Is it time for me and the rest of the community to walk away from this game?
So before I delve more into the subject. I have been playing games for most of my life. When I first started playing apex, this game gave me the nostalgic feeling of modern warfare 2, the movement, the pinging system, the gorgeous map design, the sexy gun sounds, the random loot system was a little flawed, but everything was perfect in its own way. Now as time grew by I slowly became a person who likes to play games on his own, i.e "a solo queue player".
When season 1 and 2 of apex released , we had kings canyon, most of the guns (except the mozambique) were really fun to use. Why? Because they were satisfying to use, some guns needed huge nerfs (wingman for example), but the game felt wholesome. I could not get rid of the buzz of playing this game the same way I used to play modern warfare 2, everything just felt so right. But as time grew on, SBMM was introduced, at the time, having random teammates to play with was fun, and having a huge amount of bad teammates unless you played with friends was expected. As I said prior though, I am now a solo player, I used to be able to take out entire squads on my own (because my entire team was trash and I had no choice of course), but with sbmm, my teammates are literally WORSE than bots out of the training room. At this point in time, I was still really liking the game because I was still able to gain successful wins, and gain other teammates and new players wins, which a few of them were thankful for. Due to me liking the game, I bought almost every single skin from the first event (yes nearly 150 pounds in UK currency) EVEN THOUGH you guys promised that you would be different to other BR games and not charge us extortionate prices for items.
Now season 3 ruined the game for me completely, I did not like the map for example, because there was less cover, and it was a g7/charge rifle galore for half the damn season, You guys said that "this new map is not for newbies" or something along the words of that, but I took it as the exact opposite, because this new map rehauled the entire game completely, due to long range weapons being spammed every single game and decimating any type of tactical play for EVERYONE who thinks with their brains when playing and not mindlessly just pressing on with the game, I believe solo players were hit the hardest by this season. With changes coming very slowly, some nights I questioned myself as to why I still played the game. Then I realised that to continue playing this game (since it was the only BR game me and my girlfriend only liked) I would have to adapt, which I did. A lot more nerfs came to the game. Issues were fixed, but there were still a lot more issues.
The game in its current state feels very stale, issues still persist, lobbies still lag like crazy, NOTHING new is being added (apart from bloodhounds new location), kings canyon has been added back finally, but it is not playable how I used to play it, especially with the rotation of the maps. Why is this such an issue? let me tell you, because every time you play on a new map, you have to change the way you approach it, your tactics, the guns you use, if it is wise to push every fight, the circle etc, and this obviously differentiates for every single map, but when you throw them all into the mix, the first thing it does is reduce the accuracy of players (because they have to take into account a lot of things i.e where the most popular parts around the map are, where the best loot is, where there is any cover, if they need to run around for 2-5 mins after landing for a gun which doesn't hit enemies like a peashooter while they lazer you in a second, the atrocious lobby menu which freezes when you try to switch from pug to ranked, and then you have it automatically switching to pugs after EVERY single damn ranked match. There is also a huge issue with ranked, for example, I am in Plat IV and I am getting teammates who don't know how to push a fight or just watch me running into a fight after spamming the "enemy here" ping, or telling them im pushing, or defending, or telling them there is loot or ammo over here that they need, SBMM is completely broken. Now these are just some of the issues I'm getting at, but for a solo player, all this adds up, especially when now I am given a gun (r99) which takes an entire clip of just the base weapon and can't drop a single person, even if I do get a few headshots with most shots as body kills, I STILL would have to reload to down the player. and then there's his teammates rushing me, while where are my teammates? Half way across the damn map, or looting, or deciding if they want to carry light or heavy ammo for the other 20-30 seconds of their in game lifespan because they didn't want to help a teammate who came to help them not 20-30 seconds before that.
I think enough is enough, anyone under rank 100 should be unable to play ranked until they have learned the game, until then they should play pug, OR at the very least, the intro for the game when you first play should be extended so they at least understand more of the basics, maybe even a damn board on their screen saying "HELP TEAMMATES". I understand SBMM is being improved constantly, but this is beyond a joke now. It is broke as hell and I don't see it being fixed anytime soon with the ridiculously slow updates provided. For example, the BUG I mentioned earlier where a ranked player has to constantly switch back to ranked after every single game. BUT if this was an issue with the purchase page, it would be a priority to fix, it would be fixed before everything, like it was done recently, how long did it take? 1 day?????
The key for a successful FREE game is its community, and if you take away everything they NEED (LIKE FUN FOR INSTANCE) they would leave, leaving the game in a stale state, like it currently is in and severely reducing income generated, which eventually will lead to a dead game, like Neverwinter for example (with around 2k players playing every month). Now all of this adds up to my original point, as a solo player, I believe that out of ALL the games I have played, I have been carried to the win a maximum of 30-50 times, now that seems like a lot, i'm even being generous here on my carries, but I have over 6.85k games played, so it isn't.
Hacking has become so predominant in all games, that it will always be a problem, but the last time I heard any update from respawn about hackers and what will be done in the battle against them, was the first time a ban wipe was issued and a statement was given out about it, ever since then though? Nothing at all. The problem has been in the game for a while now and players using a turbo button on their controller/mouse to single shot the hemlock as if it is something like a R301 is beyond a joke now, nothing is being done about it, and as a solo player who has to carry every single game because of trash teammates, there is only so much I can do.
It does not feel fun in this state, I have invested so much time and energy and a select sum of money (even recently I purchased the bloodhound/wraith reskins AND the bloodhound/lifeline packs from the PSN store just a few days ago) so clearly I support this game; but it seems like respawn only care about fattening their pockets.
If matchmaking is staying the way it is, then at least you can do as developers is increase the ammo of guns like the r99/r301 back to their original state where you could down someone with a clip, if I am expected to Carry every single game, then I expect the tools to do so, but this game is based around a teamplay, so that will never happen, BUT neither will the SBMM issue being balanced either.
I also feel like even though we are not able to cross play currently, I feel like we are being put into the same lobbies, because it would explain how someone who has just revived someone, can instantly stand up, turn their head 14 degrees, aim straight at my body, and shoot me in less than a second while I am moving more than 300 metres across the map AND with quarter of my body showing, AND being wraith.
Even wraith has been completely destroyed, a lot of players will be unable to admit it, but pathfinder is actually the only S class character at this point, Proof? play as pathfinder and you instantly get more kills per game, grappling hook takes 10 seconds to recharge, you can keep up to every other character in the game, you can reach hard to reach places, his hitbox is still as bad as it was when people were complaining prior to the fix we got, it is near impossible to head shot him, because to shoot his head you have to shoot his neck (like WHAT??) And before anyone says this, no my aim is not bad, I play most days and I would say I have double the amount of headshots than I do kills.
To conclude, I am sure many other solo players feel the same way about this game, the issues I mentioned, the staleness, the slowness to priority updates, the lack of content, the lack of supply drops in the game (STILL), the lack of good SBMM, breaking the ability for solo players to actually work as a team because lets face it, teammates SUCK, (yes I'm talking to you mr level 80 with 70 kills) when I have the 20 kills badge EVERY SINGLE GAME.
To finish this off I will leave a link to my 20 kills badge gameplay, I think it would be a nice addition for people to watch, AND it will clearly show that I was so used to not needing a team (since they were all potatoes) AND to show that SBMM was actually a little better than it currently is now.
Thank you for reading, sorry if I bored you, sorry if I broke any forum rules, & please leave your honest comments REGARDING THE GAME ONLY.. And thank you Respawn for giving us such a great game, but things do need to seriously change.
