The community’s negativity around Apex Legends’ ranked experience in season 17 has been near universal.
The sweeping set of changes the season launched with failed to deliver the improvements that it aimed to, instead allowing more players than ever to achieve the rank of Master and Predator in a damning case of rank inflation. This was in part thanks to the prominence of ratting, a playstyle made more effective with LP gains now favored toward high placement over kills.
But in a Reddit Q&A thread today—one hosted by Respawn developers on the topic of ranked and changes coming in season 18—an official stance on ratting was finally given. When asked directly if it was a “legitimate” way to play battle royale, one lead game designer said it was “not good and healthy for the game.”
“We want the focus in ranked to being playing to win. Part of winning the match is survival and being tactical in what fights you take,” wrote RSPN_C4. “What we DO NOT want to happen is exploitative play. Hiding in positions and just refusing to engage to win is not good and healthy for the game. We want all players to run the race, and not wait for as many teams as possible to crash out.”
This is a mindset that can already be seen in the ranked changes scheduled to go live in season 18. Respawn is going to be tuning LP to be less overly generous in each match and provide greater bonuses to the players and teams that achieve high kill counts in their lobbies. There will also be higher stakes introduced in Diamond rank and above, as well as adjustments to ring timings and damage to try and push players into the next safe zone more quickly.
Related: Apex fans frustrated at terribly stale season 17 ranked distribution
This hasn’t assuaged all of the concerns laid out by players at the highest level, but it is a promising step in the right direction.
“We have a lot of work to do here,” RSPN_C4 said. “Expect more changes to come season over season as we see player behavior evolve.”
It’s easy to see why Apex developers would want to take a side against the ratting playstyle after the glaring issues it presented this season, with one notable graph depicting the sharp rise in how much time players spent idle during each match after season 17 began. “Hiding and avoiding firefights isn’t a rewarding way to play Apex Legends,” the blog said at the time, along with the promise to fix a variety of ratting spots and disincentivize inactive and avoidant gameplay.
But both Respawn’s response in the Q&A and the evaluation given in the blog detailing the upcoming ranked changes suggest the solution to the ratting issue is not one that season 18 alone will solve. For the Apex players waiting on ranked to once again promote a more aggressive style of play and evict the rats out of the upper eschelons, they might be waiting another season or two before it truly becomes reality.
