How do you think Apex should be played?
Another question because I see some disagreement over this in quite a few comment sections on the internet. To me, I think the game is geared towards aggressive play, and placement is a reward for s...
Forum Discussion
@Unitee01
There's nothing here that I can disagree with... even if I wouldn't necessarily characterize my decisions in exactly those words. But yes, I'm not interested in striving to achieve mediocrity. I'd rather relax and let the chips fall where they may. A good part of that is just my personality, but I think the lion's share has to do with being a solo player in a team game. So much of what qualifies as "good" in this game is based in team work, and that is, I think, one aspect of the game that the solo player just plain has to discount to almost nothing. Not because I won't sometimes get good teammates, but because you never know from one match to the next, and because by the time you find out what you have for teammates, it's often too late.
But in the end, no, I don't want harder lobbies. I won't complain about them if they come, but I won't actively seek them out. I'll let the game decide what it thinks I can handle and once in a while it will expose me to something that I can't, and that's okay as long as it doesn't become 70% of my matches. But I don't need this game to be a job. I already have one of those.
There's nothing here that I can disagree with... even if I wouldn't necessarily characterize my decisions in exactly those words. But yes, I'm not interested in striving to achieve mediocrity. I'd rather relax and let the chips fall where they may. A good part of that is just my personality, but I think the lion's share has to do with being a solo player in a team game. So much of what qualifies as "good" in this game is based in team work, and that is, I think, one aspect of the game that the solo player just plain has to discount to almost nothing. Not because I won't sometimes get good teammates, but because you never know from one match to the next, and because by the time you find out what you have for teammates, it's often too late.
But in the end, no, I don't want harder lobbies. I won't complain about them if they come, but I won't actively seek them out. I'll let the game decide what it thinks I can handle and once in a while it will expose me to something that I can't, and that's okay as long as it doesn't become 70% of my matches. But I don't need this game to be a job. I already have one of those.
@reconzero Since you mentioned achieving things, I realized something not too long ago that I think many many people do not take into consideration.
When people look at a player's win rates, kills, badges etc it's so easy to take all that at face value but those values are, when seeking to compare apples to apples, completely meaningless.
People go, look at this guy, he's got 50k kills but a win rate of like 3% - he must be terrible at the game! He does not know how to win! But often this is the furthest thing from the truth, especially if he's high rank.
If someone is exclusively playing bronze lobbies 70% of the time naturally they will have a higher win rate.
If someone is exclusively playing masters or higher lobbies 70% of the time there's a good chance his win rate would be lower, at least until he becomes extremely good at playing in those lobbies, which will take a lot of time.
To me, a win rate of 3% in masters lobbies means 100x more than getting 15% in bronze level lobbies as those wins carry a lot more weight. He's still 100% the better player although it might not look like it on paper. But unfortunately, how someone's being matched is an invisible stat and might be a little unfair to the better players out there who are judged on stats at face value.
Difficulty "tiers" were discussed recently in another thread which ties into this.
So in a way, mediocrity, as you say, can depend on many things including what info is or isn't available to us and how we perceive it. Low numbers on paper does not have to mean bad and vice versa. But I understand that not everyone want's to sweat 24/7 too, including me many times, it's just that most of us don't really seem to have a choice in the matter.
- @Unitee01
I agree with you 100% that statistics and badges and trackers, taken out of context, have virtually no meaning or value whatsoever.
"If someone is exclusively playing bronze lobbies 70% of the time naturally they will have a higher win rate."
This is not true at all. If a player is playing in bronze lobbies 70% of the time then they are not a very good player and will win, even against other bronze players, at a rate reflective of their skill. If they start to win more over time then they probably won't remain in bronze for very long. This is just the nature of mmr and sbmm, even in this game where they seem to be lax and elastic.
"To me, a win rate of 3% in masters lobbies means 100x more than getting 15% in bronze level lobbies as those wins carry a lot more weight."
This is problematic for me, especially as we've already said that these statistics, taken out of context, have no real meaning. But beyond that I feel as if the implication here is that shooting and aiming are the real skills in this game, and people who are best at those skills, even if they don't win the most, are still the best players. If that isn't what you're implying then I'm just reading too much into what you've said, but if it is what you're implying then we'll just have to agree to disagree. Winning matters, and it matters at every skill level. If the game is designed in such a way that a player can play in the highest ranks of the game, and not have a respectable win rate to show for it, then the mmr alogrithm is flawed. But I'm sure we already knew that it was flawed in a huge number of ways....- @reconzero You see that's just it, bad players can have high or decent win rates. I can refer to myself here back in season 3. I was terrible, I didn't get many kills per match or do too much damage but I was winning, at a rate higher than players who were better than me. With my main I was in the top 5% with wins. This can also be due to getting matched with better teammates who help carry the team to the win often? I don't know. I've seen some of my friends, who struggle in my lobbies also have decent success with getting wins. I only really noticed the lobbies becoming consistently more difficult once I got better at killing people, which took a lot of deliberate practice, and win rates dropped off a cliff when that happened. YMMV
Well, to me aim and shooting isn't everything, but I think it's the most important, it is a shooter after all. All I meant by that is that we really can't compare stats across the board to one another without considering where someone falls on the skill ladder and who they are facing. Once you move up you will struggle to maintain what you had but it doesn't mean that you are bad or that you've failed. And yes, I do believe the system is flawed, because it seems that it struggles to find a middle ground. Matches end up being way too easy or way too hard, for me at least.- @Unitee01
"I do believe the system is flawed, because it seems that it struggles to find a middle ground. Matches end up being way too easy or way too hard, for me at least."
Agreed. Hot or cold. Always. Never just warm.
"Once you move up you will struggle to maintain what you had but it doesn't mean that you are bad or that you've failed."
Also agreed. But for me the game becomes subjectively less fun the grindier it gets, even if I am getting objectively better. I know what you're thinking. "Improvement is overrated" is a lazy man's argument. Guilty as charged.
Featured Places
