So I found this to be kind of interesting. I was just playing a match where an Octane with the Buster Sword R2R5 charged at me. I shot at them, and they blocked the shots and then tried charging me but died. I then killed Octane because I wanted the Buster Sword R2R5. Their Crypto teammate then tried to push me, but my Ash and Bangalore teammates stepped in and helped fight Crypto. Ash got a lot of hits in, and Bangalore used their tactical around us. I saw Crypto run out of the smoke and then I had knocked him down. I went ahead and killed him as well, so when the 3rd, (which was a Valkyrie) came running up, Crypto couldn't use their knockdown shield to help Valkyrie.
Long winded story, I know, but as we were fighting Valkyrie, I had noticed that after I had killed Crypto, his deathbox did the animation of the $360 cosmetic, and when it fell down, it WAS the cosmetic.
At first I had thought that Crypto spent the money on the packs, but remembered that Respawn had confirmed that the skin would be for those YOU killed, not your own box. I then looked at my teammates, and Ash had the Buster Sword Heirloom on their back. So basically if your teammates deal any kind of damage to an enemy to whom you then knock and kill, the deathbox would be the cosmetic you do not own if they own it themselves.
This is something that should be reconsidered. (Understand that I find the whole event pricing and marketing a huge disgust, even though I've crafted a few packs), what should be reconsidered is the rarity of deathbox skins and who's cosmetic should be applied to deathboxes.
The one to knock down the player should be the one who's cosmetic is applied to the deathbox, but one could easily argue its whoever kills the player afterwards. Eitherway, I can't argue which is better.
The other part is the rarity; deathbox cosmetics should NOT be mythic. They should be common to legendary skins that can either be crafted, earned in the battle pass, or bought (at a fair price) in the Apex store. This deathbox skin could of very easily had been a legendary you could of drawn from the event packs or marked as an iconic skin and put into the store. It could of been bundled with a legend iconic skin and/or matching gun iconic skin for something like 4k-5k Apex coins going off EA's standard of pricing, or 3k- 3.5k going off more reasonable prices.
The Buster Sword is also something that should of been marketed differently, not "buy all 36 packs otherwise its gone forever after the event ends". It says it has a "<1%" chance on the pack page, which translates to me as "less than 1%". That's insane and feels outright criminal. Yeah, I know one could then argue a simple "don't buy it then", but that's besides the point.
We were promised this sort of thing won't happen again after they resold an heirloom rarity Peacekeeper skin that was a recolor of a battle pass level 100 skin. I understand that this is EA and free to play games need to make money, however this type of approach hurts the community as a whole and leaves players at odds with EA and Respawn.
I don't know what quota EA/Respawn has to make, but I'd honestly would of done things as such, (this will just be the Apex Coins value, since converting to each real world currency would be a hassle):
Epic Cosmetics:
- 300 Apex Coins
- 200 Crafting Materials
Current Prices:
Legendary Cosmetics:
- 1000 Apex Coins
- 850 Crafting Materials
Current Prices:
Iconic Cosmetics:
- 1250 Apex Coins
- 1200 Crafting Materials (since its an iconic, maybe not allow crafting materials; yet do allow them to be in the event packs, priced at 500 each, instead of 700, (or the now 1000), that's 2 packs for every $10)
Current Apex Coin Prices, (They're not craftable in the Final Fantasy event and I didn't see if they were in the Post Malone event):
Epic Bundle Cosmetics:
- 450 Apex Coins for two epics, (saves 150 Apex Coins)
- 600 Apex Coins for three epics, (saves 300 Apex Coins)
Current Price for 2 Epics, (no example for a bundle of 3):
Legendary Bundle Cosmetics:
- 1800 Apex Coins for two legendaries, (saves 200 Apex Coins)
- 2500 Apex Coins for three legendaries, (saves 500 Apex Coins)
Current Price for 3 Legendaries, (no examples for a bundle of 2):
Iconic Bundle Cosmetics:
- 2000 Apex coins for 2 iconics, (saves 500 Apex Coins)
- 3000 Apex coins for 3 iconics, (saves 750 Apex Coins)
There's no example for the current price, as there isn't any bundles.
Legend Tokens:
- This should get more use, other than to craft the next legend and to craft recolors. This should be something like having the ability to convert into crafting materials or heirloom shards. The cost of which, I won't get into since there's no value or estimate to go off of, so it doesn't feel right to say something like 1000 for a pack, or 50k for shards, (although that would be nice because I have 769k Legend Tokens, which is about 15 different heirlooms, if you're crafting 150 shards at a time)
More wallet friendly prices -> means more people willing to spend money -> more sales and less backlash -> happy investors, (in theory).
Sure, people would be crafting more, but having a more happy and healthy community is better in the long run. Players still put a lot into Fortnite, not just the content creators, and games like Genshin Impact has a bunch of ways where the player could earn the currency equivalent of Apex Coins. Both of these games are doing well and I don't recall ever hearing anyone complain about the prices like they do in Apex.
When Respawn responded to the backlash from the Peacekeeper heirloom event, they said to next time, "vote with your wallets", so if you don't like the current prices, don't buy anything. Cast your votes against it instead!
