Apex Legends : Quality of Life Improvement Requests

Quality of Life Changes

The following consists of quality of life changes that I feel would benefit the game and the players, with the intention of improving teammate communication, streamlining legend ability usage, increasing clarity of UI information, and mitigation of clunky and needlessly repetitive actions. I've tried to list the changes in order of which I think are the most important and feasible to implement, however, changes that require updates to voice lines and animations are obviously the most difficult. Please feel free share your thoughts and comments, and whether you have any other quality of life changes you like to see added to the game.

Legends

• Wraith

  
  

  • Automatically communicate to her team when her passive ability is triggered instead of relying on a manual button press.

    There is virtually no situation where it is preferential to manually activate the notification to her teammates. Manual activation is clunky, leads to less frequent utilization of the passive, and disproportionally disadvantages solo queue players who are liable to miss the callout if their teammates are in a private call.

  • Adjust or move the HUD element that shows the remaining Portal percentage so that it does not get covered up by Match notifications.

    Currently, when placing a Portal as Wraith, in-game notifications (like those for when the Ring is closing) will cover up the HUD element that shows the remaining distance percentage. This has been the case since the beginning of the game, and makes it very frustrating when attempting to place a Portal during clutch moments.

  • Add an indicator to her ultimate ability so that Wraith and her teammates can more easily know the remaining duration until the portal closes.

    This ability is highly dependent on timing and has a longer duration than almost any other ultimate ability in the game. It is very frustrating when the portal closes sooner than you expect or when you miscommunicate the estimated time remaining and something goes wrong as a result. A solution could be to add an indicator similar to those on Heat Shields and Evac Towers, update Wraith's Ultimate icon on her HUD, or create a prominent sound and/or visual cue for when the portal is close to expiring.

• Vantage

  
  

  • Automatically recall Echo when using the instant jump method version of her tactical ability.

    Currently, players have to build a habit of manually recalling Echo after nearly every jump so that they don't run into any issues next time they go to use their ability - this is overly clunky and makes for a poor player experience. To maintain the current ability to preposition Echo before jumping, a similar system to Crypto's drone might be considered.

• Valkyrie

  
  

  • Increase the skydiving speed at the very beginning of her ultimate ability, Skyward Dive.

    Currently, Valkyrie and her team fly much more slowly at the beginning of their flight compared to Jump Towers and Evac Towers. She is supposed to have an edge over both of these options due to both her ability to deploy anywhere and the height that she reaches. However, in reality she loses out which is only compounded by the fact that she initially flies so much more slowly than the competing options, making her ultimate and signature ability feel like a poor option.

• Ash

  
  

  • Change her tactical ability to an off-hand animation so that she can more reliably and consistently make use of it during fights and chaotic situations.

    Many other legends' tactical abilities are already off-hand abilities, yet Ash clearly lacks behind. The Arc Snare is an ability that doesn't have much innate utility and relies heavily on timing in order to be useful. Therefore, it should be easier to deploy so that it more reliably has an opportunity to be useful and to be balanced correctly.

Miscellaneous

• Change the default healing item from Syringes to Shield Cells.

  Shields are the first thing to be damaged and are the first thing to be healed, thus shield cells are the most likely to be used and should be the default healing item. Having to change this at the beginning of every match is unnecessarily clunky and a waste of time.




• Add the ability to switch weapon order in the loadout menu for Control and Team Death Match.

  Different players prefer different orders for their weapon slots, and having to manually swap weapon order after every single respawn is needlessly tedious and annoying.




• Add the ability to ping the number of remaining squads left in the game.

  While there are Legend voicelines for when the number of remaining squads falls below certain thresholds, they don't always trigger and can be easy to miss. There are many occasions where it is important to call out the number of teams left in the match, especially for players who do not communicate via voice or text chat, which is an important part of accessibility.




• Add image previews for the Weapon Charms and Legend Trackers menus.

  It is obnoxious and tedious to have to go through all of the options to find the one you're looking for, and adding image previews seems like a tangible addition.

  ADDITIONALLY: Move the "None" option for Weapon Charms from the bottom to the top.




• Add an indicator to the inventory menu next to teammates that shows the current charge status of their ultimate ability.

  Executing coordinated usage of abilities with teammates is a crucial part of fighting in this game. While there has been an addition of the option to ping your ultimate percentage to your teammates, the opposite relies on the discretion of your teammates, which as we all know is greatly variable. Again, this disproportionately disadvantages players who do not use voice or chat communication and is an accessibility problem.




• Add an indicator to the HUD when "Stuck" by an Arc Star and/or a Fuse Knuckle Cluster.

  Currently, there is only a sound cue, which is easy to miss during chaotic moments and disproportionately disadvantages newer players and those without reliable audio output. The indicator could look like the one that shows up when grappled by Pathfinder.




• Add an indicator to weapons in the inventory that are not ready to fire, i.e. need to be re-cocked or rechambered before shooting.

  Examples include the Peacekeeper, Sentinel, Kraber, and the 30-30 Repeater. Currently, in the midst of a fight the only way to know if your weapon is ready to fire or not is to pull out the weapon, which can be problematic. It is already possible to see the ammo remaining in the magazine from the inventory, which can help players make decisions whilst in the midst of other animations that would prevent them from switching to the weapon in time sensitive situations.

  (OPTIONAL): Make it so that when gold magazines or gold shotgun bolts reload these weapons, they aren't require to be re-cocked before shooting.

Please let me know what you think! Thanks for reading.