Ranked Leagues will certainly bring something new to Apex Legends. In order for players to better understand this new feature, the developers revealed some details about what we can expect from this competitive mode in a Reddit post.
Goals for Ranked Leagues
- Reward competitive players for the time they invest in Apex Legends: players will receive in-game rewards at the end of the season, based on the rank they achieve.
- Ensure competitive integrity through skill-based matchmaking: this will focus on putting players of similar skill in the same match.
- Create a space at the top of the ladder for the best players to establish a high-skill meta without forcing a playstyle: because players shouldn’t be less well-rewarded because they’re not getting 15 kills a game.
- Create a true measure of skill in Apex Legends: the purpose is to take data from the launch of Ranked Leagues and adjust the system over time.
Ranking Badges
How It Works
Series and Resets
Ranked Leagues run in competitive periods called “Series”. The first is scheduled to run for the duration of Season 2 (July through September).
Ranks
Ranked Leagues features six competitive tiers: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Apex Predator. All tiers except Apex Predator have four divisions — for example, Gold IV, Gold III, Gold II, and Gold I, with Gold I being the top division in Gold tier.
Scoring
Players climb the ladder using a set scoring system. Scores are tracked via Ranked Points (RP) and your score moves up and down throughout the season.
Each Ranked match will cost RP to play based on your tier:
- Bronze matches are free
- Silver matches cost 1RP
- Gold matches cost 2RP
- Platinum matches cost 3RP
- Diamond matches cost 4RP
- Apex Predator matches cost 5RP
During the match, players will earn RP based on performance:
- Kills are worth 1RP up to a maximum of 5RP per match
- Placing Top 10 is worth 2RP
- Top 5 is 4RP, Top 3 earns 7RP
- A win will bank 12RP
Each placement score is exclusive, so if you finish in the Top 5, you won’t earn 6RP for a Top 10 and Top 5 finish combined. That means the maximum score you can earn per match is 17RP, not considering the match entry fee.
Playing with Friends
Ranked Leagues will require each player to be level 10 or higher to join. When you queue up with other friends in your lobby, the matchmaking system will find a match for the highest ranked player in that lobby, but each player will pay the appropriate match cost for their current rank.
Ladder Movement
For the launch of Ranked Leagues, everyone will be placed in Bronze, and as you score RP you climb and fall within a tier. There is currently no demotion if you drop into a lower tier, so if you earn your way into Platinum IV, no amount of losses will demote you back to Gold I — you are guaranteed to finish that Series in Platinum. However, demotion is possible between divisions, so if you’re Gold II and fall below 380 RP, you will move back down to Gold III.
Rewards
Ultimately, the best reward in a ranked system is the recognition of the skill and the rank achieved. People who really put in the time and compete on the ladder will be rewarded. Series 1 rank badges will be given to every player based on the tier they reach by the end of the Series.
Penalties
Players who abandon their teammates will be hit with a matchmaking penalty in both regular and Ranked matches. Penalties will result in a player being barred from joining a match for escalating amounts of time, based on how often they have abandoned in Ranked. Penalty times start out at five minutes, and repeat abandons will increase that time up to a week.
Loss Forgiveness
Similar to the Elite queue, there will be loss forgiveness in Ranked. Loss forgiveness is defined as zeroing out any potential losses in RP for a match. For example, in a Diamond match where you came in last place but had two kills, you would normally have a -2 adjustment to your RP. With loss forgiveness, however, you would have a net loss adjusted to 0. However, this will only apply if you stand to lose RP from the match – if you had five kills and loss forgiveness, your RP would still be net +1.
Matchmaking Updates
Matchmaking will be constantly monitored so updates will be done on the fly. All this is to help the developers answer questions, such as how long players should wait for a match with only players in their own tier, how large the gap between ranks represented in a match should be, etc.
Now you have all the essential information you need to get the most out of this Season 2 of Apex Legends and its new competitive mode.
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