Apex Legends

[Arroz con Panther]

Ya'll are making me want to play while I'm working from home...I'm struggling not getting on for a match or two.

[lightsout]

1 hour ago, Arroz con Panther said:

Ya'll are making me want to play while I'm working from home...I'm struggling not getting on for a match or two.

Glad I'm not the only one struggling with wanting to play rather than work. I mean...you're working...so who is to say you don't deserve a 30 minute break?

[RealBitsOfPanther]

I'm on PC if anybody would like to run some. 

Season 3 Ranked: K/D is 1.60. Average Damage is around 500. 

Origin Name is tuffyggs

I have a discord as well. 

[lightsout]

Devstream outlined the plan for season 4. Also, gonna dive into some lore because I think it could really start taking off during season 4.

- Season 4 is titled Assimilation.
- New Legend will be Forge. Don't know all of his abilities yet. He is a renowned MMA fighter in the game's universe and appears to be another big hit box Legend. First Legend with a corporate sponsor, being Hammond Robotics. More on that in a second.
- Ranked will have two changes. Current Apex Predator tier will now be Master tier. Apex Predator is reserved for the top 500 on each platform in Master. If you fall out of the top 500, you go back to Master.
- Ranked will be split at mid-season. So a soft reset at the end of March will occur, and at that time, we go back to Kings Canyon for the rest of season 4. Unsure if the map change is ranked only or if it is a full game swap of map.
- New bolt-action sniper rifle, the Sentinel. Two modes of fire. Supposedly a different kind of weapon than we currently have.
- Currently in-game at The Refinery (I believe), inside the train depot you can find a camera and two chairs with Forge banners on either side of the chairs. Sort of an interview setup.
- There will be map changes similar to Kings Canyon's big changes for World's Edge during season 4.

Forge being sponsored by Hammond Robotics is interesting. If you played Titanfall 1 or 2, the name is familiar. Pathfinder is a M.R.V.N. unit, which is created by Hammond. The IMC used Hammond tech in the War. Hammond also created the Titans in the original games, and above Capital City currently, there is a new teaser. If you look up anywhere in that general area into the smoke in the sky in the Skyhook/Capital City area, you will see three lights that appear to be a ship or something. This may be how Forge is ultimately introduced, or it could be something else entirely.

Hammond Robotics developed new weaponry for the IMC, like new Titans, in the Frontier War. The Frontier War was fought between the IMC and the Militia, which consisted largely of IMC veterans put out into the Frontier (a group of planets farther from the Core Systems) as part of a "GI Bill", where they were given land and homes. After wars back in the Core Systems (Earth and surrounding, nearby planets in the Sol System) caused the IMC to fall out of favor, they pulled funding and support for the settlers on the Frontier and came back several decades later to claim eminent domain over the Frontier and all it's resources. This is what spurred the Frontier War, which consisted of several conflicts over the area during Titanfall 1 and 2, concluding with the IMC's defeat and retreat from the Frontier. The Legends in the game are a mixture of former IMC and Militia fighters, and some were never involved at all with either faction directly (I know Bangalore was a soldier in the IMC). The Apex Predators, as a note, were mercenaries who fought for the highest bidder, which was usually the IMC. The Apex Games were created as a blood sport by Kuben Blisk (rumored to be a future Legend, btw). Blisk lead the Apex Predators. This is why you see so many IMC logos in the world (for example, the beacons that Pathfinder accesses for his Insider Knowledge ability). Blisk has a good relationship with the IMC, which lead to them helping Blisk to form the Apex Games, which makes Forge coming in being sponsored by Hammond a bit more interesting in terms of potential lore.


EDIT: For clarity, the IMC started under the name Hammond Engineering by Doctor Hammond. After growth and changes, they rebranded as Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation. Hammond Robotics, then, would seem to be a subsidiary of IMC that focuses on MRVN units, Titan production, etc.

[Ivan The Awesome]

The community was like, yeaaaah. Revenant!!

 

 

 

Devs:the new legend is Forge. lol

[lightsout]

Dummy mode being live raises some very exciting possibilities.

 

- Lifeline abilities completely reworked. With Gibraltar's abilities changing to essentially render Lifeline as less necessary, the possibility of her active ability being a random piece of loot appearing on a 30 sec cooldown is huge. The ultimate ability being an area of effect insta heal to health AND shield is also crazy powerful. I'd even be ok with the loot party ult being her active ability, but give it a longer cooldown. Idk. Just interesting possibility.

 

- Mirage's ult being completely overhauled to work as a lot of the community wanted. The decoys deploy and mirror your movement for roughly 5-10 seconds before disappearing.  This makes it harder to determine if they're looking at you or a decoy and it makes life so much more interesting while playing him.

 

I'm not expecting any of these changes before season 4 but it really does look like a great step to fixing some balance/usefulness issues for these two

[Ivan The Awesome]

They just need to rework lifeline.

 

-Keep her fast revive. Make it slightly slower than Gibby. Because if the animation would be as fast as Gibby in his dome, it would make Gibby's ability to revive fast kind of moot. 

-Instead of the shield being half there when she's reviving, let that shield be like half a dome and not be able to be crossed. Also let that shield stay up at least 2 seconds to people can get into cover or run away. 

-Let lifeline be able to toss her drone a certain distance. Also let her drone revive downed allies. Make that animation a bit slower if necessary and give the drone a health bar. I would say 50 HP. 

-Let life have a passive, regen based healing. Depending on her armor, regen HP over time.  As slightly slower than Octanes passive. But similar process. 

White armor 25 HP

Blue armor 50 HP

Purple Armor 75 HP

Gold Armor 100 HP

-Since she's a medic, she should be able to heal herself a bit faster than everyone else. 

 

These are some changes that I think would help her out more. In high levels of play, I rarely see a lifeline. I used to main her in the beginning, I haven't touched her since Crypto was introduced and the beginning of the 3rd season. 

[lightsout]

13 hours ago, Ivan The Awesome said:

They just need to rework lifeline.

 

-Keep her fast revive. Make it slightly slower than Gibby. Because if the animation would be as fast as Gibby in his dome, it would make Gibby's ability to revive fast kind of moot. 

-Instead of the shield being half there when she's reviving, let that shield be like half a dome and not be able to be crossed. Also let that shield stay up at least 2 seconds to people can get into cover or run away. 

-Let lifeline be able to toss her drone a certain distance. Also let her drone revive downed allies. Make that animation a bit slower if necessary and give the drone a health bar. I would say 50 HP. 

-Let life have a passive, regen based healing. Depending on her armor, regen HP over time.  As slightly slower than Octanes passive. But similar process. 

White armor 25 HP

Blue armor 50 HP

Purple Armor 75 HP

Gold Armor 100 HP

-Since she's a medic, she should be able to heal herself a bit faster than everyone else. 

 

These are some changes that I think would help her out more. In high levels of play, I rarely see a lifeline. I used to main her in the beginning, I haven't touched her since Crypto was introduced and the beginning of the 3rd season. 

Here's my thinking on Lifeline. The drone needs to be rethought. You can't use it for more than what, 5 seconds in the storm? You also can't use it while being shot at. The risk reward of the drone is that it can be used by the enemy. So, REALLY, what do people end up using the drone for? They retreat and heal midfight with the drone while using cells or batteries OR they use it post-fight while looting OR they drop it for a downed teammate that gets picked up. So, scratch the drone in favor of the AoE ult. The Lifeline ult is so risky because it tells everybody where you are, so yeah, use JUST the loot party ult but as the active ability on a long cooldown. Gives random loot and it may not be useful, but tier up the loot based on the damage output of Lifeline, or the round that the ring is in. Round 1 gives whites with a chance of blue, 2 gives more blues with a chance of purples, 3 and 4 gives guaranteed blues with a higher chance of purples and a lower chance at golds. To make this more balanced, take some of the purples and golds out of the loot pool all together because currently, there are just too many this season.

I will agree that her res shield NEEDS to be impassable or bigger or both. Her passive should also mean faster healing because that is her specialty, but no on the regen. That makes Octane's biggest appeal obsolete and we have another issue like Gibby is causing. I think currently Gibby's is faster than Lifeline's, but the dome shield is less security than Lifeline's overshield (you don't have to get as close to be able to damage him during that animation).

On the proposed regen based on armor, you're touching on something that they're going to be doing with armor that not many have heard. Shroud mentioned it I believe. Basically, they're possibly bringing in "evolving armor" where based on the damage you do, your armor improves. Not sure how it would work, but my thinking would be something like if they take out all armor, you'd pick up armor and do something like, 350-500 damage, it moves from level 1 armor to level 2. At 700-850 it goes to level 3. At 1200 or something, it goes to gold. This rewards you for getting in fights and being good at fights. My understanding is that it wouldn't change until you've repaired your shield from being empty. So if you're throwing more damage at an opponent but you're getting team shot and you have level 2 armor and so does the opponent you're shooting at, you back up and pop a battery, now you've hit the threshold for level 3 and you have that advantage as you're doing more than your opponent. Again though, no to giving legends other legends abilities unless you're reworking the other legend different abilities to keep them valuable.

[lightsout]

So....this changes things ...

 

 

[Ivan The Awesome]

41 minutes ago, lightsout said:

So....this changes things ...

 

 

They literally made a character to just kill him. George R Martin would be proud. 

[Ivan The Awesome]

8 hours ago, lightsout said:

Here's my thinking on Lifeline. The drone needs to be rethought. You can't use it for more than what, 5 seconds in the storm? You also can't use it while being shot at. The risk reward of the drone is that it can be used by the enemy. So, REALLY, what do people end up using the drone for? They retreat and heal midfight with the drone while using cells or batteries OR they use it post-fight while looting OR they drop it for a downed teammate that gets picked up. So, scratch the drone in favor of the AoE ult. The Lifeline ult is so risky because it tells everybody where you are, so yeah, use JUST the loot party ult but as the active ability on a long cooldown. Gives random loot and it may not be useful, but tier up the loot based on the damage output of Lifeline, or the round that the ring is in. Round 1 gives whites with a chance of blue, 2 gives more blues with a chance of purples, 3 and 4 gives guaranteed blues with a higher chance of purples and a lower chance at golds. To make this more balanced, take some of the purples and golds out of the loot pool all together because currently, there are just too many this season.

I will agree that her res shield NEEDS to be impassable or bigger or both. Her passive should also mean faster healing because that is her specialty, but no on the regen. That makes Octane's biggest appeal obsolete and we have another issue like Gibby is causing. I think currently Gibby's is faster than Lifeline's, but the dome shield is less security than Lifeline's overshield (you don't have to get as close to be able to damage him during that animation).

On the proposed regen based on armor, you're touching on something that they're going to be doing with armor that not many have heard. Shroud mentioned it I believe. Basically, they're possibly bringing in "evolving armor" where based on the damage you do, your armor improves. Not sure how it would work, but my thinking would be something like if they take out all armor, you'd pick up armor and do something like, 350-500 damage, it moves from level 1 armor to level 2. At 700-850 it goes to level 3. At 1200 or something, it goes to gold. This rewards you for getting in fights and being good at fights. My understanding is that it wouldn't change until you've repaired your shield from being empty. So if you're throwing more damage at an opponent but you're getting team shot and you have level 2 armor and so does the opponent you're shooting at, you back up and pop a battery, now you've hit the threshold for level 3 and you have that advantage as you're doing more than your opponent. Again though, no to giving legends other legends abilities unless you're reworking the other legend different abilities to keep them valuable.

The AOE thing is very broken tho. It literally resets a whole fight and if you don't have another lifeline in your team you're going to be SOL. You don't want to make her so OP that she's a must pick. If you want to have balance in the game you can't give her such a powerful ultimate. Most of the ults are not instant, they take time to deploy. Giving her that ability to instantly heal and regenerate shields MID fight would just be a bit too much. It reminds me of Overwatch back in the day when Mercy was a must pick because of her Resurrection ult. Go in, battle, if you lost battle, mercy comes in revives everyone and the team that just fought hard to defend is really in no mans land. It's not fun, it's really fair at all. 

I like the Idea but if there is a fine line in tuning that Ultimate. They need to make her more practical, giving Gibby a faster revive than her, even though it's in his dome, was a mistake. He should have been as fast as her. Granted his dome comes back in a long long amount of time. She has the fast revive any time she wants. They definitely need to make her drone better or get rid of it completely like you suggested. The reasoning behind the drone not being able to heal people in the storm was because people were abusing the hell out of it. Which in the parameters of the game wasn't really a form of abuse tho. At least not in my eyes. It was possible within the mechanics of the game and credible as well. Cryptos drone doesn't get destroyed, Wattsons Pylons, Caustics traps, etc. Why does the drone get punished? 

 

I like the idea of having her ultimate changed into something else. I'm on the fence of AOE healing. if they do that then really it should be a percentage and have regen afterwards for a set amount of seconds. I.E., 50% instant heal, 3 seconds of regen afterwards. 

The other ult change, have the same ult but changed a bit. Have that package act as a healing station as well where an x radius, you get healing as well. Including loot, depending on your squad, the loot would adapt to what you need. Making the ult more useful and not really RNG based. Example, two of you have blue armors and one has white, in the package you'd get a blue armor to level out things. something like that. 

From I gathered Respawn is trying to make the pick rates better on certain characters. In high levels of play you rarely see certain ones. You always see a wraith, Pathfinder, Gibby, Wattson.  Almost. Even pro players almost always have a path or wraith. 

 

In low levels of play it's really whomever is the persons "main". 

[RealBitsOfPanther]

I like the idea of her ult doing some type of healing, similar to how Lucio in Overwatch's ult is, but maybe a lot less game changing. 

[Arroz con Panther]

My buddy and I are about to get on for a little bit. We'll be in the Huddle Gamers discord if anyone wants to team up.

Full disclosure: My buddy just got a PC on Tuesday.

[onmyown]

I play on PS4. I went to Modern Warfare for a couple months and my god that game is utter garbage. They took away 3 lane maps, it constantly crashes and has all kinds of bugs. It is amazing to me a free game can be so much better. Modern Warfare no claims it’s working on a battle royale 200 person mode lol. That’s going to blow up in their face mainly for the point of the originals modes aren’t even working. They finally added capture the flag which kept me playing but their map layouts are just putrid. I went back to Apex and I love the new update.

I hated how there was so little high end Armour and gear. I don’t think the team who got lucky and landed near it all should last the longest. And you can bullshit all you want about deserving it because of looting but you know damn well it’s the luck of the drop more than anything.

Seems more balanced now. You still have to search but I wouldn’t say it’s saturated. Everyone should have a chance and where you drop shouldn’t make that big of a deal.

I play on PS4 gamertag is onmyown33. I think hot dropping is stupid to be honest. It completely contradicts the point of the game. You’re not good if you end up last of 50 players all dropping at your spot. You’re lucky. That’s all that means. And loot has nothing to do with it, you can find loot elsewhere. All you’re doing is decreasing your chances to win.

I’d rather drop In a nice spot and slowly migrate and find loot always take advantage positions when searching. It’s amazing to me how players ignore geographical advantages when pit cling fights. When I pick fights I try to be in the best spot to do so. 

Hate when teammates al don’t wait for other mates to get equipped. Ok great too found purple Armour and ran into a fight killed someone and died and now your screaming others are injured and to be revived yet your teammates still have white shields and poo guns so you’re all mad and die and leave. I fuging HATE that poo like if you’re the first with a purple sheild you should be escorting your group around until they’re set.

 I love apex but I’d say in a 2-3 hour playing session I get ONE competent team. Most the time I’m just...on my own.