As a big fan and an active player of a massively popular battle-royale “Apex Legends”, dev streams are just as interesting as gameplay trailers for me. During one of those dev streams, one of the developers mentioned that not too many players know about the additional effect of the so-called “Finishers” in Apex Legends. I will quickly explain what “finishers” do, to make the point i will be making, clearer: During a match of Apex, when battling against enemy players, one’s health might deplete to 0 (I know you know, but some might not). After a player loses their health points, they will be “Knocked down”, having their movement speed reduced and the ability to use weapons removed. While in the KD state, their teammates have 90 seconds to get them back on their feet and in to the battlefield. During those 90 seconds, enemy players can either: A) Spray them down with gunfire, finish them. or if they have a knockdown shield, which makes shooting them harder, B) They can use a finisher (that every character has by default) A finisher is a 4-5 second animation, that triggers when executing a KD enemy player. After the animation of the finisher, the enemy is killed, and the player’s armor is restored to full. This is an interesting way, to finish an enemy player, and also regain some much needed armor (which can take 5-10 seconds to regain by using in-game Shield Cells).
As it turns out, not too many players know about these features, considering finishers as just a tool to “style” on the opponent. After hearing this, I decided to investigate the possible causes for the lack of knowledge about finishers among players. I have been playing “Apex legends” since season 1, and I actively follow the patch notes / announcements surrounding the game. After a quick check, I found that “finishers” did not use to charge one’s armor before the Season 3 patch, and this feature was exclusive to one of the rare “Gold armors” found in the loot pool.
It became clear, that this change was only announced in the patch notes, which not enough players read, and even all of the players did so, the total player count has risen by around 70% since Season 3, So that still leaves many of the players in the dark. Such a thing, is only possible, because: 1) There is no incentive to use finishers, except for the prompt when approaching a KD player. 2) There is no indication that the finishers charge the player’s shields once executed. So the only way a player could know about this feature is either through the patch notes, or just by using a finisher, which also does not provide much to show that your shields have been refilled.
Thus, after thinking about how to approach this problem, and how it could be fixed, i reached a simple conclusion.
All that is needed, is just a simple icon, signifying the “hidden” benefit of the execution.
Here is a mockup that i created.
This is just a small adjustment, that will solve this 5 season long problem, and make it clear even to the newest of players.
I believe the developers had their hands full with more important issues, that affect the gameplay, otherwise, they would have implemented this long ago. Either way, I hope this will be added in some way soon. A like on my tweet from a “Respawn” Game designer, gives me hope in regards to the addition, but an unlike which happened a couple hours later, leaves me guessing. That’s it for this simple fix.
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