PSA: Ranked Is Not For Solo Queuers.

Hal & Zachmazer Read Apex Devs' Follow-Up on Dropship

You are right, I might have been one of the most vocal critics in terms of matchmaking on this forum (except S13 S1, which Pro Players also now confirmed to be the best iteration of MM yet).
But lets not mix all the topics together : 
My statement only touches the matchmaking in solo q ranked, and only from the teammate side,   not the dropship situation or other changes to ranked !
I still get matches that are likely not winnable (may it be better players, may it be cheaters or else), but still my team feels well more balanced ... 
The fact that i wrote more "GGs" in chat this season compared to the last 2 seasons combined tells me a lot.
Dont get me wrong, i still end up in  dysfunctional teams at times, but way less than it used to be.

I dont really have an opinion on dropzone or dropship :
ok sometimes you got a bad zone assigned ... on the other hand you dont have those ultra wild hotdroppers all the time. 
As a solo q player, i didnt really see an issue with the dropzones.
For me it was just trading one bad thing for another that might turn out as bad. 

Great points. 👍 

I must admit that I do enjoy seeing the whole map with the dropship, but that's about it. Hot drops are fun too. During the last two seasons I used Pubs and Wildcard for those moments.

It's just the unpredictability of solo queuing with randoms that agitates me. Is it my fault that I solo queue? I mean, I guess. I would rather not, but I don't have time to be buddy buddy with anyone. I have two autistic girls, 9 and 16 yr old. I'm a get on for several games a day, maybe more, type of player. When I play those several games, maybe more, I want to have good competitive games. What's wrong with that? You know. While I don't have the luxury of being longtime friends I will use the Play with Squad feature, text chat, and mic up sometimes.

I'm the type of player who wants to play the "least" amount of games to rank up. I don't want to play less competitive and have to play twice as many games or more just to reach Platinum/Diamond. 

The dropzone setup promotes so many qualities that I think is required for a better Ranked experience. 

I just visited Reddit and saw some good news. 

Developer Update: Ranked - 02/13/2026

Developer Update: Wildcard

Alright. We are getting back on track. 😁

I'm on board with a hybrid casual-comp Ranked. I'm just glad the devs are trying something. The notion that Ranked should be using the same system after 25 seasons is irrational. 

Great job devs... We're proud of y'all. 👏👏👏

Ok, it lasted for about a week, MM is completely rigged thats for sure.
Getting bad teammates is def on purpose, there is only one reason to  put silver/bronze players as teammates in plat lobbies ... to set the team up to fail, nothing more nothing less.
But they still keep talking competitive integrity , what a joke ... Apex 2 is so doomed ... will be even worse than Highguard.

out of 20 times only 2 games were full plat, the rest was all either a silver or a gold in my team, but the enemies know exactly were we are and dont miss any shots, hitting harder than "sacreddd" . cmon rly that obvious ?

Not everybody like to drop in a random spot. Just cause you cant communicate with 2 randoms where to drop doesnt mean dropship is worse than POI. Getting squished between 3 teams in a random half emty POI is not enjoyable or consistant.