Forum Discussion

3 years ago

Solved

Solo Q experience - Respawn is biggest cause of death

Seriously, it's been so many seasons, when are they going to think about the solo experience and stop doing match fixing by having solos go against full parties? That's like having an NBA all-star team playing against random high schoolers. It is nothing short of cheating and given that, Respawn is by FAR the biggest cheater in this game.

I can't tell if it's worse in ranked where you are playing to win with an extremely unfair advantage, or in PUBS where it completely takes out the entire fun to the game rendering the whole experience useless.

Yesterday I had a squad who was clearly communicating hiding in the boxing ring and flat out refusing to participate in the game. They stayed there for about 6 minutes until the ring started pushing them out. I managed to pull a kraber headshot on a Gibby, they even started body blocking but I pulled 3 more straight shots until I executed him. Team hides again and respawns the Gibby, I manage to pull yet another Kraber headshot on one of them, then another kraber shot on the Gibby off the ship. At this point, I've pulled sick shots back-to-back, yet I am still left in a 1V1 situation where one downed enemy is constantly pinging my location while the other is giving his team cover with the knockdown shield. These people are straight up teaming sweats and communicating in PUBs while my teammates this whole time? Sniping another team halfway across the map when I'm 1 building next to them. This is something that makes the game impossible even for the highest players like Aceu, who constantly dies in 1v3 situations, and it takes him several games until he gets a successful win. Imagine expecting an average player to have streamer/Pro level of performance and even then, you're at an extreme disadvantage. Again, nothing short of straight up cheating and match fixating.

The worst part of this is that it is SO EASY, just DO NOT MATCH SQUADS AGAINST SOLOs unless someone specifically unchecks the "fill teammates" button. How hard is it and how can you possibly preach to banning cheaters when you are the biggest cheater in the game?

gameplay discussion

Balladalidila
3 years ago
@Skaro07
I agree that 3-man premade squads have NO place in lobbies vs random from a competitive fairness POV, just like 5-man premades in games like LoL cant play against a team of 5 randoms.
I think there should be three types of lobbies; one for 3-man full premades, one for solo queuers only and ofc the already exisiting for duos, which I guess has to include both premade duos and randoms.
If a duo premade chooses plays in squad mode, they will always be a 2-man squad. Why? Because a high elo premade duo + one random of random skill level is still such a competitive advantage in a lobby of mostly randoms that it breaks a game. Also, a premade duo will usually destroy the fun for their random teammate, who they will treat like crap. So many times a premade duo uses me (and my death) as a distraction to either run away or revive one another etc.

This will lead to natural incentives for premade duos to either accept the rules and play as a 2-man squad in trios, accepting the advantage of being a premade duo for the cost of being outnumbered. OR they can play in the lobbies designated for them, namely DUOS = fair for everyone OR get a third premade player and play in the 3-man premade lobbies = fair for everyone OR dont play as a premade duo and play as solos in the solo queue = fair for everyone.
But even if they implemented something like this, people would still cry and moan over having to play vs better players than them but I guess thats another issue.

27 Replies

Asmodeus566
Hero+
3 years ago
@Skaro07
I understand what you are saying and your frustration but there really is no complaint here or anything broken that needs fixing.
You choose to play this game as a solo Q'er and that is your choice, nobody forces you to play that way and if you get pitted against three stacks that is they way it is.
The core of the problem is that you have chosen to play a team based game as an individual and want the other Randoms on your team to to play the way you want. Maybe try finding some players to play regularly with as a team would alleviate your problem.
Also they did already think about the solo experience and had a solo mode LTM. The data from that was not good enough for the solo mode to stay as it was detrimental to the game as a whole and the mode was rampant with all sorts of bad play like teaming, camping etc.
Skaro07
3 years ago
I do not think you understood my comments regarding the experience at all. I am not expecting anything from my teammates, if they are bad then that is it. What I am expecting is the enemy team to not have an extremely unfair, cheating level advantage such as being in a full party against solos.
There is 100% something broken here that needs fix, and that is the fact that the game has such a ridiculous thing as SBMM in PUBs but it does not balance the #1 most important factor of the game, squads. In Halo on 4V4 matches or BTB, they would only match full stacks of 4V4s against other 4V4s, or if there were 3 stacks they would match 3V3s +1 random against another 3V3 +1 random, you were playing against a 3 stack as a solo but at least you had a 3-stack team too. Apex can do the exact same and only match full 3 stacks against other 3 stacks, solos against other solos, maybe include a few 2 stacks against full solo squads but prioritize against other 2V2s. This not only makes 100 times more sense, but it also auto balances better than a SBMM ever does because if you 3 stack you can expect the enemies to be the same, just like in Halo you would expect the sweaty matches if you were 4 stacking. It is not about having a game mode with a solo mode, I never mentioned that.
Your comment about "choosing to play as a Solo Q'er" is absolutely ridiculous, the idea that you have to have a teammate to play a game, even one that is played in squads, is absurd. People do not necessarily "choose" to play solo, they might simply not have any friends to play at that moment. If I am strongly encouraged to not play a game by design unless my friends are online and available, the game is spitting on the face of every normal person who works a regular job and has a life.
Asmodeus566
Hero+
3 years ago
@Skaro07
I understand you and know that the system is not perfect.
I agree with you on the point that as a solo Q,er you should be teamed up with 2 other solo's and not a duo and that all other teams in play should also all be Solo Q'ers. and if You are playing as a full premade that all the other squads should also be all 3 stacked premade's as well.
My point was to mitigate the imbalance that is in the game as of now.
the MM takes into account many things but the major one is time to get into a game and the DEVS have decided it is better to have shorter wait times than more balanced team comp.
My suggestion was to mitigate that discrepancy by suggesting you squad up.
I myself really only get to play with my friends as a full sqd once a week for a few hours, the other 80% of my game time is as a solo Q'er and it sucks when I keep running into well coordinated 3 stacks and the coordination with my Randoms is not doing well.
Keep highlighting the issue maybe it will get changed or more balanced.
heme725
3 years ago
@Skaro07 Your experience with your duo teammates is Apex at it's worst. It's unfortunate but duo's can be rather selfish and stubborn making them the worst teammates to have. Your solution would be good in Arenas (assuming player count is high enough) but awful for BR. Full squads or partial squads will take longer to find matches and still get stomped by far more skilled/experienced teams. The experience of the solo player might improve a bit but honestly they'll still be smacked by strong squads or random teams who communicate slightly.
Full teams aren't the issue but the lack of communication in squads, arrogance of players, and differing calls in moments that determine the fight. All problems solved by playing with people you know or... using mics. Respawn can't fix the issue of players being dumb including me. I refuse to use a mic unless absolutely necessary.
Balladalidila
Seasoned Ace
3 years ago
@Skaro07
I agree that 3-man premade squads have NO place in lobbies vs random from a competitive fairness POV, just like 5-man premades in games like LoL cant play against a team of 5 randoms.
I think there should be three types of lobbies; one for 3-man full premades, one for solo queuers only and ofc the already exisiting for duos, which I guess has to include both premade duos and randoms.
If a duo premade chooses plays in squad mode, they will always be a 2-man squad. Why? Because a high elo premade duo + one random of random skill level is still such a competitive advantage in a lobby of mostly randoms that it breaks a game. Also, a premade duo will usually destroy the fun for their random teammate, who they will treat like crap. So many times a premade duo uses me (and my death) as a distraction to either run away or revive one another etc.

This will lead to natural incentives for premade duos to either accept the rules and play as a 2-man squad in trios, accepting the advantage of being a premade duo for the cost of being outnumbered. OR they can play in the lobbies designated for them, namely DUOS = fair for everyone OR get a third premade player and play in the 3-man premade lobbies = fair for everyone OR dont play as a premade duo and play as solos in the solo queue = fair for everyone.
But even if they implemented something like this, people would still cry and moan over having to play vs better players than them but I guess thats another issue.
Skaro07
3 years ago
@Asmodeus566 Okay I get the point that matching 3v3s might increase matchup time, but Apex already matches me in PUBS in less than 10 seconds every time. 30 more seconds for a fair match is more than worth it. Halo later had to change their model to open to all parties because of low population, but its a self feedback loop because you have open matching because the game is dying, but the game is dying on solo level because you have unfair plays against them. Ultimately if a game dies because it relies on exploitation of solos, then the game never had enough fame in the first place, there was a different fun problem they didn't fix and it deserves to die.
Skaro07
3 years ago
@heme725 You can still have SBMM within premade squads so that it is balanced. And communication is not really the issue, I can make weird calls with my friends and they can understand me, randoms wouldn't. Besides, I've gotten Spanish speaking only teammates and think about Shiv, he always uses mics but his teammates do not listen, hell I'm pretty sure there are people that literally play without sound believe it or not. The point is, no matter how good you are, no matter what you do even if you do not make mistakes and use mic, being solo will still be an unfair advantage, hence why I called it cheating to have squads against solos
Balladalidila
Seasoned Ace
3 years ago
@Skaro07
Just out of curiously; how do YOU think the current SBMM works right now? I think its funny that many complain about the current SBMM but many of them seem to have totally different understanding how it works =)
Midnight9746
Hero+
3 years ago
@Balladalidila I don't understand how it works, other than it doesn't. It doesn't seem right to be in Gold, and you see a level 20 bronze IV on your team or on an enemy team. Like, I know Bronze to Gold can matchmake, but it just seems like this is a huge skill gap, especially when that level 20 is a noob to the game. Why does matchmaking allow them in that lobby?

Another instance is seeing Diamonds or higher in Silver-Gold lobbies. Sure, they got deranked due to new seasons and spilts, but they shouldn't be allowed to drop that low. The first few weeks of a season or split, the "casual" rank players have to avoid rank, due to the diamonds and up having to rank out of these matches.

To me, matchmaking seems to shove anyone together. That it doesn't care about player level, skills, or anything. It just shoves full stack preds (and sometimes cheaters/smurphs), against everyone else who's skills range from bot to decent.

There's also the trend I've noticed with my matches, and has a reason to it too, where if you win too much or place high a lot, enemy teams become much harder. This isn't because you're getting better so you're going against better teams, its matchmaking's way of keeping you playing. I typically get off after a few good wins, and keep trying even when doing bad. I spent over 5 hours stuck in Gold last season, and the moment I reached plat - I Alt + F4'ed.
Balladalidila
Seasoned Ace
3 years ago
@Midnight9746
Well, I was more referring to his idea of the casual SBMM since that usually is the subject of frustration. But if we are talking about ranked SBMM, I guess that I agree there should be a limit how far an account can derank, perhaps 2 ranks down, meaning that a Master/pred account can never derank below Platinum, a Diamond account never below Gold etc etc
The question is if this would stop people who feel the need to smurf far below their skill level the entire split. If such player wanted to only play in low elo, they could easily just have multiple accounts dedicated for bronze to gold and switch account every time they are close to reach Platinum.
But regarding the trend of putting you into sweater lobbies if you win a lot; I dont know if I see a super strong correlation tbh. Ive had several 2-3 wins in a row with randoms. Sometimes its easy to only remember the times when you have a super good game match 1 and then gets killed by a pred match 2, but forget all the times you have a good game match 1 and then have exactly the same level of opponents the next match, and the next, and next. etc. But if you are correct about this; isnt that a good thing then? I dont see a problem if a player that keep preforming very well against a certain level of opponents could be tried vs harder opponents?