Apex Legends - New Battle Royale from Respawn (Titanfall)

[GottaB 594]

If you relinquish the drop and then suggest a place to land, you are a douche.

I’ll relinquish because I don’t give a shit.

I’ll only suggest if it seems like the dropmaster doesn’t want to make a decision (10 seconds or so into flight time).

Largely I just like to go with the flow. Loot for 10 minutes on the edge. Ok. Whatever. Jump in a slaughterfest, ok let’s see how we fare.

What bugs me is people that split off in opposite directions and don’t want any part of a group effort.

Or to the guys that leave the match while I’m en route to get your respawn, fuck you.

[Sam Lin 3559]

Season 2 patch released this past week, added a character and a gun, changed up some of the map, and changed a bunch of gameplay dynamics by changing up weapon mods and adding more ways to get item drops. Really changed the initial drop: suddenly people are dropping and converging on item drops because of hopes of getting a legendary gun and mowing down the entire crowd. Ring damage increased, timing decreased, which pushes people into new rings far more urgently than before. The weapon mods did a surprisingly effective job of making different weapons more appealing. Mozambique was hot garbage, now it's something some people actually use.

All in all, I'm pretty impressed by how effectively this patch makes the game seem fresh again.

[hornfan785 556]

Alternator with disruptor rounds is now my go-to gun. It's so good now. It was a great gun in Titanfall 2 multiplayer, and so was the Mozambique, so it's nice that they're getting some love.

[shigginz 5]

Invitational tournament coming up at the beginning of August. I'm assuming (hoping) it will be head to head match-ups rather than the few previous tournaments that have all been on public servers. Can't wait to see who can camp the hardest!

 

http://www.xgames.com/minneapolis/article/27210371/rogue-misfits-nrg-team-liquid-cloud9-compete-exp-invitational-apex-legends-x-games-minneapolis

[Eastwood 4394]

They just released solo mode today. If you want a meat grinder of 5 games in 15 minutes, this is the game for you.

[GottaB 594]

I watch way more gameplay than I should but this ending made me let out a chortle

[pacman 7355]

lol that is genius

[hornfan785 556]

new season, new map

 

[Sam Lin 3559]

Rumors of 2 new weapon mods for R301 and Scout. R301 gets a higher damage in single fire, Scout gets a 2round burst.

Can't say I really wished for a different map, hoping it becomes selectable and not just a forced change that they arbitrarily take away when they want more money. Getting rid of solo, sniper&shotty, etc, is just setting up future money grabs. The dev work was already done, there was no reason to take them back out of the game.

[Sam Lin 3559]

Looks like changes to gold shield and gold backpack that'll really change their value. Currently, noone wants the gold shield. The fast heal benefits of the backpack have been moved to the shield. The backpack's user revives teammates at half shield and 70% health.

 

Edit: change summary:

https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/dbfkyu/new_s3_information_from_the_footage_released_today/

Edited October 1, 2019 by Sam Lin

[pacman 7355]

Agree, solid changes to the gold items. Like the train aspect too,some cool fights on their.

[hornfan785 556]

Yeah, definitely like the changes to the armor, backpack, and finishers.

[Bevo14 8311]

A promo code for this came with a game I bought off Amazon, but I don't play this.

 

PS4 code: RF6H-2QNG-B4HT

 

Includes the following items:
1. 600 Apex Coins*
2. Exclusive Animated Blue Fade RE45 Weapon Skin
3. Exclusive Feeding Frenzy Badge

[Sam Lin 3559]

Season 3 is nearly done, they did a "Grand Soiree" spitballing a bunch of random humor game modes for 2 days each. Some were fun (dummies), some were garbage (third-person view). Hopefully they take the aspects that were fun and roll them into other events or make them part of the game in the future.

Season 4 starts next week, expecting 1 or 2 more new characters, and a new energy weapon.

It does feel like the game has really hit its stride, this event was smoother and with fewer game-breaking unbalances (though that might just be because each event was only 2 days, not enough time for anyone to adapt to the game mode and exploit it.) A recent patch also added a tournament setup feature, currently only available to tournament organizers - it's a bid to make this game a bigger player in the eSports field. Game is still fun and is still my go-to for lighthearted gaming with friends.

Still wish they'd keep more of the game modes as available options to play, but I do see how it runs the risk of diluting the player base and making all of the modes starve for players. We saw a bit of that during this last Soiree event, had to wait a while to matchmake a third-person game because noone wanted to play that garbage.

[Capn81 372]

I played today for the first time since the start of Season 3. I might have to pick it up and play again when the new character(s) release. I got bored with the new map (quickly) and the characters.

[pacman 7355]

Continue to enjoy this game very much. Looking forward to season 4 and the new character.

[pacman 7355]

Revenant definitely posts on surly. He is a certified asshole.

[pacman 7355]

when reviving a teammate, Revanant says, "You're better off dead but I need the cover."

 

l o fucking l

[Sam Lin 3559]

For April Fools, they dropped gold Mozambiques all over and gave them 9rd mags. It was hilarious. I wish it was a permanent change, or at least comes back occasionally - it completely changed the game, made it more of a sandbox scrum.

[Sam Lin 3559]

New season just started. Pretty long list of patch notes for this one, I'm only mentioning a few. This patch adjusted a lot of things. Generally feels positive to me, though I wish they'd make up their minds about what they want from the sniper rifles (skullpiercer is now back for Longbow).

 

New game mode, is a PvE exploration for loot drops (each player can only pick up one per day).

 

New legend, Lobo, focused on looting and with the ability to teleport nearby items to a ult beacon as well as throw a puck and teleport to it. This includes items in deathboxes, allowing a team to loot fresh kills from safety.

Mirage got a massive, massive buff, this better make up for 4 seasons of people whining on Reddit about Mirage sucking. He and the recipient are now invisible when reviving or respawning someone.

Mastiff becomes normal rotation gun, Peacekeeper becomes gold loot drop only.

Skullpiercer hop-up is back. Anvil is gone (good riddance, it and double-tap are utterly useless filler).

Gold armor now gets double the heal amount for each item, but now heals at normal speed (no more super-fast heal).

 

Patch notes:

https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends/news/season-5-patch-notes

[Sam Lin 3559]

Oh, and the map is back to King's Canyon, but a very heavily modified version. Many more small building/lab areas that provide a lot of cover, battles in general are closer range, and there's less playable map, makes the game faster paced. Skull Town was completely cut out of the continent, it's a bay of water now. And the dumb dinosaurs are back to being wallpaper out in the ocean, (good riddance).

[pacman 7355]

Gold bique was fantastic. Make the mag a little smaller and it could easily be permanent.

I loathe that melee does more damage than guns, just silly.

Shots hitting but not recording damage seems to be the only stain on this season, albeit a fairly large one.

Edited May 18, 2020 by pacman

[Sam Lin 3559]

Re: melee, I don't mind the damage, but I do hate that despite the characters having different sizes and melee items (wraith knife, bloodhound hatchet, gibraltar big machete thing) they all do the same melee damage. When they teased the Forge character as a melee brawler a few seasons back, I was hopeful that there'd start to be some distinction in melee abilities between characters. Seems it's an area of the game that could be better fleshed out, both by varying the amount of damage dealt, and by adding effects like stun/slow or bleed.

I do enjoy dropping in and melee'ing a whole squad to death, bonus smugness if they all have guns and/or armor. Most people panic and rarely melee so they don't know how to play it or counter it, even with guns. It really pays off to just spar with a friend in the training room, even for just a minute or 2. Gets you a much better feel for timing and moving and sliding.

[Sam Lin 3559]

New season just started. Notable changes:

Mozambique mag size increased 3>4!!!!!!

New legend is Rampart, he has faster reload with energy weapons, Lstar overheats slower for him, can throw down mannable mounted guns as well as temporary shields. Will be fun for camping high ground.

Big boost to Crypto, his drone can use a respawn station and respawn teammates, as well as use survey beacons. Both are instant-use, no waiting. His drone also gets double hp now, 30>60.

Bloodhound can also use survey beacons now. Also, Bloodhound scan cooldown reduces to 6sec when he's in his ultimate ability. Makes him almost a nonstop scanning machine while in ult.

Pathfinder zipline cooldown decreases by 10sec each time he scans a survey beacon.

New weapon, an energy SMG, the Volt.

R99 is buffed (buffed??!!!!!!) but now is only available as a special loot drop (more damage, larger mag). This thing is going to be unstoppable for anyone who gets it.

All armor is Evo armor (at each starting level) now, and players all start with lvl0 Evo armor, so you can build up armor from zero just by damaging others. They must have gotten very positive feedback from the events where they tested everyone dropping with Evo armor.

All armors have 25 less hp.

Devotion back into normal rotation, energy mags back into normal rotation.

Havoc recoil 'tuned' again.

Spitfire recoil tuned.

Wattson pylon now shoots down Caustic gas traps thrown into range. (this is bullshit)

Gibraltar ult cooldown increased 3>4.5min.

Bangalore ult cooldown decreased 4.5>3min.

Choke hop-up is gone. Guns with choke now have choke built-in, and the choke can be toggled on and off via the fire mode selector button. This is great, toggling this is an idea I've discussed with my gaming group since season 2.

Sniper rifle inventory stack size increase. Energy ammo pickup size decreased (now 20, matching other ammo). Charge rifle uses 2 ammo per shot, mag holds 8 (they're trying to make it harder to carry a ton of charge rifle ammo. Before was 16 shots per stack, now is 12 shots per stack.)

 

 

Aaaaaaand: Fixed an issue with the train killing players when coming out of a wraith portal on the train.

Top comment reply: Issue fixed by removing the train.

 

 

Map sees some changes, Mirage Voyage is gone (RIP!)

[Sam Lin 3559]

Didn't touch on it before, but they added "crafting" - it's not really crafting, it's a buy station like a soda machine. You pick up credits from containers around the map, you spend them for a fixed inventory of items (some items rotate daily, some rotate weekly). The items that are rotated into the dispenser don't spawn outside. I was curious how it'd change the game, and it turns out it's just useless gimmickry. If it was true 'crafting' where you could break down crap items, it might have some value, but now it's just one more resource you have to manage. On the one hand it takes the RNG out of play if you really need one of the items that is rotated into the dispenser, but on the other hand it just means you need to run around collecting credits instead of finding that item.

 

After a few weeks of play, my patch impressions:

First, they already emergency patched it and raised the armor values back up to the +25 values. The decreased values were making TTK (time to kill) incredibly short. If you ran into a pro player, you got melted instantly.

New legend is questionably useful. Her soft walls are too soft, easily broken, and her ultimate mounted gun is borderline useless, leaves you wide open to be sniped and doesn't have enough accuracy to counter a sniper (and shows up on the goddamn minimap for everyone?!? Lets the world know where you're camping.) It sprays all over the place. Her voice lines get really annoying and repetitive, not helped by her flippant personality and the voice. I'd love a toggle to "mute character."

Crypto is hugely useful now, the instant drone abilities make him very versatile.

With them putting the R99 into special loot drops only, the Volt took the R99 place. Doesn't really feel like this was a change at all. Also, the loot drop R99 uses special ammo, you cannot pick up more ammo for it, which makes it a risky pickup and a throwaway gun.

Bringing Devotion back into random floor loot was useless, it trashed the feel of the game the first time and continues to do so now. There's no other weapon that so unbalances an early drop pickup.

I'm ambivalent on all armor being Evo armor, by end game it's a battle of everyone having Red armor, which really made the Gold armor much less valuable and makes end battles go much longer.

The map changes tried to add more harvester-type buildings and vertical battles. I'm ambivalent on the changes, didn't really make it more enjoyable. They did add cover as well as stairs/entrances/tuned heights to many areas on the map that previously were very difficult to push in one direction, to try and give the weak position more of a chance. I guess what says the most about this is in Season 6 I now prefer when the map rotates back to King's Canyon, while in prior seasons I liked both maps pretty equally.

Still bitter over losing Mirage Voyage. There's no other YOLO hot garbage drop location that feels as close and intense. Everywhere else is far more spaced out.

[Sam Lin 3559]

On 9/7/2020 at 1:40 PM, Sam Lin said:

First, they already emergency patched it and raised the armor values back up to the +25 values. The decreased values were making TTK (time to kill) incredibly short. If you ran into a pro player, you got melted instantly.

More news says the patch was actually so urgent because it removed a voice line where the Korean character is referred to as a 'gutter rat' and people got woke. Not for gameplay balancing, though it provided a convenient time to tune the balance as well.

[pacman 7355]

Still finding the game enjoyable. This is my first foray into gaming that I have stuck with. I did play the 5v5/6v6 battlefront games for a bit but not near this much.

A bit behind the curve since I never player fps or br games previously.

Apex is just so fast paced that it has kept me enthralled.

[Sam Lin 3559]

So they released a new season 3 weeks ago, with a new legend (Horizon) and a new map (Olympus). I haven't posted anything because I was giving it time to grow on me. It hasn't. This new map is awful, changes the game from a fast-paced BR into a slow loot and run like Battlefield (I don't play Battlefield exactly for this reason, it's a ton of running between locations for very little actual action). I've won so many games on this map where I never see or hear another squad until last 2-3 squads, literally just run around and loot for 15min. The first 2 weeks they stopped the map rotation and only allowed play on the new map, so I basically sat out the 2 weeks. Now the maps rotate every hour or two, so I can just wait for Olympus to rotate off again before playing.

Patch notes: https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/jmtm7v/season_7_patch_notes/

New legend Horizon is interesting and somewhat useful. Has an throwable that emits an antigrav beam that you or a vehicle can ride up and stand on, allows you to get on to higher ground or just get vantage or shooting position. The beam has some width so you can stand on it and strafe back and forth a bit. Ultimate is a throwable black hole that sucks nearby players and throwables towards it. Can be thrown a really long distance. Players can gradually walk out of the gravity, but it really slows them down. If you trap an enemy in it and immediately throw grenades into the gravity, they do some nice damage.

New map Olympus is huge. Had to change up my gun picks to always have a sniper in the early to mid-game. The rings need tuning, have had many games end in incredibly unbalanced ring positions where it's just dumb luck on a squad being in the only defensible place or in a place with only one entrance, and being the winner. Already mentioned above, it's a ton of running and looting and very little fighting, the player density is just so low when spread out over this map. A lot of ways to fall off this map, and no "thermal updrafts" like they tried adding to previous maps to help soften the risk of falling. They also added a little hovercar vehicle to help people move around the map and get into the next ring. It's amusing. They are invulnerable and cannot be destroyed, but all players on it take damage if an enemy shoots the car. It's pretty satisfying to have a dumb enemy team drive by and you wreck the entire team by dumping a mag into the car. I hate this map.

They also turned down the ring damage, as the huge map resulted in some areas just needing a lot of time to run to get to next ring. It makes the early rings completely survivable and again slows down the pace of game, you no longer need to push a chokepoint to get out of early rings, you can simply grab a few syringes and run the long way around, taking small damage from the ring the entire way.

 

Gameplay tuning:

Nice little quality of life improvement: now if you pick up a better attachment for one gun, the 'takeoff' attachment automatically goes onto your other gun if it's an improvement to what you have on the other gun.

Caustic gas does more damage but no longer blurs enemy vision.

Loba black market, ammo no longer counts toward the 2-item limit. This has proven to have some fun strategic value if in a standoff; grab all the ammo from the market and throw it on the ground so the enemy runs out of ammo pickups wherever they are holed up.

Loba black market cooldown drastically shortened. It's ludicrously short. She can basically throw it down nonstop, waiting 10sec between looting periods. When we play with a Loba we joke "Walmart is always open." Still questionably useful.

R99 is back into random floor loot! Didn't realize how much I missed this. Did make me realize how utterly useless the Volt SMG was as a game change, it added nothing at all, could take it out and no one would notice.

Prowler got moved into Red Weapon special drops only. On top of that, they now use their own special ammo so you cannot pick up more. So they took a gun that had very few users, made it even less common, and restricted the ammo. Utterly worthless. I have yet to see a player take one out of the drop.

New hop-up for Wingman and RE-45, called the Quickdraw holster. Quicker aim down sights but much more accurate hipfire. I find the hipfire to be useful the way I play. Odd that it doesn't work on the p2020 though.

Evo armor level-up thresholds are increased (they're trying to decrease the trend of everyone having red shields from midgame onwards).

[Sam Lin 3559]

New season update. Very minimal changes. Game keeps feeling more gimmicky, and I've played less this season than any previous. In a nutshell, the game has gotten slower paced and less skill-based.

 

Reasons:

New Olympus map is still garbage. Way too big for the number of squads; loot for hours, run/drive all over the map, find no one, and get third and fourth-partied once a battle happens. As I mentioned before, makes the game play more like Battlefield, which I never got in to for those same reasons. The play:fight ratio is so low. On top of that, the 2hr map rotations are really slow; not like you can sit out a few games and then play the next map. If you join and Olympus rotation just started, might as well call it for the night.

The crafting stuff is still a distraction, and isn't really crafting. It's a vending machine. You pick up credits, you spend them to buy that day's items. If the items are crap, no one bothers to craft. It would be real crafting if you could combine multiple shitty-tier items into a higher level item of the same type, or if you could break down items to get credits. Instead, it's a glorified vending machine with items that are trash much of the time.

Quit fucking with the weapons. This week LTM event now introduces fully kitted weapons of each type, but different tiers than red and gold. This shit is just gimmicky. Introducing the Volt alongside the R99 was just an attempt to reuse resources from Titanfall, it did nothing for gameplay, the 2 guns are effectively identical. (And the Olympus map was also trying to reuse resources from Titanfall.) Moving the Prowler into Red drops was a change that no one gave a shit about.

Ambivalent characters. The push to keep introducing more Legends is making the game more and more like Super Smash Bros, where only a few characters really have strategic value and the rest are filler.

 

 

Update notes:

https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends/news/season-7-fightnight-collection-event

Pathfinder gets a melee boxing arena part of the map (on the newer Olympus map). It's amusing but poorly thought out. If you're in it, melee-only, no abilities, and there is some decent loot in there. But it's surrounded by other loot areas on higher ground, so teams just land outside, grab guns and armor, and wait for the melee people to exit and be sitting ducks.

Weekly event is some sort of concentrated loot drops, each ring gets a wave of them in multiple locations, and the later rings contain rarer items.

Very few character adjustments this round. Rampart and Horizon cooldowns decreased. There was talk of a Caustic cooldown decrease but it was canceled at the last minute, determined to be too big of a Caustic buff.

Hemlock and Mastiff slight nerfs. Red Prowler got more ammo. (Still useless, I have yet to see anyone pick one up.)

Ring tuning on ring 5 and 6, which seems to be an attempt to compensate for the fucked up rings that keep occurring on the Olympus map. More so than either previous map, luck of ring position determines the winner of many matches, not skill.

[Sam Lin 3559]

Apex season 8 starts tonight. Patch notes:

https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends/news/season-8-patch-notes

 

Some map changes to King's Canyon.

New mod, Gold magazines, with the Purple mag capacity but they also reload automatically after ~5sec when you have the gun put away.

New legend, Fuse. Explosives guy, can carry double grenades per slot, and his tactical and ultimate are both bomb attacks.

New weapon, 30-30 lever action. Sounds like a Wingman damage single shot with a charge-up ability that uses Scout optics. And has the ability to single shot-reload-fire like the Mastiff shotgun.

Wraith hitbox slightly larger.

Horizon gravity lift recharge time slowed.

Gold barrel and Double Tap rotated out. Anvil rotated in.

Volt damage decrease by 1.

Alternator damage increase by 1.

Spitfire damage decreased, reload times slowed.

Eva8 fire rate slowed slightly.

 

[Sam Lin 3559]

Quick recap after playing the last patches for a while: New gun 30-30 is sort of garbage. No meaningful reason to take it over a Scout for mid-long range, and no reason to take it over a Wingman for close range.

 

 

 

Next "event" patch notes released, begins tonight/tomorrow:

 

Caustic gets his town takeover, gas pools that need to be drained to get to gold items locked in submerged cages. This sounds sort of lame. He also gets nerfed at the same time. There is no dignity. Ult cooldown +1min and his gas damage is reduced and no longer increases with time spent in it, it's a flat damage rate.

Reddit response nails it:

Respawn: Congratulations, Caustic! You’re the centerpiece of our latest collection event!

Caustic: Marvelous! What am I getting?

Respawn: You’re getting neutered!

Caustic: ...

Respawn: Also, your town takeover is right next to Crypto’s.

 

 

 

For this short term Takeover event, rings are getting a new "ring flare" thing where mini-rings pop up randomly inside the ring. New item called a heat shield allows you to shield outside a ring and not take damage, the heat shield takes damage until it is destroyed. (Heat shield is apparently staying in the loot pool even after this takeover event.) Heat shield boosts recovery and healing underneath it IF the shield is outside the ring. This might lead to some interesting play with the rings where people actually intentionally stay out and keep stockpiling heat shields. The devs state their goal was to give players an option when forced with the "rez a teammate or run for the ring" situation.

There is now a Survival slot in player inventory, to hold either the heat shield or the deployable respawn beacon. Unsure if this means you can't also carry additional of those items in your normal inventory. But it does mean I'm much more likely to carry one than before; I used to just deploy every deployable respawn beacon I found, since they had no real value getting carried around. Using an inventory slot for such a low probability item never made sense (apparently to anyone, since I also never found deployabe respawn beacons in deathboxes).

No-Fill matchmaking: You can now opt to Solo drop into a Duo/Trio game instead of being lumped with rando teammates. I can see this being a more courteous way to do tactically stupid daily challenges without screwing your team over (X kills with Mozambique anyone? Anyone? Bueller?). But I also see this giving hackers a way to go wreck a server with no ability for anyone to watch them (until they kill some people and get spectated).

Pathfinder loses Low Profile.

Gibby loses his heal speed boost when under his dome shield. Still rezzes teammates faster.

Horizon Ult cooldown +1min.

Revenant Ult blocks more passive abilities.

Wattson gets a passive constant shield regen (half of Octane's passive heal rate).

Gold rifle optics changed to 2x (instead of the garbage 1-2 and 2-4 that some of them got stuck with. AND, Gold weapon optics can be swapped out now! (Not sure if you are allowed to put the takeoff optic onto other guns.)

Mastiff damage and fire rate nerf.

Wingman all mags +1 capacity.

Hemlock hip-fire spread increase.

PC players can go back to title screen to select a different server without having to completely quit and relaunch the game. Torn on this - while I often do this to get off of a laggy/buggy server, this makes it much easier for stream snipers to 'follow' a streamer around and troll him.

Octane jump pad 'wall glide' bug/exploit has been patched out.

 

[Sam Lin 3559]

Next patch is out, patch notes here:

https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends/news/legacy-update-patch-notes

 

Mozambique mag capacity raised to 6rd!!?!!!!! This is going to be huge. Suddenly it becomes a viable gun, possibly even preferred over the Eva.

 

New legend, Valkyrie, based on mobility. Has a passive jetpack to move himself (so a super jump), tactical is some sort of rocket swarm that stuns, and the ultimate ability is launch and redeploy, including teammates if they get on your redeploy.

New weapon, a bow. :rolls eyes:  Of course every game needs a fucking bow.

Lifeline got some large changes. Drone rez no longer has a shield, but she can drone rez two players in parallel now. Drone healing rate increased. Care package cooldown is faster, and now guarantees some sort of upgrade based on your squad's current loadout.

They're trying to tune Octane hard, will see if it works. Octane stim now takes off 20hp.

Loba ult cooldown is slower now. It was sort of ridiculous fast, we joked that Walmart was always open.

Horizon lift nerfed a couple ways. Slower cooldown. Slower lift speed. Less side to side movement acceleration on it, and limit to 2 seconds standing atop it. Her abilities also get zapped by Wattson ult.

Fuse knuckle cluster now gets 2 shots and cooldown is reduced. Might make it hilarious.

 

New category of weapons, Marksman, intended to bridge the gap between assault and sniper. So, intermediate movement speed, intermediate hipfire spread. Weapons are g7, 3030, bow, and Triple Take (wtf). This just feels gimmicky, as they add new garbage weapons they keep grasping for ways to distinguish them. Still have yet to see anyone actually want an Lstar or 3030. I play them ironically just to troll my friends. Unclear yet which optics will be allowed on this category; still feel that taking the 4-8x off the Scout long ago was stupid.

 

For this season, hammerpoint and skullpiercer are gone. 2 new ones, shatter and tempo. Shatter converts 3030 and bow into a shotgun multi-projectile. Tempo increases fire rate if you fire at the correct timing (correct tempo). Fits Sentinel and bow. Both of these sound like gimmicky garbage trying to make shitty guns less shit.

Peacekeeper back into normal weapon rotation. Triple Take made special drop only (wtf).

Arc star sticks no longer have slowing effect. Too bad, this is one thing that made going for the arc star stick worthwhile. It's a lot less special as a dumb nade.

One free challenge reroll a day. This is nice, getting a "deal 400dmg with 3030" daily challenge is absolute trash.

Dropship flight paths centered on the map. Torn on this, the variety of flight path and the fact that sometimes 1/3 of the map was unreachable really created some good variation in how hectic games were.

Slowed down ring closing speeds for later rings. Intended to 'improve match pacing' for late-game, I think it's a negative. The fast rings in the last patch really made late game exciting, this reduces it back to a camp and crawl game. I do see how maybe it resulted in luck of RNG ring position screwing teams, vs any personal skill and any ability to relocate to a better position before ring killed you. Certainly saw more "Died to Ring" last patch than any other patch.

[Eastwood 4394]

I love the 3030. Good headshot, especially if you charge it, and is actually a good firing from the hip at close range. The hip fire aspect means you can actually afford to keep it late game and still have the range if they are hugging cover on the outside of the final circle.

[Superhero 8830]

Downloaded it a few nights ago. Didn’t know WTF I was doing. I guess I was the jump master or whatever it’s called, because my team mate was just yelling at me all the way down.

And yeah, I lasted maybe a minute before some guy decided to melee me to death.

[Superhero 8830]

BTW, is there a way to play against bots to get better?

[Sam Lin 3559]

The game doesn't have a great way to train beginners. There is the Training Room (click the bar above Play on the lobby screen, select it on the left) where you have all the weapons to try out, all the items, all the game mechanics like ziplines, and various targets and target dummies, but there aren't any bots to play against.

You really need to hope for a teammate that is willing to give you pointers; if you are jumpmaster, hold left Ctrl to relinquish it to someone else until you learn the map. Also, you can press W during the jump to fly faster.

Don't get discouraged by getting melee'd to death in the first minute. That happens regularly even to the top champions; it's part of the chaos randomness of a BR, esp if you don't jump wisely. I'd also suggest watching some streamers play it to learn movements, inventory, just a general "what I should do." I'd suggest Matafe on Twitch.

[Eastwood 4394]

On 5/14/2021 at 10:36 AM, Superhero said:

BTW, is there a way to play against bots to get better?

Aren't we friends on Origin? If you ever see me on or want to play, shoot me a message and I'll be happy to walk you through in duos.

[Zepol87 9186]

On 5/13/2021 at 10:42 PM, Superhero said:

Downloaded it a few nights ago. Didn’t know WTF I was doing. I guess I was the jump master or whatever it’s called, because my team mate was just yelling at me all the way down.

And yeah, I lasted maybe a minute before some guy decided to melee me to death.

Yea this is why I never really stuck with it. 

[Sam Lin 3559]

So, there was a patch a week back. No one really cared, other than the new legend totally destroying the game meta. I stopped playing until they nerfed him some, and he's still annoying and OP.

https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends/news/emergence-patch-notes

 

New legend Seer is way overpowered, already got nerfed in a mini-patch, still overpowered. Can see you through walls, can interrupt your healing, is like Bloodhound on steroids and makes the game annoying as fuck to play. Makes Bloodhound utterly useless.

New gun Rampage LMG is like the alternator version of the Spitfire, similar gun but slow firing. Can amp it with a thermal nade to make it shoot crazy fast.

Added Ranked Arenas as a mode. No idea, I hate arenas so don't care.

Fuse knuckle cluster duration doubled, is less shitty now. Also can now toggle his grenade arm launcher on and off, sometimes a conventional throw arc lets you get better angle on enemy positions.

Prowler back on floor loot but without a selectfire.

Lstar now can take attachments. Purple mag in Lstar is hilarious.

[Sam Lin 3559]

New season starts Nov2. It's possible that no one cares.

New legend named Ash, has some sort of temporal warp thing to jump from place to place, looks to be similar to Wraith void run, but line of sight straight line and instant (and a one-way trip for him only, teammates can't use it like a portal)? Other ability is a snare trap thing you can place and it'll tether an enemy who walks into range?

New SMG called the CAR, takes either light or heavy ammo.

New map, with a lot of hostile wildlife in the environment, and a new movement tool called the gravity cannon, fixed launch pads that shoot you across the map.

Scout removed from floor loot, becomes care package only (booooo!)

Their Halloween event is going on, Arenas have some themed map and the Shadows game mode is also live for a week or two. I hate Arenas and hate Shadow so I haven't played those.

[Sam Lin 3559]

Patch notes. Update went live yesterday.

https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends/news/escape-patch-notes

 

The portal thing is just like a Wraith portal but straight line, very fast jump to the exit, and stays open less time than Wraith portal. Anyone can use it while open.

New map looks ok, nothing special.

Wattson got a shitton of tuning adjustments. Fences do more damage and slow for longer. Pylon back to unlimited duration, but has a fixed amount of shield recharge energy that gets depleted.

Triple Take is back, uses energy ammo now.

 

[Sam Lin 3559]

On 11/4/2021 at 2:36 AM, Sam Lin said:

New map looks ok, nothing special.

New map is awful. I thought i hated the last new map, this takes it to 11. Map got even bigger, and in what they call an attempt to reduce third party battles, they used high mountain features to block rotation except through the canyons in between. The mountains are so high Valkyrie can't go over them on a redeploy. So instead you're funneled down very distinct chokepoints every time the ring closes. Gatekeeping is the new normal, and the map leaves you very few options to avoid a choke point and go around another way. Running around forever between points of interest feels very Battlefield/Warzone, and is why I don't play those games. They added the gravity cannons to help get around the massive map, which just feels like yet another gimmick trying to band-aid shitty map design.

Then with the new larger map they made points of interest larger as well, so loot just feels more spread out. Often have to check multiple buildings just to find a gun, since each building only contains a little loot. On top of that, everyone hates the slow looting and the huge amount of running between locations, so instead they just hot drop a few areas every game. Think Skull Town on steroids - instead of third party battles, every drop is 5+ teams, 2 of which have no gun and are running around punching everything that moves.

With this map, a sniper is damn near mandatory for any team. Very long sightlines in most areas of the map.

Points of interest (building areas) are much more vertical - some have 3 or 4 layers now, where previous maps largely stopped at 2/2.5. Does change the game dynamic, also makes some characters with vertical ability much more useful (Pathfinder, Valkyrie, Horizon), while making other characters basically worthless. Some of the new vertical areas feel totally useless and add nothing to gameplay nor to the map "feel." Great to find a new level only to realize there was zero reason to go there, no loot, no good exit, and you're now trapped.

They disabled map rotation and are making everyone play only the new map for the first week, then it will rotate half the time. I'm playing very little until the rotation comes back.

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New CAR is like an R99 but less recoil, it's a way OP laser. Watch some streaming footage of Ottr wrecking servers with it and you'll see. It needs a nerf, badly. Also, no idea why they did the gimmick of it taking either light or heavy ammo and light or heavy mags. Unclear what game dynamic this was supposed to improve. Once they nerf the CAR it'll be just another R99 and Volt.

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Hostile wildlife is largely a gimmick. You come upon spider eggs or predator nests (clearly marked on the map), and if you clear all the wildlife you get some crafting credits. Killed wildlife also drops basic loot. The loot and the crafting credits aren't worth the time spent on killing the wildlife, especially when all your firing is drawing enemy teams in to kill you, and the wildlife loot isn't anything special.

Have been a few humorous moments where a heated battle gets decided when a bunch of wildlife decides to join the party and wreck a team.

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That said, I just saw some blurb where Apex is now the top streamed Battle Royale on Twitch, so they must be doing something right...

[Sam Lin 3559]

There've been patches, there've been new characters, there've been random gun changes, nothing really noteworthy. They did nerf Wingman pretty hard by making it take sniper ammo and mags, and they inexplicably made Spitfire use light ammo.

But, the season that just started added a game mode, Gun Game - if you're familiar from CS, you start with a gun and get a new gun every time you kill someone. Climb through the list of guns first to win. It's fun, faster paced than any normal BR game, good way to sit down and do some mindless aim and gun practice, and much less focus on you knowing the map, knowing jumpmaster strategies, worrying about ring, etc. It's a limited time mode for now, but seems to be popular enough that I'd expect we see it more in the future. My only complaint is it's slower paced than CS gun games as the maps are too large for the number of players, you can spawn and spend a while running around trying to find the other teams. If the learning curve has kept you from trying Apex, I'd suggest trying some gun game now.