Re: Match Making

@HappyHourSumwurIt's just so inconsistent. You can log on and have a great 2 hour session. You feel like you are in most conflicts, sometimes you get wiped due to bad decision making and sometimes you have a bit of luck your way and win the scrap. You'll have another one the next day and it's totally different where if anyone sees you you are instantly dead. Over and over. I just don't get the inconsistency. That's what does my head in.

We tried again last night, I don't think we made it past 25 mins and we just had enough.  I'm just tired of being a free K/D pill for others.  I've always suspected the people who flex their amazing K/D's is largely because they are going up against inferior players.  Not really the flex they think it is.

I do empathise with EA.  Match making is an incredibly difficult and complex task with different types of people on at different times of the day, wanting to ensure it's fast enough so you dont't sit at the match making screen and constantly trying to outwit the toxic part of the community that will do everything they can to rig the system in their favour (so they cant' release a granular level of detail as to what is going on as that would aid them).  It's a very hard problem to fix, I get that.

Ranked s20. I noticed a huge difference between lobbies inside same rank.
It seems like they have 2 modes inside ranked games also unranked duos and trios, which are switching based on how well you do. If you are kicking it, it will not be long before you will be moved to sweaty lobbies. There, it is a struggle to get even a kill, because opponents are insanely skilled, possibly cheaters. Based on what i've seen, atm in these lobbies, everyone feels levels above me, Gold now is more difficult than your average Pred. stream opponents on twitch/yt. Streamer pred games look like an easy joke. 

How is this even possible? 

I'm beginning to think well known pred streamers have some hidden easy mode, where majority of opponens are clueless, so landing 20kills and 4k dmg is a piece of cake for them, which would also be good for viewers not leaving their streams. 
I always ranted about how clueless opponents are in those pred lobbies, while your average gold servers here in EU, has so many movement gods, it just looks same or more difficult than pro matches or tournaments with the best teams.

Care to elaborate why this happens, and why such a difference between these ''normal' and 'superskill/cheater' lobbies inside LOW Level ranks? This should not happen.

Just tried again this evening with my wife.  I think we playd 7 or 8 games... had one reasonable one.  The last one the champion had 50,000 kills, 20 kill bomb badge... just quit before we landed.  I'm done for today.  I honestly have no idea how they could be in my lobby.  That should be a hard limit.  Ridiculous.  Zero reason to play that one.

I'd rather just not have a match or a game start than have to put up with that.  End result (today), 2 fewer people playing.

I am so tired of this sort of thing happening.  It should *never* happen, not a mis-match like that.

I firmly believe that objective matchmaking is possible, as long as it is truly and only based on the statistics of each individual player. Even with cheaters, good rounds should be possible for everyone.
But since the cheaters and pro players don't just seem to play among themselves, but also poach at lower skill levels, something must be interfering with "objective" matchmaking.
However, I am also firmly convinced that after 20 seasons (!) the algorithm for matchmaking should actually be perfect IF all disruptive factors were removed. And here is the problem. I think the disruptive factors are there for a reason. And suddenly it's no longer possible for the developers to ensure proper matchmaking? Despite or because of the disruptive factors?
!!!Attention, pure speculation from here on!!!
There is supposed to be a patent on the fact that buyers of skins get an easier lobby to give them a better buying experience.
Since I have no proof of this, I will not claim that this "disruptive factor" is active in Apex. But, if such patents already exist, one can imagine that various curious mechanisms can prevent objective matchmaking.
!!!End of speculation!!!

It’s hard to play this game nowadays with all the rampant cheating when they have zero recoil they don’t miss a shot and the controller mod is so cheap. Everybody’s buying it when you hear him on single fire sound like a machine gun. It’s obviously noticeable that they have a rapper fire controller with zero recoil, I’ve taken a hiatus on this. I used to love playing this game and like everybody else I would win some and lose some but now it’s gotten so slimy. 

@reconzero 

The short answer: the developers are incompetent. In one way or another.

The long answer: the matchmaking is not perfect! Otherwise there wouldn't be constant complaints in the forum that players are constantly being killed by Predators/Masters or that the matchmaking apparently only knows two extremes: ok/easy or really hard/unfair.

For me, these three points are no reason why the matchmaker does such a poor job at times.
Point 1: as a rule, the next server is used. This changes the group of players on the server, but not the matchmaking, or it shouldn't.
To point 2: why? Why should the players be split up into playlists? Because of the game mode the player wants to play? The mode is chosen by the player.
Point 3: This is exactly where matchmaking fails. "Arbitrary" is a good keyword.

I'll link to another post in which I expressed my thoughts on matchmaking:https://answers.ea.com/t5/Spielinformationen/Bots-Es-gibt-sie-wirklich-und-auch-die-Bot-Lobby/m-p/13537506#M15494 
Here's the translation to the part that fits quite well here:

"I repeat my earlier assessment: with a really good matchmaking system, not only would bots be unnecessary, but cheaters would also be tradable.

I'm not a pro, but I would try a "metric" between 0.1 and 10 (0.0 would be a bot; 10.1 would be god mode). The metric would be calculated from the most important and meaningful stats of the players. I haven't thought about exactly how to calculate this key figure and which stats to use. But that's not the topic here at the moment (and other forum members in the German or English forum have already suggested which stats you could use).

If you now sort the list of players according to their metric, you get a list of players whose metric go up or down.

And then, from 10 downwards, 60 "packs" are always sent into the ring. Starting from 0.1 is certainly also possible. This way, the variance of the players' key figures in a BR round should be as small as possible. And I'll just say that it would also feel fairer and more fun for most players.

It would at least have the effect that all cheaters would quickly be among themselves and it shouldn't be possible for bronze/silver/gold players to meet master/predator players en masse. The only negative effect I can think of at the moment would be that the "Predator" and "Master" ranks would have practically no meaning, because only cheaters can actually achieve them. Unless you update your anti-cheat system..."

Each player then has "their" skill score, which changes slightly after each match (based on the statistics of the respective player).

The brick wall effect would also exist here, BUT the crucial question is: how do the games feel until then and at the end?
A few good games and then a long period of total annihilation after 10 seconds? Or almost always an interesting, close game, with a few kills, in which you also lost, but didn't feel like you were playing against a superhuman with no chance?

I much prefer the second type of game, and that's exactly the type that used to exist in the past (up to S12 in my opinion).

I played 2+2+2 hours of soloq ranked past weekend and managed to get a handful <5 of kills. 
On Olympus I didnt get anything and just kept losing RP game after game. 

I am saying it again. Its not really SBMM but EOMM. By throwing me a bone with a cracked duo every 5-6 games to run down the lobby for Top 3 finish and me doing 300 dmg + 4 participations + 2 assists is not what makes me think "Oh wow game feels super fun". So as an average player I feel like my playing is predetermined because even with poor matches I am pretty much on the same rank level as I was before the weekend.

Assumption of person playing ranked to achieve a certain rank and rigging game so that he plays as much as possible to gain it is what annoys me. 

I am down to battle it out and just leave it there in my Gold 3 lobby if I feel like the players are on the same level as I am. No need to get Gold 2 or anything. Or if they feel like I should be at Silver I have no issues with that either if that gives me same skill level players to play with. 

@Airish85For me it isn't whether you win or lose or even how often you lose, it is how you lose. The number of games where I do well and feel like I contributed in a meaningful way is such a small portion of my solo queue games played. I get destroyed in humiliating fashion most of the time, do so-so and contribute a little occasionally, and win about as much as you'd expect all other things equal (5%). Even some of those wins don't feel good for the reason you say; I was carried and didn't really do much to help. In some cases I get carried and am obviously dead weight that my masters/pred teammates have to revive over and over again. That's almost worse than getting destroyed immediately in humiliating fashion.

So my solo queue experience boils down to doing well and feeling like I contributed about 3% of my games played. That's usually once every couple of hours and is the reason I stopped playing last week and probably won't jump back in until next season.

@HappyHourSumwur Streamers dont play on same lobbies as I do (Gold Ranked). 😃
Just played another set of games where I lost about 200 RP without a single kill. 

I am 100% sure the EOMM tries go give me this "good game" every now and then but what the algorithm doesnt understand is that my playtime is very limited. 
I might get 30min now, 1h later in the evening or 2h on a weekends etc. So if I join back later and play single Mixtape match as warmup that will most likely be my EOMM golden ticket and we can start the cycle from the start again.

Am I going to invest my precious relax gaming time by playing Apex with the very high risk of getting absolutely manured on for the first 5 games and then when EOMM decides to throw me a possibly correct (we will never know) lobby I get "different playstyle" jumpmaster dropping us to same spot with 4-5 other teams to fight over single floor Mozambique.

Answer is probably not very long.

(Off topic: Also this was not an issue before when placement ruled over kills in ranked. Now its YOLO jumpmaster every other ranked match and GG -40 back to the lobby.) 

@Airish85That's been my experience running solo queue in pubs for the last few seasons. I do well in 1 in 20 matches or so but the rest is just trash. Of those 5% I do well in I maybe contribute to the success about half the time. I have to play for hours to get good games that make me feel good about the experience.

---

@HappyHourSumwur wrote:
@Airish85I can't shake the feeling that I'm just cannon fodder for streamer content.

---

It's easy to see this.  I wouldn't put it past any game company for doing this as it'd be in their interest.  Being a free game and streamers providing free marketing, it would be a perpetual close loop.  I don't understand how they can provide a free game by selling skins alone.

---

@Airish85 wrote:

So if I join back later and play single Mixtape match as warmup that will most likely be my EOMM golden ticket and we can start the cycle from the start again.

---

Today I logged back in Apex for a few matches after not playing at all this week. 
Wow guess what. Rusty me went on to drop 15 kills in a 50-15 TDM win with a Devo & Longbow and then get carried in two ranked matches for Top 3.

This game is rigged beyond my expectations. 

I guess I am online again next weekend for a couple of matches LOL

Yeah, just had a quick session with the wife on Apex.  Single Horzion destroys our entire squad.  Same question.  "Why are they in our lobby?".  No idea.  Quit.

Yeah, just tried my first game of mixtape.  So fair.  So balanced.  So much fun.

It's great just being a stat boost for others.

I put the controller down a few minutes into this.  I mean, I get penalised if I leave because I'm toxic.  Apparantly.  I guess getting smashed over and over is what I'm supposed to enjoy.  Thanks EA.  Makes total sense.

I don't play anywhere as much as I used to, however I played for almost an hour yesterday morning. Decimated over and over. 6 straight matches of being destroyed in under one minute of game play. Like you said, they look in your direction for a millisecond and your boxed. 

Now you would think after 6 straight matches of being knocked out in under a minute of gameplay that eventually they would throw me into a proper lobby matching my skill level at some point, right? Noooooo, then met a champion squad with all 20 bomb and 4K badges, and one with almost 85,000 kills. 

My highest KD was back in the day before covid was just over 1. 

Its sits now at about 0.6 and continues to plummet the more I try to play. So why with a KD of 0.6 am I playing against 20 bomb, 4K, 85,0000 kill players? Never with them, only against. 

After doing the math for kicks.... I realized that in about an hour of playing Apex yesterday, just under 20 minutes of that hour was spend on actual game time, the rest was lobby simulation time. 

First 4 matches was 15 minutes of time and just under 4 minutes of that 15 was spent playing LOL. Yet Respawn prioritizes fast match making over fair matches. Fast! really? What's the point of fast matches when at the end of the session, you've spent more time in the lobby and Queuing for matches than actually playing the game? 

Urrrghh

@ComicBookGuy2727What you describe is what I experienced about 6 weeks ago. It even stopped giving me the token 1 in 20 match to do well in so my morphine drip of success was shut off. Add to that the latest wave of cheaters and smurfs and BR modes become completely unplayable. I quit playing as a result. I drop in for a Mixtape match every once in a while and will check out each new season but as soon as I see the MM hasn't changed, I'll stop playing again. I sure as sh!t won't be spending any money on Apex so long as this goes on.

The MM can't see what any normal person can. If you are getting destroyed in milliseconds in embarrassing fashion more than 2 or 3 times in a row, you are obviously in the wrong lobby. Apex matchmaking, however, continues to team you up with players worse than you and up against 3 stacks much better than you for some reason.  My only explanation is the Respawn isn't interested in doing anything about it and/or they just aren't able to figure it out.

Constantly matched with level 9 and under players.

No one on my team can kill anyone. Its pointless playing. The game is now essentially 1 v 3 every fight. This is really tiresome.