Re: Matchmaking its terrible

@Midnight9746 

But if the matchmaking is strictly rigged, either by a EOMM or SBMM; how do you explain that different players in the same matchmaking system can have everything from 0.2 to 6+ kills per matched played? I currently have 2.7 kills/matches played and 13% win rate this season and like I said; I play only pubs with randoms. Someone on his forum theorized that the matchmaking was rigged to lock you towards a KD of 1 and win rate of 7% but obviously, this so called "hard rigged OEMM" matchmaking allows me a quite high K/D and win rate without even trying super hard? It doesn't add upp from a logic POV. Much more likely that the matchmaking is random --> above average players will, in the long run, have more good games, average players will have average games and below average players will struggle.

I am not saying that there ISNT elements of "rigging" or EOMM in the matchmaking. I just think that people over-exaggerate. IMO, I think the matchmaking is much more random than it is rigged. The short queue time (usually 3-4 seconds) reflects this. No offense to anyone but all these rigged MM complains seems to me that its mostly average or worse players that just complains that they are having average or worse performances in the current matchmaking. Those players who are above average will have above average performances in most their matches and those who are at the top percentile will have mostly top performances.. That is actually a good argument: all high elo streamers like Aceu or ItzTimmy always have good games, like 3k-6k dmg games, when they play solo. How is this possible if the matchmaking is so rigged? =) 

Example: The most common theory that I see on this forum of this "rigged"  matchmaking is that you can have multiple bad games with bad teammates in a row and then get "rewarded" with a good game and good teammates that you perhaps win, just to be "punished" by bad teammates again after that.  But now just assume that the matchmaking is NOT rigged but rather RANDOM, i.e it randomly put together teams from the currently queuing players...  Then this pattern will make perfect sense, based on how the player skills are normal distributed. 

@NickBeam27 

So just so I understand you correctly; you experience that the game is rigged because your aim assist sometimes appear stronger and sometimes weaker? 

Well, I cant speak for that since I dont play on controller BUT consider this:

Apex is one of the most popular PvP games out there with a competitive pro league. If this was the case, then this would without doubt NEVER has gone unnoticed. Remember that the very best controller players in the world have such good control that the controller stick pretty much is an extension of their arm. They would definitely notice if something was manipulating the aim assist.

Imagine if there was similar, hidden features in games lik CSGO, LoL, Valorant etc etc... There just just no way such thing would remain hidden from the community and there is no way the devs would survive such scandal.  A serious competitive game with hidden rigging systems built into the game would dig its own grave. I find it much more likely that such experience has do to with server quality, but perhaps even more important; the skill level of the opponent you shoot at. A low elo player will react much slower when you start shooting at them, and when they finally react, they lack the movement skill and instincts to minimize the incoming damage. A high elo player will always move in a way that reduces incoming damage, even when being attacked from the side. This become very obvious if you play casual and then switches to Master/pred ranked lobbies. In casual, you will one-clip people left and right but as soon as the opponents are top 0.4% percentile in skill, then your damage output is like 30% of your usual.

The way I understand the EOMM is that it can be tweaked for individuals. So for each of us it can be tweaked differently.

It makes me not want to play the game, to be honest over and over I get bad low-level players. It's one of the main reasons I stopped playing months a while back and it's the reason why most of my friends left. 

Casual should be anything that goes ranked should be matchmaking simple as. It's clearly done for some other reason than being fair maybe like COD the EOMM is set for those that spend.

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@PsyhiX69 wrote:

The way I understand the EOMM is that it can be tweaked for individuals. So for each of us it can be tweaked differently.

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TBH, the theory that Apex uses EOMM is very unproven and actually more a speculation. As far as I know, the background for the claims of an EOMM basically originates from two things: The first is a published study made by EA and the University of California that examines the difference in player retention between traditional skill based match making and "other" ways of matchmaking, which they call EOMM. The other is a patent that EA filed for a certain EOMM algoritm.

I think this is a prime example how a rumor/speculation can become a truth on the internet =). I mean, just consider that EA is just the publisher of Apex and not the developers so nothing even points at that Respawn would implement a EOMM even if EA would use it in their games.  Respawn has even officially denied the usage of EOMM in Apex; a head coder said this on twitter:

"It's not EOMM; no one working on Apex matchmaking has read the patent. Titanfall matchmaking has some resemblance to Trueskill, but Apex Apex does not. Games optimize for engagement. It's a false equivalence to say that means it implements EOMM or is nefariously designed."

He could ofc be straight up lying but why would he since he admits that optimizing for engagement is the general way of making a game (which is kinda obvious; ofc they try to make a game as appealing as possible). In the end, all we are doing is speculating since Respawn wont talk about whats going on under the hood of the matchmaking. But IMO, I really think that the patterns and behaviors of the matchmaking can be explained with the player skill distribution in a random/unrigged/non-skill based matchmaking,  rather than an "evil" EOMM, rigging the matches against you.  

it doesn't matter if it's eomm or sbmm because what every they use is absolutely terrible. Out of the FPS games this has the worst IMO. 

Matchmaking doesn't seem to be any good. Both of these players are randoms. Once you hit plat, you should only get gold, plat, and diamond teammates and go up against gold, plat, and diamond teams. Either Wraith glitched the rank system, or matchmaking just paired them up with Bloodhound who got paired up with me. Like, Bloodhound is the middle ranked player that can play with both me and Wraith, but me and Wraith can't play together if we were to actually squad up. We did win this match, and everyone else who was knocked down and killed by my team were gold or plat players. This is actually when I noticed Wraith was in silver, as I didn't pay attention to the legend screen. (How it shows the rank of you or your teammates and the rank of the knocked/killed player in the kill feed)

I don't really know how they would even fix this though.

@MagnumSkyWolf 

From a competitive point of view, I agree. Pubs in Apex is about the same level of seriousness and competitiveness as ARAM in League of legends. And I dont really play much other PvP FPS games tbh but all I can say is that its ofc a huge difference how you can and must design the matchmaking in a BR and the matchmaking in a 6v6, 5v5 or 1v1 game like Valorant, CSGO, Overwatch etc.

I guess it comes down to design choice rather than a malfunctioning matchmaking. Seems to me that Respawn simply choose to make the public matchmaking random which means that below average skilled players will be struggle and above average players will also be above average in their lobby thus being rewarded for their time and effort put into the game, which wouldnt be the case in a with stricter skill/elo matchmaking. 

Just my opinion but I actually prefer the current public matchmaking to a more strict SBMM. When I started to play with this game, I was on the receiving end of the matchmaking. I dropped, fought, died in Skulltown/Thunderdome so many times the first seasons and I lost more fights than I won but gradually, I became better and better which rewarded me by allowing me to have better and better games. I am now at a point where I can have decent games most of the times, regardless of my teammates.

Lol justt came out of losing 4 out of 5 matches in qualifying to ranked arenas. And i'm not a bad player, and this "not rigged" sysetm threw smurfs that were beating us with mozambiques... Don't even trying to hide that it's damn rigged. So much about not being rigged. Piece of crap...

Then with the same skills I switch servers, and magically we are winning games and I'm on the top of the damage and kills list...

@ctyf6rri93dm 

Seems like you dont understand the purpose of the placement matches if you argue that its rigged because you got stomped during the placement matches and then got started off in a low elo afterwards. That is pretty much how its supposed to work. Read the patch notes when ranked arena was released. It explains exactly why you "stomp or getting stomped". Also, ranked arena is bad. There arent enough player at all elo ranges playing that mode to make the individual mmr vs actual rank system work properly.

But whatever. If people think the game is rigged against them then I wont argue =) 

@r1ggedgame 

It has to do with:

a) the normal/bell player skill distribution

b) the mean/average of this distribution, which most likely is surprisingly low. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the average player is a <1 Kills/matches played player... Perhaps even closer to 0.5 than 1.

c) An unrealistic view how well you should perform in an average match if you are average skilled or perhaps even worse. What I mean is that if we hypothetically could create an infinitely strict SBMM, i.e  a lobby with 59 clones of yourself, and let you play a million matches, then everyones KD and winrate would be 1 and 5% respectively. This is what a infinitely "fair" matchmaking would feel like. 

Bottom line is that if you truly are way above the average in skill, you wont be bothered that much by your useless teammates, because as long as you mind your own business and focus on your own game play (which is exaclty what high elo streamers like Aceu and Ittztimmy do), then you will win much more than you will lose since the average enemy teammate is as bad as your average teammate. But if you find yourself always getting "bad teammates" and you cant handle that, then you probably are pretty close to average skilled as well but you wont admit that and start to blame on rigged matches. Because thats the point here; a squad of 3 average skilled player wont have a banger of a game that often, simply because THEY ARE AVERAGE in the matchmaking =) Hypothetcally, they should consider a 3 kills (1 K/D each) match an OK outcome. But it seems like every single hardstuck Plat4 player here think that the matchmaking is rigged because they cant get 10 kills games that often.

@Balladalidiladude, i say complete noobs , not under-average players ... 100 times in a row ... no bell curve can explain that !
like ppl that stand in front of a loot box for 5 minutes and choose what to take.

@r1ggedgame 

100 times in a row.. Well I guess you are the victim here then. I am just happy that I am not targeted by this rigged system.  

But anyhow; I dont think anything I can write can convince you and nothing can say will convince me. I play only pubs in randoms and I manage to keep my Kills per matches played around 2.7 atm even if my teammates usually have less dmg than me combined.  Perhaps the system selected me to not be rigged against. I guess I am just lucky then haha. But it seems to me that this rigged theory usually comes from low to mid elo players and what they really are saying is that they are angry that they are just that; low to mid elo and therefore will have bad games most of the time, which makes perfectly sense in this  RANDOM matchmaking system=)

But whatever; if you feel that the system is rigged against you then I can just say sorry to hear that.

@r1ggedgame 

Yeah thats a valid opinion. Some people wish for a stricter SBMM in casual, i.e more equally skilled teammates AND more equally skilled enemies.... But that last part is something that people usually forget.  Because I dont think you complain about enemies that "clearly arent your skill level". Its easy to only notice how bad your teammates are but forget how bad some enemies are. What people must realize is a lobby of 60 players at equal skill level is NOT a causal lobby but rather sweaty. Such lobby would make everyone go towards 1 KD and 5% win rate and if you ask me, that is a rather sweaty lobby.

But once again; A strict SBMM in casual is a valid opinion. Me personally would hate that and the main reason for that is that I have reached a level where I can have decent games regardless of my useless teammates. If I want to play WITH more equally skilled teammates but also against more equally skilled enemies,  I play ranked. For me, that type of lobbies usually is somewhere around Diamond 3. But personally, I see no reason why I would want Diamond3+ lobbies for my casual games too. I like the option to have a more causal and YOLO mode as an alternative to ranked. Also;  stricter SBMM would ofc also increase the queue times significantly, especially for the very worst and very best players.

But I understand that players who havent reached that level would wish for  a stricter SBMM. I think you can summarize the situation by saying that players above average in skill benefits from the current system and players below average would benefit from a stricter SBMM.

@Balladalidilai dont think you get the point, solo-rank is very much the the same. 
mates might have that rank badge but clearly cannot keep up, how did they climb so fast in relation to me after a rank split ? makes no sense ...
also on the topic of queue times : my matchmakling says : 3xx players in queue and it still neeeds them up to 5 minutes to find me a game, i guess they wait until they found the worst they can find for me to match up, literally !
so the potential speedup doesnt apply to me ...
From all the stuff i read and experienced so far, they def. treat some ppl different than others and it would be very nice to know why, but as usual Respawn doesnt tell you for some fricken reason !
This is maybe the thing i hate the most about Apex and Respawn, missing TRANSPARANCY !
And a lack of transparancy always fuels speculation up to where you might accuse them of rigging the playfield. That twitter post of that dev is a laugh , first saying there is no EOMM and then saying the game is optimized for Engagement ... hello?!?! did someone hear a politician speak ?

@r1ggedgame 

 I am NOT talking about ranked. I think Ive explicitly said "pubs or casual" the entire time.. Ranked is a total mess in this game and is ONLY designed with player retention in mind, at least below Diamond. In no other competitive game as popular and big as Apex is the correlation between a players actual skill and that players current rank so weak. The rank system is a total joke since it allows a player to climb way, waaaaay above their actual skill level just by  avoiding fights at all cost and grinding alot. For most players, the difference between a silver4 player and a Platinum 4 player is just a matter of how many hours they played that split.. I've always said that the "real" ranked mode starts at Diamond4.

So all Ive ever said in this thread is about public games.. But speaking of ranked; I don't think its rigged, I think its just badly designed for the reasons I mentioned above. And as a solo player, you will always have a disadvantage since most players at any given rank, whos skill actually match or even exceeds their current rank, usually team up in premades. So when you play solo, I think its safe to say that you statistically more often than not will end up with the players with lowest skill in each lobby. Thats why I never play ranked above Diamond4. You will almost always end up with two hardstuck Diamond4 players, who hid their way through platinum with like 0.3 KD.

PS

And yupp; I coudnt agree more about the lack of transparency and general bad PR by Respawn. Someone from Respawn actually tweeted the reasons for the lack of communication but I cant remember what the main points were but I think its easy to find by just googling.

@BalladalidilaDo you mind explaining to me why this happens? I thought bronze and silver players can't ever be in a lobby with plat and up players (unless those players got deranked). I have a gold and a silver teammate, and the champion team is flat out a bronze, silver, and gold. That doesn't seem right in terms of how the ranks are suppose to be matched up. I had to crop the video down to remove player names.



Edited: It appears rank doesn't care if you're bronze or diamond... it pairs them all up - when it shouldn't be. I had File Explore open when I was recording, then I had noticed the champion team were two plat players, and a diamond player last minute, that's why this one is saved differently. I got two silver teammates - as shown on the squad tab. Again, its cropped to remove names.

@Midnight9746 

I have no idea =)  Like I said; the rank system is a mess. All I can say is that Respawn seem to experiment with the upper and lower thresholds for each rank lobby every split so the rules change all the time and I have no idea how it is this split. I guess they use statistics and data when they try out new things, like the total net reward of RPs each lobby. I think the "goal" for a balanced and healthy ranked system is to have a net sum of 0 RPs for each lobby, i.e equally many RPs is lost as is rewarded etc. This is ofc impossible in this stupid ranked system and its utterly stupid no-demotion rule.... But  I can imagine that especially silver and gold lobbies are extra broken and are probably giving out a huge positive total amount of net RPs. So perhaps they tried to fix this by widening the threshold, allowing a couple of plat4s in gold lobbies and Diamond4s in Plat lobbies etc.