Mendo suggests all of the ways that Respawn can “fix” Apex Legends
Jung Park - ArtStationFormer Overwatch pro Lucas ‘Mendokusaii’ Håkansson, one of the biggest names in the Apex Legends community, has suggested what Respawn Entertainment can do to “fix” their game.
There’s no hiding the fact that the popularity of Apex Legends has noticeably plateaued since the explosive success the game initially experienced when it was first released.
Things have gotten to the point where expert financial analysts are calling the game “wildly overrated” and “fading fast,” just months after many were titling the game as the first ever true rival to Fortnite Battle Royale.
Mendo’s list of suggestions to Respawn
In an effort to help the developers at Respawn improve Apex Legends to the point where it’s back in the players’ good graces, Mendo has offered a list of suggestions that could go towards “fixing” the game.
Mendo, of course, is a world-record holder in Apex and considered to be one of the best players in the world, so there’s no doubt he definitely knows what he’s talking about when it comes to the battle royale title.
Apex needs a ranked mode, and fast
Mendo starts things off by imploring Respawn to “rush” and put out a “semi-functional” ranked mode that will at least keep players engaged in terms of both playing and watching.
He mentions that an MMR based matchmaking system is not needed, and that a simply separate ranked queue along with leaderboards, reward ranks, and a top-500 style list should be enough for now.
Solos and Duos are a must
When Apex Legends was first released, many were perplexed that the default mode required teams of three.
Mendo, along with almost everyone in the community, wants to see Solos and Duos playlists be added to the game to make the game flexible and give players new options.
Balancing patches and new content
The lack of new content has been one of the major points of criticism that Respawn have been hit with, and Mendo suggests that whatever they do plan on releasing, they should be transparent about in announcing it beforehand.
One type of content he proposed was separate new game modes for certain parts of the map, such as a “Skull Town only” mode where players play a deathmatch-style game limited to the confines of Skull Town.
As for balancing updates, Mendo pleads for the devs to listen to the competitive community and not just go off of statistics when considering what kinds of tuning adjustments they should make to weapons and Legends.
Changes to Pathfinder and Gibraltar
Regarding Pathfinder’s hitboxes, which continue to be a major issue in Apex Legends, Mendo suggests that making them bigger would help balance things out, and if it ends up making the Legend less viable, so be it.
As for Gibraltar, he recommends the new and interest ideas be applied to the Legend to make it more usable, not just the generic 10% damage reduction that was given to it in a recent update.
Think in the positive, not in the negative
Mendo rounded off his list of suggestions by imploring Respawn to think in the positive, as in adding things to the game rather than removing them.
One example of this is when dealing with aspects that may be considered overpowered, the devs should look to buff or add to other things to make them match up better rather than nerfing what people are complaining about.
Mendo’s full list of suggestions can be found in a massive thread of tweets on his Twitter page, starting with the one below:
How to fix Apex:
RUSH to put out a semi-functional ranked mode.
A ranked mode will keep a lot of players playing the game until actual content is released.People want tons of content and i doubt Respawn has it ready, a ranked will make sure people don’t quit when waiting
— fast mendo (@Mendo) April 24, 2019
Will Respawn listen?
While all of things that Mendo has proposed do make sense in terms of helping improve Apex Legends, the main question remains on whether Respawn is willing to apply those suggestions to their development scheme.
So far, the developers have not really met the standards imposed on them by the players, and it remains unclear if they can step up enough to satisfy those that remain disappointed.