The psychological effects of SBMM

Hmm, a very good subject for debate. 

Personally, I don't feel SBMM to feel that sweaty, my average level stats seem to grow slowly and steadily, without awful plunges like the one I had during duos. It's interesting, the game feels pretty easy when with randoms, but when I party with a friend, things get sweaty pretty often. Maybe I'm low skilled, although I'm too many hundreds of hours old in Apex to be considered a rookie.

Apex is a very competitive game by design. Had a problem when I started playing, which was exactly the fact that I couldn't enjoy playing it casually, as I was getting mowed down before figuring out which is what. The reason I'm still around is because it required me to get good to stay alive, basically to "sweat". What I hated at the beginning, I ended up liking: the unique, unforgiving survival mode feeling. 

Now I ask this: should there be casual play in Apex? We are talking about a PvP BR, where the most important thing is survival, kind of the opposite of relaxation. So, I'd say this game is not meant to be played casually and is aimed at hardcore players, usually the kind that know what they're getting into.

Then, about giving 100% all the time: why? Does Respawn/ EA state anywhere that you can't take a break and play other, more relaxed games, or do other hobbies? Certainly not. In fact, a great thing about Apex is that it doesn't abuse FOMO, you can hardly miss anything. Actually, I think this game's survival on the longterm depends mostly on players that take breathers instead of burning themselves to exhaustion on daily basis.

Still, there is "casual" in Apex, but by accident and mostly for the skilled players only: enemies lacking skills, in teams with bad composition, synergy and communication. So, everything that most players hate with a passion, makes up the ideal hunting environment that the same players seem to enjoy. The irony 🙂. But also a tragedy, because those easy matches gave really good stats to the skilled players, which now feel like they're regressing as their stats plunge down hard. Now there's the psychological issue...

To conclude, I don't think there's an issue with SBMM. The actual problem is that it wasn't in from the beginning and that its ever changing formula shakes the meta too hard sometimes.