Forum Discussion

5 years ago

Ranked seems broken for bad players

I have the opposite problem to a lot of the other people posting here. I'm bad at Apex (415 games, average damage of 130.29!) - but I enjoy playing it any time I can get matched against other similarly bad players. My experience of quickplay was highly random - occasionally these matchups felt "fair" (with respect to relative skill) but mostly I felt like I was there just to make up the numbers!

Ranked was a big improvement to begin with and the "quality" of the matches in terms of relative skill was much more consistent. If I got through a few fights without missing every shot before being killed I'd fell pretty good - even if me and all of my teammates only had a few hundred damage each at the summary screen. Sadly though - the way ranked is constructed ranking out of bronze happens very fast & apparently doesn't depend almost at all on performance in firefights. I'm still climbing now in silver (though I don't understand why) and I definitely don't feel able to contribute in shoot-outs at all. The strange thing is that I'm still climbing in rank - even though the summary screen is fairly regularly me at 0-200 damage with two squadmates who managed 1000+.

I suspect that I'll stop climbing at some point but its not clear that the game will be at all playable for me at that point. Apparently I'm not too bad at the things the ranking scoring system cares about (mostly surviving till late & not throwing too hard if I'm being carried by a much better player) but I can't help but feel like the game is "really" about the gunplay in some sense and it shouldn't be the case that you get thrown out of the noob bracket if you can't hold your own in a shootout (doesn't seem like a good outcome for either you or your future teammates).

Some will say that ranked is really just for the best players and it doesn't make sense for me to complain - but I'd disagree. I'm also bad at dota but have played 2k hours or so in low MMR ranked games and have had plenty of fun in matches playing with and against other people that are bad at the game. By definition a sensibly designed skill based matchmaking system absolutely can provide fun matches for players of all skill levels.

PS - its possible that my aiming etc. will improve incrementally over a long period of time but, as with dota, I don't think I'm likely to improve in a meaningful way so really what I'm looking for is just a reliable way to play the game with & against other people at a similar skill level. I don't want to be carried by a better player and I don't want to ruin better player's games either. At these low ranks matchmaking times for me are very short so the issue doesn't seem to be that the pool is too small.

I'm not a developer of course so these suggestions may be bad, but for noobs & bad players I'd reccomend:

Tweak the rank point scoring to put more emphasis on gun-play metrics & de-emphasise normal scoring metrics (e.g. survival time)
Increase the negative penalty for poor performance on these metrics
Allow de-ranking back into Bronze

gameplay discussion

17 Replies

eyemessiah
5 years ago
@Cabowse

Yes - thats a good point I think. If match quality does arbitrarily deteriorate (I suppose only the devs know if this is actually the case) then there is some chance that players that might have improved and migrated to the upper tiers get discouraged so those pools end up smaller than they might otherwise have. If Apex is like other games the very top of the MMR scale can be a struggle to matchmake anyway so anything you can do to improve retention seems worthwhile. Of course what I don't know is if "accelerated" ranking up (relative to mechanical skill) is better for retention than improving match quality by grouping players more strictly by mechanical skill.
eyemessiah
5 years ago
@Babbediboopi
@TheJumpingJawa
I think there is something to the idea that BR's are different and maybe wide variance in mechanical skill is just part of the game and also to some extent its possible for "strategic" skill to win out of mechanical skill and thats a good thing.
Just accepting this is probably a good idea but... I don't know, maybe its also arguably a flaw in the genre?
Last night I got a win with a Nox and a Mirage. We spent most of the game looting and didn't encouter other squads. We ended up in the middle of final rings by chance - inside the harvester. At one point we got pinned between three squads comming from different directions. The Mirage got downed and we couldn't safely get to him to the Nox and I went out a side door and healed up while hiding. Then we took a few more shots while moving and again, ducked into a hidden spot to heal. The ring was closing so we were forced to take the steps down into the lowest bit of the harvester and basically got stuck under the stairs while the other squads fought it out above us. The nox surrounded us with gas traps. Eventually the last remaining enemy who had fought his way through (at least) a three way cross fire (we heard a lot of grappling) was forced to limp down stairs to get into the ring - I panic sprayed him, but with some nice movement he evaded my (poorly aimed) fire and knocked me down with some very clean head shots while the nox was trying to get more traps down. The pathfinder seeing the nox at that point backed off (I think he was somehow still just inside the ring but somehow out of sight - maybe he grappled away for a moment to a different level?) and the nox tried to get me back up. I think this was the pathfinders plan because he appeared out of no-where and killed me and interrupted the rez. The Nox tried to fire but maybe need to reload so either started the reload or weapon switch animation and I thought we were done for but the pathfinder died to gas and we won. On the summary screen we had 2 kills (the other from the fight where the Mirage went down) and maybe 300 damage between us. I ranked up after that.
Its a long story but for me its a great example of a scenario where I won but didn't feel like I contribute. In this case, though, I also felt like our team didn't really deserve the win? In some crude sense we did of course. The Nox used his area denial strength in the exact right spot. The other teams, seeing the ring collapsing & knowning that harvester is awkwardly multi-level shouldn't have gotten into a multi-party shoot out and at least one of them should have used their probably superior mechanical skill to kill us and take the low ground for themselves before stairs etc. were outside of the ring. A win is a win.
All the same...
If gunplay isn't the be-all-end-all though then why do we spend so much time gathering, equiping and swapping weapons and weapon mods?
eyemessiah
5 years ago
@Tamyndris
Another thing that occurs to me is though you and I, and others in this thread, seem to want a 50% win rate (in games where that is possible - not sure what the BR appropriate equivalent is, average K/D of 1?) - in other games at least - this seems to be a source of common complaints. E.g. many players can't accept that they aren't just inherently better at the game than most other people (reguardless of their actual mechanical skill) and in cases where flat MMR systems eventually result in them settling at 50% is always taken as evidence that the matchmaking is garbage. Again - I sort of wonder if one reason that de-emphasising mechanical skill in RP calculations has some appeal for the developers because it pushes the point where progress seemingly ends (and for most players this will happen eventually - whether they like it or not!) further into the future.
eyemessiah
5 years ago
Reading this thread makes me think I shouldn't worry so much about gunplay & mechanical skill and try to focus more on playing smart and just maximising my placement & win %. In Dota - for instance - I'm very happy with the idea that a win is a win. If you are losing for 40mins and the enemy team makes one stupid mistake and wipes without buyback and you have heros on your team that are good at hitting buildings and you go straight for throne and win the game then I reckon you 100% deserve that win, absolutely no question about it. Thats what the game is. Not sure why I don't feel that way re. apex. On those odd occasions where we drop near other bad / noob players and have some crazy extended firefight where we are both just hanging on by the skin of our teeth its definitely the most fun I've had in 25 years of playing video games. Would just be nice if it was possible to have a game mode that really facilitated that experience somehow.
Tamyndris
5 years ago
@eyemessiah wrote:
@Babbediboopi
@Cabowse
@Tamyndris
@TheJumpingJawa
@S8N_Spawn
Thank you for your thoughtful & insightful comments. I almost forgot I was on the internet for a moment!
@eyemessiahhahahaha, yeah, sorry for the shock, ... ofc I forgot so say: Git gud! ; )
Tamyndris
5 years ago
@eyemessiah wrote:
@Tamyndris
Another thing that occurs to me is though you and I, and others in this thread, seem to want a 50% win rate (in games where that is possible - not sure what the BR appropriate equivalent is, average K/D of 1?) - in other games at least - this seems to be a source of common complaints. E.g. many players can't accept that they aren't just inherently better at the game than most other people (reguardless of their actual mechanical skill) and in cases where flat MMR systems eventually result in them settling at 50% is always taken as evidence that the matchmaking is garbage. Again - I sort of wonder if one reason that de-emphasising mechanical skill in RP calculations has some appeal for the developers because it pushes the point where progress seemingly ends (and for most players this will happen eventually - whether they like it or not!) further into the future.
You say, developers want to sort of even the odds, in favor of mechanically not so skilled players? If yes, I find this a good thing, game is not so one-dimensional, widens the possibilities on how to play the game.
Mechanical skill stays the top thing in APEX, I think. Right, you need to be smart, too, you need positioning and movement, reading/knowing the map, reading your enemy, killer instinct AND some sense for your team. But, in the end, all that won't make much difference when you're hitting nothing with your gun or present yourself clumsy in close encounters. Thus, mechanical skill will always have the advantage. Which is totally okay.
FLAMESIS
5 years ago
fighting is successful if you win, cause you get way higher boost of RP surviving is good up till around diamond. sure its BR flawl, but thats the point, games like overwatch has its flawls as well ranked will never be flawless. I bet you can't name a game with a perfect ranked system. unlike Overwatch, apex forces you to get better or keep getting stomped, there is very little room for participation awards when u hit diamond or even higher plat. u have to play hard.