Apex Legend’s announcement met with praise and frustration
Teased only a day before on August 5th, Respawn Entertainment floated out an esoteric gif urging players to “call ya mums” – thread theories immediately began spreading, with many guessing correctly the announcement of Season 6 – “Boosted.” Included are a new Battle Pass, new Ranking Season, a crafting system, and a new playable Legend – 'Rampart.'
According to the announcement, Rampart is “An expert modder who made her name in underground fight clubs, Rampart talks big and has the ballistics to back it up.” Ramparts inclusion will bring the total number of playable characters up to fourteen. The update will also introduce the ‘Volt’ – an energy-based SMG with high damage.
'Crafting’ has already been a part of Apex Legends but not to the extent of what Season 6 Promises. Typically, players spend ‘crafting’ metals to unlock cosmetic items, which can be earned by opening ‘Apex Packs’ – loot boxes that contain materials and assorted cosmetics with drop-probabilities based on rarity.
The new update will allow players to craft gear from resources distributed around the map. There is no confirmation yet as to if this system will allow players to create consumables, ammunition, weapons etc. completley from scratch and/or upgrade owned equipment.
Despite the announcement of new content, some fans still took to Twitter to complain, mostly about skill-based matchmaking. This system aims to pit players against others who are similar in their performance. All going well, everyone on a team is about the same level, while also on-par with opponents who perform similarly. The problem arises when the adjustments for player skills are miscalculated, and players end up in wildly inappropriate ‘leagues’ (for lack of a better term), whether they are good or bad.
Another problem is that a system that aims to segregate the player-base off of performance is ripe for abuse. For example, what if a high-level player felt like making a new account just so they could be matched with other new players, and then proceed to obliterate them. It’s not hard to imagine, especially since Apex Legends is a free-to-play game.
However, it can be argued that without skill-based matchmaking, seasoned veterans and high-level players would dominate those of lower skill anyway should they happened to match against each other. Respawn Analyst Emri Ruhi assured those asking that skill-based matchmaking would continuously be tweaked when pressed about it last month.
Apex Legends is available for free on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch. Season 6 will officially release on August 18th.
