November 02, 2021 Patch

The **November 02, 2021 Patch** is a major patch.

## New Content

* New Legend: **Ash**
* New map: **Storm Point**
* New weapon: the **C.A.R. SMG**
* New Hop-Up:  Dual Shell

## Legend Changes

Wattson
* 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 Security
	+ 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.

## Weapons and Gear

Supply Drop Rotation
* Triple Take returned to ground loot
* G7 Scout added to Supply Drop loot

Fully kitted weapons for Season 11
* Mastiff Shotgun
* 30-30 Repeater
* R-301 Carbine
* C.A.R. SMG
* Longbow DMR

EVA-8 Auto
* Fire rate reduced from 2.1 to 2.0

Peacekeeper
* Slightly increased pellet size
* Choke up time reduced from 1.5s to 1.25s
* Choked up shots remain tight for slightly longer when exiting ADS

Longbow DMR
* Damage reduced from 60 to 55

L-STAR EMG
* Reduced barrel effectiveness at all rarity tiers
* Significantly reduced projectile collision size
* Damage reduced from 18 to 17

G7 Scout
* Damage increased from 34 to 36
* Double Tap Trigger added to Supply Drop G7 Scout

Triple Take
* Charge time from 0.8 -> 1.1
* Mag increase at all tiers
	+ Base: 18
	+ White: 21
	+ Blue: 24
	+ Purple: 27
* Ammo consumed per shot increased to 3
* Ammo required per shot increased to 3

Supply Drop Weapon Rates
* Early game crate weapon rate increased from 25% to 50%
* Mid game crate weapon rate increased from 50% to 75%
* Late game crate weapon rate increased from 75% to 100%

Hot Zone Gold Loot Rates
* Increased amount of gold loot that spawns in hot zones

Crafting
* Increased ammo from crafting
	+ Light Rounds: 20 → 60
	+ Heavy Rounds: 20 → 60
	+ Energy Ammo: 20 → 60
	+ Shotgun Shells: 8 → 24
	+ Arrows: 16 → 48
	+ Sniper Ammo: 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 new Dual Shell hop-up

Enemy NPC Updates
* Prowler health across the game has gone up from 90 to 114 (Storm Point and World’s Edge)
* Prowlers on World’s Edge and Flyers on Kings Canyon now reward EVO points (25%) ... all damage done to AI now rewards progress to your EVO armor

## Arenas

Maps
* Battle Royale location maps removed from rotation

Supply Drop
* Supply drop will now land outside the first ring, if possible, and land 10 seconds earlier.
* Purple weapons now spawn more in earlier rounds
	+ Round 1 - 3x blue -> 1x purple + 2x blue
	+ Round 2 - 1x purple + 2x blue -> 2x purple 1x blue
	+ Round 3 - 2x purple 1x blue -> 3x purple
* Supply drop no longer spawns blue Havoc or Devotion or gold RE-45

Weapon Price Updates
* Mozambique Shotgun
	+ Blue 125 → 150
	+ Purple 200 → 250
* P2020
	+ Blue 75 → 50
	+ Purple 150 → 125
* RE-45 Auto
	+ Base 200 → 150
	+ White 150 → 100
	+ Blue 250 → 200
* Prowler Burst PDW
	+ Base 500 → 400
	+ Blue 300 → 350
	+ Purple 400 → 350
* R-99 SMG
	+ Base 500 → 450
	+ Blue 250 → 300
	+ Purple 300 → 350
* Hemlok Burst AR
	+ Base 500 → 450

## Quality of Life

* UI - teammates will now show that they are self-reviving on their in-world game tags.
* Added VO for players to communicate they are out of ammo.
* Updated the Arena Map Rotation Images to show up to five maps.
* Updated Social Awareness Badges to unlock as default for all accounts.

## Ranked Updates

### Ranked Battle Royale

* 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.

 3 | 20

* Victims do not lose more or less points when killed (in terms of entry cost). Only the killer receives the modifier.
* Apex Predator and Master are treated as the same tier.
* An encounter rate with someone of a 3+ tier difference is ultra-rare (less than 0.1%). Ranked matchmaking is staying the same, so in general, you’ll come across identical tiers. In cases where you squad up with a different rank friend or merge into a different tier lobby, your KP will be adjusted appropriately.

After tier differences are taken into account for kill points, a flat per kill bonus is added based on placement.

 14+

The maximum kill point RP is 175. Any kill-related RP that exceeds that after placement and tier modifiers are added doesn’t affect total RP. The final step is to add a flat placement bonus. Enough with the math, let’s explain these changes with an example:

*As a Platinum player, you party up with your Diamond friend and matchmake into a lobby with similarly skilled players. You snag second place, with 6 kills (and/or assists) against Diamond players, and 3 on Plat players.*

*Each kill on those Diamond players is worth 12 points instead of the typical 10, because they are one rank tier higher than you. That leaves us with (12 × 6) + (10 × 3) = 102 RP.*

*Now let’s take placement into account. In second, the per kill bonus is 10, so our 9 kills (including assists) × 10 = 90 RP.*

### Ranked Arenas

* 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.

## Bug Fixes

* UI/UX / Steam Only: Fixed issue where your online friends playing Apex didn’t count towards total online friends while in matches.
* Fixed bug for Placing a Caustic trap over a Seer Ultimate, that could result in the Ultimate being protected from taking damage.
* Updated Volt skin's charm placement to be moved up so that charms become more visible.
* Fixed bug with players losing extra Boosted Loader extra ammo if the player reloads before getting to base ammo amount.
* Steam: Fixed issue where if a player has a forward slash in their name, a backslash will be added right before it automatically.
* R5DEV-280424 - Legends- Retail - Hitting an enemy with Valk tactical missiles, can result in health damage even with shields equipped
* Fixed issue where players do not see Legend Select when starting a game in Trios and immediately advance to drop ship phase.
* Audio fix for cases where music starts playing in the middle of a BR match.
* Fixed UI error that showed that the Legendary Prowler had the "Shotgun" tag in the in-game info screen.
* Audio fix for cases where VO for map changes doubles up (plays both variants at the same time).
* Audio fix for Rampart Town Takeover where vending machines had no soundFX.
* Fixed bug where Non-Crossplay Steam friends playing Apex would show up with debug text.
* Removed the random rock floating in midair in World's Edge.
* Bug fix for cases where a player could stand up and jump in a knocked-down state after an enemy starts finisher and cancels it.
* Fixed bug where player names would be missing from Legend select.
* Reduced hitbox size for Crafting Material Canisters to better fit its shape.
* Rampart: Fix for cases where Rampart's "No Mercy" finisher causes her to clip through geometry.
* Wattson: Fixed issue where her Ultimate doesn't always destroy frag grenades when thrown inside the Pylon radius.
* Pathfinder: Fixed issue with players being able to create ziplines much farther than intended.
* Fuse: Fixed bug with his Ultimate cooldown being the same with or without a gold helmet.
* Seer Removed ability for players to be able to bunny hop at full speed while using Passive.

## Undocumented changes

* Removed the Legends section from the Store. Locked Legends can be purchased in the Legends section of the lobby.
* Skydive Emotes can now be seen and equipped/unequipped through a Legend's Emote Wheel menu. If no Skydive Emotes are owned for a Legend, the menu doesn't appear.
* Everything respawns faster in the Firing Range.
* Banners in the Lobby change if Arenas are selected.
* Legends now possess voice lines when pinging/requesting a  Boosted Loader Hop-Up.
* The Bocek Compound Bow has new optic models. It also has a different overworld model when found as ground loot, where it's closed, to match the equip animation where the outer parts get expanded.
* Octane's  Launch Pad is way louder.
* Upon killing an enemy in Ranked, both the killer and the victim's ranks are shown.
* Fully kitted weapons and Supply Drop Weapons compatible with Barrel Stabilizers are no longer pre-equipped with the Level 4  Barrel Stabilizer, instead they are pre-equipped with the Level 3 one.
* The Rampage is now called Rampage LMG.
* Updated the descriptions of the Triple Take and Rampage LMG.
* Forbidden words in text chat are now censored during a match too, not just in the lobby.
* The no-fill option now stays unchecked until the player manually turns it on.
* Fixed the L-STAR's cooler in the weapon's inspect animation floating through the model.

## Developer Notes

1. ↑ 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.

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.
2. ↑ With the reduced bolt scaling we’ve done in previous passes the EVA-8 is still performing ahead of the shotgun pack. Hitting the base fire rate should help balance out our shotgun roster.
3. ↑ When the PK came out of the crate we gave it a big sweep of nerfs to make sure the floor PK wasn’t the crate monster we had all grown to know. In this pass, we swung a little hard so we’re giving it a QOL and usability pass this season.
4. ↑ We’re walking back a recent buff to the Longbow that proved unnecessary. We wanted to give it some love due to all the recent Marksman updates but it seems the Longbow was just fine.
5. ↑ The L-STAR has been a force to be reckoned with this season so we’re taking a big swing and hitting its projectile size and damage in an effort to bring it down a notch.
6. ↑ With the G7 Scout entering the supply drop we’re giving it a bump to damage and adding back on the retired Double Tap to give it some extra spice.
7. ↑ Pushing a supply drop in the end game and whiffing on a weapon feels pretty rough. We want to improve the reliability of getting crate weapons out of supply drops throughout all phases of the game. Don’t worry, we’re adjusting Kraber spawn rates accordingly to keep them in line.
8. ↑ Hot Zones can sometimes feel a bit lackluster so we’re injecting more high-tier loot into these dynamic zones to make them more enticing drop spots.