BR fatigue and the future of Apex
This might be a lengthy post and I would want to say sorry in advance if my grammar isn't perfect. Sometimes the words in my head are mixing up so I can't remember some words in the correct language (people with 3 or more languages can relate to this).
First I wanna say I have so much passion for this game and this game connected my friend and I when the lockdowns happened. We used Apex mainly as a discord voice chat to catch up with each other and only secondly as a game. Eventually, all of us enjoyed the game and I can safely say we're above average players now. I'm not good at writing essays so I'll just divide my thoughts into 3 main points.
1. Great core game but lacks polish
This is one of the most cliche things about Apex is that it's still the best feeling FPS out there. No other game right now can match the feel of the guns and movement of Apex (other than titanfall of course). The core of the game is great but this game definitely lacks polish. What I meant about polish is that the small things being broken. The game is playable and does not have that one BIG problem but it's a culmination of small ones which annoys me. Small things like the blinding light when you're outside of the ring, the weird bugs where they had to remove some skins, the time we had to remove animated banner poses or it will crash your games, apex coins not appearing and other things we've encountered throughout the years. They're not game-breaking but definitely annoying.
I have huge respect for the devs working on this game and game development is no easy job to do. On the other hand, it feels like there's something limiting them to polish up the game. They're obviously talented but there definitely a huge hurdle delaying their goals for the game. Is it the engine, budget or their studio being spread too thin developing 4 games in active development simultaneously (Apex SP game, Star Wars Jedi Survivor, Star Wars FPS game, and Star Wars strategy game)?
a. Cross Progression: We all know the team really wants to implement this for a long time but I don't know what's delaying them. Other smaller games originally not having cross progression originally now has them. From Fall Guys, Rocket League and now Overwatch 2. People should give up on merging accounts at this point and Respawn shouldn't even have mentioned the thought of it.
b. Game fixes: They usually last for weeks or even months and most of the time we have to wait for the usual schedule before they release fixes. Yes pushing a fix costs money but I'm pretty sure you have a bit of money left of that 1 Billion dollar revenue to fix the game.
c. Audio fixes: Nah pretty much gave up on this and so should you. I've noticed that overtime Apex has been leaning more towards visual cues rather than audio cues and to counter the no footstep audio bugs, we're gaining more and more recon legends. Didn't hear anything? Just have a Seer on your team. No I'm not talking about Bangalore's ult drowning the audio but there literally some footsteps and abilities you can't hear. Please fix the audio on Horizon's tactical.
d. Next-gen version: It took them almost 2 years to implement but still lacks some basic features. Really thinking that there's a problem with maybe the engine, could still be an engine problem.
2. BR fatigue or Apex fatigue?
Right now I'm not sure if I'm tired with battle royale modes as a whole or just simply Apex Legends. Every time Respawn releases a BR LTM (shadow fall, armed and dangerous etc) I find it boring not because of the mode, but it's still a BR. Over the last 2-3 seasons my Apex breaks continue to get longer and longer and I'm now at the point to just finish the battlepass, move on to other games and just return when season 15 launches. Does anyone else playing less recently not that Apex has become unplayable but there's definitely monotony into the game? My lobbies also have the same legends and going up against the same enemies becomes so boring. You always have that Seer, Octane, Path, and Horizon enemy in each squad you face. Hope that there's more variety and lower level lobbies.
3. What I think should the future of Apex be
Apex can't rely on the battle royale mode forever and they know this too. Recently, they've been investing in big modes Control, Gun Game, Arenas and that other future mode which is good for the health of the game in my opinion. Continuing battle royale as its main mode with multiple LTMs either rotating or permanently should be the way to go in the future. The latest reason they gave on why Control is not a permanent mode is that people would get tired of it quickly after a few weeks which is a valid point but we should not be waiting for 3 months only for it to return for 1-2 weeks. Make a daily/weekly rotating LTM for control, gun game and arenas.
We still have fun when we play Apex just because the core gameplay is still great but overtime if they didn't fix the small issues it will add up and turn into one big problem. I'm glad that there are more competition coming out now as it keeps Respawn on their toes. I wanted to add how bad their communication is compared to other live service games but decided to reserve my thoughts on that for a different thread. The communication is there but it's all over the place.
Do you agree with these opinions? Do you still enjoy Apex as much as you did back then? What do you think should be the next direction for the game?
