Respawn has released a new blog post, detailing recent changes to Apex Legends‘ matchmaking as well as what’s planned for the future. Fans of Apex Legends have been vocal about how the system needs a change, and this post responds to many of the major concerns.
First and foremost, it should be noted that this is not an issue Apex Legends suffers from alone. Balancing servers, player surges and dips, matchmaking tools, and more is a very common issue among competitive online games. As such, many see matchmaking as one of Apex Legends‘ longest running issues, albeit manifesting in a variety of forms. Amid any glitch issues, players have often criticized the game’s eagerness to throw players against much higher-ranked competitors sometimes after a single good game. In addition, the use of skill-based matchmaking in casual games has drawn some ire for making all forms of the Battle Royale mode rather intensive.
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Respawn’s Changes To Apex Legends’ Matchmaking
In a new blog post, as part of Respawn’s effort to be more transparent, the studio has outlined some of the changes it has made to matchmaking in the last year. The post also addresses fan feedback and the ways in which Respawn hopes to address the individual pieces of critique brought up. All of these changes go towards the goal of making more satisfactory matchmaking, helping players get with teammates they can work with in matches they have a fair chance at winning.
Respawn’s Current Matchmaking Tech
Since the last Apex Legends blog detailing matchmaking changes, Respawn has introduced Continuous Window Matchmaking (CWMM). CWMM is a system that changes who is entered into any particular match based on the overall number of players online, which changes pretty consistently over the course of a day. When there are more players online, the breadth of skill level allowed to enter any match shrinks (and vice versa). This, in theory, should ensure that those playing during peak times see the most balanced matches Apex can offer. The system can also be easily capped by Respawn, so players aren’t left waiting too long in queues.
However, for this to work, it is very dependent on how Apex Legends measures player skill, which has been at the epicenter of fan criticism. For some players, it feels as if the studio changes these conditions every season, making the system hard to track. To Respawn’s credit, though, the conditions here have been succinctly broken down:
- Damage Model (used in Mixtape mode and certain non-BR LTMs): Apex tracks a skill value made up of historical average damage per match plus damage dealt in the previous match. This should even out to a consistent level over time, while still allowing exceptional matches to have an impact.
- Matchmaking Rating Model (all Battle Royale modes, except for Ranked): A player’s MMR is updated when their squad gets a Knock or Kill (or the inverse), and is mixed with placement at the end of the match. This model also improves upon the Damage Model.
- RP Model (used in Ranked): A player’s total Ranked Points are used to matchmake Ranked matches, as of Season 20.
New Apex Matchmaking Changes
Recent Apex Legends updates have seen even more changes. Most notably, players can now see the ranks of every player in a lobby using a bar at the bottom of the screen. This serves as a means of transparency and as a way for players to easily report a lapse in balance. As part of the changes going forward, Respawn signaled in the post that it is “going to be flexing and straining some of the existing systems and how things have historically worked.” This suggests that some big changes could be right around the corner.
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Respawn’s Response To Fan Feedback
At the heart of this transparency and initiative is, of course, Apex Legends players, so Respawn is looking at ways to be more transparent, making worthwhile changes to the core systems, and addressing any and all fan concerns. Problems with players of unexpected skill level entering a lobby have existed for a while and persist into more recent Apex Legends updates. Respawn’s MMR should protect against dramatic swings in lobby difficulty, but many players still report being put against Predator/Master level players after a single good game. Here, Respawn suggests that the issue here is down to a mix of factors, such as low population queues, playing in a high-skill premade, or an opponent’s actual seasonal skill being lower than their accolades would suggest. All three are things Respawn is working on measures to account for, with this season in particular introducing longer wait times for better skill balancing.
Another consistent piece of player feedback are random teammates of a lower skill level dragging down overall placement. However, Respawn suggests that these issues are less about skill gaps and more about a lack of cohesion in playstyle, which can happen in any matchmade game. It’s a case of more aggressive/more passive and more communicative/less communicative players being paired up. In future Apex Legends seasons, Respawn will look into fine-tuning for more narrow skill gaps, but some of this is always going to be an issue of team communication.
Respawn also details giving skill value increases to premades in Apex Legends, as premade squads are likely to have better communication and coordination. This could explain the swings that some players have experienced, but it’s a tougher problem than many players may realize. A ‘solos with solos’ and ‘premades with premades’ approach simply doesn’t provide the data and results that some fans think it would.
When it comes to matchmaking, there’s no such thing as an easy solution, which is why matchmaking is not just an issue for Apex Legends. It’s an issue in all competitive multiplayer games, and while every game tries to mitigate and work around it in different ways, Respawn’s transparency here is hopefully help to players.
8/10
Apex Legends
Battle Royale
First-Person Shooter
- Released
- February 4, 2019
- Publisher(s)
- Electronic Arts
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer
- ESRB
- T for Teen: Blood, Violence
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong