SBMM is SO broken

Nobody really knows the indicators that are verified to make us end up in one lobby with 3 stacks of preds or masters (I'm talking about pubs). Because the spread of KD in one lobby is huge and it's definitely not a factor that is taken into account.

I think that the main factor here is the place in the last game - it's very stupid, because you often get 2nd or 3rd place several times and you can't win anything, and it moves you to even more difficult lobbies.

I have the impression that a few seasons ago this MM didn't work like that and it was a bit easier. I know they made changes to MM, but they definitely didn't do anything for good.

As for ranked games, it's always been known that preds feed off of kills on diamond and platinum players because there aren't enough players at that rank at the moment and MM wants to start the game as soon as possible.

At least because they show the rank distribution in the lobby, I made a conscious decision that I'll never play ranked games above D4 again.

Look carefully at the rank distribution in your next match. Pay particular attention to the white line that forms the curve. If you look to the right side of the curve you'll notice how quickly it drops low and stays that way as it moves all the way to the right. These are your top tier players and what the graph is telling you is that there are very few of them. In order for them to get into any game at all the matchmaking algorithm is going to have to pull players from outside the master/predator skill bucket. There just aren't enough of them to fill up their own matches. And that, my friend, is where the rest of us come in. The first people pulled into these top tier matches are diamonds. But also, given the dwindling population, they're probably often if not always dipping into the platinum pool as well. And this process repeats all the way to the bottom of the skill ladder. Legit bronze players being pitted against high gold players feel the exact same way that you do.

So the questions are these:

1. Should the matchmaker simply force players to wait however long it would take in order to fill a lobby exclusively with players of similar skill? Even if that means that some of the worst and some of the best players, in remote geographic regions at off-peak hours, might never get a game?
2. Is this on the developer for having been too aggressive when they formulated the skill gap in this game six years ago?
3. Is this on the developer for failing to maintain the population required for functional matchmaking in a wide skill gap game?
4. Is it on players for not being more flexible?
5. Is it on players who don't cheat for not being willing or able to cheat?

Some of those questions are straw men, but... are they really? It's as if we all want to live in a competitive, player vs. player world, right up until that world sends us the message that in a dog-eat-dog environment sometimes you eat and sometimes you get eaten. It isn't always pretty or fun, but to some very real extent that's baked into the formula. Dwindling population is making the downside a lot easier to see now than it ever were before. But this is still how it works. How it always worked.

Like it or not, the one thing you can be sure of is that it can only get worse as the population continues to drop. Regaining population has to be the dev's no. 1 priority, and I really believe that it is. I just think that the things they're doing in order to achieve that goal are going to have the exact opposite effect. They call that "irony."

There were times when the average number of people on Steam alone was 200-250 thousand (for comparison, now it's 94 thousand). At that time, we had to think about making good changes for MM, because there were enough players to do it. The problem with MM is nothing new from the last few seasons. After all, the problem with MM has been plaguing players practically since the game's release.

Of course, Respawn slept through it and now we have what we have.

Respawn was therefore aware of what players have the biggest problem with. For 24 seasons, everyone knows that the biggest problem is MM and the problem with cheaters. Instead of dealing with these issues, they prefer to invest their time and money in cosmetics and crazy legend reworks that ruin the whole atmosphere of this game (as for the second one, it was especially visible during season 23 and 24). Now you play what Respawn tells you to play. You can't have your main that you want to work on to get even better results. You have to play a character that gives you a huge advantage over others for the next 90 days. That's the truth.

Due to low TTK and Ash rework games usually end by 3 rings. Respawn already ruined this game. There is no tactic except "push them mindlessly and end the fight in 3 seconds". That's Apex Legends now. There are no smart moves, no other tactics. If you don't kill a squad in a few seconds, you'll soon have 5 more on your back and around you who will also kill you in 3 seconds.

3 seconds?!?  Dam, I would love to be able to hold out for 3 solid seconds. When you have full health and 50 shield - Its not even a full second now with this TTK. 

I played some WW11 team death match this weekend for a while - went straight to Apex after and I found when you have full health and 50 shield, you die almost in the exact time you do in WW11. It was shocking to go from one right to the other to really see what our so called Battle Royal has turned into. 

Needless to say, I went back to WW11 because the waiting time to reload into an Apex match, just isn't worth it when dying so quickly. Every weapon is now a one clip. Not having any fun at the moment. 

I think it would be a great idea to introduce 3 respawn tokens from the trios-three strikes to the standard BR. So, if you mess up on the drop you can still continue to play and there's no need to be bored and wait for the new lobby for the next 2-4 minutes. Also, this rule, when a squad dies only after the last player is dead, and when downed people are indestructible - made a huge job to shape the game in a better direction. Players still play being downed. Almost no one quit the match, which was basically not possible for a standard BR. People keep playing, retaining the feeling of "flow". Being in the state of flow is much more fun and satisfying for a human brain than being constantly distracted by failure and "pauses in the flow" when we die and should start to search for a new lobby. That's why BR in this standard form actually s*cks in comparison to games where you have constant respawn and keep playing. 

If they want to maintain this TTK, they should also think about reworking the game loading to the moment it starts.

Sometimes the game loading itself ("waiting for players 59/60") takes a minute... Add to that the legend selection, etc.

If games are going to end so quickly - they should think about a much faster game loading time, so that a new match can be started faster...

"Dwindling population is making the downside a lot easier to see now than it ever were before. But this is still how it works. How it always worked."

And we both know 5 reasons... one could say... types...  for this.

The things i would like to see being fixed/tweaked, besides cheaters, is when solo queuing what teammates you get vs the ones you play against. Being put up against  3 stack master/preds, veil solo queuing should not be a thing at all in  gold/plat/low diamond! I don't care if the argument is, well there isn't enough players to split people. 

Idk if they can ever really fix this ranked algoritme/system, they have made so many changes/attempts, and nothing has actually fixed the main issues & make it fair & enjoyable for all skill levels & whether being in a squad or going solo.

Hey folks,

Be sure to check out the Reddit AMA tomorrow as it's specifically centered around Matchmaking and should be directly relevant to a lot of the conversations taking place here!

Just uninstalled the game after 2 hours of non stop full pred stacks killing me in pubs whilst I had teammate 'with' hands. Just can't stand this game being so anti-solo player oriented non stop. Great game, worst piece of 💩 software and customer experience