Ranked Game Start: Battle Bus vs. Area Drops
Just wanted to let the dev's know that I think they nailed it last season with the area drops. I understand that the Battle Bus is a genre staple, but honestly it doesn't improve the game, at least for ranked.
So last season everyone would get a zone, dropped, and have a minute to get some loot. You could rush into your neighboring zone, or be rushed by that zone, or even by two neighbors. Either way, for the purpose of ranked, this means that you have a somewhat uniform early game, which is good! You won't have a single teammate disagreeing on the drop zone, or end up in a hot drop.
it also means that generally whatever direction you go, you will encounter someone, so fights are more regular throughout the game.
With the Battle Bus, the distribution of players around the map is very uneven. Players can go to the edge and just avoid fighting, or into the thick of it and get knocked out quickly. This is a high variance style that players enjoy in normal lobbies, but for ranked you want to promote more standardized starts, so to allow player skill to determine the game's outcome.
Anyways, just wanted to put my 2 cents in. Nailed it last season, got me to get back into Apex, and now I'm wavering a little now that we have to go wherever the jump master says. So now more of my early games are watching my teammates hot drop, get downed instantly, and now I have to go rez them as my early game.
