General Gaming ‘Apex Legends’ Players Finally Getting Good Enough To Make Game Impossible For Average People To Enjoy

[SaysWho?]

After countless hours memorizing the map, familiarizing themselves with the various weapons, and refining tactics for all character mixes, the skill of top Apex Legends players reached the point this week where the game is impossible for average people to enjoy. “It’s really gratifying that I’m good enough to completely overwhelm and frustrate newcomers to the game,” said self-described “entrepreneur” and Apex Legends regular Mark Haglund, 32, explaining how in just over three weeks, he had managed to invest over 200 hours in figuring out the ideal drop locations and flanking maneuvers, causing casual gamers playing against him and his friends to simply quit in frustration. “I admit I hated it at first—everyone was on the same level and everyone had a decent chance to win any given game. What’s the point of a game like this if I’m not systematically crushing normies and making the experience miserable and confusing for 95 percent of the player base?” Haglund added that once Apex Legends had become a virtual ghost town due to the actions of players such as himself, he was looking forward to trying out Anthem.

 

Feel good story of the week.  

[legend]

I think Fornite is vastly less forgiving due the fact that the meta game of fort building is so unique to it, making it vastly more difficult for players who don't dedicate time to it specifically.

[mo1518]

Man, I still love the game and play it every few days, but there are some true gods in there just obliterating people these days. It was inevitable, but it's still a bit deflating to run up against them. I do still manage to eke out a win here and there, but nowhere near the 20-25% win ratio i had back at launch. It's still the most fun I've had in a BR game. 

[eggydoo]

@Anzo and I almost squeaked out a win the other day and we haven't played the game in forever.

[Nokt]

3 minutes ago, mo1518 said:

Man, I still love the game and play it every few days, but there are some true gods in there just obliterating people these days. It was inevitable, but it's still a bit deflating to run up against them. I do still manage to eke out a win here and there, but nowhere near the 20-25% win ratio i had back at launch. It's still the most fun I've had in a BR game. 

I've thought about this before because I've run into some popular streamers before in BR games with little to no games played. Is there no hidden rankings in these games? If not, why isn't there. It would make the game so much more fun to play people near your skill level, even if matchmaking has to tip further up or down to hit the 100 players. 

[mo1518]

27 minutes ago, Nokt said:

I've thought about this before because I've run into some popular streamers before in BR games with little to no games played. Is there no hidden rankings in these games? If not, why isn't there. It would make the game so much more fun to play people near your skill level, even if matchmaking has to tip further up or down to hit the 100 players. 

 

There isn't any sort of skill-based matchmaking in this, or fortnite, though people have been clamoring for it. You'd think it would be in the games' best interest - it's hard to build an audience if every new player gets stomped into submission before deciding this isn't for them. Especially fortnite, where the pros are not only better with the guns and know the map intimately, but the difference between a pro builder and a casual is obscene - they're not even playing the same game. 

[XxEvil AshxX]

6 minutes ago, mo1518 said:

 

There isn't any sort of skill-based matchmaking in this, or fortnite, though people have been clamoring for it. You'd think it would be in the games' best interest - it's hard to build an audience if every new player gets stomped into submission before deciding this isn't for them. Especially fortnite, where the pros are not only better with the guns and know the map intimately, but the difference between a pro builder and a casual is obscene - they're not even playing the same game. 

 

Something like the old skill-based rating that Halo 2 matchmaking would make perfect sense for this. Do well, rank up into harder tiers, start sucking, rank right back down again. I haven't done matchmaking in years so I don't know if games still do this, but it would make more sense than just leveling up.

[Nokt]

35 minutes ago, mo1518 said:

There isn't any sort of skill-based matchmaking in this, or fortnite, though people have been clamoring for it. You'd think it would be in the games' best interest - it's hard to build an audience if every new player gets stomped into submission before deciding this isn't for them. Especially fortnite, where the pros are not only better with the guns and know the map intimately, but the difference between a pro builder and a casual is obscene - they're not even playing the same game. 

That was the only conclusion that I could come to and probably one of the bigger reasons I stick with a BR game for longer than a month.

[Moa]

These games definitely need something to help new players. The problem is that these games kind of break if everyone in a match is highly-skilled and "playing to win." Fortnite specifically becomes a huge clusterfuck when played competitively and leads to a lot of situations with like 20 people are turtling in the same megastructure. That said, I am exactly the person who has been pushed away from Fortnite because even though I've been playing since season 2 I just can't keep up with the 12-year-olds anymore, so I'd like to see Epic at least try to implement a system to keep those monsters away from me.

[Xbob42]

I'm afraid I don't understand what the satire is supposed to be requesting? That no one gets any better so it can stay "fair"? You put in time getting good, and you get good. That's how it works. Skill-based matchmaking might work, but that kind of thing can already be a shitshow in games with far smaller player counts. I can see a kiddy pool, though. Under X number of hours (and kills/accuracy, etc. to make smurfing harder) and you leave the kiddy pool.

[Chris-]

4 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

I'm afraid I don't understand what the satire is supposed to be requesting? That no one gets any better so it can stay "fair"? You put in time getting good, and you get good. That's how it works. Skill-based matchmaking might work, but that kind of thing can already be a shitshow in games with far smaller player counts. I can see a kiddy pool, though. Under X number of hours (and kills/accuracy, etc. to make smurfing harder) and you leave the kiddy pool.

 

It's just referencing the fact that, for most new multiplayer games, there is more parity (and thus for the average player, more entertainment) because everything is so fresh. It is not requesting that people don't improve.

[Nokt]

2 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

I'm afraid I don't understand what the satire is supposed to be requesting? That no one gets any better so it can stay "fair"? You put in time getting good, and you get good. That's how it works. Skill-based matchmaking might work, but that kind of thing can already be a shitshow in games with far smaller player counts. I can see a kiddy pool, though. Under X number of hours (and kills/accuracy, etc. to make smurfing harder) and you leave the kiddy pool.

Fortnite, PUBG, and Apex have massive player bases, there isn't really a reason to not have a hidden ranking system in place. For Ring of Elysium, Realm Royale, whatever else you just match on rank, then just expand higher and lower until you hit enough players. 

[Xbob42]

Sure, but that's not much of an observation. It's just how any competitive (and often even non-competitive) games work and always have. That's why I said I don't really get what it was about. They could make this about literally every competitive game.

 

2 minutes ago, Nokt said:

Fortnite, PUBG, and Apex have massive player bases, there isn't really a reason to not have a hidden ranking system in place. For Ring of Elysium, Realm Royale, whatever else you just match on rank, then just expand higher and lower until you hit enough players. 

I feel like getting a reliable and even semi-accurate ranking system in place would be tremendously difficult once you're outside of the extremes of people who just die after match after match and the crazy dudes who get 20-30 kills per match. My performance in Battle Royales is anything but consistent, and that's kind of what makes the genre interesting to me. I might be dead in the first 30 seconds or I might win with 12 kills, and that all depends on how I try and approach each match. Some days I'll feel really aggressive and want to start gunfights right away, while other days I might want to take it easy and hang out on the outskirts as long as possible. I feel like with a ranking system I'd be funneled into one playstyle or another to stay within a certain rank, and I'd want to game my rank to where it puts me in an advantageous position.

[Chris-]

Yes, they could. But Fortnite et al. have turned the genre into a cultural touchstone, so it's a topical joke to make.

[mo1518]

24 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

I'm afraid I don't understand what the satire is supposed to be requesting? That no one gets any better so it can stay "fair"? You put in time getting good, and you get good. That's how it works. Skill-based matchmaking might work, but that kind of thing can already be a shitshow in games with far smaller player counts. I can see a kiddy pool, though. Under X number of hours (and kills/accuracy, etc. to make smurfing harder) and you leave the kiddy pool.

 

I don't think the onion article is requesting anything, it's just funny commentary that a ton of people probably relate to - the game they had a ton of fun with over the past month is getting harder as people get better. 

 

I can definitely see both sides to it, and it's obviously hard to come up with a solution in this stuff. If there were two tiers, Kiddy and Regular, you'd have a ton of people making new accounts just so they could go stomp around in the kiddy pool and wreck the noobs anyways lol. 

 

It's not fun to get stomped, but you have to learn to improve somehow. And if you take away all the easy kills from the vets by segmenting off the noobs, they'll just bitch too that now their tier is too hard. 

[Nokt]

4 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

I feel like getting a reliable and even semi-accurate ranking system in place would be tremendously difficult once you're outside of the extremes of people who just die after match after match and the crazy dudes who get 20-30 kills per match. My performance in Battle Royales is anything but consistent, and that's kind of what makes the genre interesting to me. I might be dead in the first 30 seconds or I might win with 12 kills, and that all depends on how I try and approach each match. Some days I'll feel really aggressive and want to start gunfights right away, while other days I might want to take it easy and hang out on the outskirts as long as possible. I feel like with a ranking system I'd be funneled into one playstyle or another to stay within a certain rank, and I'd want to game my rank to where it puts me in an advantageous position. 

Yeah, I get that it could be pretty difficult depending on what you are basing skill off of. Though I think you'd start averaging out even if it took 20+ games. That's the beauty of it being a hidden rank is that you never see it, never have to worry about it, but they are always collecting stats trying to put you in the best match possible.

 

Still you could make it as simple or as complex as you want. Even just separating the the game into two playlists: social and competitive. You could do something as silly as win/kill/damage "X" amount of times and get these rewards in the competitive playlist and that's all you are basing the "skill" off of.

Its going to take the more hardcore players into that playlist leaving the less skilled to play in the social playlist and I still think that would make for a more enjoyable experience.