Apex Legends updates too slowly to keep players interested

Apex Legends had the easiest and most successful launch of all Royal Battle Games. While games like Fortnite took months to build a base of players and a Twitch presence, Mountain peak shot at number one in his first day. But a lack of updates, a litany of bugs and fierce competition have destroyed Apex LegendsLaunch launch.

In the first month of its release, 50 million players have been downloaded Apex Legends looking for a new royal battle experience. At launch, the game offered a comprehensive list of accessibility features and quality of life enhancements (such as smart pings or squad resuscitation) that make the complex genre more accessible. Since, Apex Legends stagnated.

Respawn Entertainment / Electronic Arts

Apex Legends was smooth until the production of the first patch. What should have been a simple update for bug fixes instead introduced a host of new issues. These bugs have introduced unexpected abilities such as player theft and malfunctioning firearms. All these questions were settled in a few days, but it created false precedents.

Although minor bugs are part of any major video game patch, Apex Legends' the problems have recently crossed a line. Respawn's latest fix for the game, Update 1.1, resets player account progress as soon as they log in.

"Everything is gone, legends, skin, stats and all currencies other than Apex coins, I really hope that they can fix this problem, otherwise it will be really bad," said the user P3RrYCH from Reddit about their deleted account. A few hours after the hotfix was released, the developer shut down its servers and eventually released a new fix that canceled the lost progress.

What aggravates these problems is that the patches themselves do not make sense. Apex Legends had only three fixes or total balance adjustments apart from the bug fixes and almost all are nerves. Two months after the release, Mountain peak added a new character and a new gun. Fortnite Version 8.10 included three major balance changes, reworked the game's vending machines – an important way to acquire loot – and added a new vehicle and reworked animations for healing.

This may seem like an attempt by Respawn to update a royal battle game, but slowness is intentional. According to an article published with the first update of the balance of the game, Respawn does not wish to change Apex Legends often. "We make less frequent, better tested, and larger impact scale changes to minimize the impact on your time spent in controlling the game," said Respawn. Rather than upset the meta by moving what is powerful or not, the developer would prefer to publish carefully balanced and tested patches. The result is very few balance changes and some very buggy fixes.

So far, these infrequent changes do not seem to resonate in players. The relaxed player Respawn counts after his launch in the stratosphere, but the numbers of recent players have remained silent. Although we do not have official figures, there are some anecdotal ways to see how the game is going. If we take Twitch for example, it's easy to see the fall of Apex Legends the viewers.

According to twitchmetrics.com, Apex Legends enjoyed an average of about 200,000 simultaneous viewers during its first few weeks, but has fallen to about 50,000 on average since. Some selected banners, like Shroud, can bring the game up, but most of the time, the streaming community has returned to old clips such as League of Legends and Fortnite.

Without the excitement of fresh content, players lose interest in Apex Legends. Fortnite, which remains the undisputed leader in the royal battle genre, is the perfect counterexample for Apex Legends slow and steady strategy.

Epic updates Fortnite every week. A new weapon or new object comes into play at least once every two, with new game modes and points of interest on the map. In the v8.30 patch, Epic added a complete respawn feature to the game, the new Fly Explosives game mode and the Buccaneer Bounty event, all just a week after launching a new weapon. It's a frantic pace, but it's designed to always give players something new to do in the game. Fortnite, Apex LegendThe pace is icy.

Respawn Entertainment / Electronic Arts

What's making things worse for Apex Legends does Epic continue to use the game as a source of inspiration for Fortnite updates. Few weeks later Apex LegendsLiberation, Epic lifted the ping system that helped make Mountain peak stand out at launch. Mix in the above addition of respawning in Fortnite and it's clear a part of Apex Legends' the biggest innovations are no longer unique.

Another point of friction for the game was his cosmetics. The arrival of Apex Legends Battle Pass last month seemed like an opportunity for Respawn to show off the exciting rewards he had created. But the cosmetics were not exciting at all.

No one has been pumped about tracking statistics, lines of characters and poses that fill the Battle Pass. "This battle package is a trash (the rewards you get) can not recommend it to anyone," said JUST_NYASHKA, a Reddit user. Worse, getting every reward from the Pass is a job that requires more XP than most of the highest account levels in the game. In the absence of a challenge, the pass does not require you to make an effort to try something new. Instead, the release of the Battle Pass involved playing the same game in the same way that you always played it.

Although all these questions seem disastrous for Apex Legends, the truth is that it's actually pretty normal. These are the growth pains you have not heard of since Fortnite and PUBG because they did not have millions of players in their first two months. For these games, the developers found what worked with time and helped to give them the best of themselves through constant improvements. With enough time, Respawn may be able to do the same with Apex Legends. Royal Battle fans will watch them every step of the way.