"I have done many data pulls to test SBMM and it’s effects in pubs. I have statistical evidence that matchmaking intentionally gives strong players weak teammates."
Totally agree. I think its very safe to say that casual matchmaking does NOT match equally skilled player against each other (thank god for that; why would I want wait 5 mins for a causal match and have it like an average Diamond2 lobby?). It seems to me that the matchmaking is either rigged to spread out the 20 best players in the lobby in 20 different team and then fill up the team with the rest player. But honestly, it can also be that the matchmaking is totally random, because if we assume that the player skill distribution of all queuing players is normal (bell) distributed, an above average player will ofc be more statistically likely to get "worse" teammates compared to him in most matches.. Its simple statistics and same logic goes for Arena pubs I guess.
"when I am the only one using my mic and trying to coordinate, I am ignored 95% of the time by players who do everything but work as a team."
True, but I am gonna play the devils advocate here and ask "did they agree to make you the teams shot-caller?". Not listening to a random teammates verbal communication, ordering you around and making calls that you dont even agree with, it NOT a sign of being weak per se. Sometimes, when I get a random teammate, especially in pubs, who tries to micro manage every single step I take over the coms, I just want to scream "STFU" (but I usually just mute him)
But to answer your question of the threat
"Is someone in my position justified for choosing not to play these matches out— or am I legitimately a *? "
Since this squad constellation of one good and two bad is the same for the majority of the squads in the lobby where only a handful of the squads are stacked with three good players, then yeah, I guess you are kind of a * if you leave even before you get downed=) Because if you keep leaving every time you dont good random teammates; the logic that you are following is : "I will only play this game when I randomly have been given a clear advantage". Also here, the same logic goes for Arena pubs.
@Balladalidila"But honestly, it can also be that the matchmaking is totally random, because if we assume that the player skill distribution of all queuing players is normal (bell) distributed, an above average player will ofc be more statistically likely to get "worse" teammates compared to him in most matches"
I would have to be one of the best players in the game then, which I am not, as I can go 10, 20, 30 games where we end in top-5 and always be lead damage person. It would seem impossible that I rarely get a teammate who out-damages me if it was totally random.
I agree with most of your logic but I honestly think we overestimate what an "average" Apex player is. There are so many players who just play a couple of hours a week just for funsies with 40 fps and on PC speakers, players that fight-wise would go average 1 k/d in silver lobbies if they were allowed to play there indefinitely. So if we, for the sake of the argument, assume that these kind of players make up the bulk of the player base, than obviously will for instance a "diamond+" player feel that such teammates were useless even though he actually is average.
I did a test on the matchmaking a while ago where I played 30 consecutive casual matches with randoms (with image evidence etc). You can find it here:
If you dont wanna read it, I did most damage in 22 of those 30 matches and in 18 of those 22, I even did MORE damage than both my randoms combined. My K/D over these 30 matches was 2.6 which is very close to my overall K/D (2.57) So based on this experiment, I think you can draw the conclusion that even if I very very often get much much worse teammates that me, most of my enemy squads are ALSO much much worse than me.
But you are absolutely right about the full stacked premade Master/Pred squads that are allowed to play in lobbies where the majority of teams are made up of randoms. This is actually a farce from a competitive fairness stand-point but I guess this is a part of EAs "Engagement Optimized matchmaking". But the question here is how many of those squads REALLY exist in an average casual lobby? Some people here claim they have 8-15 such squads in every lobby but I disagree. Once again; if this was the case, then my study would have got a totally different result. I would estimate that there only are 1-2 such 3-man stacked squads on average in my lobbies.
And yeah, I guess it must be a bit frustrating to be a bad player that constantly get destroyed but what is the alternative? A strict SBMM also in pubs? I think that would kill the game. The reason why a strict SBMM works in ranked mode is because you have other and stronger incentives to play, i.e the RP gain/the climb. Thats why it can be fun and rewarding to play in lobbies where literally everyone is exactly your skill. But these incentives simply dont exist in pubs.
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