Apex Legends Devs on How Weapons are Balanced

At the ALGS Championship, esports.gg spoke with two senior Apex Legends devs about the current weapon meta and future items they might add. Eric Canavese and Josh Mohan discussed taking inspiration from other games, adding future grenades and more.

You can watch the full interview with esports.gg on YouTube here:

It's hard to avoid comparisons between games like Fortnite and Apex Legends. Apex Legends introduces Respawn Beacons in 2019, and shortly after Fortnite introduces Reboot Vans.

There is a tough balance for Apex Legends devs. How do you balance innovation and imitation? John Mohan explains hiss thinking behind taking inspiration from other games.

"We obviously look at all sorts of other games. Other BR's, other shooters. I'm personally working on the strategic elements of the game and I draw references from all sorts of games. So, I think there's a rule in game design. We don't really see it as imitation to draw inspiration from another game.

"There's always a lot of creative work that goes into integrating an idea from a different game into your game so I would never say that another game ripped us off or we ripped off another game. There's this pool of ideas that as designers we all share and participate in."

One thing that Apex Legends devs are always exploring is new mechanics in the game. There is a pressure to keep things fresh and interesting. One such mechanic could be adding bullet ricochet. However, Eric Calvanese feels that this would not be fun to play against.

"It's unhealthy. We find that if you cannot see the person that's dealing damage to you, you cannot pinpoint their location. The counterplay elements start to dissolve away and that feels bad. We've prototyped ricochet weapons for sure. It just doesn't work, it doesn't feel good, it doesn't feel healthy.

"When you take that damage we want you to see the bullet tracers, hear the shots and be able to say "okay they are coming from this direction. What are our options on this side of the building or the area we are trying to cover?" So ultimately not a good thing for Apex.

Both Apex Legends devs also weighed in on which guns they feel are the most well balanced. Josh opted for the 30-30 Repeater, which was very popular at the ALGS Championship. It took a long time for Eric and the weapons team to encourage players to try the 30-30.

The gun has become so popular that it was recently moved into the crafter. This is usually done with weapons that Respawn want to make harder to access, like the Nemesis.

However, weapons designer Eric opted for the R301. A consistent choice since the games release, the R301 is considered a very simple weapon to use. Although it has gentle recoil, only hitting every shot in your magazine will allow you to "one-clip" enemy players.

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