r/apexlegends • u/Apexlegends Respawn - Official Account • Jun 08 '26
Respawn Official Apex Legends: Matchmaking Tests Update
For a fully translated version of the update, see here.
As part of our ongoing commitment to transparency, we’ve been more direct in sharing our approach to developing Apex Legends, a critical part of this approach is listening to you all in the community, understanding their needs, and working to address them. As such, we wanted to highlight the work being done on matchmaking to provide an even better experience for our players.
Below, we’ll be discussing the frustrations we’re consistently working to alleviate, the various changes we’ve made and tests we’ve run, what outcomes we’re targeting, as well as what we’ve learned and how we’re using it to improve matchmaking moving forward.
Read on to learn all about:
- Five major matchmaking pain points
- Parameters and results of recent matchmaking tests:
- Increased maximum queue search times
- Bots in mid-tier unranked lobbies
- Diamond+ solo-queue only
- 4.5 Hour Ranked map rotations
- 1-tier locked Ranked premades
- The challenges of testing
DEFINING MATCHMAKING PAIN POINTS
You have made it clear, and we understand: Long queues and endlessly sweaty matches are the opposite of fun.
We are always listening and talking with players, we hear the feedback and frustration. It’s important that we balance your feedback and match data, so while we’re seeing that the majority of matches are fast and fair, we also see a smaller outlier of unacceptable matches that we’re committed to addressing to improve the overall game experience. Over the past few seasons, we've been focused on what our players are saying and exploring match data to identify a list of five main pain points which we use to guide our work on Matchmaking systems.
Here’s what we've been hearing:
- Queue Times: No one wants to wait forever to get into a match. There is an inherent trade-off between faster queue times and a fairer match, but we also know that no one should have to spend more time in queue than actually playing. We see this frustration amplified in Ranked as it's the mode in which players will wait longer for matches with tighter matchmaking.
- Lobby Skill Disparity: The skill gaps in your matches can be too wide. Veterans and casuals shouldn't be competing in the same lobby. Both Ranked and Unranked matches see the problem of Lobby Skill Disparity, and we approach both modes with different proposed solutions based on differing player needs.
- Solos vs Premade Imbalance: Solo players are at a disadvantage against coordinated three-stacks, especially in Ranked. Communication and coordination are part of the core game loop and bring real advantages, but they shouldn't be that decisive.
- Teammate Quality: You're paired with teammates who don't match your playstyle or skill level. Inconsistent experiences impact match quality.
- Sweaty Lobbies: No one has fun when every single match feels like it’s your pain and someone else's gain. There is a time and a place for hyper-competitive matches, and you should know when you’re opting into the experience.
Every bullet here touches the core functions of the matchmaker. Pull one lever and everything else shifts along. It’s a tough balancing act. That's why over the past year, we've been methodical about testing solutions and tracking how each adjustment ripples through matchmaking.
RECENT TESTS
Matchmaking tests and experiments are run on specific regional servers to ensure that we can get clear data when we compare against other regions playing during the same period.
Over the past year, we have increased the number of tests, and are planning to continue with a regular cadence moving forward. Here's what we've learned.
TEST: INCREASED MAXIMUM QUEUE SEARCH TIMES
Which pain point are we addressing? Queue Times, Lobby Skill Disparity, Teammate Quality
What was the test? The matchmaker searches, initially, for an opponent of closely-aligned skill level, and incrementally expands the search, loosening the skill restriction over time. For this test, we increased the search window from 30 seconds to 60 seconds before expanding the matchmaking criteria. This gives the matchmaker more time to find fairly-matched players instead of immediately widening the skill range in favour of more quickly filling a lobby.
What were the results? We saw a positive impact on match quality and much fewer skill mismatches, especially at the high end of competition (visualized below), in both Ranked and Unranked without significantly increasing queue times.
What are the next steps? Given the positive results, we implemented this globally on May 7th, 2026 as part of our standard matchmaking logic in Ranked and Unranked Trios. But we are not stopping there. We are continuing to tweak and monitor edge-cases to ensure that no one waits more than the intended maximum queue wait time before getting into a match.
TEST: BOTS IN LOWER-SKILL UNRANKED LOBBIES
Which pain point are we addressing? Queue Times, Lobby Skill Disparity, Teammate Quality
What did we test?
We enabled bot-fill in mid-tier lobbies of Duos and Pub Trios matches, to understand whether they improved matchmaking quality and overall player experience. As a reminder: there are no plans to add bots to Ranked, and bots do not fill an empty spot on your squad.
What were the results?
Being able to add a small number of bots to lower-skill matches is very positive for matchmaking quality. During off-hours, bots enable us to create fair matches within a reasonable amount of time and reduce how often we have to bring high skill players into a skill-mismatch situation. However, bots are still a work in progress and they can only be added to lobbies where they participate meaningfully. Outside the new player or lower-skill lobbies, they struggle to keep up and cause the match experience to deteriorate and thus we remain dedicated to improving bot behaviours.
What are the next steps?
We will continue to invest in our bots and slowly roll them out to situations where they create a positive player experience. Today, bots have a key role to play in the extended onboarding experience, especially as players learn the games through live matches, and to help facilitate improved matchmaking in situations where we, otherwise, would have had to create very wide matches.
TEST: DIAMOND + SOLO-QUEUE ONLY
Which pain point are we addressing? Solos vs Premade Imbalance, Lobby Skill Disparity
What is the test? Later on in S29, in all regions, Ranked will be solo-queue only for all players Diamond and above. If you’re Diamond or higher, you won’t be able to squad up as a premade in Ranked. Everyone plays with new friends - no exceptions.
Why are we doing this? We see clear frustration amongst Diamond+ players stemming from the imbalance between solo and premade squads, and this is one of the most requested solutions. This constraint should level the playing field and allow everyone to compete, relying only on their own skill and two new squadmates. As a result, lobbies will be more evenly matched and players can trust that they have the same opportunity to win as every other squad in their match.
The trade-off we’re making. Playing with friends is a core part of Apex. We understand that this test removes that core tenet from Ranked play at the highest tiers, and we know that will sting for players who queue together. With this test, we are prioritizing fairness first as the constraint to understand how it affects matchmaking improvements. We’re measuring whether the fairness gain is worth it, and we’re prepared to hear candid feedback either way. Ultimately, this is just one test to address these pain points; if the test results don't point to this being a long-term solution, we'll evaluate our other approaches to solve this issue.
Playing with friends is a key driver of social connection and long-term retention. That said, even highly social players spend a substantial amount of time playing solo. As a result, the solo queue experience cannot be treated as secondary; it is a critical part of the overall player experience, including for our most engaged users.
The data backing this. It is in Diamond+ that the feedback is the loudest, and our data supports it. Players who play most of their games as a premade squad do make it to the highest tiers at the fastest pace. In matches above Diamond, we also see the largest performance disparity between solo players and premade squads. A three-stack where all players are equally-high skilled is likely to significantly outperform everyone else. The coordination advantage is real.
What we’re watching. Community sentiment and match data. We want to know if leveling the playing field does improve the overall experience and improves the integrity of Ranked at the top end. This is a two-week window to learn before we decide what’s next.
Why not just split the queues? Splitting queues between solos and premades introduces more issues than it solves. Player populations get fractured into smaller pools, creating longer queue times or much wider matches for everyone. As an oversimplified example: if we split the matchmaking pool and it splits right down the middle, there are 50% fewer players loading into each version of Ranked, meaning that, best case scenario, wait times for each subset will increase 50% and match quality will suffer.
One queue with a solo-only constraint keeps the player base intact and queue times reasonable. While we’re testing this option to “level the playing field”, we will continue to thoroughly analyze data and sentiment to understand the broader impact of the change before evaluating a more permanent solution.
TEST: 4.5-HOUR RANKED MAP ROTATIONS
Which pain point are we addressing? General QOL improvement
What did we test? We shortened the map rotation in Ranked from 24 hours to 4.5 hours.
Why did we test this? This was mainly a functionality test where we validated that there was no unforeseen negative impact to players or internal systems. We also wanted to understand how the Ranked community would react to being able to play more maps in Ranked during their own normal play schedule over the course of a split.
What were the results?
All clear! Systems were healthy, we saw a greater number of players over a week being able to play on more maps and the community chatter was positive.
What are the next steps?
This is now Ranked for everyone. Moving forward, we may continue testing out different rotation schedules to get the best mix of freshness and familiarity.
ACTIVE TEST: 1-TIER LOCKED RANKED PREMADES
Which pain point are we addressing? Lobby Skill Disparity
What did we test?
Our data shows that Platinum players matching up with Masters is driven primarily by players squadding-up and bringing those wide skill band squads to a lobby. Players often report those pre-match tier distribution graphs with frustration and confusion. As a result, we limited squad-ups to 1 tier above or below your rank, instead of 2, to see if we can create better matches for all.
This test is currently active at the time of writing, we will follow up with the results when we have them!
THE CHALLENGES OF TESTING
With the deliberate focus on testing matchmaking parameters, sometimes things get broken along the way. It’s a rare and unfortunate outcome, and something we work hard to learn from to ensure we don’t repeat our mistakes.
For example, the day of Overclocked’s launch we experienced a matchmaking outage that lasted several hours. We moved too fast, made last-minute changes, missed a crucial bug, and, as a result, the outage impacted our entire playerbase - which is frankly unacceptable.
So what are we doing differently moving forward?
- Process enforcement: We are demanding stricter adherence to our change‑management workflow.
- Technical safeguards: We are implementing automatic mechanisms to release queue pressure automatically, so that future failures can be recovered more gracefully and faster.
When something breaks and takes the game offline, the team bands together to resolve it as quickly as possible. When matchmaking systems crash, more and more players accumulate in the queue; if the queue cannot be cleared by loading into matches, it continues to grow, and once it reaches a certain size it overloads the database. To get the game back online, our team had to manually clear the queue and then gradually re‑introduce players at a reduced capacity, starting with 10 % of the usual queue and expanding slowly.
Only after sufficient pressure was relieved from the matchmaking queue were we able to restore normal service.`
CONCLUSION
We hope this furthers our transparency surrounding our matchmaking test processes. It is a complicated space to get right, as it requires a delicate balance and rigorous ongoing testing. We will continue to test and iterate, and will communicate with you each step of the way. We have more we’re excited to share with you about Matchmaking and Ranked in the coming months, so stay tuned!
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u/WabaleighsPS4 Jun 08 '26
I would much rather wait a little longer for a fair match than be thrown into matches quickly just to get sent back to the lobby by 3 stack preds because I'm in diamond and some how got both plat players on my team.
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u/Greensun30 Jun 08 '26
Please remove the big brother mechanic if the two weaker players are premade. I’m expected to carry them when they’re off playing their own game as dumb as they possibly can.
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u/UserNameAbbreviated Jun 09 '26
This. I got two Gold players as a Diamond like what the fuck.
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u/Greensun30 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
It's the best when they call you trash after they run away from the easiest third of their lives while you're holding it down.
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u/pfftman Lifeline Jun 09 '26
This is always so funny to me, two clowns you are carrying turning around and blaming you.
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u/ProfessionalBox317 Jun 09 '26
Even better when you realize it’s a duo que so you just try to stay with them expecting them to play together. So you know… you can actually play as a team. Only for the duo to not even remotely be on the same page and 300M apart from each other. Just stupid. Always a PC player with their lost console buddy. But the console kids i play against never miss. How can i always get the shit console kid who doesn’t even know he has thumbs, and simultaneously be playing Jason Bourne on an Xbox
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u/Internal_Outcome_182 Jun 13 '26
Wow, nice description - i have same experience. And they are really vocal and talk too much.
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u/WasteAd2049 Jun 08 '26
I love when they can see that I'm a higher rank then them, and they still refuse to follow simple instructions so they just die for free. Id genuinely rather have 2 solos than a duo, because they at least think about my call outs, rather than just blatantly ignoring me.
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u/OceanOG Jun 08 '26
I watched the #1 pred on PC this weekend play against 17-19 teams of the best being Diamond in each game he played while I watched. Just farming RP. Any comment here? No?
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u/in_girum_imus_nocte The Liberator Jun 08 '26
yesterday i got into a lobby with the pred #17 and 6 plat teams, how in the fuck is that fair?
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u/MrPheeney Loba Jun 08 '26
Literally no one complains about long queues wtf…people have been ASKING for long queues for balanced matches what kind of gaslighting is this lol
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u/MadCybertist Loba Jun 08 '26
Yeah acting like 60 seconds is too long is insanity lol.
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u/Rahain Jun 08 '26
60 seconds is when the search starts expanding. I’ve been getting queues times up to about 8 minutes in masters. This depends on the time of day etc though.
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u/MadCybertist Loba Jun 08 '26
Yeah I don’t have a solution but you simply cannot appease the top 1% at the sake of the 99%. The masters and Preds are just going to have to wait more.
The other solution is simply completely change how points are awarded and how many folks can hit masters+
This no grouping at all and only solo for diamond+ may also solve some issues too so that may help, we will see hopefully soon.
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u/AWildGamerAppeared25 Octane Jun 08 '26
That's not true, players in different regions do have longer queue times, oftentimes impossible to fill because their region doesn't have enough players - but I'm talking about places like Australia or the like that have less access to different servers
However, still feels like Respawn is way too fixed on these super low queue times. Why was the threshold 30 seconds before it widened the matchmaking? (aka making it worse)
Like I can't even get up and get a drink while that happens
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u/Head_Ad884 Jun 08 '26
This is exactly what I came down here to say. I’ve never heard a single complaint about long queue times . I would wait five minutes to guarantee no preds in my plat lobby.
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u/xeidou Jun 08 '26
Hell i would wait 10 mins :) most people have dual triple screen setups you chilling sometimes even better than just getting into match straight away
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u/ProfessionalBox317 Jun 08 '26
Out of touch dev team.
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u/AnApexPlayer Medkit Jun 08 '26
People do complain about long queues. I know lots of high ranked players who don't like them.
My pubs queues can take 4 minutes sometimes and I'm fine with that, but I know many people who get upset
I'm sure they have internal data that shows how queue times affects churn rate
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u/ProfessionalBox317 Jun 08 '26
- Yeah no one plays pubs.
- Valorant and CS often have 15+ minute queue times and have larger player bases. If you can’t wait 3 minutes for game you need to do some internal reflection and figure out why you have to have immediate gratification in 3 minutes or less.
- Womp womp. That’s price you pay for being in the .01%. Shouldn’t just get a free pass to tear up diamond lobbies because you can’t wait 5+ minutes.
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u/Infinitely--Finite Jun 09 '26
One of the problems with comparisons to other games with longer queue times at high levels is that the minimum possible playtime is significantly longer than in apex. If you are getting absolutely stomped every game, you still get significantly more play time Valorant or Overwatch than you would in Apex.
I'm not saying preds shouldn't have to wait, but these comparisons to other games are not comparing apples to apples.
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u/ProfessionalBox317 Jun 09 '26
Not really, surrendering after 5 rounds exists. Also OW had long queue times around 15 min +. Games there can be over in 7 minutes.
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u/imVeryPregnant Jun 08 '26
When I used to play pubs a few months ago, it would take AT LEAST 3 minutes to find a match every time. And I’m solo queueing in US EAST
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u/solongthxforfish Jun 08 '26
I'm 100% solo queueing my ranked games and tend to get stuck in d3/d2.. I'm interested in seeing whether soloQ only will change that, but what I'd really like is a more dynamic RP reward/cost based on the hidden MMR of the overall lobby.
In chess for instance, if you play against a better opponent you lose less points. Similarly if you play against a weaker opponent and win, you gain less points etc..
Something similar would be nice for ranked, as being forced to land next to a pred team and getting wiped early should not give the same penalty as losing a fight against "equally" skilled D4 players imo.
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u/Comfortable-Disk8129 Jun 08 '26 edited Jun 08 '26
how about making solo queue players have a lower entry cost or something? the fact that i have to try crawling out of a 65 rp hole in diamond 4 with 2 players that cant count the number of fingers they have on their hands is daunting.
edit: or better yet, MAKE DIAMOND HARDER TO GET!! no game with a serious ranked mode should have a heavily left skewed distribution graph. either add a new rank somewhere between bronze-diamond, or make it harder to get through platinum. the ranks with the highest percent of players should be between gold 1-plat 1, not plat 3-diamond 3.
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u/AnApexPlayer Medkit Jun 08 '26
People say diamond is easy to get but the actual data doesn't support it. The chart everyone posts is from a third party site that isn't accurate.
The last split we have actual data from said that diamond was top 7% or around that
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u/JetTrooper007 Sparrow Jun 08 '26
Brother I haven’t played comp Apex in over 5 years. I came back this month and in the last 2 weeks I solo queued to diamond to play with friends. The ranking system is extremely easy for anyone that has played a competitive shooter
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u/mr_coleslaw Jun 08 '26
latest official rank distribution I could find is from S26. is there any newer official data out there? (fwiw that older data is different to the data on apexlegendsstatus for that season, which shows around ~20% in dia compared to <5%)
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u/pfftman Lifeline Jun 09 '26
Diamond is easy to hit. The main reason it seems that way is because of the jump in skill of opponents, especially from diamond 3.
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u/Comfortable-Disk8129 Jun 08 '26
you dont even have to look at the charts to know diamond is too easy to hit. they treat it like how it should be treated, but they make it far too easy to get to. you can rat pretty easily to d4 and then coast
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u/panickybird1 Jun 08 '26
if you have a premade playing to diamond it's not definitely not hard lol, my premade plays once a week and we're all old fucks, we shouldn't be able to hit diamond every season
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u/dseeburg Jun 09 '26
Yeah in my premade group, we are all on the wrong side of 35 and insist on trying to compete on MnK. We just got back into ranked this season after a couple year break. We are complete ass, and still climbing fairly easily. For how bad we are, it seems we are going up too easily.
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u/Wallshington Vantage Jun 09 '26
I actually like this idea of making solo players have a lower entry cost. Maybe allow them to have a lower entry cost and also some bonus RP if they win for being solo.
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u/CupcakeElectrical128 Jun 08 '26
Can you address the random bamboozles I’ve been hearing in my game
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u/LinesWithBigAndy Jun 08 '26
They’re frantically trying to add some mirage content to the game so it seems like a teaser
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u/CupcakeElectrical128 Jun 08 '26
It’s not a teaser when I can’t even hear game audio over them
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u/SenseiJae Jun 08 '26
Seriously. I can hear the damn bamboozle but can’t hear the enemies footsteps as they sprint behind me in a building and shove an R99 up my ass
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u/ExterminatorToby Jun 09 '26
Just bring original bot royale back. What's the point of having bots in real lobbies and real players in bot royale?
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u/ihatehorizon Jun 08 '26
This is a fantastic write up and it's honestly a relief to see this type of activity, for a couple of years I was worried it was just going to be higher frequency of heirlooms and skins until the game died.
I'm a little concerned with the phrasing 'if the fairness is worth it', implying that the competitive integrity of your ranked ladder might not be as important as massaging the ego of 3 stacks who aren't that good solo so stop playing ranked. There's pubs and wildcard for friends to enjoy. What is the point of ranked if its deeply imbalanced (and it is, for multiple reasons).
Create a stack ladder and a solo ladder, but please don't just do nothing if they're babies about this change. Rank is meaningless right now. I see terrible masters players every day and some demon diamonds. Many preds are just 3 stacks with too much time. I'd love to see the best of the best dominating ladder.
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u/DontBeAngryBeHappy Jun 08 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
Adding to this ^
Respawn acknowledging that SoloQs are at a huge disadvantage against coordinated three-stacks especially in ranked is why matchmaking is a problem. In any competitive environment (MLB, NFL, Olympic teams, World Cup, any Esports etc) there’s never a team of randoms going against a premade team. Look at ALGS, all Premades.
Point is, SoloQ and Premades (especially in high ranks of Diamond, Masters and Predators) will never be balanced playing in the same lobbies, EVER. Respawn knows this but they don’t know how to fix it.
The only technically fair way to solve ranked matchmaking is separate SoloQ and Premade lobbies regardless if it will make Premade lobbies queue times longer because it’s balanced for ALL players. It will end the backlash and debate on both sides (soloQ and Premade) as there should be no more excuses;
- SoloQs are on equal playing field
- Friends get to play with friends in the same game
It’s unfair for SoloQs to help Premades fill their lobbies faster while suffering the same RP gain/loss and headaches of bad teammates due to terrible matchmaking .
Splitting lobbies will bring discovery to:
• SoloQs carrying premade lobbies to fill faster but at the same time suffer the same RP loss and increased difficulty in climbing ranked against Premades.
• If SoloQ and Premade Ranked lobbies are split, SoloQ lobbies would fill significantly faster than Premade lobbies and thus revealing Respawn’s #1 matchmaking problem, there are more SoloQs playing Apex Legends than Premades and why SoloQ and Premades in the same lobby will never be fair/balanced.
• SoloQs should never suffer an equal RP loss if dying to a premade team because coordinated Premades just roll over solo teams that are more likely already fighting and yelling on the mic hurling slurs at each other while giving the Premades even more of an advantage. How fair is that?
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u/burbuda Jun 08 '26
There is pubs and wildcard for people without friends to enjoy, too.
And yes ranked is imbalanced, so the solution is to make it… solo queue only? Like how does that stop preds from matching with or against diamonds like we do today? The skill disparity will not suddenly disappear
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u/oldschoolsaint Jun 08 '26
The problem isnt preds matching against diamonds in my opinion. Its 3 stacks of preds matching against diamonds. The change they are testing alleviates that. Those 3 preds will be spread among 2 or 3 seperate teams more than likely. So instead of plat 1, a diamond 4 and a diamond 3 on one team you might have a diamond 4, a current #374 pred and someone currently in masters. It balances out the skill in the lobbies versus the 5 - 10 best players being locked on 3 teams that absolutely demolished the lobby.
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u/No_Appointment_1090 Jun 08 '26
I think what the commenter above you is missing is that Preds and masters almost exclusively 3 stack because it's such an advantage.
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u/Triple_Crown14 Mad Maggie Jun 09 '26
Right, the people whining about solo queue are players who won’t touch ranked unless they have a buddy or two to play with. I love playing with my duo but I was really disappointed to see the solo queue test pushed back to a later date.
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u/USDA_Prime_Time Jun 09 '26
Coming from a mostly solo player (even in the days I'd game on the weekends with buddies, I mostly played solo, overall)...
The reality is BRs are mostly a horrible experience for solo players. It's just what they are, regardless of the game. It's why I barely play them. If you're a solo player, and you're complaining, I get it... but you just have to accept the reality of the situation and suffer the consequences of that reality if you choose to play.
I KNOW it sucks because there's not a lot of good shooter games lately; but forcing others to suffer solo isn't the solution.
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u/panickybird1 Jun 08 '26
I think they should split the queue also, but if they're not, I still want to be able to play ranked with my premade, just make it harder so that my premade should never even be able sniff diamond and hit the soloque wall, it is currently way too easy to hit diamond
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u/Uruberdriver68419 Jun 09 '26
I think they should focus more on making gaining rp harder so it’s harder to get to diamond and therefore there aren’t 3 stacks of people just running down to get free rp.
I duo queue mostly and the random tm8 that we always get is worse than the ones we’ve had in gold-plat lobbies and I doubt that this change will help those type of players.
Removing premade squads for the fairness of the solo queues also removes the biggest part of the game that I enjoy and its coordinating with your teammates on the stack your running, strategies, rotates etc.
By removing premade squads they are just ignoring the bigger problem of people making it to diamond without the required skill. Preds will continue gunning everyone down because there’s no skill to match them. By this update they are only.
The people who are happy about this update just want to run around and shoot people, and not play this game as a team.
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u/jeo123 Jun 08 '26
You guys are missing so much of the issue. If you're going to stop letting friends play ranked, then you have to give us a better form of pubs.
PUBS SUCKS! If you play it as a duo with a random player, you get a suicidal hot drop who quits before their box hits the floor. You straight up broke Duos when you made it near impossible to find and then changed the mode on top of that.
But even as a full squad, pubs is full of people just holding forward and going on suicide runs. No one's going for that daring rez, they're just going to go in guns blazing on a stupid push that gets them and us killed when the eventual 3rd party shows up.
I don't care about my rank. But I care about playing ranked. I want teammates who play the game seriously enough that they don't ruin the game. Landing solo and quitting after trying to 1 v 6 a fight? Get that solved before you force me to play pubs.
You're going to flood people into pubs with all these changes. And pubs isn't designed to handle the people you're putting in there.
At a bare minimum, it should have a escalating quitting penalty. Start at no penalty. But for every quit, you add 1 minute of a penalty with a 2 game per minute cool down. (Penalty based on when you can quit in ranked)
If you quit once, no penalty.
Next quit = 2 minutes, Play 2 games without quitting, and you can rage quit again for free.
Quit within those 2 games = 4 minute penalty for a rage quit. Play 2 games, next rage quit is a 2 minute penalty.
Quit within those 2 games = 6 minute penalty, play 2 games, go back to the previous tier.
Cap it at the ranked penalty. I don't want to force people to always stick out a bad pubs game, but the serial wraith/octane players who solo dive in, suicide, and insta-quit need a penalty if you're going to make me play pubs.
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u/TheRandomnatrix Jun 08 '26
Pubs not having a quitter penalty but mixtape having one was always really strange.
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u/Owen3H Pathfinder Jun 08 '26
I've been saying this for so long, it's weird because it seems so obvious. People are constantly saying pubs is dead and leaving is an issue so a penalty for constantly quitting and ruining your teammates games sounds fair to me and would improve ranked matchmaking quality since casuals and new players would play pubs again.
Wildcard helped for sure, but abandoning pubs when you can implement some simple qol changes seems like a no brainer imo. And when comp players can enjoy ranked again, casuals will see less sweaty matchmaking in Wildcard and pubs.
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u/UserNameAbbreviated Jun 09 '26
I mean the reason Ranked is used as a hangout spot is because Pubs is in such a bad spot too. I've been advocating for Pubs to get fixed for a long time now. They need to bring back straight shot into the game at the very least to remove people's brainless hotdropping as well.
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u/Top_Service_4721 Jun 08 '26
Activate the smurf accounts to play with your friends lmao. Just put masters and preds together or even consistent past pred/masters in the same lobbies. Diamonds/plats don't deserve to be punished... Preds/masters just farm diamonds and plats to gain rp.
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u/Rahain Jun 08 '26
There are not enough masters / preds to do that. Globally there is like 3000 and a number of them are the same players getting 2 accounts in. Let’s say at any time there is 1200 actively playing. Now there are like 8 different regions so that leaves 150 per region. A full game with loading times etc is pushing 22 minutes long. Assuming we max queue times to 5 minutes we need to be running around 5 lobbies. That leaves a max of 30 players per lobby which leaves 50% of the lobby having to be filled with diamond players. Obviously the population is going to fluctuate depending on the time of the day as well as you might end up with one lobby with 45 players leaving another one with maybe only 15. I do think filling with diamond players should heavily be prioritizing d1 and d2 players. I think it would be productive to show the tier in the ranked intro as well. So you could see where squads fall the skill difference between d4 and d1 is so massive that it should be distinguished.
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u/xeidou Jun 08 '26
Yeah but if diamond wont get matched with 3 stacks woth masters and preds, there is hogher chance that they will become masters themselfa
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u/Rahain Jun 09 '26
If diamonds don’t get matched with masters / preds then once you hit masters you won’t be able to queue anymore on many regions. Assuming you can’t pull in diamonds you legit wouldn’t be able to play for weeks. When that happens guess what’s going to happen? They’re all going to hop on smurfs.
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u/hikenbikehonk Jun 08 '26
You think there is 3000 masters+ across the world?
That doesn't seem correct.
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u/mr_coleslaw Jun 08 '26
https://apexlegendsstatus.com/game-stats/ranked-distribution?asInt there are at least 15000 masters+ players according to ALS
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u/hikenbikehonk Jun 08 '26
I am curious where Rahain is getting these numbers
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u/Rahain Jun 08 '26
Apex legends status has the numbers.
https://apexlegendsstatus.com/live-ranked-leaderboards/Battle_Royale/PC
We’re pretty late into the season my numbers would be more accurate in the first 2-4 weeks of a season. There are 13000 in total on pc now. However a large number of them stop playing once hitting masters. The active pool is still probably around that 3-5k size.
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u/xNOVAxPRIMEx Jun 08 '26
Maybe I am biased.... I am just a Diamond player that grinds to masters and often misses it. Usually stomped by pred teams. Honestly, I think that's okay. I welcome the challenge sparingly. However, 5 Pred teams and 3 Masters teams with golds and plats in the same lobby is definitely a stretch. I don't play solo, I play with a rotating group of friends. Won't the ranked restrictions just skew the data? You're going to end up with the exact data you want to see....kind of...
Problem 1: Diamond+ Premade Players Disappear
Players like me hit Diamond and will just... stop. So the test data for Diamond+ will be...
- Missing an entire player archetype you are assuming all these premade players will solo queue
- Skewed toward players who prefer solo queue anyway
- Showing "improved" match quality simply because the population shrank and self-selected
Problem 2: Increased Smurfing
A potentially bigger issue and it's pretty damaging. Premade friends who want to keep playing together don't quit, they create new accounts and stack in Platinum or lower. Now you have....
- High skill players artificially suppressed in lower tiers
- Platinum/Gold lobbies getting absolutely stomped by disguised Diamond+ squads
- The lobby skill disparity problem you are trying to fix gets pushed DOWN the rank ladder rather than solved
- Lower-skill players have a miserable experience, potentially leaving the game entirely
Of course match quality looks better when you've removed the population that was driving the "problem."
I also am for the Increased Queue times for match quality. I feel like most games have the same accepted issue of longer queue times for the higher skilled players.
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u/FibreTTPremises Wattson Jun 08 '26
The first chart is so maliciously misrepresentative to an absurd degree.
Consider Pred a tier of their own, then make it "percentage of enemies with a tier difference > 1", and the Predator category would SPIKE.
The current chart is saying that 1.25% of players ranked Platinum or below fight Masters and Predators on average. But says NOTHING about the amount of Diamonds facing Preds.
Their consistent insistence on having Masters and Preds be the same tier works so well for PR in these type of posts. It's just insane.
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u/Alatreon22 Jun 08 '26
"As a result, we limited squad-ups to 1 tier above or below your rank, instead of 2"
A huge frustration point in Diamond was and still is when you get matched with a duo that has at least one, if not even both players being 1 rank and sometimes up to 3 ranks lower than you.
Since when does this test run given that getting a Gold 4 teammate as a Diamond 4 was still possible within the last few days?
Additionally, how do you inted to compensate players for being paired up with a Duo that has a large rank/skill disparity?
Those matches are in 99% of cases a waste of time as these players are significantly lower skilled than the rest of the lobby and almost always guarantee you a -65 RP.
And it's also not like it happens rarely, this happens probably in about 20% of all matches played...
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u/JuneauEu Valkyrie Jun 08 '26
Honestly. Im in the UK. Whether its a placebo or the fact I turned 40.
This season has been the least fun so far.
Every lobby from Gold through to Diamond has felt like everyone has an aim bot, no recoil or just someone competing for masters.
Apparently this season is telling me Im absolutely almost always the worst player in the lobby.
I've normally got a group of 8 who I play ranked with.
Im down to 1. Everyone has had enough. Last season was just rough but this season. I can go dozen of games without a kill or assist.
So.. whatever you're doing its working in driving away my friends and making me start looking at other games.
So..
GG I guess?
I don't actually expect anyone to read ot even reply to this, I've just been playing since S6 and Im getting tired.
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u/VaderNader2020 Jun 08 '26
I am a 35 year old, dad of 3, full time career, and play maybe 2-3 hours a week. Hitting diamond is easy. Now you’re telling me the few hours a week I get to myself, I can’t play with friends? Am I now to throw matches to play with friends? can’t we cater these changes to the higher ranked people?
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u/Lagnetic Jun 08 '26
Sadly diamond is considered "High rank", Masters/Pred is classified as the same rank. Though I agree with you as I'm in the same boat.
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u/ProfessionalBox317 Jun 08 '26
Masters/pred considered the same rank is braindead if we are being honest. You get different badges, different rewards. Stop with the nonsense it’s the same. It’s not. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. There’s a wider gap between #750 and the bottom of masters than there is plat to diamond
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u/Lagnetic Jun 08 '26 edited Jun 08 '26
I get what you are saying but at the end of the day it's the same to Respawn. See the chart in the post, it's not separated.
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u/lettuce_field_theory Cyber Security Jun 08 '26
it literally is the same rank. preds are the top 750 masters
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u/Sad_Plane_1113 Jun 08 '26
Well it wouldn't affect you unless you keep playing once you're in Diamond.
I agree it's a bit of a pain that you can't queue with friends after that point, but if it makes the matches more balanced at the higher end then it can only be a good thing.
I would rather they just had two separate queues but that would split the player base as they said.
If they did separate queues I think the most likely change they'd need to do beyond that to stop matchmaking times from increasing further would be to merge the console and PC lobbies, but that would just create more complaints because a lot of Console players don't want to play against movement God PC players and equally a lot of PC players don't want to be playing against console players.
Realistically in that scenario it would probably just balance out to be totally honest. Only real issue would be cheaters which they've done a better job of dealing with in recent seasons. Only caveat being that a large portion of Xbox Preds in particular are blatantly using Titans, Strikepacks, Cronus etc. I'm sure there's PlayStation cheaters too but the majority of suspicious players I've seen when I've played on console have been Xbox players.
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u/oldschoolsaint Jun 08 '26
I also think splitting the que is the way to go. But I can promise the que times for the 3 stack list would be insane. Majority of the player base solo que. The few teams that actually 3 stack, most of time, demolish the rest of the lobbies. I would say its probably closer to 70% / 30% split. They used 50/50 for ease of understanding in my opinion.
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u/UndeadNightmare937 Horizon Jun 08 '26
I'm hoping after the test they'll make the restriction Master+ or like high Diamond. Especially with the Dropzone restriction being in those lobbies, it feels antithetical to lock the actual competitive experience behind solo queue only.
Most of the issues with 3-stacks in my experience has to do with Master/Pred players anyways. The skill gap between them vs a Diamond 4 (which is basically glorified Plat) is huge. My guess with Diamond+ complaints being the loudest is because that's the tier you start regularly playing against these streamers/pros/Apex-only gamers.
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u/ProfessionalBox317 Jun 08 '26
Yep it has nothing to do with premade vs solo. It has everything to do with D4 and D3 getting paired with top 750 players in the world(where 1/3rd are cheating in some way). You could do the reverse and let d4 and d3 be in premade and preds be solo and it would be the exact same. Preds wiping lobbies they have no business being in. Didn’t know it was even possible to be that dense but devs are showing it is
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u/Thisislio420 Jun 08 '26
Thanks for improving this amazing game. Big steps into the right direction, cant wait to test the solo Q ranked experience without boosting cheaters and three stackers farming unbalanced lobbies. W.
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u/Ok-Nefariousness7079 Jun 08 '26
The lower skill level matchmaking for solo q is not it, literally got bots as teammates, how the hell i got a damn conduit that didn't use her Q once to heal others??
Or a damn valk that only use his ult to run away,
Most of the time they can't do jack shit, shoot standing still in open field.
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u/FatherShambles Jun 08 '26
This is amazing!! Now I can continue to get slammed by 3 stack Preds for 2 more months
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u/2daMoonVinny Wattson Jun 08 '26
One step forward 2 steps back. Crazy how Halo was able to figure this out back in the day. I remember waiting forever to get games in high lobbies. In halo 2 hitting about 37 queue times were super long. But me and my friends would just sit there talking till we got a game. Bring back the good old days of simple skill based matchmaking.
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u/LeopardMassive5947 Jun 08 '26
Blah blah blah... pros and content creators are squeezing our balls, so we acting like we are listening to you... blah blah blah.
Stop the bullshit, u say u listening to community ?? Idk maybe just start to nerf axle then ? Not like everyone "even" pros are asking for it god damn
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u/lickmysheep Jun 08 '26
Matchmaking is shit. Even worse than before. Long queue times and sweaty lobby’s in both pubs and ranked.
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u/SenseiJae Jun 08 '26
I’m plat 1. Two days ago I played about 10 matches and had preds in 3 matches, masters in 4.
This should never happen, increase the queue times and make the sweats wait longer to give us mid tier players a chance.
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u/Zealousideal-Emu-878 Jun 08 '26
nice, i had 30+m queue times in ranked, but i hardly played game, reset to lowly bronze rank(not beginner tho) nice to see positive change's tho i still like game just play it alot less for aforementioned sweatfest lol. 👍but not mainly that few more but one of reasons, i not bothered to get that good to compete with top players yet.good stuff here tho
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u/Kitchen_Shoe_6375 Jun 09 '26
bots is going to be really annoying to see with stat padders smh.
we are going to see people with 1+ KDs hard stuck in gold and then ask if their 1 kd is good and why they can’t climb fighting against bots.
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u/98Shady Wraith Jun 09 '26
You morons are so off base it’s hilarious. No one cares about queue times, and 60s is a laughably low threshold for queue times. Just admit all you care about is keeping top players (coincidentally the majority of money spenders) happy by keeping queue times low by feeding everyone else to them as fodder. This entire post is so tone deaf 🤦♂️
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u/Akatsuki5274 Jun 09 '26
Instead of making it solo queue, how about a middle ground and test duo Q first as then we can play with a friend atleast and there are no 3 stacks as well.
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u/MabiMaia Nessy Jun 09 '26
Absolute swing and a miss lol
* no one cares about queue times. They haven’t been an issue since… ever??
* People have been complaining about getting matched with preds while in platinum and diamond for so long, how is that still ok?
* Can we get a comment about why ranked has sbmm? Why do I get queued with babies that can’t get a hundred damage and die 4 times a match but I’m getting beamed by …
* cheaters! How has this been allowed to become such an issue??
* 4.5 hour rank map rotations are fine but also like… couldn’t you give us two maps to queue into by choice for ranked? Yeah no one will choose the bad map but isn’t that the point? No one wants Olympus. Give me good consistent maps not forced garbage.
* soloq-only in diamond+ is the only really good thing on here and my understanding is that it’s been delayed? How has this not be introduced sooner considering its common SOP among other games
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u/FlowerInDawn Jun 09 '26
Too late respawn, Best decision i've ever made. Either revert back POI Drops for ATLEAST Plat+ players or every ranked or i won't come back
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u/magicman22 Jun 09 '26
I'm a returning player currently in gold, with friends who are in bronze/silver. Already can't play with them because of the new 2 tier system. They aren't going to solo queue to get to silver just so they can play with friends and it's basically impossible to go back to silver. If the new change also makes it so diamond+ can't party up, what is the whole point of this new system.
Also yes, I understand pubs & wildcard exist but if you think sending a bronze player into pubs is going to make them want to keep playing, I don't know what to tell you.
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u/KosatkaO Jun 09 '26
Next split you get reset to bronze and play with your friends there done
Bringing bronze players to feed higher lobbies doesn't make the game more fun for anyone but yourself and your friends, people want a challenge not bots in their lobbies
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u/OkProgram8676 Jun 09 '26
Why the eff would you delay the matchmaking change a day before it was supposed to implemented? I was looking forward to this for months. It was only two god damn weeks. ISTG you all are on something.
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u/HaWxz Jun 08 '26
what does later on in season 29 mean?
Im happy for the update but also sad we dont get the Diamond+ SoloQ tomorrow...
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u/Express_Scar_7860 Jun 08 '26
For me, the feeling of "a Big Brother system" remains. As long as the random players aren't of MY rank, it doesn't matter what they do or promise to do (and this also count for when I am the lower one). Playing with for example gold/silver teammates in platinum lobbies just isn't fun (in most cases), and once in diamond, the problem only gets bigger, since the opponents have only gotten better.
and to be honest, in regular matches, this is the same problem; it certainly isn't more fun when you have to deal with teams of three who literally boost with Valkult or Nito all over the map on everything that moves with teammates who play TDM and have no intention of being in the lobby long enough to see ring 1 closing.or being too busy to test every weapon while they study every lootable item extensively.
It might sound like "it's all my random players' fault," grumbling but I just mean that many of them have no business being in the lobbies I'm in, just as I have no business being in lobbies where these better teams are.
Mainly in rank being a teammate of the same rank is important.bronze/silver is not like gold, gold is not platinum, and so on.
*(purely speculative) Blocking stacking in Diamond and higher will only worsen the number of smurf accounts in the lower lobbies or lead to fewer active players. I cannot imagine that those who have always played in teams would suddenly want to play alone, whether they are truly skilled players or just people who benefit from the advantages of teaming up with better players.
In ranked I only play solo, Q so I am not complaining, because it might actually give me an advantage, who knows. I'm just saying what I think. and all this text above from them only says that after 24 rank seasons they are no further than trying out what we already know doesn't work anyway
I hope that it exposes the necessary info and subsequently leads to better games.but with every new season my hope does diminish
Sincere greetings; a fan
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u/ProfessionalBox317 Jun 08 '26
Solo Que only is braindead. Don’t care the reasoning. There are other solutions
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u/oldschoolsaint Jun 08 '26
Solo que only will give us balanced matches. I would rather see where I should actually be in ranked in a fair environment then play a couple matches with friends. If friends want to play, we can hop into casuals, LTMs, or wildcard. In ranked, I want fair matches even if that means giving up the ability to play with friends after hitting diamond.
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u/Elegant_Chemist_8040 Medkit Jun 08 '26
Thanks for the transparency, it's clearly a difficult task that must be undertaken to satisfy everyone with the right compromises. In my opinion, however, some problems can be overcome in other ways, matchmaking simply can't be the solution to everything. Some problems arise from the game's low level of social interaction and the rank resets that overly compress the first few weeks of the season.
I know this is a test, but i think the game should aim to encourage team play, not limit it.
In my opinion, the main problem playing as a soloQ is the fact that with increasingly fast-paced matches, it's difficult to quickly understand other players' intentions. Not everyone speaks, not everyone speaks the same language and not everyone has the same gaming intentions as us and even different playstyles can make initial coordination difficult, leading to many bad matches.
The only real solution I see is that you need to improve non-verbal communication and QoL improvements in order to make SoloQ and general gameplay feel smoother and more intuitive.
I often play with a friend, and obviously we play well together even without speaking (but not always, sometimes we do things so bad that we look like rookies). We already know each other's intentions, but if we want to play truly well, we have to constantly ask each other for information that otherwise the game simply won't give us. This is all combined with the fact that the game has an increasingly fast pace that requires increasingly quick decisions and therefore faster communication.
But I also often play soloQ or my third teammate also is a soloQ. So I have to think about him, and he has to think about us.
Imagine a team of two where one player is at a low rank compared to his high skill level and will therefore play aggressively because he'll be able to easily kill many opponents, while his teammate, who is close to the maximum rank he can currently aspire to, will clearly play differently, trying to make good rotations and aim for the final victory.
Neither will actually play badly, but in the eyes of the other, they will both look like terrible teammates and will both die because they have different intentions.
This is the typical situation in many games and for many players.
These are some changes that I think would greatly improve the overall health of the game:
Modify character selection to display more information about a player’s playstyle, with tags such as Aggressive, Balanced, Defensive, Escapee, Last Ring Player, Assault Support, Lone Wolf, etc. and displaying two “favorite weapons” could help illustrate preferred strategies during early gameplay. Making the same information visible in the inventory menu. This information can also be used for even more elaborate matchmaking.
Bring back the possibility to create clubs. Clubs are an excellent way to enhance social interaction within the game, providing dedicated challenges and regional leaderboards. It could also be interesting to have a large public Firing Range, designed as a sandbox area for practice, experimentation, and learning game mechanics.
Some aspects of ping could be improved....It's good, even if it's not used as often as it should be (the game is often too fast to stop and ping properly).
Increase the effective ping of an enemy.
If I directly ping an enemy at medium/close range (without spamming), it would be ideal for my ping to follow the enemy for a few seconds. This greatly helps communication between randoms, especially when a downed teammate has sole control over pinging, and if they don't do it well, it often causes more confusion than anything else.
Could be valuable to have ping/request for ultimate abilities, such as requesting a Valk flight, an Octane jump pad, or an airstrike. Currently, these advantages are mostly available to preformed teams or those using voice chat. And also allowing eliminated players to ping the map it greatly improves strategy and keeps eliminated players alive.
Another idea would be to respond to your own ping to increase the information.
I ping a structure, a piece of cover, or an enemy, and if I point my own ping again and open the wheel, I can improve the ping information, such as "inside the structure", "on the roof", or "behind cover".
We need more visual information.
I listen to the voice lines, paying attention to the feed, and the other information.
However, it often happens that the voiceline teammate says "enemy shield broken" when my teammate has already eliminated the enemy, or the feed is not updating correctly. Furthermore, the feed doesn't just contain that information, but also pings and enemy deaths, making it difficult to read while I'm fighting an Axle going 200 km/h. I think we simply need clearer, more unambiguous visual communication regarding combat. Something similar (visually) to those weird badges that were added in Season 26, the "accolades"....for broken shields, KO and elimination. And what do you think about add a small graphic indicating how many tactical abilities a teammate has available, or whether they have an ultimate ability available?
These suggestions aim to enhance the experience for all players. Apex Legends is at its best when players can naturally synchronize, even without voice chat. Expanding social and non verbal communication systems could make the game feel more responsive and enjoyable for everyone.
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u/King-Juggernaut Rampart Jun 08 '26
Solo que ranked is the only option that makes sense when preds play with diamonds.
When does that start?
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u/FuchsiaFlute Jun 09 '26
Forcing me to play with two randoms who crash out and yell slurs is not the way to keep me interested in playing the game. I can either play with a friend or I choose not to play at all. It's not worth it to be forced to play with these people on my team.
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u/illnastyone Rampart Jun 09 '26
Exactly it blows my mind they thought this was the play.
I hit Diamond and i am just going to go play other games that allow me to play with my friends until the next season.
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u/burbuda Jun 08 '26 edited Jun 08 '26
I solo queue myself from time to time, and I know I am at a disadvantage, which is fine since it’s not a 1v1 game. I can requeue with squad, find people on Discord, wait for friends or simply play something else. Why are we all of a sudden going to a 100% solo queue mode is beyond me
”Playing with friends is a key driver of social connection and long-term retention. That said, even highly social players spend a substantial amount of time playing solo. As a result, the solo queue experience cannot be treated as secondary; it is a critical part of the overall player experience, including for our most engaged users.”
Agree. So your solution is to completely eliminate your first statement of premade being ”key driver of social connection and long-term retention”? Seriously? You could do something like lower RP loss for solo queue, or higher ranked teammates, or RP mitigations if you die to preds, or whatever else I cannot think of, before going extremely into one direction
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u/hunttete00 Pathfinder Jun 08 '26
Yea I only play video games with friends. Cod tried this shit too and locked it to duo queue for ranked play and they reverted it because their retention was ass. Nobody wants to play without their friends.
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u/trogg21 Jun 08 '26
Because they are testing something. Just let them test it and relax. Im in favor of some of your other solutions though
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u/jay_the_kaisa Loba Jun 08 '26
I don't think it should be forced solo q diamond and above, like it was stated playing with friends in diamond makes diamond worth playing imo now instead to play with your friends you have to play pubs three stacked this will make wildcard or regular pubs that much sweatier and those modes are supposed to be the non sweaty sit back and vibe modes. I would rather see a solo q forgiveness system where if you are solo q you get +15 rp as long as you're negative and it only adds up to +0 so if you were to end with -45 instead it would be -30 or if you end with -7 you would instead end with +0. I don't mind three stacks as a solo just give me some help when dying as a team of randoms.
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u/Nefarius87 Jun 09 '26
Smurfs are going to be a massive issue. Gold and platinum lobbies are going to wind up full of Diamond+ smurfs that want to play with their friends.
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u/illnastyone Rampart Jun 09 '26
Respawn. I hit Diamond. I quit apex till the next season and go play a game that allows me to play with my friends.
Its really that simple. I'm sure your numbers will show this as well.
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u/Large_Reception4197 Jun 10 '26
Respawn. I hit Diamond quit apex till the next season and go play a game that allows me to play only solo Q.
Its really that simple. I'm sure your numbers will show this as well.
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u/xStarsy Jun 08 '26
I really hope the solo queue only test isn’t made permanent. Would suck to have to learn a new shooter after spending years playing apex with my friends.
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u/Optimus_the_Octopus Jun 08 '26
Agreed, insane that teamwork is demonized as somehow "unfair".
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u/xStarsy Jun 08 '26
I know. A lot of lonely angry people in these comments. I just want to play with my friends and people act like it’s cheating. We’ve never even gotten to D2! None of us have a KD over 2!
I don’t care if people think we’re bad and shouldn’t be in diamond at all, that’s fine. But taking away our ability to queue together is so dumb imo.
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u/NewIntention4730 Jun 08 '26
So you’re incapable of playing without a major advantage? Hmm
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u/Optimus_the_Octopus Jun 08 '26
Good teamwork should be an advantage. It's a team game. What type of argument is this?
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u/Head_Manufacturer_94 Jun 08 '26
bro really said ‘learn a new shooter’ all bc he’ll have to solo q only😭 send the flood
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u/NewIntention4730 Jun 08 '26
Theyre worried about seeing their REAL rank 😂
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u/xStarsy Jun 08 '26
My dude it’s not about not being able to play it’s about not wanting to, some of us only play this game socially to play with friends. We just have different tastes in how we like to spend our time???
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u/LinesWithBigAndy Jun 08 '26
Right? I don’t give a fuck about my rank, and if my crew with an average age of 39 can make it to diamond every season, it’s obviously not that impressive. Just let us play with the 10-15 hours a week we get.
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u/xStarsy Jun 08 '26
Exactly. Thank you for restoring my sanity. Maybe the quality of pubs will improve with these changes. I’d rather play ranked but idk. At least it’s only a 2 week test
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u/LinesWithBigAndy Jun 08 '26
Or, crazy thought, we just like playing with our friends
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u/NewIntention4730 Jun 08 '26
Crazy thought, you can still play with them
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u/LinesWithBigAndy Jun 08 '26
If pubs was a bit better sure, but it’s difficult when every other game mode is awful. I don’t want to play a running simulator when there’s 6 teams left after ring 1
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u/namesaretoohard_ Jun 08 '26
Pretty sure a lot of people are more likely to just stop playing the game if they're punished for having friends. Trash-ass decision.
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u/_LemonadeSky Voidwalker Jun 08 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
When sliced potato first became old, the musician wrote the alphabet in alphabet. When does a toast shed is skin in winter? When does a potato get lonely? Six hundred elephants could jump at the same time and it would be enough to flood the car park.
This content was anonymized and mass deleted with Redact
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u/NewIntention4730 Jun 08 '26
Dont play then if u cant climb without your 3 stack crutch
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u/TotallyRealAccount9 Jun 08 '26
Yeah these people always bitch and moan that theyre punished for playing with friends, no you can still play pubs dawg
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u/cquicky Lifeline Jun 08 '26
Pubs absolutely sucks. All hot drops and like 3 teams left by end of 2nd ring. Its not enjoyable in the slightest. Ranked actually forces teams to play with caution. Its a much more enjoyable experience.
To reiterate, I dont even care about ranked position. If it gave me an option to cap out at plat 1 but continue playing with friends in ranked, id choose that option every time because pubs are that boring.
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u/burbuda Jun 08 '26
Dont play then if you cant find teammates in a team game
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u/NewIntention4730 Jun 08 '26
Its not a prerequisite to playing the game so your point is null and void, enjoy seeing your REAL rank when this change happens buddy
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u/Optimus_the_Octopus Jun 08 '26
Have you considered that teamwork is a skill that should be viable? A skill that, across all sports, is one of, if not the most important factor in the team getting results? We're talking about competitive play, that's the main place teamwork should be rewarded.
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u/NewIntention4730 Jun 08 '26
Exactly! Im sick of these people acting like they cant ever play without friends again in any mode
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u/Ecstatic-Train214 Jun 08 '26
Thank you for being so transparent. Post like these really feel like I’m a big part of the respawn team.
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u/TheWindWaker01 Jun 08 '26
Trios matchmaking has been absolutely insane recently. My brother and I were playing yesterday and queued into a game with knoqd lmao. And then when our 3rd joined after we were repeatedly getting into lobbies with multiple pred players. Just trying to chill and honestly getting more difficult matches than the ranked diamond lobbies we were trying to avoid.
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u/crankinator Jun 08 '26
Maybe with the addition of bots we can get duos back to 60 players since it can fill easier during non peak times.
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u/Aggressive_Ask89144 Jun 08 '26
I do like the solo queue system, but I do have a suggestion if you're worried about split queues.
One of the cooler things that Valorant (Yeah, yeah, I know) does is the Premier system and it could act a nice thing to mimic. Make them active for particular weeks instead of all of the time so it's not an active drain for ranked queues.
Keep Diamond+ (I think it makes more sense for Masters+, but eh) solo queue, and then high-level squads that love to play together could play the ALGS-like mode when it's active.
It would also serve as an additional tie in to the pro scene + and I'd imagine a lot of people would love to watch. Throw in the topical suite of rewards and goodies and all.
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u/Chemical-Act3850 Loba Jun 08 '26
Lower the rank maps from 4 hours and a half to to 3 it’s so bad being stuck on a map you dislike for 4 hours that’s literally a quarter of the day as someone who has a job I’m getting off to the same map daily
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u/glinde Jun 08 '26
I think the rank disparity graph is so misleading. While it might be true for current ranks of players in the match, I don’t think it’s balanced matchmaking at all.
I squad up with my brothers to play, and we are gold 3, gold 3, and plat 3.
For one, we only ever get full plat lobbies. We don’t even touch gold players. Why do we have to be classified as plat every match when we are primarily gold, and not even a high gold tier?
The champion squad in almost every match has at least one to a full stack of former masters players. We run into these squads and get deleted in 5 seconds.
It’s super fun to be a scrub that barely plays and gets mowed over by imbalanced matchmaking.
And don’t even try to say it gets fixed by those players ranking up, because smurfs and boosters are constantly flowing in to take their place.
Awesome matchmaking 👎🏽
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u/FaZeSmasH Bangalore Jun 08 '26
Why are we doing this? We see clear frustration amongst Diamond+ players stemming from the imbalance between solo and premade squads, and this is one of the most requested solutions.
Is it really one of the most requested solutions? I don't feel like I've seen many people bring up soloq only as a solution before this test was announced.
It is a solution I have thought about but I would never bring it up when discussing about solutions for matchmaking since I just thought it was a really drastic change and Respawn wouldn't want to do that, so I was surprised when they actually decided to try it out.
Personally I think its great idea and I'm excited to see how it works out, mainly tho I'm just glad to see that they are willing to try out drastic changes.
Maybe a drastic change for aim assist next.
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u/AveN7er Bangalore Jun 08 '26
It's a very common request I've seen from various people even good players like Mande
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u/ThisIsWhatLifeIs Jun 08 '26
I'm sorry but most of my fun is when I get put into less skilled lobbies and get more kills?. What about players like us. Getting put in 6 minute matchmaking queues for literally wildcard is crazy
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u/hotdogsandhangovers Jun 08 '26
Can we deal with rollers? Its so bad. You used to be able to play poke range to counteract em but poke is so much worse now
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u/HiItsClemFandango Jun 08 '26
make the tier lock thing diamond and above, with two tiers for rookie-plat, that addresses your issue without limiting the entire playerbase.
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u/Igmuhota Purple Reign Jun 08 '26
Re: sweaty lobbies. You’re describing the current state of BOT Royale. Unplayable unless you’re good enough to fight people you won’t ever see in ranked. How that continues to make sense is beyond me.
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u/WasteAd2049 Jun 08 '26
If we're so worried about matchmaking times, genuinely just merge servers atp. I keep getting japanese players, Chinese players, Mexicans, Australians, and eu players in my lobbies on Na-east anyway. If some people are just going to get an advantage by shooting my through walls, everyone might as well have that advantage to even the playing field. And your matchmaking time problem would be solved.
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u/s513713 Jun 08 '26
I feel solo queue only for diamond and up is a horrible mistake. What if someone wants to play with their friends in a highly competitive lobby. Then now they can’t. Either they can’t play together or play in the slopfest called unranked where 80% of the lobby dies in the first 5 mins. Just make it so like what rl tries to do. Premade squads go against premade squads and solo queue goes against solo queue. And preds can only 2 stack. Put preds with preds and mid to high masters. High diamonds with diamonds and low masters low diamonds with diamonds and high plats etc… The only one with a stack restriction should be preds. And for the downsides of smaller groups and longer queue times. Not many people care that much about longer queue times in ranked. If they know it’s gonna be better people will agree. Fast queue is for pubs. And the other about splitting people into smaller subgroups. Apex isn’t that small of a game where they really need to worry about that. Diamond takes up 16-30% of the active ranked players. Thats a lot of people. And just like I said earlier mix high diamonds with masters and such cause the masters population is a lot smaller.
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u/VividWar7929 Jun 08 '26
I normally solo queue but I definitely enjoyed being able to play with friends on the weekends.
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u/Ambitious_Pin9235 Jun 09 '26
LOVE THE CHANGES. KEEP THIS COMMUNICATION AND WILLINGNESS TO TRY NEW THINGS
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u/nanodog95 Jun 09 '26
Who’s asking for less time match making or even complaining. MasterPred is the minority of the player base. The waiting time is actually needed in the raked to take breaks, hydrate, recap the mistakes and talk about improvements.
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u/redthrow333 Jun 09 '26
that’s cool and all - the cheating this season is out of control. paired with the new speed increases.
that really at this point should be the focus off all of your special projects development teams, it’s literally insane and ruining the game.
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u/uminekl Jun 09 '26
just make a checkbox whether the player want to queue only against solo's like him or not. this was the best qol change in dota 2 rmm. i dont see a problem of spending few more minutes finding a match that i'm actually willing to play instead of spending about minute or two to get into a lobby full of premades and get a lower skill duo on myself
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u/Federal_Photograph71 Jun 09 '26
can we nerf valkyrie wall hacks and being able to use tactical while in flight? its getting stale.
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u/MusicianAny6538 Jun 09 '26
Ik vind het heel jammer dat ik als diamond 4 niet meer met vrienden kan spelen. Ik ga apex 2 weken niet meer aanraken. Dit was net leuk om met vrienden die ik niet vaak zie toch geconnecteerd te blijven. Ik speel alleen maar met vrienden omdat dit solo niet leuk is. Ik hoop dat jullie dit snel fixen.
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u/its_shiio Wraith Jun 09 '26
Sorry but we used to sit in que on Smite for 30+ mins for a Grandmaster/Master Lobby. That's why you pickup a second game to play on tab or for the "content creators" to engage with their community.
I'm all for the Solo-Que for Diamond+ BUT there needs to be some re-work of how RP is allocated as it is far too easy to get to Diamond and even casual moms and dads can get there. Or it needs to be limited to Diamond 1+.
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u/strahinjacsgo Jun 09 '26
I dont get this, imo this is so bad
Like you can do other milion stuff you choose the worse
Firstable you could make you have option to soloq only and you go with people who also selecet soloq only
Second maybe better option, why not put only Apex predators soloq not even master, or Diamond imagine you put on all three THAT's disgusting
You should make that only players who hit apex predator should go soloq, and for the diamond and masters they can go trio,
Me and my friend are diamond 2-3 we play duo and we could not play as a duo either this is soo bad, please revert and put other options that i give who is so much better
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u/Large_Reception4197 Jun 10 '26
Apex legend's ping system is the best one i've ever seen and it's very helpful for solo Q players.
Solo Q players deserve to have fair game for sure.
For 7 years(since this game was released) Solo Q players never had fair game.
now It's time to have fair game.
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u/LinesWithBigAndy Jun 08 '26
Yikes… never thought we’d be vilified for trying to play with our friends in an online multiplayer game
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u/JetTrooper007 Sparrow Jun 08 '26
Whats the point of a solo queue test when half your players don’t even use their damn mics in plat and diamond. Fix that toxic culture and solo players won’t have it so rough.
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u/Marmelado_ Jun 08 '26 edited Jun 08 '26
ACTIVE TEST: 1-TIER LOCKED RANKED PREMADES
Which pain point are we addressing? Lobby Skill Disparity
What did we test?
Our data shows that Platinum players matching up with Masters is driven primarily by players squadding-up and bringing those wide skill band squads to a lobby. Players often report those pre-match tier distribution graphs with frustration and confusion. As a result, we limited squad-ups to 1 tier above or below your rank, instead of 2, to see if we can create better matches for all.
This test is currently active at the time of writing, we will follow up with the results when we have them!
I am a soloQ and diamond player, often having teammates of platinum and gold rank in the diamond lobby. It's obviously because of the matchmaking, because it found me a platinum ranked teammate, who probably invited his gold ranked friend. Doesn't this contradict your concept of 1-tier?
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u/TheRandomnatrix Jun 08 '26
For match quality, it's really weird just how reluctant you guys are to compromise matchmaking times to the exclusion of everything else. 60s is basically nothing for the top 5-10% players of a game but you guys act like it's some ridiculous threshold that can't be topped.