Just curious as to how others are dealing with the current matchmaking. I play a few hours daily with my friends. I haven’t won a game in several weeks. You guys winning any games— HONESTLY?

@NullEffective9 Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong again. You are not trash. You do not deserve to lose. Let's unpack this a little:First, remember that while ranks may be a useful tool for some players, for others such as myself, and I think you, they're evil. They're a head game Respawn plays with you trying to get you to think... I don't even know what. So play no more ranked matches. Pubs only. That's one.Two. We'll get to skill in a minute, but for now just remember that a 95% loss rate in Apex is not a terrible performance. Whoever thought we'd all sign up for a game where you're statistically likely to win 5% of your matches? Madness. The takeaway here: the game isn't all about winning. Find other reasons to play. Just try to learn something new every match. Smell the roses, as it were.Three. Skill. SKILL. What a loaded word. Most people who play shooters use the word skill when what they really mean is "gun skill." No, the two are not one in the same. Like you, I can't hit the broad side of a barn in this game. But in every way that I can get smarter about what I'm doing, I do get smarter about what I'm going. And until the SBMM changes of season 12 I had a pretty respectable 10% win rate in pubs. Not a "95% accuracy" win rate. A "smarter than the other guy" win rate.Misconception number one: I remember Raynday saying, "Just get in there and try. You'll die a lot the first few thousand matches, but you have to die millions of time in order to get better." This is what good players say to lure people like you and me to our deaths. Don't buy it.Solution: Forget about your squadmates. They're actively trying to get you killed. They're usually worse than your enemies. Drop solo and do your own thing until the circle pushes you back to your squadmates. Assuming they live that long. You, on the other hand, will stay alive - not by killing full squads, but by doing what should be the most instinctive thing in this game: avoiding trouble until trouble becomes unavoidable.Don't drop early. Don't drop on the line. Get as far off the line as you can, and do it as late in the drop as you can. Do not go to any named point of interest, even if you can see no one else is landing there. Work the edges of the circle and don't move inside the edge ever unless you see or hear something driving you away from where you are. You'll learn over time how to judge when and where to move. Sometimes you'll get caught and killed. But over time it will happen less and less until you just know from experience where enemies are likely to be, and where you need to be in order to avoid them. Don't worry: I'm not saying "hide then die," as an alternative to "shoot then die." You just have to remember that dead people can't win, and the best way to keep them from killing you is to avoid them until you have no other choice. Over time this kind of thinking will make you much harder to kill. When you finally decide it's time to get more aggressive, your trouble-avoidance skills will serve you well.Always have a marksman weapon in your loadout. Always. For people like you and I who can't aim, it's absolutely critical to have a gun you can use from a distance where it's very hard for most enemies to shoot back. It's a confidence builder. I recommend the tripletake or charge rifle as they have amost no recoil or projectile drop. But use them sparingly. The hardest thing to know isn't when to shoot at someone, it's when not to. Mostly, don't do it. You're just giving away your position. Unless it's late game and you're getting close to your squadmates again. That's when you open up.Chose a mobility legend. Valk or Octane or Pathfinder. Pick one and stick with it. Always. The more you stick to one legend the more your actions become instinct and you can stop focusing on how to execute movement, and just move instinctively while focusing on how to shoot.You already know you can't win by outshooting at close range. That's for people with aimbots and Xims and Ritilan. I have none of those things and neither do you. So try not to run up and shoot a guy who's running at you. Try to get up high (on a wall, cliff, roof top) where you have a view, and where you can drop down behind an unsuspecting player. In the final three, be near, but not with your teammates. When enemies go after them they'll be too focused on their target to notice you at the edge of the play. That's a good time to strike. Anything you can do to see what's happening without being seen, or to create confusion for the enemy, gives you a leg up. Grenades, air strikes, a fake zipline, a bait black market. It all helps. Distract and conquer.Above all, use a mic, even if teammates don't. Don't be mean to anyone, and mute them immediately if they're mean to you. Don't tolerate that crap. Especially from the ones who gripe at you for doing everything wrong - when the truth is they're making one bad decision after another and just expecting you to go along on their little suicide mission. Do your own thing with confidence, and if you can, explain to them as you go what you're doing and why. They may have a good argument and try to help you do something different. Good communication can overcome an aimbot. Something to think about.Relax. Take a deep breath. Stop worrying about letting your teammates down, and start letting them worry about how to stay alive without your help. I call that tough love. In that situation, if you can all make it to the final five, you'll start winning more. Probably a lot more.Sorry for the long read. Best of luck.

it isn't about the frequency of wins for me, but about the quality of losses. I get melted in milliseconds by the first enemy/squad I see way to often. Honestly, that is 80% of the time for me. I've had fun games where we ended up in 8th or 12th (get 2or 3 kills and actually survive a gunfight or 2) and horrible games where we came in 3rd (run around looting for 10 minutes and die to a 3 stack with red shields in milliseconds). I'm OK with dying if you feel like you had a chance or because you know you did something dumb but I absolutely hate dying repeatedly when you feel like you had absolutely no chance. That's Apex for me, a Gold level trash can.

@NullEffective9 Apex might not be the best game for your mental health right now man. Ultra competitive games may not be for you and that’s okay. I know I’m just a random dude on the internet with an avatar of a bear and a name of a food but I just wanna say I’m here for you. If you want any tips regarding apex just ask away here or if it’s not apex, you can message me if you want. Good luck out there. Stay strong. 💪

@Axs5626Sxa5001"To anyone who thinks higher skilled/competent players shouldn’t get rewarded more: please stay away from multiplayer games."Sorry, but in a casual, free-to-play game people should get rewarded for playing regardless of their abilities. If you want a reward that's tied to your performance then play ranked, and even there I would say that your rank in and of itself is your reward. Honestly, who cares about skins and badges and dive trails and holosprays anyway? It's like getting a gold star on a second grade homework assignment. To me anyway.

@Cheese9Man This is what I don't understand.You wrote: "They went with SBMM saying that they want to avoid 1 squad killing the whole lobby."That's EVERY SINGLE GAME FOR ME.EVERY SINGLE MATCH is 1 team that just dominates THE ENTIRE LOBBY. 15 kills on one player, 30-45 kills collectively in the team.But then SBMM doesn't even make any sense.My stats have gone from 0.7 K/D in Season 10 to 0.5 K/D in Season 12.Average damage went from 300 to 25.And yet I still get these INSANE players with Master+ badges and thousands upon thousands of kills that just steamroll.So I've played less and less Apex because it's simply unplayable. It's an unplayable game for me.Haven't played at all during April, but I played a match today, and sure enough my FIRST match is a Pathfinder/Lifeline team where the Pathfinder is level 40 with 1200 kills.I get 1 good game out of every 100, and I get 1 win out of every 500 matches.

Please be honest: How many weeks has it been since you won a match (pubs)?

73 Replies

hayhor
Hero
4 years ago
@Axs5626Sxa5001 Us mere mortals have wild sbmm swings so yeah I won a game the other day.
Cheese9Man
4 years ago
I guess I’m not really the “target audience” for this thread since I mostly play with a pre-made squad but we just won in SP and KC today and usually win 2-3 games per session.
CrazieAtesPS4
4 years ago
@Axs5626Sxa5001
Yeah it's been a terrible season for the matchmaking IMO

https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion/10-Days-and-over-25-hours-for-1-win/td-p/11351457
Axs5626Sxa5001
4 years ago
@Cheese9ManEh, literally all of my games are pre-made (with other High Diamond/Low Masters players).

The same wall I confront in ranked, I’m confronting in pubs— that being, I can’t seem to win when all of my opponents are Masters/Preds.
What ACTUALLY triggers me, is when lower MMR/ELO complain about not winning, when I am literally getting smashed more frequently than they are, lmao.
DankToliet
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago
@Axs5626Sxa5001 I win at least one match every time I play. I have long sessions though since I work from home.
Axs5626Sxa5001
4 years ago
@DankToliet If don’t mind me asking, where do you place yourself in the community regarding skill?

Would you say you are in the top half or bottom half?
DankToliet
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago
@Axs5626Sxa5001Average? I have a lifetime k/d of 1.93. I've gone Diamond multiple times, 2k on every character. So whatever that chalks up to.
I also que up with randoms, I don't LFG or have any friends that play between 8-5.
Cheese9Man
4 years ago
@Axs5626Sxa5001Don’t really know how to place myself and my friends when it comes to skill. We’re all pretty equal in skill but I guess we’re low diamond players. We definitely don’t have the same lobbies because if that one friend of ours, who’s way better than me (he’s a consistent masters player with a KDR of 2.7+), joins us, the lobbies transform into the ALGS which I assume is your lobbies. Sometimes we’re put into these bot lobbies that have no chance against us which is a shame to be honest.

LMAO. I was reading your thread quietly and decided not join in anymore since it got way too heated. I absolutely get your point since I don’t want to sweat in every game too against masters players. This unfortunately will lead to the creation of smurf accounts.

I’ve made a past thread about the topic too collecting dev responses. They had a choice when balancing matchmaking into two:
1. The current system that puts you into lobbies based from a number of factors (rank, KDR, etc)
2. Just random.

They went with SBMM saying that they want to avoid 1 squad killing the whole lobby.
edit: You know what, I’m just gonna copy paste a part of my thread.
“Game is best when you are trying to play “for real” even in pubs. We’ve seen real data that shows people who lose or win too much have a much higher chance to stop playing forever.”
Players don’t want to sweat in pubs but they also don’t want to lose at the same time.
If Respawn don’t implement any sort of MM, you might get some free kills but someone in that lobby will easily steamroll you and your team.
In my opinion, I want them to try having no matchmaking at all and look at the data again.
Axs5626Sxa5001
4 years ago
@Cheese9Man

Yeah, I don’t think the answer is “no sbmm”. I think the priority should be: protecting players under a certain experience level. New players shouldn’t be playing in a lobby where everyone is far more experienced. But after a certain experience level pubs should feel a little more random.

OR

They make it so high MMR/ELO players get easier lobbies after several losses. They afford low-medium skilled players this now, but it just this doesn’t apply to certain accounts. Playing with friends thrusts you into ALGS lobbies and this just sucks for pubs, lol.

But again, removing SBMM altogether would probably be a bad thing for the game. Remember the severity of SBMM during year 1? That was pretty good.
Axs5626Sxa5001
4 years ago
@DankToliet

Making Diamond multiple times probably means you are above average. The average player hasn’t hit Diamond.