With the big update in Season 11, let us deep dive into the changes to expect about the patch and gameplay before you try out Season 11. The new changes took effect by the storm with a new Legend, Ash as well as a bigger map, Storm Point and also the new weapon C.A.R (derived from TitanFall 2) along with a list of balance patches. Check out the new features here. In addition to the anticipated changes, there is also a new Hop-Up, “Dual Shell” for the Mastiff and 30-30 Repeater which allows double round to be reloaded each time.
In Season 11, there will be 2 map in rotation for Battle Royale:
- Storm Point
- World’s Edge
The map rotation for Arena will be limited to custom Arena maps only and Respawn is no longer using points of interest in Battle Royale maps. This is to ensure that the arena maps remain small and need not load the whole Battle Royale maps. This will also allow the map designers to focus their attention towards Arena and Battle Royale separately.
RANKED CHANGES
There is some changes to ranked system after TEN SEASONS! Taking into consideration that rank games attract a huge amount of players for competitive gameplay, Respawn finally decided to address some balancing issues.
The developers have restructured the Ranked Points system. Previously Ranked Points is granted based on individual kills together with a placement multiplier. The revamp of the Ranked system has eased on Ranked Points restrictions and also offer other opportunities to max out kill-related points in the match. Basically, Respawn has taken into consideration rank differences between the killer and the victim. The Ranked Points cap limit from kills are also changed.
- Ranked Points are adjusted if the killer is ranked higher than the victim. For example, a Diamond player has killed a Platinum player, the kill points will be lower. The Kill Points will be awarded based on Tier differences. Apex Predator and Master are treated as the same tier.
| Tier Difference | Kill Points |
| -3 | 3 |
| -2 | 5 |
| -1 | 8 |
| 0 | 10 |
| 1 | 12 |
| 2 | 15 |
| 3 | 20 |
- Kill cap is raised from six to SEVEN.
After tier differences are taken into account for kill points, a flat per kill bonus is added based on placement.
| Final Placement | Per Kill Bonus |
| 1 | 15 |
| 2 | 10 |
| 3 | |
| 4 | 5 |
| 5 | |
| 6 | 2 |
| 7 | |
| 8 | |
| 9 | |
| 10 | |
| 11 | 0 |
| 12 | |
| 13 | |
| 14+ |
The maximum kill point RP is 175. Any kill-related RP that exceeds that after placement and tier modifiers are added doesn’t affect total RP. The final step is to add a flat placement bonus. It seems that Respawn tries to make some effort to “correct” the rank system but it seems that the above change is somewhat lackluster and probably not a very innovative way. By maintaining individual kill point system, it neither encourage teamwork nor promote fair rank play. With the points distributed by rank, this will likely cause more lower tier players to squad up teammates of higher rank to get a higher chance to play in a higher-rank lobbies.
Ranked Arenas
- Arenas Ranked now has 2 splits, similar to Ranked Battle Royale
- Along with each new season and split, there is a soft MMR reset and new placement matches. New seasons require the usual 10 placement matches while a new split only requires 5 placement matches.
- Improvements have been made to matchmaking for finding similarly skilled teammates.
- Reduced the AP amount gained or lost from MMR differences between teams.
Balance Changes
Major buff has been made for Wattson considering that she was rendered useless by most pro players in Season 10. Given that other Legends have much more versatility and her previous bugs, Wattson was relegated down the pecking order from the pick list. Her fence is not only extended to reach greater length, her ultimate Pylon is finally reverted to permanent placement. However, it now has limited shield regeneration charges. This rework would definitely increase her reliability again.
- Improved the reliability and responsiveness of placing Wattson’s Tactical and Ultimate in-world objects.
- Wattson can place her Tactical and Ultimate objects on valid surfaces above Wattson’s eye level (to a reasonable extent).
- General hitbox size increase, to compensate for the removal of low profile in the Legacy update
- Increased damage on crossing a Fence by 33%. (15 to 20)
- Increased debuff duration on crossing a Fence by 100%. (1.5 to 3 seconds)
- Increased the time allowance to be hit again by a subsequent Fence effect by 100%. (0.5 to 1 second).
- Decreased recharge time by 50% (30 to 15 seconds).
- Increased placement range by 50%.
- Decreased the delay between Fences shutting off and reactivating after an ally passes through them by 60%. (1.0 -> 0.4 seconds)
- Wattson now moves at Unarmed-speed while readying/placing Fence nodes.
- Fence nodes can now be placed as soon as the weapon is readied, instead of waiting for the animation to finish.
- The Pylon output has been significantly reworked.
- Reduced the number of active Pylons Wattson can place from 3 to 1.
- The Pylon now lasts forever (instead of timing out after 90 seconds).
- The Pylon now has a pool of 250 Shields that can be distributed to nearby players, instead of effectively infinite Shields.
- Increased the Pylon shield recharge rate by 150%, and smoothed regen rate. (2/second -> 5/second, or more accurately: 1/0.5 seconds -> 1/0.2 seconds)
- When a Pylon is out of Shields, it no longer recharges players’ Shields, but can still zap incoming ordnance.
- Taking damage while regenerating Shields via the Pylon delays continued regeneration by 1 second.
- The UI on the ground and HUD elements now displays the amount of Shields that remain in the Pylon.
- Pinging a friendly Pylon will now display the percentage of Shields remaining in the Pylon.
- Pylon ordnance-zapping has been moderately reworked.
- Ordnance is now zapped when the Pylon detects that it would hit any surface within range and line of sight of the Pylon, instead of being zapped as soon as it comes within range.
- As a part of the changes, current issues where the Pylon doesn’t reliably zap ordnance (particularly concerning airstrike abilities, and ordnance that bounced off surfaces near the Pylon) should now be addressed.
On the hand, Triple-Take is now back to the floor loot and is replaced by G7 Scout. The EVA-8 is nerfed slightly by reducing its fire rate by 0.1 to 2.0. L-Star has also taken a big hit with a reduced barrel effectiveness and its damage was reduced from 18 to 17. These are some of the other weapon adjustments.
EVA-8
- Fire rate reduced from 2.1 to 2.0
PEACEKEEPER
- Slightly increased pellet size
- Choke up time reduced from 1.5s to 1.25s
- Choked up shots remain tight for slightly longer when exiting ADS
LONGBOW
- Damage reduced from 60 to 55
L-STAR
- Reduced barrel effectiveness at all rarity tiers
- Significantly reduced projectile collision size
- Damage reduced from 18 to 17
G7 SCOUT
- Damage increased from 34 to 36
- Double Tap added to Supply Drop G7 Scout
Players who frequently drop at hot zones can be now rewarded with higher chance of gold loot. The Supply Drop has also configured the weapon rate to increase progressively. It is not direct definition between early, mid and late game but it should be between 1st, 3rd and 5th circle.
- Early game crate weapon rate increased from 25% to 50%
- Mid game crate weapon rate increased from 50% to 75%
- Late game crate weapon rate increased from 75% to 100%
CRAFTING
There are also some adjustment for crafting. A good change is that ammo quantity is finally increased for crafting.
- Increased ammo from crafting
- Light Ammo 20 → 60
- Heavy Ammo 20 → 60
- Energy Ammo 20 → 60
- Shotgun Ammo 8 → 24
- Arrows 16 → 48
- Sniper 12 → 36
- Crafting Ammo price increased from 5 to 10 per weapon
- Evo Armor Points from crafting increased from 100 to 150
- Evo Armor Points cost increased from 45 to 50
- Replaced a sniper bundle with a shotgun bundle featuring the Dual Shell
Mixed Reaction
Despite the new launch, there are many mixed reactions from pro players. Pro streamer, Nokokopuffs was not satisfied due to the lack of audio fixes. Till today, Respawn has been very quiet about pertinent audio problems.
Ok time for the negatives:
Audio got 100x worse
Ashe has no footsteps
Path grapple has no audio
Octane Jumppad still no audio
So far its mostly just horrrrrible audio problems
Ashe passive is a literal beacon to third party
Map has a lot of choke points that would require valk— Nokokopuffs (@Nokokopuffs_) November 2, 2021
Surprisingly, there were no big server issues which would traditionally happen during Season launch. However, lets keep fingers crossed for the week ahead.