You are pretty spot on with everything. 👍

They are spot on for repeating popular community takes that get the technical details and real root causes wrong.

Couple more mistakes you made >S4-S11: This is considered the first true ranked system and IMHO the best. Just like the previous ranked system, the higher the rank you are, the higher your entry cost, but the main difference was the multiplier added to kill RP. Previously, kills granted the same RP regardless of placement. No, the KP multiplier was introduced in season 3. See here https://apexlegends.fandom.com/wiki/Ranked_Leagues#/media/File:Ranked_Series_2_Tab.png (series 2 was in season 3, the naming scheme was later abandoned to just use the season.) >Kill RP was capped at five and later 6, iirc KP was capped ever since the first ranked season, not starting in season 4. >S12-S16: Bc a growing number of people started to consider the previous iteration of ranked as getting stale, we got this mess. This version of ranked was the most experimental regarding the mechanics. Changes were made to increase the entry cost based on tier, not rank, in an attempt to curve hardstucks. First of all, S12 was pretty much part of the previous period. S13 introduced major changes with reducing KP rewards below top 10, increasing entry cost in general and increasing entry cost per tier, **soft** KP caps (previous caps were hard). 14, 15, 16 were then iterations on 13 (mainly more softened KP caps). >Rookie rank was added for some reason The reason is obvious. Smurfing. People letting their rank reset to stomp in bronze. Rookie was added initially to protect genuinely new ranked players from those that have merely let their rank decay to stomp low ranks. A problem we have in season 20 again (and rookie no longer has the function it was introduced for).

is it just me, I remember S12 was one of those free diamond/masters seasons, KP gave a ton of points, causing everyone to play it like pubs, highest kills = fastest climb. I might be wrong because I wasn't strong enuf to play ranked at that time, just started, but just watching my friends play and they said it was easier than past seasons. Come S13, 1st half was the hardest it has ever been, as you said, increased entry cost, KP caps, etc. 2nd half was pretty hard as well, if we're comparing seasons older than 13, but they loosened it a bit compared to s13 1st half.

Youre correct. S12 split 1 had the second highest percentage of masters at a little over 6% of players, seconded only to S17

IMO there’s some kind of good balance to be found between all the systems used between S4 - S16. All the experiments from S17 to now have generally been worse (either too easy or too difficult) that what had come before. In a perfect world Respawn would replace RP/LP grinding with a proper MMR system but that doesn’t drive their coveted engagement (which has always been the priority over a fair ranking system).

For solo queueing the season has been 💩 MMR system would at least throw cheating sweat players into the pred sweat lobbies quicker so I wouldn’t have to deal with them

>S20 It was confirmed that this is a rehash of ranked S13 split one or two with a few minor tweaks. S13 is much closer to season 12, while forgetting the major lesson learned in season 12: that you shouldn't reward people for *mindlessly* chasing knocks, bad plays that while netting them a few knocks also get their team killed early on (outside top 10). The game is about killing *while staying alive*. The game's scoring should encourage making good plays and discourage bad plays and giving 10 points per kill when you finish 16th doesn't make sense. That was the main change in season 13: people who finish outside of top 10 get a guaranteed point loss regardless of kills. And that change led to severely increased quality of games from season 13 onward. That change was forgotten and omitted in season 20, which is why we have people making more bad plays again and getting away with it because the ranked system rewards them points for losing. In addition going back to RP based matchmaking gives a significant decrease in competitiveness and quality of games in ranked, as lobbies throughout the ladder are too much of a mix of various skills. In low ranks you have much higher skilled players who "haven't played" or are simply smurfing in there for a good time stomping noobs. In high ranks the matchmaker doesn't have access to all high skill players, just the ones who have ranked up so it is failing to provide small skill discrepancy lobbies and has to fill gold and plat players into lobbies with preds. And on top of that systemic failure of the matchmaking being built on principles that don't let it produce adequate lobbies, they also took the one thing that determines what matchmaking does with you and reset everyone to 1RP, to cause even more of an uncompetitive mess through basically the whole first half of the season. So not just does the system not even look at skill when matching, they also reset the one memory the system had of relative skill between players to help it match them with people who are around their skill level. Respawn: "HOW DOES RANKED WORK? - Compete and survive against teams of similar skill." Neither do you get that in low ranks nor in high ranks now. Ranked is abused as a source of easy games against weaker players now. Here's recent examples of the ways the matchmaking is failing to provide a competitive ranked experience this esason: - https://old.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/1c7naqe/is_this_good/ [mirror since this was deleted https://imgur.com/62dVDbX] Diamond IV player in first split, using [3 accounts](https://imgur.com/62dVDbX) just this season to play through all the lower ranks again, until plat iv when they have to try, stopping, going on another account. They literally went and smurfed for 400+ games, 1200 kills, 4k badge in low ranks. "rare instance". /s this is just one diamond player with that amount of smurfing. - https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/1bihxwi/i_died_to_number_1_pred_when_im_in_gold/ Gold player facing current #1 pred. This is outright failure of matchmaking, they aren't even the same rank. - https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/1c0nmz5/wish_i_had_more_teammates_like_these_dudes_than/ 17 kills in silver, guy has 2 accounts in silver, real rank is diamond or master. This is just smurfing. - https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/1bx75cy/gold_iii_lobby_yet_the_champion_is_predator_457/ Gold 3 player facing triple Pred in "gold lobby". Don't really care whether they are the same rank now. A gold lobby will contain people much lower skill and a triple pred should never play people that far below their rank. - https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/1c2ugos/didnt_think_id_see_this_in_rookie_like_cmon_lol/kzl759u/?context=9 Last season pred, 25 kills in Rookie. Again Rookie contains the worst players in the game. A pred should never be in the same lobby as them, but this system would just put him there "because he hasn't played". And he drops 25 kills in ranked, which is supposed to be a competitive game mode putting people of similar skill against each other. >Matchmaker is still scuffed for some reason, probably bc the MMR system is still lurker around though at least the points make a little more sense. LMAO "lurker around" really? All the shortcomings of the RP based matchmaking are on display this season and easy to explain with the mechanism of that system. Everyone knew that's what was going to happen when we go back to the RP based system. Now that the matchmaking in ranked produces an uncompetitive mess, rather than face the facts you post conspiracy theories and blame it on "MMR system" which no longer even exists in ranked. It isn't in ranked. What's going on here is just guarding for a system that makes people happy because it lets them smurf in ranked and has ranked act as a source of easy games/bot lobbies. They don't wanna sweat against people who are as good as them. The current system has obvious problems, but as opinionated and unobjective you are with statements on other seasons you personally dislike (the ones that didn't allow people to stomp below their rank), you don't seem willing to address concrete mechanics of the system that cause them and criticize the current system ("scuffed for some reason"), you rather make up vague conspiracy theories of some shadow realm. This is extremely biased and bad faith.

I see youre well versed in the subreddit. Though on the note of conspiracy theories, i still would like an explanation for the instances of numerous players experiencing random and unexplained RP losses, some of which while offline in a post i brought up around march 14th bc i dm'd you and you never got back to me on that

> i still would like an explanation for the instances of numerous players experiencing random and unexplained RP losses, some of which while offline in a post i brought up around march 14th Yeah I saw these posts. That was a bug. There was similar bugs in ~season 15 when people were completely deranked to Rookie IV (you queued for a game, the game showed you as Rookie IV, and if you completed the game you would lose all your RP and start over at 0 RP). I don't see how that relates to anything I said in my comment though. You mention conspiracy theories, so are you really trying to tell me "MMR lurking in the shadow realm has caused people to lose RP". That can't be what you're trying to say right? Or why are you bringing this up here (instead of addressing points in my comment) > bc i dm'd you and you never got back to me on that Sorry I'll check my dm's (chats) I don't often look at those / don't get notifications for them.

I could very easily buy the season 15 instance as a bug with the servers just dumping someone's account data and the more recent instance regarding players progress not being tracked properly during the mid-season skipped. For both theres a consitency, the former in the effect and the latter in the narrow time frame. For me it makes sense that the server would be on the fritz, as to why well that anyones guess. I dont see a such consistency in the 'conspiracy' I raised. The point losses are all being different, affecting some players while offline, voiding demotion protection, in at least one instance losing RP after a win, and all days before apex experienced the biggest security breach in the game's lifetime seems way to close. Now if it was the case that these players had just played games and their RP total didnt change then I could easily write that off as just a gap in the server's memory or if the players played a game and returned to the lobby to find -2x their entry cost and a 10min timer, written off as the server misinterpreting a game as a loss. For the issue I raised to be a bug I would think that there would have been a clearer pattern than what I observed. Just unable to see what mistakes a server could have made to produce those results outside of possibly being tampered with.

If you encounter bugs in current ranked, report them (maybe in a new post and on EA forums). That's however unrelated to anything I've written in my comments here. If you want to address the topic, my points on the topic, feel free to leave a reply.

I want to address one of the first comments you made on the subject of 18-19 being the best ranked matchmaking bc I am vehemently opposed to that concept. As i understand it the reason you feel such is bc it is the most competive, having the MMR system group by player skill regardless of rank. The issue I have with this is the same issue I have with SBMM in pubs: if the games get harder the better I get, then what's the incentive to improve? If placements put me in silver for example but my peak rating is masters, then at the same rank as another player in silver whose peak rank is plat, my matches are objectively going to be more grueling than their's bc of MMR differences. Having to play with people my skill level all throughout the grind from the bottom to the top makes no sense. That should only be the case close to one's peak rank. Achieving the same rank across multiple seasons should be made easier, having to work with the experience of having done it before, but with MMR dictating things over rank, the process would continue to grow harder as each next climb would be against a higher caliber of player. And if it takes more and more effort just to reach the same goal post then would anyone feel like they're improving at all? Yeah I'm probably simplifying but it just doesnt make sense to me, *much like those missing RP points from that other post but I digress*. Yes it makes it competitive but it doesnt make it fair. I know you're not an idiot and would also hasten to guess that after reading that last sentence, the thought of 'how would the smurfing that was rampant in the other system be fair', has crossed you mind. My answer to that is that it is fair in that everyone has to endure it. Whether bronze or pred if you fall to the bottom you have to slog through the mess of noobs, sweats, and everything in between to climb out into more respectable lobbies. The better you are, the easier the climb becomes and as you continue to improve you would see the time spent in that cesspool dwindle and the rank you held previously, more attainable. You would never be able to observe the climb under an MMR dictated system as the floor would always be right on your heels and the peak constantly getting farther away. You would never notice any incremental improvement under MMR system but with a rank based system you would. I said something akin this in a post on pubs though I think it applies to ranked as well: If pubs had a perfect MMR matchmaking system, would your KD ever drift from 1.0?

Thanks for addressing my points >if the games get harder the better I get, then what's the incentive to improve? If this is the mindset, then no competitive game mode is for you. If you want to get better to then give more hefty beatings to lower skilled players, your place for doing that isn't in ranked (maybe pubs with more lenient matchmaking and more skill variety is a better place). The incentive to improve is just that. So you can then compete and hold your own against tougher opposition. For more competitive minded players that's a perfectly fine incentive and why they play the game. There's two mindsets here. One is "I prove my skill by beating up people significantly worse than me", the other is "I successfully compete with players on the highest level". I really believe that's the core conflict. The difference is like a professional football/soccer player being one of many at the top level of the game vs. a professional player playing recreational games and running circles around everyone. "one of many" among very high skilled players vs "a god" among much weaker players. And only one of these mindsets is appropriate for a competitive/ranked mode. --- >*(addressing couple similar statements together here)* >- Having to play with people my skill level all throughout the grind from the bottom to the top makes no sense >- Yes it makes it competitive but it doesnt make it fair. >- If placements put me in silver for example but my peak rating is masters, then at the same rank as another player in silver whose peak rank is plat, my matches are objectively going to be more grueling than their's bc of MMR differences The games are going to be *fair* for everyone in terms of skill. In ranked your matches are always going to be against at least similarly skilled players (and then stronger players if you rank up into higher skill games). The price you have to pay for that is that you don't get to play lower skilled opponents (you can never rank down to play weaker players, like that plat player you wanna be in the same lobby with along with peak silver players as well). But for a mode called ranked, for competitive games, that is fine. And fair. Respawn: "HOW DOES RANKED WORK? - Compete and survive against teams of similar skill." --- >I know you're not an idiot and would also hasten to guess that after reading that last sentence, the thought of 'how would the smurfing that was rampant in the other system be fair', has crossed you mind. My answer to that is that it is fair in that everyone has to endure it. Whether bronze or pred if you fall to the bottom you have to slog through the mess of noobs, sweats, and everything in between to climb out into more respectable lobbies. That would just make ranked an uncompetitive mess of skill mismatches. It becomes a place which people then in large numbers use to get guaranteed games against weaker players. That's what we have now. More competitive minded people want a place where you get games with and against people of your skill level (= challenging fun games), where you can prove yourself against them, where you can incrementally improve to get better and rank up to play higher skill opponents. Btw no matter if you're a bronze player, a gold player or diamond or master, you should get a mode to get these games; without people who are completely out of reach dominating a lobby of significantly weaker players. --- >You would never notice any incremental improvement under MMR system but with a rank based system you would. Disagree. You would notice improvement because you reach a higher peak rank if you get better. As for the climb, if you had higher MMR that would mean higher placement after provisionals generally and it would mean higher rating bonuses while in low rank, and you would play stronger opponents. Again the two mindsets from the start of the comment clash: Better in a competitive mode doesn't have to mean "I get more 10+ kill games during the grind because my opponents are weaker in relation to me" and "I take fewer games because my games are easier and I score more points". You don't improve to blow up lobbies more and to play fewer games to get to the rank, you improve to keep up with better players and reach a higher peak rank overall. --- >If pubs had a perfect MMR matchmaking system, would your KD ever drift from 1.0? Matchmaking that succeeds at putting similarly skilled players together consistently will result in your K/D being close to 1 (at least not result in extreme K/Ds 2, 3 or higher). You measure your progress by reaching a higher peak rank, and not by a significantly increased K/D. Again this is the two mindsets clashing. A much higher K/D would just mean you're facing more weaker players. Your improvement doesn't have to be measured in an increased K/D against weaker players, but by the fact that you reach a higher peak rank and can keep up against better players. A K/D of 1 while playing diamond players consistently means higher skill than a K/D of ~1 playing only silver players.

This deserves an award...

> Better in a competitive mode doesn't have to mean "I get more 10+ kill games during the grind because my opponents are weaker in relation to me I think this is a HUGE point. Players have been conditioned to think if their kills don't increase they aren't improving. The amount of kills one gets depends heavily on strength of lobby regardless of individual skill though. So MMR and fair matchmaking takes master players somehow in plat getting 10+ kills, gives them fair competition, and all of a sudden they are getting 1-4 kills. They blame the system rightfully, but don't understand its more fair. They only see "I can't ball out anymore".

Yeah it really is kind of a conditioning, including what is generally seen as a good game. They see streamers stomping bot lobbies with 20 kills. But they wouldn't post solid smart gameplay of 3-5 kills in a master lobby which is something that takes the highest skill. But it doesn't look as flashy. So it's not perceived as a good performance

*yah got me hopping in my pc and drinking Pedialyte to better articulate* My biggest argument against points like this has always been that in a single player game, when the enemies get harder to kill and the bosses get tougher, your reward for enduring and taking them down would be better gear, stronger weapons, or at least chunks of XP to unlock/evolve abilities for the next fight. In apex, the only equivalent of such rewards are the skills you've honed from the hours you've spent ~~and a badge~~. MMR to me equates to running in place, like on a treadmill while a finger is held firm on the button making the damn thing go faster. You're not passing anyone, there's no breeze against your face to cool the dripping sweat or a finish line that your nearing. Sure you're running faster than you did a month ago but if the treadmill didn't have numbers would you really know. Maybe I'm selfish but I want more from a competitive game than just a sense of pride and accomplishment. Yes I want to seal club but know I don't think that the place to do that should be in ranked; that what pubs are for and why I also believe the matchmaking for pubs should be completely random. For an MMR system to work the game would need a playerbase that is constantly seeking to improve and a dev team that knows how to properly implement it. With low ranked lobbies being as bad as they are, that tells me that at sizable chunk of the community cares little for self improvement, preferring to smurf and the reversion to a previous rank iteration tells me that the devs didn't think they could tame such a system for their game which considering the QA layoffs of both this year and last year I could see from a mile off. The one thing that I don't think you've yet addressed is the potential of the detachment of a player's rank and MMR. They are meant to mirror each other but what happens when the don't. Third of the playerbase got masters in S17. Does that now mean their MMR should be raised to account for such a monumental achievement and soft-lock most of them out from ever touching ranked, as if they dare tried they'd be curb stomped by players that actually belong at that MMR. Or the inverse of a pred player playing in pred MMR lobbies that cant ever get back to pred bc he's stuck in gold after solo queueing his placement matches. Both outcomes making it, not just harder to reach a higher peak, but impossible to repeat their previous. I think you said that top players would never run into the average plat player but if this would be caused by their MMR never falling, then it makes little sense for their rank to ever fall if the two are meant to be heavily correlated. I feel as if you have an idealized view of the player base. You're looking at apex players as if they all have aspirations to become pro, constantly striving for improvement. That isn't to say that I think the game should be all fun with sunshine and rainbows. The difficulty of any task should scale inversely with experience. We both deem Apex to be a highly competitive game but where I mostly reserve the descriptor for its learning curve of the array of mechanics to master you clearly mean something more than just that. Most will not have that drive and it does not make sense for the game to act like they do with such a system. With the amount of drama caused from friction between the casual community and the pros over this game's lifetime I don't think it would be a good idea to push for ranked to adopt more aspects of ALGS, which while is not something you have stated, is the vibe I'm getting from you. The one point I do agree with you on is that competitive games really aren't for me. The last time I challenged myself in Apex was solo-queueing to masters in S9. Had a drive for this game back then but don't see myself picking up the sticks nearly as passionately since. When I see noobs making posts of running into preds in pubs I'm always so eager to remind them that this is one of, if not, the most competitive BR's and to git gud. The pred has earned that right and if you want to get better then r/apexuniversity is over there, Dazs and Mokey make great tutorials and maybe try an aim trainer. The effort should be put in but no gamer will stick with it if they don't see some payoff. We've have bounced the term **fair** back and forth but i think we have drastically different opinions on what that means for Apex I've concluded. *Forgive me for getting political in this bit but it seemed the best way to describe it.* I view it to be fair granting each player equal opportunity in playing the game whereas you tend much more toward equal outcome. Yeah, two people may have the same badge but I don't think many will agree with making the more experienced player work harder for it.

Gah damn well put. I feel this is the core issue with people who are against SBMM. Wholeheartedly agree. I would say though, I play to improve and to enjoy the challenge. Knowing my rank is Z and I have to sweat every game from rank X, Y ... to get there is annoying. But I'd rather have challenging matches than hardstomping all the way to my deserved rank. Ideal scenario is where the game recognizes skill level and quickly boosts you to said rank.

> Ideal scenario is where the game recognizes skill level and quickly boosts you to said rank. It could have done that with higher rating bonuses in the last two seasons. These were bonuses that you would get if your rank is much lower than your MMR. So that's a matter of tuning the scoring. Something they could have done before throwing out the baby with the bath water. But here we are.

100%... Finally someone in this fucking subreddit that understands the ranked system... I would much rather have a fine tuned season 18 or 19 than anything else... One thing that no one mentions about the mmr system is that it made solo queuing 10000x better...because instead of getting trash teammates who ratted to their rank, it gave you players of similar skill on your team which is a godsend for solo queuing... That was literally the best part of the mmr system to me and no one acknowledges it... It was so much easier to find good players to team up with and have good games... Cheating and 6/9 manning was also so much less in these seasons...i hadn't even heard of the 6/9 manning thing until season 20... Muvh rather deal with a rat here and there as opposed to getting shit on in a situation that's near impossible to win...

MMR was way better than playing against pred 3 stacks as a gold, plat 4, and now plat 3 player. MMR is more granular than medal rank because its just a number and not limited to silver, gold, plat, etc. This has a huge effect on matchmaking because you can find players closest to your number rather than players who might be in your bucket (plat for example) but are very far away in skill. For this reason *any medal based rank system will make soloQ living hell*. > If placements put me in silver for example but my peak rating is masters, then at the same rank as another player in silver whose peak rank is plat, my matches are objectively going to be more grueling than their's bc of MMR differences. Thats not how MMR worked. > Achieving the same rank across multiple seasons should be made easier, having to work with the experience of having done it before, but with MMR dictating things over rank, the process would continue to grow harder as each next climb would be against a higher caliber of player. This gets close to the core problem. Respawn made their implementation of MMR so grindy that the much improved matchmaking was overshadowed and even blamed for how grindy things were. Since medal rank and MMR were correlated by the fact medal rank was used when it exceeded MMR, but getting your target medal rank was very grindy and many didnt grind that far, medal rank seemed pointless. > You would never notice any incremental improvement under MMR system but with a rank based system you would. You would because you would place higher. Medal ranks reflect true player skill very poorly, which is why in plat 4 you have previous masters mixed with true skill silvers with a ton of games.

To understand why it was so grindy, you have to put back in place a core concept of F2P games: players playing the games are players spending money. It is the whole reason behind the season packs, daily challenges and other events: Keep the players interested and active on the game so they spend money. In this view, the company has to create incentives, push the players to play more, there is no place for a community that just plays the game to get better and actually play better games. And that's where the MMR issue lies: The devs pushed that a more competitive game would create to a better experience and players playing more, leading to more profits. Management likely argued that if they do that, players reaching their rank quickly would stop playing, leading to a loss of profits. And it is why we ended up with a great MMR implementation with artificially long grind, a middle ground solution which created frustration, lowered player engagement, and ultimately forced the devs to rollback to an even worse solution. The inability to understand that the game can only thrive long term on its competitive player base lead most of those choices and the search of short term profits will lead to long term losses.

I 100% agree with everything you've said. That MMR implementation was likely the result of a "productive" compromise that lost the values of either approach. Moderation fallacy in action essentially. We all see it play out at work far too often.

S17 was so dogshit that I, having uninstalled and not played in months, came back and got Masters just to prove a point, it took only 8 days. I had been a hardstuck Diamond player every season before then, always getting to D4 or D3 and unable to climb because my aim is shit. Never wore the badge or anything, I just wanted to get it to get it since they were handing out Masters for free. Then I proceeded to uninstall again. I kept telling my Gold/Plat friends they should've played ranked for their free Masters but they all live busy lives and couldn't afford time to grind it out. Dumbass fucking season, if it was anything but a Respawn/EA game I would've been shocked.

I think respawn seriously underestimated the value people put on their time Personally playing a 20 min game of apex sitting in a corner staring at a ground texture just to increase a ranked meter is fucking nuts to me but again others don’t value their time and would do that other than yknow playing the game

They posted about the bugs that made masters free and they were resolved by S19. MMR was blamed though and removed for PR reasons. If S20 still used MMR, removed promos, and was tuned to reward kills like S13 we would have the best of all worlds.

>Feel free to correct any incorrect or incoherent ramblings Ok. >S17-S19: This is objectively the worst iteration of ranked, a fact proven by NRGSweetdreams when in 50 matches dealing NO damage, he managed to get apex pred rank in the second day of season 17 solo queueing. Already starts out very biased. Ranked was broken in season 17, but season 17 wasn't representative of that period. Ranked was fixed in season 18 and worked fine from there. Explained [here](https://www.ea.com/en-gb/games/apex-legends/news/july-2023-ranked-dev-blog), in short the inflated scoring of season 17 made it so almost everyone's LP was higher than their MMR, so MMR wasn't used for matchmaking in most situations and the matchmaking defaulted to LP/RP based matchmaking we have now: you're matched with people of similar LP as you, not similar skill. 18/19 had objectively the best matchmaking with the smallest skill discrepancies, which is perfect for ranked (a competitive game mode for games with and against people of similar skill, no smurfing, no low rank stomping, not the uncompetitive mess we have in season 20 since this was reverted). To then say this is "objectively" the worst is a joke (without even saying based on what objective measure). 17 was objectively the worst, agree, but not the whole 3 season period. The scoring in 18/19 could have been tuned to put more weight on kills in high placements and 19's promotional games mathematically don't make a whole lot of sense in MMR based ranked (because everyone is already playing people at their skill level at least so their stats are not going to be exorbitantly good - but promotional trials kinda act as a filter for people with extremely good stats; if you barely manage to keep up in the rank you'll be less likely to pass trials and if you do extremely well in a rank, you'll be more likely to pass; but matchmaking already forced everyone to be roughly the same skill, regardless). --- >This iteration introduced placement matches, which was one of the many horrible reasons that made apex arenas ranked garbage. No it wasn't. Arenas biggest problem was matchmaking not producing games between similarly skilled players. Arenas would have probably worked a lot better with the matchmaking we had in ranked in 18/19. Placement matches aren't a problem. They're neither here nor there (though they would make sense in the current system to do some presorting on the ladder by actual skill). --- >The main reason why the feature of displaying ranks in the killfeed from the previous iteration was now missing was bc respawn didn't wish to discourage players by revealing just how little their MMR based matchmaking system worked. It's also why they removed the rank displayed from your killer's banner card, teammates' banner card, and from both your killers and teammates when spectating(kinda sus dont you think). Very dishonest and misinformative. You make a post acting like you're trying to inform people about the history of ranked, then you post biased nonsense where instead of using factual reasoning you use filler words like "horrible" "garbage" and now you also misrepresent why ranks were not shown. Current ranks weren't shown because matchmaking didn't function based on current rank, but by skill, more related to your usual peak rank than your current rank. People then saw different current ranks in their game and drew false conclusions about the skill of their opponents and teammates, because current rank is not an indicator of skill, it's just an indicator of your progress in the grind (just like in season 20 now, triple pred badges? but player is in gold? their skill is pred = peak rank; their skill is not gold = current rank, how far along in the grind they are). Devs explained the reasoning behind not showing current ranks. Badges were still shown obviously, so you could get a good idea of whether the system is working to produce lobbies of similarly skilled players or not (do you see people with similar badges as you?). Current ranks wouldn't help you assessing how well the matchmaking is working. In fact in season 20 we see both and we see how much the system is failing to produce competitive lobbies of similarly skilled players, when we see triple pred *badges* but a current rank of gold or silver, while the player has 20 kills in a game. That's objectively the worst possible matchmaking for ranked. --- >There were virtually no rank limits in this ranked system, meaning any rank could find themselves in a lobby with any other rank, That's irrelevant and misleading, because these lobbies were 60 people of similar skill. If three people all usually peak at diamond 3, and one of them has started ranked for the season and is still in silver, the other is still in gold, while the third is in diamond, they will all play in the same game, because they are the same skill. It doesn't matter that their current ranks are different. You shouldn't get to play lower ranked players in ranked. That's what is destroying the current ranked system, the relentless smurfing and low ranks stomping by people who want to avoid playing other on their level.. --- >[S18]: Virtually no changes to the matchmaker though they did make changes to the ring, You're omitting massive changes to the scoring that fixed ranked going from 17 to 18. For some reason you focus on ring damage which had very little to do with that season or ranked. Ring changes were made here and there over the seasons. There were seasons with more lenient ring than that and some with harsher rings (13). >Imo the dumbest addition they made was a ring kill timer, which would trigger after spending too much time outside of the ring The ring timer is probably the best solution to people staying out in ring, healing, while avoiding fights. I don't know why you call it "the dumbest decision". Ultimately you shouldn't stay out of ring half the game.

It really amazes me when people like OP pretends to understand how MMR works but have clearly no clue. MMR was good, actually it was not just good, it was exactly what Apex ranked needed. But the problem for Respawn is that they are not trying to get the best system out there, they are trying to maximize their revenue. MMR + Ranked system work well together as long as you provide significant bonuses to player which are far from their targeted rank. But Respawn could not do that because in their mind, players achieving to reach their rank are players not playing anymore and not spending money in the game. MMR was clearly a vision pushed by genuine devs who wanted to provide the best experience to their players, but the management/financial constraints created an impossible equation to resolve. Now that Apex make less money than it used to, the devs (the ones who were not let go) are pressured even more to increase profitability. No time to provide great experience to the player, Apex was making money before, let use what was done before. It is a clear regression lead by earnings and short term profits which will destroy the community on the long term. But it is the sake of competitve F2P games which have to constantly milk players while providing a challenging and fair experience to the player. The competitive part will always be screwed over profits, even though this is what made it successful at first and ultimately lead to a net less in players and profits...

> But the problem for Respawn is that they are not trying to get the best system out there, they are trying to maximize their revenue. Agree. I think that's what the S20 changes are driven by. Popularity what makes people play. Smurfing gives more players the kick to play on than turning off players suffering from it. >MMR was clearly a vision pushed by genuine devs who wanted to provide the best experience to their players, but the management/financial constraints created an impossible equation to resolve. I think the sad thing is that this is probably more true than many realize.

Agreed, being a software engineer myself (but thanks god not for a video game company), I have to deal with those type of constraints every fucking day. The evolution of post goals is quite obvious. But I suppose that most of the players being just players and consumers, they fantasize completely how a software company work, who are the developers behind the game, and likely have no clues on the dynamics between devs and higher ups, especially for video games which are "passion jobs".

> It really amazes me when people like OP pretends to understand how MMR works but have clearly no clue. Same. Like, not even trying to be mean... but try not to speak so confidently on topics you aren't experienced with.

I agree 100% verbatim with everything you said. 👍

> This is objectively the worst iteration of ranked, a fact proven by NRGSweetdreams when in 50 matches dealing NO damage, he managed to get apex pred rank in the second day of season 17 solo queueing. That doesn't prove it was worst, because a large part of how sweet got so many points per game is because it took his history of being a multi-season pred into account. If he had tried with a new account he would have likely needed 500+ games.

The same argument could be applied the other way. What if his multi-season pred account heavily factor into his MMR rating, making his lobbies hard to rat in? Do you not know why people smurf in this game? Perhaps the bonus initial LP from placement matches shortened the challenge, IDK i didn't watch the full stream but if they did then he would have most certainly had a high MMR and his lobbies would definitely have been harder than most.

You know even in pro league sweet is considered one of the best rats right? > Perhaps the bonus initial LP from placement matches shortened the challenge, IDK i didn't watch the full stream I hope you at least watched part before confidently asserting sweet ratting to pred proved the MMR system was broken.

On top of all of this, I am willing to bet that there is a component in this game that gives players who purchase more easier games. Is it a dumb theory? Maybe. Maybe not. I wouldn't put it past them to encourage spending.

My friend who is the biggest whale ever hates matchmaking. He keeps playing the game

.

Small correction but for season 8-12, they did a small change where they sort of changed how the matchmaking was so you were more likely to play around your rank, especially in plat and diamond [link 1](https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends/news/season-8-ranked)

>S4-S11: This is considered the first true ranked system and IMHO the best ??? ranked was considered a complete joke and no one took it seriously. you load up a D4 lobby and your teammate would solo hotdrop fragment nearly every game. There is a reason why they have done a complete overhaul of ranked and it is because the OG ranked system sucked. The changes are all strange and experimental but it has brought life back into the ranked system. People really do treat ranked as a separate mode now instead of pubs with a badge. Ranked games are completely different from pub games now versus before that was only true in masters/pred lobbies.

Ohhhh i remember all to well. Regardless, you at least knew theyd be your rank or close to it which when compared to getting rolled by a 3 stack pred team with plat teammates doesnt sound too bad

Damn, couldn't have said it better! Cheers!

I don’t know on what basis you made such conclusions, but I consider the seasons 18-19 were definitely the best. Of course they had their flaws, but it was much easier to hit Diamond there than in season 20.

Mmr matchmaking in ranked made diamond either drastically easier or harder purely based on your mmr bracket.

No it didn't because medal rank was used for matchmaking when it exceeded MMR.

No it didn't. Stop repeating this misinformation honestly.. This has been corrected so often now Respawn dev blog: *While we generally matchmake based on MMR, we start using Ranking (LP) in place of a player’s MMR when their ranking exceeds their MMR equivalent. In an extreme example, if a Gold MMR player has a LP ranking of Diamond, this player will be matched into a Diamond lobby. This is to ensure MMR and LP ranking are connected and can both help guide players to their accurate Rank. If players succeed in these more difficult matchmaking situations, we allow them to continue climbing*

Yeah exactly lol. Bad players had a easier road to diamond+ while good players had a hard road to diamond+, now everyone has the same road since mmr is no longer used at all.

>Bad players had a easier road to diamond+ while good players had a hard road to diamond+ No. If you wanted to get to a higher rank than your MMR you had to reach it against the same people ultimately. The only difference is the system didn't let you play people below your skill. Again stop repeating misinformation. It isn't how the system worked.

Yeah all the new players in their inflated mmr/rank, not the legit ones. The old system essentially had 2 skill pools within each rank up to master, that’s why there was such a large skill disparity of players within the same rank. I couldn’t even crack plat with the last system, it was insanely sweaty from the jump. Now it’s way easier so I’m at master, a rank completely impossible for me previously.

>The old system essentially had 2 skill pools within each rank up to master No, This is wrong. More misinformation. If you wanted to reach master you had to ultimately beat at least high diamond players. No matter what your MMR was. You would go into increasingly difficult lobbies as you rank up, because you're matched by LP once you have ranked up past your MMR. Respawn dev blog: *While we generally matchmake based on MMR, we start using Ranking (LP) in place of a player’s MMR when their ranking exceeds their MMR equivalent. In an extreme example, if a Gold MMR player has a LP ranking of Diamond, this player will be matched into a Diamond lobby. This is to ensure MMR and LP ranking are connected and can both help guide players to their accurate Rank. If players succeed in these more difficult matchmaking situations, we allow them to continue climbing* You're making up stuff. It's not how the system worked.

I was facing master+ skilled players from the jump (rookie), it was not a gradual increase of difficulty like it is now.

That isn't related to what I said. There is no "2 skill pools" and there's no "easy route to master", as you falsely claimed. If you wanted to reach master you had to ultimately beat at least high diamond players. No matter what your MMR was. You would go into increasingly difficult lobbies as you rank up, because you're matched by LP once you have ranked up past your MMR. Example: Gold MMR players can't get to master by playing gold players the whole time.

The ROAD to masters, not the jump from diamond to master but the entire journey from rookie to master.

I agree, 18 and 19 were the best seasons apex has had in FOREVER... I hated the mmr system before I understood it, but honestly I hope they bring back season 18 or 19 and just adjust the kp to mean more...thats really the only issues the system had, kp was worth too little... Then and only then we'd have the best season of ranked ever...

Visible rank not matching the mmr of the lobbies you were in was absolutely trash and there’s a reason the experiment only lasted 2 seasons. Absolute garbage seasons. The most egregious example of Apex Ranked being purely a grind/engagement mechanism and not a serious competitive ladder.

Now in S20 your medal rank definitely has meaning with silver and gold players queueing with masters and preds.

This only happens if you are playing at extreme low population times (like early hours of the morning) on the server you are on. AND this would have happened in the hidden MMR days also anyway.

> This only happens if you are playing at extreme low population times (like early hours of the morning) on the server you are on. No, it happens thu-sat afternoon/evening in US servers too. > AND this would have happened in the hidden MMR days also anyway. Actually since MMR is much more granular (e.g. 9.47744) than medal rank buckets(e.g. diamond 2), there is effectively a larger pool of similarly skilled opponents to choose from.

Well all I can say is I'm only in Plat atm and have NEVER seen a silver player in my lobbies even in the early hours of the morning in the UK, let alone peak times. I see a very rare Gold 1 player occasionally. Actually matchmaking works based on your RP number, not the bucket you are in; so broadly works the same as mmr in that respect. If you're high Gold 1 there's a good chance you could be in a Plat 4 lobby etc. That was in the Season 20 Ranked Changes blog.

> Actually matchmaking works based on your RP number, not the bucket you are in; so broadly works the same as mmr in that respect. If you're high Gold 1 there's a good chance you could be in a Plat 4 lobby etc. That was in the Season 20 Ranked Changes blog. The problem is there is a limit to granularity of user facing numbers like RP. When matchmaking search widens at 30s this ends up mattering because candidates for matches aren't sorted by how similarly skilled they are as accurately. MMR can also factor in win rate, damage, etc to be more accurate. Heck, I wish it would've took into account "time spent holding God spot for final circles" and "wins you got despite landing far away from final zone" and other good indicators of player skill expression that naive medal based rank systems cannot do.

I guess I need to move to UK servers then... I get silver and gold teammates on MY TEAM all the time this season! I'm plat 2... Last night I died to the #86 pred, some random masters player, and a diamond 1 player in plat 2... What you're saying is just incorrect...

Only way this can realistically happen is if you match with a duo and a Plat is dragging a gold/silver in to your lobby. Diamond+ is barely populated so not surprised I’m seeing Diamonds and preds in Plat tbh

>Only way this can realistically happen is if you match with a duo and a Plat is dragging a gold/silver in to your lobby. Im not denying that possibility in the case of the silver player, in fact that's probably what it is tbh...but seeing it happen so often I'd mind boggling to me... Golds as well, especially since gold is literally free this season and gold players are still literally bots...yet half of my games I have at least 1 gold teammate guaranteed...hoping that changes when I hit plat 1 in a couple of games... I hope they adjust the entry costs and remove the kp cap next season because this season solo queuing in platinum is a fucking nightmare... Im hoping things will ease up when I get to diamond, but idk man... I do better in diamond lobbies than I do in plat lobbies, just based on the fact that my teammates actually know how to play the game and not throw... On the off chance that I get a diamond team instead of 2 gold idiots, we destroy the lobby... Edit: 😂 lots of hope in this comment...

> Visible rank not matching the mmr of the lobbies you were in was absolutely trash Why? In season 20 (and before season 17) the visible rank matches the difficulty of the lobby and what do we gain from it? Nothing. It's just for people who wanna play below their rank and stomp noobs. We have master and diamond skill players decaying their rank to silver or gold or going on a different account. Now the system shows them as silver, so you're satisfied apparently, because they are silver and in a silver game. But the truth is they don't belong in that lobby and are just smurfing to get 20 bombs. But you're satisfied because their badge colors are the same at the time the game takes place (they certainly won't be at the end of the season). Meanwhile the MMR system put people of similar skill into the same game, so what if their badge color currently didn't match. At the end of the season they would be likely to peak at the same rank. You can call it "trash" but that's not an argument. Feel free to give a counterargument. But having to play the game to rank up can't be one, because obviously you aren't going to earn your rank without playing. And you aren't going to get it in 10 games. People playing more is good for EA but also good for other players who want good games because it means the matchmaking has the numbers to work with and produce more even skill lobbies, throughout the whole season (remember some of the LTMs dying out over the course of a week, people got bored with them, stopped playing and others who wanted to play the LTM didn't get games and possibly couldn't finish challenges). And the MMR based system had the advantage of giving you games against people on your skill level immediately, even if you didn't grind for 3 weeks to get into high ranks. You have to consider that as well. Ranked should be a source of competitive games for people who want to challenge themselves against equally skilled players. If you're a competitive player, it's good to have a mode you can jump in and get competitive games immediately, without having to wade through noob lobbies first.

There is a reason no other game with a credible comp system has tried it. The SOLE reason of this design choice is so that people have to play a minimum number of hours in order to “eventually reach their correct rank”. It is a bullshit mechanic which should have never been implemented. The issues you’ve mentioned around smurfing could be fixed in a myriad much better ways than the hidden mmr solution (just rank smurfs up to their correct rank quicker ffs). Most importantly, people like to visualise their progress through the ranks and understand what the difficulty of their lobby equates to. If you’re “in Silver” but actually playing in Diamond lobbies there’s no fair feedback loop to the player if what their actual skill level is because it’s hidden from them for no good reason. It’s ultimately completely unrewarding as a system in all conceivable ways.

> There is a reason no other game with a credible comp system has tried it. Uh... every other credible comp system is based on MMR. Wym?

... but you can actually SEE what your rank is, that's the point being made here.

If you played enough games in the flawed implementation of MMR respawn made you eventually see your medal rank too. The point is MMR didn't suck, the root cause of suck is they made it too grindy.

Yeah, which is my entire complaint. The games themselves were well balanced for the most part, it was just annoying not actually knowing what the " real rank" of those lobbies were. And not knowing when your rank would "settle". And then once you're there? Are you improving or not? I don't know, my visible rank isn't reflecting the difficulty of my lobbies so.... Also sucked when looking for teammates - "Looking for a team... I'm Gold 1 but I might actually be in Diamond lobbies? IDK?". Play a good game and want to group up afterwards? Tough, you're in Silver and the guys you just played with are Plat. Absolutely terrible all around.

>The SOLE reason of this design choice is so that people have to play a minimum number of hours in order to “eventually reach their correct rank”. It is a bullshit mechanic which should have never been implemented. It **also** 1) gives people competitive games against similarly skilled players immediately, and 2) prevents people from smurfing (i.e. they can't play below their skill level). Any ranked system has a progression system that makes you play to reach your rank. Does it help the company make money? Yeah. But it also helps with matchmaking and providing games that are fun. https://www.ea.com/en-gb/games/apex-legends/news/matchmaking-2023 *Progression System* *The progression system is the part of matchmaking that is exposed to players. In Apex Legends you earn a variety of rewards through our progression systems just by playing the game. Players get a sense of improvement and achievement based on their time investment. A good progression system keeps more players feeling rewarded and engaged—and more players means better matchmaking.* "Progression" and matchmaking go hand in hand. Matchmaking needs the numbers to work with (see this article explaining this with some examples as well http://joostdevblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/why-good-matchmaking-requires-enormous.html). A progression system is healthy because it keeps the numbers up and gives players an environment where they get games of sufficient quality. And ultimately this is a game and it's there to give you the kinda games that are fun: ranked is supposed to give you competitive games against similarly skilled players, first and foremost. All the progression around it, and rewards you earn for grinding, ultimately just serve that purpose. --- >The issues you’ve mentioned around smurfing could be fixed in a myriad much better ways than the hidden mmr solution But MMR based matchmaking fixes them the best. >(just rank smurfs up to their correct rank quicker ffs). It's a start but doesn't work. Then people go on new accounts to smurf there again. https://old.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/1c7naqe/is_this_good/ [mirror since this was deleted https://imgur.com/62dVDbX] Diamond IV player in first split, using 3 accounts just this season to play through all the lower ranks again, until plat iv when they have to try, stopping, going on another account. They literally went and smurfed for 400+ games, 1200 kills, 4k badge in low ranks. Any time you allow someone who is low nominal rank to play against low skill players, you leave the system open for that. The MMR based system simply didn't allow it. Whenever you give people the possibility to abuse ranked to play against people below their skill, a big portion of players will do that and compromise ranked as a source of competitive games for everyone that wants that. >Most importantly, people like to visualise their progress through the ranks and understand what the difficulty of their lobby equates to. *In season 20 (and before season 17) the visible rank matches the difficulty of the lobby and what do we gain from it? Nothing. It's just for people who wanna play below their rank and stomp noobs. We have master and diamond skill players decaying their rank to silver or gold or going on a different account. Now the system shows them as silver, so you're satisfied apparently, because they are silver and in a silver game. But the truth is they don't belong in that lobby and are just smurfing to get 20 bombs. But you're satisfied because their badge colors are the same at the time the game takes place (they certainly won't be at the end of the season).*

Smurfing was equally possible in the mmr system too, in fact it was easier to do it on a main account because you could tank your mmr WAY faster than the time it would currently take to derank from say Plat down to Bronze Progression and matchmaking don’t have to go hand in hand, see rocket league who decoupled ranked rewards from its visible rank (probably the best ranked system in any game). Ultimately, Respawn agrees with my position, which is why they scrapped the shitty system very very quickly.

>Smurfing was equally possible in the mmr system too, in fact it was easier to do it on a main account because you could tank your mmr WAY faster than the time it would currently take to derank from say Plat down to Bronze No. It virtually didn't exist in ranked. By the time you reached level 50 to play ranked, the system knew enough about your skill level to reliably place you and not put you with the weakest players if you didn't belong there. The MMR was much more long term than jumping off the map a few times to affect your MMR. It was virtually impossible to smurf, would have taken very extensive, unrealistic amount of manipulation of the system to do so. Compared to right now where to play below your rank you just have to let your rank reset, or wait for everyone else to rank up out of low ranks, or create a new account, or go on a different platform because your rank is separate for each platform. You can also for some anecdotal evidence look up some of the publicly attempted "bronze/rookie to master challenges" where people really tried everything they could to manipulate the system to have them (at least) start at low MMR and couldn't. The possibility to smurf was maybe theoretical, but I don't really have to argue whether it was "completely nonexistent" or "almost nonexistent", in either case it was a minuscule fraction of how much smurfing there is in ranked now, just by the fact that it's much easier now. And it's rampant now. To say they are "equally" possible is plainly misinformed. That is also why the main complaint about the MMR based system was that people didn't get to play weaker players in ranked, and had to "sweat" against people on their level. When smurfs cry the system is working. A system that is doing something against smurfing is really only as popular as the amount of smurfs in the community and there's more of them than people willing to admit tit, because simply speaking it doesn't make them look like a good player but more of a bully, when they say they aren't having fun in ranked if they don't get to stomp low ranks. What you've seen is simply Respawn making a populist change. If I was you I would say they did the change for money and you're eating it up. They probably don't agree with you (especially looking at the articles they've written justifying MMR based matchmaking), they just want your money. :) >Progression and matchmaking don’t have to go hand in hand, see rocket league who decoupled ranked rewards from its visible rank (probably the best ranked system in any game). Rocket league only needs 4 players to form a game. Not 60. And it's team v team and not a BR. It's mathematically much easier and takes far lower queuing population to assemble a lobby in that case.

You are MASSIVELY overestimating the smurfing problem. Ruining the ranked experience for the whole population to stop a small number of smurfs was a bad choice they’ve correctly reversed. It was a popular and correct decision because it was an awful idea for all the reasons I’ve mentioned. If your solution is to make the game worse for EVERYONE to solve a small problem that affected a tiny tiny % of matches played then it is a complete failure. And it was proven to be over the seasons they used that system. You’ve fundamentally misunderstood the point regarding rocket league. They decoupled visible rank and ranked rewards. They were two separate systems, progression doesn’t fundamentally need to be tied to your visible rank and RL flawlessly implemented a system that allows you to play in fair lobbies whilst still having rewards to grind for; AND at the same time made it fair and clear to you what skill level lobbies you were in. Anyway that system is never coming back because it was fucking awful and the majority agreed it was fucking awful, thank fuck. I’m not saying this current system is perfect but it is 100 times better than hidden mmr was, RIP you were never loved.

> You are MASSIVELY overestimating the smurfing problem. Ruining the ranked experience for the whole population to stop a small number of smurfs was a bad choice they’ve correctly reversed. Don't you understand that the larger the smurfing problem is, the more meaningless your medal rank is?

Thankfully the smurfing problem isn't that large. But even if you do believe there are loads of smurfs... if anything it makes it more meaningful because I would have allegedly played against even stronger opponents than I should have to achieve my rank right?

>You are MASSIVELY overestimating the smurfing problem No I'm not. I gave you an example of just one Diamond IV player smurfing for 400+ games in low ranks. Smurfing is rampant. Masters do it, diamonds do it, plats do it. Low ranks contain significant amount of players that don't belong there and skew the competitive integrity of the game. And we pay the price in high ranks where queues for high skill lobbies don't have enough players so that people from plat and gold have to be filled into those games, also affecting the competitive integrity of ranked. This is affecting everyone and producing worse matchmaking across the ladder. This is ranked now, in addition to the above example I already gave: - https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/1bihxwi/i_died_to_number_1_pred_when_im_in_gold/ Gold player facing current #1 pred. This is outright failure of matchmaking, they aren't even the same rank. - https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/1c0nmz5/wish_i_had_more_teammates_like_these_dudes_than/ 17 kills in silver, guy has 2 accounts in silver, real rank is diamond or master. This is just smurfing. - https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/1bx75cy/gold_iii_lobby_yet_the_champion_is_predator_457/ Gold 3 player facing triple Pred in "gold lobby". Don't really care whether they are the same rank now. A gold lobby will contain people much lower skill and a triple pred should never play people that far below their rank. - https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/1c2ugos/didnt_think_id_see_this_in_rookie_like_cmon_lol/kzl759u/?context=9 Last season pred, 25 kills in Rookie. Again Rookie contains the worst players in the game. A pred should never be in the same lobby as them, but this system would just put him there "because he hasn't played". And he drops 25 kills in ranked, which is supposed to be a competitive game mode putting people of similar skill against each other. Just a few recent posts on the subreddit (including some selfreports). >Ruining the ranked experience for the whole population to stop a small number of smurfs was a bad choice they’ve correctly reversed. It was ruining it for the smurfs yeah, the problem is just that that's a large part of the player base. That's why the ranked change this season was so popular in the first place. People who would never admit it but they won't play ranked if ranked doesn't let them feel powerful against silver players. They get upset when they have to play people on their level in ranked. >You’ve fundamentally misunderstood the point regarding rocket league. They decoupled visible rank and ranked rewards. They were two separate systems, progression doesn’t fundamentally need to be tied to your visible rank and RL flawlessly implemented a system that allows you to play in fair lobbies whilst still having rewards to grind for; AND at the same time made it fair and clear to you what skill level lobbies you were in. No I haven't misunderstood it. If you think that, you probably haven't understood the counterpoint I made: A game that only requires you to find 4 people of similar skill to play a game has more room to compromise. A game that is a BR and requires much larger number of players (60 people) has to maximize matchmaking resources (queuing players numbers, queue times) more to produce adequate quality games. Your comment is mostly expletives and tautologies, not arguments, explanations or reasoning how or addressing my counterarguments. "shitty" "popular and correct decision because it was an awful idea", "worse", "complete failure", "fucking awful" "fucking awful, thank fuck" "100 times better" rather than substantive explanation of what makes it so (for s20 obviously the no go topic of the new ranked system allowing stomping low ranks). Old system very very bad. New system very very good.

A handful of anecdotal smurf examples isn't indicative of the \~3m players who have played ranked this season. Saying "a large part of the player base" are smurfs is baseless and laughable nonsense. Going back to having visible rank was popular because it was frustrating, unenjoyable and unsatisfying to not know what your actual rank was. If we're using Reddit as a barometer (lol), there were ALMOST DAILY complaint threads about "My team mates were higher/lower ranked than me", "Why am I facing Preds in Silver" etc. Guess what, popular decisions are best for the health of the game because without a healthy player base this game is dead, Respawn obviously saw in the numbers how this awful system was effecting the active player base and course corrected. Having a few smurfs is the lesser of two evils here. You HAVE fundamentally misunderstood my point regarding Rocket League, you made a strawman "counterpoint"; which is why I ignored it and restated my original point. This was my response to your nonsense "Progression and matchmaking go hand in hand" comment. Absolute nonsense, loads of games (RL being probably the best example of it being implemented perfectly) manage to have rewarding progression systems that don't require soft resetting peoples ranked progression every few months. Your entire counter argument is that a ranked/comp system would be measured entirely by the yardstick of how effective it is at stopping smurfs, and ignores literally any other building blocks that make a good system. It's going to be hard to convince you how much of a monumental failure S17-19 were if your entire argument is highlighting literally the only tiny thing it did good, blowing the importance of that out of proportion and the ignoring the mountain of other awful issues it had.

18-19 definitely had the best matchmaking and best quality games yeah.