Apex Legends – March 19 Wild Frontier Update

Season 1 – Wild Frontier is live! Community Manager Jay Frechette (Jayfresh_Respawn) took to the Apex Legends subreddit to discuss our first Season 1 updates and changes with the community. Check out all the details in his own words below, or head over to the official Reddit post and jump into the conversation. Also make sure to check out our Update on PC Crashes to see how the new reporting process works.    

Happy Season 1 Day! The update is scheduled to go live at 10:00 a.m. PT on all platforms. Patch notes are below. I do my best to account for everything, but there may be cases where I miss something. It's not intentional if I omit anything from the patch notes. Enjoy!

Season 1: Wild Frontier Patch Notes

Introducing Season 1 Battle Pass

• Added Battle Pass tab to Lobby.
  • Cost: 950 Apex Coins
  • Earn over 100 unique items throughout the season – everything you snag before the season is over is yours to keep.
  • Updated dashboard images for Season 1 on PC and Xbox [PS4 is on the way!]
  • Updated Main Menu with new Season 1 art
  • Updated the Lobby visuals for Season 1
  • Updated the Apex Legends site FAQ with info on Battle Pass 

Introducing the Battle Pass Bundle

• Get the Battle Pass, plus unlock your next 25 levels for Season 1 instantly.
• Cost: 2,800 Apex Coins

Free Rewards

Everyone that plays Apex Legends during Season 1 can earn the following rewards:

• 1 Wild Frontier Legend skin
• 5 Apex Packs
• 18 Wild Frontier themed stat trackers

Read the full blog about Battle Pass with FAQ and video here.

New Legend: Octane

High-Speed Daredevil

If it doesn't involve diving, leaping, plummeting, or racing, then Octane wants nothing to do with it. Always the life of the party, Octane truly believes winning the Championship isn't enough . . . not if you didn't cheat death at least twice to get there.

Passive: Swift Mend

• While not taking damage, Octane restores one point of health every two seconds.

Tactical: Stim

• Move 30% faster for six seconds. Costs health to use. While active, Octane is affected less by attacks that cause slowdown. Two-second recharge.

Ultimate: Launch Pad

• Deployable jump pad that catapults players through the air. Takes 90 seconds to recharge.

Cost:

• 12,000 Legend Tokens
• 750 Apex Coins

Stability and Performance

We’ve got some fixes in this patch that will improve stability on PC but we know there are still issues out there we need to address. We also added crash reporting so we can better understand how to tackle the issues we haven’t solved yet and address future ones.

• Improved stability for various GPU configurations.
• Capped PC FPS to 300 to balance improving stability but still letting you folks enjoy those sweet frames.
• Addressed issue with PS4 crashes due to running out of memory.
• Introducing better reporting when Apex crashes on PC without error message.
  • We really want to fix any crashes people happen to get on PC. We also respect our player’s privacy. So, if the PC game crashes, it will write "apex_crash.txt" to your "Documents" folder. This tiny file is plain text, so you can easily see for yourself that it has no personal information. If you choose to share this file with us, it will tell us whether the crash was in Apex or in third party software. If the crash was in Apex, our programmers can use the information to find and fix it. If you experience a crash, please include this file when you report.
    • We protect your personal information.
    • You can easily see everything in the file yourself; we have no secrets.
    • You're in control of whether we ever see the file.
    • Please submit the file when you create a bug report on our forums here: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/bd-p/apex-legends-bug-reports-en.
    • Find out more about how our reporting process works in our Update on PC Crashes post.
  • Added Report a Player feature for cheating and abuse on PC.
    • Players can now report cheaters they encounter in game and it’ll be sent directly to Easy Anti-Cheat. You can do this from either the spectate view after dying or when looking at your team’s Banner Cards in the Squad tab.
    • We have lots of other work going on behind-the-scenes and this remains a high priority for us. We won’t be able to share many specifics of what we’re doing but we’ll strive to provide updates on progress for the things we can talk about.
    • As I'm finishing the notes this morning, 499,937 accounts and counting have been banned for cheating.
    • Speed hacking: we do currently have anti-speed hacking in Apex Legends, but it’s not being as effective as intended due to a bug that we believe we’ve identified and will be addressing in our next server update. I will provide an ETA for it when I have it. We’re working to get it out ASAP.
  • Added Report a Player for abuse on consoles.
    • You can report players from the spectate view after dying or when looking at your team’s Banner Cards in the Squad tab.
  • Optimized skydiving to improve overall server performance.
  • Fixed bug where sometimes the client could crash when opening Apex Packs one right after the other.

Quality of Life

• Added "Swap LT/RT & LB/RB" and "Swap L1/R1 & L2/R2" toggle in the Controller Button Layout settings.
  • Lets you quickly swap how your bumpers and triggers are set up within any controller preset.
• Added "Sprint View Shake" setting under the Video tab.
  • Setting this to "Minimal" can be especially helpful for players susceptible to motion sickness.
• Added "Trigger Deadzones" setting under the Controller tab.
  • Customize how far you want to pull the triggers before they register.
• Added "Advanced Look Controls" settings submenu under the Controller tab.
  • Fine-tuned specific aspects of the look controls for a custom feel such as Deadzone, Response Curve, Target Compensation (aim assist), and more.
• When you relinquish the Jumpmaster position to another player you will now hear your Legend’s VO line in addition to that of the new Jumpmaster. The third player won’t hear it though.
• Improved mantling from a grapple point.
• Pathfinder can now grapple ziplines.
• We’ve added D-pad navigation as a convenience in most of the menus. Our hope is this will speed up browsing and improve accessibility.
• UI improvements to knockdown shields.
  • A shield bar now drains to indicate the remaining health of the shield.
  • When you have a Gold knockdown shield and are down, we’ve added an effect to the label that reminds you that you can self-revive.
• We saw that the Ring indicator that appears when players are viewing the whole map wasn’t accurately showing the player’s position, so we fixed that.
• Character animations while taking damage now accurately reflect the direction the damage is coming from.
• Fixed a bug where occluded sounds would sometimes sound unoccluded.
• Patched up some issues with missing geo on Kings Canyon and fixed a few spots where players were getting stuck.
• Fixed a script error that could happen when removing attachments on holstered weapons.
• Polished game UI to fix some grammar issues and improve navigation and composition of elements.
• Fixed an error that caused PC users to constantly switch weapons while scrolling through items in a death box.
• Fixed a server stability issue caused by purchasing items while matchmaking.
• Fixed script errors that could occur during the skydive.
• Reduced skybox fog.
• Adjusted the code for airdrops so they are less likely to kill players. If you do still get killed by one, please let us know!
• Made it so push-to-talk is no longer on when a chat box is active.
• LT/RT no longer switches between players in spectator mode while the map is open.
• Updated the minimap to more accurately reflect the geo and points of interest on the main map.
• Added sound effects to the UI for the key binding menu.
• Fixed an issue where a player’s name would not show up when they sent a message that reached the character limit.
• Fixed a bug where sometimes the Champion screen would appear stretched in widescreen resolutions.
• Fixed an audio bug where sometimes the zipline sound effects would keep playing after disembarking.
• Added accessibility option to modify the subtitle size.
• Improvements/fixes for colorblind players:
  • Added better colorblind support for Bloodhound’s threat vision.
  • Colorblind colors per setting are now displayed in the Settings menu.
  • Colorblind settings moved from Video Settings to Gameplay -> Accessibility. They are now applied on the fly.
  • Enemy pings now use proper enemy color instead of only using red.
• Audio:
  • Turned down volume when Wraith activates a portal.
  • Turned down the end sounds on the Peacekeeper charged shot.
  • Turned down the draw/holster sound slightly for thermite grenades.

Legend Balance and Hitbox Adjustments

• Adjusted hitboxes for Gibraltar, Caustic, and Pathfinder to better align with their shapes.
• Caustic
  • Reduced cooldown of traps 30 -> 25 seconds.
  • Increased radius and proximity radius of traps by about 10%.
  • Removed a one-second delay on the smoke dealing damage to players.
  • Reduced cooldown of Gas Grenade 2.5 -> 2 seconds.
• Pathfinder
  • Insider Knowledge
    • Increased the number of beacons in the world 10 -> 12.

• Bangalore
  • Double Time
    • Reduced move speed bonus 40% -> 30%.
• Gibraltar
  • Defensive Bombardment
    • Fixed a bug where your teammates wouldn't be affected by shellshock. Gibraltar’s Ultimate is meant to act the same way as Bangalore's Ultimate in this regard.

Weapons

• Fixed an error that created a shortcut weapon swap by changing stance.
• Fixed an error that created a shortcut Peacekeeper rechamber sequence.
• Fixed inaccurate auto-ranging fullscreen (sniper) optics when base FOV is not set to default.
• Spitfire: Fixed ADS view on Legendary skins partially obscured by custom geo. (The Continuum, The Heavy Construct).
• Fixed an issue where ADS view was blocked when wearing Caustic Legendary skins with certain weapon/optic combos.
• Digital threat optics: threat highlights are now more visible (slightly brighter; no longer affected by temporal anti-aliasing).
• Fixed a bug where Devotion audio sometimes wouldn’t accurately reflect rate of fire.

Additional Bug Fixes

• Fixed a rare issue where a player could get stuck on the dropship and be invulnerable.
• Patched up the hole we found in Gibraltar’s shield.
• Fixed an issue where Lifeline’s revive shield wouldn’t stay put while on a moving platform.
• Fixed an issue where sometimes players would get stuck in map geometry while skydiving from the dropship or Jump Towers.
• Fixed a bug where players could still shoot even after being downed.
• Fixed bug where occasionally Lifeline’s D.O.C. drone would stay connected to a player but not heal them.
• Limited the amount of Lifeline’s D.O.C. drones that can connect to a player to two.
• Fixed Pathfinder’s zipline not deploying when jumping.
• Fixed a bug where sometimes the revive bar would stay up if the revive was cancelled right after it was started.
• Fixed a bug where sometimes the audio would continue to play sound effects for the knockdown shield even after it had been destroyed.
• Fixed issue where sometimes players could get disconnected when unplugging their controller during a game.
• Fixed an exploit where players could infinitely climb walls using Pathfinder’s Grappling Hook.
• Fixed a bug where sometimes players couldn’t fire the Peacekeeper after riding a zipline.
• Fixed an issue where sometimes the skybox fog would not appear while spectating after you died.
• Fixed a bug where Banner Cards would show through walls occasionally when viewed through a very high FOV.
• Fixed some odd light flickering on the balloon flags attached to Jump Towers.
• Fixed a bug where sometimes a player’s Banner Card would not show up after character select.

Razer Chroma Support

Apex Legends will now detect Razer Chroma peripherals and supported devices will play animated colors that react to events within the game, such as:

• During banner transitions
• While skydiving
• When picking up loot
• While opening Apex Packs
• While firing a weapon and taking damage
• When your Ultimate is ready
• And more!

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