PART 1 of 2
Hey folks,
I wanted to take some time to respond to this thread in particular because I know a lot of effort was put in by members at uBSN and r/MECoOp to write these questions out and by /u/JRandall0308 to wrangle these up.
First off some disclaimers.
1) As we’ve noted on our Twitch streams (and tweets), we cannot answer every question. There are a few different reasons for this. If you’re curious, Mark Darrah (EP for the Dragon Age franchise) wrote up this thread on his Twitter following some questions around the launch of DAI. They are all still relevant, so please check them out.
2) I can’t stand the formatting of Reddit… so, like an old person, I copied the whole original message into MS Word and formatted it the way I wanted to avoid having to use the awful quote function of Reddit several times in a single post. Original questions will start with “OP Q – “ and my responses will start with “BB – “ 3) Bastiaan may chime in on some of these as well. He may have different responses than I. I’m only speaking for myself here. As a producer, I will try to speak to details about player experience but for more detailed design philosophies, designers are best suited to speak to those (where possible). 4) I had to split the post into 2 parts due to length…
Alrighty, here we go…
OP Q – When will we start seeing comprehensive, accurate patch notes?
BB – As noted below in the edit to the post we did touch on this a bit in the stream. We have a couple different sets of “Patch Notes” that we collect with a patch. I generally focus on getting the list from the team regarding adjustments to multiplayer balance. Fernando and Conal will gather notes regarding the overall patch (including single-player campaign changes). We post these separately since we’ve heard on MEA and previous projects that some players are only looking for one or the other and don’t like to have to sift through a larger single document/post for the details they are after. That said, there are changes and adjustments that we capture in our notes, and sometimes others that are not captured. This is something we’re always working on to improve. Our goal is to give the most comprehensive and accurate list possible. In some cases, there are undocumented adjustments because we didn’t capture them at the time the change was implemented, or possibly because the change was the bi-product of another change and so while it’s fixed, it wasn’t the focus of the change that was implemented. Regardless, we’re aiming to get better with each of these.
OP Q – Last week we asked about making a ‘known issues’ sticky on EA Answers HQ and a few items were stickied, but there are a LOT more that should be added. In the absence of a comprehensive ‘known issues’ list, should we continue to bug report everything, even longstanding issues like the sound bug?
BB – The game team and the Customer Experience team try to keep threads up to date as much as possible. In some cases issues get bumped around, or missed from time to time. If you experience an issue and don’t see it noted, it’s always best to note it to be safe. We appreciate the effort everyone has put into adding issues and helping us to track the issues that are affecting players.
OP Q – Data miners have observed that the multi-detonator powers Throw and Shockwave have penalties to their detonation damage. Is this intentional design or a bug that should be reported? answered verbally during the stream, thanks!
OP Q – Do you feel that the ‘scrapper’ playstyle (melee-focused, point-blank, with shotgun and/or pistol) gives the right reward for its inherent risk and frustration? To clarify: A ‘scrapper’ is exposed to a lot of fire from extremely accurate enemies and can be easily staggered out of melee, which was chosen instead of durability in the fitness tree.
BB – I think for this, the key takeaway for me would be that the fact that the question was raised (and the chosen wording) we’ll take it as feedback that some players feel it is not where they would expect it to be and will bring it up in upcoming balance discussions.
OP Q – What is the design philosophy around jump+melee? It deals less damage than regular melee (does have a small AOE) and exposes the player to incoming fire for a long time.
BB – The combat team would be the best to respond, but I think it’s about making sure there is additional utility for the player when jumping. Jumping in and of itself provides utility for mobility and evasion. It also leaves the player somewhat vulnerable in the air. Pressing melee in the air brings the player back to the ground a bit quicker, impacts (and staggers some) enemies, sets them up for follow-up powers or weapons attacks. That said, it could become overpowered if players can endlessly “bunny hop” and melee from enemy to enemy with no “cooldown” effect or trade-offs. Melee is something we’re always reviewing and evaluating relative to primary combat attacks like powers and weapons.
OP Q – What is the design philosophy around powers-based classes like the Asari Huntress and the Krogan Mercenary, who don’t have any way to self-detonate their own combos? Edit: examples aside, I believe the intent of the question was: what is the point of certain 'powers' characters who can't easily self-prime and self-detonate?
BB – I think classifying any character as a “powers” character is somewhat limiting to the character and options. It’s understandable that players want to classify characters or weapons for roles, functions, classes, etc. It helps with builds, strategies, and tactics. That said, we generally see a character having a primary function or role, but there is a lot of flexibility there based on how players build them. Personally, I see some of the characters as the start of the alley-oop (combo). They are the setup, with a team member slamming home the dunk (detonating). We have to consider that some players will like to prime and detonate their own combos, some players will prefer to be setup, and some will prefer to be finishers. If every character could prime and detonate they may all start to feel the same. Great teams in any activity or sport tend to have a range of roles, and they excel when everyone finds their role and can master that. I’m sure some will disagree with that. That’s ok. There are currently over 25 characters (yes, commons are technically duplicates), so there are different characters for different play styles and players.
OP Q – What is the design philosophy around the ‘dogs’ that spawn behind players as soon as the player takes cover (in this cover-based shooter) or engage a boss unit?
BB – I wouldn’t say that we spawn Adhis and Wraiths behind the player intentionally. I suspect part of this is potentially not seeing them spawn elsewhere, and they’ve flanked the player. This is potentially especially true of the Wraith if they are cloaked when they approach the player. I’m not aware of any AI logic that prioritizes Adhis or Wraiths to attack the players while an elite enemy is in combat. My guess here is that as a player you’re likely paying attention to the elite enemy as the primary threat which allows the Adhis or Wraiths to go undetected until they are in their melee attack range.
OP Q – Which of the Player Character races do you feel fulfills your vision the best? Which needs the most work? Ex: Krogan rage and lack of stagger resistance feels underwhelming for what is supposed to be the toughest race in the game.
BB – I don’t look at the races of characters exclusively. I try to look at the character and how they represent a role or fit into the larger roster of characters. That said, as part of how the characters are built, we have different base stats, traits, and passives based on the races that play into their builds and roles. We’ve received and reviewed feedback regarding the Krogan Rage passive power, but nothing to announce at this time.
OP Q – Will we ever see additional characters with new powers added to the game, specifically designed for Platinum difficulty?
BB – Is there a Platinum difficulty?
OP Q – Which of the enemy factions do you feel fulfills your vision the best? Which needs the most work?
BB – We’ve recently done some rebalancing for the Kett and Outlaws in Patch 1.06. We’re continuing to review feedback and data since that time. I think each enemy is meant to be competitive and provide a challenge, but also need to feel different and hopefully encourages players to learn their strengths and weaknesses and play to those. Based on my experiences and the feedback I see here and in other forums, I feel the enemy factions feel different from each other, each with various strengths. I think any game developer would tell you there are always areas for improvement, but we generally don’t get into too much detail there since that can actually negatively impact the player experience if we expose an exploit or a deficiency that could be exploited. My hope is that players can have fun with each of the enemy factions, but if they are not, hopefully they can provide us with constructive criticism and feedback as why they are not.
OP Q – Will any new enemy factions be added? For example, a Roekar or beast/wildlife faction?
BB – As a general rule we can’t go into detail about any upcoming content. See the link to the Twitter thread at the top of this post for more details. This applies to questions about features, content (including maps, characters, weapons, enemies, etc) and is why we will often default to “no comment” or “nothing to announce at this time”. The best answer I can give to any questions about what are we working on or what’s coming up is “stay tuned”.
PART 2 of 2
OP Q – Have you considered any higher XP or higher credits weekend events, as seen in other games? This would make players happy especially those who can’t play as often as they’d like to.
BB – Events are interesting, but require players to show up at pre-scheduled times that may work for some, but not necessarily all given life schedules. They tend to also push players to only play during specific times which can impact the number of players available in matchmaking at various points within a day/week/month. That said, we effectively do a bit of this with the daily APEX Missions and the longer missions we run from Thursday to Monday (most have an XP and MP Credit bonus) We’ve also added the Uncommon (50%) and Rare (75%) XP Boosters to the Item Store and adjusted how the XP is calculated at the end of a match to make those boosters more valuable. If players have access to the APEX HQ app on iOS/Android, they can earn Mission Funds playing Strike Teams away from their PC/console and spend those Mission Funds on the XP Boosters to help their progression in-game when they are able to play. We appreciate the feedback and continue to review progression, but nothing to announce at this time.
OP Q – Have you considered adjusting the Upload objective? It would be nice if enemies didn't halt progress or at least respawned farther away.
BB – We’ve seen feedback regarding Upload and challenge relative to the other objectives. Nothing to announce at this time.
OP Q – Who were you favorite characters in Mass Effect 3 multiplayer?
BB – This is like asking which of your children do you love the most… I rotated often. I really enjoyed what we did with the Earth MP DLC. My personal favourite that I go back to the most often is the N7 Destroyer though. Don’t tell the others.
OP Q – Would you consider creating a scope-less sniper rifle or assault rifle? Some players don’t like scoping in such a fast paced game.
OP Q – Hit registration off host is poor which makes certain weapons and characters unsatisfying when used off host. Is hit registration something you are looking to improve? Edit: fairly extreme example - starting at 0:14 even repeated headshots from Ghost AR aren't registering
BB – We continue to investigate issues related to lag and connections, but nothing to announce at this time.
OP Q – Any plans for lobby improvements? (such as: AFK indication / Countdown timer when 3 people ready / Join an actual 'Random/Random' game, not the same Apex lobby repeatedly)
BB – Nothing to announce at this time.
OP Q – Any plans to show in-game who is the Host after Host Migration? (so the new Host knows not to buffer video, etc.)
BB – We’ve received some feedback regarding showing who is the host in-match. Nothing to announce at this time.
OP Q – When Player Characters fall off the map, could we have more health/shields when respawned? Currently we respawn with low health/shields, in exposed spots, and enemies rip us apart before we regain control.
BB – We felt it was important to give the players the freedom to fall off the map if they wanted to explore or attempt skill jumps to get to other areas of the map, but also not reward jumping off the map as a means to avoid an enemy.
OP Q – Player Characters bounce off each other excessively, especially in narrow doorways. This same problem happened initially in DAI but was eventually fixed. Why has the problem recurred in MEA, which uses the same game engine?
BB – It’s worth clarifying a few points here. An engine and a game are very different beasts. The engine is effectively the set of tools that provide the ability to do something. The game is the actual systems and content developed by the team within that set of tools.
We’ve seen some feedback regarding player collision but nothing to announce at this time.
OP Q - Thank you very much for answering our questions! Keep up the good work.
BB - Thanks to everyone who submitted questions. Thanks again to JRandall for wrangling. Keep the questions and feedback coming. We appreciate it.
