The Apex Legends Global Series might replace the Dropship with a point-of-interest (POI) draft in Split 2, and pro players can’t reach a consensus on how to feel about the new potential feature.
During a scrimmage with his new teammates Zero and Genburten, Imperialhal claimed, “ALGS has just forced us to play on a random draft POI system in a competitive lobby, probably the worst change ever made in Apex history.” The pro player added that the rest of the league was against the change, but that didn’t make an impact.
In March, ALGS commissioner John Nelson first proposed the idea in a letter to pro players. As things stand now, ALGS teams reach a general understanding through scrims and prior communication about where other trios land from the Dropship. However, there are some instances where teams will land at the same location, and the ALGS commissioner believes “those situations are to the detriment of both teams,” because the outcome gets decided by random factors such as who gets better loot in a short span of time. Some pro players are against the change, but other see its benefits.
But with the draft system, one team will spawn at each of the possible 29 landing locations. According to Nelson’s leaked memo, all teams will get to select towards the front, in the middle, and at the end of the draft for the first nine days of regular seasons of matches. After that, draft order will be decided by performance, with better performing teams picking where they land first.
ALGS pro-Gnaske argued that the “new POI draft system is amazing on paper, but a massive flaw is that the POIs are so unbalanced, and because of the unbalance, it’s going to create a massive luck factor in the game.”
Some POIs have more loot than others, hurting teams based on where they select in the draft. And since the order is determined by performance, this might put poorly performing teams in a hole they can’t get out of. In saying that, there are some competitive community members for the change.
“I can’t be the only person that thinks this POI draft system for comp Apex will be a good thing in the long run and the best IGL’s/Teams will still be the best. We have seen how poor zone selection can be just at this recent LAN, this makes the playing field more fair all around,” FaZe Snipedown claimed.
ALGS Split 2 starts in June. Pro players will have the ultimate say on if the feature gets added, but the vote could be a close one based on conflicting opinions.
