Apex Legends weird death box bug makes players invincible

As the Apex Legends World Series heads to the Winter Tour on January 29, we spoke to ALGS Commissioner John Nelson about the future of Respawn Entertainment’s battle royale as an esport.

Looking back on the past year and ignoring obstacles beyond your control, what do you think of Apex Legends’ growth as an esport?

I think Apex Legends esports is in a great place. Obviously, we decided at the start of this year to have a much different Apex Legends Global Series than the one we ended up with, one that was supposed to have at least 12 live events – and the world said, ” You can’t have them, they all have to be online. ”But we’ve really hit a rhythm now with the online tours and found a formula for Apex Legends esports (when it has to be online).

And it really works: working for the players who participate and we’ve also seen the viewership increase over time. We’ve had to face a lot of adversity this year, but we’re really excited to know where we ended up and are ready to return to live events as soon as it is safe.

Apex Legends enjoys an enthusiastic casual fan base and much of the content in the game is geared towards this group. Is there a lag in the growth of esports versus occasional growth?

I certainly haven’t observed anything like this. In some ways, the opposite is true. Every season we see more and more players committing to the game’s ranked leagues, which is really where a lot of players start their competition: they compete in the ranked leagues and then graduate, to some extent. , in Apex Legends. World Series.

So really, the increased excitement around the in-game ranking system and seeing ALGS players like ImperialHal being in-game influencers really shows how, from an audience perspective, even if it doesn’t. not about ALGS content all the time, how enthusiastic viewers are. watching some of the best players in the world.

Considering the aforementioned content drops, how much dialogue is there between Respawn’s esports and casual teams to ensure the new additions match the goals of the competition? Essentially, how much of an emphasis is there on keeping things that are good competitively not getting out of date professionally?

I think there are two different angles for this one. First off, I can say that the Respawn dev team listens to feedback across the entire skill spectrum, but, especially when talking about esports, they’ve listened to the professional community and their thoughts on how improve the game in certain ways.

While I can’t speak to specifics, I believe in 2021 we’ll see things happening in the game that are improvements based specifically on feedback from pro players.

6 p.m. and I still don’t miss pic.twitter.com/bRB5Txs8Yn

– ImperialHal (@TSM_ImperialHal) December 31, 2020

What we see a lot in games that have legends with particular abilities is that depending on skill level we might see different weapons and different legends being used at a Gold level, a Diamond level. or an ALGS Finals level. There are differences there.

And I think that contributes to a healthy game, with weapons or legends that have prevalence or use at some skill levels, but maybe not at others. The community can benefit from these things in different ways.

When does a split occur, where, for example, attachments are allowed in the base game but not allowed in ALGS?

We’re taking these things caption by caption and article by article, but I have tremendous confidence in the Respawn development team to be able to design things that balance with each other and get feedback from the community. community when necessary to continue to balance the game. move forward. But there are even instances where we’ve now made changes to remove elements from competitive play, the Gold Knockdown Shield is a good example – which hasn’t been part of the ALGS as of this summer.

When it comes to legends and abilities, other esports like League of Legends and Overwatch have introduced hero bans (or selection restrictions). Is this something the ALGS is considering as the game’s legends portfolio grows?

It is. I don’t know if this will really be part of Apex Legends esports, but it’s definitely something we’re considering. It also brings another interesting dynamic to esport itself. This leads to conversation between fans and between gameplay analysts, just trying to predict what a team’s bans will be and how they will strategize based on the bans that have been released and their pool of legends. available.

There are definitely some positives there. We’re obviously not in a place yet where we need to implement something like this, but it’s definitely a thought we’ve been considering for the future.

Speaking of issues with RNG, there have been concerns about ring logic and how it affects the game at a competitive level. Have you seen and taken into account the suggestions from the community to introduce preset ring movements?

Absolutely, we’ve seen that kind of suggestion or, at least, the suggestion that there is a little more consistency in the end circles in the ALGS game. And, again, I can’t speak to any specifics of things that might happen to the game in the future, but I can say we’ve heard these comments and had some discussions about potential solutions.

What you touched on earlier – having more consistency in the end circles or more predictability – is one of the things we discussed.

Compared to fall, what rides should fans expect from the Winter Circuit?

We’ve changed the way places are allocated in the playoffs slightly. We have moved our show from Monday to Sunday so I think our Winter Circuit show will benefit from being on the weekend and all of our fans who have a little more time to spend watching ALGS on the weekends than the day of the week.

Like I said earlier, we really found a groove with these tracks so there wasn’t much to change between fall and winter. One of the great things is that we have increased the prize pool, which is now at $ 750,000. What this really represents is the growth of the Apex Legends world series. This reflects this growth and should be seen as an expectation for prize pools at least as large.

Aside from the prize pool, what are the plans for the ALGS placement points earned by the teams during each circuit?

Since the launch of the Apex Legends Global Series, our intention has always been that ALGS points be a determining factor in qualifying for live events. So once we are able to get back to live events, we intend to get out of it.

For most of this year and how we had to rotate the ALGS, a lot of players outside of this standalone circuit have been wondering, “What are my points for?” and we fully intend to use them as intended as qualifiers for live events once they are physically possible again.

And I guess part of that will involve cross-regional events?

When I say go back to live events, I mean go back to world live events. It’s been September of last year at the Preseason Invitational that we were able to crown a world champion and we are really looking forward to the day when we can do it again.

Regionally, is a different approach to meta by each region something viewers should expect to see?

It’s done. From APAC North to APAC South to Europe, North America and South America, each region really has its own meta.

The Summer Circuit Playoffs, for example, we saw in APAC North a Revenant on every team – and I’m not sure we’ve seen one in the Americas playoffs. And, again, throughout the fall circuit, we’ve seen this sort of thing unfold where each region has its own meta.

So just from the perspective of wanting to be able to crown a world champion, I can’t wait for the live events. But also I can’t wait for those regions, which have had their competitions siled for a long time now, to mix up metas and see what happens when these different combinations of Legends come together.

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After some delay, the ALGS winter circuit will start on January 29th. This will be followed by the Apex Legends Global Series Championship, which will host the top 60 teams, and a prize pool of $ 1 million.