The official Matchmaking blog post
Here’s the most awaited blog post about matchmaking https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends/news/matchmaking-2023
Forum Discussion
@hayhor Yes, but what seems strait forward is not always that. I am a system designer personally, so I know for a fact that saying something is easy isn't always the case. It's really easy to say "well just do this" than it is to actually implement it that solution. There are many many variables to take into account that they probably aren't even mentioning in the post, and probably even more we've never thought about. Just reading this short post made me, someone who already designs systems, realize there is more to MM than I even realized.
Personally, I'd prefer tighter matches more often instead of getting obliterated in humiliating fashion for multiple games in a row by players WAY better than me. My current solo queue experience is often struggling to get a single kill for 10-12 games in a row with the occasional win & 4-5 kill game thrown in there. My KDR is about 1.0, give or take, but the quality of the wins & good games does not consistently offset the cumulative aggravation of the deaths. I'm OK with deaths where I F'd up or just missed my shots but am not OK with dying repeatedly where I feel like I had absolutely no chance. Nobody likes playing a game that's rigged against them and that's the feeling lots of people have under the current matchmaking system.
I applaud Repawn for finally saying something on this topic. However, the post is mostly non-committal and IMO unnecessarily vague on certain points. It all leaves me in the same place I was before the post ... very skeptical that anything will change significantly.
- @HappyHourSumwur I wanna know which server/region the changes are in effect LMAO!
Bruh... then there's this Valk on the other team getting 21 kills, we lose big as 4 of them have double digits. Now, what is mm's response to this? How about putting this Valk and I together next game? So she can destroy a bot team again, but this time I'm allowed to do the same. She and I literally held their home spawn for 2 minutes, while our team naturally took B and managed to come help us afterwards. Ended up a win by lockout.
@Gabrielmojo26 Definitely not Frankfurt!
- @HappyHourSumwur What you bring up is the challenge tho. In a 20 team BR, if everything is equal you should win 1 in 20 games. What constitutes a fair fun game in the other 19? If the lobby was fair, you would likely die on first encounter in 9 or 10 of the games and win the first fight in the others and finish top 5 in 4 of the other games.
@hayhorIt is how lopsided those lost fights typically are that chaps my @$$. Then you look at the recap and spectate only to realize they were either 1) way better than you (ridiculous stats &/or rank leading you to think it is a matchmaking problem), or 2) actually not that good (they get killed immediately while you are watching &/or miss all their shots so you just F'd up). I get #1 way too often, IMO. Not to say that I don't make stupid decisions, am caught napping, or miss all my shots. That all happens, too.
Most of time it isn't the opposing squad. It is someone on own squad trying to pro 1v3 to pad stats then down quit. Not interested in winning.
Occasionally if I know a team mate is about to head into 1v3 danger and they don't listen. I fake ping an enemy behind closer to pull them back. It works...
@hayhorWhat I appreciate about your commentary right now is that it’s calling into question something that I have consistently spoken about for years: outcomes.
-What are “fair” outcomes?
-What are the average outcomes? Should there be a difference in outcomes based on skill? How do we achieve that?
-Should outcomes be “curated”? If so, are people ok with the difficulty of their lobbies being manipulated to achieve said outcomes?
-Should outcomes even be “fair”? Or should we accept natural outcomes? Should skill be what determines who gets what outcomes?
Most people aren’t thinking about these questions. Most people (from below to above average) just want to perform well and win. And it’s an injustice in some people’s mind when they don’t
And look, I know not everyone is obsessed with winning, but let’s be honest here: this is a PVP battle royal; the HIGH MAJORITY of people loading into a match are trying to win said match. So I don’t want to hear “I only play the game because I want to casually walk around and enjoy the graphics”. So when some people suggest that there should be no disparity in outcomes based on skill, I do roll my eyes.
TLDR: I want people to think about outcomes and who should be achieving what outcomes and at what rates. And I want people to be reflective on the issue.- @Axs5626Sxa5001 That was my point. In a BR the outcome is going to be negative a huge majority of the time. Expecting to get 4 or 5 kills often, even without winning is unrealistic but dying in the first engagement will happen a lot, especially if the opponents are at your own level or above. This isn't a tdm or an arenas shooter where there are 2 small teams and the sbmm is easy to manipulate to ensure people win every other match.
The system we have right now, without the changes does try to protect people but as they mentioned in the article it does a poor job due to speed of MM and small bucket sizes.
Would it be more fair without anything? Yes, absolutely. But we know that isn't going to happen. Every shooter does it to help retain players. It's better for the majority of the player base. I don't know what sick tests they're doing on my account, but it needs to stop right now. Fix sbmm or remove leaver penalty!
Preds don't have to smurf now they are in silver lobbies 😃
- @Axs5626Sxa5001 Bro, you just consistently hit the nail on the head with this issue. Why is the majority of people not thinking about this by themselves and seeing the wood from the trees? IMO no match should be manipulated in any way. THAT is the only fair approach. It's a video game for crying out loud and a competitive one at that so everyone knows what they're signing up for when they download it. Let people play and stop interfering. MM was originally created to automate the act of choosing a server/finding a game manually by the player - which was free of sbmm anyway in the past. What we see today is everything except that... <$$$
I'm seeing a lot of youtube vids pop up regarding this issue recently and the "unfairness" it brings with it in another popular game which I won't mention, but it's all the same really. But yeah, at least it seems like there is a small growing movement against this whole mess of a system. At the very least it's raising awareness albeit slowly. 🙂
At the very least there should be a mode free of sbmm. Pubs IS he casual mode so I have yet to even see ONE valid argument why it should have sbmm - we have ranked for that.
@hayhor "Every shooter does it to help retain players. It's better for the majority of the player base." - and here lies the problem. Why should there be a "system" to retain and protect players? If a game is good that is all that matters, people will play then. You wanna be good at it? Learn, and play more, put in effort and time and practice if it's that important to you. Dark Souls games exist for his reason as an example. New players this and that....you really think a new player cares about your experience? Hard no, why should anyone else care about theirs? Good for one player through manipulation means someone else is being punished in return. ☹️ I have no idea if the new sbmm system is in place or not, but if it is, then it's not working on consoles on the Sydney servers, i returned after a few seasons off, i do well in 2 games, the other last few games i am loosing right off the bat, then i see why, nearly every single player has been diamonds, masters or even Preds, even got killed by 4k dmg badges and 20 bombs, most of them have over 10k kills each. The team i get given are basically new with only a hundred or so kills or less.
@KyldenarI don't know where I fit in. I'm not a day-1 player, I'm not a pro streamer, I know I'll never be as good as Shiv or Hal. And I'm obviously not a 4 or 5. 🤔 Guess I'm most close to number 1 though.
- @CCbathwater Oh, I had clearly started as a Type 4, morphed into a Type 5 trying to keep playing with my kid, then we both finally gave up because it's just demoralizing constantly being fed to Types 1 and 2.
If you been around a long time, you are likely a Type 1, or a higher skilled type 5 (you do come and go, usually with LTMs you like). - @Kyldenar Not as much "come and go as I like", more like being forced away, between sbmm, reveal meta, and hot-drop griefers, BR mode is just unplayable.
@KyldenarI looked at your types and am unsure where I fit into that. I'm slightly above average and play the game almost daily just because I enjoy it.
I do enjoy that you have been complaining for a long time the game lacks PvE and your entire theory leads to that being the only answer. Way to lead the audience 🤣- @hayhor You can have a PvP only game that still retains a casual audience, but it requires some catering to Type 5s. This game isn't doing that.
If you're not going to cater the PvP to Type 5s, then you have to add a cooperative PvE element to the game to help retain them. Until they announced they were killing all PvE development, I thought they were headed that way with a Frontier Defense like mode or game for a Revolution against the Syndicate (as that seems to be what the lore is hinting at, aka Titan War 2) but now...
Well, the churn is just going to get worse. Which is a shame because the movement and gunplay is on point, it's just everything else that is wrong. - @Kyldenar I'm also disappointed in the lack of a single player game.
I disagree that this churn is killing the game though. They hit the most concurrent users ever on at the same time to start the season.
Will the game die eventually? Yes it will but it will be a number of factors combined. MM, bad new content and another game being the main factors. @hayhorHow many of those "concurrent users" are returning Type 3s, that think, "This will be my season to go PRO" until reality, once again, slaps them in the face? Also, I bet a lot are rank/skin farming accounts for selling on places like eBay (which these days, is the TOP thing
goodGoogle shows me when I search Apex Legends to find the forums). Or just Smurf accounts.- @Kyldenar
"the churn is just going to get worse. Which is a shame because the movement and gunplay is on point..."
I don't often find myself at odds with your opinions, but I've said before and I'll say again, I play this game in spite of its weapon mechanics, not because of them. I think they are almost universally worthless. Assuming that every player has, or will develop over time, reasonable ability to aim, then what you STILL have with this game's weapon sandbox is rock, scissors, paper. Did I just kill that guy because of my awesome gun skills? Nope, I had a zero-recoil mid-range gun and he had an EVA and we were 30 meters apart. The only "fair" gun fight in this game is if the other four squaddies are away somewhere and the two left duking it out have the same gun with the same attachments.*
*place holder for when someone responds with "oh, recon, attachments don't matter." - @reconzero I had a much longer, more filled out post for you, but the forum seems to have eaten it and I got to get back to work shortly, so I will sum up as, "I would expect a shotgun with shot to lose at 30 meters vs a SMG or battle rifle." And I generally like the guns in Titanfall/Apex because with my real world gun experience, they behave and work like I would expect. 🙂
@hayhor Well, at least we can agree on the PvE thing. I still think Apex could benefit from something like Frontier Defense (maybe in reverse, instead of defending, attacking), cooperative, 3 or 4 player squads, fighting the Syndicate in Glorious Revolution!
Even get people that play that to still hop into BR every once in a while by allowing materials gathered in BR but not used (which now you gather for everyone which is awesome) to carry into the next of these PvE matches. "Any Free to Play Online game that does not consider the below average casual player will eventually die to population issues."
Yet here you are.
Honestly, you sound mad for not being good at pvp and expecting the games to bend to your will. Be honest with yourself here.
the Day 1 No Lifers
What's your point? You expect to be good at something you spend time on, right? YOU, yes you. Imagine you never got better at your art while spending loads of time on it? That is essentially what you are saying should happen. You wanna walk in and be good, day 1. Imagine someone in the gym for 2 hours per day and his counterpart spending 30 mins and the rest at McDonalds and demanding to look the same/pulling the same amount of dates/compliments. It's absurd to expect that.
The average life expectancy of a human is 20 000 odd days.
The average expectancy to reach pro level in anything is around 10 000 hours for the average human.
1 Hour per day for 10k days means half your life to reach pro level.
Some reach that level a lot sooner, and some don't, should they be punished so you can feel good about yourself? Or should everyone just show up and be "adequate"?
The Try-Hards
I understand the frustration, but what is the point? If you don't try-hard you will stay exactly where you are. At least they are trying to learn gun fights and those who don't and just drop mindlessly - I agree with you. Sorry, but t is to be expected without a team.
The Regular Casual
In any shooter you should know what you are sighing up for. There is no such thing as a "relaxed experience" pvp game. Sweat exists on every level, just the amount that differs.
So what is it that you actually want? You want an easy time? Put in time.
SBMM will prob ruin it for you anyway, but the point is it seems you want an easy pvp experience - not gonna happen in any game, in any lifetime, in any way without YOU putting in some work. People want to win just as bad as you so yeah...not an option..
The issue with games these days is that they try to include everyone - even people who never actually like/play pvp shooters. So a population of 2mil isn't enough anymore. instead 5mil is the minimum - just so they can include more players and make more $. You really think this is good for the players? Bring in SBMM to compensate those players and you have a game/mode that is a former shell of itself. It's a joke really. You want basketball players to compensate for cricket players all of a sudden joining their team? NO, just no to all of it. Clown shoes industry atm.
If you want a pve game, let it go and look elsewhere. Apex is not that and it is not Titanfall even if it tried. Not ever gonna happen.
- @reconzero You are correct here. That is why some, including myself don't think that br is good measure for "fair" fps. We have Valorant for that, sort of, but, in terms of weapons and variety it makes things quite boring. Point is, again, what makes a good player is being able to frag with any weapon in spite of what the opponent has in his kit. Fair? No. Skilled when you win with less than your opponent? Absolutely. sbmm breaks this to some extent tho.....so yeah in light of that the better weapon now matters a lot more that it should.
