Well, complaints or not. I don't think they would stop playing though. They complain right now every match, but they don't quit Apex. So that's all that really matters from Respawns Point of view, player retention.
Point being: right now they play risky. die, lose points and repeat endlessly and are unable to climb out of diamond as a result completely. So RIGHT NOW the game DOES actually push players towards caring about End Game survival.
What I suggest is to further amplify this.
And to further add to my point: every match these players throw the game 9/10 times, that's why I brought up the psychological aspects of this behavior. Because from a designer stand point it's incomprehensible that people would behave like this and self sabotage even in a video game. But that's the reality.
I'm not saying the game should favor just caution, I am saying that the game should push players to NOT fight SOLO and to essentially take ranked seriously when it comes to tracking and adapting to their teammates actions mid fight and not just be ego pushing solo constantly. Punishing this behavior doesn't mean they will stop fighting, the point is that it should force them to have to consider the tactical aspects of their fighting to make sure they DO NOT DIE or throw. Pushing them to then acknowledge that they have to then play around their team and not just rely on having luck in running into easily broken up teams for 1v1v1v1. And then hope they essentially win 3 50/50s in a row.
I think since they do experiment with the RP system every season, they could very easily try something like my suggestions just to get data on what happens. Whether those changes does incentivize team fighting, and disincentivize solo pushing.
Technically they could go further: the game already recognizes when you are split from your team. So optimally the game could punish them if they die far away solo from their team. The game can already recognize teammates proximity and warns the players with character call outs "we're pretty far apart" etc.
But that would actually make A LOT of sense. Punish the player who splits up and dies far away with A HEAVY solo play penalty.
"I'm not saying the game should favor just caution, I am saying that the game should push players to NOT fight SOLO and to essentially take ranked seriously when it comes to tracking and adapting to their teammates actions mid fight and not just be ego pushing solo constantly. Punishing this behavior doesn't mean they will stop fighting, the point is that it should force them to have to consider the tactical aspects of their fighting to make sure they DO NOT DIE or throw. Pushing them to then acknowledge that they have to then play around their team and not just rely on having luck in running into easily broken up teams for 1v1v1v1. And then hope they essentially win 3 50/50s in a row. "
This is very well thought out. And it's also right. The flaw, though, because of course there's a flaw, is that you're assuming that player behavior is readily susceptible to modification. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. It also assumes something that every single poster on this forum has always assumed: it assumes that every player who goes into ranked mode is there for the same reason you are: to rank up. It assumes they will come to understand the logic behind best gameplay practices and use them to further the goal of ranking up. It assumes that every player could get to diamond if they just played smart. I genuinely believe that all three of those assumptions are false.
First, some players go into ranked because they're temporarily exasperated by all the quitting in pubs and they just want to get away from it for five minutes. Some go into ranked because the current ranked map is one they like and that isn't in rotation in pubs at the moment. I could go on all night about what might tempt a player into ranked mode without having any interest in ranking up or playing "optimized" ranked gameplay. There are more of these people than you might think. Maybe not in diamond, but in platinum and below? Yeah, they're there. They're real. And they don't give a tinker's **bleep** about their squadmates' grinds.
Second, plenty of players start the ranking process to stall out at rank X when they believe that they are entitled to rank X + two tiers. When the system tells them they're wrong they can often get indignant, contradictory, and petty. They'll keep grinding in the belief that the skill-assessment algorithm will "come around" and until it does they don't mind for one minute continuing to do things their own way, common wisdom and squadmates be damned.
Third, when that player finally wakes up and realizes he's not getting any higher, rightly or wrongly, then he will probably do one of two things: one, keep playing ranked without any concern for outcomes, his or anyone else's, and/or two, he'll start over on a secondary. Doing the same thing and expecting a different result. These are rank-locked players. I don't know if you know from the psychological literature what rats do when researches "teach" them that they're in a hopeless situation, but I can tell you it isn't good. Psychologists call it "learned helplessness." Rank lock is a form of learned helplessness and it doesn't ever produce good behaviors. And a game that tries to keep players grinding for as long as possible is just throwing gas on the fire. This is one of those games. It's practically designed to produce the behaviors you're trying to engineer out of the system.
Wish I had better news for you. You're still definitely right. I just don't think your fix would change much. I'd like to think that it would, but I don't think it would.
