Hyper, everyone's favorite gun meme animator) are working at Infinity Ward as well.

If I die to initial fighting, I just shrug, let the game play out and if we wipe, I hop back in. It doesn't really kill my mood, personally. Yes, it can suck. Yes it can be frustrating, but I think this occasional bout of annoyance is worth it for the flipside: being the one in the power position. It's something I'm willing to trade.

I don't think "more players = better", "bigger map = better". In fact, I think this is almost always not the case for any multiplayer game I play, regardless of scope. For instance, in Halo I'd much rather play doubles or standard 4v4 than Big Team Battle. Big games have their place and can be fun for what they are, but I never think that it should be the strive of the core game. I think that Apex's 60 players is a good sweet spot, at least on King's Canyon. For World's Edge though, I almost feel like the player count could be bumped to 80 due to the map's size, though that's a whole different problem.

And by game pace, I wasn't necessarily talking about moment to moment fights/gameplay, though I think that too would be slower compared to Apex. More the fact that it seems like the games take a long while to fully complete. Whereas Apex's games are typically 15-20 minute affairs. I much, much, much prefer my multiplayer games to have snappy matches, rather than overly long and drawn out. Though I know this is a preference thing for people. I'd just rather play three really good, different, intense games in the span of an hour rather than 1 longer, meandering, kind of mediocre match.

Yeah there's still a rush to find weapons, sure. But it's not quite the same, because you can still win in a fight regardless of the power difference. By forcing players to pick up firearms, the power skew for those who are equipped vs. those in base state is something like 95/5 favorability for the equipped player. With Warzone and having a default weapon, I have to think it's more like 80/20 favorability for the better equipped individual. Personally, I think the other is better for the game, especially considering the nature of respawning in Apex: it's called out to all players on the map "Hey, there's a massively vulnerable team over here! Come get em!". It's like ringing a dinner bell for me and my squad lmao.

I do realize some people left Respawn and went to IW. I still think the leadership at the top at Respawn is the difference maker (as is for pretty much all game studios and businesses, more generally) and I think it shows in their games. I played MW's beta and fucking hated it honestly. The guns sounded nice, but the core gameplay itself I didn't find fun at all. Nothing about Warzone would change this fact, and in fact, I think it would only exacerbate the things I disliked.
 

Alvis

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,221
Spain
I've been thinking for a little while that they could probably have 2 tiers of small target. Path and Wraith are considerably harder to hit than Lifeline, Revenant, or Wattson. Maybe a 5% and a 7.5%? 10 seems like it'd be too much.
That would be insane. If you do that then Path wouldn't be usable inside buildings ever again for example. Sure Path is hard to hit while grappling but the grapple has a cooldown and isn't always useful lol
 

krazen

Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,117
Gentrified Brooklyn
I realize we're not likely to agree on any points, but I want to focus on this last bit in particular.

1. Landing without any means to defend yourself only to instantly die isn't just frustrating, it's a complete mood killer. I straight-up don't want to play as a result of dropping and not being able to arm myself immediately to respond to enemies attacking.

2. Warzone seems slow, but with almost triple the playercount of Apex (soon to be quadruple), it's actually quite easy to find fights. Add onto that the bounty system encouraging players to actively seek other teams out, and the pace winds up (surprisingly) being on-par. The only thing that's truly dramatic is engagement distances.

3. There's still a rush for arms. Difference is you at least have a gun to defend yourself if you manage to get beaten to the punch by an enemy, instead of being forced to defend yourself with a shitty, awkward melee attack.

4. You realize that Respawn had a mass exodus to Infinity Ward last year, right? A number of former Infinity Ward employees who went to work at Respawn went back to Infinity Ward, and many new employees Respawn picked up (such as Hyper, everyone's favorite gun meme animator) are working at Infinity Ward as well.

On dropping without guns or shields, I dunno. While at times the random can get wonky, only time its an issue for me is when its hot drop time and its suddenly team death match and the first two crates don't have anything I can use.

Its not hard to drop in a space gives ample amount of gear to make fights winable.

Going to the bigger changes to stop third partying...not to say Apex is a realistic shooter but I play it for more the strategy side. If you've got all these built in failsafes (passive healing, etc) it rewards sloppy play.

"But Krazen, fuck U, Im a god with this controller, and it sucks to die to a noob who caught a purple and golden r99"

You probably had it coming though? Im not going to defend the 'fun' of getting third partied and other of the cheesier aspects of the meta but often it's the teams own fault; ie we are in the center of one of the final circles, five teams left, why is my octane rushing?

It feels much of these critiques have to do with Apex being a shooter heavily reliant on solid team play and by extension the random roll of good or bad teammates as opposed to bad design choices. It goes back to the matchmaking complaints, 3 Apex predators landing with p2020's will mop up Bronzes with purple armor, nahmean?

You can add up small things like COD where everyone has pistols and autoheals, but as a result it rewards less coordinated teamplay because you have those extra failsafes
 

Papercuts

Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,007
I personally wouldn't want to drop in with a gun. I'm fine with a separate mode with something like that (that train mode has some neat ideas), but it's actually really easy to grief people in this game with how visible the drop lines are. Trios can land on a split person and punch them to death, which would be a lot worse if the 3 have a gun even if you have one yourself. This isn't super common due to how long the 3 would take to kill someone and not get loot from, but a pistol makes that kinda annoyingly viable. Hammerpoints would be WAY better to drop on as well if they gave you either of the shitty weapons to start with.
 

Trisc

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,485
I don't think "more players = better", "bigger map = better". In fact, I think this is almost always not the case for any multiplayer game I play, regardless of scope. For instance, in Halo I'd much rather play doubles or standard 4v4 than Big Team Battle. Big games have their place and can be fun for what they are, but I never think that it should be the strive of the core game. I think that Apex's 60 players is a good sweet spot, at least on King's Canyon. For World's Edge though, I almost feel like the player count could be bumped to 80 due to the map's size, though that's a whole different problem.

And by game pace, I wasn't necessarily talking about moment to moment fights/gameplay, though I think that too would be slower compared to Apex. More the fact that it seems like the games take a long while to fully complete. Whereas Apex's games are typically 15-20 minute affairs. I much, much, much prefer my multiplayer games to have snappy matches, rather than overly long and drawn out. Though I know this is a preference thing for people. I'd just rather play three really good, different, intense games in the span of an hour rather than 1 longer, meandering, kind of mediocre match.
I didn't say more players or a bigger map is better, though. I was responding to your point regarding pacing, where I feel Warzone and Apex have a relatively similar pace. I think that's a compliment that goes both ways: Warzone has a huge scale and large playercount that keeps every match fast-paced, and Apex successfully scaled all that down into a far smaller package for more intense gunfights in a significantly smaller map.

Also, in my experience, no Warzone matches I played were longer than 25 minutes. It's most certainly not PUBG.

Anyway, I don't want to sound like I'm wanking Warzone and dissing Apex. I enjoy both games for different reasons, and I'd love to see how Apex learns from what Warzone did right, just as Warzone learned from Apex and Fortnite.
 
Oct 31, 2017
9,620
I didn't say more players or a bigger map is better, though. I was responding to your point regarding pacing, where I feel Warzone and Apex have a relatively similar pace. I think that's a compliment that goes both ways: Warzone has a huge scale and large playercount that keeps every match fast-paced, and Apex successfully scaled all that down into a far smaller package for more intense gunfights in a significantly smaller map.

Also, in my experience, no Warzone matches I played were longer than 25 minutes. It's most certainly not PUBG.

Anyway, I don't want to sound like I'm wanking Warzone and dissing Apex. I enjoy both games for different reasons, and I'd love to see how Apex learns from what Warzone did right, just as Warzone learned from Apex and Fortnite.
I get you. I was meaning in terms of the length of the matches, but you're saying they are about 25 minutes, so that doesn't seem too bad. I was just feeling like they could be much longer judging by the streams/videos I'd seen, the player count, and the ways players could be brought back into the game (the gulag system or being bought back in by a remaining squad member) which could all contribute to much longer games.

But 25 minutes isn't too bad. Still, probably twice as long as most Apex games if I had to guess.

I just don't know if there's anything I'd like to see Apex gleam from Warzone honestly. The only thing I think that could be cool is something like their payday mode, but if they did it similar to how Respawn themselves treated Bounty Hunt in Titanfall 2, which was a game mode that I quite liked a lot. That said, Bounty Hunt was no substitution for the original Titanfall's Attrition, unfortunately.
 

Facism

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,917
opened up an apex pack. 2 legendaries omg omg omg.

1 crap Bloodhound Skin and a nonsense banner for them too lol :(
 

Love Machine

Member
Oct 29, 2017
4,216
Tokyo, Japan
Does anyone else have that friend who is strangely obsessed with clearing their weeklies (not dailies), regardless of the detriment to the team?
"Just gotta open 5 more bins in Thermal..." Dude. We're already moving and ready to fight. Just do it next game/tomorrow, ffs.

You should try it before arguing against it. Many of Warzone's features, such as dropping into the fight with armor and a gun, are really smart and make the initial run for a better weapon a lot less stressful.
This is the only thing I would ask them to consider for Apex. The initial dogpiling meta is stupid (even worse with latency and loot bin "refresh" issue), and there's very little satisfaction gained from being the lucky one. There's no need to copy any other Warzone traits, as the two games are very different. (The reason I got into Apex was because it was so different from other BRs.)
 

btkadams

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,313
opened up an apex pack. 2 legendaries omg omg omg.

1 crap Bloodhound Skin and a nonsense banner for them too lol :(
I've opened enough boxes that i somehow lucked out and got heirloom shards (I definitely opened up fewer than 500 though lol), and i have NEVER seen 2 legendaries in one box. That's sweet!

Also, I'm a bloodhound main so that sounds even better.
 

Facism

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,917
I've opened enough boxes that i somehow lucked out and got heirloom shards (I definitely opened up fewer than 500 though lol), and i have NEVER seen 2 legendaries in one box. That's sweet!

Also, I'm a bloodhound main so that sounds even better.

I got the RuneKeeper skin and Fortune Hunter banner. Would have loved the standard plague doctor skin :p
 
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