Re: Too many "pro" players ruining everyone's fun.

@XxColdFangxX 

"That is why I added 'or other game stats' because a players KDR..."

But I think you miss my point.. what I meant was that pretty much ALL stats that is connected to  "skill" only represent your skill vs the players in the current matchmaking, i.e those stats would change if you changed the current matchmaking . For instance, the value of KD = 2 isnt an absolute measure of a players skill, its only a measure of his skill in the matchmaking where he got his 2 KD. 

Thats why none of these stats could be used successfully as a variable to create matches that would put equally skilled players against each other. It doesnt matter if they use KD, DMG dealt or Win rate or shots hit/miss ratio.. All these stats would be significantly affected if they change the current matchmaking to something else so the system would only work in the beginning.

EXAMPLE: my current overall K/D is 2.6. If the matchmaking changed so that I was only put against players with, lets say 2 - 3 K/D,  I would suddenly be very average in my lobbies and my K/D would rapidly start to decrease towards 1. Another player in this new lobbies, who had 2 K/D before, is now among the very worst in the new lobbies and his KD in this new matchmaking would start to very very rapidly decrease far below 1. A third player, who currently had 3 K/D, would now have a much much more challenging lobby than before and would probably stay above 1 K/D but still much lower than 3. 

But now lets look at a new lobby that puts players who currently has 0.5  - 1 K/D... A player currently with 0.5 K/D , who NOW is far, faaar below average, would now still be among the worst but not as bad as before so his KD would start to increase, probably not to 1 but somewhere just below that.  But a player currently with 1 KD, who NOW is very average, would suddenly be the very best in his lobby and his KD would start to increase far above 1....

And the same thing would happened to EVERY players, regardless what KD based lobby they start out in. Their KD would change and soon we would end up with mixed lobbies anyways.  I hope you understand the logic of this.

But my point is that even in the current matchmaking, there are actually plenty of opportunity for also below average players to find fair fights and grow as a player. If you know that you are below average, then dont drop hot together with the best players in the lobby. Drop a bit safer, perhaps follow another team to a more remote location and take a 3v3 there. Changes are high  that they also are below average and you will have a fair fight. But the main problem here is that too many players cant or wont realize that they arent that good. So many hardstuck Platinum4 players here that instead start to blame it on everything but themselves; cheaters, bad matchmaking, bad teammates etc

@Balladalidila 

"If you know that you are below average, then dont drop hot together with the best players in the lobby. Drop a bit safer, perhaps follow another team to a more remote location and take a 3v3 there. Changes are high  that they also are below average and you will have a fair fight."

That just brings us back to the crappy match making system all together. When you don't have a team to play with, you're stuck playing with randoms and depending on the jump master, they'll just send you right into those hot drops anyway. What's the choice then? Be a team player and stick with your team for what you know you're not ready for? Or break off from your team, land else where, live a little longer, but in the end you'd be at a huge disadvantage. 

There's two sides to every coin and honestly no one can say for certain if changing the way they match their lobbies would make things better or worse, but we do know one thing for certain: it hasn't been tried. 

Try looking at the other br games that have implemented more ways to make their match making lobbies better, they seem to be better off for it. Why not Apex? 

I'm a lvl 46 with a little over 100 kills, I know where my skill level is, but why am I in lobbies with players well over lvl 100, with thousands of hours of game time and have been playing since the game came out?

There's a huge experience gap here, even more so when you just so happen to be unlucky enough to get put on a squad with someone that's lvl 10. Where is the game play in that? 

If it was just one or a small handful of people complaining about the matchmaking lobbies then I might be inclined to agree with you, but it's not. There's plenty of post and people wanting better matchmaking for one reason or another. The system clearly has issues. 'Pro.' Players complain about getting stuck with weak/new players on their teams. 

New/weak players complain about always getting rekt in games because they're going against people with far more experience than they have.

The pro players don't want to have to carry their teammates all the time, they want players they can depend on in a fight against another well stacked squad and if it's not another well stacked squad then it simply just isn't a challenge for them. 

The weaker players can't hold up against a squad of pro players. Sure they can land father out, gear up, pick their battles, but there's still the question on if they can handle the first squad they come against because with a lobby filled with all sort of players of various experiences, there's no telling what they'll get. 

Yes there are many people in the game that would sooner blame anyone and everyone else before admitting the fault is their own, but when you've got both sides complaining about the same things, then its more than likely an actually problem that nothing has been done to fix.

@XxColdFangxX 

"That just brings us back to the crappy match making system all together. " 

From a "competitive fairness"  standpoint, I dont disagree, but the million dollar question is; how should a BETTER system work then? As I already explained, you cant base it on stats like K/D, Dmg dealt or win rate  in the long run since they are strongly correlated to your skill level vs your opponents skill level (but please elaborate if you think my logic is flawed).  I cant think of a single way to solve this that would work. 

"Try looking at the other br games that have implemented more ways to make their match making lobbies better, they seem to be better off for it. Why not Apex? "

But do they really? First of all, we must exclude every 1v1, 3v3, 5v5 games, like LoL, CS, Valorant, R6siege etc. It is by any definition MUCH easier to implement a more narrow/strict SBMM in any game  that has matches with one winner and one loser. Its also easier to create a skilled based matchmaking in SOLO modes also in BRs. But if we look at other BRs, I think Fortnite even scraped SBMM in casual squads all together and I just recently played PUBG for the first time in ages and every lobby is like 60% useless bots (which practically is free loot delivery)  and the rest players of all skill levels. I am lvl 46 but I died many times to lvl 500s . I dont think that system is better in any ways for new players.

" it was just one or a small handful of people complaining about the matchmaking lobbies then I might be inclined to agree with you, but it's not." 

I think you misunderstand my meaning. I dont disagree in anything you say and I understand and respect that people are pissed at the current matchmaking; I just cant think of any alternative to a matchmaking that would work better and no one is coming with suggestions; they just complain.  

I think the best solution would be if Respawn fixed their ranked mode so THAT can become a mode for people who wanna play vs equally skilled players.

1.  The min required level for playing ranked must be increased to like 100 at least to make it harder to smurf
   
   
2. Fast advance players who obviously are too good for their current rank. If you land a 3500dmg/15 kill game as a Silver4 for instance, you OBVIOUSLY are too good for silver... Fast advance that guy to Gold4.
   
   
3. Enable DEMOTION between full divisions (gold, silver etc). So if a player for some reason get hardstuck, he is allowed to be demoted to a rank where his current skill level is more suited vs the competition. 
   
   
4. For all other players who average 0-2 kills, 0-1500 dmg per game at their current rank, they are probably right where they belong. EXTEND their stay at their current rank by slow down the advancement. One of the biggest flaws is that people advance out to quick from the ranks where they actually would thrive and grow, to a rank which is too hard for them so they become "hardstuck". This is especially true for the lower ranks, like silver..

@Balladalidila 

Agree to disagree then.

You can talk the KDR statistics at me all day till your blue in the face and I still won't see it, because I'm not some sort of math genius that can look at the numbers and go 'oh, that won't work' 

If you can calculate how someone avgs in 10-20 games I quite honestly don't see how you can't try to find a more even lobby base for the game. 

Bots would be like little loot boxes, but they'd also instill confidence in the players who aren't so good at the game, but if you don't want people getting free stuff then just give them some crappy guns and a bit of ammo in their drop boxes.  A bot is a moving, shooting target. It can't strategize like an actual player can, but it's better than going against someone in area that wipes you in less than two seconds, how do you learn when you don't get the chance to just play the game? Don't think changing match making will make it better, don't want bots in your lobbies? Then make a practice lobby with absolutely nothing but bots to go against with varying difficulties. 

When fortnite put their bots in the game, I enjoyed it a lot more than when every other player I ran into was a sweaty streamer that could out build and out shoot me in a matter of seconds. I don't enjoy the over the shoulder look, and I didn't like the building, that's why I don't keep playing it. 

Apex has enjoyable qualities, it's first person, it's got characters with neat abilities, it's got great graphics..etc, but I've been on and off because the match making has always been sketchy. When you can't just play the game because you can't compete, it stops being fun, and just gets aggravating.

@XxColdFangxX 

Dont think that its that much we disagree on tbh. And yes, you can ofc calculate someones performance in 10-20 games when playing in the "normal" lobbies,  or even the last 2-3 games and then put them in a "easy" lobby among other players who also did very badly in their last 10-20, or even 2-3 last games.....But I think its exactly this the current matchmaking is doing. It seems to me that you usually get a easy lobby after a 3-4 bad games in a row.. But then what? How many games are you gonna be allowed to play in this "easy" lobby if you get seeded into it? And what if a "diamond skilled" player have 4 bad games in a row,  Is he also allowed play several games in this easy lobby wrecking havoc among true noobs? You see, Its not that easy to formulate the perfect matchmaking.

And perhaps bot lobbies is a good idea? I would never want to play vs bots but then again; I am not that unhappy with the current matchmaking. I take it for what it is and I can usually get a couple of kills every game, regardless of bad teammates or stacked premades... So perhaps this is a good idea.
;;  

@XxColdFangxX
Best coach for free that I have seen so far: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCasBgv7TlGUMP9G5CbmLfhw invest time, you will get a lot of solid info and improve.

Spoiler alert - you will know how to play the game better, yet implementing that in the actual game will be much harder. But at least you will know for sure where you f-up, especially if you record and re-watch your games.

Current gaming experience in 4 facts:

1. hackers - there is no / very weak protection even against heave aimbot in this game, diamond+ lobbies are full of hackers
2. smurfs - mainly people who get to diamond lobbies and don't want to feel the pain or sick people who just enjoy slicing through much weaker enemies
3. community values - praising 20 kill, 4000 damage, k/d ratio and other badges and stats that say a thing but the fact that you did hit a lot of shots, that mostly comes from either huge gap in skill difference and/or hacks, less so from teamwork, IQ, communication, outsmarting equally skilled players
4. matchmaking - it just is a big mystery plus it gets f-up even more thanks to the 3 above-mentioned points and players abusing the system.

My suggestion to you: watch Dan, like his videos, leave comments so those are shared in Apex community, he deserves the credit! -> go play ranked, ignore public games, those are just too random and full or very random people, get to Diamond and your mission is complete -> quit the game unless you find a squad and/or Respawn fixes the hacking issue, if lucky you might push Masters, Predators are just people who in addition to above mention have no life / earn money by playing this game, unless that is you don't waste your life.

@Eshshshss
Thanks for the video link, I'll have to check it out when I'm not at work. A majority of the streamers I watch play apex are using raging jar heads where its everyone else's fault that things go wrong.

Though videos can be quite informative, they only go so far. They can tell you how to play, what to look out for, the best stuff, but they can't really make up for missing experience. I can easily give ranked another shot, but quite frankly its going to be my team carrying me, and that's not fair to them.

5) Most of the time they play solo or with random teammates. imo you get way harder/better opponents if you play with your friends as premade squad.

@Sirportalezyes, but I personally think that pre-made good squad outways the consequence of having higher-skilled lobbies. At least in my experience - Diamond+ lobbies - I rarely finish in positive points when playing with randoms, given ratting in Diamond still gives you negative points up to 2nd place, while with set squad (when lucky) I do get steady progress overall.

That is also confirmed by the messages in forums and discussions in Discord, unless you are really so much better in fragging vs teamwork or play in lobbies under your level e.g. solid Master level player solo-q diamond lobbies.