Changes made in Season 17 had a hugely negative effect on the Apex Legends Ranked mode. For Apex Legends Season 18, the devs have just presented their first proposal for how they plan to fix this mode, and the community seem mostly on-board.
In Apex Legends Season 17, Respawn made drastic changes to the Ranked mode. Without getting too bogged down in all the details, they made it very easy to ascend the ranks and so now there are way too many high-ranked players, and it feels meaningless to reach a new rank.
You only need to finish in the top half of all players in the lobby currently, and even if you're in Masters and have made ZERO kills, you'll still gain LP. So there's really just very little incentive for anyone to fight until the late game, and it has made the Ranked mode very passive (campy).
Don't believe us when we say it was campy? Look at how much the average player was "idle" (ratting) during matches when Season 17 began:
Respawn have just presented their ideas for how they will improve the system in Season 18. And the community seem largely impressed. We're not convinced yet, but it definitely feels like a step in the right direction.
New Apex Ranked Changes
First, here are the changes coming to Apex Legends Ranked mode in Season 18 (August 8). They weren't too specific, but they described their focus:
- Decrease overall LP gains per match.
- Add a special ruleset for Diamond+ players.
- Increase stakes and losses for Diamond+ tiers, while reducing rating bonuses and loss mitigations.
- Boost the elimination bonus in general, making it a more significant factor in ranking.
- Increase ring damage to encourage more action within the ring.
- Adjust ring timings to promote more mid-game encounters and minimize pre-finale lulls.
- Update matchmaking to better accommodate players challenging their MMR, ensuring more competitive matches aligned with their ranking.
That all sounds good, but without exact numbers it's very hard to gauge how impactful the changes will be. But we remain optimistic.
You haven't seen Apex like this before...
Community Largely Pleased By Season 18 Changes
There are obviously those who will doubt Respawn's ability to completely fix a situation that seems so royally f*cked. But, for the most part, we have to admit the community seem positive, take a look at how they responded on Twitter and Reddit below.
The three most-liked comments (at the time of writing) in response to the Tweet from @PlayApex:
- YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
- "You can't fool me. I'm familiar with your game."
- WILL THEY GET IT RIGHT THIS TIME?!
The three most-upvoted comments (at the time of writing) from the official post on the main Apex Legends Subreddit:
- Correct adjustments to the ring timings alone, will make games much more action packed.
- Overall a step in the right direction and I’m excited for what’s next.
- I'm just worried it'll go too far the other way again and we end up in another ape-heavy meta.
Where do you stand? Do you trust Respawn to fix Ranked, or maybe you're one of those who never thought it was broken?
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