Apex Legends Season 13 kicks off on May 10 and adds Bangalore’s brother Jackson Williams as the new playable legend – posing as Newcastle, a man who repeatedly tried and failed to enter the Apex Games. Along with Newcastle, Season 13 makes some changes to the Storm Point map, with developer Respawn seemingly putting a greater emphasis on implementing player versus environment (PvE) play with the addition of IMC Armories.
Every battle royale map in Apex Legends has its own style, and Storm Point has leaned towards PvE from the start, launching with marauder and spider nests scattered throughout. Wildlife featured a risk versus reward system for players; moving through them offered what could potentially be a more direct route into the area and the opportunity to gain more loot, but at the risk of dealing with dangerous beasts.
Luchar contra los merodeadores o las arañas también conllevaba el riesgo de crear suficiente ruido para atraer a los escuadrones cercanos, lo que te colocaba entre la vida silvestre y otros jugadores. Pocas cosas en Apex Legends son más angustiosas que escuchar la cuerda lenta de un Devotion enemigo en un oído y el rugido hambriento de un merodeador en el otro.
Francamente, no todo es muy bueno en su forma actual. El botín potencial que puedes ganar por matar merodeadores o arañas por lo general no vale la pena el riesgo de que otro escuadrón te secuestre, y Storm Point tiene suficientes carriles para que puedas encontrar fácilmente la forma de sortear cualquier nido que no quieras. para competir dentro de los primeros anillos. En última instancia, da como resultado que la mayoría de la gente (incluido yo mismo) quiera evitar el PvE y se sienta frustrado si dicho PvE alguna vez se vuelve inevitable al final del partido y contribuye a una pérdida.
Presumiblemente, Respawn se ha tomado en serio las quejas de los fanáticos con Storm Point PvE, agregando una nueva fuente de conflicto PvE para los jugadores y asegurándose de que estén alejados del resto de la acción PvP. Estos nuevos enemigos son Espectros, y están encerrados en IMC Armouries. Cuatro de estos arsenales se agregarán a Storm Point en la temporada 13, cada uno de los cuales presenta una nueva forma para que los escuadrones adquieran rápidamente un botín decente. Los merodeadores y las arañas permanecerán como están, lo que significa que los problemas con la vida silvestre persistirán en la Temporada 13. Pero las Armerías de IMC al menos suenan como una forma más agradable de participar en PvE en lo que es principalmente una batalla real de PvP.
Los IMC Armouries se vieron por primera vez en el tráiler de lanzamiento de la temporada 13 de Apex Legends, aunque no funcionan como se ve en esa cinemática. “Esa es la versión cinematográfica de las armerías, digámoslo de esa manera”, dijo a GameSpot la diseñadora senior de juegos de Respawn, Samantha Kalman. “Así que la forma en que la armadura[ies] the work is there [are] four of them around the map. They have six weapons inside, so it’s enough for each squad member to get two, but they’re random. There is no other loot inside until you activate combat. There is a central console to activate the combat, which closes the entrance door, preventing enemies from entering you during the encounter. If one of your squadmates gets left behind, there’s a teleporter they can use, and only friends can use it to get in.”
Because the IMC Armories are closed again and no enemy squad can enter once their team has activated them, it prevents the possibility of them becoming third parties. Kalman explained that combat inside the armory is wave-based, with teams having a total of 60 seconds to take out as many enemy Wraiths as they can. Each wave eliminated unlocks an additional loot container. These containers use the same smart loot feature as spiders and marauders, so they always provide an upgrade to your current gear, giving players a means of upgrading their weapon attachments or finding a much-needed jump.
“And every time there is [are] enough smart loop containers for each player on the team to get their own, [each player] then you get a dedicated smart loot container,” Kalman said. So knock out at least three waves with a full squad and no one will have to fight over rewarded loot – each person will get their own upgraded loot dedicated to their current equipped gear.
You also don’t have to worry about being ambushed by a squad on your way out. Once you’ve beaten 60 seconds of combat, the doors will stay locked until you press a button to reopen the armory. Doing so also opens the roof and activates a skydiving launcher. So squads can figure out the loot situation, heal up, and then open the doors. And if a team is out, you can redeploy to another location.
“The point is that this is a PvE minigame designed to fit within a real battle, which is inherently PvP,” Kalman said. “So we want to give players a little break from PvP if they want, but we don’t want to take all the emphasis away from PvP.”
As for the difficulty of the Wraiths, they’re supposedly comparable to what you’d find in Titanfall and Titanfall 2. On their own, they don’t pose much of a threat, but if you’re facing a wave of four Wraiths while alone, you can be in trouble. . To avoid being wiped out by robot soldiers (or dying in the ring while inside an armory), you can activate the armory’s exit early, ending the 60 second waveform. It will prevent you from getting more loot, but it will allow you to make a quick exit if the situation seems uncertain.
Regarding other instances of PvE, Season 13 also adds another marauder’s nest in Cenote Cave. Additionally, the Marauder’s Nest near The Mill has been updated with the addition of more rocks that present new traversal options for both players and hungry Marauders, and the individual web sacs that make up the Spider Nest in Command Center. they have come closer
In Season 13, Storm Point will also have a new Point of Interest (POI): Downed Beast. The carcass of the monstrous crust formation that attacked the legends in the Season 13 launch trailer has been hollowed out, creating a massive landmark to explore. The new POI is located directly between The Mill, North Pad, and Chokepoint and features many of the structures placed in Kings Canyon during the Season 8 map change, following the Green Cleanup and Hazard Disclosure intervention. Two of Storm Point’s four IMC armories are also located near Downed Beast; it’s likely to be a pretty spicy drop during the first few weeks of season 13.
I didn’t get a chance to play the new Storm Point before Season 13, so I can’t comment on how IMC Armories or the new Downed Beast POI changes the experience of playing the map yet. If I had to venture a guess, I guess it’s not drastic. These Storm Point map changes seem to be more like Harvestor’s landing on World’s Edge in Season 4 or Icarus’ arrival on Olympus in Season 9 – notable additions, but ultimately they would only act as a precursor to changes much. more substantial in design. of the general map in later seasons.