This game has stopped being about fun

Changing argument from fun and casual play to matchmaking and ranked... :)

Adding touch of personal / emotional insults... ok.

Totally wrong about matchmaking - there are even official topics about it being changed because Imperiahal and other influencers of the game were too tired to queue for too long and demanded ... wait for it ... exactly the same as you = fun and casual games, so now they are casually added to plat lobbies and stomp them. And it is NOTHING to do with player count.

How do I know it -> if you take even EU Apex legends FLG there are constantly at least 50-100 diamond+ players on in peak time and like half of that in off times. So that's already a server or two. Battlecord discord -> add few tens more + higher ranked (cheaters mostly there for sure) and you have servers! where plats are not needed.

So educate yourself ;) or just be quite :)

What I defend is that assuming from what was written we both have invested 1000+h into the game which is let's call it equal amount.
Yet you can't get out of gold or so you say and have no fun.
I got out of Plat 3 to D4 previous split in 3 days, split before that with duostack in 2 days. With duo / tristack reached D2 even with all **bleep** hackers and Preds in my lobbies, have a video proof how we won 2!!! Pred lobbies in a row. Yes it was **bleep** lucky but we still did it and with 5+ KP including in one game aping successfully looting Pred 3stack.

Long story short - you are demading Apex to be what it NEVER was. Maybe back in the days competition was lower...yeah I would say so. Cheating was not so spread - 100%, now you even see some gifted empty head ppl cheat in gold, plat is littered with cheaters and Diamond4+ was always about cheating just how much = be it RC filters or radars or aimbots with wallhacks.

Comparison to what you are demanding is to get into boxing ring with superheavyweight and ask him not to hit you too hard... forgetting that even his not too hard will knock your brains out :)

Adjust or just leave the game, don't make Mario Karts out of Apex Legends :)

p.s. you don't need to be "9 to 5" in Apex to be good. I came to play it after 7 years of not playing basically any games and instantly went to P3 and season later to D4 (soloq) and ever since I have been only D4+ almost reaching Masters once (season 12) and multiple times being in D3-D1 depending on how much I try / if I have duo/trio.

For me personally this game removed "fun" in following ways:

1. introducing cross-play = make most fights "me and my controller (input) will push into your face and just AA mailto:sh@# out of you"
2. making ranked system less competitive (used to be 3-8% in diamond, now it is 30%+) on the one end and squeezing it from the top end by limiting number of masters / preds per lobby which is apparent and filling rest with low diamond/plat
3. totally losing grip on cheaters, before that I quit only once during famous season 22 or was it 24 when people just ragehacked left and right and anti-cheat team took more than a season to do basically anything about it -> now since season 25 I have quit playing like 5+ times already. Come see how it is...realized same s#$T -> go to the next game. I am not entertaining some losers on one end and some on the other (if you know what I mean you know)

Otherwise changes like new maps, drop zones, new legends, new weapons...were fun, welcome...but those were few and far between unfortunately and did not change ranked drastically.

Gonna be the last response because clearly you are taking this way too personally and also not comprehending what I'm saying so there's no point in trying to keep saying it. I didn't change the argument and never once said I wanted "casual and fun" lobbies in the way you keep stating. What I did say is that I am a casual gamer, meaning I only get the chance to play once or twice a week, not meaning that I am bad or that I don't want to have competitive lobbies. And I also said that I want to have fun in the game I'm playing, which I have defined multiple times as competitive challenging games where I have a chance to win some of the time. I'm not wrong about matchmaking being bad because of said changes you listed about pros and streamers wanting to have more fun is exactly the problem is who aren't pro or no lifers are having with the game where we end up facing more preds so EA can cater to its big players and keep the game more fun for them (and keep queue times down for them because before the changes pros would have to wait so long for a queue due to the low high level player counts none of them were having any fun waiting 15/20 minutes to get in a game). Using EU as an example where there are only two servers worth of people is crazy because because that is just more evidence of a dying game with a low player count. 100+ players is not a lot in plat/diamond... Queues have slowed drastically in the recent year and you can't deny a decreasing player count affecting match making because, once again, it played a big part in the changes to cater to the pros who weren't able to find pred lobbies in any reasonable amount of time.

  Not trying to personally attack you and I even said I'm really glad you're having fun and this is just my perspective from my experience. No hate on you for enjoying the state of the game as it is and I wish more people would agree so they would come back and play. 

I'm definitely not demanding apex be what it never was because I'm just saying this current season is the first time I haven't had fun, if Apex always felt the way it does this season I would have quit a long long time ago. 

I just don't know how many times I can say I want fun competition (not mario kart) till you understand that I'm presenting my experience and not personally attacking you or honestly even the game. I love apex I think it's the best BR ever made, which is why it sucks not having fun anymore on a game I've played for years. 

Also never claimed to be hard stuck gold, making plat is easy and always has been. My complaint has been about the preds in plat lobbies and also the SBMM in pubs being bad.  Never once demanded for the heavyweights to not hit so hard, I'm demanding to not put a middle weight into a ring with a heavyweight because there are weight classes for a reason 😅😅😅 once again you keep making points that don't go against what I'm saying, you just haven't heard me properly.

I want the game to be competitive and challenging by playing against people my own skill level. I don't want to be in bot lobbies to have fun and I also don't want to be in pred lobbies where I get three stack ran through every single game. It's a simple ask (and I fully understand it isn't a simple solution in a game with a declining player base). 

Once more: I want competitive lobbies, not lobbies I don't have to strive to be better in and roll over everyone. That sucks. I can't play the game with enough devotion to make pred or masters due to work and wife and life, so I would like to not be put up against them the second I hit platinum. (Which as you stated takes hardly any time to do). I used to be able to hit plat and grind to diamond with a decent amount of effort and the games were sweaty but not insurmountable. It doesn't feel that way anymore.

The casual player base is the base that made this game, and lined rEAspawn with billions. The casual player base makes up the highest population of this game by a large margin. Like you said SBMM should pit players against similar skilled individuals - period. 

That is not happening anymore... especially in Pubs. Similar combatants would make for stressful game play and challenging yes. It also makes winning and losing sit around 50/50 - and every fire fight you come across depending on your game sense and tactics (not that those are relevant anymore) you should always have a chance to win. You should prob win your battles 5 our of 10 times, or 10 out of 20 and so on... you should have to work to walk away from a battle. 

However... especially in pubs, but all modes mainly because of the increased amount of smurf accounts and appeasing the 5% or just rEAspawns unwillingness to actually combat cheaters ... casuals are going up against players so far above their skill level. At least that is now my predicament as well as so many others that report it. Its at a point of it being impossible to win a fire fight against someone so insanely far above your skill level.... a level we have no business being in. Like a gold player constantly facing unlimited amount of pred and master smurf players - IN PUBS! I get the "grind" for ranked, even that is laughable. Endless smurfing in ranked because rEAspawn feels thats just fine. 

Why is it for 4 years or more, this was not a problem, always playing against a mirrored player to myself, slightly better or slightly worse. It hasn't been this way for years but now, there has been some form of switch up somewhere along the timeline where casuals have been made fodder for lobbies far above for whatever reason. 

From a casual stand point... its very frustrating. Your idea of just don't play... well, if every casual player did just that... what do you think would happen? Seeing as how they are about 95% of the player base. You yourself would not have a competitive game in Apex left to play. 

Brother, everything you wrote multiple times made sense and was quite easy to understand... don't sweat over it. I know what your saying   : )

Mod Nightmare's comment - "Comparison to what you are demanding is to get into boxing ring with superheavyweight and ask him not to hit you too hard... forgetting that even his not too hard will knock your brains out :)"

I took your words as the exact opposite of this... not sure what he's reading? 

If I am considered a welterweight, I would understand going up against welterweights, super welterweight or even middleweight. But why would a welterweight be pitted up against a heavyweight... why? Over and over and over again, regardless of the outcome.  Why would a 147lb fighter going up against  200 - 250lb fighters. Obviously getting your a$$ knocked out is the only option here. 

I've been playing this game since launch before seasons were a thing... trust me when I tell you... it has never been this way in Pubs. If you removed SBMM right now, it would prob feel better than whatever rEAspawn has been doing as of late with MM. 

Let's be clear - removing SBMM from pubs is the only sensible solution.

Why? Because 3stack master/preds will destroy every lobby anyway. It doesn't matter if it's a lobby of players from Silver to Diamond.

And removing SBMM will make it much less common to encounter such teams and shorten matchmaking times, which sometimes last five minutes... Which is insane, because I often play for a minute just to wait five minutes for the next game.

This game will simply die without this change. We can't have every mode feel like it was built for professionals.

A game is also supposed to be fun, and Apex hasn't felt that way in a long time due to its TERRIBLE matchmaking.

I have a blast playing in pubs for 1-2 minutes and then waiting 5 minutes for the next game. Sometimes I'll play for 15-20 minutes in an hour, and the rest of the time I'm staring at the monitor, hoping to find the next match where I'll be crushed by the same teams from the previous hour. Nice game.

After 30 seasons, it's come to the point where solo Q in this game, in every mode, is simply a disaster. Respawn, don't be surprised that there are no new players and you're unable to attract them to Apex. Too many problems, too many unfair solutions.

I'm 31 years old. I don't have time to play something where I spend 70% of my time staring at the lobby trying to find me a match with the same people day after day. If nothing changes, I will leave because this game is a real circus.

A brutal rephrasing of what you said from my perspective:

1. Casual gamers are paying for this game to be online - yes. E.g. me as a person who is competitive, tries hard, goes extra mile, thrives / enjoys competition on hard level -> I have not spend and will not spend a cent on this game as:
   a) I don't understand why someone would buy something that actually hinders competitive advantage - bright skins, heirloom that covers 1/5 of a screen and distracts attention with animations
   b) I don't spend money on virtual stuff that based on ToS is not even mine at any point in time
2. Casual gamers per se are mostly 9 to 5 dads or their kids that are not interested in "sweating" -> they want to come to Apex, look at the "bling", get easy rewards including dopamine.
   That creates current tension(s) between "sweats" like me demanding casuals to be kept out of Diamond as e.g. playing with D4+ who does not know map locations, rotations, basic game mechanics is just infuriating. (mind you it was not the case till like season 11/12, Diamonds before that actually were very very adequate people). And on the other hand "casuals" like potentially you and few more in this discussion asking for actual easier level of the game...for yet unknown reason(s) and without a clear vision of how to combine "having fun" with "everyone does not lose / win"...
3. I am not sure about the fuzz on Pubs - yesterday was testing newly introduced fps lags after cyberpunk update -> went to pubs (last game I played was god knows how long ago) -> my squad was top 1% -> I easily 1v3 one squad and almost 1v3 another squad who tried to 3rd party us. My teammates in the meantime landed in 2 different directions despite me being jump master (they de-attached and died instantly as per usual khm khm 1% top squad...). Idk for me Pubs is pubs and they seemed as easy / hard as always. Ended up with 1000 (or there about damage) and 4 kills in under 2 min of gameplay at 13th place. So yeah I am not sure what is the issue with Pubs.
4. My experience in ranked always has been the same - total blast through Gold/Plat -> moderate difficulty in Diamond mostly depending on teamwork (not present) thus mission impossible = do 1 vs multiple while being in same skill lobby. Diamond2+ = mission impossible as going vs Master/Pred 3stacks who in most occasions exploit something from cheats.
   <=Gold - don't need to outsmart, can easily outgun as D4+
   Plat - some can outgun me but I can outsmart most and outgun some
   D4-D2 - semi impossible without exploiting something on EU+PC+MNK, super hard grind as most of the time result relies on matchmaking more than your skill
   Masters - only possible via 3stack as imo it should be
5. Only major change that has happened over 20+ seasons = more and more cheaters are in the game (ranked) and more and more casuals camp/rat their way in Diamond+ which creates super unequal lobbies, adding to the insult recent matchmaking that sprinkles Masters/Preds to already trash lobbies.
6. I come from Quake 3 days = EU in insta-gib (railgun only) mode had like 20 teams with active 100-200 players, there were pretty much no days in a span of 5? years when I wouldn't have like 4h grind = scrims + pub servers were filled with at least 20 players 24/7. Fine by me. Quality over quantity. I would be ok playing with or vs same players as long as matchmaking would be skill based on engagement based. Also have no issues with queue times over 2-5 min. Rather have that vs current instant requeue with same teammates that landed fragment on their own and died under 1 min into the game while being diamond4.
7. Even if Apex dies, sad, but I play Valorant and would (if Apex dies) explore CS2 or silently hope that Deadlock will fix their issues as that game is amazing minus hackers and horrendous matchmaking.

https://youtu.be/VyHmcyDrf-Q

My 2nd pub game of the day - again recorded mainly to test if FPS lags are still there or I can finally play ranked normally again.

Got 32k kill multi-master on my team, we were again close to top squad based on that stupid graph :D

Landed on champion squad, our meggie did 0 impact, rest you can see = we basically 2v3 vs champion squad, it was close I think some of them were killed by the 3rd team on which I suspect at least one dude (who shot me through Gibby ult while I was stimming 100m away) was aimbotting or at least walling (able to detect me through all that visual clutter).

Other than potential typical Apex cheater problem really nothing special about this pub or champ squad, I was play at my like 60% focus time to time checking not the game but FPS counter and micro stutter indicator...

So yeah long story short I feel no difference in pubs and it mostly relies on how good your team is, are they solo playing or like in this case actually sticking together even if the skill is not the strongest.

3rd pub of the day and 1st game after midday nap:

I am not 100% sure my Wattson was not cheating, yet I am quite sure we killed a least two wallhackers who were sad enough to wall but unskilled enough to track me as Octane stimming and jumping (created distraction, teammates finished wallers off).

All the difference - crypto was good in and out of drone when needed, wattson was super aggro and we stuck together ALL game clutching fights... I think Wattson did 2 and me and Crypto each 1 clutch, rest were easy fights long the way.

Okay, I win matches too, but what does that have to do with anything? That's not proof of anything, because the worst player in Apex eventually wins a match too.

The problem is, at 11:00 PM EU time, I'm waiting 10 minutes to find a match in pubs, and I'm still waiting.

Until you understand the problem, there's really no point in discussing it.