I am writing this in response to the current matchmaking system as clearly explained in detail in APEX LEGENDS MATCHMAKING UPDATE blog by Respawn. I will try my best to write this thread as objectively as possible to improve the matchmaking, to make Apex enjoyable for players of all skill levels.As stated in the blog, it is impossible to have a perfect matchmaking system due to many factors (limited number of online players, finding the perfect tradeoff between queuing time and skill difference, finding the relevant parameters and the exact weight for each of those parameters to measure overall skill rating of solo/duo/trio premade team). However, there are a couple of things mentioned in the blog that IMO worsen the playing experience for players of all skill levels and therefore should be changed:As mentioned in the blog, "Apex Legends matching algorithm currently uses HIGHEST for Pubs and Ranked. It offers the best protection against matchmaking exploits with new players and smurfs, while safeguarding competitive integrity. It renders cases where high-ranking players might try to find lower rank players to get into easier matches useless—and helps make “boosting” less prevalent."The current matchmaking is using the HIGHEST skill rating of any of the players in a team. This matchmaking system has pro and con which IMO the con outweigh the pro.- Pro:1. Mitigate boosting/badge hunting2. Mitigate smurfs trying to get into easy matches to have fun- Con:1. The exact opposite of Pros point [2]. Mitigating smurfs trying to get into easy matches to have fun by putting high-skill rating players in low-rank lobbies will only make the real players of that low-rank suffer every match. The following is the explanation.Solo queuing smurfs will be stuck at low ranks for a very long time, possibly forever if they want to, e.g. a team with 1 master smurf + 2 real golds will be matched against 3 masters. The solo queue master smurfs will therefore stuck at Gold, or probably have their RP increase but very slowly; this will hold the solo queue master smurf in the Gold lobby for a very long time. The 2 real gold players will have a very bad playing experience every match because they will always face players all of whom have much higher skill ratings than them. Even consider the least worst scenario where 1 Master smurf + 2 real Golds are matched against another 1 Master smurf + 2 real Golds. Since it is BR, most of the master smurfs will stay in the Gold rank for a very long time. In fact, I can be considered as the 1 master smurf in my current rank. I am currently Gold, but since I spent at least 50% of my playtime in firing range and LTM, my mechanic is similar to Masters KDR 2 (even slightly better). In every of my solo queue ranked match from Bronze to Gold, I usually get paired with 2 real gold players with much lower skill rating than me (3-digit legend kills, 5-digit legend damage) and unsurprisingly, the opponents are mostly ex-Masters and Diamonds (4-digit legend kills, 6-digit legend damage). That is why, IMO, SBMM should not be implemented in Ranked as it will ruin the playing experience of the vast majority of the players.Instead of SBMM, I suppose Ranked matchmaking to implement the followings:1. Rank-only-based matchmaking, i.e. players should be matched randomly, only based on their rank. Players should only be matched against others with 5 sub-ranks above or below, i.e. Plat 1 players should only be matched against Gold 1 - Diamond 1. Masters players should be matched against Diamond 5 - Masters and rarely matched against Predators. Predators are matched against Predators and rarely matched against Masters.2. 20-kill and 4k damage badges should only be available from Plat 5 and Pubs. Obtaining the 20-kill and/or 4k damage badge will result in an instant 5 sub-rank promotion, e.g. If a Plat 5 player obtains a 20-kill, they should be immediately promoted to Diamond 5. If a Diamond player obtains a 20-kill and/or 4k damage badge, they should immediately promoted to Masters. This is because players who can obtain 20-kill and/or 4k damage badges in Platinum are definitely Masters players. This is also to mitigate badge hunting by increasing the difficulty of the opponents. In pubs, however, there should be a special SBMM which I will explain below.3. To prevent intentional ranking down, to get to a lower rank, for badge hunting, any players that have already obtained a 20-kill badge and/or 4k damage badge could have more forgivable placement point system (less negative, more positive) when they are playing in any rank below Masters.4. When a player is dealing damage/kills 1.5x or more than each of their teammates, there MUST be an additional bonus RP. Constantly doing this MUST increase the bonus RP even more because it indicates that the player doesn't belong to their current rank. This will help converge the player to their actual rank much faster and prevent high-skill rating players from ratting in low-rank lobbies. Conversely, the other teammates with significantly low damage and kills should only receive very little RP. This is to prevent promoting less skilful players to high-rank lobbies.From my and many players' experience, including the pro players, solo/duo queuing always results in a worse playing experience compared to trio queuing. By right, solo/duo/trio queuing should all result in similar playing experiences (damage dealt, kills, placement). Therefore ideally a trio-premade team should only be matched against a trio-premade team, however, it is mentioned in the blog that it is very difficult and unlikely,"However, in reality, it is very difficult and unlikely to get 60 players of similar skill and of equal premade sizes into a match, so it is inevitable that we mix premade sizes."Hence, to compensate for mixing premade sizes for ranked matchmaking, I suppose to match based on the total RP of the team with the following rules:1. For trio premade team: Each member's RP is to be multiplied by 1.5 (or some learnable number)2. For duo premade team: Each member's RP is to be multiplied by 1.25 (or some learnable number)3. For the solo premade team: Use the original RP (control variable)For Pubs, referring to my point [1] explanation above,"Mitigating smurfs trying to get into easy matches to have fun by putting high skill rating players in low-rank lobbies will only make the real players of that low-rank suffer every match"Highest skill rating matchmaking should not be used, instead, Total weighted skill rating should be used to ensure an enjoyable playing experience for every player of all skill levels. This weight may be of a predetermined value and might be improved over time. Trio and duo-premade teams should have higher skill rating multipliers to compensate for solo premade teams.It is also very apparent that players often get teammates with skill ratings much higher/lower than theirs, i.e. very loose skill rating, hence, from my experience and observation, when calculating skill ratings, I suppose the total weighted of the following parameters to be considered (From the most relevant to least relevant):Lifetime KDR > Lifetime average damage dealt > KDR over last 50 matches > Average damage over last 50 matches > Legend total kills > Legend total damagesIt is important to note that legend total kills and damages could be important parameters as they affect players psychologically, e.g. when a player with only a few hundred legend kills sees that they are eliminated by someone with 3k+ legend kills and/or 1M+ legend damages, it might lead to dissatisfaction with the matchmaking system and proceeds to log off. Repeated occurrences might lead to players quitting the game.This is also true for new players. Unless the skill rating system confidently determines that the new player is a smurf, when calculating skill rating for new players under Level 100, Level > lifetime kills > lifetime average damage might be the more appropriate parameters, as satisfaction and attracting the new players to keep playing the game is the main focus.Feel free to reach out for more feedback

@Skimpp yeah being a gold/plat player and matched against triple pred with the reason of the triple pred are having a bad day/lose streak just doesn't make any sense.Ranked players should only be matched against their rank boundaries instead of SBMM. Ideally, all smurfs should rank up immediately to their actual rank. Boosting/badge hunting is not as detrimental as playing experience of all players excluding pros. +1

Easy indicator of whether solo que is viable or not is to let pro players solo que and see how long it takes for them to reach Masters.1. Sweet switching to controller, solo que silver ranked and getting matched against triple pred stack while having 2 bot teammates every match is insane. It might be the hidden MMR detecting Sweet MNK MMR which is pred, but being hardstuck Silver/Gold and bringing 2 teammates with you against 3 stack pred lobbies is ridiculous. It is much better to just let Sweet face real Silver/Gold lobbies and let him rank up fast to his highest possible rank, then let him hardstuck there, instead of ruining {2 times amount of matches he's playing that day} teammates' day.2. Mande spent 9 hours to just win 1 game for Diamond 1 promotion trials to Masters.Triple stack should matched against solo queuer of a higher rank, e.g. Triple stack Masters must be matched against Solo/Duo Queuer Predators. Triple stack Predators should only be matched against Triple stack Predators.There must be no "tradeoff between queue times and skill difference" for triple stack predators. Triple stack predators against triple stack predators is a must, otherwise, give in-game message telling that match can't be found and they should solo/duo queue only.For triple stack other than predators, it should be enough to match against solo/duo queuer of one rank higher.

@Skimpp Seems like the dev team wrongly thinks that smurf boosting is worse than full dumping high skilled players in lower rank lobbies and ruining lower rank players' day. Rank-based matchmaking for ranked and Total/avg skill rating for pubs is definitely way better. Once a while we'll matched against pred smurf but that's fine as long as they are converged to their actual rank pretty fast.

Rank-based matchmaking definitely needs to replace Highest MMR system ASAP. Solo queuer are leaving the game already.The fact that the dev can't match triple stack against triple stack because of limited number of players is so sad, if they don't fix the matchmaking, soon they won't even able to run SBMM or even rank-based matchmaking at all LMAO.

@Skimpp Totally agree. Ranked should have totally random rank-only based matchmaking and to prevent smurfs, the matchmaking needs to spontaneously increase the smurf rank to their actual rank as fast as possible. Put the placement rank of smurf to be high, use double rank up, like from silver to plat, if they drop 20 kills, or single rank up if they drop 4k dmgSBMM is only for non Ranked games and average/total weighted skill rating is much better than highest skill rating as it burdens the 2 other low-skill rating players in every team.

Forum Discussion

Skimpp

2 years ago

Improving Matchmaking for Ranked and Pubs (Huge)

I am writing this in response to the current matchmaking system as clearly explained in detail in APEX LEGENDS MATCHMAKING UPDATE blog by Respawn. I will try my best to write this thread as objectively as possible to improve the matchmaking, to make Apex enjoyable for players of all skill levels.

As stated in the blog, it is impossible to have a perfect matchmaking system due to many factors (limited number of online players, finding the perfect tradeoff between queuing time and skill difference, finding the relevant parameters and the exact weight for each of those parameters to measure overall skill rating of solo/duo/trio premade team).

However, there are a couple of things mentioned in the blog that IMO worsen the playing experience for players of all skill levels and therefore should be changed:

As mentioned in the blog,

"Apex Legends matching algorithm currently uses HIGHEST for Pubs and Ranked. It offers the best protection against matchmaking exploits with new players and smurfs, while safeguarding competitive integrity. It renders cases where high-ranking players might try to find lower rank players to get into easier matches useless—and helps make “boosting” less prevalent."

The current matchmaking is using the HIGHEST skill rating of any of the players in a team. This matchmaking system has pro and con which IMO the con outweigh the pro.

- Pro:
1. Mitigate boosting/badge hunting
2. Mitigate smurfs trying to get into easy matches to have fun

- Con:
1. The exact opposite of Pros point [2]. Mitigating smurfs trying to get into easy matches to have fun by putting high-skill rating players in low-rank lobbies will only make the real players of that low-rank suffer every match. The following is the explanation.

Solo queuing smurfs will be stuck at low ranks for a very long time, possibly forever if they want to, e.g. a team with 1 master smurf + 2 real golds will be matched against 3 masters. The solo queue master smurfs will therefore stuck at Gold, or probably have their RP increase but very slowly; this will hold the solo queue master smurf in the Gold lobby for a very long time. The 2 real gold players will have a very bad playing experience every match because they will always face players all of whom have much higher skill ratings than them.

Even consider the least worst scenario where 1 Master smurf + 2 real Golds are matched against another 1 Master smurf + 2 real Golds. Since it is BR, most of the master smurfs will stay in the Gold rank for a very long time. In fact, I can be considered as the 1 master smurf in my current rank. I am currently Gold, but since I spent at least 50% of my playtime in firing range and LTM, my mechanic is similar to Masters KDR 2 (even slightly better). In every of my solo queue ranked match from Bronze to Gold, I usually get paired with 2 real gold players with much lower skill rating than me (3-digit legend kills, 5-digit legend damage) and unsurprisingly, the opponents are mostly ex-Masters and Diamonds (4-digit legend kills, 6-digit legend damage). That is why, IMO, SBMM should not be implemented in Ranked as it will ruin the playing experience of the vast majority of the players.
Instead of SBMM, I suppose Ranked matchmaking to implement the followings:
1. Rank-only-based matchmaking, i.e. players should be matched randomly, only based on their rank. Players should only be matched against others with 5 sub-ranks above or below, i.e. Plat 1 players should only be matched against Gold 1 - Diamond 1. Masters players should be matched against Diamond 5 - Masters and rarely matched against Predators. Predators are matched against Predators and rarely matched against Masters.

2. 20-kill and 4k damage badges should only be available from Plat 5 and Pubs. Obtaining the 20-kill and/or 4k damage badge will result in an instant 5 sub-rank promotion, e.g. If a Plat 5 player obtains a 20-kill, they should be immediately promoted to Diamond 5. If a Diamond player obtains a 20-kill and/or 4k damage badge, they should immediately promoted to Masters. This is because players who can obtain 20-kill and/or 4k damage badges in Platinum are definitely Masters players. This is also to mitigate badge hunting by increasing the difficulty of the opponents. In pubs, however, there should be a special SBMM which I will explain below.

3. To prevent intentional ranking down, to get to a lower rank, for badge hunting, any players that have already obtained a 20-kill badge and/or 4k damage badge could have more forgivable placement point system (less negative, more positive) when they are playing in any rank below Masters.

4. When a player is dealing damage/kills 1.5x or more than each of their teammates, there MUST be an additional bonus RP. Constantly doing this MUST increase the bonus RP even more because it indicates that the player doesn't belong to their current rank. This will help converge the player to their actual rank much faster and prevent high-skill rating players from ratting in low-rank lobbies. Conversely, the other teammates with significantly low damage and kills should only receive very little RP. This is to prevent promoting less skilful players to high-rank lobbies.
From my and many players' experience, including the pro players, solo/duo queuing always results in a worse playing experience compared to trio queuing. By right, solo/duo/trio queuing should all result in similar playing experiences (damage dealt, kills, placement). Therefore ideally a trio-premade team should only be matched against a trio-premade team, however, it is mentioned in the blog that it is very difficult and unlikely,

"However, in reality, it is very difficult and unlikely to get 60 players of similar skill and of equal premade sizes into a match, so it is inevitable that we mix premade sizes."

Hence, to compensate for mixing premade sizes for ranked matchmaking, I suppose to match based on the total RP of the team with the following rules:
1. For trio premade team: Each member's RP is to be multiplied by 1.5 (or some learnable number)
2. For duo premade team: Each member's RP is to be multiplied by 1.25 (or some learnable number)
3. For the solo premade team: Use the original RP (control variable)
For Pubs, referring to my point [1] explanation above,

"Mitigating smurfs trying to get into easy matches to have fun by putting high skill rating players in low-rank lobbies will only make the real players of that low-rank suffer every match"

Highest skill rating matchmaking should not be used, instead, Total weighted skill rating should be used to ensure an enjoyable playing experience for every player of all skill levels. This weight may be of a predetermined value and might be improved over time. Trio and duo-premade teams should have higher skill rating multipliers to compensate for solo premade teams.

It is also very apparent that players often get teammates with skill ratings much higher/lower than theirs, i.e. very loose skill rating, hence, from my experience and observation, when calculating skill ratings, I suppose the total weighted of the following parameters to be considered (From the most relevant to least relevant):

Lifetime KDR > Lifetime average damage dealt > KDR over last 50 matches > Average damage over last 50 matches > Legend total kills > Legend total damages

It is important to note that legend total kills and damages could be important parameters as they affect players psychologically, e.g. when a player with only a few hundred legend kills sees that they are eliminated by someone with 3k+ legend kills and/or 1M+ legend damages, it might lead to dissatisfaction with the matchmaking system and proceeds to log off. Repeated occurrences might lead to players quitting the game.

This is also true for new players. Unless the skill rating system confidently determines that the new player is a smurf, when calculating skill rating for new players under Level 100, Level > lifetime kills > lifetime average damage might be the more appropriate parameters, as satisfaction and attracting the new players to keep playing the game is the main focus.

Feel free to reach out for more feedback

gameplay discussion

14 Replies

yahoyab913
2 years ago
@Skimpp yeah being a gold/plat player and matched against triple pred with the reason of the triple pred are having a bad day/lose streak just doesn't make any sense.

Ranked players should only be matched against their rank boundaries instead of SBMM. Ideally, all smurfs should rank up immediately to their actual rank. Boosting/badge hunting is not as detrimental as playing experience of all players excluding pros. +1
jecix99498
2 years ago
Easy indicator of whether solo que is viable or not is to let pro players solo que and see how long it takes for them to reach Masters.
1. Sweet switching to controller, solo que silver ranked and getting matched against triple pred stack while having 2 bot teammates every match is insane. It might be the hidden MMR detecting Sweet MNK MMR which is pred, but being hardstuck Silver/Gold and bringing 2 teammates with you against 3 stack pred lobbies is ridiculous. It is much better to just let Sweet face real Silver/Gold lobbies and let him rank up fast to his highest possible rank, then let him hardstuck there, instead of ruining {2 times amount of matches he's playing that day} teammates' day.
2. Mande spent 9 hours to just win 1 game for Diamond 1 promotion trials to Masters.

Triple stack should matched against solo queuer of a higher rank, e.g. Triple stack Masters must be matched against Solo/Duo Queuer Predators. Triple stack Predators should only be matched against Triple stack Predators.

There must be no "tradeoff between queue times and skill difference" for triple stack predators. Triple stack predators against triple stack predators is a must, otherwise, give in-game message telling that match can't be found and they should solo/duo queue only.

For triple stack other than predators, it should be enough to match against solo/duo queuer of one rank higher.
BanConfigUser
2 years ago
@Skimpp Seems like the dev team wrongly thinks that smurf boosting is worse than full dumping high skilled players in lower rank lobbies and ruining lower rank players' day. Rank-based matchmaking for ranked and Total/avg skill rating for pubs is definitely way better. Once a while we'll matched against pred smurf but that's fine as long as they are converged to their actual rank pretty fast.
iiTzBrookey
2 years ago
Rank-based matchmaking definitely needs to replace Highest MMR system ASAP. Solo queuer are leaving the game already.

The fact that the dev can't match triple stack against triple stack because of limited number of players is so sad, if they don't fix the matchmaking, soon they won't even able to run SBMM or even rank-based matchmaking at all LMAO.
MaxedStrafe
2 years ago
@Skimpp Totally agree. Ranked should have totally random rank-only based matchmaking and to prevent smurfs, the matchmaking needs to spontaneously increase the smurf rank to their actual rank as fast as possible. Put the placement rank of smurf to be high, use double rank up, like from silver to plat, if they drop 20 kills, or single rank up if they drop 4k dmg

SBMM is only for non Ranked games and average/total weighted skill rating is much better than highest skill rating as it burdens the 2 other low-skill rating players in every team.
HideInBush1111
2 years ago
Highest MMR system is just ridiculous. I am barely new to the game and I can't even play against real people in my ranked anymore, every match i played its always ex-Diamonds/Masters, level 500+ with at least 1000 kills/4k dmg/20 kill badge.

Also I often face opponents every of whom is better than any of my teammates including me. "Facing 3 much better opponents that are having bad day/lose streak" is ruining the game. They need to use "lifetime" parameters instead of recent matches when considering matchmaking
HuynhHoangg
2 years ago
Any players with 20-bomb/4k badge should only be matched against each other unless there is sufficient evidence that players with no 20-bomb/4k badge is a smurf. The discrete bucket still feels to wide. It feels like in a single match, there is people with Lifetime KDR of 0.2 to 6 even for the case of Pro players.

It is almost 5 years and the matchmaking is just trash even for the pro players. New games coming up, the next triple A BR game under anyone except EA is going to takeover this game if they don't fix the matchmaking ASAP.
VladimirAlexThe
2 years ago
@HideInBush1111same here, just played the game, currently less than level 100, opponents are level 700+, 1000+ kills, 300k+ damage, while having 2 bot teammates with only hundreds of kills and can barely shoot. Ridiculous.
USAno54
2 years ago
Clearly the games SBMM does not work... this is why theyre hiding dive trails and teammate rank status. So that youre not aware of all the bronze, silver and gold teammates.
BUTTTTT ONE THING DOES!!
For any good game to keep players hooked, for every 5-6 bad games, the game will reward you with 1 good game (i.e. strong MMR players). The same feeling as winning the lottery. Try it out in pubs. queue up 5 times. Dont shoot your gun and lose 5 times. You'll be matched with pred/ master/ 20bomb/ faide players.
In rank, Throw your game 5 times, dont shoot your gun (you need 0 dmg) and the game will match you up with strong players. Ive thrown all my rank games (right before trial) and just ratted to final ring. And during trials almost always win after the 1st or 2nd match. The trick is not to shoot your gun. if you have any damage, the game will place you as competent.
GL HF
Skimpp
2 years ago
@USAno54 I wouldn't say the SBMM does not work because I rarely face players who are much better than me. I have only faced predators < 5 times throughout my 500hr playtime in Apex. I am currently Gold, and I always face people around my skill rating regardless of the rank. But the thing is that 90% of the time I am the most skilful player in the team and hence SBMM will pair me with 2 less skilful teammates against 3 opponents of my skill ratings. So overall, my team's skill rating is far worse than the opponents' skill rating.

It is not clearly stated in the blog how Respawn implements the Highest skill rating system while ensuring ~50% 3v3 fight win rate for each team in the lobby. Because both of them contradict each other. To obtain ~50% 3v3 fight win rate for each team in the lobby, the Total weighted skill rating must be used instead of the Highest.

However, you bring a good exploit example to the current matchmaking system: "Deal 0 dmg and rat until final ring -> Get positive RP to get to trials -> Get paired with insanely good teammates during trials since your performance in recent matches before trials is bad -> Win the trials"

As I mentioned in my post, I propose SBMM to use total weighted parameters of the following (Most relevant to least relevant)

"Total number of 20-kill badges owned > Total number of 4k damage badges owned > Lifetime highest kills > Lifetime highest damage dealt > Lifetime KDR > Lifetime average damage dealt > Lifetime Win rate > Lifetime Top 5 rate > KDR over last 50 matches > Average damage over last 50 matches > Legend total kills > Legend total damages"

but it seems that the current SBMM:
Has a very large weight value for KDR over the last 50 matches and Average damage over the last 50 matches relative to other parameters
Use KDR and Average Damage over the last ~ 5 (instead of some big number) matches.
Kill points (KP) are far less appreciated compared to Ladder Points (LP). Respawn mentioned the intention for this before is to create an engaging end game with still many squads alive which is a good point, however, it creates ratting problem worse, and possible exploits like you mention. KP needs to be increased, LP needs to be decreased. A harsh rule may be implemented to prevent this: In Platinum and above, getting 3 kills and/or assists is a requirement to get positive overall RP. There was even a top 10 predator who had 1000 games and 5 kills earlier this season (S19) but I think they got banned already.