Latest Apex Legends update adds abandon penalties to Arenas, fixes backpack spawn rate in Battle Royale and Wattson's fences

Three weeks after the release of Apex Legends Season 9 Legacy, Respawn Entertainment has finally taken the time to fix some game-breaking issues in both the Battle Royale and the Arenas game mode.

To punish players who quit Arena matches in order to retain their winning streak in the 3v3 mode, the developers have added abandon penalties to the Apex Legends game mode. They have also fixed Wattson's fences that lost their 'slow' function in the latest update.

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Apex Legends update 1.69 patch notes official patch notes

Here are the official patch notes for the Apex Legends update 1.69:

Wattson changes:

• Restored slow effect when players run into Wattson's fences.

Valkyrie changes:

• Added a short input delay after using Valkyrie's ult to prevent players from accidentally activating and immediately canceling their ult by accident.
• Fixed an exploit that let players record stats in the firing range while using Valkyrie.
• Fixed an edge case that allowed her ult to be activated shortly after using a jump pad.

Arenas changes:

• Penalties for abandoning games have been added to Arenas. This is similar to the abandon penalty applied in Ranked BR games. You only get the penalty if you were in a full squad when you left (this doesn't apply if you were partied with the leaver, you'll still get penalized in that case). This update will activate a warning for players who are about to leave a game in progress. The associated penalties will follow shortly after.
• Fixed an exploit that allowed users to unlock upgrades without having enough materials to do so.
• Hop-up Upgrades for the Bocek bow are now as follows: Level 2: Shattercaps. Level 3: Deadeye's Tempo.
• Fixed various Arenas bugs and errors.

Loot adjustments:

• Adjusted the logic for loot items being spawned on the ground as opposed to being placed into loot bins. This should cause backpacks to spawn more evenly on the ground as opposed to being spawned almost exclusively in loot bins.
• Slight increase in spawn rates for Level 2 Evo armor. The starter kit changes introduced in Season 9 had caused them to be lowered by more than expected.
• Miscellaneous stability fixes.

Late Afternoon PT Playlist Update:

• Re-enabling Valkyrie in the firing range.
• We're temporarily increasing survival XP earned in Arenas. This is a placeholder fix to offset the fact that the buy phase currently isn't being taken into account for "survival time." In a future patch, we'll adjust the survival time calculation to include the buy phase and return the survival XP earn rate to its previous level.

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