Apex Legends has pushed out another change following the mid-season 28 update, this time to improve the Ranked game mode experience on Storm Point.
Despite the language of the announcement by Apex Legends’ social media account, the unnamed POIs have simply been removed from the drop ship POI pool. The actual area of the maps will remain in both Ranked and Public matches.
Which POIs are being removed?
Three small POIs (points-of-interest) have been removed from Ranked on Storm Point, though that doesn’t mean they’ve actually been removed from the game. The areas are tiny, unnamed clusters of buildings. The first sits between Checkpoint and The Wall, the second below Command Center near the river, and the last on the very edge of the map below Lightning Rod.
This means that players in Ranked – though only ranks Diamond and above – won’t be forced to start their match in some of the most lackluster areas around Storm Point. This change is just the latest chapter in the story of drop ships, as they’ve been added, removed, and brought back in a weird hybrid fashion over the course of the past few seasons.
What’s changed with drop ships?
The drop ship draft was first introduced in ALGS (Apex Legends Global Series), since teams had been unofficially splitting up and claiming POIs since the very beginning of the league. Apex Legends added a POI draft to ALGS to cement the policy (and make it fairer for less established teams and organizations), later bringing the drop ships to the full game in Ranked mode.
After a while, and some player feedback preferring more freedom at the beginning of the game, the classic drop ship returned to ranked. But after even more player feedback, the drop ship draft returned for only higher ranked players. With this additional tweak from Respawn, the drop ship draft will hopefully be even more improved.
