Apex Legends Season 1 drew widespread criticism for a number of reasons. Uninspired cosmetics, filler rewards in the form of stat trackers and nonexistent metagame changes are three of the worst offenders, no doubt, but that’s far from an exhaustive list. Somewhat glossed over perhaps due to the obvious faults of the aforementioned were the battle royale’s course and bland progression systems.
Without daily or weekly challenges promoting varied play and completing specific objectives à la Fortnite, rising up the ranks of Apex‘s first Battle Pass more often than not felt like a slog with little to no reward at its end. Thankfully, having heeded the advice of players in their thousands, last week’s arrival of Season 2: Battle Charge brought with it some sorely needed changes. The most obvious of which, of course, has been the introduction of said rotating quests to complete, admittedly making the XP grind feel more satisfying, but is it really any easier? According to one observer, the answer is an unequivocal no.
Reddit user K_U’s post claims that Season 2’s Battle Pass is actually designed to “throttle you to 10 levels per week,” via the introduction of so-called “easy” levels. Referring to the bonus XP awarded to the first 10 challenges a player completes each week, K_U continues to explain how, once that threshold has been met, progression slows down to a crawl, requiring several hours of continued play just to achieve one level.
7 of those 10 “easy” levels reset each week. Go on vacation for 1 week? There goes 7 of your “easy” levels, and now you’re finishing in week 12. Have to work on the weekend unexpectedly? There goes another 7 “easy” levels, and now you better hope you have free time in week 13 to finish. If you miss 3 weeks or more you’ll need to grind at least one 54K XP / 5 hour BP level at the end of the season.
Here’s how they break it down:
I’ve been asked in other threads to post this as a PSA, so here you go. I hope you find this useful.
The Season 2 leveling system is going to be a lot tougher than last season, and far more difficult to grind if you fall behind. Why? Progression is intentionally throttled to 10 “easy” levels per week by the 54K XP wall.
These are the 10 “easy” levels per week:
- 3 Weekly Challenges that give +1 BP Level
- 2 Weekly Resetting Challenges for Daily Challenge Completion that give +1 BP Level
- 1 Weekly Resetting Challenge for 9K XP that gives +1 BP Level
- 1 Weekly Resetting Challenge for 18K XP that gives +1 BP Level
- 1 Weekly Resetting Challenge for 27K XP that gives +1 BP Level
- 1 Weekly Resetting Challenge for 36K XP that gives +1 BP Level
- 1 Weekly Resetting Challenge for 45K XP that gives +1 BP Level
After those 10 levels you hit the 54K XP wall where it will take 5 hours of survival time XP per BP level (compared to 82 minutes of survival time XP per level in Season 1). That means that even the players that aggressively grind the BP likely will not complete it until week 10 or 11.
Many people on this sub aren’t going to recognize this slim margin for error until it is way too late, especially with the messaging surrounding Season 2 that progression would be easier than Season 1 and require less time investment.
Furthermore, over half of the challenges that award “easy” levels reset each week, regardless of their completion status, making it incredibly easy for players to fall behind, should they wish to take a break or have other commitments to uphold. The post suggests that, at the bare minimum, these weekly tasks should be completed before they’re gone for good, but it’s hardly an ideal situation for less frequent players.
Respawn has yet to comment on the matter, though I wouldn’t be surprised to see they offset the problem with a series of double XP weekends for Apex Legends in the near future.
