I honestly really like escalation. It’s a good warmup that’s just plain enjoyable. But the more I’ve played it, the more the many flaws of the mode have started to stick out, so here’s a list (in no particular order) of some changes I’d suggest:

• Fix the escalations. Legit, many times there’s a gun that’s just straight up better than the previous one causing the other team to breeze (no pun intended) through the round, ending up with them much farther ahead than the other team. That’s happened to me countless times and has ended many games, so curated escalations or at the very least just improving the ai that generates them would be great.
• On a related note, imo the final level should only ever be knife, plus remove the speedboost on it. The final level is meant to be really bad so the other team can catch up, and every time its something bs like Raze’s ult or snowball gun, the other team dances to the end extremely fast.
• Add some more agent abilities to the roster. Some good ones would be Jett’s ult + updraft, Neon’s ult, Chamber’s headhunter/op, and maybe even Brim’s molly (though I’d make it last for a lot shorter)
• Imo remove Raze’s boom bot. It’s fun at first, but it quickly became the one round where I groan every time it comes up. It just slows the game to a halt, and it’s a pain in the ass to deal with after everyone but like 2 have moved on to a different gun.
• Maybe make it so you you had a random utility every round, I wouldn’t say flashes/blinds because that would get annoying fast, but something like Yoru’s teleport, Cypher’s trip, Brim’s stim, Omen teleport, etc. I feel like it could make it a bit more interesting. All of them would be on a heavy cool down or only regenerate when you die.
• Remove the automatic weapon upgrade. I genuinely cannot count the number of times where I've peaked a corner with multiple people, killed one of them, and then got forced into the next gun which causes me to die during the equip animation. It literally has a solution in the form of the “press b to upgrade” pop up, and I do not understand why it doesn’t always show up.
• I would really love if it applied to quests in some way. Some non broken ideas would be getting an ult use when Raze’s ult comes up, the average kills per gun (maybe halved tho) as enemies killed (same idea for deal damage quests), or at the very least counting as a played game.
• Some way for very behind teams to catch up faster would be nice. Like when you’re over 3 levels behind, it would be nice if you could level up faster so the other team doesn’t stay infinitely ahead.
• Auto upgrade people who are very behind their team. I can’t say how annoying it is to be stuck on stuff like the Bucky while everyone’s moved on to guns that are more long range
• Some way to diversify the fight zones a bit more. Most of the time, the majority of the fighting happens at mid, so a way to encourage people to fight in other places would be cool. Maybe even increase the amount of people per team.