Apex Legends‘ 17th season is all set to go live on May 9, bringing a World’s Edge map update, Weapon Mastery, a redesigned Firing Range, and much more. Additionally, Respawn is also looking to further enhance the game’s competitive systems with Apex Legends: Arsenal’s Ranked updates, retiring the old Ranked Points (RP) in favor of bonus-based Ladder Points (LP) system, incorporating a hidden Matchmaking Rating (MMR) system, and removing the midseason split reset as well. Each change has been explained in detail below.
Apex Legends: Arsenal Ranked Update:
Matchmaking Rating (MMR):
In continuation of efforts to create a fairer matchmaking system, the developers will be adding a hidden MMR system to account for players’ actual skill levels at both the high and low tiers of play. The change is especially important for highly-skilled players who are returning to the game after a period of inactivity and find themselves placed in the lower divisions of the competitive ladder. To negate premade advantage, premade duos and trios will accordingly have their MMR slightly increased during matchmaking.
Ladder Points (LP):
Ranked Points (RP) are being retired in favor of Ladder Points (LP), which take into account individual performance during a match to more fairly reward skilled players. The LP system revolves around Bonuses, of which there are three types:
- Elimination Bonuses are given when your team eliminates other players. This bonus is individually calculated and multiple eliminations against the same players are discarded. To be clear: we use your personal individual kills, assists, and participations. In addition the Assist Timer has been increased from 15 seconds to 30 seconds.
- Rating Bonuses are given when your hidden MMR greatly out performs your Ladder Points, helping you catch up to where the system believes you should be.
- Skill Bonuses are given when your team interacts with a stronger opponent or performs exceptionally in an unfavorable match.
Bonuses are directly tied to in-game placements, with any finish above the 10th position counting as a win for the new scoring system:
- 1 to 10th: Bonuses
- 10th to 20th : Loss Mitigations
LP Match Entry costs have been reduced to a flat 35 LP from the old 0-175 scaling system, with larger Bonuses negating this cost:
Players will start their Ranked journey in Arsenal from Rookie 4 with 10 Provisional Matches in which their ranking will be rapidly calibrated towards their actual skill levels. This will also be the case for each seasonal reset.
Ranked Structure:
The midseason split reset is being eliminated, and rankings will be only be reset now at the beginning of each season. Each division will now be a 1000 LP wide; for example, 5134 LP will be presented as Bronze 3 – 134 LP in-game. The promotion bonus and demotion penalty have been revised to 250 and 150, respectively, and players can now be demoted into Rookie as well. Finally, to prepare new players for Ranked, the Ranked Level Requirement has been raised from 20 to 50.
Apex Legends: Arsenal launches May 9 on all platforms. Stay tuned here at MP1st for the full patch notes and other updates closer to the launch of the new season.
Source: EA