Yeah, Octane is a favorite choice among the cheaters because they use the figure 8 movement script and the "swimming through the air" script where they can fly through the air for an unlimited amount of time without touching the ground while stimming. As long as apex continues to allow cheating the amount of players is going to dwindle. I know others on here have said they are afraid of losing money by banning players, but the amount of players they would get back by banning these cheaters would far outweigh what they lose in the short term. I just wish they could see it.
As for wildcard, occasionally you can find a server that has fewer cheaters and you get some funner matches. I've been server hopping lately and I just try them until I find a server that has fewer cheaters. You can tell by the kind of matches you get, legit players may beat you, but cheaters have an obvious way of beating you like with rapid fire, zero recoil, figure 8 movements, aimbot, triggerbot, etc.