[GameSpot] - Apex Legends Season 12 Buffs Crypto, And He Might Finally Be Good

[343iBot]

Apex Legends Season 12: Defiance is right around the corner, set to start on February 8. Alongside adding new playable character Mad Maggie, Season 12 will make changes to Olympus, introduce limited-time 9v9 mode Control, and kick off Apex Legends' Year 3 Anniversary Collection Event.

As per usual, the new season will introduce a patch that makes substantial balancing adjustments to characters, weapons, and hop-ups--with the most noteworthy change being to Crypto, who is getting a fairly impressive buff to his ability kit. He's not the only one getting rebalanced, however. Season 12 will also nerf Caustic, reshuffle ground loot, adjust a few different weapons, and reintroduce one of Apex Legends' most powerful weapon hop-up attachments.

Character changes

Though the Apex Legends Season 12 patch notes will detail the specifics, Respawn has shared the broader strokes of what folks can expect regarding character adjustments. The buff to Crypto is the most appreciated takeaway, though Caustic's nerf is a welcome sight too, as it should help the trapper feel more like an actual trapper as opposed to a useful legend for making bunkers (which is the job of Wattson and Rampart).

Crypto

At a preview event for Season 12, Apex Legends live balance designer John Larson detailed what players can expect regarding the buff to Crypto. "With a versatile drone and powerful [ultimate ability], Crypto has never been 'weak,' per se," Larson said. "The goal of these changes is to make Crypto more active. Up until this point, Crypto gameplay lives in one of two places: in or out of drone mode. These changes make that less binary and have more options for skill expression that stays on brand for the surveillance expert of the Outlands."

Starting in Season 12, Crypto will be able to manually control his drone, Hack, as he always has, or toss it out in a straight line. When tossed, Hack will fly in the direction thrown, ultimately stopping after a set distance and scanning any enemies that are caught in its view. It's basically a slower, less comprehensive Bloodhound scan. Additionally, if in range of a wall, object, or ceiling, Crypto can toss Hack at it and have his drone latch onto the surface as a stationary webcam, which should prove useful when defending a room with multiple entrances.

In short, these adjustments address the most prominent issue with Crypto's kit, in that while he's using his drone, he's ill-equipped for assisting his allies on the frontlines with an aggressive push. This change should fix that--Crypto mains can still pilot his drone for more comprehensive coverage of an area, but they can also now just quickly toss out Hack to scan the immediate area in front of them if their squad is pushing an attack. If Crypto's ultimate ability is charged, it basically gives him an EMP grenade to throw forward as well.

"We're cognizant of strengths in the right hands and still believe that manually piloting the drone is [Crypto's] primary source of intel," Larson said. "We've added a ton of HUD improvements so that he isn't sacrificing any game-crucial information while in drone mode."

Caustic

Regarding Caustic's nerf, Larson said, "Something we've dialed in on is that Caustic's kit affords him some versatility that traditionally defensive characters struggle with. As everyone's favorite toxic trapper, it was important for us to make sure he maintains that differentiation from Wattson or Rampart. Those two create presence, with highly visible tactical [abilities], communicating, 'I'm here, stay out.' Caustic's a little more devious--and that's okay, as long as victims feel like they have a fighting chance."

Larson noted that Caustic's tactical ability is overwhelmingly useful. Though its purpose is to be a trap, its durability makes it useful for a variety of situations. "As the game has evolved, we've seen a massive amount of use cases for a single trap," Larson said. "It has a quick [deployment], it doesn't require much precision, it can be used offensively to siege a room, defensively when on the run or camping out in a building, and once it's detonated, it provides over 10 seconds of visual and even physical cover."

To account for that, Season 12 is changing Caustic traps so that they're no longer invincible upon activation. Teams can now shoot and destroy an activated trap, which should help them escape a trap they've already sprung or stop a Caustic from bunkering down and easily locking down all the entrances to a building with his traps.

According to Larson, Caustic mains shouldn't have to worry too much about this nerf--it's principally designed to give opponents a fighting chance, in that now players can choose to respond to an activated trap by spending ammo to destroy it, as opposed to before, where the only choice to overcome an activated trap was to run away until the trap dissipated. Even with the nerf, however, Respawn has found Caustic's traps to still be "quite strong" in internal playtests. Additionally, when a trap is destroyed, the gas it has emitted briefly lingers in the air, affording Caustic and his allies a window of visual cover to prepare for an attacking squad.

Weapon changes

Quite a few weapon and hop-up attachment changes are in store for Season 12. Getting the obvious out of the way: There are no new weapons for Season 12. After getting the 30-30 Repeater, Bocek Compound Bow, Rampage LMG, and CAR SMG in back-to-back-to-back-to-back seasons in Year 3, Apex Legends' fourth year is kicking off without a new firearm to learn.

Guns

In terms of Care Packages, the Alternator SMG is rotating out and returning to ground loot (which means no more Disruptor Ammo hop-up). In its place, the Volt SMG is rotating into Care Packages, which means you'll no longer be able to find the energy ammo submachine gun in ground loot.

That's not the only firearm leaving ground loot, either. Both the VK-47 Flatline and Longbow DMR are being placed into Replicators during Season 12. That means you won't be able to find either gun on the ground or in Care Packages--you'll only be able to use them by collecting Materials and crafting them or by looting them off a corpse.

"They do come with some ammo so you'll be able to start fighting right away," Apex Legends lead weapons designer Eric Canavese said at the preview. "This does a couple of things for us. The first thing is that it improves the consistency at which you can run with these two weapons--you know static locations in the world where you can just go and find them. But it also frees up some room on the floor--gives a little bit of breathing room for the rest of the loot, and that's really good so that you can more accurately target weapons that you're looking for for your loadout without having to sift through a bunch of different weapons."

Hop-up attachments

For hop-up attachments, Season 12 sees the return of Hammerpoint Rounds, a devastating attachment for sidearms that makes them stronger against unshielded targets. Previously only able to attach to the P2020 and Mozambique, Hammerpoint Rounds will now also attach to the RE-45 Auto, which sounds terrifyingly overpowered.

"It is absolutely terrifying," Canavese said. "Hammerpoint is traditionally on slower rate-of-fire semi-automatic weapons--the Mozambique is automatic but it's pretty slow. So we're really curious to see how it changes everything up and the RE-45 definitely deserves some time in the spotlight. It's probably dropped as much as the P2020. It just doesn't transition very well--it doesn't really have that oomph to take it into the endgame. So I would say that it would probably stand up next to the [RE-45 with] Disruptor Rounds but not quite at that level. A much more tempered version because--let's face it--Season 2 Disruptor Rounds were absurd. They were absolutely absurd. So it's a little bit more in-line with the meta that we have right now."

Shatter Caps will also change in Season 12. Instead of being a toggle, putting this hop-up on the 30-30 Repeater or Bocek Compound Bow will cause these precision weapons to change to a shotgun-like spread when firing from the hip, returning to precision fire when aiming down sights.

Season 12 adds a brand-new hop-up to Apex Legends as well. Called Kinetic Feeder, this hop-up can go on the Peacekeeper or Triple Take. When attached, the Kinetic Feeder activates while you're sliding, taking ammo from your inventory and loading it into the chamber of the Peacekeeper or Triple Take and shortening the amount of time needed to choke either firearm for a more precise shot.

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