Match Making

Gosh, for a second there I assumed that by "the rest" you meant normal players, not diamond. I'd like to feel your pain but I'm too busy feeling my own where the skill curve shows a bottom 25% match and yet the final five is consistently people executing pc motion macros and aimbotting me to death while in a skyward dive. So, yes, this game has a matchmaking problem. No, not convinced that it's the one you described.

_DR_Kaku_1​ 
Every Matchmaking Change boils down to it being recolored and sold as new , same issues with different excuses.
Reading the Matchmaking Blog Posts is very entertaining, how much Respawns theories differ from reality.
But who would admit building a  rigged matchmaking ;).
The industries patents speak for themselves 

I agree, I had a great chuckle when I read Respawns blog on the match making. I got the impression, they (Respawn) truly believe us to be very gullible, naive or just plan stupid.  

In D4 who should you be playing against???

The player count naturally decreases the more you rank up. IMO, you've maxed out. You shouldn't be able to rank up further solo queuing. That's naive. 

Why are you all not using the "Play with Squad" feature?

I know everybody isn't using the PwS feature, but how is that the devs fault. The devs did their part and added a way to "not solo queue" so that we can compete more efficiently in Ranked. That was a great addition and we should be thanking them instead of constantly chastising them.

Adding the PwS feature exposed the truth about our community, it's Gaming Psychology 101. Players don't care about playing Ranked and winning, otherwise more players would simply link up and find some chemistry. But nope, players either want to 1v3 the lobby or evade/hide, most games. Some players have it in their tag [1v3] and [SOLO]. This is why I hope the devs add Solos again. If players want to play by themselves, let them!!! Personally, I like people and getting along and having fun playing this cartoon. I chuckled the other day playing Pubs because my random split off from the team to hot drop. I thought to myself, "Why didn't they just no-fill?". I do it all the time. Why torture my teammates if I know I want to play alone? Players love to be indifferent, but hate indifferent results. It's called trolling and narcissism. 

Additionally, Master/Predator is essentially the same tier. That's why top performers skip Master and go directly to Predator to start each season. Preventing top performers to 3 stack is an amazingly negative suggestion. Wow!!!

There should be an in-game ranked distribution chart for all to see. Devs, we need all Ranked info to be in the game; leaderboards, distribution charts, top performing legends, how to play competitively, best ranked strategies, etc. We shouldn't have to go to 3rd party websites for all this information. Excluding Ranked info from the game is creating a lot of confusion. If we have to use a website it should be from EA/Respawn and be promoted in-game. Apex should also have a companion app. 

Lastly, I've recently learned something amazing about the gaming community. Players will spend $40 on Arc Raiders, which is literally a looting simulator, and play that game the way the devs intend. They'll mic up and be polite in-game so they can loot. They'll evade fights when necessary. They'll sort out their inventory. Those same players/content creators will play Apex and care less about how Battle Royale is supposed to be played and the devs intent, but I guess Extraction modes get a pass. 

Why are you all not using the "Play with Squad" feature?

I know everybody isn't using the PwS feature, but how is that the devs fault. The devs did their part and added a way to "not solo queue" so that we can compete more efficiently in Ranked. That was a great addition and we should be thanking them instead of constantly chastising them.

Muahaha, nearly as good as a joke as Respawns Blog Posts.
I do use the Play with Squad feature ... and it works 2 out of 100 Times.
It would work 75 out of 100 Times if the devs would have done their part and assemble teams same skill bracket. 

I guess there's nothing positive to talk about then. Everything's bad. SMH.

The PwS feature has been working for me. I'm almost in Plat 1. 😃 

Although, the devs need to make it easier for me to get to Diamond. I'm better then this!!! I've made Diamond several times in previous seasons. Bring back the previous dropship so I can rat to Diamond like I used to. Stop trying to force me to be a team player. Who asked for this?!?! This isn't the ALGS. I don't want to play Pubs or Wildcard, I like Ranked the way it was. I keep getting aimbotted and wall hacked every step I take. The report button obviously isn't working because everybody, I MEAN EVERYBODY, is cheating. The server is lagging. My randoms... ugh!!! Despicable to say the least. And I will not use the PwS feature to play with peasants. Premade teams are ruining the game. Why do they keep shooting at me while I'm trying to loot?!?! I should be able to report players and receive a confirmation that they've been banned. Bring back Solos!!! The legends are OP. We need more legends. The guns are OP. We need more guns. The game is unbalanced!!! The maps are awful!!! Yuck!!! Why does Broken Moon have so many ziprails?!?! We need more maps to criticize. The devs cater to the pros and streamers too much!!! All EA wants to do is to sell heirlooms and skins. On top of that, Apex just broke my PS5 and all the buttons on my PS5 Pro controller just popped out. WTHelly!!! Devs, get it together!!! 😠 Bring back Season 1!!!! I miss those days. 😢 😭 I can't believe I paid money for this game. It should be free!!!

I'm going to play Arc Raiders and have fun looting. Take that!!! And I'm waiting for High Guard!!! Now what. 😜 

That felt good. 😆 

First, good post. Tough love, as they say.

"Devs, we need all Ranked info to be in the game; leaderboards, distribution charts, top performing legends, how to play competitively, best ranked strategies, etc."

Two things here. Last one first: "How to play competitively, best strategies, etc." These things go far, far beyond the simple act of making data available to the players. It's a big ask. And I have to say that every time anyone posts their own "how to" or "best practices" on YouTube or even on these forums... I watch/read them. And they're often either "right" only in very narrow and specific circumstances, or they're just plain wrong altogether. There, I said it. This mid-gold player said out loud that pros and streamers are wrong. Because I know better. But the thing is... what's good for them is not necessarily what's good for normal players. And if the argument is that normal players will never get good without changing their half-assed ways? Yeah, sure. And they also won't get good without a fistful of Ritalin, twelve hours a day to practice, and a paid-in-full subscription to a cheat maker.  Yeah, I said it out loud. Again.

First thing last: Full data disclosure in ranked modes would be a huge problem for the developer. In this way: Showing players the rank distribution for a match, as they now do, is one thing. Showing an mmr distribution, which they should but don't, would be a game killer. Imagine you are Joe average player at your beginning-of-season grind. You're in a gold lobby. The rank distribution shows a mostly gold lobby, with two silver squads and two platinum squads. Nothing wrong there. So far so good. Now let's imagine that they also show you an mmr distribution, and suddenly you realize that the lobby is, as most genuinely are, spanning a full range from silver to master. Because, as we all know, there are many, many "gold" or "plat" or diamond" players in every lobby who are actually master/pred but just haven't yet finished their grind. And we haven't even talked yet about the phenomenon of high-skill players using secondaries and what that does to the integrity of sbmm. How many Joe average players are going to idly stand by watching their grind get torpedoed by real-world matchmaking if they are actually being told in graphic detail just how unbalanced their matches really are? The whole point of ranked is, after all, to let you compete against your peers to see if they really are your peers or not, and whether you have the mettle to move up. Last time I checked a hard-stuck diamond was not the peer of anyone in a silver/gold lobby, but there they are in their legions just the same. And now if Respawn starts demonstrating that openly with data... I'm pretty sure you would see an exodus from ranked. And you already know that I believe there's a strong correlation between the health of ranked play and the overall population of the game.

I could be wrong on this, as on so many other things, but that's the way it looks to me. Your two cents?

I forgot to complain about SBMM... I mean what's up with that!!!! Does it work or not? Do we need it? What does it stand for??? Who asked for this?!?!

Why are "Season 2" Preds in my lobbies?!?! NOOOOOO!!!!! I can't press buttons faster than them, they must be cheating. Report.

That felt good. 😆

The more information players can use and see "in-game", the better. IMO.

I like having access to information. It's funny how we live in 2026, but it feels like we want to live in 2006. 

I too generally believe that more information is better. But at some point people start acting on that information, and sometimes they do it in unanticipated ways, in ways that may or may not be in accord with the desires or interests of the powers-that-be. Meaning EA. I'm sure they may not say it in exactly this way, but the less we know about how the sausage is made, the better it is for them. Take, for example, the very simple "player skill distribution" graph that displays in the lobby before every unranked trios match. "Good to know" or "driver of quitting?" For me it's both. For EA it's probably just the latter, and I'd wager that even now there are people at Respawn who are trying to figure out how to walk it back without causing more of a ruckus than they did by introducing it in the first place. Maybe that's just me reaching for my tinfoil hat, but maybe... maybe not. Who can say?