Apart from the Final Fantasy event, a lot of changes will also come to Apex Legends with the January 9 update. Stay until the end to find out more.
As Apex Legends is a live service title, Respawn tends to release continuous updates to keep the game fresh and engaging. With that in mind, the developers release a bunch of events, cosmetic items, limited-time game modes, and many more with every update.
Like every season, there’ll be a big mid-seasonal update in Ignite. The update will come alongside the Final Fantasy x Apex collaboration. As we’ve already seen, a bunch of new cosmetic items, a universal Heirloom, and a new type of unique, controversial death box have already gotten the community’s attention. However, that won’t be everything. The game will also receive some important balance and meta changes with the same update.
The balance changes will include weapon and Legends buffs and nerfs, map updates, mixtape rotation, bug fixes, and quality-of-life updates. To find out more, here are the detailed patch notes shared by Respawn.
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Apex Legends x Final Fantasy Full Patch Notes
Balance Updates
Crafting Rotation
- R-301 and Volt leave the crafter and are back on the floor
- Hemlok and Alternator enter the crafter
Weapons
- Mastiff
- Tactical reload time reduced to 0.9 (was 1.03)
- Empty reload time reduced to 1.6 (was 1.7)
- Draw Time reduced to 0.45 (was 0.8)
- R99
- Damage reduced to 11 (was 12)
- CAR SMG
- Damage reduced to 12 (was 13)
Legends
Catalyst
- Piercing Spikes
- Now require line-of-sight to an enemy player to activate
- Spikes that have not been activated will still slow players
Horizon
- Improved Horizon audio to make “falls” less silent
- Hard landing audio adjusted to match other legends
- Soft Landings now play audio in world ( not just for Horizon )
- Gravity Lift exit audio range increased to make it easier to hear characters who exit
Newcastle
- Castle Wall: impact will now destroy Conduit’s Energy Barricade mines
- Mobile Shield: can now be destroyed by enemy Crypto EMP
- Delayed balance adjustments from the season 19.0 patch are now fully integrated
Rampart
- Amped Walls are no longer destroyed by friendly Crypto EMP or Mad Maggie’s Wrecking Ball
Maps
Storm Point
- Added and adjusted cover at ZEUS Station & ECHO HQ
- Added Ring Console to Coastal Camp
- Added Trident to Barometer
- Adjusted the position of the Ring Console, Survey Beacon and Crafting Station at Lightning Rod
- Reduced volume of ambient audio at ZEUS Station & ECHO HQ
- Removed Ring Console, Survey Beacon and Crafting Station from Thunder Watch
- Resolved a number of additional bugs and rat spots
- Restored missing Ring Console at Command Center
- ECHO HQ
- Added four new staircases at ECHO HQ to improve vertical navigation around the perimeter
- Rooftop of ECHO HQ is now out of bounds, Zipline and rooftop hatch has been removed
- Wattson’s Pylon
- Adjusted position of the ziplines at Wattson’s Pylon to improve consistency of mantle jumping
- Reduced amount of ultra rare loot at Wattson’s Pylon
- ZEUS Station
- Added additional cover and ziplines at ZEUS Station for mixtape modes only
- Increased the speed of the redeploy balloon zipline at ZEUS Station by 25%
Mixtape
Map Rotation
- Control
- Hammond Labs and Production Yard are out
- Lava Siphon and Caustic Treatment are in
- Gun Run
- The Core, Estates, and Wattson’s Pylon are out
- Skulltown, Fragment East, and ZEUS Station are in
- TDM
- ZEUS Station, Skulltown, and Phase Runner are out
- Wattson’s Pylon, Party Crasher, and Overflow are in
New
- Added new Legend voice lines that occasionally play on respawn
- Lowered Ratings reward for assists in Control 5 per assist (was 20)
- This is in response to a recent change where we started counting assists in Control and TDM based on the whole team and not just within your individual squad
World Systems
- Extended Supply Bins
- Added a cap to the number of heat shields a team can receive from the secret drawer
- Added a cap to the number of medkits a team can receive from the secret drawer
Bug Fixes
- Firing Range: players dying with a Nessie in their inventory will no longer find the Nessie deleted. Sorry Nessie Hunters!
- Players no longer get stuck due to spamming holosprays while skydiving
- Players no longer drop out of Wraith’s portal before reaching the other side
- Resolved small chance of getting 5 items in secret drawer of Extended Supply Bins
- Resolved bug preventing audio engine from properly utilizing fast storage drives when reading compressed audio data
- Startup logo video audio volume now respects the master volume slider
- Storm Point: players should now be able to use Evac Tower through the ceiling hatch in Command Center
- Trident collision should no longer occasionally push players through walls and floors
Legends
- Ash: Ultimate can no longer be used with Tridents to get under map
- Bloodhound: Niflheim Hundr skin’s raven now white (was black)
- Catalyst
- Piercing Spikes ability description now shows the correct max number of traps
- Piercing Spikes can now be pinged again
- Ultimate no longer shows as ready in inventory without being fully charged
- Conduit
- Fixed Energy Barricade V-Shape deployment when looking directly at the ground
- Tactical can no longer be used on respawning team still in dropship
- Crypto: fixed Crypto taking ring damage while standing in a heat shield if controlling his drone in the ring
- Loba: restored movement speed while holding Tactical if it was activated while standing still
- Mad Maggie
- Fixed damage numbers not showing correctly when hitting Revenant’s ultimate shroud with Wrecking Ball
- Passive no longer works through Catalyst’s walls
- Revenant: no longer occasionally becomes invincible during his ultimate if his shroud is broken while marked by Vantage’s Sniper
- Vantage: corrected Sniper Ult bullets damage to marked targets when breaking Gibraltar’s arm shield or Revenant’s ultimate shroud
- Wattson: Ultimate correctly recharges shields when placed after Bangalore’s smoke
Modes
- Abilities that outline players should no longer stop functioning after killing an enemy
- Silence abilities should no longer cancel auto healing
- Voice chat is no longer heard outside of the squad in TDM and Control
Control
- Caustic Treatment: weapons cannot be used on the supply ship
- Damage not taken while inside the respawn ship
- Players no longer occasionally spawn in a skydive state when respawning on Kings Canyon
- Players no longer lose invulnerability while still on the dropship when spawning on the MRB
Code Optimizations
- Fixed issue with dynamic resolution not reacting fast enough to high graphics load. Improves frame rate stability on consoles
- DX12 (PC) video memory (VRAM) usage is now reduced by 1.5 – 2GB
- DX12 (PC) improved graphics performance with parallelization of rendering workloads
- Upgraded Nvidia Reflex SDK to v1.8 and adds support for latency markers
Quality of Life
Legends
Conduit
- Improved visibility for jammers
- Ultimate SFX can no longer be heard in other Firing Range instances
Mirage’s Decoys
- Improved issues against terrain that would cause destruction/floating
- Any destroyed by terrain will now be refunded
- Improved to more correctly copy the ADS state of the player
- No longer mimic reviving or execution animations
Newcastle
- Voice line added when Newcastle removes one of his own Castle Wall segments.
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