Apex Finally Admits Solo Queue Has a Problem

Bring back season 13 ranked

You know what causes me to play less? The cheaters

9:19 man that fight was rough.

this might be the only season that good solo players can hit and maintain pred rank for the first time.

5:56 they intended for diamonds to be actual high rank but what we've got here? 30-40% playerbase reach there, ain't no way that's high rank when soo many diamonds can't shoot, can't moves, can't play cover
many of them are just boosted silver/gold, inflated by how ez the rank system is when u played for RP

makes the rank harder, makes everybody hardstuck gold, now we can talk about diamond given soloQ

That thumbnail is perfect. Fresh Prince episode was sad but good.

🎉🎉 i miss playing with my boys

Andddddd they canceled it.

What actually pisses me off is the fact that every mediocre to bad players are getting easily to diamond 4. If they dont I would happily fight duos or trios with competent teammates. It shouldnt be a thing that my "diamond" teammates dont know how to give coverfire or loot the whole game while staying purposely between 2 squads. The ranks arent accurate and Respawn should just hard punish people in a competitive mode for being not as good as they think are. Bring back promotion trials to rank up and raise the RP costs.

As someone whos is in Plat 2 I think this is an incredible addition to the game. Jokes aside, every time I got to diamond I just stopped playing because of three stacks (or atleast what I guess is three stacks). Putting everybody on the same playing field is going to make the solo queue experience better. It would be nice if I could still play with one of the homies though.

i only play apex when i play with my friend and its like the only game we play so now we cant play together in ranked the game isnt getting played anymore we are diamond 4 casuals btw and now cant play together nice one apex

I know they don’t want two separate ladders, but apex might benefit from some kind of weekly tournament with 3 stacks only and ALGS rules. Seems like a fair compromise between soloq players and the competitive experience that 3 stacks want.

Just increase que time for preds and masters so they can just be in the same lobby

didd bro win that game?😭👀

I don’t think they can just fix ranked tbh, I think they need to add a tournament mode to soak up most of the try hard 3 stacks instead. Starts at the top of the hour every other hour, 6 matches on all 6 maps, and each team can only use a legend once (meaning if your teammate uses gibby game 1, no one else on the squad including them can use him again). This mode would also use the same ranked points and would try to queue with similar ranks

as a mediocre 3 stack ranked (max diamond) play with 2 of my bud play for fun and talk about our days this update actually make us want to try other co-op game… anyone got recomendation?

the game is not about solo players...lol. find friends and play

im really looking forward 2 solo q only.. as a solo q player it truly is unfair.. ive solo qed to diamond dozens of times and would honestly say im hard stuck and getting ran over by 3 stack preds is soooooooo annoying.. its the reason why i stop playing till next spilt and even my randoms crash out at the same thing.. MAYBE?? i might enjoy it more im sure ill still get ran over by better teams thats comming better or just more skilled but im certainly optimistic this change is better for at least me - i always quit this game cause its just unfair and its always at the diamond range - if im being honest dying to 3 stack diamonds feels completely different than 3 stack preds - both is unfair but preds is HORRIBBLE to play againist its just instant death - ive killed plenty of current preds in a semi fair 1v1 but a proper 3v3 team fight is always no chance - 3 stacking ex preds thats currently diamond is still what im talking about aswell - a 3 stack of diamonds with 3 shiny diamond badges like my self still feels winnable.. a hard fight sure but i got a chance - 3 guys that are better than me and my randoms ON THE SAME TEAM????? its ggs

i honestly think the best thing they could do is make diamond and/or pred duo que max. it would be so much better and so many ways, its a reasonable middle ground for all this. that way some solo plat or diamond player gets to play with pros and see what its like and the 3 stack pro teams are no longer a thing but preds sill can pop off with a friend.

Season 28 I closed with 13% win rate, completely solo q, this season I am stuck at 7% I get terrible randoms. To me matchmaking was way better last season

Apex solo q is the most unfair online game ever, if you are decent or good you get punished with 2 bots in your team. 10 matches you get total idiot bots and maybe at the 11th match you get good random players. Over 6.000 matches solo q

Thanks for talking to Respawn.

Since the majority of complaints seem to be regarding "3 stacks," what about letting people "2 stack" with at least one friend. That way we can still keep the social aspect intact while trying to maintain fairness.

I'm all for making the solo experience better. It is pretty terrible as it stands. That said, it should absolutely not be forced or come at the expense of grouping.

At it's core Apex is a team based game, and many legend abilities are even designed around the idea of synergizing with a team.

Ranked is also a great pathway to ALGS for up and coming teams. I know some people have cited scrims as a resource but that has problems. Scrims are not always available like in game queue is, which mirrors the same sentiment as you mentioned in the video with your teammates logging off sometimes and schedules not being aligned. In game queue being always on helps to alleviate that and provide flexibility. On top of that, scrims are not all created equal and are not official. There's often secondary rulesets that do not align with ALGS rules such as no fighting allowed until certain ring closures, or gatekeeping that prevents people from having proper access to practice. Scrim matchmaking is also often much worse for skill disparity. Simply put there NEEDS to be an in game or official solution to competitive team play to feed ALGS, and right now that is ranked.

Also, an elephant in the room I have seen very few people discuss is women's experience. This change forces people to communicate with randoms. That on its own can already be toxic in many cases, but women especially face harassment in gaming online disproportionately. I know my wife has been screamed at with sexist remarks in Apex before, and that was just one random on the team with us duo. I've seen a couple of social posts of women dreading this change for that very reason.

Additionally, I know cheating was mentioned by several people (yourself included) but frankly in my opinion players playing the game normally shouldn't be inconvienced due to cheaters. That's what anti-cheat is for, and while that's a constant battle I don't think people trying to play with friends normally should be disenfranchised in order to combat them.

Lastly, I've seen a lot of posts, especially on social media, about how this is a skill issue topic. A lot of "oh you can only get masters if you team". That may be true for some, but I don't really think the arguments for that have that much merit. Many of the preds are pro players and will do just fine in solo queue. In fact it will be easier for them than it is now because they won't be running into other full pro teams that can match them. Long time veterans such as yourself, or people like me, have the experience to handily play in solo queue. But for some (myself included) it's not a difficult topic, just desire. I have over 9000 hours in the game, I don't want to play with random strangers any more I just want to play with my friends and family in a more serious setting than wildcard or pubs can offer.

could also help against cheaters boosting people in ranked

Should be dependant. On what YOUR squad is.... If you're in a full squad... You only face full squads..... And if your solo... You face solos

They should take the opportunity to add an "avoid as teammate" for 24 hours or whatever, like Overwatch has had since forever. Nothing sucks like getting matched with the same toxic clowns who throw games twice in a row.

They need to just make solo Q slightly easier matchmaking like they are implementing and make it 15-20 RP cheaper entry for solos across all ranks.

W video brother ❤

I've only just joined the apex community, but are you saying that Respawn has only just realised that communication in a PvP game is important? Lmao like yeah, playing solo in a team game is disadvantageous, also the sky is blue.

Having said that, I do think its cool that they are trying to find avenues for solo players. But I'd also understand if they just said, "this is a team game, if you choose to solo queue then you should expect to run into teams"

apex 2 problems- controllers and matchmaking
controller is nerfed no issues there
im down for solo only high elo, im down for keeping it the same idgaf.
im not down to play vs 3 pros/streamers as a diamond 3 with 2 plat teammates? id rather wait 5 mins for a que or play something else

I am a 60k kills solo player with 5k hours. In my opinion, from a FPS game perspective, Apex is simply too unpredictable to adapt as a casual. Too much content, short adaptation time between changes if you have a life beside games. Don't even mention the amount of cheats and lag in ranked. I can write a small book regarding the amount of problems I encountered and their solutions. Still, It is the best shooter I've ever played and it sux that I don't enjoy it anymore. I was curious about this ranked change as a solo exclusive player tho. For me, the current apex state is simply too unpredictable and I just play it once a week for 2-3 hours with little to no enjoyment. It may be my last season in this game. I hope the new generation of apex players will get the best of the game!

Unfortunately ,I'm going to suck regardless, and I don't really have friends on apex😂😭

They should have made it Master/pred soloq only, not starting from diamond. The problem is solo diamonds/plats going up against pred stacks!

Biggest problem in ranked is not this, it's rank smurfing all diamond and up players have 2, 3 or even 4 accounts total and ALL split long they smurf rank killing lower skilled players ALL year long! So making it Diamond and up solo q is not the way to go since they will all simply play on their alt accounts and make the smurf rank problem even WORSE! In reality solo q should be a mode, you should select to play in a solo q environment if thats your wish but seems like it would create problems finding a game quickly, so I suggested to Respawn that since we solo q really want that we could sacrifice a little bit of latency to get it, they could make a server in the center of the continent be solo q only, let's say they make US central server solo q only every player in America could log in there and have a sub 100ms connection and get that solo q experience rank wide that would be the fairest of all and not lower the player base anywhere. I hope they listened. Then they could find 1 server in a good position for that in Europe and one in Asia.

your experience from solo is the true in my experience also, i have the same issue as i got over 60k kills etc and meet up those real high skilled stacks as solo. and there is nothing i can do when one team mate is 100m away and another just runs each time i would need atleast supressing fire.. and i just get stomped by comms sweatting trio. im not saying its their fault, its the design you even let those stacks hit soloer's. and the most rufstrating thing is public ''casual'' games have the hidden MMR which just punishes even harder as there is non stop all cheaters high stacks plug users with no recoil etc... and i feel as its really rufstrating theres not single mode thats like mercenaries only = Only soloquers can make that game nothing else allowed and i would just compleatly remove MMR id like to play with all players from all scales instead im playing with smurfs with such built up toxicity in their core :c they just scream, do rasict calls in voice ragequit after pushing solo and dying like 2 seconds and so on... the soloquers are having so much pain. and no its not about that what many call you have no mates etc in voice chat when they play as duo and i have to fill them... i do but our skill levels are extreamely on different level and they feel like suffering in my games and cannot enjoy at all and they end up in just malding or prefer not to join me as experience and i cant carry them at all as i get stomped by 3 better ones that even i am ^^' so there are so many problems that have not been solved they always say they change things like many seasons ago, but the cold truth is they have not changed. that just builds up more of those rufstrated players who yell on mic and do punching from weapon upgrade etc toxic behaviour... i would be happy playing in lower tier lobbies atleast my self to get happy pepole new pepole etc instead same names day after day after day it stagnates things. and even worse i feel there is no progression or skill increase as i cant improve on anything when i get stack sended to next lobby in 1 second by 3 moving legends...

I agree that the change will make the game more “fair” but I also think it will make the game less fun. I do like the idea of being placed in easier lobbies when solo queued, I think that would be a great change. I think just like picking a meta legend and a meta gun is in the hands of the player and gives you a competitive advantage, if you know that teammates increase your win rate and you want to up your chances, that should be up to the solo queued player to go find themselves some teammates. Many content creators have Discord channels but you can also just, I don’t know, actually talk to your teammates when you solo queue and once you find some folks you click with, ask them if they want to reque as a squad. I think the barrier is just that people either feel awkward meeting new people online or they don’t even want to try because of how many immature/toxic people you run across and I get that, but rather than Apex bringing the game experience down to the solo queued player, I think it should be up to that player to elevate their game.

Is definately an interesting experiment. Threestackers will lose RP and experienced Solo Q grinders will gain RP. It will be a devided group of opinions. I love playing with randoms, met some of the coolest people like this. Its just a shame you cannot stick around witht them and play another game. When you lose -65 rp per game it is honestly going to be brutal for so so many people. I am all for it!!! Let them feel the same pain that all solo qers experience

The game is going into the right direction with solo queu ranked diamond+. Next amazing move would be splitting controller/mnk lobbies and the game will become even more fun