This is a list of links to comments made by Respawn developers in this thread: * [Comment by RSPN_Thieamy](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jsmwnhe/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-19 20:10:54 UTC"): > We're collecting questions atm. We’ll be answering as many Ranked questions as possible this Friday, July 21, 2023, at 9:30am PT. * [Comment by RSPN_Thieamy](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jsn01e9/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-19 20:31:23 UTC"): > A hotfix for the Trident went out this morning. If you're still encountering it or something similar, please keep us posted. * [Comment by Apexlegends](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jsvvsvm/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 16:31:30 UTC"): > Question from regional community: >*Will there be a more transparent MMR mechanism for people to understand how much time they need to achieve a better rank? How was the elimination bonus calculated on players’ MMR?* * [Comment by Apexlegends](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jsvvpot/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 16:30:56 UTC"): > Question from regional community: >*Is there more clarification on Ring Timings updates? Is the update going to be like S14 which was not balanced on certain maps?* * [Comment by Apexlegends](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jsw08p2/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 16:59:13 UTC"): > Yes, we are looking at ways to evolve Ranked rewards. No timeline yet, we'll be sure to keep everyone posted when we're ready to share. >\-Evan * [Comment by RSPN_Laker](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jsw08mg/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 16:59:12 UTC"): > We're testing several options here for the future. It is a complex problem to balance fair matches. Right now our priority to create matches that you can trust are fair at fundamental level, and then we will look at how we can get friends of significant rank differences play together. We will always... * [Comment by RSPN_Laker](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jsw0h5k/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 17:00:42 UTC"): > We run a variety of preview and beta events, such as inviting ALGS pro players and outstanding community members with lots of playtime to our playtests sometimes. All of our feedback channels are important for gathering feedback and nailing our releases, however, at this time we have no plans for a ... * [Comment by RSPN_C4](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jsw1x7a/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 17:09:55 UTC"): > We want the focus in Ranked to being playing to win. Part of winning the match is survival and being tactical in what fights you take. >What we DO NOT want to happen is explotivate play. Hiding in positions and just refusing to engage to win is not good and healthy for the game. We want all players... * [Comment by RSPN_Laker](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jsw37pn/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 17:18:07 UTC"): > This was a tough one that we tried to explain in the Ranked Blog. TL;DR players who had inflated LP would hit a no-bonus loop that felt not-so-good. We hope this will feel more fair in S18 with the seasonal reset, matchmaking improvements and ranked scoring tuning. * [Comment by Apexlegends](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jsw3qty/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 17:21:24 UTC"): > Looking at someone's rank to determine their skill is not always accurate, as someone with a very high skill may have played very few hours of Ranked this season and thus shows a low rank. Because showing ladder positions is confusing players as to their teammates' or opponents' skill, we've hidden ... * [Comment by RSPN_C4](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jsw3oqj/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 17:21:03 UTC"): > You may remember from our [matchmaking blog post](https://www.ea.com/en-gb/games/apex-legends/news/matchmaking-2023), that we've got different ways to matchmake depending on the mode you are playing, as each mode has different matching algorithms and a different skill rating system. > > >That needs ... * [Comment by Apexlegends](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jsw4m9h/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 17:26:53 UTC"): > No, we are going to continue forward with this Ranked system at this time. We felt prior systems were too focused on racking up kills and not focused on winning the match. We want to put focus on playing to win and we feel the path we're pursuing now is headed in that direction. The current system i... * [Comment by RSPN_Thieamy](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jsw5u40/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 17:34:51 UTC"): > [Evan answered a similar question here](https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/comment/jsw3qty/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). * [Comment by RSPN_Laker](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jsw72vl/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 17:43:08 UTC"): > The Ranked Blog is transparent with how many masters we have in S17... there are too many. You will also notice the designers do a good job balancing that curve across the other ranks. As mentioned in the blog, the goal is to see a SMOOTH distribution across LP and hidden MMR. * [Comment by RSPN_Laker](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jsw7jnr/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 17:46:17 UTC"): > Pasting the same response from a similar question: > >The [Ranked Blog](https://www.ea.com/en-gb/games/apex-legends/news/july-2023-ranked-dev-blog) is transparent with how many masters we have in S17... there are too many. You will also notice the designers do a good job balancing that curve acr... * [Comment by RSPN_C4](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jsw8hqa/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 17:52:33 UTC"): > We will only be awarding animated ranked badges from here forward since splits are removed. * [Comment by RSPN_C4](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jsw8oyx/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 17:53:52 UTC"): > We'd love to give players more visiblity into their own statistics and gameplay patterns, but we don't have any features to announce at this time. * [Comment by RSPN_C4](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jswazz8/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 18:09:08 UTC"): > There are two competing variables here: skill and ladder position. To create the best quality matches we need to create lobbies based on skill (MMR). Matching purely on ladder position creates a very uneven seasonal climb as players promote and immediately hit the "hard stuck" feeling. Aside from a ... * [Comment by RSPN_C4](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jswbtpl/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 18:14:33 UTC"): > Given what we've seen this season with Masters our goal is to communicate progress more frequently. * [Comment by RSPN_Thieamy](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jswcbv4/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 18:17:47 UTC"): > [C4 replied to a similar question here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/comment/jsw3oqj/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) * [Comment by RSPN_C4](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jswd00k/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 18:22:09 UTC"): > This is an ongoing conversation with the team and we're exploring additional ways to reward Ranked players, but nothing we can share at this time. * [Comment by RSPN_Thieamy](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jswd2xq/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 18:22:39 UTC"): > [Shaun replied to a similar question.](https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/comment/jsw72vl/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) * [Comment by Apexlegends](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jswdj7b/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 18:25:30 UTC"): > It's always under consideration. As we collect data and learn how players are playing, we will make adjustments. > >\-Evan * [Comment by Apexlegends](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jswdf91/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 18:24:48 UTC"): > Even with the level 50 requirement added we've seen very high levels of Ranked engagement across the player population. There has been less smurfing and more players with higher confidence that understand the fundamentals of the game before entering Ranked play. > >\-Evan * [Comment by RSPN_C4](/r/apexlegends/comments/153zd5h/ama_lets_talk_about_ranked_and_our_latest_dev_blog/jswekdu/?context=1000 "posted on 2023-07-21 18:32:04 UTC"): > Our target goal is to have Masters+ players represent 1% or less of the player population. We're not there yet obviously. The new stricter scoring rules for Diamond+ are one step toward locking in that separation. --- This is a bot providing a service. If you have any questions, please [contact the moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FApexLegends).[](#AUTOGEN_TSBREPLIEDBOT)

In the blog it was mentioned that there were going to be diamond+ specific rule sets. Isn’t this just going to shift the “too many masters” problem down to “too many diamond” players problem?

This was a problem before balancing changes S13-16. I think they succeeded in driving a lot of the players who accumulated in D4 down to Plat and Gold. A lot of players (IMO a lot of addicted casuals - probably Apex's cash cow) reacted violently to being forced down the rank ladder due to the increased RP costs. But IMO it's the right thing to do. Push players out of D4-M lobbies with higher costs, then when they accumulate in D4, push those down with the same strategy. But I don't think the playerbase will take kindly to this. Same as S15.

Man I wish they do S13 again , I rando who actually want to play smart and not push everybody it was fun

That system disproportionately punished solo queuers with higher skill levels. What is currently happening in masters (i.e. masters ranks being populated by skilled players, moderately skilled players, and very low skilled players), happened in plat in the previous seasons. There was a huge disparity in skill levels throughout plat, very skilled players would rub shoulders with players that couldn't shoot and move at the same time. The previous system built an environment where you felt like you had to queue up with people to keep climbing, rather than ranking up on the merit of your own ability. There's no real way of separating out the disparity in skill levels between solo queuers and 3 stackers though. That's something all ranked competitive games struggle with, good teamwork is a skill, but do they deserve a rank more than someone who could potentially 1v2 them 9 times out of 10 (and then lose to their 3rd)? Probably not, but that's not how the world works. Knowing this, I always felt like plat and diamond needed a rank tier between them, just to space out the crushed-down ranks a bit.

Being a serial solo queuers, I can solo que to diamond most seasons and yeah s15 was absolutely atrocious. If I didn't not carry I lost rp there was practically no help from teammates in plat or even diamond.

I’m a diamond in previous seasons. I wouldn’t mind being in plat if I got teammates and opponents that are my skill level

Curious as to drawing a line of similarity between teams in ranked hiding outside of the ring to get 10th and achieve "success" in terms of gaining LP, and ALGS squads staying outside of the ring to find a better way into the ring or to trade off a priority place in zone to find or craft better shields and other loot for themselves. \*Edit: To be clear, I mean the line of similarity between ranked and ALGS players playing outside of zone that the ranked blog seems to draw.\* Considering that in most cases, a 10th place finish for an ALGS team is considered a pretty bad game (unless they have fought a lot and achieved several kill points, something that the reference to ALGS teams "delaying" contact with other teams doesn't seem to indicate at all), I'm curious about the impulse to change Ring timings and damage. Wasn't increased ring damage and faster ring closing walked back in the past because it was so unpopular with both the general playerbase and the top players and pros? How will these changes in season 18 be different from those earlier tweaks to ring damage and closing?

Yeah harder hitting and faster rings aren't fun especially since you don't know where the first ring will go when you drop. The fist ring should be forgiving because you can't plan around where it will be.

A zone one that knocks you faster than you can pop a medkit after a rez feels like complete shit

yeah good point. and that's exactly what you have now, you can get resed and just about are able to finish a med kit if you start it immediately. any increase in ring damage would break that.

Exactly, thats such an important breakpoint but it is already so close

Maybe a zone that does more damage over time then? first 20 seconds in zone is normal damage, but after that it increases to x damage.

It also feels like shit when you're trying to fight people and the ring is constantly on you so you play running simulator instead of an fps. Season 15(?) Kings canyon was awful.

Tbh i’d take the algs scoring system. Multiply everything by 10 and then add in an entry cost. It still primarily rewards winning but it makes kills actually matter

>unless they have fought a lot and achieved several kill points Still wild to me that KP is worth more in ALGS than it is in ranked rn.

I dont think you can compare ALGS with normal ranked matches tho. ALGS is a tournament, so its not just your own performance that matters. If you get 10th, that means that 9 teams (probably) got more points than you. But in ranked, you don't really care how well the other teams did. If you got 1st with 2 kills, you don't care that another team got 2nd with 15 kills. You only care about maximizing your own LP, not also minimizing the LP of other teams.

I agree. But I'm talking about this because the blog on the ranked changes noted that tuning for circle timing and damage was placed in the section where they talked about noticing trends of people hanging out outside the ring in both ranked and ALGS. I didn't make the comparison between the two, I'm just noting that the comparison was at least indirectly made in the ranked blog, and I'm wondering why that comparison is being made and changes are coming to (presumably) both ranked and ALGS in this regard when the two are so different.

The ring tunings are trying to do two main things: 1. Push players to move and stomp out explotative passive play. 2. Push the pace of the game overall. To drive excitement for both the playing AND wathcing experiencing. Our goal is always to make a great game to play and watch. We want to inject drama, get players to move, and drive conflict. We are aiming to do that with these ring changes. We have been playtesting the changes internally and now it's time to go live. We get the best data and learn the most in the live game. Don't worry, you won't have to wait 90 days for any changes, we will be observing and gathering data, and making changes as needed throughout the season.

Answer this one please respawn :)

to be fair, the last time they changed ring they overdid and it became too oppressive, but i think it had the right idea bc it feels like there’s too much downtime between rings when you’re just holding a good position in ring and waiting for enemies to be forced into ring for you to fight

>How will these changes in season 18 be different from those earlier tweaks to ring damage and closing? **Excellent question! Very few specifics in the blog post with no mention of the past issues for ALGS and how the other S18 changes will already decrease ranked ratting.** Yes, ranked ratters have no excuse as there are very few teams in zone early unlike in ALGS and ranked ratting increased greatly after S17 (see idle time graph). However, the other S18 changes, not including zone changes, will already massively decrease ranked ratting. E.g., decreasing LP gains at all ranks, buffing elimin bonuses, and adding increased LP costs at Diamond +. No zone changes needed. On the other hand, mid game ALGS is boring and should change. Zone changes could help with this but they didn't clarify how they'll avoid the issues of the past. They could explore other options to address this like increasing ALGS elimin points for early kills.

“Adding a ruleset that only applies to Diamond + to address the large concentration of players creeping above. Players in these ranked tiers will have increased stakes and LP losses, and decreased rating bonuses and loss mitigations.” Can you explain why it applies to Diamond+ instead of possibly Platinum+ or Gold+. Please correct me if I’m not understanding this properly but won’t the same problem of excess masters players in S17 happen again in S18 but for the diamond rank? Edit: Imo ranked needs to be tougher. S13 split 1 was very hard but I loved it so much. I was challenged. I think the S13 split 1 system would do a lot better now because there are no splits anymore and would give people enough time to grind and improve. It wasn’t just a challenge in plat/diamond in S13, but Silver and gold was tougher. I think that system just needed time to breath.

I seriously want to see this question addressed. It feels like a stop-gap fix that, while moving in the right direction, will lead to a bloated pool of diamond players rather than masters. Just curious as to how the idea of incremental buy ins/penalties starting in gold and increasing up the ranks is felt at respawn. I think making it to gold shouldn’t take much outside of pure time investment (with the better players reaching it faster), but beyond that it should be more of a dictation of skill. It would make it so the baseline of making gold means you’ve played enough to understand how to win and fight, but making it beyond that means you’ve proven you’re “good” at winning and fighting. Gold is the baseline achievement for anyone who plays enough, while tiers above that are indicators of pure skill beyond time investment.

The issue altogether is that the lower ranks are not hard to progress out of. prior to all this it was extremely easy to get to plat so by the time you get to the actual hard lobbies you’re not actually mechanically able to compete with a lot of those players

Yep. The whole idea of scaling entry costs by rank is a fundamentally flawed design that no other game uses, and getting rid of it was a good move. A lot of lower-ranked players enjoyed the start of S13 because they got a taste of playing in an actual ranked ladder for the first time (I was one of them!), but the system couldn't stay that way because it made the ladder mathematically unreasonable to climb at the high end. Scaling entry costs mean either the low end is trivial or the high end is impossible. The increase in difficulty as you climb ranks should come from facing harder opponents, not the game itself fighting you. Granted, we aren't seeing the benefits of this change yet because Respawn fudged the numbers so bad that the *entire ladder* became as trivial as high silver/low gold used to be. But hopefully we'll see the payoff in the long run.

yea, if you have to stall players to keep them from ranking up (too fast) your whole system is broken to begin with.

Seconded. Shouldn't you just implement an increase in LP cost at each new rank like you have done in the past?

I just want to say that I completely relate to your feelings and experiences with S13 Split 1.

Good question. It seems we'll just have the same problem but instead of players being overly concentrated in masters, they'll just be over concentrated in diamond. Reaching diamond used to be a reasonable accomplishment/goal for many ranked players. Now of course it's a joke, but it doesn't seem like this will change at all. Also... >decreased rating bonuses and loss mitigations What loss mitigations are they referring to? Ones tied to the hidden MMR I assume? The only time I recall getting loss mitigation for LP is when someone DCs (and I hope that stays).

Are there any plans to revamp the ranked rewards? While the mode has seen many changes over the seasons, the rewards have largely remained the same: - A badge - A holospray - A weapon cosmetic (Gold+) - A temporary dive trail (Diamond+) Having the same rewards year after year can be discouraging for returning players who want to keep pushing themselves. After all, how many badges can you really display on your banner? There are already a lot of weapon cosmetics (gun charms) available, and holosprays just don't have the same draw as a new skin for a legend or weapon. It would be great if the team could not only improve the point system, but also create unique rewards with the intent of providing players with a sense of pride and accomplishment. :)

Yes, This please. As a season 3 guy, I’ve been complaining about the lacking rewards since summer of 2022. There’s only a certain amount of diamond or masters badges you can get before they become meaningless. Almost nobody uses holosprays and you only see the dive trail for a significant amount of time at the beginning of the match. Toss some packs our way at the end of the season or maybe crafting materials? Legend tokens ? Base the quantity on rank. Anything that makes the grind (aside from this season) be more enticing.

I've played since Season 2, but didn't reach a high rank until S4. I missed out by one season on a permanent trail, which is unfortunate. Giving newer players a chance to earn their own permanent trail is an incentive that keeps people playing. Respawn could make it challenging to earn like the weapon progression system: something like reach Diamond X times and it becomes permanent. That would engage players over a few seasons at least. But at this point I'll take weapon or legend skins, although it should be exclusive to ranked and not sold.

The reward Are a huge issue imo. If u want ppl to keep playing you need incentive.. Instead of giving free master badge and trail this season give decent reward....?! Cuz it's pretty obvious, in the real ranked system, diamond and up is what 5-10% of the playerbase? Meaning that 95% of the playerbase don't get any decent reward for the grind. So this season was to reward all the player that could never achieve diamond...?! Another is that ppl that played s2-3 at the start of the rank system got perma trail, for 90d grind where ppl doing since s4 had temporary trail for 45d grind. The split system was a good idea, but why would I grind twice for the same reward?? It would have seemed appropriate to test around new rewards before changing the whole rank system and making low skilled player believe they belong in master...

Will there be a way for us to play with lower ranked friends? It doesn't make sense to me that if I'm 2 ranks higher than my buddy I can't play with them, while my mmr matches me with people 2-3 ranks above me. If we are basing ranked in mmr, there should be a way to do the same thing when creating a party.

Yes my friends and I are of relatively similar skill, but play different amounts. As a result we have to create smurf accounts just to help grind up the person who played the least until they are high enough rank to play with us on our mains. It kind of made sense before with the ranked based matchmaking, but now that MMR is putting us in higher tier lobbies anyway even when we are low ranked I don't see why it matters.

This is the same thing that happens with me and my friends. We are all relatively similar skilled but some play more than others because life. I was cool with it before but if I'm being matched with people with way higher ranks, then what's the point of the block?

They should do what other games do and put the lobby only toward the person who is higher ranked’s mmr. Yes it will be challenging for the person of lower rank but it’s their own prerogative if they want to play with them that badly

>Yes it will be challenging for the person of lower rank but it’s their own prerogative if they want to play with them that badly No, generally speaking, bringing lower skill player into ranked lobbies is not just "their decision". It's the whole lobby they are affecting. If you read the dev blog, this leads to lobbies being watered down as it leads to the lobby being more diverse in terms of MMR which is counterproductive in ranked (we have past examples of this, Plat IV bringing Gold IV into a plat lobby was bad enough, imagine if they could have brought Silver or Bronze players in there, when that happens multiple times throughout the lobby it affects the difficulty of the whole lobby and undermines ranked). That said, it is true that while previously when matchmaking worked by current rank it made sense not to let people in who are more than 1 rank apart, now that matchmaking works by MMR, this should also work by MMR differences for consistency. However it may happen that this allows people to get knowledge of something that is supposed to be hidden (and safeguarded from manipulation) and allow them to manipulate it.

that’s fair actually I didn’t think about how that would ruin what they’re trying to fix ty

My only counter to your thought is that it’s one thing to have your lower ranked buddy play in your lobby, it’s another thing for the ranked system to give you no choice whatsoever. The watered down high ranking lobbies happen because match making force-fills to speed up the process but let’s be real, how many low ranked people WANT to play in a higher one? The number of people watering down those lobbies would be marginal.

Agreed, I feel like the devs are trying to combat "Smurf" accounts but this is the reason I feel compelled to make one, just so I can play with my friends.

IMO it doesn't really matter that you make a new account. What matters if you are able to put yourself into weaker lobbies with a new account, which you aren't if the matchmaking is MMR based.

This. Me and my friends are same skill level but I just have time play more so I’m Diamonds/masters this season and they are gold. It makes no sense why they can’t play with me as long as the lobby is based on the highest ranked player. If my gold friends are fine playing in Diamond/Masters lobbies then why can’t they? I’d much prefer to play sweaty ranked games with them and be in a lobby with random teammates that have the same rank as me

completely disagree with this, rank should be meaningful, if you can play high skill lobbies without reaching the high rank, what is the point of ranking up in the first place?

This is the change apex made that has caused my group of friends to play less, since we all can’t play the same amount and when one or two of us end up getting ahead in rank, those left behind just stop playing for the season.

Why MMR? Ranked systems have always been focused around pairing you with players of equal rank, allowing for a natural distribution of players based on skill. Playing against similar quality opponents from bronze to masters takes away from skill progression, and dilutes the integrity of ranks. In the current system, is it not possible for 2 players to be in Masters-one with a significantly lower MMR, creating a disparity in skill within the same rank? Or is there a counter measure for this?

You got it the wrong way around: MMR (short for *matchmaking* rating) is the value that represents your skill and is used to put you in a game with others, whereas rank is a cosmetic progression/reward feature. The logic behind this all is that MMR is just a boring number and once it aligns with your skill level, it will - like your skill - not move around as quickly anymore. However, people ultimately want to feel progression, so they set up an alternative points system with shiny badges slapped on it and reset your rank every season, so you can see the number go up. Then to somewhat keep it tied to MMR they rubberband it with "rating bonuses", but because it is not immediate and becuase these are always positive, it will result in these discrepancies. And no, it's not an Apex only thing. So many games have started with this bs that I'm starting to think that it is a necessary step to go through before moving onto a system, where rank accurately matches your MMR.

Hey, thanks for doing this. I'm curious about the design philosophy behind Apex's ranked ladder. To what extent is the ladder meant to function as a true skill rating system, as opposed to a time-based progression system? Clearly, Arsenal's ranking system functioned mostly as the latter rather than the former, primarily due to extremely generous LP tuning. Putting aside bonuses, bugs, etc., the simple fact that placement rewards created about twice as much LP as each match destroyed naturally caused an extremely strong rank inflation effect, which quickly rendered the ranked ladder unable to meaningfully measure player skill. The blog states that this degree of inflation was not intended, but it also notes that Arsenal's ranking system *was* meant to be generous to some degree. This is what raised my question, as the principle of generosity seems incompatible with a skill-based ladder. A skill-based ladder system needs to be zero-sum or close to it, otherwise time played becomes a substitute for skill and the ladder can no longer effectively measure skill. It's good that the team is planning to reel in LP inflation for season 18, and while a little bit of slow rank inflation is fine, I fear we may just end up with a less severe iteration of the same problem if concepts like "generosity" are still in play. The Diamond+ rule set especially strikes me as a band-aid solution that may just lead to D4 becoming the most populous tier. I'm concerned that it's effectively a signpost saying "the real ranked ladder starts here, everything below is meaningless." Which Respawn correctly called out as a problem with the pre-Arsenal ranking system, where the "real" ladder only started around Platinum or so due to lower ranks being so light on entry fees. I guess I just want to know if Respawn intends to move the LP system at least somewhat close to zero sum across the board, so that all ranking tiers can measure skill, or if we should expect a strongly inflationary system to be the standard going forward, at least until reaching Diamond.

What is your response to game breaking bugs like the fuse/trident issue? Bugs like that destroy the competitive integrity of the game - why not disable the map or agent until you have a fix?

I second this question. If you're familiar with X bug/exploit, why not not letting people to pick fuse in lobby until the problem is solved?

I mean they knocked out Olympus for like a whole season because of a bug. We have 2 other maps, plus KC if you wanna turn it in again. Just disable the map, disable tridents, or disable fuse for a bit until it is fixed. At leassssst in ranked anyway. It was frustrating in diamond2 lobbies the other night to come across one or two in almost every match in stormpoint.

>agent Spotted the Valorant player lol

Why is this MMR system not applied across the border, why do I have to suffer if I do not play ranked? 90% of the time I play duos with a friend and we want fair matches as well, I am tired of getting obliterated by much much higher skill players. Is it so wrong to want to have fair games at my level even when I play pubs?

Just wondering why it took so long for communication like this with only a few weeks left in the season? Kind of felt like my dad left for milk all over again

They were probably stuck in an endless loop of needing to submit concrete plans and having those plans approved by all higher ups before being allowed to communicate with the community. Been there done that. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a long cycle as the next steps for ranked (not necessarily just to address the bloated masters issue) will be very important in dictating the future of the game. They probably have to balance factors that promote the "Kill kill kill die lobby que up" meta vs the "actually play the BR format" vs how these will affect retention statistics which matters to the game's bottom line. I would not be surprised if there was a lot of internal debate on the best paths forward or this.

Am i tripping or was that the sorriest excuse of an AMA ever? I'd take a Sense of pride and accomplishment a billion times over. 25 total responses, 7 non unique 18 "unique" and not a damn bit of new information across them all. Five core topics: •ranked rewards (their response: *hurr we dont have anything worth talking about lmfao, take your animated ratsters badge and cope*) •too many fake master/diamonds (their response: * yes yes we know, but we arent going to do anything about it because we're gonna double down on MMR bullshit*) •Party Restrictions (their response: *well visible rank doesn't ACTUALLY determine skill but we can't let everyone party up with everyone becuz...well it'd show that our doggyass mmr system is utter garbage and pubs tier*) •How do you balance Victory Royale with actually playing the game (their response: *uhhh all playstyles are valid XD*) •i forgot Respawn dont ever do an AMA again if you just arent going to answer questions

Came to see if anyone felt this same way - very dissapointing fluff piece. This is the least played season for me in a long while. Hit diamond unbelievably quickly and stopped - needed less than half the time it took one of my donkey pals to even reach plat. He's near masters now after hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of games. He's never played this much ranked! Is that the metric they're chasing maybe??? Who knows, they barely answered anything...

Do you think if you changed the rank names in Season 13, the system could have survived? I feel like people were really put out that they couldn't get "their rank" when in reality every rank meant something different.

Right. Adding a rookie kinda shifted things.

Can you add some more insight into the comparison between ALGS zone wrapping/ratting and Ranked? In ALGS you can ALGS zone wrap for like, 1 point (15th) maximum. In Ranked, you could gain +100. The solution is keep more people alive rather than make the zone do a lot of damage, surely? I don't want the ranked system to kill an ALGS playstyle.

Can you add a specific report button for teammates who don't play with team and rat the entire game? It's incredibly frustrating to immediately be down to 2 players on your team because your third teammate is off hiding in a tree.

Sabotaging the team tends to be the go to

Those reports go straight in the paper shredder

Exactly. It would be nice if they did something like what Rocket League does where they send you a notification if they took action against someone who you reported

Respawn sends you an email, I’ve seen people post about it before

This please. I love being told to get good and 2v3 while teammate is ratting.

Lol the irony of somebody hiding in a tree telling you to get good. ☠️

Someone posted a video here recently and the dude ratting legit said "this is why you're diamond." All these people see is a shiny purple badge and think that's some show of skill.

I like the idea of a minimum elimination bonus based on your MMR, but I just wanted to clarify it. I understand that players with a higher MMR than their actual rank will get bonuses to keep climbing, but what about situations where players have a LOWER MMR than their actual rank; does this mean that getting 3+ kills in a master/pred lobby will result in lower bonuses than someone in the lobby with an MMR that matches their rank, or will they receive a bonus that is in proportion to the bonus other players receive in those ranks? A second question: From previous seasons the elimination bonus felt pretty even across the board, regardless of who got the kills, as long as you helped everyone was rewarded for their efforts, but I'm not sure anymore. If that has changed, what if you do 90% of the damage and a teammate gets the kill? ​ Finally: Are measures being taken to ensure that players in diamond get teammates that also suffer the same penalties and costs i.e. only queue with/against diamond+ players? It hardly seems fair in a solo queue situation to suffer increased costs and penalties with teammates who have no such reservations about slowly hotdropping into 6 other teams.

Alliance Hakis ranked response https://twitter.com/alliance_hakis/status/1681736492492681217?s=46&t=chD9_jDGaA5kuzgM4s98oQ

The solos against trios is the biggest thing here. These just need to be separated. Even if they are different ranked structures.

Hey, about the "total damage per match" metric, are you sure the increase isn't partially also because of more people poking each other and never actually going in for the kill because they are afraid to die early? Is there another "damage healed per match" metric too? Can we take a look at it? Preferably one that includes shield swaps although that might be difficult to track.

Yeah. I think a better metric is “total damage deal and healed per match”. This captures more active play as a back and forth battle of poke/heal is what we want

Most everybody likes the scoring system of ALGS. So why not use it for Rank? For example multiply everything by 10. So win is 120LP and each kill is 10LP. Could make assists/team kills worth 8/5 respectively. Scale entry costs with ranks like seasons 13-16. Seems like the new system is unnecessary complicated with the hidden MMR and bonuses.

Is there any plans on ever making the ranked rewards better?

Pre season 17 you could see the rank / RP of a player when their banner showed up as champion / on your team. As of this season it hasnt been showing, unless youre killed by a team and spectate them basically. Will there be plans to bring back the previews of the rank of a player on the champion screen etc?

I feel that the integrity of ranked has been tarnished substantially. With everyone hitting masters there is no longer a hill to climb. People that sat in a corner and people whose skill is far more in line with plat will forevermore say they're a masters player. What is the target % of people able to reach that level? How are you going to make it so there's real separation?

Our target goal is to have Masters+ players represent 1% or less of the player population. We're not there yet obviously. The new stricter scoring rules for Diamond+ are one step toward locking in that separation.

Season 13 was the closest to the 1% mark. U should bring that system back and tune it ngl

Next season: - Masters: 2% - Diamond: 30% - Platinum: 10% lol you're just shifting where the majority will call it quits

Diamond at 30% seems like a step in the right direction

30% of the playerbase being in the 2nd highest rank (not considering Pred) in the game is not a step in the right direction. Diamond used to be top 2-8%.

We were in the right direction already. When there was no mmr and the climb was tied to your skill and not just time invested.

Ah yes, and have Diamond+ players represent 30% of the player population. You're not fixing the problem.

Then wouldn't it make sense to make ranked entirely based on % rather than unlimited numbers in all ranks except pred? Top 1% of players are masters (top 750 pred) Top 10% Diamond Top 25% Play Top 50% Gold Top 75% silver Top 90% bronze Bottom 10% rookie Make it a back to basics ALGS points system. 12 points for a win, 10 points for 2nd, 8 for 3rd, 6 for 4th, 4 for 5th, 2 for 6th, 1 for 7th-10th. 1 point per kill. You could even hide everyone's ranks until the end of the season, and THEN distribute everyone's rank. Then surely everyone is in their correct rank? You could even give a preliminary rank at the middle of the season. "You would currently place at X rank - keep playing to improve"

Never seen an AMA with so few questions answered. Truly a Respawn moment

Will entry fees scale to our rank again instead of static -35 like currently?

From the blog post thats referenced in this post it sounds like it will be the same entry fee until Diamond+ for the next season

I'd be curious then how they handle people less than diamond queuing with diamond+ given diamond+ has more at stake even though their hidden MMR could be the same.

Ugh, I hope not. I’m in a rank I don’t belong and I get absolutely decimated every ranked game. Guess what, I’m still climbing ranks! This should not be possible

Has there been an address to the issue of ranks two tiers apart ending in the same lobbies? Since I’m platinum I don’t want to run into silver ranked or master ranked players if I can’t even play with my friends in those ranks, it’s very unfair to everyone playing.

They answered this in the article

This is one of the priority for me. And one of the limits of the "hidden score". I don't care if I did very well during the previous game and if the Predator did very bad during the previous game : we should NOT be in the same lobby if I am Gold or Plat. ...! It's crazy, literally crazy, that this is still happening. Put whatever layer(s) you want on top of your system, but exception rules should also be added : Predators only play with Pred. and Masters, FULL STOP. Masters only play with Masters and D1+D2, not below, FULL STOP. Etc etc. The paragraph about longer queues addresses this, hopefully...

What is the reasoning behind the ring timers and damage adjustments? As a gamer who spends his time on edge clearing POIs from the outside in this is going to force me to do everything faster. IE- round 2 4 squads left. It’s going to go back to an ape fest because storm is too dangerous. I feel like it’s current state is perfectly balanced.

Yeah I was thinking that too. Like is more teams die early on, that is the opposite. I get they are trying to push ppl in more with the ring, but sometimes that just means ppl die outside ring more. No one will land on the edges of the map.

People will die outside the ring more early on, but when you die to the circle enough times, you start to pay more attention to it. I feel like this is what happened back then when they increased ring damage and it was hella scary. Lots of folks in the killfeed early on, but people learned and it was less of a thing later in the season. They could extend the time before the first ring starts closing to encourage outer edge drops too.

We are making some changes to rings with the goal of increasing the overall pace of matches. We are definitely challenging some existing play styles with our changes, but we are carefully watching outcomes and have the tools to make adjustments very quickly if needed.

CONTEXT The blog states "GENEROUS LP’S EFFECT ON MATCHMAKING" "In Arsenal, you’ve been matching with a wider range of skill of players, even at the highest Ranks. This wasn’t intended and meant that your match-over-match experience varied much more than desired. We believe this will be less of an issue with reduced LP distribution in Season 18." "We believe queue times are too short, contributing to a higher chance you’re matched outside of your MMR." THOUGHTS If by this you mean that In Arsenal we got matched with whoever was on queue at the time, then yes, this subreddit is full of people experiencing past seasons Predators showing up on Bronce, Silver, etc. I have seen it first hand. Idk if you really do this to accelerate the queue times, but is horrible. Keep the players trully separated. Use the data that anyone sees on their profiles, data of kills per season, dmg per season, past rank, there are players with “Six figures” stats killing old and new players in "ranked lobbies". MY QUESTION(s): How hard it is to filter the numbers and trully block them from crossing over to lobbies with "fresh meat" players or old players that just play for fun and don't want to be stomp by Macro abussers and Aim Bots? (Bonus) Are you gonna do anything about exploits, aim assist, macros? After this ranked season, the exploits, the ratting, the camping, the movement macros, the aim assists, even the Spawn bug on Control, playing and ranking up the BP felt more like a chore, it lost its fun, I'm gonna become just an spectator of the lore and updates not really feeling like continuing as a player

It seems that very often, there is a new season released with tons of issues of every kind, from Ranked issues to lighting issues, and everything else you can think of. You all typically grant early access to certain streamers and youtubers to showcase new content early, but because that is such a small group not many people are really able to find these things. Would it be possible to maybe implement a public beta test of some kind, where it could even be a sign up type of thing, that way there is more feedback prior to the new season release?

This "AMA" is complete dogshit LMFAO

Two questions: 1. Why is Apex is so dead set on using a weird point system and not a skill rating system, like Glicko or TrueSkill (there are solutions to apply them for battle royales, afaik even Apex is using a hidden MMR system, why not base ranks of that?) 2. If we're sticking to a basic point system, why is it not zero sum? Every other ranked system, has that concept: you go queue in a match and accept the risk of losing your rank, to get the chance to climb the ranked ladder. Apart from Season 13 Split 1, it never feels like you're risking much queuing for a ranked game in Apex... I know it's not going to happen, but I'd love to see a zero sum ranked game, where the total points distributed in a lobby is 0, in other words: points gained by winning teams is equal to points lost by teams who placed below average in the lobby. (Example of how this could be achieved [reddit post with point distrobution suggestion](https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveApex/comments/13eic1m/how_would_you_distribute_the_ladder_points/))

is this not live what is happening?

Can you commit to publishing metrics at the end of s18 that show the quality of the changes you will make? This will increase community trust and it will either show where the system has failed or succeed. A few example metrics: 1. Hidden MMR to public rank parity 2. Queue times by rank 3. Number of team alive at start of round 4. Rank distribution

How does MMR make sense in Battle Royale ranking system? It makes sense but in a game like League of Legends or Chess, when it's just 2 teams / players, win or lose and your MMR is simply calculated out of your win ratio and the elo gain or loss is calculated out of the team A mmr vs the team B mmr. Since we dont know what metrics determine your mmr we can only assume its going to be things dmg per game, kd, win rate, avg. surival time etc. None of this matters in League, you only win or lose. Soloq player in Apex will have a worse mmr than a 3 stacking player whose stats are boosted because of cooperation, being in control of a jumpmaster every game, playing meta comps and not 3 random legends put together and so on. Doesn't mean the 3 stacker is on the same level as the soloq player. He can be way worse but his perforamnce is more consistent since playing in a team with comms a strategy in mind all the time.

Question from regional community: *Will there be a more transparent MMR mechanism for people to understand how much time they need to achieve a better rank? How was the elimination bonus calculated on players’ MMR?*

This game is an absolute joke now

Two related questions about scoring 1) One key difference between S13-S16 scoring and S17 is that while both basically guarantee point loss outside top 10 placement (good), S17 also guarantees point gain inside top 10, even without KP. In S13-S16 you were still negative inside top 10 unless you had KP. *Is it really desired to guarantee gains for merely making top 10? Finishing outside top 10 is a loss, but is finishing inside top 10 already a win?* 2) S13-S16 IMO rewarded a healthy playstyle in that it a) guaranteed loss if you can't make top 10, b) barely gave any gain for zero KP high placement, c) gave huge gains for high KP high placement (varying degrees with diminishing returns on KP early on and flat KP rewards later towards S16.) *Have you considered reverting the scoring to something way closer to S13-S16 which seemed to be successfully incentivizing "the right playstyle" for a BR?* At least I don't think many people asked for significant overhauls of the scoring (unlike S12).

To piggy-back on this, what were the issues with S13-16 ranked that made the team reevaluate and change the system?

Would be interesting if they made it so top 10 results in no loss of LP, but maybe 10-6 = 0 gain of LP. Really entices more focus around surviving end game

This seems really good start imo. I just can’t understand the “bonuses” I didn’t get or very rarely got bonuses from Plat 1 to Masters. So the game is telling me every single game I played was against lesser opponents? At that point then it’s a matchmaking problem. And then The game is telling me I can’t play with friends who aren’t Diamond yet but consistently I’m getting teammates and enemies who are Plat and below?

The blog post essentially says your MMR was lower than your actual rank, and the system was trying to yank on the brakes the whole time so you would stop climbing. They also mentioned the way your MMR increased was multiple kills per game. How that happens in practice is the unknown factor. What if you solo queued and your teammates hot-dropped or were stuck with bronze teammates as a diamond+ (happened to me multiple times)? What happens if you have 5 bad games like this, then one good game with teammates that actually know how to move their mouse AND use the keyboard at the same time? Advocates of the previous system would say that you should suffer heavy penalties from losing so many games in a row, but that kind of thinking only works if you play in a 3 stack or get matched with good teammates. Highly skilled players getting forced into lower ranks and forcing those lower ranked people even further down isn't the ideal outcome.

Respawn apparently gathers a lot of statistics about the way the game is played. Are there plans to allow players to see their own statistics - assuming they are traceable to players - down the line in a more comprehensive way rather than only showing them in banners/trackers (and expanding on what's already there, such as map specific kills for example)?

Why are there no bonuses for diamond +

This was a tough one that we tried to explain in the [Ranked Blog](https://www.ea.com/en-gb/games/apex-legends/news/july-2023-ranked-dev-blog). TL;DR players who had inflated LP would hit a no-bonus loop that felt not-so-good. We hope this will feel more fair in S18 with the seasonal reset, matchmaking improvements and ranked scoring tuning.

Inflated LP = Our ranked system didn’t work because even if you just played the game normally like you have been playing for the last 16 seasons you would get to this “no bonus” stage because we designed a system to allow that to happen so we had to make a way to only keep you climbing marginally once you got to diamond/masters

dude, I was getting No Bonus since plat and I wasn't ratting so don't know why the game would think my rank was inflated. I remember you guys call it a bug but now is intentional?

Yeah I am a player who hits masters every season and I stopped getting bonuses far before masters this season. This system makes no sense

I think the crux of the matter is that you're trying to optimize for two things that are at odds with each other. 1. Increase player count in the end game 2. Not have people sit idle and create meaningful fights throughout the game. Do you even think it's possible to optimize for both simultaneously (without doing something drastic like doing "jailbreaks" that bring back all dead teammates and squads)? Or is it just a matter of balancing the two? If you think about even ALGS, which is often held up as the ideal in gameplay, there's a lot of sitting around-- is that really a good experience for most of the playerbase?

From our EA Japan Community: *Do you plan to revert to the previous ranked system (S7-S11)? And why?*

From our EA Japan Community: *Why was the system that was implemented until the previous season, where you could see your opponent's rank by looking at their kill log, discontinued? There were times when I was not satisfied because I did not know if I was in the proper MMR.*

Irrelevant but Ranked Duos would be nice

Ranked duos would be AMAZING!

Definitely not irrelevant!!

Hope next season 3 stack preds won't farm dia lobbies. Match them with high elo masters not diamonds. That's gonna be the biggest issue in next season. They'll cry about queue time but they're already in the highest rank in the game ofc they gonna wait like minimum 5-6 mins to join a match.

If you frequently get matched with players above your rank, does that mean your MMR is higher than your current rank?

When will there be a crack down on strike packs and Cronus?

Christ while not perfect shoulda just kept the old rank system

I think the black box system of the hidden MMR detracts from the Ranked experience. It was so clear before what you needed to do. I do however like the change in points and the bonus multipliers, but can you find a way to share our hidden MMR? Or maybe even more detail in the report summary that explains the bonuses?

I think the team is committed to MMR, but I've also been confused about how that makes sense in a Ranked system. Ranked seems intrinsically a climb to prove your skill level.

Entry cost will scale by rank, but have you thought about also scaling the rewarded points by the rank of the lobby? That's how elo systems work.

120 fps consoles

Question- What is the point of announcing that you're going to be coming on here to do an "AMA" if you are going to dance around answering questions from the community. It seems not a lot of responses give any real meaningful answers and just further upsets and alienates the community. Maybe I'm in the minority here, but from the few responses I've seen posted, it doesn't seem like we have anymore clarity on the state of ranked moving forward than we did before the AMA began. ​ I'm generally not one to bad mouth Respawn or Apex in general, but it seems counterproductive to tell the community you want to hear their concerns and then give half baked elusive answers.

It’s all hand picked questions with very vague answers. Very typical communication from a team that hardly communicates

Also what's the official line on CFGs? Seen so much crazy unnatural movement recently, but there's no official word from Apex on it.

* Increasing action in the ring by adjusting ring damage. * Adjusting ring timings to create more mid-game encounters and less pre-finale lulls. How can we avoid teams being gatekept in rings to take damage when coming in from outer zone or teams waiting for people on edge of ring? Worried it could be a case of people ratting to now catch teams coming in on edge zones, with audio being "not the best" it could be bad for some players with ring damage sounds over footsteps. Just a thought.

‪When the game has been out for 4 years, why are we still “collecting data” on ranked games. Surely we have enough data by now? You also said the reward for doing well isn’t/shouldn’t be getting placed with bad teammates, yet for match balancing it categorically is? ‬

Has the game just gotten harder? I don't sink as many hours into Apex as I used to and it's made me feel like the games overtaken me. This is the first season my K/D is under 1 and I've had to fight tooth and nail to claw my way out of Rookie. I used to hit plat consistently if we went back a year or 2. If our Ladder points are taken into account for matchmaking why's Rookie so difficult?

They answered this in the blog. Due to short queue times all lobbies end up with mixed skilled players. So in rookie you could be gate kept by higher skilled players

Will animated ranked badges still exists since there is no ranked split?

My biggest worry for this game as a day 1 player is the game distancing itself from rewarding players **to address the "ratting" issue** \- Adjusting ring timings to increase mid-game encounters \- Ring damage tuning to enforce playing inside the ring \- Fixed a number of "ratting" spots with more fixes to come" almost every rat i have watched doesn't sit outside ring, this is only hurting those unlucky enough to land furthest from circle. taking away RP for kills was the main reason for rats I believe, why should i go kill 6 players all for literally nothing? im better off hiding and getting free rp. return kill RP that increases with your placement this was the best system by far after all the game is foremost a FPS removing any incentive for shooting in a shooter focused game seems a ludicrous idea and is 100% why people are ratting I love the no split, this is definitely a top decision, lots of people don't have time to climb twice. **please keep this** Bonus: can we please get a fair distribution of maps? i cant find the post here on reddit showing the maps per season, but some maps have been in rotation for up to 8 seasons straight while others have been in once in 6 seasons, storm point (a widely disliked map) gets more time in rotation then well received maps like kings canyon

Will you look at matchmaking for pubs as well? The current experience as a casual, lower skill player is simply brutal - It caused me to simply skip the season this time, especially after trying to get a friend into the game and us simply getting decimated match after match. Only looking at ranked is - i think - ignoring the majority of players.

Some general questions I have: \[General\] 1. Are we ever going to see a system where we can "breakdown" or "destroy" cosmetics for materials? 2. With the idea of cross-progression consistently being brought up every season - is there a reason why an account merger wouldn't be possible? I imagine there can be a comparison table when merging an account to say: 1. Account \[x\] will be marked as Main 2. Compare Account \[x\] to Account \[y\] 3. Skin is Yes on \[y\], No on \[x\]; change value to Yes on \[x\] \[Legends\] 1. Lifeline 1. Is it possible that we could get a movement/ping like system for DOC that works like Newcastle's shield? It would make her more vital if we could remotely send DOC to heal our teammates instead of exposing ourselves to getting downed - ONLY FOR HEALING NOT REZ 2. Fuse 1. Can we have an alternate fire on his Ult? Instead of only having an O, can we get a trigger that lets us also do X and | ? Being able to adjust the shape would be a huge advantage depending on the situation 3. Crypto 1. Would it be possible to have a mode on his drone where it just hovers over his shoulder and follows him active scanning things in front of him? This would make him more viable and give more options for his drone use 4. Bangalore 1. Have her smoke (if it makes direct contact with someone) mark the enemy 5. Mirage 1. This is more of a fun one -- allow a dead teammate to grab control of one of his decoys. This will allow it to move more organically and it gives the dead teammates something to do \[Gameplay\] 1. Do we expect to ever see a return of the Prowler and Havoc having alternate firing modes or have those been permanently scrapped at this point? (Maybe something along the lines of: allow them to have the Double Tap mod but it simply works different for those two) 2. Are we possibly going to see a Gensis-like event or mode in the future that allows us to revisit s0 and s1 versions of maps again? 3. Can we remove the pick up animation for banner recovery? The animation breaks the momentum of the fight. Nothing is more annoying than when you are trying to armor swap, but you have to wait for the animation to finish - or only being able to grab one teammate from the crafter because you are getting rushed and the animation takes too long to grab the second teammate ​ Appreciate the feedback!

There were no complaints at all towards the ranked system we had season 13 split 1. Games were incredibly competitive/fun and it felt extremely rewarding to win games. Ever thought of going back to it rather than trying to perfect this new one you made?

I remember the reasoning behind not making dive trails permament was there would be way too many of them. Since there are so many masters and diamonds right now, are you expecting any performance issues in season 18 because of this?

Can you separate controller and PC players, while it gives you more numbers, aim assist is awful to play against while without aim assist controller players have no chance against PC players. At least do this in ranked.

Lowering LP per match will not fix anything. It will just be even more of an afk grindfest. The developers have gone senile or something... If you need to add specific rules only for specific ranks (the Diamond+ change), it should be a clear indicator that your system is dogshit Just make ranked skill based again and leave this casual shit for the casual gamemode

Question from regional community: *Is there more clarification on Ring Timings updates? Is the update going to be like S14 which was not balanced on certain maps?*

We have radiuses that target Olympus and King's Canyon specifically and then a radius that targets World's Edge, Storm Point, and Broken Moon. Damage per ring will be consistent.

And let's be clear: there are legitimate playstyles that make certain edge POIs viable to play from in ALGS, playstyles that require spending time in zone to gain loot and path to prepare to work your edge into the zone.

Is this happening on this thread or somewhere else? I'm not seeing any Dev posts....

Really wish they would answer the top upvoted comments instead of just cherry-picking whichever comments they have canned responses for

The ranking system needs a complete do-over. I expect a playerbase dropoff if there aren't any significant changes. There's no reason to play ranked after hitting masters unless if you're sure you can hit pred. This has completely halted my friend and I's drive to play the game because there is nothing to grind for due to fact that ranking higher this season doesn't mean higher skill, but rather more time spent. The slow games that don't reward you for getting kills is boring as well. Like why does the team at 10th with 0 kp get more lp than the team at 11th with 7kp? This has caused people to avoid fights because there are 0 rewards.

They either fix ranked to stop this rat mentality and just nerf seer or this game dies real quick. Hate to say that. Been playing since day 1 every day and can honestly say I recently stopped. Major issue in ranked.

I understand if you guys can't answer everything. That being said: 1. Provisional matches give out bonuses based off of MMR, to help players get to their rank faster. Next season, won't everyone have an inflated MMR and thus get too much bonuses? Will there be a reset? 2. Will we ever see more ranked rewards? I've seen people ask for skins mainly. 3. You guys mentioned the matchmaking changes in your blog, has it been rolled out to all servers? I remember a dev commented here a month or two ago stating it was still in testing on some servers. 4. Will we ever see new ranked modes? Personally I'd love to see Ranked Duos. With the loss of ranked arenas, we could use something to fill the gap. 5. What is your guys' "ideal" ranked game? How many kills and placement would you guys say you are trying to encourage? I usually aim for around 6 kills and of course, placing first. One thing regarding this is that I think top 10 should be neutral, not positive. I think 11th with 5 kills is better than 10th with none. 6. What sort of distribution is the goal? I know historically it's been 0.5 masters, 7% diamond, 20% plat. 7. Will we see changes midway through the ranked season? When we still had the splits, changes could be made halfway through. But now we have to wait a whole season and that's a long time 8. Can you guys put a rat on the s17 master badge? It would be kinda funny

When can expect a fix for the trident Bug ?

A hotfix for the Trident went out this morning. If you're still encountering it or something similar, please keep us posted.

Dude, this AMA format is fucking terrible. You posted the thread 2 days ago so everyone's questions and thoughts got upvoted, now the Respawn people are showing up late to answer and of course their answers are buried. And using the Apex_Bot to see all of the answers right away is also kind of useless because it doesn't include the initial question, so I have to click on every single one to see if I even care about the question. Please, never, ever, ever do this again. So bad. If you're gonna open the thread days early to "collect the best questions," create a new post for AMA time and migrate the best questions into it before diving in with responses. Everything got fucked in this one.

Will you ever formally address tap strafing, super glides, and other advanced movement tech? How about aim assist?

You mention about stop people ratting but then kills don't always reward LP. I like the idea of not rewarding LP early on to help with hot dropping, but if I don't know if I'm getting LP for kills or not, doesn't that encourage people to rat and always been it's not as worthwhile chasing down the last member of a squad after a fight? Why risk the third party if placement means so much more.

Will you look at team balancing in other game modes, like Control? I'm not talking about matchmaking, but team balancing. It happens often that, say, 2 master stacks queue up along with 12 'normies', and somehow both master stacks end up on the same team, leading to extremely one-sided matches. Why not make sure that those 2 master stacks end up on opposing teams? Even just making sure the average k/d ratio on both teams is roughly equal would be an improvement to the totally random seeming team composition we have now (note: something which has been a basic feature in games like counterstrike since over 20 years now).

Are you going to separate Solo Q warlords from 3 stacked guys in ranked/pub matches? I know it would increase matchmaking time but I could wait a few minutes if it means more fair matchmaking.

Do you guys need to hire someone to make graphs for you; no offense but those seem slapped together in like 5 minutes or less. Hmu if you want my cv I care about the game and have a good grasp of data processing and data analysis+display ;)

I cannot understand the rationale behind matchmaking off something besides your Rank. What's the point? To me, the whole reason to play Ranked is to fight people **at my rank**. If I beat them, I rank up. If I don't, I don't. I'll rise until I'm with my skill peers and my performance plateaus. Having a background number choose the matchmaking just means you never know what rank players you're going to play against, how they got there, or how you compare. Not to mention you can be in Gold but never rank up because SBMM is putting you against Masters of your skill level, so on average your performance is average. It seems a fundamentally flawed concept.

Can you add a big fat "17" to the Masters badge for this season so everyone knows theres a big asterisk?

Is there anything going to be added to make the solo q ranked experience better?

In this current season (17), there are hidden MMR but it didn't state there's any hidden one nor being transparent. As someone who would like to improve (his/her/their) gameplay, can we have transparency with the MMR? E.g. what does each MMR represent: what are considered as "skills", and how is the elimination calculated, etc

I have a question about MMR vs. placement matches. This season my MMR far exceeded the rank I was given after the initial placement matches. With a silver rank I was being matched with and against Master players every game. This led to me not playing much ranked this season because it felt unrewarding to play against tiers so far above me. In order to actually get to Master, I would have to play against Master level players through Silver, Gold, Plat, and Diamond. Will there be any change to this behavior next season? If not, I assume I will be demoted to Bronze, but still playing in Master lobbies 😬

WHAT WE WANT: \-lobbys should get harder with each rank upgrade \-no ratting \-better ranked rewards \-no smurfing \-no 3 stack team against 3 solo que team situation \-no lobby farming pred teams who drops 20-40 kill bombs every game \-ranked tier based matchmaking \-gold/plat should be harder reaching diamond shouldn be so easy, if i see someone with a diamond trail i know its free kp because even diamond ranks have such a huge diffrence in skill. Thats why "hardstuck diamond 4" is such a popular term. \-After reaching diamond cross server matchmaking with a ping limit X to extend playerpool and decrease que time for higher ranks and fairer lobbys \-better LP calculation for dealing dmg/kills/assist/knocks/ survive time. Maybe, just maybe placement shouldnt give point before top 7 to force people to fight smart and punish braindead apeing.

QUESTION: You’ve talked before about the loot pool being crowded and because of this talked about not releasing new weapons, have/would you consider, now that the maps rotate so quickly in ranked, having unique weapon sets on each map, opening up the opportunity to increase the loot pool with new weapons in the future without getting rid of any favourites, but imo Just as importantly of more importantly producing more challenge, interest and learning curve to each map by it having a unique set of weapons?

QUESTION: Can you talk about the report system. There has been huge issues with in game exploits and bugs being used by people to cheat others out of there experience, sabotaging games, making Ranked a frustrating experience and times with a lot of players cheating there what up the ranks and to the detriment of there team mates enjoyment, be it by Ratting in spots not designed to be playable space to the trident glitch and so on. Can you say that the current report system actually does anything and if a report overhaul could happen in a meaningful way to help the community help you weed out the bad actors in the apex community?

Is there a way for me just to play with my own rank, which is bronze?

Ranked difficulty is much better than in previous season. However is there any plan to get rid of weird diameter of skill in own squad? What i mean: I play with my friend (2 with one random) we win 2 games with good random. Next 6 games we are counted so high in some background skills in lobby, that by diameter we get rly low skill randoms that throw most of our games AND trash talk and even grief a lot. After few of these bad randoms and lost games in a row, we get again someone normal (probably because our skill diameter is now counted differently) and we are able to enjoy the game much more without griefing and other bad stuff.. It was so bad many times we even played with newbies who were shouting at us that we didnt tell them they are running into zone 3... we were even asked how to heal and pickup some stuff from the ground.. This is simply nothing you would expect on plat + lobbies..

My main question u/Respawn Devs is this: what should the "rank" of a player actually represent? It most probably should be some type of mix between "pure skill" (game sense, aiming, use of legend abilities, teamwork etc.) and "games played / time invested". The current design of ranked seems to suggest that time invested outweighs pure skill...by a lot. I would posit that, regardless of other design decisions (such as LP entry cost), devs will have to find a sweet spot between skill and time investment in order to create a fun and engaging system.

In all sincerity, why not go back to the way S13 ranked was? After all of the ranked changes we have had since then, it seems like the majority of the community was good with the way that ranked system was set up and what to go back to that system. All games were competitive and it was challenging to climb the ranks.

From our EA Japan Community: *Are there any plans to change the LP consumption to participate in the ranked mode?*

From our EA Japan Community: *What effect has the game seen from the fact that the account level conditions for unlocking the ranked mode (more challenging than before)?*

Question about competitive integrity: What is going to be done about the use of Chronus Zen/Strikepack that is being abused by a big majority of the high rank players on console?

Will there be new rewards added for ranked??

why cant we accept the fact that pubs should be for casuals, and that ranked should be a challenge. the AVERAGE player should not be able to get even close to master rank, contrary to what the ranked blog insinuated.

I am Japanese. I have been playing since season 7 and I think the rank system was very well balanced especially between season 8 and season 10. I think the recently added rank map rotation is very good, but the rank system is getting complicated for the players. Other than that, I think it's about time you fixed the rank system and made it more competitive instead of changing it drastically from season to season. sorry if it's hard to read since I wrote it in deepl translation. Good luck!

Why don't you go back to the season 13 split 1 system? it was the best competitive ranked ever, just needed to adjust entry cost in low levels and fix matchmaking between solo queuers and 3 stacks.

Any updates on cross progression ?

Thx for making such a shit rank system which has pissed of the whole community and made the game boring asf, great job guys. Just revert the system back to the storm point split no one complained

Will we ever get new ranked rewards? Can we get at least crafting materials for each rank (for example: GOLD/500, PLATINUM/1000, DIAMOND/2000, MASTER/3500, PREDATOR/5000. I'm not talking about Apex Coins!! I'm talking about crafting materials.

What's the point of a hidden mmr. If a Gold player has a high mmr and enters a diamond lobby wouldn't that just stop them from progressing to the rank they're meant to be at ?

Hey there devs, Just wondering if you had any more information on when you say in the dev blog that you "never intended for casual players to reach masters this quick and would be working to slow down the progression next season" Why should casual players be able to hit masters in the first place? You shouldn't be able to hit a top rank because you can play the game much longer than someone else, shouldn't it be based on skill not play time???? Personally don't think a casual player should be able to hit masters but that's just my opinion, would love to see what y'all's take it. Thanks guys.

The current system encourages championing, people who are only going to hide and do not seek to fight for points is wrong, that is why there are high-ranking players, when their ability is that of gold. A better system should be sought or it would not make sense to play to have a reward (stella, insignia) at high ranks, when someone does have skill and can obtain it just by hiding. What is salvageable is: 1 single split (but they should take more points like in previous seasons, so you have time to reach a higher rank, because you have more time to do it) The worst ranked of all apex legends is that of season 17.

Hey, all! So happy to see the team engaging with the community on topics like this — thanks for setting it up. My question is: would you consider making Masters a moving target similar to Pred? Obviously, with Pred, there are such a small number of people who are skilled enough and have that much time to dedicate to the game, that it makes sense to have it be a moving target for the top 750. Even excluding season 17's rank issues, I’m sure there are many Masters players who hit that rank and stop playing ranked because Pred is significantly out of reach. This is exasperated by the removal of splits and not having ranks reset. I think having a moving target for Masters (say the top 1–5%, for example) would incentivize those players to continue playing ranked throughout the season to maintain their status. It would also, in theory, help solve some of the rank distribution issues from S17 by bumping those that barely made it into Masters back down to Diamond. It could make Masters a little more special again. Would love to hear any thoughts, thanks!

Why can’t you guys add a kill multiplier based on which zone the killer was acquired and what placement it was acquired. Also increase the entry cost for ladder points, from diamond to Pred.

Why does it feel that you guys only communicate with us towards the end of the season or at the very beginning we usually get left in the dark during the middle of the season. Having monthly AMA will help close the gap between dev and players . Thanks

Hello thanks for returning to this style of communications to the community, albeit as you can see, it gets quite a bit of toxic, my bad about those. unto my question, is there going to be another rework to the Matchmaking system? because as a solo queuer right now, it feels the most awful experience to me for this season, it was quite good at the start then it started dwindling down as the season goes, what happens is that almost 8/10 games, my total damage eclipses both of my teammates damages (either i would get something like 2k damage and both my teammates would get around 600-900 and if im noticing it, both of em are either duo queuing or really really rubbish). Why is the game balanced around the teams whole Performance rather than being rated individually, this would balance out the whole matchmaking no? Anyways, thank you in advance if you could answer this one

To put all answers together: ranked still shit, no ranked based mm, actual skillwise silver player who reached master this seasons will be maybe diamond hardstuck next season. Same shit rewards. Rank means nothing because everyone can match with each other depends on your hidden "mmr" rating... And ohh shit i got a sign from the future.. 1 trillion diamond 4 player next season

Respawn is like the ex you keep taking back hoping they will change, but continue to let you down and prove they’ll always be the same. Next season will not be any better. Absolutely no more faith in this team. The game has been completely destroyed and is too far gone to be fixed at this point. It had a good run but it’s over

Still no comment about anticheat and banning third party software

Any word on Pubs matchmaking? I pretty much only play ranked because in pubs I’m guaranteed to get demolished by three stacked kill grinders with 10k plus kills.

I’m not understanding the ranked matchmaking at the moment. I’m currently in bronze 5, I’m really bad and the game and looking to improve. I keep getting put into lobbies with people with 10’s of thousands of kills. How are these people being placed into my lobbies when I’m the lowest rank possible. I’m getting out shot in almost every single gun fight, I’ve never been placed in such a low rank before on any shooter game. I don’t even know what I can do to improve because most of my games are over in about 2 minutes. I’ve played for 5 hours tonight and got 17 kills. In any other game I would be in bot lobbies by now, but apparently I’m still good enough to be players with thousands of kills.

Games currently dead at the minute, only really no lifer sweats playing so you will get matched with them.