Apex Legends pro players Philip ‘ImperialHal’ Dosen and Christopher ‘sweetdreams’ Sexton both believe the Season 14 ring damage changes have negatively impacted the game.
Season 14 of Apex Legends introduced Vantage, the Kings Canyon map changes, and the huge level cap increase which have all been positively received by the community.
However, as always, certain players and pros have criticized some of the additions that were added with Hunted.
One of the changes that’s sparked a lot of debate is the increase in zone damage, making it harder to survive outside the ring even at the beginning of the match.
Both sweetdreams and ImperialHal dislike this change, claiming it “doesn’t feel right” and feels “weird”.
ImperialHal and sweet dislike Season 14 ring damage changes
In the Hunted patch, Respawn decided to increase ring 1 damage from 2 to 3 hp/tick, making it equivalent to ring 2.
This has made it significantly more punishing to be caught in ring 1 at the start of a match and forces players to start rotating earlier.
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ImperialHal isn’t a fan of the changes as it makes it impossible to spend time crafting after landing, especially if you’re looking to collect all the loot from a POI outside the next ring.
As for sweet, he believes the ring changes are “too extreme” and thinks “it f**ks with the pacing of the game too much”.
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So far, this zone damage increase has received a lot of criticism so it’ll be interesting to see if Respawn opts to reverse the changes.
It’s certainly speeding up the time in which opposing squads run into each other, as players are forced to head into the ring earlier.
However, as activities like crafting take an allocated amount of time, this zone change may be discouraging the community from using replicators early in a match.