Re: Perfect Teammate Match & Finding System

@EREGDS 

great reply I hear you and understand you.

1.  If you are playing ranked Smurf accounts should be no problem as they probably have not ranked up to diamond to be a problem yet. - Smurfs are problem for first of all lower ranked players as the basis of the smurffers is to get easier matchups = Master level player playing against Platinum is like walk in the park that pisses off all other people in that park. And to be honest it is somewhat frustrating to see a player level 50 deleting me in Diamond lobbies while being also Diamond 4...go figure if he is hacking, smurfing or both or just super skilled and transferred from another game. Well they made it to Diamond so they will be those lobbies, they needed to get out of the lower lobby anyways. I agree Smurfs need to be gotten rid of. A friend of mine's son is level 80 or so (comes from Fortnight) not smurfing and eats Diamond players for Breakfast he's got skills and yes it might be frustrating but he should not be punished.

2. and 3. I am a believer that it works. However I also believe that it needs to be substantially upgraded and staffed more so that more cheaters and hackers get removed. 

4. Diamonds being fed to Masters and Preds. I really do not think this is happening. There are only 750 Preds out there globally. They have to play with someone. As I said before Diamond and up make up about 2.5% of the player base (I have seen mentioned in this thread 5%) that is not a lot of players as has been discussed. I don't see how 750 people or even a couple thousand could/should dictate rules for millions aka sounds like "u" problem 🙂 Let them wait and suffer as being Pred shouldn't be easy 🙂 Now it seems more like the system is tailored "top down" aka rich get richer aka people on the bottom suffer the most. Diamonds are not at the bottom. I am a gold/Plat player and am not suffering. The system is not tailored top down but rather team based and rank based. 

5. Finding other players of like caliber to play with will be hard, but if you look at the top tier players Diamond and up most of them have set people they play with and I really do not see a disadvantage at high rank with 3 stacking as this would you on par with other 3 stacks instead of being disadvantaged with playing with Randoms. That's my point - I agree that 3 stack is a huge boost in ranks, especially Diamond level and higher, yet it goes against the logic of skill-based BR game and ideal SBMM t.i. "getting a set team" should not be a decisive factor in the game.
In case of Apex I would almost want the game to treat set parties as "+ X ranks/levels" teams e.g. a set diamond 4 party should play only vs set diamond 4 parties or diamond 2 and higher random party players going as far as set predator party should be only in a lobby where all squads are set predators or at worst set master squads only. I agree do not agree with you here as this is created as a team based game, so it would behove one to team up. However the matchmaking should by all means when possible pit gold players vs players one level above or below how else are we to strive to do better, you do not train for a marathon by never running more then 5 miles? Furthermore breaking down the Ranks for MM by Diamond 1-4 etc would further dilute the amount of available players for any given lobby match further increasing MM times.  I really do not care about wait times at the level since I will never make Diamond or above but I am sure a lot of those players will not stand for it.  Also Preds are in the Master tier and should not be broken down for MM any further. 

One thing I really do agree with you is that demotion protection needs to be done away with. I also think that the ranked split should not be 1 and a half tiers demotion, former masters in Plat 2 lobbies after the split just sounds horrible. Make the demotion down to the bottom of the Rank below you and that would suffice. 

If you want to compete with the big boys you will have to play like them as well, they do not play with randoms whenever possible as that is not so good, they play with people they know.  Go out there and find you that set team. I would offer to play with you but I am way below your skill level and even though I am a team player I do not think we would profit or enjoy that experience. 

@Asmodeus566/ @Cheese9Man - to be honest, I don't see a difference whether Diamond players were allowed in Pred/Master lobbies or vice versa, the point most people in forums complain and seem to agree is that there should NOT be situations where a d4 solo queue player gets match vs current Predator or even Master level players with a set squad.

There is (or should be based on theoretical math) enough players to ensure "middle ground" = d4 solo goes against say D3-1 maaaybe low 10k RP Master squads at most.

@Asmodeus566regarding point 4 - you probably misunderstood me. My point was that at the current state if we compare how easy/hard it is to get out of D4 vs play as current predator/master my experience shows that D4 is suffering while Pred/Masters laugh when they get into Diamond dominated lobbies because it is too easy/free kills for them.

Using your analogy a person who has not run more than 5 km gets into a marathon vs runners who have done multiple competitions in marathon. Again getting back to my point that there should be a middle ground in this analogy case a 5km runner should first get into competition vs players who also don't know if they even physically can run 42km, not the ones who already aim to run it under X time.
Thus the system is tailored TOP DOWN not BOTTOM UP.

The same happens when gold/plat players see diamonds in their lobbies etc etc. I just recently had a game where I as Diamond 4 somehow ended up in Platinum lobbies and "thanks to my ex-master teammate" who just kept pushing everything (and yet somehow dying :D) got my fastest 6+2 in ranked (it felt exactly like a public game, not bragging) and top 4 only to realize that I have killed mostly Platinum players...it's just that big of a difference.

Finally, as I said before wait time for Diamond lobbies IS NOT a problem. I am getting into servers within 1-2 min, for me now the longest time comes from looking up squadmates in Discord servers to avoid playing with complete randoms who do not use mics, etc. (that is just an impossibly painful experience in Diamond lobbies where you can't even rat to positive RP most of the time). So yeah I as a Diamond 4 would rather wait for 2-10 min to get into Diamond lobbies vs being pushed into Master/Pred for whatever reason - me not having similarly skilled players or them not having enough masters/preds at the moment.

@EREGDS 

Great argumentation, great conversation. Way to stick to your guns.

I really hope a CM highlighted this thread for the  DEVs to look at as there is a lot of great thoughts here and maybe they might be able to adjust MM that would work better for all especially the plight of Diamond ranked players.

There probably will not be any perfect solutions but we can always hope for the best and some improvements can be made.  Being engaged and suggesting improvements we think will be good for the game is why we are here. Especially when it is done in such an honest and constructive manner.

@l_mRGogo 

Again thanks for getting the conversation started.

@EREGDS 

like I said before top 2.5-5% will struggle with playing if they are playing solo due to MMR and the mixed bag of players you may are may not get.

You need to get out there and engage with people and find players you can play with. Ask youself the honest question is it me or them.

Here is a good article I read today see the line typed in RED below:

Check Reddit and other social media platforms about Apex Legends, and you will quickly find that there are players who are not happy with the ranked game mode in the battle royale title. As such, it eventually pushed the Respawn developer, Samy Duc, to address this on Twitter.

As caught by the Reddit user Voyddd, the user shared an image of the tweet from the developer that deals directly with what many consider to be the currently “broken” state of ranked. Duc tackles this head-on, revealing that it is not broken after all but working as intended. 

The reason behind this is the Apex Legends MMR feature, which deals with matchmaking players in ranked mode, not necessarily based on the actual rank that the player is, but their skill and performance. This is a separate way of handling it from the actual rank that you have. 

Because of this, the Apex Legends MMR will sometimes queue players up in ranked matches with others who are way out of their league, at least on paper with their respective ranks. While this seemed broken to players before, it is working as it should be right now. 

The Apex Legends MMR is a completely separate way of handling a user’s skill in the game from the ranked tiers you are at. It is essentially a hidden stat that exists in the backend of the game. You do not view this in the same way that you can see that you are the Gold rank.

This hidden feature measures your skill and performance in battle royale matches and will adjust your matchmaking accordingly. What this means in practice is that the Apex Legends MMR element does not equal your rank at all; in fact, you can be the same MMR as someone but a different rank entirely. 

This means that you could have, for instance, a Bronze player who is just now getting into the ranked grind and will queue up with someone higher than them, like a Silver or Gold rank player. This person is a much higher rank, yet they are playing together at the same time. 

This is not because the ranked system in Apex Legends is broken like players previously thought, but actually that the MMR is coming into play here. Though the Bronze and Gold players might be in completely different ranked tiers, their MMR skills might be the same. 

This means that the performance of the two players is on par with one another, leading them to be matched up with one another, even though they are in different ranked tiers. While this seems broken, and understandably so, the game is trying to match you with people around your skill level. 

In some cases, this means you will be matched with people not in the same tier or rank as you, but this is working as intended. The goal is to make it so that you are challenged and matched with 59 other players who are roughly in the same pool of talent.

Furthermore, the Apex Legends MMR also comes into play with the Apex Predators and Master ranks out there at the top of the leaderboards. The problem with these two ranks is that so few of them exist in each region. 

Those higher-ranked players who queue up by themselves will find it extremely hard to find other people to play with online, especially since the other Apex Predators out there will usually team up with one another online. 

So, if you are a high-ranked solo player, you will find that you have no one in your same tier that you can match with, so the game will turn around and give you a lower-ranked player who is roughly the same MMR as you. Though they might be a lower tier, they are supposed to have about the same skill as you, so it should not be too much of an issue.

That said, as we can see in the comments on the Reddit post, this Apex Legends MMR explanation does not solve all of the complaints about some players. One user noted in the comments that it must be extremely hard in Arenas to find other ranked players if they are paired with two level 10 players against a trio of stacked Diamond players. 

Another player commented with a similar matchmaking issue with two Bronze rank players in Arenas while they are a Platinum rank and then was destroyed by a team that had two Master ranked players on it. One player came up with a possible solution to the problem. 

They noted that the game should have two separate ranked modes: the solo players out there and the other for premade teams. Some users responded, complaining about the game not having enough players to make this work, but it honestly is a feature that I think should be in the game. There would at least be a little bit more balance for the solo queueing players out there. Cody Perez - Author

@BaldWraithSimp 

Read the whole article. It specifically talks about the hidden mmr and 59 other players. That would mean it is talking about  the battle royal mode.

@EREGDS 

No problem. I found it to be a good read. Thanks for the XP. Good luck out there and have a wonderful day.