4Game

Due to improper balance changes, bad decision making, and almost complete removal of outplay ability, there simply isn’t enough means to consistently deal with 1v3 situations anymore.

Now here me out here, as reddit isn’t typically the place to discus topics of this magnitude. This place is more of a “HeHe Mozambique funny” place than a competitive one, but just bear with.

When this game was first launched, it had many little intricacies that allowed its exceptional players to outplay bad opponents. The weapons were set up to be high risk, high reward. Bhop healing was present. Hover off of balloons existed. And over the lifecycle of this game, this has been systematically removed and it has negatively affected the game.

The biggest issue currently contributing to this issue is the healing mechanic. It worked when bhop healing was commonplace, but now that it isn’t we all know what we’re stuck with. The third party meta. It shouldn’t be hard to believe that having a 32 second heal with small meds (which is frequent due to rng) is a bad idea. Forcing your legs to turn into concrete while it’s happening is the even bigger issue. How are you supposed to fend off a 3rd, 4th and 5th party when you somehow can’t buy yourself 32 seconds to heal, with them pushing you? The short answer is you don’t. You die. This is made even worse by weapon balance throughout the game’s history.

Looking back, on release skillful weapons were the top of the meta. If you could aim, you would be much better off. Weapons like the wingman, r99 and r301 required large amounts of skill to be effective, but were the most effective. Meaning, if you had solid movement, you could take less damage, therefor shield less, and through that process you could outplay 3 players. Now, we have a disruptor round catastrophe taking place. That is the first example. Disruptor rounds were added to the game so that a bad player can hit only a few shots and have the same impact as a better player with other weapons. As you could imagine, that didn’t work out, and now you just have your GUN DAMAGE hidden behind layers of RNG. You either get lucky and find double damage laying on the ground somewhere, or you get your shields evaporated because somebody prefired a corner and got lucky. The reason this is unhealthy for the game, while the r99 still kills faster, is because each single disruptor bullet is the equivalent to a shield cell. Each long range chip shot at the break of the fight costs 2 seconds of healing. How, as a solo player are you supposed to deal with that? Literally all it takes is for someone to hipfire a few bullets in your direction, then call out a push and they will for sure arrive before you finish. It’s literally just a free death.

The second point is the longbow. It is in the exact same boat. If someone connects 3 longbow shots, specifically on the 3 weaker characters, you’re forced to back of for up to 20 seconds. It should be obvious that the only step you can take is to back off and hope they don’t decide to end you for free. That’s what makes these guns overpowered. Yes there might be guns that kill faster. But the bottom line is, you can’t afford to lose massive chunks of health to chip damage. The healing system can’t afford it.

Loop this in with the insane reliance on RNG, and you have a game that at its highest tiers is doomed to fail. It’s the reason why competitive apex is likely to die off. It’s why cloud 9 just dumped its roster. It’s because this game simply isn’t fit for a trio setting, and that causes boring gameplay, hopeless fights, and unfun gameplay. Disruptor rounds need a removal, the longbow needs a rework, and either bhop healing needs to be re-introduced, or the healing system needs to be reworked if this game wants to continue to be appealing in a 3 man setting.