Increased ring damage ruining Apex

@GoSoxAV8  You're very correct of course, I never bothered to mention that aspect, but the smaller ring size IS compounding the problem and making things even worse. Either way, I think the net result is antithetical to the spirit of Apex and what makes the game great.... the combat. You're encouraged to avoid fights and run away, or camp and get cheap kills.

As I said I am also noticing a serious increase in the number of campers who wait just inside the ring.... they just sit there with nades and spam them in front of you to keep you out the ring as long as possible. There's little you can do about this, its a cheap but effective tactic that gets players cheap kills, often they only need to get a couple of shots on target to win the fight. The smaller ring also encourages this, less circumference to the ring means if campers position themselves right they are almost BOUND to get a team or two running by their area. This has happened to me so many times over the last few days, running into teams who are so obviously camping and just waiting the ring, it's getting really tedious.

Imo the ring time size and damage was pretty much fine before, but if you want to reduce the ring size (which I don't mind so much) and increase the distance people have to travel, why oh why would you ALSO increase the damage you take while doing it?!?! I just don't see any reason this change was made at all, it feels like changing stuff just for the sake of changing things... so EA/Respawn can say, "hey look, we're evolving the game". 

This change really spoils the Apex experience for, so far as I can see, no apparent reason whatsoever. Why did you do this?!?!?!

It was obviously done to stop campers outside of the ring in ranked and to speed matches up and encourage combat to happen more densely - which is definitely does as I’m finding every match that 4-6 teams end up meeting at the edge of the ring every time it closes . BUT they’ve gone way too Over the top with it , and I think it’s the size way more than the damage .

Damage up is necessary , after all it’s supposed to technically be the dead zone and force everyone inwards but having the damage that high and also having to run more than half the map almost every game is seriously boring and limiting. I’d say knock 2% off the initial ring damage as it’s stupid not being able to loot your kills at the very beginning,and increase the size back to its original so it’s not a marathon every game.  but later ring damage should definitely be devastating otherwise it’s pointless having it atall. 

@MassiveVernon Yeah everyone talks and moans about campers outside the ring... and MAYBE that is more of a problem in the higher ranked levels, but we're talking basic vanilla Apex here. And the thing is there are still SO many other ways you could tackle the problem of camping... oh i dunno, how about if you spend too much time outside the play area you are excluded from the ranks in that game, wherever you place it doesn't count and every other team is bumped up one at the end... simple, easy and NO need to change anything in damage. 

For the sake of a few elitist tosspots who worry about other players getting unfair ranks by camping, they screw over a large part of what makes Apex fun, getting into fights... and as I said, there are a million other solutions.... increase damage with time, increase damage when NOT in combat, increase damage if you're NOT moving towards the play area, increase damage the deeper you are in the out-of-bounds area.

This smacks of either elitism overcoming common sense and fun or simple laziness, for EA/Respawn upping the ring damage is the simplest change imaginable and basically involves changing one number in the code, any of the better more sensible solutions I mentioned before would take a little more time and effort to implement.

I, like I assume many players, don't really care about ranks that much, I am under no illusion that I am the next Shroud or something and imo the ring changes make Apex objectively LESS fun... you are DISCOURAGED from fighting in many situations, and ENCOURAGED to camp lil donkey-licking spod-wads for cheap easy kills... and making the game overall less enjoyable so as to pander to the rankings and those vein egotists who care about them says it all imo, it's pathetic,

I don't think the problem is so much the ring damage but the rate at which you're ushered into a certain spot on the map. I think the round 1 ring needs to be bigger, and the time between the rounds needs to be slightly longer, to allow people the time to have a fight and get some loot before having to move on.

@Cabowse I see what you're saying and I agree that could be helpful in certain specific situations. However I also feel that you can literally run into another team at any time and if the ring is coming in you either have to run away or risk everyone dying. I can still envisage many situations where just increasing the time wouldn't make a huge difference,

For me the ring damage is the entire problem. Literally the last game I played yesterday we lost because we got into fight with last team as ring was coming in and one of their team-members simply ran away from the combat and managed to stay in the ring, the rest of us who were fighting all died cos of the upped ring damage... I agree later rings should hurt more, but the increased damage now goes right through to the end making later rings almost instantly fatal.(this was 2-3 rings from final ring still as well)

Once again, do we want Apex to be a game which rewards * who run away from fights and campers the most? Cos that is what is happening again and again. It's really frustrating.

If people want to argue that you have to keep the rankings pure as the driven snow so even the slightest hint of camping should not be tolerated... fine, I don't care... but for god's sake please put unranked ring damage back how it was and stop spoiling the fun aspects of the game for everyone. 

@MassiveVernon 

Even in ranked mode I think it is a bad solution to the "problem"...  any system which discourages or penalizes players from fighting and encourages them to camp/hide and wait for the ring to take out half the server is antithetical to the spirit of the game imo. But in unranked making upping the damage seems crazy, it literally makes the game less fun and more frustrating for no objective reason.

I do understand some players getting their panties in a bunch cos maybe the odd team gain ranking by trying to hide outside the ring... but I still think there are way better solutions to the problem. Keep the damage as it was before if you are involved in combat or have been involved in the last 30 seconds,.. and for players who are not in combat, so long as they keep moving at a certain average speed towards the play zone (basically so long as they are running in a direct line to the zone more or less) keep the damage low. If none of those conditions are met THEN you apply the increased the damage and the longer they are outside the ring the higher the damage gets.

Implementing this would be more complicated than simply upping the ring damage (and I suspect EA are making Respawn work with very limited resources) but it wouldn't be that hard to do either, and would be a much better solution.... stopping players from farting about outside the ring doing nothing and looting, whilst not penalizing those who get into a fight, loot the dead team and then head straight for the next zone. Most of the mechanisms are already in the game for this, and you would simply need to create a formula which monitors the players position in relation to the next zone and applies damage based upon how that position changes.

Yeah I totally agree with the negative effect it’s having on playstyles and the limitations it has on combat but I still stick by the fact that late ring damage should stay high , but LATE only. 

And another far far easier solution would be to uncap points rewarded for kills and lower points rewarded for team survival placement (also have a think about rewarding assist points as kill stealing is kinda annoying now) , aswell as reverting the ring back to its original state of course .

If there’s more incentive to fight over camp then surely people will do so.

The other compromise would be to make stim and health packs heal twice as fast while in the ring.  The problem right now is that you can't heal fast enough to outpace the ring.  I just played a game where our squad downed two others and got stuck in the ring.  We each took at least 5 stim / health packs, but we couldn't heal fast enough to outpace the ring.  Eliminated for no reason.  I'm going to take a break from APEX until this is addressed.