- Apex Legends players have noticed that the matchmaking doesn’t always seem fair
- Samy Duc, Apex’s lead software engineer, revealed that a person’s rank is determined both by their visible rank and an invisible MMR rank
- Furthermore, sometimes queuing at a high level as a solo player can also result in some imbalances as most skilled people play in groups
Apex Legends players have long been disgruntled by the seemingly unfair matchmaking system. Samy Duc has spoken about why they perceive it that way.
A Players’ Skill is Measured in Both Rank and MMR
Many people have noticed that Apex Legends’ ranking seems to just not work properly and constantly match people with seemingly different skill levels. People have been quick to point this issue and complain about it, to which one of the game’s developers has responded.
Samy Duc, a lead software engineer, spoke about the new system and why it seems to malfunction. In a Twitter post, Duc revealed that a player’s rank isn’t solely decided by their visible rank (bronze, silver, gold, platinum, diamond, master and apex predator) but also by a so-called matchmaking rank (MMR).
The matchmaking rank is a different way to calculate a player’s skill that isn’t displayed to the players. When a person queues to play with random people, the game takes in mind both his visible rank and his matchmaking rank. It is very possible that two people would have the same matchmaking rank despite seemingly being in different divisions.
This way more balanced matchmaking is ensured and smurfing is decreased to a bare minimum. VALORANT already uses a similar system to weed out smurfs and put them in their rightful lobbies.
Apex Players Have More Matchmaking Woes
However, the problems that players face when playing don’t end with people seemingly being of a different rank. What players have seen happen occasionally is that the game would match them with a team of either casual players or players who far outclass them. It can’t be all because of the MMR, can it?
Well, it turns out there is more to matchmaking than just ranks. Duc explained that solo queuing at a high level makes it extremely hard to find a balanced lobby since most apex predator-level players usually queue as teams of three.
Duc concluded by saying that the current system is fine since predator players are rare and most of the people have a fairly average performance, resulting in a decent MMR distribution. It seems that this system, although flawed at times, is here to stay as implementing a new one will demand much work and resources on the developers’ side.
