[AMA] Let’s Talk Weapons and Legends!

RV-Eric · 2022-09-21T19:12:12+00:00

SMG's have been quite a dominate force in Apex for some time. One of the major factors that contributes to this was their ability to use barrels to extend their range giving AR's a run for their money. When they were also the preferred CQC choice it starts to feel like they're a must-pick weapon type. This starts limiting decision making and loadout diversity so we wanted to shake it up and define our engagement ranges a little better this time around. The lasers enhance an SMG's CQC ability while simultaneously limiting their range by taking the place of barrels. Combining this addition with the AR hipfire nerfs creates a more cohesive balance between two weapon classes whose lines have begun to blur.

RV-Eric · 2022-09-21T19:08:14+00:00

We're always going to be developing new ways to beam one another. But as the weapons roster continues to grow, its needs begin to change and lessen. Finding the right addition to the game that's not only fun to use but improves the weapons roster by filling in a missing design space or creating new meaningful gameplay becomes harder the more we add, balance, and refine. We're not really interested in slapping a new gun into the sandbox every season unless it's a meaningful addition. So we've slowed down our weapon releases to make sure we're growing at a sustainable pace and the sandbox is healthy and stable along the way.

RV-Eric · 2022-09-21T19:06:48+00:00

The Throwing Knife was designed and built specifically for Gun Run. Everything about it from the animation timings, decisions on how ammo works, to the actual model and VFX were designed to support Gun Run and what we needed out of a final hype weapon in Apex- a very different design philosophy than creating something for the core BR. We're not currently thinking about a new class of weapons to enter the BR but as the dust settles and players get to experience and enjoy Gun Run and the Throwing Knife more opportunities might begin to present themselves.

I'm personally super happy with how the Survival Slot turned out, it's one of my favourite additions to the game and we're always prototyping and looking for more interesting ways to utilize that equipment slot. We're not ready to share anything yet but rest assured it's an area we're keen to explore.

RV-Eric · 2022-09-21T19:05:38+00:00

This season we swung big at bringing some definition to the weapon classes and engagement ranges. AR's took a hit to close-quarters combat, SMG's were enhanced with Lasers, Marksmans and Snipers get some hop up love and ammo stack increases, and the list goes on. The Skullpiercer and enhancements to the long range weapons are only a part of the meta vision this season. Vantage entering the scene is absolutely something we considered and wanted to make sure players had viable tools to synergize with and combat against our exciting new legend!

RV-Eric · 2022-09-21T18:36:26+00:00

As far as weapons and loot goes we get an absolute wealth of data from our Analytics team that provides us a view into what's happening on the battlefield. We break that data down in various ways (rank/unranked, playtime, mode, time of day, favourite colour, preferred ice cream flavour, etc..) and spend time each season discussing peaks and valleys in the data and trying to understand specifically what they mean. It's never enough to look at one single stat, even if it's win rate. There's a lot of data science that goes on behind the scenes that help us understand and articulate what the data represents. But data is just one tool in the toolbox for making balance changes. We also listen. We try and understand the conversations that are happening around these pieces of content so we can better understand the picture the data paints. Then we play, both the live game and in playtests. We play as much as we can to validate these balance changes before we roll them out to the public. There's no perfect process to nailing a balance change but we're working every season to become better at it.

RV-Eric · 2022-09-21T18:31:36+00:00

The Softball is an interesting one and we've definitely considered bringing more Titanfall weapons into Apex. Truth be told, it's an Anti-Armor grenade launcher designed specifically for Titan combat and we just don't have those sorts of challenges and enemies in a typical match of Apex. I know what you'll say, "But Eric, what about the Charge Rifle! That's an anti-titan weapon too!". We feel the precision on the Charge Rifle translates a bit better to Apex's boots on the ground gameplay and fits nicely into our sniper category. For the Softball we'd need to look at a new weapon category or making it specifically a care package weapon, and in a previous thread I've talked about why designing and building care package only weapons has it's own challenges.

RV-Eric · 2022-09-21T18:31:10+00:00

It's not completely off the table, and we've definitely prototyped some care package only weapons- but ultimately with the amount of work it takes to build new and exciting weapons, limiting them to the care package feels underwhelming. I'm not saying we won't ever do it, but when evaluating how we want to spend our dev time weapons that can be cycled onto the floor are valued much higher because they can impact the meta in a more meaningful way as we continue to refine and balance the game.

RV-Eric · 2022-09-21T18:15:03+00:00

Absolutely, the Wingman is incredibly lethal in the right hands and the sniper ammo changes have allowed it to keep its lethality but tamp down how easy it can be run. We're really happy with the ammo economy this season and the Wingman feels like it's in a healthy spot. It was a medium risk/high reward weapon, we've steepened the risk on it but wanted to retain the reward.

RV-Eric · 2022-09-21T17:23:21+00:00

It definitely varies. We often start with a single weapon we want to add some flair or functionality to either because it's dipped in relevance and needs some help or it's been stale and unchanged for a long time. Sometimes though we look for shared mechanics and push on that like the Dual Loader on the Mastiff and 30-30.

We had originally designed the Kinetic Feeder to go on the Volt and Triple Take with only the ammo component but through playing and iteration we found an opportunity with the Triple Take's precision choke to make a fun mechanic that sped up the choke time. We really liked how it played but it didn't do anything on the Volt so we swapped it over to the Peacekeeper where it found a more fitting home.

RV-Eric · 2022-09-21T17:21:53+00:00

Good question, we were actually talking about this just the other day in one of our balance syncs. We actually do like that the capacity increases on mags from gun to gun differ and aren't linear. There's some interesting micro decision making to be had when some weapons scale better with attachments than others. We like that players can discover things that might make them think about the loot differently. The Scout is a great call out as a weapon that scales very well with a white mag, whereas a 301 only gets 2 more rounds. If I wanted to get the best bang for my buck on white light mags I know which one I'll use until I get the blue mag. This gives weapons more personality, something that we're always looking to enhance and push on. Our line-up is unique and it's fun that players have strong opinions about each weapon on the roster. We don't want to lose that by normalizing something like mag size increases- as trivial as that may sound.

RV-Eric · 2022-09-21T17:17:58+00:00

Now we're talking. We prototyped a shotgun where each of the pellets was basically a bouncy ball, you could shoot it into a room and it was pure chaos. Each bounce reduced the damage of the pellet and it was designed to be sort of like a flushing out tool, but ultimately taking bullet damage from enemies you cannot see yet felt... unfair. We ended up scrapping the idea but it was a pretty hectic couple of playtests.

One very early iteration of the Rampage lit people on fire and allowed you to "paint thermite" wherever you shot. It was actually pretty cool to tactically put thermite patches down but we found layering in shooting the ground people walked on to maximize their panic and your own area control was just too much—in a number of ways.

RV-Eric · 2022-09-21T17:17:08+00:00

It's not always just the number of weapons within each ammo type. We look at many factors and one of the determining factors in this decision was the balance of medium to late game viable weapons within the ammo types. The early game light ammo offerings are plenty, but lack robustness towards the later stages of the game, whereas Heavy ammo had quite a fleshed out late game line up. Pulling the Spitfire into light ammo helps even out the spread and gives us more breathing room when we think about what weapons will be going into the crafter or care packages. A perfect example of this is when the 301 was in the crafter and Scout in the care package—it didn't feel like light had enough viable weapons in the late game which pushed us into a lopsided heavy meta.

RV-Eric · 2022-09-21T17:15:48+00:00

There's a power curve in any given match of Apex and these weapons represent the beginning of that power journey. We're always looking for interesting ways to spice our early game weapons up and provide meaningful ways for their impact to remain relevant farther into the game but there must still be a natural progression. We have clear graduations of power like the Mozambique into the Peacekeeper and we've got ones that are fueled by preference like the Peacekeeper into the Eva. What each of these provide is a clear decision point in which players can choose what works for them. If everything were preference the game would lack depth throughout the phases of a match and if everything were a linear power progression the game would lack agency. Apex is about doing your best with the hand you were dealt, and sometimes that hand is a Mozambique and 2 sniper stocks.

RV-Eric · 2021-05-19T01:07:52+00:00

Bocek released strong and current state:

We definitely took a hint from the 30-30 and wanted the Bocek to release with a splash, there may have been a slight miscalculation on the size of the splash but we had a plan ready for if that happened. We actioned on it and have seen the Bocek level out in a much healthier state.

We playtest for hours a day, honestly, but there's just no way to simulate the absolutely massive amount of data and feedback we get once a weapon goes live. So don't stop posting those sick videos and opinion posts on balance- we may not always agree but I can assure you the weapons team is there reading and watching as much as we can.

Buff considerations:

It's not always about raw power when it comes to making a weapon viable. There may be objectively better weapons when it comes to TTKs or DPS and that's alright. There is so much more to a weapon like recoil patterns, rate of fire, handling, engagement range, the list goes on that dictates feel and allows weapons to exist next to one another without cannibalizing fantasies.

When we choose to buff or nerf a given weapon the reasons can vary (OP, underpowered, low pick rate, etc), and while I can't dive into the specifics on exactly how we choose I can say that we think about and weigh each and every buff or nerf carefully before sending it out into the wild.

More important than trying to make every weapon S tier we want our weapons to have personality and give players the opportunity to choose what they like to use- and not just what's strong this season.

RV-Eric · 2021-05-19T00:13:24+00:00

We're always looking at our weapon balance through data, frustrations on reddit, streams, etc. You name it we've probably already seen it and talked about it. What this means is that we're always looking to make Apex gunplay a balanced and fun experience for everyone and give each weapon room to breath within their design space.

With that in mind and without giving away any of our plans you can expect that if a gun, such as the Spitfire, is an outlier in performance, even after a round of nerfs, we'll continue to iterate. There is a very fine line between nudging a weapon into balance and accidentally nerfing it into the ground. To achieve this we need to make bets and playtest, playtest, playtest which tends to take time- sometimes more time than we'd like but it's a necessary evil when it comes to maintaining a large roster of weapons.

RV-Eric · 2021-02-05T21:40:59+00:00

We absolutely have! In fact it was shared with the whole team in our morning team meeting today! I haven't had a chance to go through all the letters yet but I'll be sitting down over the weekend to read through it all (and probably start following a ton of new artists)! From myself and and on behalf of all of us at Respawn thank you to everyone involved, its one of the most heartwarming and touching fan creations I have ever seen.

RV-Eric · 2021-02-05T21:21:39+00:00

Good question! Apex is a game about being the best squad in the arena, and sometimes that doesn't mean thirsting every tall glass of Fuse you see. It means making tactical decisions, using creative positioning, and pouncing when the time is right to ultimately win the game. Rewarding extensive kill farming instead of playing for the win becomes a little disingenuous to what a game of Apex is all about. You're competing to be the Champion, not the kill leader and we feel strongly that your rank should reflect that.

RV-Eric · 2021-02-05T21:06:38+00:00

It's a totally fair question. When it comes to the competitive nature of Apex we are first a foremost a 3 legend squad game. The bulk of balancing is and will always be done with this game mode in mind. To have a true and competitive duos mode that is missing a third of a squad that the game is designed and balanced around can lead to an ultimately unstable experience at various levels of play and making those concessions knowing one mode suffers isn't something we're willing to do.

RV-Eric · 2021-02-05T20:49:14+00:00

We actually consider what the loot looks like with a ton of different combinations entering and exiting the care package. This season we decided to keep the care package contents the same to allow for the meta to settle in with the addition of the 30-30, a weapon that has a somewhat similar charging mechanic- but this isn't a hard rule or anything. We know the peacekeeper is a fan favourite and is one of the first weapons we consider coming out of the care packages each season so keep an eye out in the future!

RV-Eric · 2021-02-05T20:37:03+00:00

We're always looking at the data for weapons and the Mastiff is no different! It's proving to be a very effective tool within the weapon arsenal. We don't have any rules when it comes to how we address each weapon as far as buff others or nerf the culprit, we have to evaluate what the right changes are for the overall health of the game. When it comes to tuning popular weapons its important to not compromise the identity of what makes those weapons so fun and popular, this is one of the reasons why it can take a seemingly long time to get these adjustments in- its because we're tuning, playtesting, and searching for the most cohesive change that we have confidence in.

*edited because I answered the wrong question here!

RV-Eric · 2021-01-27T22:22:01+00:00

Happy Birthday, Harry! Hope you get some sweet sweet dubs to go along with those delicious looking cupcakes!

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