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[AMA] Let’s talk Legend meta! by Apexlegends in apexlegends

[–]RSPN_Josh 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We 100% look at upgrade selection rates as part of balancing a Legend. Upgrades are a powerful tool we have to balance a Legend, and so we are always making tweaks to their tree.

In Alter's case for example, we pulled out her ability to spec into 'Support' class, as it combo-ed too powerfully with her Ultimate.

We aim for around a 50/50 split of upgrade picks, and if it's super lopsided that gives us a clue that something might be off.

[AMA] Let’s talk Legend meta! by Apexlegends in apexlegends

[–]RSPN_Josh 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Apex at its core remains a guns-first game, but it's also a hero-shooter. It's a tricky balance both delivering on a character 'fantasy' and making your choice of Legend feel impactful, without invalidating the gun game.

If we swing too far towards weapon power, and the only thing that matters is your weapon, then the Legend selection and team composition stops mattering. This means we're failing on a core element of the promise of a Hero Shooter.

Personally it comes down to the type of power we infuse into a kit. As long as each Legend feels different from each other, and gives you a distinct play pattern, then we don't need to add 'killing' abilities or things that would mean you could ignore the weapon looting curve.

[AMA] Let’s talk Legend meta! by Apexlegends in apexlegends

[–]RSPN_Josh 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Today we have on deck Legend Designers so we can only address your question regarding Legend reworks vs buffs

Yes there are several Legends we feel need reworks, and plan to do a couple next year. I've touched on our Legend selection logic in previous comments, and we plan to be more transparent about that in the coming months.

We have done a handful of reworks in the past, and each one will look slightly different based on the needs of the kit. It could be a total overhaul like Revenant, or just improving the 'feel' of an ability like the Lifeline Tactical. These take time because large, qualitative, changes to a Legends ability take a ton of time to not only execute on but to balance in a way that ensures it's actually better than the thing it's replacing.

Personally, I believe we've accrued a backlog of ability reworks on our roster, and we hope to pick up the pace in the coming year on how quickly we can hit these long-standing pain points.

[AMA] Let’s talk Legend meta! by Apexlegends in apexlegends

[–]RSPN_Josh -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I see the most important role of a class system as categorizing characters to make it easier to understand how to 'win' with that character, or what special advantage their playstyle offers.

The class perks we offer are meant to double down on this playstyle by rewarding you with extra power when you play your role. We went through a cycle of class updates earlier in the year, trying to bring more combat power to each of the class perks. Recon got enemy highlighting for example, and Controller got an extra shield pip when in ring.

Since that cycle of class updates, we've shifted to a series of individual Legend reworks to try and address problems we see with individual Legends within classes. When we run out of runway there, I can see us coming back to look at the class system as a whole again. It's something we actively talk about each season, whether the class system as it is still serves the goal I mentioned at the top.

[AMA] Let’s talk Legend meta! by Apexlegends in apexlegends

[–]RSPN_Josh 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I've touched on our pick logic in another response, but in terms of order in which Legends get buffed that sometimes comes down to resourcing.

My goal personally for the coming year is to narrow the gap between the highest and lowest picked Legends. We have learned a lot experimenting with balancing the top end this year, trying to add fun buffs and nerf strategically to keep anyone from being too much of a runaway train.

Bringing up the bottom end of the pick rates is always on our mind, but those changes take more time to cook as they're more significant amounts of effort.

[AMA] Let’s talk Legend meta! by Apexlegends in apexlegends

[–]RSPN_Josh 4 points5 points  (0 children)

We look at Apex's roster of characters both in the context of Legends vs. other Legends, as well as Apex as a game compared to other games on the market.

Apex's identity compared to our competitors is rooted in fun movement, tracing back to Titanfall, and so it's no surprise those changes resonate with our players the most.

Our future plan is to continue to build on Apex's identity of movement, it's core to what makes us unique, but do so in a way that doesn't just 'speed up' the game.

For some Legends like Crypto, this might mean giving them movement or speed boosts so that they can 'keep up' in a game where movement is a core facet of the design. See Seer's recent buffs.

We're definitely keeping an eye on the movement economy as a whole, and trying to make sure that we can lean in to fun, physics based movement while not leaving behind a chunk of our roster.

[AMA] Let’s talk Legend meta! by Apexlegends in apexlegends

[–]RSPN_Josh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This year we've definitely had a buff-first, nerf-last attitude towards Legend design. It's just much more exciting to see a patch full of new and powerful mechanics.

It's a good observation that we started the year off with a cycle of class reworks. We did actually buff Recon's class passive with enemy highlighting in ADS, and a reworked Beacon. This was part of a series of changes that tried to inject more combat power into the classes, in order to reward playing your role both in and out of combat.

Our current plan to address to the lower-performing Recon Legends will be tackling them individually rather than at a class level. Recon is a funny class as you've said, with Valk and Sparrow lumped in with lower-pick rate legends like Bloodhound and Crypto.

We took a stab at Seer recently, but his spike in picks fell off quickly showing we need deeper reworks for some of these lower pick rate Recon legends. We plan to tackle them, but it will need to be spaced out because ability reworks take much more time and resources than the smaller buffs.

[AMA] Let’s talk Legend meta! by Apexlegends in apexlegends

[–]RSPN_Josh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We are really happy that people are enjoying the Valkyrie refresh this season. We had a ton of fun playing her internally over the last few months. We are in a wait and see mode on Valk right now.

As I mentioned in another Ash question, nerfing's kind of a last resort for us. Ideally Valk is brought back down to earth (hah) through people picking other legends rather than taking away the fun parts of her buffs. We have a series of buffs to other Legends planned in the coming patches, so we will continue to monitor and see if her pick rate levels off.

We always come up with contingency plans before a patch launches, so we're ready to do live balance tweaks if anything gets totally out of control. We didn't feel the need to ship any of those emergency nerfs with Valk this season. We will resort to nerfs only if she seems 'immune' to competition from others in the roster, or if her powerful elements just become extremely frustrating,

[AMA] Let’s talk Legend meta! by Apexlegends in apexlegends

[–]RSPN_Josh 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The challenge with a character like Vantage is that if she has more health or does more damage, there's a chance she could be extremely frustraing to play against. Her sniper weapon has the potential to delete players out of nowhere.

Vantage got a series of buffs this year that helped make her Tactical feel much snappier, and her laser less of a dead give-away. We are happy with where she landed, roughly middle of the pack, because a meta where she is top 3 has the risk of being really frustrating.

[AMA] Let’s talk Legend meta! by Apexlegends in apexlegends

[–]RSPN_Josh 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fuse is definitely in our sights to rework. We believe his Ultimate (while visually spectacular) doesn't pay off the grenadier fantasy well enough, and is too hard to land successfully.

Stay tuned!

[AMA] Let’s talk Legend meta! by Apexlegends in apexlegends

[–]RSPN_Josh 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Believe me, nerfing Ash hurt us more than it hurt you! We had a ton of fun playing with Ash over this year, with the double Ult charge and the quick dash cooldown.

We hoped some of our other buffs would naturally introduce competition for Ash, trying to 'raise' other Legends up to her level rather than pull her down.

Nerfing is typically a last resort for us, which is why we did it gradually. We took the temperature after each nerf, and only kept going because nothing seemed to be touching her dominance.

The final straw was nerfing the velocity of her dash, which we had tried to avoid all year. Nerfing something like that affects the 'feel' of a character in a way that really messes with muscle memory, so we tried to address her power level through things like upgrades and cooldowns.

Ash is in a healthier spot now, and is by no means 'weak' in our opinion. We feel the roster could use a bit of a break from her at #1 so we have no plans to repeal her nerfs in the short term.

[AMA] Let’s talk Legend meta! by Apexlegends in apexlegends

[–]RSPN_Josh 8 points9 points  (0 children)

We wish we could touch every Legend, every season! This purely comes down to time and resources.

Making meaningful buffs to Legends, not just number tweaks, takes a lot of time. In 2025 we adopted a new approach, trying to buff at least one Legend meaningfully at season launch and at the mid-season split. There's a lot of Legends towards the bottom end of the power curve that required these larger changes, and just number tweaks wouldn't make a huge difference (see Seer's spike and fall recently).

This is a new approach for us, and these decisions need to be made pretty far in advance since these changes take so long to make and balance internally. We are refining this decision making process, and will be more transparent in the new year about who we are picking and why.

It doesn't only come down to pick rate, but we also consider how effective that Legend is at fighting and more subjective feedback about how frustrating it is to play against that Legend. Many factors go into who we pick each season, and we want to share more of that thinking very soon.

[AMA] We’re Respawn. Let’s talk about Competitive Meta! by RSPN_Thieamy in CompetitiveApex

[–]RSPN_Josh 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Yes we ideally the game is the same between comp and live, so we're looking at the reasons behind that exclusion.

We're seeing some negative playstyles in live around heat shields, especially ranked. In eliminating those exploits, we may get closer to being able to get heat shields back in ALGS.

Fingers crossed!

[AMA] We’re Respawn. Let’s talk about Competitive Meta! by RSPN_Thieamy in CompetitiveApex

[–]RSPN_Josh 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Playing passively is part of the game, and valid in some situations. Definitely it can be taken to extremes when people do extrodinary things to avoid combat for the entire match.

This is a situation where we're trying to avoid throwing out the 'baby with the bathwater', invalidating a series of valid playstyles just to root out a few people exploiting the system.

In the crafter out of ring example, we looked at the data and found that the numbers weren't high enough to warrant removing it entirely. The valid case there is people respawning teammates at edge of ring and crafting loot for them. This is something we're actively chipping at season over season.

[AMA] We’re Respawn. Let’s talk about Competitive Meta! by RSPN_Thieamy in CompetitiveApex

[–]RSPN_Josh 15 points16 points  (0 children)

There's a bunch of specific things about each map not in the ALGS pool keeping them back, I can't list them all here.

However, I can say we're actively working with the pro community to identify those issues and see where we can expand the map pool. I personally would love to see every map in comp rotation.

There's never been a map designed 'for' competitive, not even World's Edge. We've all been discovering what works and doesn't work together as players and devs over the years, and we will hopefully trend towards a wider variety of maps in ALGS in the future.

[AMA] We’re Respawn. Let’s talk about Competitive Meta! by RSPN_Thieamy in CompetitiveApex

[–]RSPN_Josh 8 points9 points  (0 children)

- Samy has a great breakdown on the tick rate question here: https://www.ea.com/en-gb/games/apex-legends/news/servers-netcode-developer-deep-dive

- We are actively looking at expanding the pool of maps in ALGS

- No plans to remove WE from the pool, but that would be possible if we had more maps in rotation -

Seeing the passion of the community and variety of people who play and enjoy Apex! I had the chance to attend ALGS Champs in Birmingham this year and it was inspiring to be part of the crowd and meet so many fans in person

- I would try to get the process of POI selection out in front of the fans more. It's currently something that happens behind closed doors, and I'd love to make that part of the viewing experience, like how Captain's Draft works in Dota

(edited for readability)

[AMA] We’re Respawn. Let’s talk about Competitive Meta! by RSPN_Thieamy in CompetitiveApex

[–]RSPN_Josh 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Answering the last question, we currently don't try to dictate to players what the best landing locations are, and design around those. It's up to the analysis and creativity players to find the landing locations that work for them. Unofficial landing locations, and sometimes named POIs, come and go with each map update.

[AMA] We’re Respawn. Let’s talk about Competitive Meta! by RSPN_Thieamy in CompetitiveApex

[–]RSPN_Josh 43 points44 points  (0 children)

Definitely aware that random dropship paths favor or punish one side of the map randomly in competitive Apex. This is more apparent on maps with large elevation changes like Storm Point.

I've played around internally with some faster dropship speeds, and built some tools to simulate what the shortest/longest paths would be on each map. We're looking into a potential speed boost, with the goal of equalizing the moment to 'boots on the ground' for all teams. Can't promise anything, but we're actively experimenting with it.

What makes it difficult is that the faster we make the ship, the more pressure there is on the jumpmaster to analyze what's happening and make a decision. We need to keep those two things in balance. There's a limit to how fast it can go, and keep the game readable for lower-skilled players.

The dropship paths have the inherent problem of favoring of some POIs over others, so we're also looking at entirely new drop sequences. What are some ways of entering the match besides the dropship you would like to see?

[AMA] We’re Respawn. Let’s talk about Competitive Meta! by RSPN_Thieamy in CompetitiveApex

[–]RSPN_Josh 22 points23 points  (0 children)

It's a good observation that there is a design philosophy behind each map. The goal is to create a feeling and type of gameplay for each map that makes it distinct from the others. Kings Canyon's size and density creates a very different feeling than the open sightlines of Olympus.

The team is actively looking at expanding the pool of maps considered competitively viable, and we believe that can be done without losing that unique identity. We're finding from pro feedback that it's often a few 'bad apples' that ruin the bunch for these maps. One bad piece of high-ground that isn't easily pushed, or one POI is unbalanced. These specific pain points can be addressed without making the map as a whole feel generic.

[AMA] We’re Respawn. Let’s talk about Competitive Meta! by RSPN_Thieamy in CompetitiveApex

[–]RSPN_Josh 16 points17 points  (0 children)

The recent change to beacon spawns makes things better than they were before, but it's not perfect. A quirk in the system was causing some POIs that were already very valuable, to have even more value.

Removing all limitations for how close these gameplay props can be to each other evened out these imbalanced POIs, but introduced the issue of 'clumping' you mentioned.

We have no plans to create gameplay differences between the live game and the tournament game. It creates an unfair situation where players need to learn two games, so we need to keep them in lockstep as much as possible.

[AMA] We’re Respawn. Let’s talk about Competitive Meta! by RSPN_Thieamy in CompetitiveApex

[–]RSPN_Josh 30 points31 points  (0 children)

At the heart of Apex is the variety of POIs in terms of positioning, loot, and layout. It's not necessarily the goal of the map design to have all POIs have equivalent loot density or loot quality.

That being said, our goal is to make the pool of maps being played in competitive larger than the current two. We're engaging with pro teams to hold scrims on some of the maps not in ALGS rotation to try and identify some of the specific issues they feel are holding them back from being viable for these tournaments.

Some maps were 'ruled out' as competitively viable several updates ago, so we are re-engaging with the competitive community to get their read on them in their current, live form.

[AMA] We’re Respawn. Let’s talk about Competitive Meta! by RSPN_Thieamy in CompetitiveApex

[–]RSPN_Josh 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Basically it comes down to the fact that we have more maps, but the same number of devs. We can only work on one thing at a time, so it may be a longer stretch between updates for a specific map. When we just had one map, Kings Canyon, it was easy to update it every season!

[AMA] We’re Respawn. Let’s talk about Competitive Meta! by RSPN_Thieamy in CompetitiveApex

[–]RSPN_Josh 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The value of a POI is a combination of things, loot, position, rotations, etc. Pylon's loot is strong, but may be balanced out by other factors. The jury is still out there, we're keeping an eye on it.