The Ring

Mirage escaping The Ring.

The Ring is a frequently shrinking circular zone, outside of which players will take constant damage. As the game progresses in Rounds, the ring will deal more damage and shrink to smaller and smaller sizes until the whole map is enveloped.

Any Recon Legend can show their team where the next round's ring will be when they interact with a Survey Beacon.

Stats

Round	Wait period	Time to close	Damage/tick	Ring Diameter after closing
1	3:00	3:45	2	1000 m
2	2:45	0:45	3	650 m
3	2:15	0:45	10	400 m
4	1:45	0:40	20	200 m
5	1:30	0:40	20	100 m
6	1:00	2:00	25	0.05 m

There is a roughly 60 seconds period before Round 1 starts during which players cannot see where the ring will shrink to.

The Ring in Arenas has different close times and damage values.

Ring round	Wait period	Time to close	Damage/tick	Ring diameter after closing
1	0:45	~0:30	10	170 m
2	0:35	~0:25	15	75 m
3	0:30	~0:15	20	12.5 m
4	0:15	???	25	0.05 m

Lore

The Modified Containment Ring functions on similar principles to an Active Denial System. The outer area is filled with 95 GHz light waves, causing the surface of a target's skin to continuously heat up to painful degrees. The field is contained within two bubble shields similar to Gibraltar's Dome of Protection; one envelops the entire arena, while the other keeps the ADS out of the playable area, and shrinks throughout the match.

The Syndicate commissioned the Ring for the Apex Games after noticing that practice matches were often drawn out overnight because some competitors preferred to stay put. The ADS concept was designed by 15 year old Natalie Paquette and pitched by her father Luc. The two went on to build the final product, though Luc would die the day of its unveiling.

During testing, MRVNs were programmed to be able to access the Ring's future positions via Survey Beacons, so they would be able to escort humans to safety.

History

Patch notes 

May 04, 2021 Patch

• Adjusted Ring shrink speed, size, and time:
  • Ring 4:
    • Pre-shrink time reduced from 2:00 to 1:45.
    • Shrink time increased from 33 seconds to 40 seconds.
  • Ring 5: Shrink time increased from 20 seconds to 40 seconds.
  • Ring 6:
    • Pre-shrink time reduced from 1:30 to 1:00.
    • Shrink time increased from 1:40 to 2:00.

March 02, 2021 Patch

• Removed Ring ending locations on Mirage Voyage in Kings Canyon.

February 04, 2021 Patch

• Reduced the likelihood of late-game circles ending on Mirage Voyage and The Pit in Kings Canyon.

January 05, 2021 Patch

• Ring 5 is bigger (radius size increased from 1500 units to 2000 units). The time to close is the same.
• Ring 6 is the last ring. It will slowly close over 100 seconds somewhere near the center of Ring 5.

November 12, 2020 Patch

• Ring 3 damage per tick increased from 5% to 10%.
• Ring 4 and 5 damage per tick increased from 10% to 20%.
• Ring 6 and 7 damage per tick increased from 15% to 25%.

November 04, 2020 Patch

• Adjusted Ring damage values for Ring 2 to Ring 7.
  • Ring 2: 3% per tick (from 5%)
  • Ring 3: 5% per tick (from 10%)
  • Ring 4: 10% per tick (from 20%)
  • Ring 5: 10% per tick (from 20%)
  • Ring 6: 15% per tick (from 25%)
  • Ring 7: 15% per tick (from 25%)
• Made modifications to the Ring to reduce the amount of unplayable space.

September 10, 2020 Patch

• Improved logic.

August 18, 2020 Patch

• Alterations were made to the Ring to prevent late zones from centering on unplayable terrain and reduce the predictability of the zone's "pull."

April 07, 2020 Patch

• Fix for some cases where the circle would end in a bad or invalid location.

February 04, 2020 Patch

• Fixes for cases where approaching the edge of the circle would make the player's screen turn almost all white.

January 14, 2020 Patch

• Fixes for cases where the final circle was ending in a bad location.

December 03, 2019 Patch

• Fixed bug for rare cases where a player was unable to revive a teammate while outside the Ring.

October 17, 2019 Patch

• Fixed an issue with the first Ring not beginning in the correct spot.

July 02, 2019 Patch

• Ring damage adjusted:
  • Round 1: 2% damage taken per tick.
  • Round 2: 5% damage taken per tick.
  • Round 3: 10% damage taken per tick.
  • Rounds 4 and 5: 20% damage taken per tick.
  • Rounds 6 and beyond: 25% damage taken per tick.
• Ring speed and size adjusted:
  • First Circle starts closing after 3 minutes. Time to close: 2 minutes.
    • Radius size for the first circle reduced by about 9%.
  • Second Circle starts closing after 2 minutes 30 seconds. Time to close: 2 minutes.
  • Third Circle starts closing after 2 minutes 15 seconds. Time to close: 2 minutes.
  • Fourth Circle starts closing after 2 minutes. Time to close: 2 minutes.
  • Fifth and Sixth Circles start closing after 1 minute 30 seconds. Time to close: 1 minute 40 seconds.
  • Seventh Circle starts closing after 2 minutes. Time to close: 1 minute 20 seconds.
  • Eighth Circle starts closing after 20 seconds. Time to close: 1 minute 20 seconds.

June 13, 2019 Patch

• Reduced Apex Elite Queue Round 1 damage from 15 to 7, Round 2 damage from 20 to 15, and Round 3 damage from 25 to 20.

June 10, 2019 Patch

• Increased damage in Apex Elite Queue to 15 in the first round, 20 in the second, and 25 for all remaining rounds.

See also

• Heat Shield
• Survey Beacon