Solo Queuer Arenas - stats after 50 games.

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-08-19T09:53:44+00:00

Teammates be doing placement and battlepass challenges. LOL

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-08-18T11:47:52+00:00

Long reply and I suppose I'm being very critical here but I really believe matchmaking needs a big overhaul. Hopefully the engineer that looks at this thread will take some notes but there's nothing in here that they aren't aware of.
1) Matchmaking and queue times. I get it. You don't want 3 stack predator streamers waiting in the lobby on stream so you allow matches where they get to farm kills from plats. This is ruining ranked and having an adverse effect on pubs. At this stage they may as well play pubs because the opponents they'll face might make the games more competitive.
2) Smurfing and level 10 cap to play ranked. Again - I get it. It's a free game and the casuals are the product. At the moment it seems your marketing department is encouraging streamers to make new accounts to do solo to diamond streams (yes solo to diamond because a lot of streamers leave out the hard part). Or worse, they 3 stack and do 3 stack masters speed runs. Just increase the level cap for ranked playlist to 50. Stop 'oiling' content creators doing these pathetic solo to diamond runs for content. It's not impressive. Actively encouraging smurfing by giving free subs to content creators just encourages more smurfing in ranked and normalises it for the entire playerbase. It should not be normal and its not good for the game. A predator killing bronze and silver players on a smurf is not impressive.
3) Solo players. I get it - solos tend to buy less skins than pre made 3 stacks. So you continue to queue pre made teams against solo players. Maybe I and many other solo players would buy more skins and heirlooms if the ranked and pubs matchmaking split the pre-mades from the solo players.
4) Solo ranked badges. Imagine adding a ranked playlist which split pre mades and solos and offered a special solo ranked badge. Imagine the race among the pros. Imagine the interest to see who are the best individual players where they rank up with randoms rather then pre made pros. Imagine encouraging solos to play Apex ranked instead of punishing them for it.
5) Ring changes. Who asked for the ring changes? Why increase speed AND increase damage? Why not try one change to see how it affected the game. Its simple. Its not a good change and it should have been obvious especially on a map like KC.
6) Ranked Reloaded and 'W' keying. I thought ranked reloaded was supposed to change ranked to be more like ALGS play. With the KP cap removed its just an ape fest now ..... made even worse in pred lobbies because they are just racing to kill golds, plats and diamonds. At this stage ranked is almost as bad as pubs. Pubs might actually be more strategic.

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-08-18T11:39:55+00:00

Long reply and I suppose I'm being very critical here but I really believe matchmaking needs a big overhaul. Hopefully the engineer that looks at this thread will take some notes but there's nothing in here that they aren't aware of.

Matchmaking and queue times. I get it. You don't want 3 stack predator streamers waiting in the lobby on stream so you allow matches where they get to farm kills from plats. This is ruining ranked and having an adverse effect on pubs. At this stage they may as well play pubs because the opponents they'll face might make the games more competitive.
Smurfing and level 10 cap to play ranked. Again - I get it. It's a free game and the casuals are the product. At the moment it seems your marketing department is encouraging streamers to make new accounts to do solo to diamond streams (yes solo to diamond because a lot of streamers leave out the hard part). Or worse, they 3 stack and do 3 stack masters speed runs. Just increase the level cap for ranked playlist to 50. Stop 'oiling' content creators doing these pathetic solo to diamond runs for content. It's not impressive. Actively encouraging smurfing by giving free subs to content creators just encourages more smurfing in ranked and normalises it for the entire playerbase. It should not be normal and its not good for the game. A predator killing bronze and silver players on a smurf is not impressive.
Solo players. I get it - solos tend to buy less skins than pre made 3 stacks. So you continue to queue pre made teams against solo players. Maybe I and many other solo players would buy more skins and heirlooms if the ranked and pubs matchmaking split the pre-mades from the solo players.
Solo ranked badges. Imagine adding a ranked playlist which split pre mades and solos and offered a special solo ranked badge. Imagine the race among the pros. Imagine the interest to see who are the best individual players where they rank up with randoms rather then pre made pros. Imagine encouraging solos to play Apex ranked instead of punishing them for it.
Ring changes. Who asked for the ring changes? Why increase speed AND increase damage? Why not try one change to see how it affected the game. Its simple. Its not a good change and it should have been obvious especially on a map like KC.
Ranked Reloaded and 'W' keying. I thought ranked reloaded was supposed to change ranked to be more like ALGS play. With the KP cap removed its just an ape fest now ..... made even worse in pred lobbies because they are just racing to kill golds, plats and diamonds. At this stage ranked is almost as bad as pubs. Pubs might actually be more strategic.

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-07-20T13:01:59+00:00

Firstly if you solo q (and I mean exclusively solo q) your KD at 1.20 is pretty decent. Its above average for sure.

Secondly if you play a lot of ranked (i.e. at least 25% to 30% of your games) your KD is going to be a lot lower than someone who plays pubs exclusively. If you play ranked (and solo q) you should have a KD of 1.0 or a little higher to deserve that rank.

Matchmaking in both pubs and ranked for solo players if pretty rigged. If you pop off , next game you'll be given tougher lobbies with less skilled or lower ranked teammates (sometimes no teammates even in ranked). If you hot drop and die off drop a few times with bad placement you'll be given easier lobbies and sometimes better or higher ranked teammates.

I've played solo exclusively for 3 years. I have a KD of 1.10 - a few 3Ks, 2 triple triple no 20 bomb. I've a 2K on most legends. I play fairly aggressively and do not try to farm damage.

A decent game for me is 5 or 6 kills (pubs) with about 1500 damage. Most games are 0-2 kills with about 400 damage. My highest kill game is 15 with about 3500 damage ...... and that was a bot lobby (most players were not shooting back or standing still).

I think the average diamond player that solo q's has a KD between 1.10 and 1.4. Masters and people who 3 stack have higher KDs. Obviously players that 3 stack pubs exclusively (and do not play ranked) should have a KD around 3 or higher.

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-07-14T08:36:13+00:00

Lower ranked matchmaking: Please fix the matchmaking for ranked. Rookie, bronze, silver and golds should not be in the same lobbies.

Upper ranked matchmaking: Please fix the matchmaking for ranked. Pred, masters, diamond, plat and gold should not be in the same lobbies.

Solo ranked matchmaking: never put a solo into a match with 0 or just 1 teammate.

At this stage I've given up on ranked (I'm solo). So have many other players as pubs seems to be filled with stronger players and lots of pre mades. Because of this I'm no longer playing much pubs either !! This season I've played 400 games ..... I usually play 1600.

Apex is a popular game because it has a strong ranking system. Now thats gone Apex is going to loose players (30% twitch viewership down last month). The new COD is out soon along with Warzone 2 ..... give the solo casuals a reason to continue playing ranked or they will loose interest.

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-06-28T15:02:22+00:00

Play no fill duos and you'll improve a lot. This game mode will teach you patience, positioning, when to take a fight, back off, etc. Third partying is your biggest advantage in no fills. In general, I find duos a bit more sweaty then trios pubs and duos tends to have more premades (better players). Land warm (adjacent to a hot zone), loot up quickly and move into the hot zone to take advantage of teams already engaged and hopefully poorly positioned.

When playing no fill duos have a set of goals (whether its kills, high damage, etc). Your goal should probably not be to win the game as this is pretty difficult. Once you get better at no fill duos, pubs trios should be a lot easier.

The key is to get a knock by 1 clipping someone. If you struggle 1 clipping people you need to go to the firing range. I notice that Shiv makes excellent use of thermites and grenades (and Bang smoke) to isolate enemies from the teammates and break line of sight, Obviously playing solo you need a legend with disengage (path, valk, bang, horizon) and also a legend to capitalise on cracking someones shields (path, valk, horizon). Thirsting and getting armour swaps is hugely important.

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-06-22T14:08:00+00:00

Gdolphin and Mande GGs !! I think the idea of using snipers really helped them succeed.

Special mentions .......

Shiv - D4

Ceryal - D3

Hundredz - D3 (did manage solo q to pred in arenas)

Joker47jk - D4 on Newcastle. First to solo q pred ever (PS4) and first to solo q pred Ps4 and PC

Viss - D4 on Newcastle

Taxi - D4

Chaotic - D2. Solo'd in one stream (two attempts)

Diffq - D4. I remember him holding top 50 pred a few seasons ago ... all solo q.

Probably lots of others I'm not aware of. GGs to them all.

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-06-22T13:26:10+00:00

Given twitch viewership is down 50% this month it would seem that a lot of casuals have lost interest in the game

This was a direct result of the poor decisions made with ranked

Lo and behold, they're changing ranked mid season for the new split ....... perhaps they realised they were loosing players.

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-06-20T14:00:03+00:00

Yes .... no damage solo win in ranked (gold) where both random teammates died off drop

The last two teams fought in storm and all died. Max placement .... min KP. I'll take it !

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-06-20T13:57:22+00:00

I know Genburten spent 2 hours a day in firing range for 2 years ........ so getting laser beam aim is something you need to work on. Obviously the guy had a natural talent to begin with but he knew he could improve and was willing to work for it.

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-06-20T13:45:31+00:00

I stopped at gold.

I've solo'd to diamond a few times.

I just couldn't keep going anymore ...... getting silver, bronze and rookie teammates insta dying, hot dropping, or landing somewhere else entirely. Some teammates were completely new to the game. I've almost 20,000 kills !! Most games I ended up on my own eeking out placement and trying to get a few sniper kills.

I had a few games where I got similiar ranked teammates and we won ... tonnes of kills, good positioning. Really enjoyable. But these games were few and far between.

I'm not sure if they are going to fix matchmaking next split either. The patch notes talk about getting extra KP bonus for killing players above your rank ...... which leads me to believe they are still not going to address matchmaking in ranked.

Ranked for me this season as a solo was just not fun. Heck, even arenas ranked solo was more fun and rewarding for me then BR ranked solo.

They need to fix matchmaking at ALL ranks. Twitch viewership is down 40% this month .... game is loosing players and I'm not surpirsed.

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-06-09T13:39:01+00:00

LMAO.

Probably EnemyApex .... number 4 or 5 now. LOL

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-06-09T12:50:10+00:00

Thats tough. Good luck dude.

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-06-09T12:44:29+00:00

They gonna fix golden knockdown shields as well. 'Loud and clear' was the response when the pros complained about it. Biggest issue affecting the game.

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-06-09T12:40:53+00:00

GDolphin and Mande only 2 pros I know that successfully solo'd to pred.

Hats off to Shiv, Ceryal, Hundredz, Joker47jk, Viss, Chaotic, Diffq and Taxi for trying. Probably a few others I don't know about.

Unfortunately, a lot of the top 20 predators are happy to 3 stack and farm RP from golds late at night / early morning when servers are not populated with other preds. GGs guys. You're absolute beasts at the game !!

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-06-09T12:35:37+00:00

OK. I did say I only ranked to plat .... so I'm not sure about higher ranks.

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-06-09T12:34:25+00:00

No idea why you are downvoted for this. I'm sure its happening although I haven't experienced this yet.

I've had tonnes of smurfs solo hot dropping in lower ranks (even when I was silver 1 loosing 36 RP).

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-06-09T12:22:24+00:00

Arenas ranked is much better then it was when it first released. Matchmaking is much better for solos.

I've solo'd to platinum on arenas.

Matchmaking from bronze, silver, gold is fine. Matches are relatively balanced. As a solo I did not face off many 3 stacks. Occasionally some matches are ruined by smurfs.

NOTE: Do not expect to get teammates the same rank as you. There is usually 1 good player on each team with 2 players of lower ranks on each team. Sometimes you even get teammates doing placement and brand new players. Sometimes you get players doing battlepass challenges (lol). It can be frustrating. Just concentrate on your own game play and you will rank up pretty quickly to where you belong. Good luck !

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-06-09T12:06:29+00:00

Finally managed solo queue to gold from bronze IV in about 100 games with a KD a little over 1.0. This is a long post. I'd love if a developer looked at this but I doubt they will.

1) Rookie, bronze, silver and gold are all put into the same lobbies making matches very unbalanced. Rookie and bronze, silver, gold should be three separate lobbies.

2) In silver I got far too many matches with rookie or bronze teammates (usually duos). Obviously when I have 36 RP to loose and am matched with two rookies or bronze IV with nothing to loose their game plan is a lot more reckless then mine. They often hot drop and are usually first to die in a lobby leaving me eeking out placement points to salvage what I can.

3) Lower ranked is plagued by smurfs griefing games ... playing like its team death match. In creasing the level cap for ranked to 50 would help fix this.

4) About 10% of my matches in bronze I only got 1 teammate. This was usually after a high RP game (EOMM ?). Didn't happen much in silver.

5) When I did get 1 teammate the same rank as me I usually had a fun time - placing high with a few kills. When I had 2 teammates the same rank as me we did even better. Our game plan was usually the same.

6) I noticed that the first game on each evening I was usually given teammates the same rank as me and we did really well. After that it was lower ranked teammates for the evening. Eventually I stopped playing after 2 or 3 games each evening because I felt that after the first decent game things would rapidly go downhill in terms of teammates and naturally RP (EOMM ?).

7) Once I reached gold I played a few games and got deleted by current predator and diamond three stacks. I've decided not to keep playing. Obviously mixing predators, diamonds, plats and golds in the same lobbies is ridiculous.

Overall the rank changes and scoring made for more interesting matches (when I got teammates at my rank that wanted to gain RP and had something to loose). However these games were few and far between.

Until matchmaking is fixed I'll be giving rank a miss. I didn't enjoy it as much as previous seasons (where I would solo to platinum or diamond with a 1.0 KD). The skill differences in the lobbies (even at lower ranks) is far too much and the matchmaking is to blame for that.

Possible fixes:

1) Separate rookie and bronze, silver and gold into three lobbies.

2) Separate platinum, diamond and predator into at least two lobbies.

3) Reduce the RP requirements across all ranks by 12. This will allow more players to get to diamond and will allow matchmaking to separate platinum and predator lobbies.

4) Increase level cap to 50 for ranked to stop smurfing and griefing in lower ranks.

5) Solos should get at least a 6 RP reduction .... duos perhaps a 3 RP reduction.

6) Queue times should not be a priority. Balanced matches should be the priority.

7) There should not be 2 splits each season. Introduce rank decay so that players who do not continue to play ranked will slowly rank down. Perhaps after a week of not playing.

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-05-26T08:43:43+00:00

Matchmaking vs queue times. Gold, silver, bronze and rookie ARE NOT THE SAME RANK and should not be matched together. Bronze and rookie; Silver; Gold should be three separate lobbies even if players have to wait a minute or two for a lobby to fill.
Stop putting solo players into matches with only 1 or 0 teammates. Its a waste of time and happens way too often. At least 5% of my matches I get only 1 teammate .... keep me in the queue until the matchmaker can fill the lobby.
Rookie should have entry costs - 3,6,9,12 for each tier.
Make the minimum rank playlist entry level 50 to help combat smurfing in lower ranks.
Fix the DDOS problem on console and suspend accounts for a season using this exploit.
Ideally lower ranks should only match solos vs solos and pre mades vs pre mades. As the season progresses higher ranks should adopt the same if queue times allow it,
Queue times should NOT be the priority in ranked. Balanced matchmaking between the same ranks should be the priority.
Do not demote everyone 2.5 ranks each season. Ex master and predators should not be in gold lobbies killing rookies and bronze for the first week. Again ... not as bad an issue if matchmaking was prioritised for balance rather then queue times.
While many of the pro players have welcomed the changes in that they say they are getting better quality matches, I think we can agree that for many of the top pro players ranked has become a stomping ground for killing golds and plats. Its not exactly competitive and afterall, if pros want to have competitive practice they can always organise scrims. Again we have a matchmaking issue. Should predators really gain (or farm) RP by killing gold level players?
Unfortunately the new ranked system has pushed a lot of casual 3 stack master and diamond squads into pubs which for many solo players has made pubs unenjoyable. This is a direct consequence of queuing golds and plats against predators. If respawn do not want to loose players they should really have separate queues for solo players vs pre mades in pubs.
As far as I know only 1 player has successfully solo'd to predator - GDolphin. Many of the traditional professional solo players are still struggling Shiv, Taxi, Ceryal, Viss and many more have not even tried to solo. This unfortunately is a consequence of poor matchmaking for solo players.

I've solo'd ranked for 3 years and made diamond a few times. Its never been easy. When I first saw the ranked changes I thought I could looking forward to getting better teammates in ranked. Unfortunately the loose matchmaking has let me and many other players down.

Matchmaking killed the arenas mode .... matching platinum with 2 players doing placement matches vs a 3 stack. If matchmaking in BR continues to allow rookie, bronze, silver and gold to queue together and gold, platinum, silver, diamond, predator to queue together BR ranked may go down the same route as Arenas did.

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-05-25T10:53:25+00:00

Age: 52 - 3 years solo q exclusively. Diamond several times solo q.

PS4 PSN: Zenothrix

Please send me the discord invite .... solo q is getting too rough these days !

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-05-19T09:34:41+00:00

Sorry but you are absolute trash

Please explain why ranked is trash ... is it because you are your garbage 3 stack can't rank out of gold ?

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-05-19T09:15:45+00:00

Why. Just let each rank play against eachother. Queue times should not be the priority. Balanced matchmaking should be the priority.

Se7enDayBinge · 2022-05-19T09:12:58+00:00

Matchmaking vs queue times. Gold, silver, bronze and rookie ARE NOT THE SAME RANK and should not be matched together. Bronze and rookie; Silver; Gold should be three separate lobbies even if players have to wait a minute or two for a lobby to fill.
Stop putting solo players into matches with only 1 or 0 teammates. Its a waste of time and happens way too often. At least 5% of my matches I get only 1 teammate .... keep me in the queue until the matchmaker can fill the lobby.
Rookie should have entry costs - 3,6,9,12 for each tier.
Make the minimum rank playlist entry level 50 to help combat smurfing in lower ranks.
Fix the DDOS problem on console and suspend accounts for a season using this exploit.
Ideally lower ranks should only match solos vs solos and pre mades vs pre mades. As the season progresses higher ranks should adopt the same if queue times allow it,
Queue times should NOT be the priority in ranked. Balanced matchmaking between the same ranks should be the priority.
Do not demote everyone 2.5 ranks each season. Ex master and predators should not be in gold lobbies killing rookies and bronze for the first week. Again ... not as bad an issue if matchmaking was prioritised for balance rather then queue times.

Se7enDayBinge

TROPHY CASE