Players frustrated as Apex Legends Season 23 balance update "just doesn't make sense" 

Apex Legends Season 23 has incorporated quite a few balance updates. While Support Legends have been buffed, they seem borderline overpowered, as evident from reports from the majority of the community. Out of sheer frustration regarding the ongoing support-centric meta in the game, a user took to Reddit to vent out their frustration:

"This patch is just weird. It's nice to give all these cool buffs to Supports to make them more viable again, but why did they remove the only counters to them. Damage aside, Crypto EMP should disable all shields, full stop. Why did they remove this right as they give supports crazy shield uptime with Gibby bubble, Newcastle shield/wall, and Lifeline ult? The balance just doesn't make sense. They should've left at least some counterplay.

Why remove the only counters to the support meta? byu/Mastiffbique inapexlegends

The post was in response to the lack of counterplay options currently available in the title. While the support class characters did need a buff, players believe that the developers should have included some form of counter to prevent the support roster from being overpowered in Apex Legends Season 23.

In response to the original post, a user, u/DougDimmaGlow, commented that the devs should have at least left Crypto's and Mad Maggie's ultimate abilities untouched. These two abilities were direct counters to most support-class techs, and naturally, would have offered some counterplay option to combat their oppressive presence on the field.

Another user, u/Jtown021, says that this path of balancing is how Respawn and EA introduced reworks in the game. According to the user, the devs generally tend to make the newly reworked character, or in this case, the entire class overpowered, and eventually introduce counterplay options with future updates. It's the developers' way of introducing a drastic meta-shift in the game.

Comments on Reddit (Image via Reddit)

Some players, such as u/ZorkFireStorm, believe that the developers simply do not care about the game's meta, or its competitive health anymore. The user feels that the outcome of engagements is more dependent upon a player's use of abilities rather than their mechanical gunplay skills. According to them, this has led to a very poorly balanced competitive system in the game.

Several users agree that the addition of perks, and the inflation of abilities, has simply made the game an ability-centric hero-shooter rather than a first-person shooter game.

Players dislike the influx of new abilities in Apex Legends Season 23 (Image via Reddit)

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Is the Apex Legends Season 23 balance update unfair?

Objectively speaking, the Apex Legends Season 23 balance update does feel unfair to some extent. While the goal of the update was to boost the performance and pick rate of Support-class Legends, it has ultimately turned them overpowered.

As evident from the avid discussion showcased above, the lack of any direct or viable counters forces players to play into the meta and only pick Support Legends if they want to win their games.

We do believe that Respawn and EA need to incorporate a strategic balance update to shift the meta in Apex Legends Season 23 and improve the competitive integrity of the title.

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