Litterally just lost a ranked match because a team pushed us while ring 2 was closing on both teams, and we killed that team, threw down heat shields, healed up, then suddenly ring 3 was closing, dealing ring 4 damage and my team all died to ring.
The ring is not only too strong, it moves way too fast. This makes the game heavily unenjoyable. On top of the ring being a major issue, when you finally do get into the next ring, there's teams pre-aiming because they're holding choke points of the ring, knowing that people are being forced to rotate.
So now you basically just have to land in the next ring and camp it each closing because being anywhere else can and will get you killed because the pros complained that the ring was too easy. Sure, part of the change was to solve the ratting problem, but the "rats" only became a problem because placement was worth more than kills and having skills.
Having the game set to where you can fight outside of ring 1 and get burnt to a crisp by ring 3 while trying to rotate into the next ring right after the fight isn't fun.
If they really want to stop rat playstyles, they should introduce a system similar to Overwatch, where you must move and use your weapons and abilities. Overwatch however, requires you to hit an enemy player, as just running out shooting will count you as "AFK". You also have to hit the enemy player outside your spawn protect zone for you to be unmarked as AFK.
Apex could do this by requiring players to be moving 5-15 meters from where they're hiding, (most rat spots don't offer much room to move around), and require players to shoot in general if they're hit with the AFK timer. This also could just be a system where the player is marked to everyone on the map until they stop ratting or dies to a team.
Although "ratting" is sometimes the strategy when your teammates die and you're trying to sneak past other teams to respawn them back or you're just playing it safe. For these kinds of plays, if you're still moving, you're not exactly ratting as ratting implies you've been sitting there with your gun held out.
Either way, changing the ring was not the way to go.