Respawn adds abandon penalty to Arenas, fixes Wattson’s fences and Valkyrie stat farming exploit, and adjusts backpack distribution

Respawn has pushed out a fix to a series of issues that have been affecting Apex Legends since the launch of its new season, Legacy. The update also implemented an abandon penalty for Arenas games and tweaked the loot spawn to make backpacks more common on floor drops as opposed to supply bins.

The fix solves a problem that hit an important part of Wattson’s kit. The Static Defender’s fences are supposed to slow down enemies who cross through them, but the effect disappeared with the Legacy update. The ability should work as intended now.

Respawn added a penalty to players who leave Arenas matches if the team is full, similar to the abandon penalty in ranked games in Battle Royale, according to the patch notes. The punishment applies to players who are in a party with the leaver. In addition, the patch fixed an exploit that allowed legends to obtain upgrades without having enough materials to afford them and changed the upgrades on the Bocek Bow to Shatter Caps at level two and Deadeye’s Tempo at level three.

Lastly, the update also tweaked the spawn logic in the game to make backpacks more common as regular ground loot. Before the patch, the valuable items would spawn “almost exclusively” in supply bins, according to the list of changes. Respawn also slightly increased the chance of blue Evo Armor spawns after the addition of Starter Kits forced them “to be lowered by more than expected.”

The developers will push another set of changes later today that will reenable Valkyrie in the Firing Range and temporarily increase survival XP in Arenas matches. The live version doesn’t include the buy phase in survival time calculations, which causes the game to yield less XP than it should.