Apex Legends‘ Fight Night Collection update is going live now with a new Town Takeover event, more cosmetics, and a set of patch notes affecting different Legends, weapons, and other aspects of the game. Those patch notes for the update were released prior to the launch of the Fight Night Collection, but Respawn Entertainment made some last-minute adjustments to parts of the patch notes including the removal of a Caustic buff and the addition of a Horizon nerf.
The modified patch notes were shared on social media as the update was going live with the patch notes on Electronic Arts‘ site also being updated to reflect the changes. Those who saw the patch notes before will recall that Caustic had a buff coming that would lower his Nox Gas Trap cooldown to 20 seconds instead of the 25 seconds it’s currently at. With Caustic performing better lately even without the buff, Respawn Entertainment decided to revert the change. Replacing the nerf is a change that’s instead for Horizon that increases the cooldown of the Legend’s Gravity Lift by five seconds.
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Shipping some balance tweaks in the patch that’s going live now:
🔸Caustic’s Nox Gas Trap cooldown will remain at 25 seconds instead of 20 seconds as previously stated in the patch notes.
— Apex Legends (@PlayApex) January 5, 2021
🔸Horizon’s Gravity Lift: Increased effective cooldown from 16 seconds to 21 seconds.
Also, in hopes of spreading out the chaos that can occur in final Rings, we’re re-tuning Rings 5 and 6.
🔸Ring 5 is bigger (1500>2000 unit radius). Time-to-close is the same.
— Apex Legends (@PlayApex) January 5, 2021
🔸Ring 6 is the last Ring. It will slowly close over 100s somewhere near the center of Ring 5.
One last thing:
So people can easily experience the Pathfinder Town Takeover, normal matches will be Olympus-only for 1 week, starting today. Ranked will still be on World’s Edge. This is going to be fun! 🤖
— Apex Legends (@PlayApex) January 5, 2021
For those looking for a better explanation as to why the Caustic buff was reverted, Respawn Entertainment’s associate live balance designer John Larson shared some insights into the change being pulled from the patch notes. Larson explained how the change would’ve affected Caustic’s playstyle before noting that the Legend had adopted a greater presence in competitive play with a climbing win rate even without the buff being in effect.
Aside from the late-game rings being adjusted, it’s also worth noting that players will only be playing on Olympus in normal matches for the next week. The idea is that this restriction to one map will allow players to better experience the Pathfinder Town Takeover event that’s reworked part of Olympus.
Apex Legends’ Fight Night Collection event is now going live across all platforms.
