Really appreciate your take, you’ve clearly been around the block with this game (and genre), and it shows.
You might be right about the duo squads not being directly caused by lobby dodging, it could easily just be others leaving silently, like you said. I guess where it feels like a punishment is when it happens multiple times in a row, right after dodging a few unbalanced lobbies. Whether it’s the system reacting or just unfortunate timing, the result still ends up reinforcing that same frustration loop: either play an unbalanced match, or face the next one missing a teammate. Lose-lose.
Your point about experienced solo players being paired with underperforming teammates is spot-on, though. I’ve seen that pattern too, and whether it’s intentional (to protect stacked teams), or an accidental side effect of skill pools, it still contributes to that feeling that the game just isn’t on your side unless you’re in a trio.
Now, about your comment on battle royale always having 57 losers: you're absolutely right, but that’s not the problem. I don’t expect to win every match. What kills the experience is when I’m dropped into lobbies with players so far above my skill level that I get knocked in under a second without even processing what happened. At that point, it doesn’t matter whether they were cheating, smurfing, or just an actual D1+ monster, the outcome feels exactly the same. From my perspective, the game becomes unwinnable, not because I played badly, but because I was simply never meant to compete.
A few seasons ago I had a 1.4 KD. Now I sit at 0.6–0.7 after over a thousand matches. That’s not just me getting worse, that’s matchmaking putting me in places I don’t belong.
Which brings me to K/D itself, one of the biggest illusions in this game. People use it as the gold standard for skill, but in reality it mostly reflects what kind of lobbies you're in. If the system were truly skill-based, K/D ratios across the board would converge around 1.0, regardless of your rank or account level. The fact that they don’t, and that mine has been tanked despite consistent play, is the clearest sign that the system doesn’t match by actual skill.
In my opinion, the only place where fair play exists in Apex is in ALGS, where everyone is roughly the same level, and surprise, you don’t see 4K damage or 20-kill games there either. Why? Because the playing field is actually balanced.
So yeah, maybe battle royale was always going to be brutal, but it didn’t have to be this brutal.
Sorry I could only hit the "like" button once on that.
I agree 100% that it isn't the 95% lose rate that's the problem. It's the nature of the losses. And that is something that no matchmaking algorithm will ever understand. Losing in a close-fought battle where both you and your teammates are contributing - that's one thing. Losing in an instantaneous deletion by perfect accuracy from an enemy you never even saw - that's something completely different. And the game itself cannot understand the difference. It pretends to understand the difference by paying lip service to "skill based matchmaking," but as I've said before and will say until the end of time, games talk the talk but they NEVER walk the walk. Or so seldom that it's purely accidental.
And your observation about the meaning and value of common stats like win rate or k/d hits the mark. They're not measurements of skill at all. They're a temperature read on the quality (or lack) of the matchmaking system. I stopped chasing them decades ago and the moment I did the quality of my life improved immeasurably. Yet another example of the game forcing you to let go of something you thought was important. The problem for the game is that most players won't look for something else that's important to replace the stat chase. And the players continue to bleed away. And your observation about no 4k/20s at ALGS is pretty damning. It amounts to a tacit admission on the part of the developer that everything that happens in this game is driven by bad matchmaking - whether it's garbage outcomes for average players or snappy badges for the 5%. All a sham.
But you're right to point out that it's the fun of the core game that keeps people coming back despite all the dysfunction. I've watched the basic game evolve over the last six years, more so in the last few months than ever before, and I'm NEVER happy with the changes. But here I still am, beavering away. I claim that I don't like the way the game has evolved, but at least the evolution keeps me having to re-think my tactics and strategies.
I'll tell you one thing though that I never would have believed 25 years ago: I sympathize with the people who cheat. I'd still like it better if they didn't, but if there was ever a mechanism designed to lure people down the wrong path than that mechanism has a name: Apex Legends. Almost makes me wish I played on PC instead of console....
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