Average Skill Players Gone

@hulamrut On one hand, yeah... that's the players we have left, on the other hand, its most likely because there's no such thing as SBMM as its painfully obvious that no matter how good or bad you do, you still get put into lobbies that seem to be rigged. (This is the main issue with the game, other issues include no audio, low server tick, (20hz isn't good), cheating, smurfing, crashes, bugs, no higher FPS for console, and lack of good events. Three Strikes and the Rev Army have been some of the best modes we've gotten in a long while).

By there being no SBMM, I mean you do good, like win a match, or place top 3, you're suddenly in a lobby with players who play like the ALGs pros, and your teammates are either new, or they're a bot, then when you lose a bunch, your new player/bot teammates slowly get better, then you're in a match where they're actually good, if not better than you, but everyone else you come across are playing like new players or bots. You win or place top 3 again, and you're suddenly back to ALGs level lobbies.

A lot of players, including myself, thinks the game uses EOMM, (Engagement Optimized Matchmaking), and it makes so much sense to me, and here's why:

Doing good and winning = players feel good and would get off sooner to end on a win, (Apex doesn't want that).

Doing bad and losing = players feel bad and would keep playing to try and do better, (Apex wants that).

Instead of keeping our MMR steady as we play to allow us to put in as much time as we're wanting to in order to get better, or dropping our MMR when we're not able to surpass our peers, the game seems to intentionally rig matches by guaranteeing wins and losses.

In Apex's first few seasons, I would of believe it had SBMM, because players were around my skill level, and I felt more happy to play because I wanted to do better than other players, and I would end on good wins, and keep trying when I was fairly outmatched. Now, I'm annoyed because even if I want to do better than the players I'm matched against, its not that easy, and I'm ending more often on losses. In other words, the game used to feel like its anyone's match, that anyone could win it, and sure a lot of players were still learning the game, including the pros we have today, now it just feels like I know instantly when I'm not going to win, and when I am going to win. The thrill of knowing anything could happen, that I could win, that right there, that was fun.

Furthermore on the whole EOMM thing, I googled how to beat it, and got this:

"It studies what arrangement of win loss will make you play the longest and gives you a team based on that. Some ways to beat EOMM if its true is to always quit when you lose. This tells the game, "hey if you dont let me win, I'm quitting", and the algo will freak out and give you good teammates next time u log on."

I've tested that by quitting whenever I started to badly lose, (aka, having two useless teammates and going up against players who play like they're 2-3x my MMR), and when I come back later, the first match I get into, the randoms are actually good, and the enemy players are either bad in general, or they're a slightly higher MMR than me in terms of how they fight.

How is it rigged?

Well, you can't tell me that two players who cannot hit the broad side of a barn are the "same skill level" as me and a full pre-stack enemy team that are diamond and up players, while I'm a silver in a match where players should be around the same rank or skill.

I've seen Faide, ItsTimmy, WeThePeople, HisWattson, and a few other pred players in my matches back in S17 and S18 while I was in the bronze, silver, and gold ranks. Looking at their streams, since most were live at the time, they were already in the diamonds, masters, and pred ranks. WeThePeople in particular was seen when I was in silver matches, and when I checked their stream, they were the #1 pred at the time, (S17).

Again, #1 pred, and they were pre-stacking with two pred players, I think one was top 100 pred, and the other was top 300 pred. My teammates? Well, in one match they weren't even level 100 yet and couldn't aim for nothing and just looted the whole time, only to die instantly to the first team we ran into, (not to WeThePeople), but legit a team that was better than them both, but I was able to take that team out. I got taken out by WeThePeople on the way to the respawn beacon.

Also, this is how many times I had each pro player in my match, as far as I'm aware of:

ItsTimmy: about 2 times
WeThePeople: 5 times
Faide: about 3 times
HisWattson: 1 time

The last time I had a pro player in my match prior to S17 and S18, (that I know of), was all the way back in S5, where it was Rogue, and that was when I was in gold IV, and he was in gold I. I only saw Rogue for ONE match, and then he was in lobbies more meant for him, and I don't recall ever seeing any other pro player in my matches, just diamonds, masters, and preds who weren't streaming or in the ALGs.

For a matchmaking system to matchmake an average gold/plat player, (myself), on a team with two players, (who's stats I've checked with a stat tracker), who's average ranks were Rookie IV, and pit us against a full pre-stack pred team, in a match that had also had a bunch of plats to masters players, and call it SBMM is an absolute joke.

That is like if you were to put any good player into the orientation matches. They're going to beat every single player since 98% are actual in-game bots, and the remaining 2% are new players.

"But, I'm playing in pubs, not ranked", That's an illusion, and by that I mean, pubs or ranked, its the same matchmaking.

I get new or bot players in pubs, average levels being 30, as its usually levels 5, 26, 37, 52, etc. (and almost always below level 100, especially level 200), with enemy players being sweats or cheaters/smurfs, and when I'm in ranked, same type of players, but they're never below level 50, since level 50 is the required level to be in ranked.

I've seen videos and heard people talk about how the game is dying recently and oh the Steam charts say this, and the viewership on Twitch is dropping, and while yeah, its not the whole picture, it still shows quite a lot.

As a casual player who grinds rank until I hit my skill ceiling, (which is usually plat), and have been playing a lot since the first month of the game, (EA App says I currently have 4315 hours, and 7 minutes into the game, not including the time spent on Steam, which would be a few hours more), it feels like the game is dying because all I see are the pro players, or people diamond and above, the smurfs, the cheaters, and the new or bot players. There's recently been a huge surge of players using controller cheats, like strikepacks as well. It feels like the casuals don't exist in the game anymore, (and I can't blame them).

I rarely get teammates who are the same or similar level of skill, I rarely get enemy players who aren't smurfing, way higher ranked, or cheating in some way, and I rarely get matches that are balanced, its been matches where I'm either being beamed, or I feel like I'm in an orientation match.