Apex Legends Season 18 getting big ring changes — faster, more damage

Apex Legends Season 18 is getting a lot of big changes, including the way rings work in the battle royale.

Like all battle royales, Apex Legends has a ring that slowly closes in as teams are eliminated and time continues ticking on. This forces the remaining players to get closer and closer until they are forced to engage. In Season 18, the ring is getting some important changes.

In general, the ring will be shrinking a lot quicker, and the ring damage is increased, making the matches a lot faster.

Apex Legends Season 18 ring patch notes

Apex Legends has released official patch notes ahead of Season 18, including these changes to the patch notes:

• Ring Size Changes
  • Ring 1 has increased 10% in radius per map, resulting in ~20% larger Ring 1 surface area
  • No other Ring sizes changed
• Ring Damage Changes
  • Ring 2 Damage increased from 3 per tick to 4 per tick
  • Ring 4 Damage reduced from 20 per tick to 15 per tick
• Timing Changes
  • Round 1
    • Preshrink time reduced from 90s to 75s 
    • Shrink speed on small Maps reduced from 167 to 160
    • Shrink speed on large Maps reduced from ~180 to ~165
    • Shrink time standardized to ~260s on each map 
  • Round 2
    • Preshrink time reduced from 165s to 120s
    • Shrink speed reduced from 160 to 140
    • Shrink time increased by ~25s per map 
  • Round 3
    • Preshrink time reduced from 135s to 90s
  • Round 4
    • Preshrink time reduced from 105s to 90s
    • Shrink speed reduced from 100 to 85
    • Shrink time increased from 40s to ~50s
  • Round 5
    • Preshrink time reduced from 90s to 75s
    • Shrink speed reduced from 50 to 40
    • Shrink time increased from 40s to 50s
• Maximum match length has been shortened
  • Small maps: reduced to ~19.0 mins (was ~21.5 mins)
  • Large maps: reduced to ~20.0 mins (was ~22.5 mins)

Basically, the ring is closing in faster, and remaining in the ring will damage you more. This essentially forces faster rotations and encourages players to make their way to the ring a lot sooner to avoid getting eliminated by ring damage.

This is in response to the Season 17 competitive meta, which saw ranked players often “camping” or “ratting.” Players realized they could move up the competitive ladder faster by placing high in matches rather than getting eliminations, meaning it was more beneficial to hide until the end whenever possible.

Now, teams will be forced to engage a lot more often, hopefully reducing the amount of competitive players who relied on camping.