The new drop system in ranked sucks
It's just bad, sometimes I run around for 10 minutes not finding any squads to fight. Nobody asked for this and nobody wants it, give us the old system back.
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First, very good post.
BUT:
"In all the previous seasons we saw spikes at Tier 4 ranks, specifically Platinum and Diamond. The random POI draft in Ranked has resulted in a "bell curve"."
I'm not completely convinced that the fixed drops are the cause of the more uniform curve. Correlation, not causation, as they say. I might be more amenable to the idea if it stays this way throughout the entire season. But maybe not even then. Have to wait and see.
Not to mention that a mis-shaped curve is not necessarily the result of the way players play the game. It's more likely the result of the way the developer measures players playing the game. Two entirely different things.
"I think for this reason players are having a hard time accepting the competitive gameplay and their "true" rank. Along with the lack of freewill to choose your own POI. "
I agree wholeheartedly that most players do not want to hear that their true rank is not as high as they thought it was. Or as high as they think they "deserve" or however it is they think the game has challenged their entitlement. On the other hand, hard stuck at platinum or hard stuck at diamond - who really cares? You're not going to ALGS either way. And you're not gonna get a raise at work or a hotter girlfriend or a faster car or whatever else it is that children think is important. But what IS important, imo, and no surprise if you've heard me rant on this before... is Free Will. I give that up so that other players can allow the developer to herd them like sheep from one two-team engagement to the next as if this game isn't really multi-team at all. It's as if they want it to be bracketed. "Guardrails for morons" is what I'd call it no matter whether it's producing the desired behaviors or not. Which brings us to the question of "desirable to who?"
What this all ultimately boils down to is that "serious" solo queue players want "erratic" solo queue players to stop being erratic and start getting serious. And they are more than willing to allow the developer to lobotomize the erratics in order to get what they want in a teammate. Rather than expecting them to get a friend list and use it. We can certainly agree that the dev has a long way to go on the subject of player engagement tools, most notably "stay with team." But forcing conformity on specific behaviors isn't just a weak substitute for team-building, it's actively corrosive to the experience for a lot of players. That said, you are 100% right that these players can find relief in pubs or Wildcard. But for how long? Mark my words (September 14th, 2025), a year from now, possibly less, this entire game will have shifted to preset drops and unlimited respawns until the entire squad is wiped.
More dumbing down the game for players who need their hand held at all times. If that's how we get a smooth curve and a higher "fun" quotient then so be it, but I reserve the right to denigrate players for their laziness and the developer for indulging them.
FYI - I hit reply to early and didn't finish the post. It's finished now.
Thank you and I appreciate the reply.
I'm not a guru on this stuff so I'm just stating what it looks like. Thordan Smash, a popular Apex content creator, mentioned the "bell curve" in one of his videos regarding Ranked. Ranked is setup in splits and Split 1 will be over in 2 days. So those are the results for Split 1.
I'm glad we agree on some things. Where we differ is about "free will" within competitive game modes. I remember playing an older COD game that had Ranked. In the Ranked mode certain guns and perks were removed. The mode also had different rules. I remember playing a couple of games and getting stomped "hard". Instead of continuing to play Ranked I went back to Pubs. I wasn't going to attempt to change things for the Ranked players who enjoy that. I just moved on to another game mode that better suited my needs. It's that simple. I had the "freedom" to play another game mode. This scenario also applies to Ranked players who play Pubs. It's just as wrong for a Ranked player to want "every" game mode to be competitive.
In regards to using the friends list. This argument is overused and overstated. I've been playing since Day 1. The notion that I can keep up (or try to keep up) with anybody outside of my family for extended periods of time is not realistic. Additionally, it's been times where I'm actively utilizing my friends list, but people are already in-game, already have a team, may not be on at the same time, etc. We are ALL solo queuers in some way or at some point. The only people I've observed who don't solo queue are the top tier players in our community.
Lastly, I agree with your points as well. Let's all just do what we want, right? That's just not reality. We need guardrails in every aspect of society because humanity enjoys being unpredictable, at times. But we can't live and progress with so much uncertainty. For example, since I've been on the forum I've had several of my posts removed and I've been checked by the mods, more than once. Should I be mad because I can't type what I want on the forum? Maybe. At the end of the day EA has TOS and we have to follow that or risk being banned. I don't like guardrails either, but we have to have them so we can be and do better individually, which helps us collectively.
That was a good read.
"I don't like guardrails either, but we have to have them so we can be and do better individually, which helps us collectively."
There are political philosophies which correspond to your train of thought and I'm very sorry to say that I subscribe to most of them... just not in the case of this game! What that says about my character or the coherence and consistency of my politics, or my gaming, I can't really say, and am not too sure I want to find out!
But seriously, there's not a lot above that I can disagree with. Except to say this: The CoD reference wasn't lost on me. It wasn't the first title to have the game play one way in ranked and differently in pubs, and it won't be the last any more than will Apex. But it's another thing I dislike about this game, probably mostly on aesthetic grounds, but also on some practical points. Aesthetically, I'm a big believer in "the game is the game." In other words, I have enough to learn, to remember, to think about, and to do in this game without having to learn two similar but different modes. It's tedious and to be honest, yet another feature of ranked that drives me away from the mode. Which, as we've both said, is fine. Horses for courses, is the expression I think. But then I find myself asking whether the developer should be making decisions that divide the player base to that degree. And this is the practical issue I have with these changes: Is it really good for any player to feel "unwelcome" (for lack of a better expression) in some particular mode? Is it good for the game overall if some players suddenly can't find enough ways to play to keep them entertained and then wander off to Fortnite or Warzone? And, my perennial favorite question, which I ask always because it's always a serious issue: If these changes make some players happier and others unhappy enough to leave, even if they don't leave the game and only leave the mode, then how far can the dev afford to let the population drop and still maintain the integrity of skill-based matchmaking? I say it's a serious issue because sbmm in this game is already compromised in a thousand different ways, and changing modes in ways that bleed players is never a good thing. I'm not saying we know that ranked is bleeding players. I don't know that at all. In fact this season's changes may be having quite the opposite effect and bring back players who previously gave up on ranked at one point or another. But it's still the kind of thing I think about a lot, because a lot of the time I'm in matches with enemies who move and shoot like they're playing some other game I never even heard of. Players who edge me out are one thing. Players who obliterate me in half a clip from an automatic from the other side of the map before I can even make their position... that's a sign of a lot of things, and one of them is very, very low-functioning sbmm. I guess I'm just saying I'd rather they didn't make a bad situation worse in an attempt to improve some other situation. Especially when I don't personally feel it needed improvement to begin with.
Anyhow, it's always nice to get your input. Keep up the good work.
Great points.
All I hope is that we allow the devs to try different things "sometimes". If it doesn't work, change it.
That's the beauty of Apex being a live-service game. Although, after 25 seasons of the same type of Ranked it's a little disappointing how some are overreacting to change.
I'm definitely all for trying new things, keeping what works and jettisoning what doesn't. I guess the problem there for me is that what I like about this game is not what most people like. What most people like about it are the things that make me wan't to uninstall. And majorities tend to carry the day. Which means I've been watching this game slowly devolve since about season three. At first the changes were very slow to come and usually pretty minor, pretty easy to get used to. Lately the changes are almost wholesale and sometimes even mid-season, as if Respawn can't even wait 90 days to screw me a little harder and a little longer.
And the most frustrating part is that there is a road map for the changes in the form of LTMs. If you want to know where this game will be in two or three seasons then look no farther than Wildcard. I'm not gonna claim that I haven't been playing it, and I'm not even going to claim that I hate it as much as I thought I did when it launched. But it's a far cry from season 0 trios. All these changes so far have served one of two purposes. First, appease the content creators. That means things like nerfing the charge rifle into oblivion, something I still haven't forgiven them for. And second, make the game faster and more forgiving, presumably for the short attention span kids who make up the other 90% of the player base.
And that's where we are. The things I value, like usable weaponry and consequences for actions, are either already gone or are well on their way to being out. And I don't really want to play team deathmatch with dual p2020s. In the form of a lightning match with 20 seconds between circles. That prohibits hot or cold drops. Warm only, children. That's all you get. And you're right that none of this is a Respawn problem - it's a recon zero problem. I guess there are other games to play but I sure will miss this one, at least the way it used to be.
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