u/Victor1440

TLDR: The Solo Queue test has not yielded significant results (improvements) in the matchmaking and has made us go back to our original problem and at times a worse experience. I'm optimistic that improvements can happen but we'll have to wait and see

BACKGROUND

Hey Yall!

As many of you know earlier this week, Respawn started the solo queue test for Ranked for players Diamond and above for the next 2 weeks or until their data collection is done. The main problem that they try to nail are pre-made teams more specifically 3-stacked preds that roll through the lobby. In theory the test seems too good to fail, you level out the playing field by making it so that everyone has to play with people they don't know, communication can be hit or miss, and the skill levels are balanced in a way where every team has some bad players and good players in them. This has however resulted...somewhat true

I was able to progress from Plat 1 to Diamond 2 on my own as of the making of this post just for reference. I was able to solo queue to Diamond 1 last split but 3 stacked to finally reach Masters.

THE TEAMS/EXPERIENCE

In the games I've played since the test I was able to queue with people of my own rank, good we are off to a great start. There were extremely rare cases where I was able to get a pred or a masters player on my team, also not strange as this has happened in the past. I've also occasionally got plats on my team which was common and I didn't think was out of place from my experience. In the beginning hours and day of the test the lobbies there were significantly more plat teams in the matches. Its normal that a plat gets into a diamond lobby but not this many, at times being 8+ plat teams and more than likely the diamond teams coming out on top. Towards up until today and more recently however, there have been cases of now 9 pred teams with even extreme cases of 2 plat teams being in the same match. This is what caught me off guard and made me question why is Respawn putting a plat into a pred lobby, this has never occurred in my experience prior to the test. So 9 pred teams, seemed extremely high and I thought oh maybe its just a pred and 2 diamonds/masters that's why there's so many. To my shocking surprise after I was third partied by one of them I spectate and find out that I was killed by a 3 pred stack. Maybe this was an outlier, maybe they got lucky to end up all in pred? Nope, unfortunately its common for preds to queue together which is actually been part of the same rank queue. If you're diamond you get diamonds, if you're masters you get masters, if you're pred you get preds. With now this in mind I asked myself, "Aren't we just playing the same game but now I have 2 people I have no idea how they play and don't talk until they get mad when we die?" Short answer: yes yes you are.

However I would also be lying if I didn't say I had matches where I had 2 players on my team that I played well with and at times won games with 300+ RP. There were even extreme cases where I matched with the same people I had gained with and I would go on a winning or top 5 streak. I also noted a significantly faster progression in ranked in this split than I had last split. Within those games I would say those random players were better than players I would find on LFGs or mutuals.

WHAT IS THE UNDERLYING ISSUE?

There are two I can clearly point out.

One, the team composition didn't change or balance out. Like we discussed, the test ultimately did not change the team compositions that you would see prior to the test. You would still get games with a stacked pred team or games with diamonds where the skill range is vast. In extreme cases, players in significantly lower ranks were being matched with high ranked teams which was not personally seen prior to the test.

Two, is that getting to diamond is just too easy. This is not a result related to the test but is something I've noticed more greatly with this test. This was an issue I saw early on upon my return to the game last season ago and why many people complain about "bad teammates" in their diamond games. The RP fee increase from Plat to Diamond is significantly higher compared to that of the jump from gold to plat making the climb not so difficult. Its not until you reach Diamond 4 that players start to realize that they now have to more greatly prioritize placement, communication, and legend composition in order to not go negative 65. It does not help that the fee doesn't change for every tier you gain within that rank division. Turns out we did have this system in the past but was changed to this current system of the same fee throughout the same division which I was surprised since this was my return since season 14 which did have this changing fee system.

ANY SOLUTIONS?

1. Pred Limit

A solution would be limit the amount of preds in 1 team to only 1. This could potentially be done for pre-stacks but would more than likely yield better results while in a solo queue environment as it would disperse out the amount of preds in the game and would spread them out across multiple teams allowing for playing field to be a bit more balanced in terms of the skill composition. Possibly creating multiple cases of teams having 2 above average diamonds/masters with a pred and having a better fighting chance with a better player on everyone's team

2. Increase Difficulty in Diamond progression

I'm not entirely sure how I would adjust the rank as -65 is already a good spot. Reverting to the old system wouldn't entirely make sense, it was changed for a reason. Possibly scaling the RP cost in the previous ranks would be a good place to start just to allow up and coming players understand those important fundamentals early on so that once they reach diamond they are not taken by surprise as to why the game is difficult. I've heard of people saying introducing another rank above diamond which would have a higher cost like -80 would be a good place to start but then again we'd just making the grind already too long and that's considering we got the rookie ranked a while ago which didn't really need to exist to begin with.

Bonus: KP and Placement

I've also never understood why kills/assists are scaled by placement rather than scaling them when the KP occurred. Why is a KP earned in the beginning of the match valued as much as a KP in the endgame. Wouldn't it make more sense to the game that I was able to not only place smart and get good placement but to also get a kill or assist late into the game where those points and gunfights matter even more rather than just getting a wipe at the very beginning and play passive/rat my way to the endgame to still be scaled the same amount of points?

FINAL REMARKS

We still got a few days of this solo queue and see how it will finally end. Who knows if Respawn will actually do something with this data and if further tests will occur. I will continue to play during the test and see if I can make my way to masters again and even with luck to pred for the first time! I've always enjoyed apex, I always felt like the competitive scene and ranked feelings is the best out of all the ranked BRs I've played and I would like it to improve for the whole player base. Apex is an amazing game and I want more people to comeback to it with an amazing experience. This was in no way me being completely negative or saying the test was flawless, its simply observations and personal takes based on those experiences. I would love to hear your voice on this and see what you think. Having a discussion is always the greatest way for things to change for the better!

Thank you for your time, legend!

TLDR: The Solo Queue test has not yielded significant results (improvements) in the matchmaking and has made us go back to our original problem and at times a worse experience. I'm optimistic that improvements can happen but we'll have to wait and see

BACKGROUND

Hey Yall!

As many of you know earlier this week, Respawn started the solo queue test for Ranked for players Diamond and above for the next 2 weeks or until their data collection is done. The main problem that they try to nail are pre-made teams more specifically 3-stacked preds that roll through the lobby. In theory the test seems too good to fail, you level out the playing field by making it so that everyone has to play with people they don't know, communication can be hit or miss, and the skill levels are balanced in a way where every team has some bad players and good players in them. This has however resulted...somewhat true

I was able to progress from Plat 1 to Diamond 2 on my own as of the making of this post just for reference. I was able to solo queue to Diamond 1 last split but 3 stacked to finally reach Masters.

THE TEAMS/EXPERIENCE

In the games I've played since the test I was able to queue with people of my own rank, good we are off to a great start. There were extremely rare cases where I was able to get a pred or a masters player on my team, also not strange as this has happened in the past. I've also occasionally got plats on my team which was common and I didn't think was out of place from my experience. In the beginning hours and day of the test the lobbies there were significantly more plat teams in the matches. Its normal that a plat gets into a diamond lobby but not this many, at times being 8+ plat teams and more than likely the diamond teams coming out on top. Towards up until today and more recently however, there have been cases of now 9 pred teams with even extreme cases of 2 plat teams being in the same match. This is what caught me off guard and made me question why is Respawn putting a plat into a pred lobby, this has never occurred in my experience prior to the test. So 9 pred teams, seemed extremely high and I thought oh maybe its just a pred and 2 diamonds/masters that's why there's so many. To my shocking surprise after I was third partied by one of them I spectate and find out that I was killed by a 3 pred stack. Maybe this was an outlier, maybe they got lucky to end up all in pred? Nope, unfortunately its common for preds to queue together which is actually been part of the same rank queue. If you're diamond you get diamonds, if you're masters you get masters, if you're pred you get preds. With now this in mind I asked myself, "Aren't we just playing the same game but now I have 2 people I have no idea how they play and don't talk until they get mad when we die?" Short answer: yes yes you are.

However I would also be lying if I didn't say I had matches where I had 2 players on my team that I played well with and at times won games with 300+ RP. There were even extreme cases where I matched with the same people I had gained with and I would go on a winning or top 5 streak. I also noted a significantly faster progression in ranked in this split than I had last split. Within those games I would say those random players were better than players I would find on LFGs or mutuals.

WHAT IS THE UNDERLYING ISSUE?

There are two I can clearly point out.

One, the team composition didn't change or balance out. Like we discussed, the test ultimately did not change the team compositions that you would see prior to the test. You would still get games with a stacked pred team or games with diamonds where the skill range is vast. In extreme cases, players in significantly lower ranks were being matched with high ranked teams which was not personally seen prior to the test.

Two, is that getting to diamond is just too easy. This is not a result related to the test but is something I've noticed more greatly with this test. This was an issue I saw early on upon my return to the game last season ago and why many people complain about "bad teammates" in their diamond games. The RP fee increase from Plat to Diamond is significantly higher compared to that of the jump from gold to plat making the climb not so difficult. Its not until you reach Diamond 4 that players start to realize that they now have to more greatly prioritize placement, communication, and legend composition in order to not go negative 65. It does not help that the fee doesn't change for every tier you gain within that rank division. Turns out we did have this system in the past but was changed to this current system of the same fee throughout the same division which I was surprised since this was my return since season 14 which did have this changing fee system.

ANY SOLUTIONS?

1. Pred Limit

A solution would be limit the amount of preds in 1 team to only 1. This could potentially be done for pre-stacks but would more than likely yield better results while in a solo queue environment as it would disperse out the amount of preds in the game and would spread them out across multiple teams allowing for playing field to be a bit more balanced in terms of the skill composition. Possibly creating multiple cases of teams having 2 above average diamonds/masters with a pred and having a better fighting chance with a better player on everyone's team

2. Increase Difficulty in Diamond progression

I'm not entirely sure how I would adjust the rank as -65 is already a good spot. Reverting to the old system wouldn't entirely make sense, it was changed for a reason. Possibly scaling the RP cost in the previous ranks would be a good place to start just to allow up and coming players understand those important fundamentals early on so that once they reach diamond they are not taken by surprise as to why the game is difficult. I've heard of people saying introducing another rank above diamond which would have a higher cost like -80 would be a good place to start but then again we'd just making the grind already too long and that's considering we got the rookie ranked a while ago which didn't really need to exist to begin with.

Bonus: KP and Placement

I've also never understood why kills/assists are scaled by placement rather than scaling them when the KP occurred. Why is a KP earned in the beginning of the match valued as much as a KP in the endgame. Wouldn't it make more sense to the game that I was able to not only place smart and get good placement but to also get a kill or assist late into the game where those points and gunfights matter even more rather than just getting a wipe at the very beginning and play passive/rat my way to the endgame to still be scaled the same amount of points?

FINAL REMARKS

We still got a few days of this solo queue and see how it will finally end. Who knows if Respawn will actually do something with this data and if further tests will occur. I will continue to play during the test and see if I can make my way to masters again and even with luck to pred for the first time! I've always enjoyed apex, I always felt like the competitive scene and ranked feelings is the best out of all the ranked BRs I've played and I would like it to improve for the whole player base. Apex is an amazing game and I want more people to comeback to it with an amazing experience. This was in no way me being completely negative or saying the test was flawless, its simply observations and personal takes based on those experiences. I would love to hear your voice on this and see what you think. Having a discussion is always the greatest way for things to change for the better!

Thank you for your time, legend!

In exchange for no more pred 3 stacks im now getting people that have never press the shoot button or just love swinging people in the open with no regard for positioning or team composition. When they say be careful for what you wish for they are so right. This has been a horrid experience ive already lost 700 RP in the past 4 hours due to horrible teammates not having my back whatsoever. Ranked might just be doomed entirely

Just for some background is I come from 8k hours from Warzone playing on a low sens with a 0.8x ADS multiplier with the "dynamic" response curve and have 2k on Siege with also playing a low sens and a 0.7 ADS multiplier. I've played many different shooters and I don't think I ever had a problem with recoil control and tracking on other game other than Apex.

I started apex on 4-3 classic with no deadzone and left it as is for years and left me with my aim "sticky" unfortunately when it comes to close range engagement I find myself having to find against my own aim to properly track enemies or even whiffing entire magazines due to overcompensating. I've also noted that in this game you don't need to pull down on the stick as much but because of playing many shooters that require you too it left my shooting below my target and my thumbs simply move the stick too much and I can't gently pull down like others can

I've recently been tweaking and playing around with the sens and even ALCs to try out popular such as 4-1 linear, 4-3 linear, and 4-3 in ALC with a mid response curve.

What I can take note is that when I play on linear I overcompensate my shots and ends up to me whiffing on long range but leaves my close range with a bit better tracking which solved a problem but created one that I didn't have. It also left me with worse stick drift as on Classic I never had any drift.

Advanced setting of that of 4-1 linear with per optic bleed through felt nice as my aim was sticky at all range however I felt it to be too slow so if in the case I had a situation where the guy is for example axle q'ing or simply just strafing a lot it was a struggling to keep my sight on that person. Turning up the ADS values made it so I overcompensate again and made easy recoil guns like the r301 or hemlock harder to control.

Getting tired of all these issues I simply went back to 4-3 classic as my muscle memory on those settings was just perfect but at that point we were back to square one.

All advice is greatly appreciated!

What could be some suggestions of trying to find that middle ground of being able to having good tracking at close, stickiness at long range, and also combat my issues of not being able to gently pull down

TLDR: Im getting better teammates solo q than on LFG

Just for reference last split was my first season back since season 14 and given its been a while I looked for people to play on the official apex discord. Fortunately i was able to reach Masters for season 28 split 2.

Unfortunately with this season I havent been able to make much progress and had been hardstuck d4.

Out of curiosity yesterday I said let's solo q. Not only was I dropping higher kill games but my random teammates which had NO mic NO coordination just simply doing their part by shooting their gun and q'ing and they as well had a handful of kills EVEN PEOPLE IN GOLD AND PLAT were helping me wipe Diamond and Master teams.

In the past 2 weeks I was hardstuck playing with people who couldn't even shoot their gun or even use their kit even with all the communication. And somehow these randoms do that and I went from D4 all the way to mid D2 in the span of 6 hours without ever saying a word just simply pinging and stacking with these randoms.

I am in no way shaming the people over at the apex discord or LFGs in general but I somewhat am starting to believe that the majority in the community was either boosted or just ratting their way to the top 5 and now that the RP cost is demanding they depended on people to help them get KP or even the win. With the later implementation of mandatory solo q for diamond and higher i believe this is going to show who TRULY deserves to be in diamond and higher which is a net positive change for the competitive experience

TLDR: Im getting better teammates solo q than on LFG

Just for reference last split was my first season back since season 14 and given its been a while I looked for people to play on the official apex discord. Fortunately i was able to reach Masters for season 28 split 2.

Unfortunately with this season I havent been able to make much progress and had been hardstuck d4.

Out of curiosity yesterday I said let's solo q. Not only was I dropping higher kill games but my random teammates which had NO mic NO coordination just simply doing their part by shooting their gun and q'ing and they as well had a handful of kills EVEN PEOPLE IN GOLD AND PLAT were helping me wipe Diamond and Master teams.

In the past 2 weeks I was hardstuck playing with people who couldn't even shoot their gun or even use their kit even with all the communication. And somehow these randoms do that and I went from D4 all the way to mid D2 in the span of 6 hours without ever saying a word just simply pinging and stacking with these randoms.

I am in no way shaming the people over at the apex discord or LFGs in general but I somewhat am starting to believe that the majority in the community was either boosted or just ratting their way to the top 5 and now that the RP cost is demanding they depended on people to help them get KP or even the win. With the later implementation of mandatory solo q for diamond and higher i believe this is going to show who TRULY deserves to be in diamond and higher which is a net positive change for the competitive experience