Apex Legends

Apex Legends Season 17 patch notes: Release date, new Legend Ballistic, World’s Edge map changes, more

Joseph Pascoulis
ballistic pointing pistol in apex legendsRespawn Entertainment

Apex Legends Season 17 is here, so for those interested in all of the changes that the update has brought, including the new Legend and World’s Edge map changes, here are the full patch notes.

Apex Legends Season 17 has officially landed, bringing a head of new content and exciting balance changes. Every season players get weapon and Legend buffs and nerfs to look forward to, and despite an absence in a new Legend last season, Ballisitc has arrived to shake up the meta.

For those interested in what the new season will be bringing, here are the full Apex Legends Season 17 patch notes.

Apex Legends Season 17 release date

Apex Legends Season 17 has officially launched as of May 9, 2023. Season 17 has brought a new Battle Pass, Legend, and more to the game.

New Apex Legends Season 17 Legend: Ballistic

The new Legend in Apex Legend Season 17 is Ballistic, an Assault class character with a history of being a champion in the Thunderdome fighting arena.

Ballistic’s full abilities were revealed during the gameplay trailer for the new season, and we have them filled detailed in our guide to the new Legend.

World’s Edge map changes in Apex Legends Season 17

World’s Edge has recieved some pretty substantial changes for Season 17, as the map is “healing.” Parts of Fragment have been restored, and new buildings like the Monument and Apex Games Museum are brand-new POIs for the map.

If you’re interested in the full changes to World’s Edge, check out our guide on all of the map’s changes.

Firing Range overhauled for Apex Legends Season 17

The Firing Range has undergone a huge transformation for Season 17 of Apex Legends, as the devs have added a totally new space filled with a 1v1 pit, a new town area, a movement practice zone, and more.

For all of the information on the changes to the Firing Range, check out our complete guide on the practice area’s changes coming in Apex Legends Season 17.

Apex Legends Season 17 brings huge ranked changes

The new Season 17 update for Apex Legends has also brought some hefty changes to ranked. This includes a complete overhaul for the scoring system, matchmaking changes, and anti-cheat updates which are designed to get the focus back on winning battle royale matches as opposed to racking up kills.

If you’re interested in the full details for the ranked changes, check out our piece on every ranked change coming in Apex Legends Season 17.

Weapon Mastery introduced in Apex Legends Season 17

The update also brings a new progression system for weapons in Apex Legends. Starting in Season 17, players will be leveling weapons up by getting kills, assists, and more.

The system allows players to master weapons, and gain rewards. Every 20 levels, players will unlock a weapon-specific trial to complete. For more information, check out our dedicated piece on the new weapon mastery system in Apex Legend Season 17.

New Evac Tower survival item in Apex Legends Season 17

A new survival item has arrived in Apex Legends Season 17 known as the Evac Tower. This is essentially a portable Jump Tower that players can place wherever they like. Once placed, players can use it like a Jump Tower and relocate to a more desired position.

Be aware, however, as players can destroy it and it will time out eventually.

Apex Legends Season 17 patch notes

Here are the full patch notes for those interested in every detail and change in the Apex Legends Season 17 update:

PING SYSTEM UPDATES

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 all on the patch notes for Apex Legends Season 17. For now, check out some of our other guides:

Who is the most popular Apex Legends character? | Will Arenas return to Apex Legends? | When is cross-progression coming to Apex Legends? | How to get Apex Legends Twitch Prime Gaming rewards | Best Legends in Apex Legends | All Apex Legends voice actors | Apex Legends current pick rates

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