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.
But what do you consider to be a "bad", "OK", "good" and "superb" game? Because that is also something that can be discussed. It seems like many here think that a "normally good time" playing this game, that the current matchmaking is depriving them of, should be matches where they always have a very fair chance of getting minimum 3-5 kills, 1000+ dmg and always have a good chance of winning or at least ending up top 3. But this picture is not a "fair" matchmaking, its a matchmaking where you are clearly above average among your fellow teammates and enemies. By definition, if the skill based matchmaking unrealistically and hypothetically was infinitely strict, i.e that every lobby was you and 59 clones of you, exactly as good of an Apex player as you in every way, then your K/D would go towards 1 after "a million matches".
So what I mean is that maybe people have too high expectations what an "OK" Match in Apex should be. For me, in pubs, an "OK" match is one that I do at least 3 kills and 700+ dmg since my K/D is 2.56 and average dmg dealt 600something. So even if I dont care too much about stats is that is just a little goal that I set up for myself; i.e at least manage to do this even if you dont have super great match. So whenever I get two random teammates who dont know up from down and literally cant do 50 dmg in a fight before dying, then I just mind my own business and play to achieve at least this "OK" game on my own. And for another player, who perhaps has 1.2 K/D, his definition of an OK game maybe should be to get average 2 kills per game etc etc
The current matchmaking at least allows players who worked hard to become above average to at least get above average wins/kills/dmg dealt which wouldn't be the case with a super strict SBMM. Sometimes, it feels like people conveniently ignore that wishes for better teammates also would mean equally better enemies, unless you actually are seriously wishing for a matchmaking that puts you with stacked teammates vs bad enemies, which ofc is a ridiculous thing to say.
@BalladalidilaI agree with your view on what is good/bad game and I would prefer what you call super strict SBMM, meaning I am ok to have a relatively short span of time when game figures out my rank to have a lot of "fun" / good games where I do above my average kills and damage, to reach a point where really every game and every fight is 50/50 - people here call it ALGS style games I guess or games where you think 3 or 5 times before peaking or taking a fight given you know that if you miss, mess up you will be punished 100% of a time.
That's why I had a problem with your experiment taking place in pubs - there is in my opinion less consistency in enemy squads, effort vs ranked.
Finally what this topic is about and what I see from current matchmaking - it, unfortunately, fails to gauge my level correct and put me into a lobby where the majority of players are in a similar situation, it either get it totally wrong - where I get crazy damage/kill game or get owned instantly - or try to create "average" environment by mixing total newbs with predators ignoring the fact that a predator alone still could win a certain game in a lobby because he/she is just so much better than average player there or vice versa setting predator for 100% fail as rest of the squads are premade with ideal teamwork who will win by numbers.
And the most amazing fact of SBMM is how it can regularly pair me (loser in Diamond lobbies) with a squad of randoms who are not even in Diamond level and then put us into a lobby with premade, masters, and predators - and I am talking about cases where we clearly see after <10 min that my mates are also losers and the game did not give me some genius Platinum players who can beat Diamond+, no, we were cannon meat. And I am not making this conclusion from a fact that I get into the game, die, and leave, no I am actually "wasting" my time spectating my killer team and even team that kills them and sometimes even watch a whole game even if I finished in 20th place. And I see time and time again, that other teams are not THAT bad as mine. E.g. my teammates can't even land or stick with the team, while others successfully communicate, use in-game ping, clearly apply some tactics and logical thinking, have also mechanics behind it... so that begs the questions about SBMM.
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