Apex Legends ranked updates in Season 17: Point changes, scoring system, matchmaking, more

Season 17 of Apex Legends will bring about a major overhaul to Ranked play in the battle royale, including a new scoring system and key matchmaking updates.

Apex Legends will enter its 17th season on May 9, with developers Respawn bringing in new content to keep the game fresh. Alongside the debut of newest Legend Ballistic, Season 17 will also feature a rework to the game’s ranked system.

Ranked is set to receive a complete overhaul, with a new ranking point, scoring system, and the complete removal of splits topping the list of changes. So before it all goes live, here’s the full rundown.

Apex Legends Season 17 ranked changes launch date

The latest Apex Legends ranked rework will go live when Season 17 hits the live servers, meaning players should expect the system to roll out on Tuesday, May 9, 2023 likely at 10 am PT / 1 pm ET / 6 pm BST.

Apex Legends season 17 ranked changes details

Matchmaking Overhaul

Season 17’s ranked game mode will feature a new matchmaking system based on a hidden matchmaking rating (MMR). Apex will also be looking to take into account the MMR of premade squads to balance for the competitive advantages premade squads have over solo players.

The new Ladder Points are now completely decoupled with a player’s matchmaking (MMR), meaning that the matchmaker will instead build games based on skill rather than the player’s rank or Ladder Points.

Ranked Points Changes

Ranked Points are being changed with the new Season 17 ranked overhaul. The older Ranked Points are being replaced with Ladder Points, which will work in a different manner from the original system.

Ladder Points will be required to enter a ranked game like Ranked Points, however, the entry fee has been flattened across the board for all ranks.

Ladder Points will also be awarded differently to Ranked Points. Instead, Ladder Points will be awarded to the entire squad based on their placement within the match. Players will need to strive to place within the top 10 squads to go even or positive in Ladder Points, with any placement above that resulting in a loss of Ladder Points.

However, players can still earn Ladder Points for their performance within the match, with kills and assists still contributing to Ladder Point gains. Alongside this, your performance based on your MMR and the difficulty of the lobby will also contribute to the amount of Ladder Points earned.

Removal of Splits & Provisional Matches

Splits will be completely removed with the coming of Apex Legend’s Season 17. Instead, the ranked climb will begin at the start of each season with ten Provisional Matches better gauging a player’s skill level as they enter the season.

Respawn’s reasoning behind these changes is that they want players to engage with ranked more frequently throughout the season, rather than just the start of the split.

Anti-cheat updates for Ranked

In addition to the provisional matches, which will slow down cheaters and smurfs, there are also other methods being implanted to stop cheats, smurfs and teaming.

You will now only receive kill points for unique kills, making it impossible to collude and kill the same opponent over and over.

Respawn also said they have new detection methods to catch cheaters, although couldn’t go into details for obvious reasons.

Ranked Level Requirements Increasing

Respawn is also changing the level requirement for ranked in Apex Legends from 25 to 50. Their goals with these changes are aimed at slowing down smurfs and giving the devs more time to help detect cheaters.

That’s everything we know so far about the ranked changes in Season 17. We’ll have to wait till the season releases on May 9 to see how it all takes shape.