This game has never been more broken

I've played this game since its release. I'm not good, really. I've never had a season-end KDR over 1.0. Not once. I play for fun, not for sweat. I loved Titanfall and gravitated to this game because they didn't make a third Titanfall. Until recently, Apex has been very fun, and has always been my favorite game. Not anymore.

I try to make up for my lack of skill by not hot-dropping, while hitting the replicators off the jump to try and get at least one gun kitted out, using the ping system as much as possible, etc. A typical match for me doesn't even see a gunfight until the second ring. I don't engage a squad unless there's an advantage and I think my squad can win the fight. There's no shame in hiding and waiting for the right moment to strike. This strategy has worked very well until this year, when several unwanted changes were introduced. This game has stopped being fun, completely and totally. It's now too much like work for me to want to play it.

*Matchmaking is totally broken across all game modes (except maybe for Ranked, which I don't play, but seriously there's so many other posts about this, yeah I'm sure it's busted too). There's no reason for me to be in the same match as anyone with a Predator badge, the 20-bomb badge, etc. In fact, I've never been killed by anyone with these high-level badges until the last two seasons. More and more, I see people leave the dropship with high-level skydive trails - I don't even have any! Having to play against these sweats doesn't help me get better and only increases my reluctance to play at all.

*Audio, audio, audio. It's so bad now. People are constantly walking right up to me in utter silence. Sometimes I'm getting shot, LITERALLY TAKING BULLETS THAT I CAN HEAR HITTING ME, without hearing the gun, or the person that fired it. Legend abilities glitch out too. And yet, I can be next to a rock wall that's a quater-mile high and hear people walking on the other side of it? How is this OK, or even possible?

*Loot distribution is similarly screwed. I can rarely play a match these days and manage to get both guns fully kitted - and I'm not including hopups with that, I mean just the basic stuff like stocks, sights and mags. I frequently run into a situation where I pick up a sniper rifle when I first land, and never find any sights better than a 1-2 variable. If it doesn't happen that way, I'll find a 4-8 variable right away and never find a sniper rifle to put it on. Sometimes I don't ever find any sights for any gun at all. And remember, my play style is land, loot, engage. I often end up in ring 3 and still don't have a fully-kitted gun despite looting that whole time. And it's not just gun parts. Armor and helmets are often times poorly distributed. Once I landed at Lava Dome with a random squad, we looted every single building and all supply bins, and there was no armor. We rotated towards Maude, and none of the buildings in between had any armor either. Then, on top of the old train depot, there were 4 blue armors. Why they were all concentrated in this one little spot is beyond me but it used to not be like that. That being said, Syringes, Med Kits, Shield Cells, and Shield Batteries don't seem to be affected (yet).

*For whatever reason, Respawn saw fit to remove the ability to mark replicators before dropping. This isn't a glitch or an oversight as many other posters have surmised; it's clearly intentional despite there being no mention in the patch notes, otherwise it would have been put back in by now after more than half a season without it. This relegates replicators to an afterthought instead of an important strategy, basically there's no point to considering replicating unless you just happen to come across one during the match and have the opportunity to make something real quick. Which means, in a fast-paced match, replicating isn't viable. And yet, many of my daily and weekly challenges involve getting materials for the replicators.

*The shortened first ring time this season is complete overkill. It's far, far too short. It makes all the other problems way worse. Want to land at the edge of the map? Better hope that the ring is closing on that side or else you're forced with running for an entire match instead of being able to loot and build your loadout. Want to hit an Armory on Storm Point? That's a pipe dream, there's only one out of the four that isn't on the edge of the map and the time it takes to complete one (a little over a minute) means that you have to choose whether to do the Armory or run from the ring. It begs the question, why are they even in the game at all? Which is related to another question: Why is Storm Point still so big? Its size wasn't really a problem before they messed with how long ring 1 lasts but now it's just too risky to land on the edge of Storm Point, anywhere or any time. There's been times I landed at Barometer and STILL didn't have any time to loot before I had to run to stay in the ring. And then, on the other maps, they removed some jump towers, making this an issue even on the smaller maps. Why remove movement options at the same time movement across the map was made more difficult? Me and my regular squad used to love landing at Armories, or at Bloodhound's Trials on World's Edge but haven't been able to at all for this whole season. What's the point of even having these activities (Trials, Armories, Loot Vaults, Caustic Treatment) when you don't have time to do them?

This game has never been this broken. It's just not fun anymore, it's work. I already work. Games are supposed to be fun. So why should I play?

Lots of commenters are saying that Respawn is catering just to to the pros and streamers when they introduce these changes. That may be, I can't say for sure. I'm part of the gaming community that doesn't care about watching pros, or watching streamers, I just want to relax with a game I love. No matter what Respawn's motivations are, the results are the same: this game is really starting to suck. A lot. And if they want to maintain this part of their player base, they can't continue as they have been.

*If Respawn is determined to keep the first ring so short, then Storm Point should be cut in half and made into two separate maps. It's too big to be viable with this new timeframe. (Really, it was too big without it.) Likewise, extraneous activities like the Armories, Bloodhound's Trials, Caustic Treatment, Loot Vaults need to go, or be relocated so that they can actually be used again. Same goes for Replicators, unless they decide to allow us to mark them at the beginning of the match again.

*We should have options for controlling the different sounds in the game. At least then, when Respawn does something that causes glitches, we can at least try to compensate by increasing/decreasing volumes individually. For instance, footsteps, team gunfire, opponent gunfire, ambient sounds, and abilities should each have their own volume slider in the options menu.

*Matchmaking needs a serious makeover. Either it's skill-based, or it's not. Stop telling us it is when it clearly isn't, or just admit that it isn't. If Respawn insists on labeling it as skill-based, then it needs to be made that way. This goes for the LTM's as well. And to put it out there, it's not really my problem that people that are that good might face longer queue times while the game tries to find equally-skilled opponents. That's the price of being awesome. I shouldn't be punished by becoming a loot pinata for a lobby full of Predators. You can't get better if you never get to shoot more than one mag in a fight, and you can't have fun that way either.

These days, if I drop and the second ring is on the other side of the map, I just quit the match and try again. It's too frustrating to spend the whole match running to stay in the ring. Replicators aren't even something I consider anymore, since I don't know where they are, and the same goes for the Armories and the other activities. If I get killed by a player with high-level badges (preds, 20-bombs, etc) two matches in a row, I turn off the game. That happens every day, by the way. Every. Single. Day. It's actually the most common reason I switch to another game - it used to be I wouldn't even think about switching games until I at least completed my daily challenges.

So, the game needs to change. Or, they could just call it 'Apex Legends - the Job'. Because it's that much like work.