Apex Legends Season 17 update patch notes: Map updates, Firing Range 2.0, Ranked overhaul

Apex Legends Season 17, Arsenal, is adding a new Legend, a new Firing Range, and a massive overhaul of Ranked play. World’s Edge is also getting a significant update. Check out the full Season 17 patch notes here.

Season 17 is headlined by Ballistic, the oldest legend to join the Apex Games, and he comes with a smart pistol tactical (sort of).

But, for many players, there will be two other big highlights of these Season 17 patch notes. First, the Firing Range is getting a complete remake, with a new map, smarter dummies, a 1v1 pit and more.

Second, Ranked play is being completely overhauled this season, with a new MMR system, Ladder Points, the removal of splits and more.

While there is no new map this season, World’s Edge will be subject to some big changes, including new POIs and changed lighting. Check out the Apex Season 17 patch notes here.

Apex Legends Season 17 update

• What time is Season 17?
• New Legend: Ballistic
• Firing Range 2.0
• Ranked changes
• World’s Edge update
• Full patch notes

What time is the Apex Legends Season 17 update?

The Season 17 update for Apex Legends will release on May 9 at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST.

Players on PlayStation consoles may be able to preload the download itself starting on May 8, as has been the case in previous seasons.

New Legend: Ballistic

Ballistic is the latest Legend to join the Apex Games, after Respawn skipped out on a new character last season.

An older gentleman, Ballistic is 63 years old, and was previously a competitor in the Thunderdome Games, the precursor to Apex. You can check out everything we know about Ballistic and his abilities here.

Firing Range 2.0

The Firing Range has been relatively unchanged since it was first added to Apex back in 2019, but finally for Season 17, it’s getting a big makeover.

There is an entirely new map, which is much larger, includes a 1v1 pit, a movement practice area, a town environment with buildings, and bots that can now engage in full combat. Check out all the Firing Range changes in more detail here.

Ranked changes

For more competitive-minded players, the changes to Ranked play might be the most significant part of Season 17.

Respawn is removing splits, and adding 10 provisional matches at the start of the season. Matchmaking has been improved too, and is now based on a hidden MMR. Ranked Points have been scrapped and replaced with Ladder points.

There are more changes too, focused on teaming and cheaters – you can read about all the ranked updates in Season 17 here.

Weapon Mastery

Weapon Mastery is a new long-term progression system, where players can rank every weapon from level 1 to 100.

You’ll earn rewards as you progress through the ranks. You rank weapons up simply by using them, getting kills, knocks, and headshots. Check out the full explanation of Weapon Mastery here.

World’s Edge map updates

Of course, Fragment has been changed in Season 17, now called Monument. As the name implies, there is a new monument here, and it sits above the brand-new Apex Games museum.

The construction building has also been moved, to a new POI called Stacks. To give the map a fresh feel, the lighting and sky box has also been updated. Check out a full run down of the World’s Edge changes here.

Apex Legends Season 17 patch notes

Full Season 17 patch notes via Respawn:

New Survival Item: Evac Tower

The Evac Tower is the latest loot item to hit the Outlands. This portable Jump Tower can shape the battlefield in your squad’s favor by offering a quick escape or setting up a deadly assault. Harness the power of the skies, but be careful when you use it – players can destroy the Evac Tower and leave you high and dry!

Ping System update

Pings are the main method of non-verbal communication in Apex Legends, and coordination is the key to victory! This season, we’ve updated the system to better serve the game as it exists today. We’ve removed some Pings from the default Ping Wheel with lower usage rates, added several new pings, and added quality of life improvements to how pinging operates in game. Our goal is to give all players, especially those not using voice chat, access to some quick combat ‘phrases’ to help orient team action.

On the default Ping Wheel you will see 3 new pings:

• Avoid Area
• Enemy Audio
• Regroup

You will also see an expanded set of options when you are Downed or in Dropship for the initial drop into the BR. 

Lastly, we’ve improved Pinging from the Map behaviors in the following ways: 

• In-game objects that have map icons (Respawn Beacons, Crafters, Wildlife, etc) can now be Pinged from the map; creating accurate waypoints with callouts 
• When pinging generic waypoints on the map they will have more accurate placement in World Space 

Balance Updates

Crate Rotation

• L-Star EMG enters the crate
• RE-45 returns to the floor

Weapon Crafting Rotation

• Alternator SMG enters the crafter
• Sentinel enters the crafter
• EVA-8 returns to the floor
• 30-30 Repeater returns to the floor

Gold Weapon Rotation

• Flatline, Triple Take, Spitfire, Mastiff, Volt

Loot Spawns

• Improved Vault Loot
  • Increased chances of gold loot
  • Added light mags to spawn pool

• Improved Cargo Bot Loot
  • Removed small healing items, Mobile Respawn Beacon, White Armor,  White Backpack
  • Adjusted Large Healing and Heatshield spawns to allow for more desirable loot spawns
  • Removed gold weapons from purple tier Cargo Bots but increased spawn chance in gold tier

Weapons

L-Star EMG [Crate]

• Added Disruptor Rounds: 60% damage increase against shields
• Base Damage Reduced to 16 (was 17)
• Projectiles now have passthrough: 60% damage retained
• Projectile growth increased
• Improved recoil pattern
• Removed barrel
• Ammo Stockpile: 324
• Reduced VFX brightness when hitting unarmored targets

30-30 Repeater

• Projectile size increased when fully charged

Triple Take

• Projectile size increased
• Improved hipfire spread
• Tightened bullet pattern when fully choked
• Ammo per shot reduced to 1 (was 3)
• Magazines sizes adjusted to match the new ammo costs
  • Purple Mag: Increased to 10 shots (was 9)

R-99 SMG

• Removed 1 bullet from base and all magazines
  • No Magazine reduced to 19 (was 20)
  • White Magazine reduced to 21 (was 22)
  • Blue Magazine reduced to 24 (was 25)
  • Purple & Gold magazine reduced to 27 (was 28)

Charge Rifle

• Reduced shots per magazine to 3 (was 4)
• Reduced spawn rate

Legends

Catalyst

• Dark Veil
  • Scan Highlights & Diamonds are no longer visible through the Dark Veil

Mirage

• Class changed from Skirmisher to Support

Ash

• Now gets slowed to weapon sprint speed instead of weapon walk speed when targeting with her tac

Assault Class

• Smart loot gains have been adjusted to reduce skipping an upgrade tier
  • It will now be less likely to jump from White to Purple or Blue to Gold

• Optics are now given based on team rather than just Assault Legend who opens them
• Added special drop rate for Gold Optics

Skirmisher Class

• Care packages are now automatically pinged for the team on reveal.
  • This includes empty Care Packages that have already been looted by another team

Support Class

• Support Bins will now guarantee at least one Battery in one of the Secret Compartment slots
• Support Bins will now award MRBs if your ally is dead, even if you don’t have their banner card.
• Legend Banners can now be crafted by ANY player who has a Support Class Legend in their Squad

Mixtape

• New Podium screens for Gun Run and Control
• Display a message in the Kill Feed if Leaver Penalties are disabled for the match due to an unfair match
• Control and Gun Run will indicate the team’s MVPs on the intro podium
• Control and TDM have updated loadouts (Crate Weapon changes and updates based on weapon meta/pick rates/kill rates)
• Gun Run and TDM now have XP Bonuses for Match Completion and Match Completion after Join in Progress

Control

• Map rotation: Barometer is out, Olympus: Hammond Labs is in
• Weapon Evo Change: No longer Evo weapons automatically when a new Rating Tier is reached. Players now reach the new tier and their weapon will Evo when the player holsters and then unholsters their weapon in any form (reload, weapon switch, manual holster, rides a zipline, performs a skydive, etc)

Gun Run 

• Weapon Track update for new crate weapons.
• Added an additional XP bonus on the last weapon knife kill

Team Deathmatch

• Map rotation: Skulltown is out, Phase Runner is in

Bug Fixes

• Prowler: fixed ADS while crouching
• IMC Armories: fixed spectres taking too much damage from arc stars
• Fixed Duos showing NBR challenges instead of BR challenges
• Fixed comms wheel not being usable when a game is over
• Fixed players glitching inside of loot bins
• Fixed spectators not receiving audio queues for all types of launch pads/jump pads
• Fixed flickering of banners during victory and end of match screens
• Scoreboard is saved when a game is finished now, not post-podium sequence
• Lifetime Stats numbers no longer overlap for more than 7 digits
• Various lobby ultrawide UI improvements

Legends

• Ash: 
  • Steps are no longer louder if heirloom is equipped
  • Fixed UI loop when crouch inspect is canceled early
  • Ultimate will now persist for the entire duration even if Ash dies while it is active and while players are still traveling through it

• Bloodhound: White Ravens already in flight can no longer be scanned for free Tacticals and Ult charge
• Caustic: Fixed traps destroying when placed near closed doors that are then opened
• Crypto: 
  • Drone can no longer be accessed after being knocked
  • Drone no longer occasionally teleports behind a wall after you throw it
  • Fixed drone sometimes spawning in the middle of the world when thrown into a wall

• Loba: 
  • Fixed visibility issue with Black Market when Bangalore’s smoke is behind
  • Amount head peeks over cover while crouching adjusted to match other Legends

• Mad Maggie: Improved reliability when hitting objects that the ball will damage or destroy
• Octane: Removed the double jump hint from the Launch Pad in cases where it would incorrectly show as an option (e.g. after a Pathfinder grapple)
• Rampart: multiple cover walls can no longer be placed in the same spot on a Trident
• Seer: Dummies in the firing range will now have the same footstep behavior as other players when moving inside of Seer’s Ultimate instead of behaving like other AI (Prowlers, Spiders)
• Valkyrie: Ultimate cooldown no longer set to 75% after being canceled while in Death Totem protection
• Wraith: 
  • Fixed ultimate being usable while ziplining
  • Mythic finisher “Whiplash” no longer pushes players outside of play area

Modes

• Mixtape
  • Fixed shields dropped by killed enemies being empty
  • Fixed players leaving a match will no longer try to join the same match if its join-in-progress window is still active

• Team Deathmatch
  • Fixed grenades not dropping on player death
  • Fixed Estates map image displaying the night variant of the map in the Lobby

• Control
  • Fixed Custom Match Observer issue where it was difficult to close the Map Screen if an Observer had it opened before players spawned in the match
  • Fixed teammates death icon not appearing on the map if the map wasn’t open when the teammate died
  • Fixed ordnance not auto-equipping to the ordnance slot if the player spawned out of bounds
  • Fixed reserve ammo counter not displaying when switching weapons from Rampart or Vantage’s ultimate ability

Quality of Life updates

• Removed Auto-Taunt Prompt on Enemy Killed
• Can now ride ziplines while playing the banner pickup animation
• Bullet impact VFX on snow reduced

LiveAPI Improvements and Documentation

This season will have some updates to the LiveAPI based on player and developer feedback. These include improvements to existing functionality and messages, new events, and extensive additions to documentation including some examples in Python.

• Support for Secure WebSockets (WSS) server connections
  • Configurable SSL verification, to allow self-signed certificates

• Request validation through pre-shared key mechanism that can be specified through `cl_liveapi_requests_psk`
• Newly added game event broadcast delay that affects only real-time WebSocket connections, configurable through `cl_liveapi_ws_event_delay` 
• Additional documentation and snippets added to events.proto file
  • Includes sample values, code snippets in Python and expected API behavior

• Change for API request acknowledgements not behaving as intended
  • Introduction of the RequestStatus message for more detailed explanations

• Fix for 4KB message payload truncation seen mostly when using JSON data format
• Fix for PlayerRevive event where the revived player field was incorrectly typed as a string instead of a Player message
• New WarpGateUsed and ObserverAnnotation events
• Downgrade of most uint64 fields to uint32 to ensure serialization as numbers and not strings in JSON
  • All timestamp fields remain as uint64. Developers should take note when using JSON data format instead of Protobuf.

That’s the complete patch notes for Season 17 of Apex. The season update will go live on May 9, so you can drop in then and see all the changes for yourself. In the meantime, check out more Apex Legends guides here:

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