We need a direct communication with Respawn!Again and again questions are being asked in this forum, that will never be answered by Respawn-employees.So how can players contact Respawn directly to get their answers? Since this is the official Apex Legends forum, I´d have guessed that this was the right place.But obviously it is not!Respawn Entertainment has no official support, no e-mail adress, no phone number...they even don´t have a forum.The only place of some Respawn-activity I know is Reddit - but it´s a one-way street: They keep posting news, community-questions are never answered.Those are f.e.- Why was "Lockdown" taken out of the Mixtape-rotation? Will it come back?- Who decided to implement Akimbos in Apex and will they be put into the care package (what imo is urgently needed)- Will the Wingman be buffed again?- Why are you making the Wingman a rare weapon by reducing its drop-rate in mixtape-matches?- Are there officially implemented bots in the game to fill the player-pool?- How does your matchmaking work? Why is it so bad?- What about the bad servers? Will there be an upgrade to finally get rid of the annoying netcode problems f.e.?- Why is there still a no-fill-problem in the game? You´re still starting with 2 squad-members in trios way too often!- Will you finally provide a monthly ban-report to the community?etc.We need a face-to-face interview with a Respawn support-member or at least someone here in this forum to answer our questions.

Hey Legends, We hear and understand the want to be closer to our developers and those concerns are valid. That's why I am here! So I can help mediate and pass along any feedback to our Devs. Sometimes, there will be some questions we won't have immediate answers for, but we are always listening. Please continue to use our forum and trust that I am here to support, listen, and deliver constructive feedback to the appropriate teams. I can guarantee that I will continue to work with all of you so we can improve and enjoy our favorite game together. 🤜Mari

Well, if they ("Respawn") don´t like answering questions directly, we could offer one solution:We could open a special section in this forum, where all our questions are collected over a certain period (2 weeks f.e.).Those questions are reviewed by the EA-CMs and forwarded to Respawn for a final reaction which is posted back here in the forum.So Respawn can keep staying in the background and EA can be the "control center" between developer and community.(Not everybody is using Reddit - I f.e. think that it´s a really bad platform with lots of arrogant mods and admins).

@Midnight9746It's a bit of misdirected hostility, but they're also representing the company that I have an issue with. You and Mari might really care, but you also might not be in a position to do much besides relay what you think is most important. There's now another bias introduced.Are either of you paid by EA? Is this a volunteered position?I think what people are trying to say with direct communication, is why aren't they working on these fundamental issues that have been talked about years at this point. They finally nerfed Aim Assist a bit, but it didn't feel like a discussion at all. Just reduced the stickiness by a percentage. Most mouse users on the forums want separated lobbies, or for the rotational assist to be turned down.Games aren't democratic, so Respawn doesn't have to listen to anyone. And sometimes the developers absolutely know best. However, I don't think most people would say that the hit detection feels acceptable for a shooter. Can we get some polls going? Maybe give the community a voice to see what issues are the most important to them. Maybe we could vote on it?You both are probably awesome people, and I doubt anyone has an issue with either of you directly. That's not the issue. The problem is the same issues persisting Year after Year beyond some minor bugs. It's a big complex game, but when we don't hear anything, or they give up trying to communicate on issues like Aim Assist or the Server performance, people are going to get mad. The biggest things I see promoted and talked about are the damn cosmetics. Hell, they even had the Deep in a commercial. Use that money to improve the servers or to fund the anti-cheat department. WTF lol.

@W3stminst3rMost of these types of questions only serve to prove that players and developers have different (though sometimes overlapping) priorities. Our priority is to get everything exactly the way we want it and their priority is to keep the game as functional as possible without tuning it to the exclusive desires of any one minority of players. Basically, we're demanding as hell and they're juggling a lot of different and often conflicting desires and expectations. But the biggest conflict of all is between our desire for a perfect game and EA's desire to spend as little money as possible in the maintenance of a game we can tolerate. After all, every dime spent on Apex is one less dime for shareholders, not to mention one less dime for the development budget of the next iteration of this game. And at this point that is what this game needs: a replacement, not a hot fix here and fine tune over there.

@W3stminst3rRespawn does NOT want to talk to the general public. In fact, they are scared of most of their player base because a few toxic @$$holes threatened the devs a few years back. Their community outreach is talking to a few pros and streamers and then doing what they want.For a perpetual service model game, their lack of community relations is neglect. Huge reason why the game is in the sorry state it is in right now, IMO.@reconzero Probably just needs to be replaced. They've jammed so much crap into this 10 year old engine that it is falling apart. Personally, I'd pay for Apex on a new engine if it meant better performance.

We need a direct communication with respawn

29 Replies

reconzero
Seasoned Ace
6 months ago
@W3stminst3r

Most of these types of questions only serve to prove that players and developers have different (though sometimes overlapping) priorities. Our priority is to get everything exactly the way we want it and their priority is to keep the game as functional as possible without tuning it to the exclusive desires of any one minority of players. Basically, we're demanding as hell and they're juggling a lot of different and often conflicting desires and expectations. But the biggest conflict of all is between our desire for a perfect game and EA's desire to spend as little money as possible in the maintenance of a game we can tolerate. After all, every dime spent on Apex is one less dime for shareholders, not to mention one less dime for the development budget of the next iteration of this game. And at this point that is what this game needs: a replacement, not a hot fix here and fine tune over there.
HappyHourSumwur
Seasoned Ace
6 months ago
@W3stminst3rRespawn does NOT want to talk to the general public. In fact, they are scared of most of their player base because a few toxic @$$holes threatened the devs a few years back. Their community outreach is talking to a few pros and streamers and then doing what they want.

For a perpetual service model game, their lack of community relations is neglect. Huge reason why the game is in the sorry state it is in right now, IMO.
@reconzero Probably just needs to be replaced. They've jammed so much crap into this 10 year old engine that it is falling apart. Personally, I'd pay for Apex on a new engine if it meant better performance.
ComicBookGuy2727
Rising Ace
6 months ago
I mean heh, If rEAspawn thinks that the few pros and streamers are the best ones to listen too and get all their info from - which maybe they believe in turn will maximize profits and increase player base - I say, have at her.
Good luck, seems to be working brilliant so far.
MrGreenWithAGun
6 months ago
There is an argument to be made why talking to pros is good feedback for any game. They know more about the game mechanics and map design than the average person. Like it or not this is more true than not.
i am not trying to excuse any exclusivity but pointing out an important point.
when I was building maps for Halo I came to learn the best source of feedback was from the highest level of players. Not only did they know more, they thought it out so well they could clearly articulate what they thought.
hayhor
Hero
6 months ago
@W3stminst3r Just an FYI- Occasionally the Apex dev team does a Q&A on reddit.
reconzero
Seasoned Ace
6 months ago
@MrGreenWithAGun

"when I was building maps for Halo I came to learn the best source of feedback was from the highest level of players. Not only did they know more, they thought it out so well they could clearly articulate what they thought."

That was never my experience. Most of them could not articulate at all why they thought something should be a certain way or not a certain way. And the vast majority of them would offer small advice here and a little critique there, and ever so gently dance around the plain fact that almost all of them preferred symmetrical arena-style maps as being the only possible configuration for "serious competition." So even if the project in question was asymmetrical, and possibly even foremost an aesthetic exercise, many of them would pick a corner of the map and say, "Why don't you just make the other three quarters the same as this?"

In the end I would look very, very carefully at the forge maps that made it into regular rotation and realize in mere seconds that these were nothing like the maps I envisioned and wanted to build or play on. I could get even uglier but that would be petty. Suffice to say that in many years of forge mode in both 4 and 5 I saw a handful of user-created maps that made me jealous. But only a handful. Most were the kind of project where I could eat a pile of primitives and puke a better map. Okay, that was the pettiness I was trying to avoid. I guess a better way of saying it is that one man's castle is another man's hovel. Yeah, that's more polite.

So no, I don't really take the pro's opinions to heart. Yes, they know more about how things work in high-level, high-speed, high-stakes play. But in many ways I think that makes them less attuned to what a normal player experiences, and certainly less attuned to what a normal player wants. Imo.
MrGreenWithAGun
6 months ago
@reconzero : And the vast majority of them would offer small advice here and a little critique there, and ever so gently dance around the plain fact that almost all of them preferred symmetrical arena-style maps as being the only possible configuration for "serious competition."

I can tell you symmetrical maps are the only real choice for competitive matches unless you are playing an asymmetrical game type, like one flag. Think of basket ball (full symmetry) and base ball (full asymmetry).

I dont know who was in your circle, but I kept myself hanging around with some of the best (not pros).
ComicBookGuy2727
Rising Ace
6 months ago
I don't want to speak for any pros, but, many have proven their advice comes from self preservation, and what is best for them and not all.
WhoopFighter
6 months ago
@hayhor They're very choosy with what they respond to, and it's usually not anything relevant. I don't think we should be giving them much credit. It's a VERY rare occurrence when a Dev decides to communicate on the forum.
MrGreenWithAGun
6 months ago
@WhoopFighter
With all the self entitlement attitudes, do you wonder why?
@ComicBookGuy2727
I never asked any for advice. I wouldn’t know how to frame a question as advice.
I asked them what made this map great or why did they prefer this over that? This is how I learned how to make great playing maps for halo.
the greatest lesson I learned from them is how critical skill gap was and how it had to be managed for all levels. Their explanation opened my eyes to all aspects of the game.