My Crypto Ideas (in depth)
SO EVERYONE!
While Crypto has seen his place in ALGS, he still struggles in pick rate among the general player base, coming in at 1.6%, the lowest along with Newcastle. This, I believe, is because his kit is just so slow to use, and comes with many risks, despite its utility. The only reason he really works in ALGS as it is is the fact that ALGS is often played at a much slower pace given the stakes of the competition, and staying alive takes precedence over getting more than a few kills. However, no matter what, in pubs he will struggle where fast pace of play is key, both in general player interest and play success for inexperienced players.
So then, how to address this. Well, his primary issues are risk vs. reward and pace of play, therefore that’s what should be addressed first.
Risk vs. Reward:
A big problem with Crypto’s kit is both his passive and ultimate rely on his tactical for function, and when his drone gets destroyed, he becomes only a gun for 40 seconds, which, going against a full roster of characters with passives, tacticals, and ultimates all available, makes him momentarily the worst legend in the game by default. Even when the drone is just stowed he has no access to a passive or ultimate, which leaves him very weak regardless. Not only that, but when in the drone, he is not in the fight, so he can’t effectively back up his team initiating a fight besides when using his ultimate. And finally, it’s a risk to use his drone at all because if your team initiates a fight, patching in leaves Crypto exposed for a free kill being helplessly shot in the back.
How to fix this? Well, he just needs to not be so reliant on his drone for function. For starters, allow for use of his ultimate from Crypto himself when his drone is stowed or destroyed. Having no access to any ability unless the drone is actively deployed means it takes much longer to use even a passive than any other legend can use a tactical or ultimate. So the ability to use his ultimate whenever and wherever would greatly aid his kit, regardless of the self-damage. It would function best as activating centered around his drone only when it is deployed, so recalling when attempting to use it from his body would be necessary. If stowed, the obvious best choice still remains as to throw it out 25m like normal and activate it. Optimal placement of his ultimate still requires patching in of course, so the function of manual drone control still finds its place as an ever useful asset.
Alongside this, I also suggest a rework of his passive to be around Crypto at all times, to where he has a scan on enemies, doors, traps, and crates in his direct line of sight within a 30m radius, that teammates can also see even if through a wall, as long as Crypto has them in uninterrupted vision (at 120°, half that of his drone). This also occurs for his drone when deployed like usual, allowing for 1.5x the current scanning area (which he currently has the least of compared to the other scanning legends Bloodhound and Seer) while still retaining the hitch of it not functioning through walls or other obstacles like bangalore smoke. Not only this but it could also still be active when Crypto is downed, which can be a useful asset; this is counterbalanced by the fact enemies will likely target a downed Crypto for the kill to eliminate that scan, so I don’t think it’s overpowered at all. Not having a passive without his tactical really doesn’t make it much of a passive anyway, it just makes it part of his tactical, which means he just doesn’t have a passive at the moment. This I believe could fix that.
As for risk to Crypto while patched in, I suggest that when an enemy is within 30m of his body when in drone view (or within audio range at least) it will give a notification on his drone screen paired with a voice line saying that he hears an enemy nearby, so Crypto can effectively try to escape before being shot. Of course it’s optional to leave drone view when this notification pops up, so if you trust your surroundings enough it’s up to you. This should effectively make Crypto not so helpless to being shot in the back when patched in, giving more merit to that function. It should be noted that there is no notification when an enemy sees you outside this range, so being shot or sniped from distance is still a risk Crypto must take.
Pace Of Play:
An issue with Crypto as well is that his drone just takes to long to use. It’s slow, and when destroyed leaves him rather useless for 40 seconds. It makes it hard to initiate fights like previously mentioned, and can leave Crypto himself exposed for far too long. The season 12 buff with throwing his drone out 25m definitely helped, but still I feel his pace of play to be rather slow regardless. I think a lot of the lack of appeal Crypto has to players is just because of it being such an annoyance to use his kit in active engagements and hot drops, and so speeding up his kit could greatly improve interest in the legend.
How to fix this? The simplest solution is to increase the top speed and acceleration of his drone. Being able to use the manual control function more quickly means he can place it faster and start shooting when in fights, and cover ground more easily when surveying the land for enemies or when grabbing banners and using survey or respawn beacons. Faster play is both more exciting and more useful, so this should drastically aid the use of his tactical to be less annoying and instead more useful and appealing to players picking him up.
A more subtle change should be a slight reduction to his tactical cooldown, from the current 40 seconds down to either 35 or 30, allowing him to stay in the fight longer with the drone deployed, like it should be. This I think should be coupled with a quieter drone only when stationary, to keep the drone in the fight for just a bit longer before being destroyed. While actively moving the drone I think it should be loud like normal, so enemies will still be aware of a drone as it approaches, and as such I don’t think this will make it much more powerful than it is at current since they already know it is near. It should only function to make it harder to discern the precise location when it’s stopped, as enemies will likely already be searching for it from either being scanned by the drone or from hearing it as it was moving into position beforehand, and finding the drone has never been much of a challenge as is, as it requires direct line of sight to scan anyway. All in all it should make his drone stay in the fight longer and more often, which is good both for his kit and for player interest in the legend.
So those are my ideas!
I hope you enjoyed, and please do consider! These changes I think will make our drone boy both more effective and more appealing to new players, as I believe an update to his kit has been long overdue. I also encourage any readers to please comment your own ideas or criticisms below as well, I am always curious what others have to say; the more people we have talking about it, the better chance it may have for a developer to see it. I will be active on this post for quite some time, so don’t be afraid to ping me, I will likely respond within the day.
Before I go I would like to share some small quality-of-life changes I have had ideas for, not necessarily buffs but simply improvements to communication between Crypto and his teammates as per Crypto’s kit:
- Teammates should see the same little drone symbol that Crypto sees when his own drone is in vision so as for them to more easily discern between enemy Crypto drones and their Crypto teammate’s one
- Enemy Crypto ultimates should have red sparks alongside the usual blue so as to more easily be able to tell when an EMP is coming from an enemy Crypto or a teammate Crypto
- When his drone gets destroyed it should drop a little marker where it happened, not showing where an enemy shot it from, but at least showing Crypto and his team where the drone was when it got shot, allowing your team to conclude either that an enemy might be nearby that spot or just otherwise acknowledge the fact that that spot was in the line of sight of an enemy.
- Crypto should be able to gather replicator materials from his drone, he can already interact with doors and crates so this change isn’t really so unexpected. Perhaps keep this disabled in Arenas however, for fairness
- When pinging banners to see the number of squads nearby, that number should display on the ping marker just in case your teammates missed hearing the voice line
Please leave a comment below, I look forward to reading it!
That’s all, folks!
