New Legend : Toybox

[Cabowse]

Toybox is far more deadly than his name suggests, with an array of recon gadgets at his disposal his eyes and ears are everywhere, and nowhere is safe.

Passive ability : Care Package Booby Trap - Toybox can tinker with any open care package and turn them into lethal traps, when players open the now tampered care package they will be met with an explosion that can down any legend without shields.

Tactical ability : Sonar Tick - Toybox can attach Sonar ticks to walls and ceilings. Each tick sends a sonar pulse out every 5 seconds revealing enemies & traps in a small vicinity (Max 2)

Ultimate ability : Recon Drone - For his ultimate ability Toybox can pilot a small recon drone to scout out an area for enemies. Pinging enemies from the recon drone will briefly reveal them to teammates and show them on the minimap. The drone has no combat capabilities but is small with 75hp so it can also be used as an effective distraction for your teammates to take advantage of.

Would love to hear any additional thoughts on this Legend concept, or even a potential backstory.

Please go nuts!

[ZeptikkHue]

Hi!

Thanks for the suggestion, you have some cool ideas.

However, I do not think these abilities fit this game. I for sure would not play a Legend like this and here is why:

Passive ability: You should always have a chance to avoid traps if you pay attention, so this would mean it would be marked somehow to reveal it is trapped, which would make the ability useless. Alternatively it would not be marked, but that would just be too random and feel unfair for the victims. Passive also really means automatic, so you would automatically boobytrap care packages. How would that work? For it to be boobytrapped you would need the care package to seem unopened, so it would always look unopened for enemies until you trigger it then? Seems quite inconsistent.

Tactical ability: This one has too little utility as it's kind of like Bloodhounds tactical which is one of the most useless skills in the game, at least for medium to high skilled players. If you enable audio and have a reasonably well versed game sense you know where close by enemies are and you don't really care about those who are far away.

Ultimate ability: Doing Recon would firstly make you a sitting duck as your avatar would just stand there. Secondly it would be a pain in the * for your teammates to always be waiting for you to do your recon. This game is all about moving, getting inside the circle and flanking your opponents, you don't have time to send out recon drones all the time.

A Legend like this would better fit a Rainbow Six kind of game.

Cheers!

[Cabowse]

Hi Zeptikk and thank-you for responding.

I would like to hopefully expand on the skills and hopefully change your mind on them as I believe they would work very well within the game.

---

@ZeptikkHue wrote:

Passive ability: You should always have a chance to avoid traps if you pay attention, so this would mean it would be marked somehow to reveal it is trapped, which would make the ability useless. Alternatively it would not be marked, but that would just be too random and feel unfair for the victims. Passive also really means automatic, so you would automatically boobytrap care packages. How would that work? For it to be boobytrapped you would need the care package to seem unopened, so it would always look unopened for enemies until you trigger it then? Seems quite inconsistent.

---

 

So the passive ability would work in a similar way that Pathfinder interacts with the beacons around the map. The care package would have to be opened and fully looted before the prompt to booby trap it becomes an option. The care package really needs to be as convincing as possible for it to be at all effective, but there would be a few tells and ways to distinguish it from a regular care package.

1. The blue light that comes upwards from most care packages would not be there.

2. There is likely to be loot dotted around the package from the team that found it.

3. Bloodhound or Toybox can use their tactical ability to scan the package

4. Wraith can use her passive ability to check if it's a trap.

On top of this the explosion would not be immediate so any fast players may be able to get away from the blast in time.

---

@ZeptikkHue wrote:

Tactical ability: This one has too little utility as it's kind of like Bloodhounds tactical which is one of the most useless skills in the game, at least for medium to high skilled players. If you enable audio and have a reasonably well versed game sense you know where close by enemies are and you don't really care about those who are far away.

---

I think that the utility for these would be quite high, I use a headset in game and often find it very difficult to identify people's locations from just their footsteps alone. You would be able to set these up in doorways and other locations and would be able to use them almost as alarms. Very useful also if there is an enemy hiding from you. Also unlike bloodhounds ability these ticks can be thrown and left, so Toybox's location is not revealed when using them.

---

@ZeptikkHue wrote:

Ultimate ability: Doing Recon would firstly make you a sitting duck as your avatar would just stand there. Secondly it would be a pain in the * for your teammates to always be waiting for you to do your recon. This game is all about moving, getting inside the circle and flanking your opponents, you don't have time to send out recon drones all the time.

---

I think the trade-off with Toybox is that the ultimate is very useful in the right situations but he has to be stationary for it to work. With total knowledge of an enemy team's where-about's your team members would have an incredible advantage in a firefight. This is not an ability you would use in the middle of a firefight, but one when you are safe and looking for targets to engage. The skill would have a pretty long cooldown as well for good reason. As long as you're using the ability in the right situations you shouldn't really be stuck with a team waiting for you to move. There may also be the ability to put your drone on auto if you just want to keep moving while it scans around while following you, but its potential would be limited.

You have to remember that in the scheme of things all of the legends abilities are only useful to a degree and in the right situations. I think all of these abilities would work really well in the current game and really shake things up a little. It would also add another recon legend to the roster which would be nice to see.

Anyway thanks for the feedback and I hope you have enjoy yourself out there!

[ZeptikkHue]

Passive: Cheers. I actually forgot that Pathfinders passive is not really a passive, so in this regard I agree it makes sense that you could make more passives which enables you to interact with stuff, like placing traps. However, I am still 99.9% sure that the booby-trapped care package ability will be pretty much useless against medium to high skilled players. I think abilities should work well no matter the player skill levels. I'd rather come up with something else for a passive which everyone may enjoy. Maybe enemies should be pinged automaticly (just once per enemy) when they are in plain view and within 300 meters or so.

Tactical: I am a fairly skilled player and I rarely have trouble locating people through audio, which is why I find Bloodhound pretty meaningless in his current form. I will however try to be constructive here. So how about the ticks your talk about stick to the enemy when triggered? This way they will glow up and even be visible through walls for a period of time. Maybe for 10-15 seconds or so.

Ultimate: Knowing exactly instead of approximately where people are through recon at the cost of momentum is not worth it for a skilled player, because you get to know this fast enough anyways. However, you did mention automatic recon with a drone that follows you and this is making more sense to me, but it would be nearly impossible to make it work well inside buildings or caves because of complicated collision\level layout. I would change your ultimate to a deep scan, which scans the area in a 500 meter radius or so and reveals enemies and their shield level or something like this instead.

Peace!

[Cabowse]

Some nice ideas! Yeah I think this legend would fit more of a support role and I think higher skilled players will probably choose legends like Octane, Wraith, Lifeline and Bangalore over him. Apex is a game that pits people up against others of all different skill levels, so I think the abilities will always have use, or at least I'd find them useful as a mid-level player.

I think he is nice as a character that players with a lower skill levels can play and still feel useful, you don't have to be high skill to fly his drone and for your team to get value from you. If you are a higher skilled player, the ability to use your ultimate and tactical to distract your enemies would introduce a whole other level of play style to him.

[ZeptikkHue]

Looks like where we disagree a bit is in the philosophy or mindset behind Apex then. I believe we should strive for all legends being useful and fun no matter the player skill level. Legends should fit your style, not your skill.

Change your legends abilities to something which will work for all skill tiers and I'm sure you'll have a winner.

Keep at it!