Apex Legends’ latest event, The Iron Crown, has gone live this evening on PS4, Xbox One and PC – bringing with it a much requested solos mode alongside a range of new challenges and cosmetics.

Unfortunately it didn’t take long for fans to discover that the game’s first post-launch ‘heirloom’ cosmetic set (a super rare form of cosmetics previously only available for one of the game’s characters), will set players back a whopping £136 / $170 to purchase.

Bloodhound’s Heirloom Set becomes available to purchase once a player has unlocked all of the Iron Crown Collection Pack items (24 in total). Two of these new Iron Crown themed loot boxes can be earned in-game – the other 22 will need to be purchased separately.

Each Iron Crown Collection Pack has a 50% chance of an Epic item and 50% chance of a Legendary item from the set – each containing one item at a time. These packs also cost $7 each – a fair increase from the base $1 price point of the game’s standard loot boxes.

As you’re unable to purchase the Heirloom Cosmetic Set until you earn all 24 items, fans have already worked out that the total cost of 22 packs + the 2 free packs + the heirloom set itself comes to a grand total of £135.97 / $169.97 (18,900 Apex Coins total).

The game’s player base is already beginning to express their frustrations with the game’s latest monetisation approach only hours after its launch.

It’s worth noting once the event ends the Bloodhound Heirloom set will be included in the game’s basic loot boxes with an extremely low drop chance (less than 1%). Players which open 500 basic loot boxes are guaranteed an Heirloom set however.

What do you think about this monetisation approach? Let us know in the comments below!

Apex Legends Iron Crown 13/08/2019 Patch Notes:

BUG FIXES

Fixed issue where assigned challenges not resetting properly and giving rewards.

Fixed bug causing incorrect calculation of Kill/Death Ratio in player stats.

Fixed an issue where sometimes a Care Package would clip into map geometry.

Fixed a bug that was sometimes showing Apex Predator ranked players RP as zero when viewing the badge in the Lobby.

Fixed issue with players having connection issues when trying to join a squad that has already played a match.

Fixed issue where Daily and Weekly Challenges would reset earlier than communicated in the game.

[Xbox Only] Fixed bug where players would sometimes not receive “The Player” achievement when hitting level 50.

Fixed bug where players would sometimes not receive “The Player” achievement when hitting level 50. Fixed a bug where sometimes Arc Stars would attach to players and some objects at a distance and appear to float off of them.

Fixed bug where sometimes Arc Stars would not explode or do no damage when it detonates.

Fixed issue with players sometimes unable to unlock the “Double Duty” Badge.

Fixed bug where sometimes using a healing item while experiencing bad ping would cause them to heal for twice as much.

QUALITY OF LIFE

Added a Death Recap to the end of match summary that will display a damage summary of your last battle.

Improved the UI during the Match Summary to better show Battle Pass progression.

Added In-game Survey While playing you may get a prompt that will pop up asking if you enjoyed the last match. This data will be helpful to us so please provide your input when you see it.



Added option to spectate your squadmates after dying.

Added option to “Invite Squad” in the Squad Tab.

Players should no longer lose RP when experiencing a server crash or disconnect in Ranked Mode.

Fixed issue where squadmates could not ping a friendly Wraith portal.

Fixed issue where players could pull other players out of a match by joining them, and then joining another friend from the Lobby.

Fixed issue where sometimes a player would get left behind from their squad in the Lobby after they enter a match.

Fixed issue where players would sometimes get a “Party Not Ready” error message even though they were no longer in a party.

Fixes that should improve overall game stability to reduce crashes.​

WEAPON BALANCE

Disruptor Rounds with Alternator:

Reduced Shielded damage multiplier 1.7 -> 1.55. Designer Notes: Disruptor rounds on the alternator are shredding shields a bit too quickly and still proving to be stronger than intended, so we’re reducing the disruptor rounds multiplier on shield damage.



RE-45:

Increased Magazine Size for all tiers to the following: Base: 16 Common: 19 Rare: 22 Epic: 25 Designer Notes: We’re giving the RE-45 a small boost in power by giving it one more round for every mag size. Downing a non-fortified enemy with the RE-45 with 0, 50, 75, and 100 shields requires 10, 14, 16, and 19 shots respectively, so this extra round gives the gun the ability to one-mag more armored enemies instead of leaving them barely alive.



R-301:

Increased vertical and horizontal recoil. Slightly increased recoil pattern randomness. Designer Notes: We’ve made these changes as we’ve seen that the R301 is a bit stronger than intended at long range. We’ve adjusted recoil to balance keeping it effective at medium to close range–which is the original intent–but it should be more difficult for players to auto fire and still laser enemies at long distances.



LEGENDS

General

Made adjustments to Pathfinder’s and Low-Profile Legends hitboxes. Taking shots to the hip now does torso damage instead of leg damage. This should more closely match the behavior of the other Legends.

Fixed a bug where activating a healing item would cancel the Ultimate for Legends that need to prime it [Bangalore / Pathfinder / Caustic / Gibraltar / Bloodhound]

Fixed an exploit where players would sometimes be able to still shoot while downed.

Bloodhound

Increased the distance that Bloodhound can see traversal clues left by other players [but not other kinds of clues] to 25 meters.

Adjusted the area of effect for Bloodhound’s Tactical to 125 fov.

Wraith

Based on player feedback, we’ve reduced the “hum” audio that’s playing while using Wraith’s Kunai.

Fixed issue where actions for Wrath would have a slight delay when her weapon is holstered and crouching or sliding while the kunai is equipped.

Fixed an exploit that allowed players to remove the cooldown for Wraith’s Tactical Ability.

Mirage

Fixed bug where Mirage was able to stay invisible and still be able to shoot and melee when using his Ultimate on a zipline.

Octane