When the latest expansion for Apex Legends arrived, the Season 7 Battle Pass received a lot of backlash over the new experience points requirements. The Battle Pass for Apex Legends Season 7 was intended to make the game experience more seamless, but players discovered gaining XP was much more time consuming than before.
Recently, Respawn Entertainment made changes to Apex Legends' new Battle Pass in response to the player backlash. Afterwards, the developer was asked on the game's subreddit why the developer made the initial changes to the Season 7 pass to begin with. The game director, Chad Grenier, provided a lengthy reply on the subject to dispel any unease over the matter.
In the post, Grenier responded to user Ender112 who asked why Respawn made the changes to Apex Legends' latest Battle Pass and if it was a disingenuous move by the developer. He stated that the team made the changes with the players' interests in mind and are not trying to play "negotiation games" with them. He emphasized that the developers weren't trying to incentivize players into buying more battle pass levels for the game, and were only trying to make the best game possible.
Afterwards, Grenier stated the two key changes the team made to the Apex Legends Battle Pass and why they were made. First, Respawn streamlined the star system to reward more stars to players, in order to simplify how the battle pass system operates. Second, the difficulty was adjusted in order to lessen the amount of time players would have to spend engaged in the Apex Legends challenges. This change was made because Respawn received data showing that players were actually completing challenges much earlier than expected, leaving little post-content for them.
To correct this, Respawn attempted to make the player progression in the game more engaging by providing greater challenges for players. The changes were made in a "calculated manner" with the expectation that players would have a better time with updated Apex Legends' Season 7 content that would be more fulfilling. Especially without purchasing more Battle Pass levels to do so. Of course, the developer didn't count on the amount of grinding this would create, as well as the resulting player backlash that followed.
Grenier would go on to state that Respawn's goal was to keep players engaged throughout the new season and not wrong them. When Respawn received the immediate feedback, the developer went straight to work on rectifying the past alterations to the Battle Pass. The changes are supposed to be 50% easier to complete, and there will be more changes to come with the recent feedback kept well in mind.
Apex Legends is available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One with a Nintendo Switch version in development.