For my first ever event/race i was lucky enough to be able to ride in the ADAC 60k cyclassics in Hamburg. Bought a dedicated road set for my Grail. Felt fantastic.
I have solo to masters multiple times. This was one of the worst seasons as a solo player. If you’re still grinding solo good luck! Apart from all the cheaters, if the lobby has a pred team/masters. They have a cheater on the team 90% of the time. I did run into a few what seemed to be legit players.
Now I know a lot of people are gonna say this is BS but this is just my matchmaking theory based on my solo to masters experience. Apex has a huge problem with big brother matchmaking as well as MMR matchmaking and for the cherry on top engagement matchmaking.
Big brother matchmaking- if you’re above average as a solo player you will get two players to baby sit and be their carrier because they’re probably on a losing streak and apex wants them to stay online just a bit more.
MMR- again if you’re an above average player you’re gonna get skipped over in queues as a solo. They don’t want you to make it to your peak rank too fast so they’ll make you fight your peak rank opponents for as long as they can. Since I was in plat 1/3 games was a masters/pred lobby.
Engagement matchmaking- because 1/3 matches where pred lobbies it was a give a take for earning RP. Specially in Diamond. If I had a +300 game the following 3 games would be - RP. Would end up at the end of my gaming session either up 600 RP if u quit ahead or -300 from where I started that day if kept pushing hoping for an easier game.
The competitiveness of Rank is just not there. It doesn’t not feel organic it does not feel like I made masters based on skills. The first two or three games you play the game will give you the best teammates you’re gonna get for that gaming session until the engagement matchmaking senses that you’re gonna get off so it will give you weak lobby with strong teammates. So in essence if you just use this to your advantage you will go up the Rank ladder.
Done playing ranked until the bring the solo q. Which my theory on that will be masters will get pared with masters/preds and diamonds will be paired with diamonds based on MMR so if you’re hard stuck d4 hoping when solo q comes and you’ll get better teammates(preds/masters) sorry I don’t think you will. You’ll get another hard stuck d4 and the lobbies will play out more like how they play out now. But I hope I’m wrong and it’s super fun and competitive.
Also as a last tad bit fun fact. Once I reach masters my lobbies got easier. Got easy lobby better teammates and maybe like 1 other pred team in lobby. Crazy. They want that pred/masters player retention so they give them easy lobby to grind all day
If you read it all thank you for reading. What are y’all’s thoughts/experience on the grind to masters or what ever your goal is, is it similar to mine or am I just cooked?
TLDR; Old man is a yapper and yaps about his experience doing a solo to masters.