A new season has launched on the popular battle royale game Apex Legends. Known as Escape, the latest season introduces a lot of new content, including a map. Here are some of the patch notes posted by EA and everything that’s different in the game now:
NEW LEGEND: ASH
A new Legend with a familiar face, Ash has overseen the Arenas from the shadows and held a tight grip on Pathfinder’s heart. A simulacrum made from the woman who once was Dr. Ashleigh Reid, Ash is determined to eliminate every trace of weakness that held her back as a human.. Detecting death wherever she goes, spearing enemies with electric snares that lock them in place, tearing through space to take more lives– it would be easy to think that there was nothing human left within that cold steel.
Passive: Marked for Death
Ash’s map shows the location of recent deathboxes. She gets a special prompt on a deathbox, use it to mark surviving attackers (once per box).
Tactical: Arc Snare
Throw a spinning snare that damages and tethers the first enemy that gets too close.
Ultimate: Phase Breach
Tear open a one-way portal to a targeted location. This portal stays open for a short time, during which anyone can use it.
Ash is now being compared to Wraith since they both have a similar ultimate. Ash’s best ability allows her to quickly teleport to grab high ground or push a battle. The ultimate can also be used by teammates. The only difference between her ability and the one used by Wraith is that it cannot be taken back.
NEW MAP: STORM POINT
This beautiful oasis was once an energy colony for the IMC, and the ruins remain. Many have tried to make a home here: all have failed. A survey of the area revealed the remains of three unique settlements built across the centuries, but no survivors.The colony lay abandoned, only visited by the occasional pirate or castaway. Now the Mercenary Syndicate has plans of their own for Storm Point.
Storm Point is the fourth map in the game, featuring a much different environment than Kings Canyon, World’s Edge, and Olympus. The map is a gigantic island, with all types of landing areas where players will not only face opponents but also wildlife.
NEW WEAPON: C.A.R. SMG
The battle royale game has a new weapon known as the C.A.R SMG. What’s unique about this weapon is that it can take two types of ammo, heavy and light. This is the first time the game features a weapon that takes two types of ammo. The new weapon can be found all around the map, including in a gold version with the best attachments.
RANKED ARENAS – ESCAPE
We learned a lot from the first season of Ranked arenas and are eager to bring you some improvements:
- Arenas Ranked now has 2 splits, similar to Ranked Battle Royale
- Along with each new season and split, there is a soft MMR reset and new placement matches. New seasons require the usual 10 placement matches while a new split only requires 5 placement matches.
- Improvements have been made to matchmaking for finding similarly skilled teammates.
- Reduced the AP amount gained or lost from MMR differences between teams.
The game has made adjustments to the Ranked modes of Arenas and battle royale. The adjustments seen above is for Arenas. Here is what’s new on the battle royale side of Ranked:
This is just a brief explanation from EA. You can check out the full patch notes on their official website.
TL;DR: Just give me the summary…
- Kill RP values now take differences between killer/victim Ranked tiers into account.
- The kill RP cap (as we have traditionally thought about it up to this point) is effectively being raised from six to seven. However, this kill-related RP cap can be reached in different ways, depending on tier differences and placement. Placement is still paramount, and you still must place first to have a chance at max total RP.
BALANCE CHANGES: LEGENDS
WATTSON
Dev Note
Move aside Ash, this is Wattson’s season. We’re ecstatic to finally share some long-anticipated Wattson improvements! Her win rate and encounter win rate have always been above average. This could be for a multitude of reasons; her defensive playstyle correlates to higher average placements, Wattson mains are diehard loyalists, and her hitbox has been the smallest in the game ever since Lifeline’s adjustment.
Regardless, much of the high-level data that we’ve shared doesn’t match perception. Play a few games as Wattson and you’ll often find yourself wanting more out of her kit. The goal of these changes is to redistribute her invisible power into the parts of her kit that shape the battlefield in a unique way. We wanted to see what changes could spark more consistency and efficacy in her kit, and ideally ground some of the difficulties surrounding the way her abilities work.Â
We want to enable more active gameplay from Wattson players by smoothing out the rough edges in placing fences. Responsiveness tweaks, longer range, and faster cooldowns means that Wattson can much more quickly and reliably set up a defensive position, or even use her fences and pylon in the midst of open combat in a pinch.
This is big news for Wattson, a character that players have repeatedly asked to be changed. The Legend, introduced in Season 2, has received some adjustments that will likely increase her pick rate for the season and make her a popular character on the competitive side. It’s been a while since Wattson received major changes so this should shake things up.
General
- Improved the reliability and responsiveness of placing Wattson’s Tactical and Ultimate in-world objects.
- Wattson can place her Tactical and Ultimate objects on valid surfaces above Wattson’s eye level (to a reasonable extent).
- General hitbox size increase, to compensate for the removal of low profile in the Legacy update.
Tactical – Perimeter Defense
- Increased damage on crossing a Fence by 33%. (15 to 20)
- Increased debuff duration on crossing a Fence by 100%. (1.5 to 3 seconds)
- Increased the time allowance to be hit again by a subsequent Fence effect by 100%. (0.5 to 1 second).
- Decreased recharge time by 50% (30 to 15 seconds).
- Increased placement range by 50%.
- Decreased the delay between Fences shutting off and reactivating after an ally passes through them by 60%. (1.0 -> 0.4 seconds)
- Wattson now moves at Unarmed-speed while readying/placing Fence nodes.
- Fence nodes can now be placed as soon as the weapon is readied, instead of waiting for the animation to finish.
Ultimate – Interception Pylon
- The Pylon output has been significantly reworked.
- Reduced the number of active Pylons Wattson can place from 3 to 1.
- The Pylon now lasts forever (instead of timing out after 90 seconds).
- The Pylon now has a pool of 250 Shields that can be distributed to nearby players, instead of effectively infinite Shields.
- Increased the Pylon shield recharge rate by 150%, and smoothed regen rate. (2/second -> 5/second, or more accurately: 1/0.5 seconds -> 1/0.2 seconds)
- When a Pylon is out of Shields, it no longer recharges players’ Shields, but can still zap incoming ordnance.
- Taking damage while regenerating Shields via the Pylon delays continued regeneration by 1 second.
- The UI on the ground and HUD elements now displays the amount of Shields that remain in the Pylon.
- Pinging a friendly Pylon will now display the percentage of Shields remaining in the Pylon.
- Pylon ordnance-zapping has been moderately reworked.
- Ordnance is now zapped when the Pylon detects that it would hit any surface within range and line of sight of the Pylon, instead of being zapped as soon as it comes within range.
- As a part of the changes, current issues where the Pylon doesn’t reliably zap ordnance (particularly concerning airstrike abilities, and ordnance that bounced off surfaces near the Pylon) should now be addressed.
SUPPLY DROP ROTATION
The G7 Scout has been moved to the care package, with the weapon now featuring the Double Tap attachment. The Triple Take now takes its place on the ground loot. The weapon returns to how it was back in the early days of Apex Legends, using energy ammo instead of sniper ammo.
CRAFTING
- Increased ammo from crafting
- Light Ammo 20 → 60
- Heavy Ammo 20 → 60
- Energy Ammo 20 → 60
- Shotgun Ammo 8 → 24
- Arrows 16 → 48
- Sniper 12 → 36
- Crafting Ammo price increased from 5 to 10 per weapon
- Evo Armor Points from crafting increased from 100 to 150
- Evo Armor Points cost increased from 45 to 50
- Replaced a sniper bundle with a shotgun bundle featuring the Dual Shell
This is huge since crafting is now a much better option. In previous seasons, many players often skipped the crafting of ammo since it didn’t give much. But this time, crafting actually gives a lot more.
These are just some of the changes and additions for the new season. You can check out the full patch notes on the Apex Legends section of EA’s official website.
