June 2021 - last edited June 2021
I've been a huge fan of this game and still really enjoy the gameplay (thumbs up to the devs). Unfortunately whatever is happening with matchmaking has ruined the experience for me. I'm an above average, but not great player. Been playing since the beginning, daily for past 18 months. Spent on every season and put the time into improving my skill. Sadly I just can't take it anymore.
Metrics will show I'm a highly engaged player, yet the reality is that I'm chasing one good game amongst dozens of games against players that destroy me. All while watching my stats drip ever lower. Every game is a sweaty exercise in frustration. This really saddens me and I'll happily come back when I start reading that something is being done to bring back a more casual experience in pubs.
Special note to whoever is making the decisions about sbmm (eomm, elo, or whatever flavor you're using)... please consider that in pursuit of "engagement" you've lost someone who's spent hundreds of dollars and would have continued spending (and advocating) on this otherwise great game. Also, maybe do an honest survey and see just how many of your highly engaged players are actually having fun. You just might find that engagement does not equal fun.
June 2021 - last edited June 2021
@MekaSquidPeople think that skill based matchmaking is broken, but I honestly think it doesn't exist.
You can be low leveled and get matched with high level predators and destroyed in 3 seconds or less over and over and over again, and that's call skill based matchmaking.
People who are average, or above average skill level, talking about those who spent a lot of time in the game or got good, are getting way too many players who just started the game. A lot of them are Smurfs, however a good portion acts like they never played a game before in their life.
While on the other hand, low level below average players are getting high ranked players and absolutely destroyed by them.
We're not being grouped by skill level, we're being grouped by whatever is convenient for matchmaking, which is "just fill que!"
It'd be one thing if players were mixed with people slightly worse than them or below them, or new players being mixed with like level 100s or something like that. But nope, level 20s and below are mixed with level 500 and above and that's called matchmaking... what a joke.
June 2021
Yes you are right, but is important to remember that this grouping of low vs high level players is being done deliberately to manipulate outcomes and to the benefit of certain players in the lobby. This matching is not based on "skill", like you said. Why is it that some players are winning more although there are far better players with worse stats and lower win rates? How is it that some streamers and content creators just seem to bypass sbmm completely and fight players far below their skill level on average while everyone is watching? To this day I still don't understand why some players are put into easier lobbies then the rest of us consistently, but it is real and it is happening every day. Is it because they bought more cosmetics? Spent more money? Call it sbmm or eomm or whatever you want but something is being forced into the gameplay to manipulate outcomes, it's definitely not random chance. And if you think about that for a while it makes you wonder why people even bother playing this game at all. I mean, with all that being said it means the game is basically rigged.
June 2021
June 2021
I would even go as far as claiming that the SBMM does exist, but intentionally puts low-tier players in a high-tier lobby if the game notices they're having a good day and score a kill more than average. There have been days where I started out pretty well in Apex Legends and it gradually became worse over time. The lobbies became sweatier, my skill was dwarfed more and more with every consecutive round and eventually I quit because I couldn't do this anymore.
Even a new player can be extremely good at this game. Sadly, that's the issue. Someone who has been playing nothing else but shooters in his entire life both missed out on a lot of good gems out there, but also became too sweaty for my taste. And as someone who has started out comparatively late with shooters, I'm at a severe disadvantage. I have a Kill/Death ratio of 0.85 for a reason. This has accumulated over the seasons and I doubt it's inaccurate. So why am I paired with people who obviously have a good grasp on this game/genre? I don't get it.
Apex Legends isn't very friendly towards people who have lower average skill than others. In other shooters I can do pretty well. And I feel like the longer TTK compared to other shooters take away the positioning advantage and immediately force people to become better in 1v1. However long that may take for someone who has mediocre interest in shooters and spend more time in survival/PvE games.
June 2021
June 2021
June 2021
June 2021 - last edited June 2021
I'm a new player and was looking for other people's opinion on this matter because I even thought there was a problem with my account since I was facing people with prob at least 500 hours more than me from day one, and I don't even have experience from other shooters or anything, I'm just bad, my KD atm is 0.46. Now after some weeks I've come to think this is done deliberately as someone said, you just have to watch any "WOW LOOK AT MY SKILL" video from a regular streamer/YouTuber, they may be good but they usually face TERRIBLE players like me, but that's the playerbase I guess they're aiming for, they're the ones that give visibility to the game and therefore money. I just have to accept new/casuals players like me are not their target and are here just to be their punching bags and satisfy them, making them look more pro. Now when the game puts me in lobbies with and against people with millions of damage and kills I just stop playing, not only because it makes it unplayable and ruins the experience for me, but also for my random teammates, after all they don't have any fault they get matched with someone 1000h less than them so it's not fun for them either to play babysitting someone that dies in 3 seconds (some of them are vocal about that and start insulting me for not having their skill)
The fact that absolutely none of the topics about matchmaking gets any official answer just confirms all of this.
June 2021