The newest season of Apex Legends made big changes to the ranked mode’s point system, intending to shift the competitive focus of the battle royale on the ranked ladder. What players got was a flawed system that punished lower ranked players and rewarded not even playing the game, to the widespread criticism of pros and content creators.
TSM’s ImperialHal talked about the impact of the season 17 changes on a June 4 ranked stream with XSET’s Sikezz, citing how the community is not interested in Apex this season, and that the ranked changes have directly impacted the interest in watching Apex on a competitive and casual level.
Hal expressed confusion over Respawn’s decisions and changes to ranked in season 17, saying how the current state of ranked is turning the community away from playing Apex altogether. Hal also voiced his concerns over the future viewership of pros and competitive channels, pointing out the difference in his own channel numbers when streaming ALGS matches to normal ranked sessions.
Hal and Sikezz both highlighted their importance as role models within the competitive Apex community, and how their viewership numbers also speak to the state of the game, from ALGS tournament days to normal ranked grind sessions, and how interested an average viewer is compared to previous seasons.
With a two-month gap between Split 2 of the ALGS Pro League and LAN playoffs, Hal emphasized the importance of a healthy ranked system to keep players actively engaged with Apex during the off-season of the ALGS, and how the negative reception to ranked is causing a massive loss in both players and viewers who could potentially be interested in picking up Apex on a casual or competitive level.
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According to StreamsCharts, Apex’s viewership has dropped on Twitch in all aspects compared to last season’s release in February. Hours watched, average viewer count, and amount of channels streaming the game have all gone down when compared to season 16’s records. Hal called these numbers to attention, and how many of his fellow pros are bored with this season of ranked, preferring to stream other games instead of Apex.
Steam Charts also reports a drop in average and peak players. Season 16’s February release drew in the highest Steam player count of all time, peaking at 624,473 players. Season 17’s current peak is 584,294 players, with average player numbers falling 30,000 short of Revelry’s average count.
The dev team’s intentions when creating the new ranked system was to completely shift how players viewed every match of Apex. Respawn put a higher emphasis on placement, rewarding teams with more points for “winning” a round of Apex by placing in the top half of the lobby, while diminishing the RP earned for kills and assists per round.
Also at the start of season 17, MMR was introduced to ranked, alongside an initial 10 placement matches to determine a player’s skill level. Design director Evan Nikolich claimed that the changes would target the ranked problem of cheaters, saying “they can no longer sandbag their points to go stomp on lower-skill players.”
The results after the changes had the exact opposite effect, with placement matches grouping players of all ranks together, no matter how far apart their previous season’s results were. A bronze player in their first placement match of the season could be matched up against three-stacks of predators as the MMR tried to find their skill bracket.
Another unpopular change was the even entry fee for ranked, a flat 35 RP for all ranks. With players being punished less for losing and receiving more for just outlasting half of the lobby, it became easier to climb than ever without even shooting a single shot. This created the biggest problem in all of Apex’s ranked history, as players twisted Respawn’s initial intentions of surviving to the end and created strategies solely centered on hiding away from all the action.
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Ratting has become a popular and very effective strategy on all levels of the ranked ladder. Some pros frustrated with the system have taken it upon themselves to show exactly how broken the changes are, vowing to climb through the ranks without doing damage to demonstrate how Respawn broke ranked, and even succeeding within days of season 17’s release.
Hal wrapped up his point by talking about how ranked feels diluted compared to past seasons, and that if these problems continue to persist without any acknowledgement or changes, Apex will continue to lose more and more of its community.
Viewers and fans can only hope that with the amount of backlash from both the casual and competitive scenes, Respawn will take note and either revert, or once again completely change the ranked system for the future of Apex.
