Re: Circle damage increase feedback thread UPDATED June14.

@nooblet123 I wasn't really trying to argue for no damage increase at all, but even just doubling or quadrupling the basic damage would be a fairly worthwhile deterrent imo. Certainly 15 is way way too high for early rings and means that just getting caught out a tiny bit or running across another team at wrong moment is more or less and instant game over.

@Koochi-Q I agree camping is a total pain but it's not something I have personally seen more of outside than inside the ring... some people camp choke spots just inside the ring for players coming in, some people camp buildings well inside the ring, and sure, some people camp passage areas outside the ring waiting players who are further out to come through - in my experience some players are more likely to camp and will still do it regardless of the ring.

Also if you get into a fight with a team as the ring is coming in what are you supposed to do? And why is fighting outside the ring such a problem anyway... so long as you're fighting, not just sat still waiting to ambush people. Turning your back and trying to run is often one of the fastest ways to die in Apex, and you can guarantee that many players out there will keep shooting you in the back to try and get the kill even if it ultimately means they end up dying too from ring damage themselves... so you're damned either way. Run you die, fight you die.

@Vhalei Yeah, I think damage ramping is already a good solution, but I also think it could be combined with a distance from safe zone thing, so as long as you are running/moving towards the safe zone the damage will stop ramping.

I never really thought camping outside ring camping was such a problem that this needed to be changed, but at the same time I think some increases are fair enough if people are finding it a major problem. And things like respawning... in my personal opinion if your teammates die in a fight but you can respawn them outside the ring near to their death boxes so they can get their stuff back then that is fair enough and not unsportsmanlike play. It just seems like so many legit reasons to be outside the ring for a bit are being penalized in order to stop a few campers who will probably camp anyway, just now they will do it inside the ring.

Late game I thought the damage was fine as it was, it hurt like hell and forced you to move fast but still left possibility to get caught outside a little bit without it being an instant death sentence. All I can see is you will now get people using creeping barrage/defensive bombardment or just nade spam to prevent other teams from approaching the ring for a few seconds, and the resulting ring damage will get you the win. 

For me winning when you did nothing more than wait for other players to get knocked down by the ring is the most unsatisfying way to end a game and always feels like a total anti-climax.

At least we all seem to agree that the current solution is way over the top... like I said to David, is like using napalm to get rid of a couple of weeds on your front lawn! Thnks for thoughtful replies all!

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@Vhalei wrote:
@kartikins the whole point of the circle is to remove portions of the map from play. The problem has forever been that people can simply spend the first 10 mins or so of the game using the circle to avoid combat while they get free access to any unlooted areas, and people just generally lingering in places where they should be restricted from. If your deathboxes are in a restricted area and you can get your gear and run quick enough, fair play and good luck. If not? Bad luck. Find new gear.
Another solution I have seen that I think would work is a second, slower moving, circle. It follows behind the first circle, and instantly kills anyone who steps outside of it. They could add a significant delay and varied distances that it stops without completely aligning with the initial ring (maybe 100m of ring first after 2 mins, then later 10-15m of accessible ring after 30 seconds).

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If you decide to drop further away from the circle there is now more urgency to loot faster and move closer to the action. Sure it's going to be a safer play, but you won't have that luxury of time looting up while other squads are eliminated. There's also a risk of the chance of an enemy squad looking down your way as you run from the ring, so you'll have to contend with both as you flee from it. 

Do you feel the ring should be feared?

I don't get the issue.

You know what the ring does and know to avoid it. You should not want to get caught in it, and certainly shouldn't want to re-enter it.

How you are all getting caught out is a mystery to me.

This is speeding the game play up forcing people together, which is what people wanted. It was even suggested on here more than once that the ring should do more damage.

I like the heavy damage.

This damage is really insane. It seems like it punishes significantly more regular players, compared to those, who intentionally camp outside.

In general simple damage increase does not seem right to me. Any of these options would be better:

• Modify the damage based on how far you are from the edge
• Gradually increase the damage over time after the ring is stopped
• Increase the damage over time only for those who stay outside (like first 15 seconds - regular damage, next 15 seconds - double damage etc.)

@EA_Blueberry 

You stated the following:

"If you decide to drop further away from the circle there is now more urgency to loot faster and move closer to the action. Sure it's going to be a safer play, but you won't have that luxury of time looting up while other squads are eliminated. There's also a risk of the chance of an enemy squad looking down your way as you run from the ring, so you'll have to contend with both as you flee from it. "

Just out of curiosity when jumping from the ship how do I know where the circle is going to be? I am a veteran player from Fortnite and that was and always has been the challenge. Where is circle going? 

I don't "decide" to drop further away from the circle any more than anyone else does. What I and the people I play with do is launch where we think we want to go, watch other squads and pick a zone close to if not on top of other squad to loot and engage as fast as possible. This has been the strategy we have used in every battle royale type game we play together. 

I posted earlier about our experience with the circle, but after reading this comment I felt the need to respond. There is no way to decide in the beginning how far away from the circle you are going to be and under the current "elite" circle damage settings all this game is doing as soon as you see the circle on the other side of the map, you better stop looting/not pick a fight, chicken up and run. 

Honestly I put no value on the multi streak badge and laugh if I am in a random fill game with a level 20 player who has 5 streaks and less than 20 kills on their character. 

I like the concept behind the elite and I hope you guys do address the storm damage. But I also feel there is so much more that could be tweaked in this game at this point that I will continue to play normal Apex and rack up a couple hundred thousand more legend tokens.

On a side note the game is pretty well polished and one helluva fun game to play, thanks for the fun times.

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@Vhalei wrote:
@mastiffslingerThere is a certain amount of rng to the game, thats kinda the point. Drop relay and zone is in thunderdome? Bad luck, better move quick. Complaining about that rng element is akin to complaining about loot tiering. You drop on a mazibique, your enemy drops on a peacekeeper? Bad luck, try again. You really are given quite a lot of time to get a wriggle on at the start. Almost immediately after you drop you know where the ring is going to go, and if its far away you should start planning for that immediately and not waste time in a 5-10 min poke battle.

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You're saying that by having more damage and being faster, the circle amplifies the affect of RNG in Apex Elite compared to ordinary Apex because players have less time to prepare for battle. You believe that if looting is even more of a lottery in Apex Elite that it will prove who the real Champions are even though or even because the result is more dependant on RNG?

If that isn't what you're saying then why are you advocating RNG in Elite Queue?

Surely the fairer and more equal a game is the more likely you are to find who has the more skill and is the best?

If the game is more random than ever then surely the results are more random as well? 🤔

The topic is feedback on the increased circle damage. I gave mine. I also responded to an earlier statement about deciding to land outside circle because in the context written it sounds like an informed choice. Which obviously it isn’t since it is random. 

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@mastiffslinger wrote:

@EA_Blueberry 

You stated the following:

"If you decide to drop further away from the circle there is now more urgency to loot faster and move closer to the action. Sure it's going to be a safer play, but you won't have that luxury of time looting up while other squads are eliminated. There's also a risk of the chance of an enemy squad looking down your way as you run from the ring, so you'll have to contend with both as you flee from it. "

Just out of curiosity when jumping from the ship how do I know where the circle is going to be? I am a veteran player from Fortnite and that was and always has been the challenge. Where is circle going? 

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@mastiffslinger 

There's no way to know where the circle will first appear, but in general if you land in the corners of the map you're increasing your chances of having to run further if the ring appears towards the opposite end of the map. It's very possible the circle's end can still appear in your corner, but if you land near the middle you'll usually have a lesser distance to run. If you're Pathfinder though, you can see where the next ring will be by tapping one of the beacons. Huge advantage towards the end so you can make a defensive stand while others are running from the ring.

@kartikins 

From what I'm seeing the feedback is that the ring's strength is too strong and needs to be slightly nerfed. 

What do you all think about not nerfing the strength of the ring but reduce the speed of it so you have more time to loot and outrun it?

Utilizing the ring for fighting & looting is/was an integral part of the gameplay.

A risk/reward decision that the player made.

You've pushed ring damage up so high that this risk/reward decision had been almost entirely removed; no finesse, or complexity of choice, just a binary 'in ring -> good, outside ring -> dead'

There's no venturing into the storm to out flank or reposition, no res'ing in the storm, no weighing up of looting vs moving, no fights in the storm.

It's thoroughly detrimental to gameplay.

So, at first I didn't like this change which I'm going to put down to a possible spike in cheating when Elite Queue was released.

But I have also noticed the players are sticking together and working together more. Which is quite an important thing to bear in mind because I think that anything that gets players to need each other is going to be positive. I think I'm going to need more time to assess the changes to damage but at the moment I'm starting to think that ordinary Apex could also do with a tweak to circle damage just so that it at least stings a bit more.

@EA_Blueberry "Needs to be slightly nerfed"?!?!? Omg please read the comments just following that last reply of yours - 

@TheJumpingJawa "You've pushed ring damage up so high that this risk/reward decision had been almost entirely removed; no finesse, or complexity of choice, just a binary 'in ring -> good, outside ring -> dead'"

@h5mf0vcnd32w "no it needs to be extremely nerfed - no actually reverted!"

@WookieSlayer_x "The change in circle damage from standard Apex to Elite is very unbalanced. This should be reduced greatly."

@GUZZ_ZYN "We literally do not have time to even fight unless you get lucky and drop inside of circle 1. Why should I be punished for dropping at the most aggressive position for the current game in a game modes that supposed to promote competitiveness and aggressive play? It’s absurd"

@GhostRaiden91 "legitimate players are all dying to the storm either after a fight or don't even make it because the storm kills us in less than 3 seconds!!! i get that you guys are trying to stop the outside storm camping, but to increase the first storm ring damage from 1% to 15% is just crazy!!!"

and

"Man This new Storm/Ring update makes apex not even fun.... :'\"

@Gidoru "I dont know how good you are at math, but it seems to me like the game LOST a lot of strategy."

and

"Respawn needs to stop listening to Reddit echo chamber for feedback. This change is bad."

@Dargone21 "Yay! Three squads killed by ring while fighting, with no chance to escape."

Sry @EA_Blueberry but I think you're just seeing what you want to see. Most people think this is WAY TOO FAR and mostly completely unnecessary. I still think 7dmg per tick on first ring is way too much as it doesn't give players time to do anything except run...
Mid combat? Forget it - you'll still die way too fast to hang about fighting
Looting after win? No chance can't loot and heal.
Respawning? Not a hope, you'd be down before you got to respawn beacon and your teammates wouldn't stand a chance without healing items and wouldn't have time to get them

Imo anything above 4dmg per tick is too much, and even that will seriously reduce options in some situations. Like I said in previous posts it wouldn't be difficult to create a system whereby damage in scale depending on the situation.

4dmg per tick base.... if you are currently in combat then you get a 75% damage reduction until the combat ends (i.e 1dmg per tick)... if combat ended in last 30 seconds you get a 50% (2 per tick) reduction... 30-45 seconds you get a 25% (3 dmg per tick) reduction and more than a minute no reduction.

OR have a system whereby while the ring is moving it does more damage the deeper you are in it... so when it first crosses you you only take 1 dmg per tick... 50 meters in it ups to 2 dmg per tick, 100m in and it goes to 3dmg per tick, 150m goes to 4dmg per tick and 200m or more it goes to 5. Then multiple those numbers by the time you are outside... up to 30secs x1; 30-45 x2; 45-60 x3 and over 60 x4. That way you give players a little more time and freedom.

Once again, where is the proof that SO many players are abusing this anyway?  As people keep saying, this reduces many useful and legit strategies and makes the game "dumber" to play... sure it's annoying if you do get caught by campers, but if it's only one team out of 20 or maybe more who actually do this you are screwing over the majority of players to stop the odd idiot team... I don't think camping is destroying the Apex community (although hackers might)

And news flash now teams can exploit this and be encouraged to camp, teams with a pathfinder can get a few nades, camp in a bottleneck just inside the next ring, and simply wait for teams to come though who will be very weak and have lost all their health to the stupid ring damage and then nade spam them to death... great strategy, really deserving or rewards, they don't even need guns... if you nade spam a team as they are coming into the ring you stop them going forward into the nades and keep them in the ring until they are knocked... then with a lifeline you can loot all their stuff by running in and out of ring to get their things.

If you want to specifically target campers then in my previous posts I suggested ways to do that, but yes they involve more complex calculations rather than just applying blanked damage to every single player regardless of situation. The suggestions in this post however are really not that complex to introduce and can be applied to all players without that much work. Octane already has a system which decides whether he is "in combat"... then you just need to add a multiplier based on time... jeez I am pretty sure I could code that (well maybe not in Source but certainly in Unreal or Unity - thanks for keeping up with the times Valve)

Are you really that stuck for resources that you are unable to provide a more nuanced solution than one damage all the time for everyone?

I agree 1dmg per tick is maybe a little low in Elite mode as you can stay outside healing for a long time if you want, so I am in favour of a slight increase... but I think even just doubling it would discourage a lot of people as you use more health items and spend more time healing thus less time looting... going above 4 is. imo totally ridiculous and complete overkill. I also think second ring should not be increased that much either, it's only when you get to ring 3 that the damage should start seriously ramping up.

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@kartikins wrote:

OR have a system whereby while the ring is moving it does more damage the deeper you are in it... so when it first crosses you you only take 1 dmg per tick... 50 meters in it ups to 2 dmg per tick, 100m in and it goes to 3dmg per tick, 150m goes to 4dmg per tick and 200m or more it goes to 5. Then multiple those numbers by the time you are outside... up to 30secs x1; 30-45 x2; 45-60 x3 and over 60 x4. That way you give players a little more time and freedom.

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@kartikins 

First, thank you for writing all the feedback and quoting responses from the thread. That takes time to do and also helps summarize feedback from the discussion for those just jumping into it.

Second, the community has spoken! The damage was too strong and based off the feedback we've been seeing the team adjusted it.

This doesn't mean that's the end of changes and the damage will stay there. The team will closely monitor everyone's thoughts on this damage adjustment and review the data for games.

I quoted that section of your response above because I just love it and it would indeed make for an interesting system. We've actually seen this mentioned before from other players too, but not sure if there's a technical limitation behind it. We'll make sure the feedback here gets passed along to the team though. 👍

Keep on voicing your thoughts and hope you all enjoy the weekend in the ring! 

@EA_Blueberry TYVM for a longer, more considered response. Let me be clear that the numbers I gave before were just an example of the kind of direction I think it would be best to go IF the consensus of a majority of players is that changes do indeed need to be made at all to the damage how it was prior to these changes. I do feel however that your previous response of, "people are okay with the changes but think the damage should be nerfed a bit" did not capture the majority of sentiments expressed in this thread and certainly didn't address my own personal concerns... as to me the majority were, "nerfed a lot" and/or "why change it at all".

I do fully agree that 1 dmg per tick does afford players the possibility to spend a long time outside the ring for little penalty, and as a result does leave for the possibility for players to exploit that and ignore the "spirit of the game". I personally have a play fair attitude and once the ring closes in I will always head as quickly as I can towards the new zone, grabbing any loot I can easily get which is on my way. And to be fair in my experience most other players seem to do the same thing.

Apex is basically a very well designed game in the sense that by far the quickest way to get well kitted out is to get in fights and loot your victims, and in the late game teams with purple everything will have a great advantage. Imo high ring 1 (and even 2) damage undermines this idea by discouraging fighting OR preventing players from reaping the rewards of fighting... or from recovering from a failed engagement (repsawning).

Now, if you see a team but the ring is coming in 30 seconds you will be far more tempted NOT to engage so as not to get caught when the ring comes in... OR you do engage with 30-60 to go, have a furious battle and win against two teams, but then cannot reap any rewards and have to run to zone with nothing and without even having the time to recharge your still white shields... this totally goes against what I believe is great about Apex.

Personally I am not really convinced that people exploiting the low damage of ring 1 to loot/camp is really that much of a problem, if you were to ask me to list things which I think harm the experience for players I would put cheating, hitreg, sound bugs, latency and even loot distribution (why in some areas can you get nothing but p2020s, shield cells and the odd arc star in 90% of buildings, then you go into one room and find purple shields, peacekeeper, r301 and light extended mag all next to each other?!)  higher on the list. But also I think that players who have the "camping"/"exploit" mentality will always camp or exploit... there is very little you can do against that. Like I said if you want to exploit now, all you need to do is drop in a more central area, grab as many grenades as you can carry, then go camp a choke point and wait for teams coming in with the ring... dead easy exploit and if the ring is doing huge damage, impossible to defend against.

I have often thought that all players in Apex should get slowly regenerating health when not in combat (like Octane at least half the speed)... you could discourage camping in all circumstances by making health regen dependent on keeping moving... but that's probably a topic for another thread. 🙂 

@kartikinsWhat they are saying.

The change does not make sense even if you're getting a lot of positive feedback, which I highly doubt that you are. Unless you count Reddit which is literally just an echo chamber in which one side of an issue is up voted and the other is down voted and pushed to the bottom without justification or explanation.

What are you gaining from this change?
1. People can not longer camp the zone to reach top 5

What are you losing from this change?
1. Ability to loot in the zone, something which helps to equalize RNG elements of the game
2. Ability to fight in the zone, something you cant always prevent
3. Ability to revive teammates in the zone. If nothing else this thing alone is not worth losing. The ability to revive teammates and make clutch comebacks is part of what Apex so much fun. Ive won multiple games where my 2 partner died and I ended up making an epic escape, revived them and won the game.
4. Ability to reposition in the zone to counter edge campers. In the current Elite if you're caught between edge campers and the zone you're dead and lose the game 90% of the time. There is essentially nothing you can do, they have a better position and all the time in the world, yet you have no choice but to run right into them and cant stop.

You're losing a core part of the fun and identity of the game for something thats not even a big problem.I dont remember A SINGLE person complaining about zone camping ever. I understand you're probably testing this out for the Ranked Mode in Season 2, but you need to look at other solutions or other metric for determining ranks.

Honestly I could see the damage of the first 2 zones going up from normals because the first zone is pitiful but it shouldnt COMPLETELY REMOVE all zone based gameplay. AT MOST it should be something like 3,6,9,12 for the zones. Anything higher compromises gameplay and tactics.

@Gidoru Sry man, but why are you addressing that to me? Its more or less exactly what I have been saying since the start. I 100% agree, this change does way more harm than good.

I personally am skeptical that campers and exploiters are posing such a problem to the game anyway, but if people feel they are then I have already suggested a number of ways to address that without undermining all these other things.

In my opinion, those who camp/exploit will always find a way to do that anyway... in my last post I said how players can jump centrally, stock up on nades, goto a choke point and nade spam any team trying to get back into the zone... either they will have to run into the nades (and go down) or stay back in the ring (and also go down)... then you just run in and out looting for a few seconds at a time until you've got all their stuff.

Anyway, you should be addressing your comments to Blueberry or someone, they are the ones who need convincing, not me. I am only one person and I don't claim for a second to speak for other Apex players, but it certainly seems from this thread that a much greater percentage of players feel these changes are detrimental than positive.

Take care.

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@warslag wrote:

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@Vhalei wrote:
@mastiffslingerThere is a certain amount of rng to the game, thats kinda the point. Drop relay and zone is in thunderdome? Bad luck, better move quick. Complaining about that rng element is akin to complaining about loot tiering. You drop on a mazibique, your enemy drops on a peacekeeper? Bad luck, try again. You really are given quite a lot of time to get a wriggle on at the start. Almost immediately after you drop you know where the ring is going to go, and if its far away you should start planning for that immediately and not waste time in a 5-10 min poke battle.

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You're saying that by having more damage and being faster, the circle amplifies the affect of RNG in Apex Elite compared to ordinary Apex because players have less time to prepare for battle. You believe that if looting is even more of a lottery in Apex Elite that it will prove who the real Champions are even though or even because the result is more dependant on RNG?

If that isn't what you're saying then why are you advocating RNG in Elite Queue?

Surely the fairer and more equal a game is the more likely you are to find who has the more skill and is the best?

If the game is more random than ever then surely the results are more random as well? 🤔

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The skill doesn't come into play from the RNG, its how you manage what you have and use it to get the kills and the win. High risk high reward based on chance.  And I dont think the circle should move faster, but have more damage? definitely. Skilled players keep track of it and utilise it to pressure other players. The skilled player is the one who knows what they have, what the enemy has, and manipulates the situation to their advantage instead of crying about the game not being fair. We could just cover every single loot area in tier 3 shields, peacekeepers, r99s, r301s and call it a day, because that makes the game fair and removes the RNG, but that would break the game. The fun aspect of battle royales is getting what you are given by the numbers and working the situation into a victory.

@Vhalei
Oh wow so in order to be a 'skilled player' you have to be able to know what the enemy has? How does the 'skilled player' accomplish this exactly without some wizardry or use of a hack that lists enemies loadouts? So I should just see the enemies 200 meters away and automatically know what kind of armor, weapons and attachments they have to be good at this game right? Just like you right? Please do enlighten me.

The skilled player is also one that "manipulates the situation to their advantage instead of crying about the game not being fair."
Hmm interesting take you have there, so players like Shroud, Mendokusaii and Dizzy who are infinitely better than you'll ever be at this game and have all complained about 'things not being fair' must not be skilled players by your definition huh? Im pretty sure I can find a pro player(something you'll never be btw) in literally any game who has complained that something in that game isnt fair, but they just suck according to you.  Seems like you know what real skill is though right? You must be the most skilled player around, im sure thats why you're making millions on dollars on twitch with all the people tuning in to your sick FPS skills right?