A suggestion to change evo shields in favor of crafting. [ Edited ]

[Kinesis862]

The Issue:

The issue as I see it is the sacrifice of tactical gameplay in favor of full send barrel against chest and press trigger gameplay that current mechanics reward far more than it should. Where this issue stems from is the benefits players get from evo, shield swapping, and free shields from thirsting down players. These together end up rewarding players who just suicide charge full send and hot swap shields after abusing the atrocious hitreg that is knockdown shields for quick and immediate shields, paired with evo shields allowing you to outright abandon your earned shields as you can just thirst your way into a replacement with ease.

The solution:

1. Remove evo shields and restore the old non-evo ones.
2. Reward damage with crafting materials instead of evo (1 crafting material for every 10 damage. Downed player damage is not counted.)
3. Set crafters to be able to upgrade shields with fixed material amounts (25 for white to blue, 50 for blue to purple, and I would recommend just outright removing red shields. That is just winners keep winning material that would end in craftable red and gold shields. I would rather both remain uncraftable (in normal crafters) so that gold shields still have rarity.)
4. Add syringes and shield cells to crafters
5. Set all body shields of deathboxes to 0 shield charge on drop. (or the value it had when they died, which would rarely be non-0 anyway unless they died to ring/caustic)
6. Implement knockdown shield changes to discourage in combat thirsting and encourage finishers for free shield recharges instead (https://answers.ea.com/t5/Weapons-Loot-Feedback/Making-knockdown-shields-actually-useful-and-removin...)

The Result:

The result is still rewarding for high damage players, but requires them to take tactical action to cash in on that damage. Instead of just being handed a free upgrade by peppering squads from miles away they have to seek out a crafter (usually in dangerous spots later in the game) to cash in on their reward. This would also make a crafter-centric character viable as being able to summon a crafter to a specific location would be valuable rather than mostly moot when people are just handed a free shield upgrade immediately. It also allows more diversity in the reward you get for doing damage, instead of only being useful for a body shield you can use those materials to get ammo/gear/supplies you might be short on later in the match.

[BigMacAttack8u]

@Kinesis862 I don’t agree with this idea at all. It would make it really hard to have a good Evo shield, unless you landed by a crafter, in which case you could get it to purple immediately. All crafters would be come hoy drops, and that would ruin gameplay. Shield swapping in death boxes makes gameplay more variable, and rewards you for killing. What you have suggested would make apex a passive and calm battle royale. It would punish you for being in any sort of fight. I really hope this never comes to the game, I am all for preventing the thirsting of downed persons, just not in that way.

[Kinesis862]

@BigMacAttack8uThe idea that all crafters would be hot-drops is kind of absurd given just how many crafters there are across the map. Their existence would do nothing to change that players either drop the middle of the map, the first 2 seconds of drop, or the blue zone.

Also part of the hotdrop issue itself the nature of evo giving free shields regardless of loot in the area. Aside from the obvious impatience of players, hotdropping guarantees the victor high grade shields even if the loot pool in the area has none. Together those two items create create an incentive and reward for the impatient players that just want to play arenas deathmatch, but for some reason won't play arenas and want the game to be control 24/7 instead of a battle royal.

Shield swapping is much the same as tap-straffing and wall jumping. Its something only the more professional players use regularly and actively shove on the rest of the playerbase who don't care for it. Outside of smurfs, you don't see much shield swapping in rookie to silver, and its only mildly more common in gold. So that is close to over half the population that does not use the mechanic, but is punished by its existence.

If you think a lack of shield swapping would make the game more passive, then I suspect you have not played at or below gold where most players are. There is no shortage of teams who will full send the moment so much as one player is cracked. All shield swapping does is serve to diminish the value of the battle royal part of the battle royal and push it more into a team deathmatch game.

You do realize this is a battle royal, where supplies are a thing right? Taking damage and picking a fight you think you can win is not an issue. Ranked as well still rewards kills at an almost equal rate to survival so long as you make it to the late game. Nothing I am suggesting changes that.

With the way it is now, Vantage's passive to show shield strength is pointless because you know by half squads left the vast majority of them will already have purple shields, making a mockery of the idea of shield rarity and punishing players who do not choose to take losing fights in a hotdrop with behind the curve shields. It only serves to make looting a disadvantage and incentivize hotdrops.

[BigMacAttack8u]

@Kinesis862 You do realize that Thai is a BATTLE royale, not an I’m-just going-to-wait-around-until someone-kills-me royale. You should reward players for playing the game, with a levels up Evo Shield. Having it be only be obtained through crafting would be horrible for the game. I do not wish to reward players that don’t have enough brain cells to shield swap. Shield swapping is a great tactic, I don’t know why in this entire post, you wish to favor those who just sit around, and don’t know what a shield swap is. I really hope this idea never comes to the game. If you don’t like something, because you don’t know how to use it, try learning before you call for it to be removed.