Forum Discussion

6 years ago

Comprehensive list of new Legend proposals (19 new legends)

Hi! I already posted this list in the Feedback forum, but I wanted these suggestions discussed with the community for quality assurance and maybe even adding more legends to this list. I'll credit yo...

discussion

Matrijx

6 years ago

While the ideas are cool on paper and these Legends would be fun to play, you also need to think about whether their abilities promote healthy gameplay. By healthy gameplay, I both mean fair and fun to play against and not too game breaking. Let me make a couple of examples with the first few Legends you described.

Risen - Tactical ability is OP. Even with a huge cooldown it still is unfair. You can rush any player and basically auto-win with not much counter-play available. Ultimate is also OP. Enemies can choose whether wasting bullets into you and being killed by your teammates, or shooting your team and getting punched to death.

Fowl - Suddenly turning invulnerable while still doing damage is insanely OP. Ultimate quickly draining HP to 10% is also game breaking.

Chip - Sounds like it came out of Overwatch. Goes against the spirit of the game. No in-game Legend has advantages gun-wise. The slow would also be insanely annoying to play against.

Hawkeye - See Chip.

Blue Red - Ultimate would be OP (and annoying) if it lasted 2 seconds, let alone more.

I think the general problem with your suggestions is that you're trying too hard to make the abilities character-defining, while not considering healthy gameplay hard enough. Abilities should all have clear counter-play available. If you think about current in-game Legends, abilities are mainly either defensive/tactical abilities or mobility boosts.
Let's not turn Apex into Overwatch BR 🙂

ZeptikkHue

6 years ago

Thanks for the feedback Matriix. Yeah, I've not had the time to fully analyze these yet which is why I would like a discussion like this. Weakening or strengthening abilities should be trivial.

Risen has a large hitbox like somewhere between Caustic and Gibraltars. Gibraltar has both a shield in front of him and Fortified, but he is still the worst legend by far and this why I reckon 30% damage reduction for a limited period should be fine as he is weaker than Gibraltar when ability cools down. I have however reduced tactical duration to 5 sec based on your feedback. You do not auto win because a large hitbox easily experience taking 30% more bullets than the smaller ones. Gibraltars hitbox is 140% bigger than Wraiths and Caustics is 105% bigger! :O Try hitting a full mag into a moving Wraith with R99 compared to Caustic or Gibraltar. I guarantee you that you usually hit the bigger ones with at least 30% more bullets on average. Not only that but larger hitboxes means you can engage them at a further distance than they can engage you.

I tweaked his Ultimate a bit by removing the "Consider restoring health on transition" part and adding a transition period of 1 second or so where you stand still and are fully vulnerable. I am a bit afraid his ultimate now is too weak actually, but I guess being weaker is a better starting point than being OP. We'll only know for sure through testing.

Fowl also have a large hitbox and no Fortified which is why he needs better abilities than all the current legends. He is the weakest at base and inflicting damage to others while invulnerable is challenging, easy to flee from and also gives you a penalty of health loss, which makes you even easier to kill when the ability ends. He needs a great Ultimate for the mentioned reasons and please remember it can't kill anyone and it does not affect shield, so someone with a level 3 shield lose less than half their health at maximum. Now compare that to Gibraltars ultimate which can easily kill anyone. Gibraltar is currently the weakest character and Fowl will be even weaker at base value.

Chip: I have not played Overwatch and I don't see how his Ultimate gives him a gun-wise advantage which differs in philosophy from Bloodhounds Ultimate or Digital Threat. Both help you aim better. His tactical would be annoying at the same level as Caustic gas or grenades, maybe even less as you would not get slower rotation and you would not get a blurry vision.

Hawkeye: Here I agree he gets a gun-wise advantage, but only for snipers which are quite underpowered currently. I have not heard Respawn mentioning they will never release Legends with such advantages, but if that is their philosophy then I would surely respect that. I personally would not be afraid for such advantages if they are balanced and believe it would make for more varied gameplay as the gun fighting mechanics in this game is quite shallow with little variation.

Blue Red: I agree Ultimate would be annoying. How about changing it to their view bobbing a lot instead, simulating an uncontrollable laugh?

I don't really care that much about defining the characters, so I would not mind at all changing their abilities for making sure the game is intact. 🙂 I just need some more brainpower to quality check my ideas by looking at them a bit differently and that I thank you for!