After a successful launch of Season 10, the Apex dev took part in a Reddit AMA. The topic of new legend Seer being overpowered was addressed in length, and a nerf is coming.
Earlier today seven members of the Respawn Entertainment team took part in an AMA on Reddit. The AMA comes two days after the release of Apex Legends Season 10, which has been a phenomenal success, with many high profile streamers such as NickMercs, TimtheTatman, Cloakzy and Nickeh30 ah picking up the game. A big topic of discussion centred around the balance of Apex Legends' Seer, the newest legend to be added to the game for Season 10.
"Seer has launched strong, which was the hope"
When asked by one Reddit user when the players might expect a balance patch for Apex Legends' Seer, the Respawn team were very clear he would need one.
"Seer has launched strong, which was the hope. He's also brought a lot of new gameplay elements to the game (HP bars, interrupt) which has driven a lot of discussion with players, which is great to see," said Travis Nordin, Respawn Entertainment's Gameplay Engineer. "With that being said he is probably a bit too strong at the moment."
"The intent was strong and not broken" - Respawn's Travis Nordin
Nordin went on to clarify that the dev team did not aim to release a broken legend, but instead were keen to avoid releasing an underwhelming legend.
"The intent was strong and not broken. I think you can look back at some of our previous legends and see that we missed the mark there, where they were picked a lot in the first week and then they fall into obscurity," said Nordin. "At the end of the day we just can't know exactly how something is going to land in the wild with 100% accuracy.
"Seer is too strong right now and we'll be looking to adjust him soon in an upcoming patch. (...) Balance and meta is always going to be a moving target as new things get added to the game."
In a later comment Nordin added: "Seer specifically went through multiple gameplay kits and iterations before shipping which was shaped directly by both internal and external feedback."
"I will say that the (Seer's) flash on hit ended up being way more than intended and we will be removing that aspect entirely from the ability."
Dev team on Seer's flash: "We will be removing that aspect entirely from the ability."
When asked whether the adjustments to Seer would involve experimenting with other gameplay kits that the legend had gone through during development, Nordin said he "wouldn't expect fundamental changes to the kit".
"I will say that the flash on hit ended up being way more than intended and we will be removing that aspect entirely from the ability."
Legend balance was the primary topic in the Reddit AMA, with calls for the likes of Crypto and Wattson to be given a buff to help them be more viable.
Devs aware that Seer's introduction affects viability of old legends
While new Legends are always refreshing, Seer's abilities are extremely potent. So much so, that it has been a recurring theme on social media that the utility of the newer legends endangers the viability of the older Legends.
One of the Legends to be affected is Bangalore, as her tactical ability smoke screen is rendered void by Apex Legends' Seer. Bangalore was one of the initial characters when Apex launched in February 2019, but since then her abilities have rarely been touched. The last change came in Season 9, when the smoke of Smoke Launcher was thickened.
In an appearance on the Apex Uncut podcast during Season 9, Respawn's balance designer John "JayLiebs" Larson even went to so far as to say Bangalore represented "perfect balance". The addition of Seer however, definitely changes things. Fortunately the dev team responded to the topic in the Reddit AMA.
"I am a Bangalore main and I feel for you!" said Respawn's Senior Level Designer Garrett Metcalf. "I have expressed the same feelings towards the legends balancing team and hopefully, we can see our girl get the buff she needs."
On the topic of legend meta, TSM's Snip3down posted on Twitter saying that he believed the next character in Apex should come with a debuff ability. "Would be a really good balance for the current character meta in my opinion, since there is no counters," said Snip3down.
You can check out the full Reddit AMA here.