TheApex Legendsteam has revealed significant changes to the game’s Ranked system planned for Season 18. The battle royale has been regularly rolling out updates and new content with each season since it launched in 2019. Of course, new characters generally receive lots of attention, but sometimes it’s other changes that can have the greatest impact onApex Legends.Since the beginning of Season 17, someApex Legendsplayers have thought Ranked has a major problem. Critics of the system have argued that ranking up has simply become too easy. Far too many players, they claim, are rising to the Masters rank, draining the title of its status and glory. This has led to calls to modify the system to restore balance, and it seems the developers have been listening.RELATED:Next Big Apex Legends Update Will Nerf SeerOn July 19, the developers announced upcoming changes to the Ranked system that are designed to address player complaints and make it more challenging to climb the competitive ladder. First and foremost, the awarding of Ladder Points will be nerfed, and greater Ladder Point penalties will be imposed for losses at Diamond Tier and higher. These changes are designed to reduce the number of players that will reach the Masters tier and even out the rankings.
In addition to changes to Ladder Points, Ranked will also be seeing modifications to matchmaking.Apex Legendsranks amongFPS games with a high skill ceiling, and the developers are working to ensure that the most skilled fans are consistently playing with one another. The developers are emphasizing that many of the Ranked issues are only affecting gamers at the higher tiers, and the coming updates will fix the problem while leaving the rest of the system working as intended.
Managing a complex system like ranked competitive play in a popular game is always a challenge, and issues are bound to emerge whenever changes are made. Since its launch, the dev team has been hard at work, responding to problems and updating features and systems. Earlier this year, anApex Legendsupdate fixed problems with Horizon, and now a much larger problem is being targeted.
With these improvements coming during Season 18, set to begin this August, Ranked should see some dramatic rebalancing, and rising to the top tiers should be a true challenge again. Ambitious competitors will want to start reviewingthe best characters inApex Legendsand honing their skills in preparation for the coming battles.
Apex Legendsis available now for Android, iOS, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
