Forum Discussion

3 years ago

Solved

[Guide] Playing the Season Casual

First I started to write this up and wasn't making a guide, then I looked and said to myself, looks more like a guide of sorts.

About Me

I am a retired senior citizen, widower, and I was introduced to Apex by my lodger about one year ago. I took the summer off (Vantage Season) and I have only paid Respawn $10 as a "thank you" for making such a nice free to play game. This season came without a new legendary hero, but they did have a lot of other features they needed to work out to make this game a lot better than it was before.

My Play Style

I don't try to win the Battle Royale (BR) at all. I don't stress about getting the kills. Most of my kills are simply accidental homicides. In the past, I would join 2 PS4 players on my PC twice a week and I would play with pick up groups (PUGs) the remainder of the week. On average, I played 2 to 3 hours per day. Looking back, how did I get all this done?

Experience

Survival is highly rewarded in Apex, if you can run and hide to the end, you will earn more experience than winning. This is not "ratting" as much as being stealthy and allowing the others to do most of the heavy lifting for you. I have often found early mornings (6 AM EST) players are very blood thirsty and there will be only 5 to 7 squads remaining before the first ring closes.

Take Time to Explore

When I land, I often pick spots where I know there is good loot. One example; Lifeline's clinic on Olympus has a button on a console out by the landing pad. This summons (one time per match) a neutral care package. There are many more spots such as this on Olympus and the reason for it being a personal favorite of mine. While everyone is killing and getting killed at Hammond Labs, I will be looting Rambo's foot locker. Not that this gear will make me a better shot or win the match, but it does help your group... assuming they are not dead already.

Battle Pass or Just Pass?

That is the question. When I joined Apex, part way through the Mad Maggie season, I held off buying until the next season (Newcastle). With the exception of Vantage, I bought each season until now. This 4th anniversary season I decided to try something different. I am playing only the dailies in BR and I am managing to get the events done as well. With 37 days remaining, I am at 53 on the Battle Pass.

How do I plan to play catch up?

Over the last few weeks of this season, I plan to do some "bonus damage" and putting this off will save me a lot of effort. Throughout this season, there have been two damage bonus items of 5,000. One is for +10 points for a given hero (one of three named) and the other is generic damage for +5 points. Since I plan to hold off, all these generic damage challenges will kick in, once when I clear the first hero. Making this particular challenge worth the wait. I may be a bad shot, but I can still deal random damage.

This is my strategy to casually play Apex. I have fun, I don't stress out, winning the BR is never my objective, and I keep my head while everyone else is losing theirs. If you see me in the game, most of the time, I will be #2 squad you killed at the end, and you're welcome.

Edit: Punctuation

gameplay discussion

Xubunnytwo
2 years ago
To put the lid on this Casual Season Guide for future readers...
This morning my friend and I both hit 100 playing this game very relaxed and not really doing much "fighting" so to speak. We didn't even win any matches together. I won a match by default. Three nice Apex players found me goofing about on Broken Moon this season. We were the last two squads left and I thought they would finish me off. Instead we dropped all our gear and went for a romp in the final ring. They left the match without killing me, making me Champion by default. Obviously people who know how to have fun.
Fun is what this thread is all about. Playing the game relaxed is the way to enjoy Apex. If it feels like work, then you are trying too hard. I also saved up the Legendary Tokens to 48,000 so I bought 2 more legends adding them to my roster.
As you can see, I still don't have; Octane, Seer, Vantage, and Newcastle. I might be a little bias about Newcastle as he looks a little like the jock in Highschool, who took pleasure in my pain. When I attended the class reunion, I heard from others, the jock divorced twice, and got 2 years in Iron Mountain for drug charges. I felt sorry for his ex-wives. I will be adding Ballistic on Tuesday to the line up, but as one can tell, I have enough to get one more. I am leaning toward seer.
Adopt a laid back play style and have fun with it! See all of you next season. 🙂

5 Replies

reconzero
Seasoned Ace
3 years ago
@Xubunnytwo

Similar here, but a little different.

I too am on the older side, and I think along with age comes a little more confidence. Not confidence in abilities, but the kind of confidence where I just don't have anything to prove to anyone anymore. And that makes this a very different game, I think, than it is for the younger, hungrier, sweattier crowd.

I spent the first seven seasons trying to find the logic behind the behaviors in this game, and what I came to understand is that "what players naturally want to do" and "what players should do to increase their odds of success" are completely opposite. A patient player figures out pretty quickly how to use childrens' impatience against them. As you said, let others do the heavy lifting. That doesn't mean I can't get a kill in this game. But it does mean that I understand the most basic truth of Battle Royale that other players refuse to grapple with: the more kills you try to get, the lower your odds of winning. It really is that simple. And the long and short of it is that in Battle Royale last kill wins. Not most kills. LAST KILL. This will be responded to by more than one person with, "A guy who gets 8 kills in a match and dies in 5th place is a better player than a guy who gets 1 kill and wins." Those respondents are wrong. Period. So very wrong.

On the subject of battle pass, challenges, and spending money on the game... I too once gave Respawn $10 for making such a nice game. A flawed game, but a nice game nonetheless. That was three years ago. I'm patiently waiting for them to do something to inspire me to want to support them financially again. Cancelling the upcoming PvE game did not inspire me at all.

If I could give any newer player advice it would be to question every single piece of conventional wisdom surrounding this game. Best example I can think of: Your squadmates are just as likely to get you killed as they are to help you out. Treat them with skepticism and suspicion. Other side of that coin: engagements are just as likely to get you killed as to yield a kill. Treat them with skepticism and suspicion. And if you find that makes the game too "boring," then the problem is not the game. It's you. Time to go back to Call of Duty.

And yes, I too exit most of my matches in second place. You're welcome, try-hards.
Xubunnytwo
3 years ago
@reconzero good points all around. My hope is Respawn will add some buttons to push in Broken Moon. Meanwhile the "new people" who refuse to explore these maps will never know their secrets. Olympus has so many, from hidden vents to crawl through, to the more obvious no weapons allowed fighting pit.

Well I am up early, time to get some coffee and breakfast.
Xubunnytwo
2 years ago
Just to keep anyone interested updated. I will edit this post each week with my progress.
April 10th, 2023 - Battle Pass at level 66 now.
April 17th, 2023 - Level 72
April 24th, 2023 - Level 81
May 1st, 2023 - Level 92 (at level 93, this is the point you "break even" on the battle pass)
~~May 8th, 2023 - Will I hit 100?? - yet to come~~
May 5th, 2023 - I hit 100 - cracking open a Bud and kicking in the backyard over the weekend. Done!
Today I coined a phrase for my play style. I am a SLAG. SLAG is Simple Laidback Apex Gamer. You can be a SLAG too. There is no fee to join the cult and we never serve Kool-Aid at our meetings!
Balladalidila
Seasoned Ace
2 years ago
@Xubunnytwo

Seems like a sound mindset to play this game and is actually quite similar to how I approach this game in pubs. Me, 1.5 year ago would feel like it was a total waste of time to play pubs if I didnt always landed super hot and then perma-w into the next fight. The main reason was to get those 4k and 20 kill banners. But since I got 4ks on pretty much all legends that I play and also realize that 20 kills is super hard to get by stressing (Ive got like 3 and all of them were "normal" good early and mid games but then ended with a banger), I never stress in pubs anymore.
I usually just follow my randoms around and just play whatever style they wanna play with the two weapons that just happen to be the first two that I pick up =). I couldnt care less if I win or not but I prefer to have a 4k dmg game with 8 kills and 5th place than a 600 dmg game with 2 kills and 1st place. Sometimes, especially when I play after a night out and too drunk to play ranked, I actually find it quite relaxing to just run around with randoms who want to play safe and sneaky even in pubs.
I admit that I leave pubs quite often but usually not until I am executed. I always stick around while knocked and also if it looks like my randoms are gonna win the fight when I am executed, at least if there is a respawn beacon close by. But if a random, who did 10 dmg in that fight, goes on to loot all boxes including mine before resing, I am OUT OF THERE =)
But yeah, you should never stress and rage in pubs. That game mode is so causal and random its just not worth it
Xubunnytwo
2 years ago
To put the lid on this Casual Season Guide for future readers...
This morning my friend and I both hit 100 playing this game very relaxed and not really doing much "fighting" so to speak. We didn't even win any matches together. I won a match by default. Three nice Apex players found me goofing about on Broken Moon this season. We were the last two squads left and I thought they would finish me off. Instead we dropped all our gear and went for a romp in the final ring. They left the match without killing me, making me Champion by default. Obviously people who know how to have fun.
Fun is what this thread is all about. Playing the game relaxed is the way to enjoy Apex. If it feels like work, then you are trying too hard. I also saved up the Legendary Tokens to 48,000 so I bought 2 more legends adding them to my roster.
As you can see, I still don't have; Octane, Seer, Vantage, and Newcastle. I might be a little bias about Newcastle as he looks a little like the jock in Highschool, who took pleasure in my pain. When I attended the class reunion, I heard from others, the jock divorced twice, and got 2 years in Iron Mountain for drug charges. I felt sorry for his ex-wives. I will be adding Ballistic on Tuesday to the line up, but as one can tell, I have enough to get one more. I am leaning toward seer.
Adopt a laid back play style and have fun with it! See all of you next season. 🙂