Dammit, people: with the jump master system, if you didn't have time to loot or couldn't control your own rate-of-engagement, then that was your own responsibility. Since about season two I never once dropped in a place where I couldn't loot as much as I wanted to without interruption, and I almost never engaged an enemy squad before I was ready OR after I was already bored. The more I hear people complain about how "random" and "unskillful" the old system was, the more I realize how I honed my play style to take advantage of people who weren't knowledgable enough or patient enough to manage their own risk. I know it pains you to hear it, but risk management is a skill. When preset drops take that skill out of the equation, the game becomes a lot more one-dimensional, more homogenized, and, imo, more boring.
Should we drop solo away from our teammates? I used to do that with the dropship system. I don't think that's great & probably not what the devs wanted either.
If Apex Legends had a solo mode, no issue with the dropships.
If Apex had a solo Ranked mode players will still complain. It will basically be who's communicating vs who's not communicating.
So the next complaint from solo players will be to separate lobbies based on who's using their mic and who's not.
Personally, I would be interested in trying out a solo queue Ranked mode, but I don't think it will solve much.
In regards to a solo only Ranked mode, this doesn't sound appealing. Movement legends vs Non movement legends creates an imbalance. Hard pass for me.
"Should we drop solo away from our teammates?"
That's the $64,000 question right there. If you're a true rank grinder the answer is always NO. But if the only thing of value this game can offer you is a ranking... with all the twisted psychology and arbitrary standards and flawed judgment that goes into a rank grind... then in my opinion you've already ruined your gaming experience. Why not ruin it some more and own the game instead of letting it own you?
Rant over.
The real answer to the question is, sometimes. If you're on World's Edge and your random jump master is a twelve year old kid who pings streamer building... are you honestly gonna look me in the eye and tell me that you're gonna follow him in because "teams have to stick together?" You already know it's a suicide run, and now you want to double down on his idiocy and get dead right along with him? Think about how ranked works in this game. You would actually be doing him and the squad a favor by dropping solo. Your chances of survival, with or without a teammate, go up if don't drop in that **bleep** hole. If you drop cool and loot for a while in a safe place then you have a chance to replicate his banner and respawn him. Not that it will do you any good. He's already shown you what he's capable of, and what he isn't capable of. But all these things buy you evo and time. And time buys you RP.
Now you're gonna tell me all about how you don't queue up in a shooter just to hide behind rocks. And I'm gonna tell you that that's the game. If you'd rather die in a hopeless early-match fight than patiently wait out the clock and the circle, then that's fine. But don't let's pretend that the game rewards that. It doesn't. And if you need gunplay so desperately that you're willing to die to get it, then you need an arena shooter with unlimited respawns. CoD. Halo. Counterstrike. Valorant. The list is endless. Just don't queue up into a battle royale thinking that it's going to be a safely-paced series of winnable engagements, with no third partying, no strategizing, and no risk. That was last season. Now the adults are back in the room.
I actually agree with a lot of what you said, but I think my point is the devs can't have it both ways; maybe I will have to drop solo 50% of the time in my ranked matches & that will push the devs to rethink the dropship. Or maybe that's the happy medium, where teams can drop however they like.
One thing's for sure in my opinion, the POI drop end-games are way more fun for me & that would be my priority.
There are ways for them to get back proper end-games with the dropship but that seems a long way away as well.
"One thing's for sure in my opinion, the POI drop end-games are way more fun for me & that would be my priority."
Now that's something I never thought about. How are they more fun? Why are they more fun? How is a POI drop endgame typically different than a jump master endgame?
Adults? Where zones too hard for you to rank up Sally? What fun is a battle royal where there's 7 squads left in ranked before the first ring? What a dumb take.
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