Apex Legends Season 16 offers new ways to personalise classes
The Apex Legends Season 16 patch brings with it lots of shakeups, including a new mode and matchmaking system for newcomers, new weapons, and changes to Legend Classes.
EA has detailed all the changes coming as part of today's Apex Legends Season 16 update, also known as Revelry, in a new blog post. Some of the alterations and additions we’ve known about for a while, but there’s still a few surprises included, such as what’s new with Legend Classes and weapon rebalancing.
The big headline feature for Apex Legends Season 16 is the addition of Team Deathmatch, a staple PvP game mode in most other shooters that finally makes an appearance here alongside Revelry’s launch. Respawn explains that Arenas can be a "daunting" mode that "feels high stakes" , and falls into the sweaty category along with battle royale.
Control is somewhat laid back by comparison, offering players a mode where they "feel comfortable making mistakes" and Team Deathmatch's goal is the same, while implementing faster respawn to make warming up those trigger fingers quickly easier and placing focus on skirmishes. Here’s the specific rules of how Team Deathmatch will work in Apex Legends Season 16:
- 6v6 Alliances
- Pick or swap your loadout and legend while respawning
- Automatic shield regeneration
- First team to reach 30 kills wins
- Best two out of three rounds
- Mid-round airdrops can be picked up for stronger weapons
Apex Legends Season 16 doesn’t see the addition of a new Legend. Rather, for this season, Respawn is remastering how the Legend Classes system works entirely. Firstly, they’ve been reorganised on the Legends screen to make each one's class perk more easily viewable. Then there’s the new associated gameplay perks, which every Legend Class now has to offer players more strategic options.
There might not be a new Legend, but Revelry brings a new menacing weapon for energy class users. It’s a burst assault rifle called Nemesis that fires four rounds per burst and speeds up the longer you hold down the trigger. As for existing weapons, shotguns are set to be improved across the board, while assault rifles will suffer from a slight nerf.
Team Deathmatch being added as part of the new update seems like a good move to help entice newcomers like me. What puts me off trying out a live service game like this is often the steep learning curve, combined with the feeling that I’ll never be able to ‘git gud’ enough to stand a chance against veteran players. Thankfully, in addition to Team Deathmatch, the new Orientation Match system has been purposely added to assist rookie players like me too, making lower tier matches available before joining the regular queue. If anything else, it’s exciting that Apex Legends is trying to address any barriers to entry.
The lack of a new Legend will be problematic for some, I imagine, but it also presents a good opportunity to learn the existing ones a bit better and become familiar with the class system changes. Exactly the kind of thing that should work well for players like me looking to learn the Apex Legends ropes. Inexperienced or veteran player one thing’s for certain, Season 16 isn’t short of new reasons to jump in.
Apex Legends Season 16 patch notes
Legendary Shotgun Bolt
- New shotgun bolt rarity tier added to floor loot and crafters
- Gold Perk: Automatically reloads rounds while sliding. Activates while equipped or stowed.
Care Package Rotation
- Hemlok Burst AR enters the Care Package
- Rampage LMG returns to the floor
Weapon Crafting Rotation
- Longbow DMR enters the crafter
- Volt SMG enters the crafter
- G7 Scout returns to the floor
- C.A.R. SMG returns to the floor
Gold Weapon Rotation
- Nemesis, Rampage, PK, Wingman, R99
Anvil Receiver Hop-Up [R-301, Flatline]
- Removed from floor loot and crafting
Hammerpoint Rounds Hop-Up [Mozambique, P2020]
- Added to floor loot and crafting
- Rarity tier increased to Legendary
C.A.R. SMG
- Reduced base ammo capacity to 19 (was 20)
R-99
- Increased damage to 12 (was 11)
Assault Rifles
- Significantly reduced hipfire accuracy
R-301
- Reduced damage to 13 (was 14)
Hemlok Burst AR [Care Package]
- Damage increased to 23 (was 20)
- Headshot Multiplier increased to 1.8 (was 1.75)
- Improved recoil
- Integrated Boosted Loader Hop-Up
- Boosted Loader: Faster reloads at low ammo that overload the magazine with 9 extra rounds
Mastiff
- Spread pattern adjusted to be tighter
- Added Tactical Stocks attachment to improve reload speed and handling
- Increased projectile size at close range
Peacekeeper
- Added Tactical Stocks attachment to improve reload speed and handling
- Increased projectile size at close range
EVA-8
- Increased projectile size at close range
Rampage LMG [Floor]
- Reverted to non-Care Package version
- Damage reduced to 26 (was 28 in Care Package)
- No longer auto-energizes when picking up
- Energy decays slower when not firing
Legends
Seer
- Passive - Heartbeat Sensor
- Audio from Seer’s passive is now more audible to enemy players
- Activation is now delayed to match raise animation of weapon or unarmed
- Lock-On indication will now only show on heartbeat cadence of target
- Tactical - Focus of Attention
- No longer shows full body scan on scanned targets
- Ultimate: Exhibit
- No longer reveals on initiation
- Duration reduced from 30s to 25s
- Cooldown increased from 120s to 180s
Bloodhound
- Passive - Tracker
- White Ravens
- Ethereal White Ravens will now occasionally spawn near Bloodhound when no enemies are around.
- White Ravens can be interacted with or scanned to trigger them to fly towards the nearest enemy player
- The White Raven will leave a misty trail behind for Bloodhound to follow, and will share this direction with their team on the map.
- Using a White Raven will recover 25% Tactical / Ultimate charge
- Scanning a White Raven will fully refund the Tactical Charge
- Tactical - Eye of the Allfather
- Reduced full body scan time from 3s to 1s
- Diamond target on scanned enemy is unchanged
- Ultimate - Beast of the Hunt
- No longer recharges or speeds up the cooldown rate of Bloodhound’s Tactical
- Will launch a White Raven that flies towards the nearest enemy
- Killing an enemy while in Beast of the Hunt will also trigger a White Raven
Mirage
- Passive - Now you see me…
- Mirage and his ally now remain cloaked after a revive for 3s
- Weapons remain stowed while cloaked
- Drawing your weapon will remove the cloaking effect early
- Mirage Clones
- Bamboozles are now only triggered by bullet fire and melee
- Enemies who are bamboozled now receive notification on their screen
- Bamboozle icon marker now tracks the Bamboozled player’s movement
- Bamboozle icon marker duration increased from 2.5s to 3.5s
Pathfinder
- Passive - Insider Knowledge
- Pathfinder’s passive benefits are no longer gained by scanning Survey Beacons
- Pathfinder’s passive benefits (Ultimate charge and 10s Ultimate Cooldown reduction) are now gained by revealing Care Packages with the Skirmisher ability
- Ultimate - Zipline Gun
- Max Range increased by ~60%.
- Max Speed increased by 66%.
- Acceleration and exit speed adjustments.
- Targeting improvements, including updated visual and audio cues.
- Can no longer place the end station on OOB zones.
Wraith
- Ultimate - Dimensional Rift
- Max Portal Distance has been doubled (~76m to 152m)
- Portal Duration reduced from 60s to 45s
- Wraith now increases speed over time when creating longer portals
Horizon
- Tactical - Gravity Lift
- Increased weapon spread in Gravity Lift
- Increased vertical speed of Gravity Lift by 10%
Lifeline
- Passive - Combat Revive
- Reduced the slow penalty on Lifeline when initiating a revive
- Ultimate - Care Package
- Decreased the drop animation speed of Care Package from 14s to 8s
- Increased the deployment range of Care Package
Ranked — map rotation
Ranked queue will now rotate through all maps in play, 24 hours per map. The maps for the first split are:
- World's Edge
- Storm Point
- Broken Moon
Live API 2.0
Official release of version 2.0 of Live API for PC previewed during 15.1.2. The API is a built-in mechanism for listening to gameplay events and programmatically interacting with Apex Legends. This release includes:
- Support for WebSockets server connection
- Support for Protocol Buffers (protobuf) to send and receive data
- Configuration through both command line and JSON
- 12 new API requests, including
- 2 gameplay requests: ChangeCamera and PauseToggle
- 10 lobby requests specifically for Custom Match
More information, including technical documentation, can be found in the Live API folder of the game installation.
Quality of life
- Added map rotation previews to the game mode selector in the lobby.
- Players can now be any team in Gun Run.
- Increased the odds of becoming Team Nessie in Gun Run.
- Team Nessie is now viewable for all teams.
- Added new indicator on HUD unit frames for the Ratings Leader in Control.
- Consumables now show a progress bar for teammates next to their unit frame on the HUD. Similar to reviving.
- Added damage to the scoreboard in Control.
- Increased the minimum distance between airdropped replicators and other airdrops.
- Map Features when accessing the Full Map now reflect currently selected Class Perk info. Additionally, the Hot Zone map feature description is removed from the Full Map while the Hot Zone is hidden from the map.
- When in Firing Range, players now regain full health and shields when they reselect their legend in the legend select menu.
- Added ability to ping for an optic even if the optic attachment slot is filled.
- Slightly increased audio for enemies attaching, riding, and detaching from Ziprails.
- Adding Credits to Items inspired and designed by Creators.
Bug fixes
- Fix for Crypto’s drone reticle not being centered when on 16:10 resolutions.
- Fix for players not being able to emote if they were dead during the champion sequence.
- [Control] Fixed an issue where the MRB disappears if the player holding it leaves the match.
- Various UI bugs and improvements to the private match flow.
- Various bug fixes to some cosmetic items.
- Fix for the weapon camera in the Loadouts tab not resetting to the correct position when exiting a weapon from the Charms subtab.
- Fix for footer buttons in the seasonal quest not being clickable.
- Fix for the players' crosshairs being present sometimes during the champion sequence.
- The hide hints option no longer hides the waving person icon on items your teammates can use.
- Fixed a bug where if a team was empty in Gun Run the HUD would display incorrect information.
- [Emotes] fix for emotes camera sometimes passing through walls.
- Removed exploit that allowed players to remain out of bounds longer than intended.
- [Seer]Fixed an issue where Seer’s ultimate could be crushed by swinging doors.
- [Seer]Fixed an issue where Seer’ s ultimate and Crypto’s drones would block large sliding doors.
- [Seer] Fix for cases where Seer would have issues scanning Crypto.
- [Seer] Fix for when Seer's passive heartbeat sensor works through Catalyst's ult when placed on uneven surfaces.
- [Seer] Fix for cases here Seer’s tactical can get users stuck if used when they are crafting.
- [Valkyrie] Fixed bug where her animation warps in the in-flight meal emote.
- [Newcastle] Fixed bug where the Ultimate is not refunded/is not placed if a user is getting hit with Seer Tactical right when using it.
- [Crypto] Fixed an issue where Crypto’s drone would be destroyed when he’s knocked but not eliminated.
- [Crypto] Fix for bug where Crypto’s Drone scanning can block Catalyst from reinforcing doors.
- [Crypto] Fix for cases where his Ultimate stops from deploying if Crypto gets downed
- [Catalyst] Fixed bug where their Tactical makes it difficult to interact with ziplines, death boxes, and loot bins.
- Fixed bug where the player is unable to use melee attacks through Catalyst's Ultimate.
- Fixed an issue where players could be stuck after being hit by Seer’s tactical while using a crafting station.
- Fixed an issue where Seer’s move speed would be higher when in ADS while unarmed with the heartbeat sensor disabled.
- Fixed an issue where Crypto would not be scanned by Seer’s tactical while he was piloting his drone and the drone was not also hit by the tactical.
- [Vantage] Reduce the number of accidental tactical activations on controller when pulling out or putting away the ultimate with both bumpers.
- [Vantage] Increase visibility of Sniper's mark by adding on-screen prompt, similar to scans.
- [Vantage] Using tactical in areas blocked by geo, can result in the player getting launched into the air
- Fixed an issue where when Newcastle’s Ultimate was interrupted it would not correctly refund his Ultimate.
- Fixed an issue where Newcastle would continue to target allies while phased with his Ultimate.
- Fixed a rare issue were Newcastle’s tactical could get hung in the air and not deploy
- Fixed an issue with the Black Hole that allowed it to pull players through walls and around corners incorrectly.
- Fixed an issue where swapping legends in Firing Range would crash if bleeding out as Revenant.
- Fixed an issue where swapping legends in Firing Range while in Crypto’s drone would crash.
- Fixed an issue where Newcastle’s ultimate could fail to deploy on landing.
- Fixed an issue where a spectator swapping between two players being healed by DOC would crash the spectator.
- [Lifeline] Fixed ultimate cooldown appearing to need 101% charge.
- Fixed an issue where the Ultimate is ready prompt could appear while the player is still skydiving.
- Fixed bug where the previous Season rank is being shown on enemy gladiator cards.
- Reduced accidental launches on controller.
- [DX12] Fixed missing error popup on launch for unsupported hardware.
- [DX12] Fixed an issue where some emissive textures would not appear in third person.
Aaron Potter
