I am convinced

"I will never allow a master or pred to use me for a free kill"

That is the mainspring of my entire playstyle/personal meta. Everything I do in this game I do in order to avoid the games where matchmaking is non-existent, and when I finally do end up in a match like that then everything I do is done to avoid other players except by poking from a distance to see what it is I'm up against. Is it one solo, like me, or is it a full squad? Do they panic when they get poked or do they form up and counter in the blink of an eye? When they shoot at you are they doing it with an auto from a distance where they can't land a single bullet, or are they the guys who hit you with everything regardless of weapon, distance, or scope? I've learned to do this kind of math in a matter of a second or two... and I stay or leave based entirely on the calculation. The thing that galls me no end is how these guys will get a kill if they land even one single bullet and I quit out. I get why the dev does it that way, but it still irritates me no end.

I think the devs do play their own game. I think they know exactly to what extent the game is run by cheaters on the foreign servers, and cheaters and smurfs here at home. I'm sure they'd love to stop the problem, especially now as they've driven away most of the pros and creators. Smurfing they could stop tomorrow if they wanted to. Obviously they don't want to. The cheating problem seems to be a game to them. They execute their ban waves to much public fanfare and hype... only to have it provide the rocket fuel for the smurfing problem. It's a snake eating its own tail.

The only solution I can see is a new game. But that's no solution at all. Respawn has already outlined their plans for an Apex 2.0 and it's too little too late, and will do nothing to solve any of the problems that are currently destroying this game. And if we go play some other game... they're all bloated and dying in the sun with the exact same cheating problem this game has. I guess that means single-player games are the only possible future for gaming-with-integrity. In fact, when I've had enough of Apex crap matchmaking I usually unwind with a round of Halo/Reach firefight. Fifteen years old and still just as fresh and fun as it was back in the day. Why can't developers figure it out?