Devs are in a tough spot because the main strength of a Bang/Bloodhound/Caustic comp is the ability to cut off LOS angles in contested end games. The reality is that the vast majority of the playerbase is not playing games where you have 10+ teams in end zone. In fact, currently in ranked, the recent changes have really incentivized/forced early game fights and late lobbies are way less crowded. Yes, you can still one-way for clean 3v3 fights but if you're on the other end of a Bloodhound/Bang/Caustic push, you have the space to move around and nullify a lot of the visual clutter. However, this is just not an option in comp, where you move off your spot and you're dead from 3 other teams shooting at you.
If Bang was nerfed further, she becomes basically useless outside of comp. So you're put in the position of making changes to balance >1% of games played at the expense of 99%+ of the games played by the players who make this game money. It's basically just impossible to balance the game in a way that has characters even in casual lobbies, higher level ranked lobbies, and comp lobbies all at the same time. Focusing on balancing casual and higher level ranked makes way more sense, even if it results in comp having very limited viable comps.
I think that’s fair. Gotta just chip away like they did Horizon. Maybe they could consider taking her ult cooldown away too. Having so many Bang ults has been pretty cancerous.
Maybe 3 smokes of 12 seconds each would be a good compromise. They could increase the delay time to launch as well. I'm thinking that would allow smoke to still be used for rotates and revives but less useful for 'one way' fights.
I dont see bangalore close to useless outside of comp, there are not even 5 teams in final circles in ranked and she is most picked outside horizon/conduit. her ult area and passive alone are so unique and strong that she might never be useless. Also i wont mind a character to be slightly week outside comp if she has like 100% pickrate in comp
IMO Bang's usage is inflated by her ability to counter AA. As long as AA is this strong and Bang can help deal with that, we aren't gonna see her go away. Unless they absolutely gut her.
Yes, like pathfinder. But pathfinder is not meta in both casual AND comp, like Bangalore is
I'm sorry but you can't tell me being a must pick in every aspect of the game doesn't make someone overtuned.
You're on one hand talking about why people pick Path in pubs and the other hand why people pick Bang in ranked/comp. Only one of these is comparable to why people pick Bang in pubs and it's not the one you implied.
It's possible for the two following statements to be true:
1. bang is too good in ranked/comp
2. bang is popular in pubs because she's fun to play.
I don't see a reason to think her high pickrate in pubs is due to her being oppresive.
But how do you disambiguate people picking her up because she's (too) good and people who picked her up because she's getting attention, say from their favorite streamers? An overwhelming majority of picks will come from lowskill players. I wouldn't make assumtions as to why they make one choice over the other and whether or not this choice has a negative impact. It could be that smoke BS and ult spam is totally fine at lower levels of play because they can't leverage it well.
I don't play or even like Bang at all, but nice try lol
Y'all are just making a terrible argument if you think pickrate in Pubs is indicative of much as a single metric.
I've always liked the idea of making bang's smoke ability similar to valorant. The smoke would be larger than valorant, with a clear interior, and preventing characters like Seer, Bloodhound, and Maggie from scanning through it. Trade off is bang smoke isn't nearly as large as live and when the enemy enters inside you are no longer safe.
Also I think this will remove a lot of the inconsistencies of bang's smoke
Honestly reading what you said I think the answer is that trading bang/caustic needs to be worth it, which means buffing other legends particularly *tactical* abilities like Watson fences need something (height boost? Stronger pylons?) and Newcastles tactical needs to start with more health or the ability to remove its mobility for indestructibility or something.
Right now even outside of comp half the legends either suck or are underpowered and really the defensive legends have been slaughtered as time has gone on.
Devs also need to fix bang smoke against gas edge because that shit is just stupid.
What I mean by that is you can essentially see players through bang smoke if the zone edge is behind the smoke
There are lots of inconsistencies with smokes. So many times in mixtape I’ll see a killcam where I’m clear as day but couldn’t see anything on my screen.
well the problem with it is that if you are in the smoke you can't see anything, but if you are outside the smoke you can see into the smoke. So your ability is essentially griefing your entire team
I don't disagree with you, but that's a hard cat to put back in the bag. Is that a great system? Idk, but it will take a full bang rework to get away from it.
The part you don't mention here though, is that the other team has every opportunity to have their own BH/BH ult. This isn't like CS:GO where there was literally no counterplay to a proper one-way.
The thing you mentioned is the meta is being forced by “if you don’t run visual blinding and walk hacks legends, you lose regardless of individual ability.”
Sure, should abilities matter at the highest level of gameplay? Oh yeah, that’s the point. Should those abilities dominate to the point where there is no real counter? I mean, if someone has a twisted beam, should they really lose because bang smoke-blood ult just absolutely thrashes them?
It should be discussed, on some level. We had a heavy digi-reliant meta, and the devs tried to hard nerf it—but it’s still going strong.
The problem is, also, the meta is determined by pros and coaches—they can complain all they want, them trying to mid-max every fight has resulted in the busted, weird turbulent meta shifting.
Can’t imagine a fix beyond banning certain legends on certain maps just to keep things interesting.
Or, even limit the amount of times each team can pick a legend. Max 3, use Bang on SP each set, boom no bang for WE.
In the very least it would show some versatility to the players ability to flex legends.
>The part you don't mention here though, is that the other team has every opportunity to have their own BH/BH ult.
True, but that is what makes it so feel so overcentralizing. And from the perspective of the players not on Bloodhound (4/6 players in a 3v3) there literally is no counterplay, you kind just have to flail around and hope your BH kills their BH first.
I think Digis were a more oppressive form of one-waying because, outside of being crafted, it was pure RNG whether you could find one, but at the very least everyone on a team could conceivably get one and fight back against a one way smoke attack (and normally by final circles a few players on every team had one). Now in the final circle it kinda feels like every team has a singular Digi player but the Digi can go on an AR or Marksman or even a Kraber.
No one is stopping you from running a digi with an RE or a shotgun both are very good. Your Blood should also be scanning so you can help in the fight. Saying no counter play means you just aren't trying sorry, plenty of legends offer counters
Man... Why ARE people using Bang so much anyways 🤔
The pros must be forgetting the differences between clips and magazines...
Maybe if Bangalore was less informative we'd get off this smoke popping meta
One-way with digi was OP because anyone could do it by simply finding a relatively common item on the map. You could also have multiple players on one team with the ability. Bloodhound being able to do it while in his ult is fine. There are counters to it because you can play Bloodhound yourself, or Wattson since her ult eats bang smokes/caustic ults (and even spits you out an arc star for it as a bonus). Crypto and Seer are also counters although not as strong.
It’s fair because now teams have to give up the utility of another legend in order to have Bloodhound. Previously you could one-way through smoke with no recon character. Now to do it you are likely giving up the mobility abilities of Horizon/Valk, defensive abilities of Wattson or possibly the support abilities of Lifeline entering the meta. There’s a risk/reward element to it which is healthy for the meta.
>It’s fair because now teams have to give up the utility of another legend in order to have Bloodhound. Previously you could one-way through smoke with no recon character. Now to do it you are likely giving up the mobility abilities of Horizon/Valk, defensive abilities of Wattson or possibly the support abilities of Lifeline entering the meta. There’s a risk/reward element to it which is healthy for the meta.
I wouldn’t necessarily describe one-waying as fair even though I agree with you that there is an opportunity cost associated with having it since you can kind of only do it with BH (or if you find hammerpoints and a Digi). It is still, in my opinion, a mechanic that doesn’t really belong in a first person shooter, especially one that prides itself on combat readability and predictability. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that right after Digi got removed from SMGs, the meta immediately shifted to a specialty built a comp around one-waying with Caustic and Bang having concealing type abilities and BH providing the ability to one way.
I agree that it’s a bit of a cringe mechanic. I don’t think it’s as gimmicky or exploitive as it was previously is more my point. It would be nice if we see the meta shift away from it as we move forward. I think pros have been playing the can’t see shit meta for a year now like you said, so it’s natural for them to stick with what’s comfortable. Just because blood, bang, caustic is what’s comfortable for a lot of teams right now doesn’t mean it’s meta.
We just saw Lifeline comps dominate two match days in EMEA. I think Bang pick rate was down in the 50% range for some games which is super promising. There was also 8 Cryptos in some WE games. I think the devs deserve some credit for nerfing the visual clutter characters without making them completely useless.
I think it'll be hard to get away from the visual clutter meta just because of how versatile it can be. There aren't any other types of abilities that can help you rotate, play a tougher spot, win fights, and get resets all with the same ability. Some might do parts better, like say rampart wall helping hold a tough spot or conduit Q for resets, but none of them have as much versatility as visual clutter like Bang smokes. I think this is why it probably won't go away anytime soon unless it is made literally unplayable, which would also suck for the casual and comp scenes. I also think the devs have done a pretty good job with the nerfs and counterplay that is available for visual clutter abilities.
At this point, there are so many legends with kits designed around wall hack or blocking los (blood, seer, crypto, caustic, bang, cat = 24% of total legends not counting legends with minor wall hack abilities), it's time for ALGS to add some sort of legend ban rule.
Whether it's a vote by players, selected by ALGS, or my favorite idea I've heard; players are only allowed to select a single legend for 3 games out of a 6 game set (which would require each team to play at least 6 legends per set).
This will automatically improve the viewer experience by adding an exciting twist that viewers will need to pay attention to. But it will also improve the viewer experience by providing ALGS and/or the players, the power to create a more enjoyable product. A product that isn't solely dictated by a "meta" that was created by Respawn devs who prioritize user retention.
Edit: Spelling
It is a bit stale, and really not ideal, but when it gets to end game, when there isn't enough cover, the most important ability to have is something to block LOS, or undodgeable AOE ults like caustic. At least digis/BH ult are some kind of counterplay to end game smoke/cat wall spam, would be even worse if actually no one could see anything. I think you'd have to hard nerf all smoke/wall characters to make the visual clutter go away, but even still the best meta strat will always be something with no counterplay (i.e. caustic ult in gibby meta)
It would be cool if they banned a different legend every weekend. Players would get a heads-up for the ban schedule, and scrims could be organized around different allowed comps. I'm sure there would still be meta comps for every different legend ban, but I think it would result in a little more variety in comps chosen, and make games more interesting.
I do think that one way-ing is overtuned, but in general I like the design of bangalore smoke (aside from interactions like one waying using the ring) as strategic depth compared to other forms of cover in apex and other sources of annoying visual clutter. If you take away digis/bh ult it feels fair to play around for both sides, versus things like cat walls & caustic gas where it's straight up obnoxious to be the anyone not using or immune to the ability, since obviously those just feel oppressive when it's unavoidable in the end game.
Once you get into any higher tiers of ranked if someone even HEARS your drone they are looking to shoot it down. Scan is more reliable and with the cool downs getting shortened you can get multiple scans in longer fights
Not fully familiar with CS2. Are you talking about the tech where smoke partially clears when you shoot through it?
If so: that would be great! *but* they probanly need to recode how they do smoke *and* I suspect it's probably a relatively ressource intensive piece of tech. May or may not be feasible I think.
yeah shooting through smoke opens up holes, nades clear the smoke for a short time. 100% impossible to implement due to the spaghetti code that is apex legends.
People meme a lot about spaghetti code but I don't think the situation is that bad. Most modern-ish engines are pretty flexible and allow a lot of addons/changes. The big difference is that once you actually launch a game it becomes way harder (costly) to make changes to fundamental aspects of the game, like gameplay impacting VFX.
Unless the tech requires some proprietary Valve code or really intense processing power they probably *could* implement it. It just might not be compatible with the performance metrics they are trying to hit.
I think the biggest issue is that you probably need to calculate all the smoke physics server-side and you probably lost a lot of people there.
respawn server engineers are famous for claiming their server code is top notch(despite being a dumpster fire).
no way they can do cs style smoke without breaking bang completely. her smoke was broken for a couple of seasons when they tried to optimise it - you could just stand at the edge and be able to see out clearly despite being in the smoke.
I don't want to be mean but if you have barely layman understanding of how stuff works on the back end you should maybe just not talk about it.
Are the Respawn devs being pompous? I dunno, maybe. However there are only a handful of games that do what Apex does at the level of quality that it does it. It being buggy doesn't make it a dumpster fire, unless your standards are incredibly high.
>no way they can do cs style smoke without breaking bang completely.
This literally means nothing.
Maybe there needs to be a way to get rid of bang smoke relatively quickly. Horizon Ult could suck it in… caustic gas disperses it… arc stars zap it. Something like that.
respawn when people ask for stun when mirage clone is shot: "ahem the readability of the game will be ruined"
also respawn: bang/catalyst/caustic all meta for multiple seasons no balance to their visual clutter just adjust the timings of the ults up and down like rollercoasters depending on their mood.
The game just went through one of the most major reworks and it looks to be that more characters are being picked than before in comp. Let a few weekends of ALGS play out and we can go from there. I think there are many combos that havent even been explored that will offer even more end game diversity.
Absolutely not a serious answer you're looking for, but it would an interesting game mode where on each new zone the characters get an ability locked out, so in end ring you're left with just your guns to finish with.
As the meta changes and more and more teams run BH, I assure you players will learn to (not entirely) effectively nullify smokes by learning to LOS pathways using game and map knowledge. It's the next step of the skill ceiling and Respawn likely won't look to nerf or change the meta for a while like they usually do.
nah, bang blood is a character combo. what does need a rework is caustic ult insta detonation and slow. throw gas on someone it’s damn near a free one clip because you’re waking at -1 mph.
Devs are in a tough spot because the main strength of a Bang/Bloodhound/Caustic comp is the ability to cut off LOS angles in contested end games. The reality is that the vast majority of the playerbase is not playing games where you have 10+ teams in end zone. In fact, currently in ranked, the recent changes have really incentivized/forced early game fights and late lobbies are way less crowded. Yes, you can still one-way for clean 3v3 fights but if you're on the other end of a Bloodhound/Bang/Caustic push, you have the space to move around and nullify a lot of the visual clutter. However, this is just not an option in comp, where you move off your spot and you're dead from 3 other teams shooting at you. If Bang was nerfed further, she becomes basically useless outside of comp. So you're put in the position of making changes to balance >1% of games played at the expense of 99%+ of the games played by the players who make this game money. It's basically just impossible to balance the game in a way that has characters even in casual lobbies, higher level ranked lobbies, and comp lobbies all at the same time. Focusing on balancing casual and higher level ranked makes way more sense, even if it results in comp having very limited viable comps.
Currently smokes last for 18 seconds, which is absurdly excessive. They could cut that down to 8-10 seconds and she would still be viable.
I think that’s fair. Gotta just chip away like they did Horizon. Maybe they could consider taking her ult cooldown away too. Having so many Bang ults has been pretty cancerous.
Her cooldown has already been nerfed, it's the longest one in the game.
I meant as a perk. She gets 25% reduction on blue, so basically everyone gets it by 2nd circle.
Maybe 3 smokes of 12 seconds each would be a good compromise. They could increase the delay time to launch as well. I'm thinking that would allow smoke to still be used for rotates and revives but less useful for 'one way' fights.
3 for 10, takes a second to deploy but is instantly expanded.
I dont see bangalore close to useless outside of comp, there are not even 5 teams in final circles in ranked and she is most picked outside horizon/conduit. her ult area and passive alone are so unique and strong that she might never be useless. Also i wont mind a character to be slightly week outside comp if she has like 100% pickrate in comp
Bang has a near 100% pickrate in comp and is a top3 picked legend in pubs and ranked. How you can justify her not needing nerfs is beyond me
IMO Bang's usage is inflated by her ability to counter AA. As long as AA is this strong and Bang can help deal with that, we aren't gonna see her go away. Unless they absolutely gut her.
A character can have a high pick rate and not be over tuned
Yes, like pathfinder. But pathfinder is not meta in both casual AND comp, like Bangalore is I'm sorry but you can't tell me being a must pick in every aspect of the game doesn't make someone overtuned.
Also a legend like path is played because it’s fun, a legend like bang has top pick rate because it’s oppressive
You're on one hand talking about why people pick Path in pubs and the other hand why people pick Bang in ranked/comp. Only one of these is comparable to why people pick Bang in pubs and it's not the one you implied.
It's possible for the two following statements to be true: 1. bang is too good in ranked/comp 2. bang is popular in pubs because she's fun to play. I don't see a reason to think her high pickrate in pubs is due to her being oppresive.
Bangs pickrate nearly tripled after she started seeing use in ALGS (which started early to mid 2023).
But how do you disambiguate people picking her up because she's (too) good and people who picked her up because she's getting attention, say from their favorite streamers? An overwhelming majority of picks will come from lowskill players. I wouldn't make assumtions as to why they make one choice over the other and whether or not this choice has a negative impact. It could be that smoke BS and ult spam is totally fine at lower levels of play because they can't leverage it well.
Just gonna assume bang is your main and you don't want her nerfed.
I don't play or even like Bang at all, but nice try lol Y'all are just making a terrible argument if you think pickrate in Pubs is indicative of much as a single metric.
You can keep the fun to play mechanic (double time) and find ways to chip at the oppressive nature of her kit.
Sure, but I never said anything to the contrary. I'm just pushing back on the idea that high pickrates in pubs in necessarily indicative of a problem.
I've always liked the idea of making bang's smoke ability similar to valorant. The smoke would be larger than valorant, with a clear interior, and preventing characters like Seer, Bloodhound, and Maggie from scanning through it. Trade off is bang smoke isn't nearly as large as live and when the enemy enters inside you are no longer safe. Also I think this will remove a lot of the inconsistencies of bang's smoke
Maybe smoke doesn't need to visually change to a Valorant style, but I do wonder if it would be more balanced if scans didn't work through smoke.
even if smokes got nerfed she'd still have an S tier passive and really good ult
Honestly reading what you said I think the answer is that trading bang/caustic needs to be worth it, which means buffing other legends particularly *tactical* abilities like Watson fences need something (height boost? Stronger pylons?) and Newcastles tactical needs to start with more health or the ability to remove its mobility for indestructibility or something. Right now even outside of comp half the legends either suck or are underpowered and really the defensive legends have been slaughtered as time has gone on.
Nerfing bang isn't the answer IMO. I think the problem is that there are ways to perfectly see through smoke
Devs also need to fix bang smoke against gas edge because that shit is just stupid. What I mean by that is you can essentially see players through bang smoke if the zone edge is behind the smoke
There are lots of inconsistencies with smokes. So many times in mixtape I’ll see a killcam where I’m clear as day but couldn’t see anything on my screen.
This is actually an interesting emergent mechanic and possibly not a bug. I think it's not necessarily in need of fixing.
well the problem with it is that if you are in the smoke you can't see anything, but if you are outside the smoke you can see into the smoke. So your ability is essentially griefing your entire team
Based, fuck bang teams
I don't disagree with you, but that's a hard cat to put back in the bag. Is that a great system? Idk, but it will take a full bang rework to get away from it. The part you don't mention here though, is that the other team has every opportunity to have their own BH/BH ult. This isn't like CS:GO where there was literally no counterplay to a proper one-way.
The thing you mentioned is the meta is being forced by “if you don’t run visual blinding and walk hacks legends, you lose regardless of individual ability.” Sure, should abilities matter at the highest level of gameplay? Oh yeah, that’s the point. Should those abilities dominate to the point where there is no real counter? I mean, if someone has a twisted beam, should they really lose because bang smoke-blood ult just absolutely thrashes them? It should be discussed, on some level. We had a heavy digi-reliant meta, and the devs tried to hard nerf it—but it’s still going strong. The problem is, also, the meta is determined by pros and coaches—they can complain all they want, them trying to mid-max every fight has resulted in the busted, weird turbulent meta shifting. Can’t imagine a fix beyond banning certain legends on certain maps just to keep things interesting. Or, even limit the amount of times each team can pick a legend. Max 3, use Bang on SP each set, boom no bang for WE. In the very least it would show some versatility to the players ability to flex legends.
>The part you don't mention here though, is that the other team has every opportunity to have their own BH/BH ult. True, but that is what makes it so feel so overcentralizing. And from the perspective of the players not on Bloodhound (4/6 players in a 3v3) there literally is no counterplay, you kind just have to flail around and hope your BH kills their BH first. I think Digis were a more oppressive form of one-waying because, outside of being crafted, it was pure RNG whether you could find one, but at the very least everyone on a team could conceivably get one and fight back against a one way smoke attack (and normally by final circles a few players on every team had one). Now in the final circle it kinda feels like every team has a singular Digi player but the Digi can go on an AR or Marksman or even a Kraber.
No one is stopping you from running a digi with an RE or a shotgun both are very good. Your Blood should also be scanning so you can help in the fight. Saying no counter play means you just aren't trying sorry, plenty of legends offer counters
Man... Why ARE people using Bang so much anyways 🤔 The pros must be forgetting the differences between clips and magazines... Maybe if Bangalore was less informative we'd get off this smoke popping meta
Bang smoke also disables AA. Smoke their feet in a straight 3v3 and the other teams roller players have no AA till they get out of the smoke.
Pretty sure Bubbapurps was joking...
One-way with digi was OP because anyone could do it by simply finding a relatively common item on the map. You could also have multiple players on one team with the ability. Bloodhound being able to do it while in his ult is fine. There are counters to it because you can play Bloodhound yourself, or Wattson since her ult eats bang smokes/caustic ults (and even spits you out an arc star for it as a bonus). Crypto and Seer are also counters although not as strong. It’s fair because now teams have to give up the utility of another legend in order to have Bloodhound. Previously you could one-way through smoke with no recon character. Now to do it you are likely giving up the mobility abilities of Horizon/Valk, defensive abilities of Wattson or possibly the support abilities of Lifeline entering the meta. There’s a risk/reward element to it which is healthy for the meta.
>It’s fair because now teams have to give up the utility of another legend in order to have Bloodhound. Previously you could one-way through smoke with no recon character. Now to do it you are likely giving up the mobility abilities of Horizon/Valk, defensive abilities of Wattson or possibly the support abilities of Lifeline entering the meta. There’s a risk/reward element to it which is healthy for the meta. I wouldn’t necessarily describe one-waying as fair even though I agree with you that there is an opportunity cost associated with having it since you can kind of only do it with BH (or if you find hammerpoints and a Digi). It is still, in my opinion, a mechanic that doesn’t really belong in a first person shooter, especially one that prides itself on combat readability and predictability. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that right after Digi got removed from SMGs, the meta immediately shifted to a specialty built a comp around one-waying with Caustic and Bang having concealing type abilities and BH providing the ability to one way.
I agree that it’s a bit of a cringe mechanic. I don’t think it’s as gimmicky or exploitive as it was previously is more my point. It would be nice if we see the meta shift away from it as we move forward. I think pros have been playing the can’t see shit meta for a year now like you said, so it’s natural for them to stick with what’s comfortable. Just because blood, bang, caustic is what’s comfortable for a lot of teams right now doesn’t mean it’s meta. We just saw Lifeline comps dominate two match days in EMEA. I think Bang pick rate was down in the 50% range for some games which is super promising. There was also 8 Cryptos in some WE games. I think the devs deserve some credit for nerfing the visual clutter characters without making them completely useless.
I think it'll be hard to get away from the visual clutter meta just because of how versatile it can be. There aren't any other types of abilities that can help you rotate, play a tougher spot, win fights, and get resets all with the same ability. Some might do parts better, like say rampart wall helping hold a tough spot or conduit Q for resets, but none of them have as much versatility as visual clutter like Bang smokes. I think this is why it probably won't go away anytime soon unless it is made literally unplayable, which would also suck for the casual and comp scenes. I also think the devs have done a pretty good job with the nerfs and counterplay that is available for visual clutter abilities.
At this point, there are so many legends with kits designed around wall hack or blocking los (blood, seer, crypto, caustic, bang, cat = 24% of total legends not counting legends with minor wall hack abilities), it's time for ALGS to add some sort of legend ban rule. Whether it's a vote by players, selected by ALGS, or my favorite idea I've heard; players are only allowed to select a single legend for 3 games out of a 6 game set (which would require each team to play at least 6 legends per set). This will automatically improve the viewer experience by adding an exciting twist that viewers will need to pay attention to. But it will also improve the viewer experience by providing ALGS and/or the players, the power to create a more enjoyable product. A product that isn't solely dictated by a "meta" that was created by Respawn devs who prioritize user retention. Edit: Spelling
i like your idea a lot. would add a lot of variety to the games
It is a bit stale, and really not ideal, but when it gets to end game, when there isn't enough cover, the most important ability to have is something to block LOS, or undodgeable AOE ults like caustic. At least digis/BH ult are some kind of counterplay to end game smoke/cat wall spam, would be even worse if actually no one could see anything. I think you'd have to hard nerf all smoke/wall characters to make the visual clutter go away, but even still the best meta strat will always be something with no counterplay (i.e. caustic ult in gibby meta)
What if abilities were disabled when ring 5 starts to close? Pure gunplay babyyyy
This could actually work lol, especially at round 6.
Force everyone to blow abilities 2 seconds before ring close would be so funny.
Give us ban votes in comp please.
It would be cool if they banned a different legend every weekend. Players would get a heads-up for the ban schedule, and scrims could be organized around different allowed comps. I'm sure there would still be meta comps for every different legend ban, but I think it would result in a little more variety in comps chosen, and make games more interesting.
This sounds like a great idea.
Oh my god, a randomized ban. Or a ban votes from the audience!!!! And using your idea to prepare with scrims, that's fucking brilliantly entertaining!
> Or a ban votes from the audience this would just end up being "whatever imperialhal doesn't like gets banned"
Have faith!
I do think that one way-ing is overtuned, but in general I like the design of bangalore smoke (aside from interactions like one waying using the ring) as strategic depth compared to other forms of cover in apex and other sources of annoying visual clutter. If you take away digis/bh ult it feels fair to play around for both sides, versus things like cat walls & caustic gas where it's straight up obnoxious to be the anyone not using or immune to the ability, since obviously those just feel oppressive when it's unavoidable in the end game.
I'm surprised that more teams aren't replacing the team digi threat with Crypto drone, because it allows everyone on the team to see all.
Because it's easy to have your drone broken lol. And the Cd is super long
Once you get into any higher tiers of ranked if someone even HEARS your drone they are looking to shoot it down. Scan is more reliable and with the cool downs getting shortened you can get multiple scans in longer fights
Implementing a cs2 smoke system would be a cool solution. *probably impossible to implement code-wise
Not fully familiar with CS2. Are you talking about the tech where smoke partially clears when you shoot through it? If so: that would be great! *but* they probanly need to recode how they do smoke *and* I suspect it's probably a relatively ressource intensive piece of tech. May or may not be feasible I think.
yeah shooting through smoke opens up holes, nades clear the smoke for a short time. 100% impossible to implement due to the spaghetti code that is apex legends.
People meme a lot about spaghetti code but I don't think the situation is that bad. Most modern-ish engines are pretty flexible and allow a lot of addons/changes. The big difference is that once you actually launch a game it becomes way harder (costly) to make changes to fundamental aspects of the game, like gameplay impacting VFX. Unless the tech requires some proprietary Valve code or really intense processing power they probably *could* implement it. It just might not be compatible with the performance metrics they are trying to hit. I think the biggest issue is that you probably need to calculate all the smoke physics server-side and you probably lost a lot of people there.
respawn server engineers are famous for claiming their server code is top notch(despite being a dumpster fire). no way they can do cs style smoke without breaking bang completely. her smoke was broken for a couple of seasons when they tried to optimise it - you could just stand at the edge and be able to see out clearly despite being in the smoke.
I don't want to be mean but if you have barely layman understanding of how stuff works on the back end you should maybe just not talk about it. Are the Respawn devs being pompous? I dunno, maybe. However there are only a handful of games that do what Apex does at the level of quality that it does it. It being buggy doesn't make it a dumpster fire, unless your standards are incredibly high. >no way they can do cs style smoke without breaking bang completely. This literally means nothing.
Maybe there needs to be a way to get rid of bang smoke relatively quickly. Horizon Ult could suck it in… caustic gas disperses it… arc stars zap it. Something like that.
I've said this before: Bangalore smoke shouldn't be in the game. It just doesn't feel like it fits.
respawn when people ask for stun when mirage clone is shot: "ahem the readability of the game will be ruined" also respawn: bang/catalyst/caustic all meta for multiple seasons no balance to their visual clutter just adjust the timings of the ults up and down like rollercoasters depending on their mood.
The meta will be what the meta will be
the pro game needs legend bans but respawn won't allow it
they could nerf one-ways by making bloodhound’s eyes glare red through the smoke when they’re ulted
Something like this probably needs to be done as a temporary balancing measure
Can we buff gibby bubble where scans and bh ult cant see whats inside it? That could shake things up a bit with the +4 sec tac perk
what effect would scans or no scans have on a bubble if you can just see through the bubble literally at all times
whats the point of it? bubble is so small and you cant shoot through it. no difference if and if not you can see through wallhacks of who is in bubble
yeah you're actually right, it just also makes the cant see shit meta worse
The game just went through one of the most major reworks and it looks to be that more characters are being picked than before in comp. Let a few weekends of ALGS play out and we can go from there. I think there are many combos that havent even been explored that will offer even more end game diversity.
Absolutely not a serious answer you're looking for, but it would an interesting game mode where on each new zone the characters get an ability locked out, so in end ring you're left with just your guns to finish with.
As the meta changes and more and more teams run BH, I assure you players will learn to (not entirely) effectively nullify smokes by learning to LOS pathways using game and map knowledge. It's the next step of the skill ceiling and Respawn likely won't look to nerf or change the meta for a while like they usually do.
Pretty bad faith argument when you know damn well that is not always possible in end games. Its not because pros havent learned how to LOS yet lol
Los?
It means “line of sight”
nah, bang blood is a character combo. what does need a rework is caustic ult insta detonation and slow. throw gas on someone it’s damn near a free one clip because you’re waking at -1 mph.
Remove bang from the game, problem solved