Mathmaking getting worse ever Season for 5 (!) years straight now. Ridiculous.

@mypkonlyhitsfor9

In my more cynical moments I think to myself that ultra-high-rank players playing other ultra-high-rank players would mean that streamers wouldn't look as extra to all the people who watch them, and that it would make the game look "hard to play," which it is. But you can't have potential new people thinking that it is. So they loosen up the algorithm and suddenly the streamers and pros are getting enemies who are good enough to push back but not good enough to beat them. The streams look more kick *ss and the pros get to feel like they're sweating less and having more fun. And if the pros are happy then obviously the rest of us are happy, because happy pros make a happy game. Right?

"Other games do manage to create good working and (more or less) fair sbmm"

That has never been my experience. If I ever found a game like this then I would play it.

I mean, high MMR pubs exist— where every player is a 4k 20 bomb, high skilled player.

Are you saying that you’re the only person in these lobbies, or are you saying that some of the players in your lobby are better than you?

There is a difference between there being some high skilled players and the entire lobby being high skilled players. In the latter, even good players feel like crap. 

If you’re advocating for tighter matchmaking in pubs, I will have to HARD disagree.

Matchmaking doesnt work if there isnt enough players. 

I would advise to check the math done in this Reddit post .
In short during assumed PEAK daily player numbers (800 000) that Apex had in last November when this season launched, the math suggests that for the top skill level players there were around 51 players that would qualify for the top tier lobby on every server all the time. For lower tiers there were some what 400 players available.  

In todays reality daily is around 290 000 daily players LINK So its almost a third what was assumed. Now we all know that its not the sweats that are going to quit the game midseason. 
Its the lower tier casuals that stop playing. So you can see how that affects the matchmaking as everyone needs short queue times. 

In conclusion the game is losing its casual player base. These $360 "micro" transactions not probably helping with the matter. Whether or not I have a flashy skin or heirloom it does not affect my playing experience or enjoyment of the game. 

To be honest I would even seriously consider purchase if the EA would release a bot PvE version with a standard release price tag (lets say $20). Love the game but its the wrong people (cheaters) or lack of suitable people (casual gamers playing for fun) for me thats ruining the game experience. 

@Airish85 I think this comment should be a thread starter because there's some pretty solid reasoning here that not many people take into account.

I'm having an issue where I seem to be teamed up with new players, RANKED 1 - 30, while at the same time the champions squads are level 1000 with 20 kill badges and 20K plus kills. 

I was gonna complain but then read your comment and it makes sense. I think this can also justify an argument that puts Apex's longterm future in doubt. 

A lot of average to slightly above average players rely on lobbies with siilar skilled players. It strokes our egos to win at around 5 to 7% of our games and average out at 1.4KD over the course of a season. But if the player base is dropping, meaning fewer new players and all that remains is the stronger players, it means the average die first. The game becomes harder and thse players won't last long and will find somewhere else to go play. 

I hope alarm bells are ringing at Respawn loudly! 

Indeed. And since EA cant tell us how the MMR is calculated because it would be exploited like no tomorrow we dont know how its calculated. Even average skilled 3 stack that has played for multiple seasons can have massive stats if they have only focused on playing a single legend. 

And you can hold a KD of 2.0 and still be on the first team that goes back to lobby. Or you park yourself to a rat spot for 10min AFK go make a cup of coffee and come up in Top 3 with 0 dmg.

Which one has higher MMR? We dont know and I think its for the best.  

Another thing is the EOMM. Those with the top MMR are most likely grinding Apex 8 hours a day. Lack of players means they might be playing against the same teams over and over again. 

Youve seen this unbannable streamsniper with superhacks clips from past week? Imagine him queueing up with you for 3 of those 8 hours. So thanks to EOMM even if you have ridiculously high MMR the game might throw you a bone by giving you easier lobbies after some time. Like in the past week I saw on two different occasions two high skill streamers nofilling for pubs (Mande & Shiv) and ending up in somewhat orientation match bot lobbies. 

And to my understanding the MMR is shared between mixtape & BR so you might get that easy game in there if you play it. 

As I mentioned its the lack of games even playable for me at all. I dont know if the whole lobby is cracked because in most games the only two squads I am abled to see are the champions and the squad who wipes mine in seconds. And both of them are 3 stacks in like 95% of the games I played so far this season.

The decreasing numbers of lower level casual players (like me) is the result of an absolute desastrous matchmaking the last seasons as mentioned. No one wants to get perma rolled by cracked players (or smurfs - as soon as many good players reach the high-lvl lobbies that you mentioned and still want to go for farming games - by the way an official report reason but that problem doesn't seem to get fixed either). So the casuals leave the game in even bigger numbers.

For example my friends who left the game would consider to come back if they would fix this problem. Thats why there has to be longer que times.. and do I get the point of much people want to play easy lobbies without sweaty last circle algs endings in pubs? Yes! But to create that on the fact to point the whole game in favor for the better players just to ruin the game for the low levels isn't fair at all.

As I said, other games also manage to have more or less fair sbmm and I wouldn't complain if there would be 5 games getting rolled, if I would get at least 2-3 games where I can play fair matchups but the complete lack of those fair games and ONLY games against the top lvl players ist too much and I think that should be understandable for everyone.

I hear you. 

Daily player numbers vary per server and time of day. Mind sharing whether you play pubs or ranked and previous details. 

What kind of stats do you also consider lower level casual?

Personally this season I played pretty much only ranked BR + some mixtape before calling it quits of BR for the same reason you are facing. 
Had 0.86 KD with Winrate of ~7% and Gold 3.

*putting on my foil hat 

Game felt rigged, like my progress in ranked was predetermined so that I would not reach certain ranks too fast and too early regarding the season length. 

Dont know if I should be any better than Gold but my struggle in Rookie & Bronze gave me the gut feeling of game being rigged. Idea is to keep players playing as according to some study they are more likely to spend money when they do. But as I set out to play ranked I didnt have a target rank or anything so it was missed with me. 
*removing my foil hat

To be fair the beginning of this season I was pretty much breaking all my records. Had KD of well over 2 for some time without the progress in ranked. Explanation for this could be the fact that there was way more casuals in the beginning and most importantly I took the whole previous season off and played aim trainers and single player games which reset my MMR to beginner level. 

Try taking a week or something off. See if it resets your MMR like it did for me (although I took longer break).

it's all thanks to the ppl complaining about matchmaking & smurf the first 16 season while the system was fine , now they broke it with the worst sbmm ever en the game lost 45% of the player base in one year lmao

ORRRR...Respawn has decided to give everybody a taste of what it will be like without SBMM because they know it won't be pretty. Fact is, moan about it as much as you want but its there for a very good reason.