Did you get baited?
It's ok, I'm not going to crap all over your new favorite game, I want to improve it.
We, as a community, have seen a bunch of BRs come and go, and none of them even got close to making into the BIG Esports scene, but Apex has a real shot at it, in my opinion, but not in it's current state. Bugs aside(I'm sure they'll be fixed soon enough), Apex has the groundwork to become a accomplished Esport, but some things need to change.
All accomplished Esports have mainly two things in common: complexity, and consistency.
Complexity in the sense of how deep can you go with strategies and how high is the skill ceiling of the game; consistency in how relatable every match is to one another based in your skillset. With BRs, the main problem is that there are neither of those aspects in the basic game mode. Let me expand on that.
In BRs, all complexity and consistency is mainly traded for accessibility and replayability. Most BRs are very simplistic in it's core aspects: run, find equipment, kill enemies, get their equipment, and survive. The skill ceiling for that is ridiculously low for top gamers, and as a confirmation to this thesis, you can all watch any top level FPS gamer playing this game, they instantly reach the skill ceiling. Though, I am happy that Apex managed to increase the complexity by introducing Legends, and by consequence, player roles to the mix, and that is why I say it has the groundwork to become an Esport.
And now I get to the second point. Because of the nature of BRs, in which your equipment, your positioning, and your weapons are random, there is little strategy that can be developed by top level players, and everything develops into a simplistic battle, where more times than necessary, luck decides the winner.
Because of these major flaws in the design of BRs(not of Apex, in particular), creating a major competitive scene is pretty much impossible, so how to fix that, without losing the core aspect of BRs?
Cue the "Capture the flags" game mode. What is capture the flags, you say? Hear(read?) me out.
The objective is simple: capture the most flags, and your team wins. But then, it's not a BR, you imbecile!
But it is! It's a BR with the main objetive being to capture the flags, but of course, with some modifications to the core elements of BRs. Here it goes:
- In this mode, the ring will always have the same center. This way teams will be able to plan out their movement more consistently.
- Flags will randomly spawn all over the map, the teams will have one minute to plan their path before the dropship starts to fly over the island and they need to drop.
- In set positions of the map, there will be drop beacons where you can cash in your flags for points, taking them out of your inventory. But while you are cashing in, you will emit a sound beacon, compromising your position.
- You can kill other players for the flags their are carrying.
- Flags will take slots in your bag.
- Closer to the final ring, a big flag will spawn. If this flag is picked up, the game ends. If there are people with flags in their bags, those flags are automatically cashed in for points.
- Points will be awarded at the end of the match for the top 3 teams with the most kills. The teams with the most points at the end, win.
This modifications, I believe, make the game more consistent, while also forcing people to experiment with different strategies. Would you rather walk around with flags clogging up your inventory, or reveal your position? Will you bait people into thinking you are cashing in, only to ambush them? Will you bait people so that you can go the opposite way and avoid them? Will you go after beacons to try and get their flags? There are multiple layers of strategies that I can think of, and I'm not really that good a strategist. I'm sure there would be teams doing some pretty crazy stuff if this ever came to be.
Anyway, this is my take on how to make Apex shake the bases of the Esports scene. If you ever read this, let me know what you think.
