Who else thinks apex has gone down hill?

This may be a little bit of an oversimplification, but it sounds like what you really want is deathmatch with a closing ring. Which is fine. We're all aloud to want whatever it is we want. But...

The maps are only too big if you don't know how to find the next fight. It's easy to control your pace-of-engagement if you learn how to do it and if you can get your teammates on the same page with whatever pace it is that you want.

Camping is a strategy. If you can't be bothered to surveil or scan an area before you enter it then that's on you.

Imo, in a survival game mode the only thing that should be rewarded is survival. The entire point of this game is the tension between what you want to do (get kills) and what you should do (survive). So no, they shouldn't deny points for placement while showering points on a bunch of 3:1 k/d hot droppers who have never made it past 15th place in their entire career.

Account ban for a quit? Maybe it's time for you to find a stack so you can quit relying so heavily on the randoms you clearly hate. I admit, they're not very lovable, but they are what they are. And also, look me in the eye and tell me you never quit a single ranked match ever. Everyone has. BANNED.

I too hate weapons in care packages. But no one should drop with a backpack of any size or with a weapon. All that does is incentivize hot drops. Honestly I'm still pissed, how many seasons on now, about dead players respawning with shields and weapons. It's a B.S. crutch that encourages players to do stupid things, get themselves killed, and then just get right back in the game with no consequences whatsoever. Hard NO.

And, surprise, I disagree with handing out Lifeline's revive to the entire class. This game already has way too many instances of overlapping and redundant abilities. Even though it has zero effect on my daily game play, I'm still butt hurt about the existence of the mobile jump tower. Take my main and just hand her ultimate out to anybody who walks on by? It doesn't matter that it's rare and doesn't reach as high, it just doesn't need to be in the game. It's a perfect example of the thing Respawn is doing where, if the game lasts long enough, eventually every legend will have every ability they ever thought of and put into the game. And when everyone's special then no one is.

Sorry to be so disagreeable.

Your allowed to have your own opinion and that’s fine but when you get matched made with people who just want to loot the whole game and not want to fight it’s just like why are you even playing the game it gets really old after a while yes I like to loot but not the whole game I like to get my two guns and some attachments for them before I go and fight but when you have all that you can have why are we still looting. but what I don’t get is if your in a regular duos or trios how they can just leave and not get penalized I’ve had so many people quit on me because they got knocked they didn’t get tired of waiting for someone to craft or grab their banner they just left because they got knocked so I’m stuck with a two man or I’m doing solo on trios which isn’t fun for me because theirs no way I can do a 1v3 when they know I’m a solo especially with a lifeline on their team so yes I have left matches before I’m not saying I haven’t but I’m not going to just leave because I get knocked especially when my team still has a chance to bring me back and all I was saying with the whole backpack thing was that it should be upgraded with your shields and I personally like being able to drop in with my guns and shield because once people hear the drop ship come in then they all run to it like a dinner bell and it gives the person who it respawning a chance before they are knocked again because I can’t tell you how many time people will respawn you and take off so if you weren’t able to drop in with a gun then you are basically hoping and relying on your team to keep you alive otherwise your stuck waiting for them to craft you again or pick your banner up, and as far as the map size goes yes I think some of them are way to big not all of them but some are for example look at worlds edge I love that map it gives people the chance to get some loot but still having time to actually fight before it’s the last 5 squads my top 3 maps I love to play are kings canyon, worlds edge, and Olympus because I feel like those 3 maps are the perfect size for me to play on I can loot and still fight now look at E district if I don’t drop hot I’m not going to fight anyone until the end of game that’s just my experience on that map if you look at storm point and broken moon yes you have a better chance of running into people but it’s not as common to run into them vs on the other 3 I had mentioned I feel like E district, broken moon and storm point are just to big for me do I like those maps no do I play those maps usually not but that’s just the way I play I guess I don’t like to drop hot and die within the first 3 mins of a game would I be upset if I died like 8-10 mins into the game not really unless all I did was loot the whole game how am I supposed to better myself if all I do is loot in a game I feel like that’s not fair to my team if I can’t at least knock one person on the enemy team that’s just my opinion and I know EA can’t please everyone but they could try to do better with match making 

The same story from one season to another :D They are trying to solve this with different game types but I'm with OP. I miss the good old days of Unreal Tournament. 

"I’ve had so many people quit on me because they got knocked they didn’t get tired of waiting for someone to craft or grab their banner they just left because they got knocked"

The thing about this scenario is that you will never know with any certainty WHY it is that they quit. Yes, on the surface of things you saw the knock and it was followed immediately by a quit. But it isn't always that simple. I get knocked rarely, but when I do I'm not reflexively instaquitting. I'm assessing several different factors including what stage of the game we're in and whether it is even feasible or logical to try and res a downed teammate, and even more importantly I'm assessing HOW I got downed. If it was by a player who is obviously cheating, or who should never have been in my lobby to begin with... do I really need to hang around and give him another change to pad his k/d? I already know how that match ends and even though my squadmates don't, I don't need to stand there helplessly and witness the atrocity. Just one example.

"I personally like being able to drop in with my guns and shield because once people hear the drop ship come in then they all run to it like a dinner bell"

If it's early-game then your squadmates should have found a beacon far enough away from the action that you don't get the dinner bell effect. If it's late-game... then I still say that getting killed should have a down side. Getting overrun by enemies on the respawn is that downside. There shouldn't be a series of get-out-of-jail-free cards to prop up players who get themselves killed. If you let them get you then there should be a price to pay. I get that people don't ever want matches to end, at least not in defeat, and it's particularly frustrating in this game because the thing that has ended a given match has often happened MINUTES before the match is actually over. So what are you supposed to do with all that pointless time if you're the player who KNOWS it's all done but you still have hapless squadmates who are completely unaware of what's going on around them or who foolishly believe "it's not over until it's over?"

"at E district if I don’t drop hot I’m not going to fight anyone until the end of game"

There's an art and a science to taking control of your own pace-of-play, and that skill set works on any map. But leaving that aside I will still stand up for different sized maps on the grounds that I think for most players, who don't control their pace, it's probably a good thing that Respawn does it for them with different sized maps. Sometimes a slower match is a good thing. Sometimes a fast-paced crapfest is exactly what you want. I like the variability and I'm a little surprised when people, and it's almost all of them, express a desire to drop, loot for 30 seconds, and then get right to the bloodshed. There are so many games out there that do this. Arena shooters are everywhere so why do they come to a battle royale game if what they really want is a breakneck pace and infinite and easy respawns? If it's Apex weapons and movement they love then why aren't they playing in Arenas or Mixtape? It confounds me.

Then again I have to admit that I'm that player who actively avoids confrontation until there are only three squads left. I'm that guy you would HATE to have on your team. You would be bored to death. So I get it. Different people like different things.

"how am I supposed to better myself if all I do is loot"

Now that I get. For me, I readily acknowledge, improvement was an extremely slow affair. And that worked okay for me. Honestly, I played 1400 matches a season for the first five or six seasons, and I didn't even pick up a gun until season three, and I didn't start shooting with them until season five. I know, incomprehensible. But the mainspring of my play style is that I don't like being killed. I don't even like being shot at. So I hunkered down and took a lot of time to learn the legends, the maps, and the processes of the game. Apart from engagement. That came later. A lot later. But here I am six years later and I'm very, very hard to kill because I made it my business to spend years learning how to be hard to kill. I don't get a lot of kills myself, but that's a trade I'm happy to make.

I guess that's all a round about way of saying a couple of things about "improvement." It comes all on its own, one way or another, no matter what you do. And also: when it stops then it stops. And it doesn't matter how much more grind you put in. We all have our own ceiling. Know where it is and stop punishing yourself because you don't have Xim and fistful of Adderall like everyone else in the game. Does that make any sense?