The mysteries of loss forgiveness revealed!

Apex Legends is a game that takes its ranked system very seriously. The developers are constantly making changes to the ranked system in order to make sure that the matchmaking is balanced but also challenging.

Together with the beauty of a balanced competitive system must come a forgiving one and, like every online game that requires cooperation between players, Apex Legends had to make sure that people are “forgiven” for losses that are beyond their control. 

This is where the topic of this article comes in - Loss Forgiveness. If you are curious about what it means on Apex Legends, then this is the article to read.

What is Loss Forgiveness?

Loss Forgiveness is when you were supposed to lose Ranking Points or Arena Points, but the game prevents it. 

You might think that this sounds amazing. However, there are very specific cases where this would apply, since it is not a mechanism that the developers created just because they are nice people. Loss Forgiveness is there to stop you from losing points when the odds are stacked against you.

How do you get loss forgiveness in Apex?

So, let us see which are the cases where loss forgiveness applies. Keep in mind that only applies in Apex Legends Ranked Arenas and Apex Legends Ranked Battle Royale modes.

You are not in full squad

The first case in which loss forgiveness applies is when you log into a match but for some reason you are not in a full squad, the game will take this into account; and if you die fast when you were supposed to lose some RP, this RP loss gets zeroed out.

This happens to prevent players who, due to a teammate abandoning the game or due to server problems, were going to lose the game.

The game will inform you with a pop-up that loss forgiveness was applied if the problem was due to an issue in the game.

The second case that loss forgiveness will apply is if you suddenly log off from a game. If you leave a ranked match in Apex Legends, the game will lock ranked mode and casual mode for a certain amount of time, and apply an extra RP penalty for you leaving the match, but with one exception.

When you have an unexpected quit during matchmaking

If you logged off abruptly from the match, the system will assume that something beyond your control went wrong and you were forced to leave the match. In that case, the loss forgiveness applies. The game will inform you with a pop up of that.

If you are a bit cunning, you can immediately imagine a way that this can be abused. Every time you want to get out of a match, then you can just hit Alt+F4 and you are free. Of course, the developers thought of that and put a few conditions before granting the loss forgiveness.

First, they check if you quit a match in the last 24 hours. If that is the case, the normal penalty for quitting a match will apply.

And second, there is a maximum amount of times this “accident” can happen. 3 times per ranked season is the magic number.

If you happen to log off a 4^th time, the game will automatically assume that you are trying to cheat the system, it will go ahead and penalise you for leaving a ranked match. So, be careful if you rage-quit, because it might cost you in the future in a time when you might not have done anything wrong.

How Important is Loss Forgiveness?

For smaller ranks like Bronze or Silver, the difference loss forgiveness makes is pretty insignificant. Losing 15 RP will not have a big impact on your Ranked Progression since you can get it back easily. Although, if you look at the following table, you will understand why Loss Forgiveness is necessary:

RANK TIER	ENTRY COST
Rookie	Free
Bronze	15-24 RP
Silver	27-36 RP
Gold	39-48 RP
Platinum	51-60 RP
Diamond	63-72 RP
Masters	75RP, with 5RP every 1,000 RP beyond Apex Predator Threshold

The Apex Predator RP is so important and hard to achieve that players don’t have the Luxury to lose points, especially since there is the potential to lose a minimum of 75 RP for nothing. In the case of an abandon penalty, this number doubles.

To get back all this RP you have to pretty much win a match with various kills. You can’t have some of your best players punished like that for nothing. This is why loss forgiveness is necessary. Keep in mind that loss forgiveness only negates any RP you were going to lose, it has no impact if you gain RP, so there is no way you can use this mechanism to your advantage.

One thing that has changed from the earlier Ranked Seasons is that now you have the option to reconnect to a game if your internet went down. In the early days of Apex Legends that was impossible, but nowadays you just need to get back on the internet and the game will put you back into the match. You just need to hope that your teammates took care of you, so you don’t die to the Storm.

There has been an occasion that players in Apex Predator matches have moved their disconnected teammate’s body for half of the Kings Canyon map by punching them continuously, and then proceeded to place first in the match. Now that is some real dedication, even with loss forgiveness being a thing!