What do Apex Legends Season 12: Defiance's changes mean for ranked?
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The Defiance update is brining more changes to ranked Battle Royale
The Defiance update is brining more changes to ranked Battle Royale | Provided by EA

What do Apex Legends Season 12: Defiance’s changes mean for ranked?

Defiance will give players who are kill-focused a boost in ranked play

Apex Legends Season 12: Defiance is now live, and with the update come plenty of big changes, including another adjustment to how the game’s ranked mode works. Last season, Respawn shifted the way the Ranked Points system worked to give players who were getting a lot of kills, but not necessarily placing as high, a reward for that. After a season of testing this out, the developers have decided to rework things a bit again for Defiance.

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How Defiance is changing ranked Battle Royale Mode in Apex Legends

In the Escape update, Respawn changed thing so players would be able to earn an additional kill point in ranked Battle Royale matches. Additionally, the development team instituted a system that took the difference in ranks between players into account when calculating kill points to factor into a player’s overall Ranked Points. Though Respawn’s patch notes said the team are happy with the “flexibility” this change has provided, but feel that it’s still not quite balanced.

“After observing the pacing of high-level ranked games, we saw players were focused on seeking out kills a little too much,” the Defiance patch notes said. “Players that focus on fighting for higher placements and teamplay should be more faithfully awarded.”

To facilitate that, the Season 12 update is once again tweaking how these points are calculated. Now, instead of the max of 175 kill-based RP, players can only earn 125 per ranked match. According to the patch notes: “This tuning is more punishing to teams that undervalue placements. We’re bumping up placement points for teams in the top 5; easing back on the ‘Kill KP Cap’ and adjusting ‘Per Kill Bonuses’ to require ~2-3 less Kills to hit the maximum.” The extra points awarded based on the difference in rank between players will remain the same.

Under the new Defiance system, points based on placement and kills will be awarded like this:

  • 1 =125 RP, 15 bonus RP per kill/assist
  • 2 = 95 RP, 11 bonus RP per kill/assist
  • 3 =70 RP, 8 bonus RP per kill/assist
  • 4 =55 RP, 5 bonus RP per kill/assist
  • 5 = 45 RP, 5 bonus RP per kill/assist
  • 6 = 30 RP, 1 bonus RP per kill/assist
  • 7-8 = 20 RP, 1 bonus RP per kill/assist
  • 9-10 = 10 RP, 1 bonus RP per kill/assist
  • 11-13 = 5 RP, 0 bonus RP per kill/assist
  • 14+ = 0 RP, 0 bonus RP per kill/assist

Beyond the changes to the RP system, there will be some slight differences in the map pool as well. All of Split 1 of Apex Legends Season 12: Defiance’s ranked mode will be played on Olympus (presumably to show off the changes that came with this season’s update). Split 2 will be played on Kings Canyon when it starts in April.

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