UPDATE 26/05/21: Apex Legends’ new abandon penalty for Arenas is off to a pretty bumpy start, as the feature has been temporarily disabled after it accidentally punished some innocent players.
As discussed in the original story below, some players said they were given 10-minute bans for quitting during the end screen animations – even though the match itself had already ended. Director of communications Ryan K. Rigney explained that “this problem had to do with game logic after everyone on the opposing Arenas team left the match.
“Basically you’d sometimes still get a leaver penalty after leaving the empty game,” he said in a tweet. “It’s one of those things that never showed up in playtesting. Dumb bug! Fix should be p quick.”
As a result, Respawn has disabled leaver penalties in Arenas while the team works on a fix. The tweet mentions that a fix is scheduled to arrive sometime later this week, which will hopefully see the penalty system re-introduced.
A small @PlayApex update:
We’ve temporarily disabled leaver penalties in Arenas due to the system sometimes issuing inappropriate punishments.
The fix for this is scheduled for later this week, so we’ll let you know when we’ve solved the problem and restored penalties.
— Respawn (@Respawn) May 26, 2021
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ORIGINAL STORY 25/05/21: A much-requested feature has finally been introduced to Apex Legends’ Arenas mode, as the 3v3 team deathmatches now have a leaving penalty – something that should hopefully deter players from flaking on their squadmates.
Several changes were announced via patch notes posted on Twitter, including the new abandon penalty for Arenas games. Respawn explained that this is similar to the penalty for Ranked Battle Royale games, and will apply to those who leave a full squad in the middle of a match.
Unfortunately it seems a couple of people are currently getting unfairly punished by the new penalty, with some reporting being slapped with 10-minute sin bins for leaving during the end screen animations. Director of communications Ryan K. Rigney assured one player that the team was investigating the problem.