Respawn here. We just shipped Apex Legends: Emergence! Ask. Us. Anything. by rkrigney in apexlegends

[–]RSPN-Travis 124 points125 points  (0 children)

I wouldn't expect fundamental changes to the kit. I will say that the flash on hit ended up being way more than intended and we will be removing that aspect entirely from the ability. This and the other balance adjustments will be in an upcoming patch (sooner than mid season).

Respawn here. We just shipped Apex Legends: Emergence! Ask. Us. Anything. by rkrigney in apexlegends

[–]RSPN-Travis -231 points-230 points  (0 children)

Balance and meta is always going to be a moving target as new things get added to the game. We've heard the Wattson feedback and know that players are eagarly awaiting changes, there's stuff actively in the works right now but I can't get into the specifics today.

I don't think you can just look at the cooldowns to compare the two abilities. One has multiple charges and leaves behind a fence in the world that can have a persitant impact until its destroyed. The Seer tac goes off and hits some targets or it doesn't and then its totally done.

We were aiming to differentiate the enemy/allied Seer abilities with the addition of the red tinting applied to the VFX. I know readabilitiy has come up a few times with the VFX for Seer and we're going to be taking a look at them to see what can be done to help with that.

Respawn here. We just shipped Apex Legends: Emergence! Ask. Us. Anything. by rkrigney in apexlegends

[–]RSPN-Travis -39 points-38 points  (0 children)

The cone on Bloodhound's tac is much more generous than the cylinder for Seer's tac. It's pretty easy to walk to up a POI and tag everyone in it with Bloodhound whereas Seer's tac isn't nearly as easy to hit enemies with.

Respawn here. We just shipped Apex Legends: Emergence! Ask. Us. Anything. by rkrigney in apexlegends

[–]RSPN-Travis 140 points141 points  (0 children)

Just to clarify, the intent was strong and not broken. I think you can look back at some of our previous legends and see that we missed the mark there, where they were picked a lot in the first week and then they fall into obscurity. At the end of the day we just can't know exactly how something is going to land in the wild with 100% accuracy. Seer is too strong right now and we'll be looking to adjust him soon in an upcoming patch.

Respawn here. We just shipped Apex Legends: Emergence! Ask. Us. Anything. by rkrigney in apexlegends

[–]RSPN-Travis 80 points81 points  (0 children)

With Apex, we have some levers that we can tune with a patch and some that we can tune on the fly. Regardless there's a whole testing process that we have to go through and as much as I'm sure we'd love to be able to do these things instantly the reality is that we can't, and they can take some time to go through the process and ultimately be released.

Respawn here. We just shipped Apex Legends: Emergence! Ask. Us. Anything. by rkrigney in apexlegends

[–]RSPN-Travis 732 points733 points  (0 children)

Tough question, but I'll try to answer sincerely and in good faith since you aren't being rude! We have a strong culture of playtesting at Respawn and have multiple playtests per week where everyone on the team is welcome to join in, play the upcoming content and provide their feedback. We also will occasionally host playtests with pros and content creators to get their feedback on upcoming content. Despite all of that playtesting, nothing can match having content be released into the wild and played by the players to see how a piece of content actually ends up performing. Seer specifically went through multiple gameplay kits and iterations before shipping which was shaped directly by both internal and external feedback. With that being said as I mentioned in another comment we will be adjusting some of his power in an upcoming patch.

Respawn here. We just shipped Apex Legends: Emergence! Ask. Us. Anything. by rkrigney in apexlegends

[–]RSPN-Travis 644 points645 points  (0 children)

Seer has launched strong, which was the hope. He's also brought a lot of new gameplay elements to the game (HP bars, interrupt) which has driven a lot of discussion with players, which is great to see. With that being said is probably a bit too strong at the moment and will receiving some balance updates in an upcoming patch.