Hello! ntROZE back again with a text wall of yap. The game has felt like it has been in a poor state for a long while now, and I’ve got a few thoughts on how the ranked system (and others) could be adjusted to better fit an actual competitive feel instead of just a kill race. I would like to start by saying that I am in no way an expert, and just someone who loves the game and plays it a lot. Nobody needs to agree with my opinions, just want to make some discussion about the state of the game. Ranked RP Changes RP has been in a weird state for a long while now. We’ve seen systems where KP is capped, placement is prioritized, and some where ranked is just a moshpit of common rotation points being filled with third, fourth, and fifth parties. We’ve seen splits where players can hit pred/masters without shooting their guns (shoutout sweetdreams), and splits where it feels like over half of the player population is hardstuck diamond. Neither of these scenarios feel like a rewarding system, and neither feels constructive to actual player improvement. Solution 1: For one, I feel as though KP should be “capped” in a similar fashion that we saw back in (I think) season 13. I think that 3 teamfights (9 possible KP) is pretty realistic for a rotation into final endzone, and therefore would be a realistic “cap” for KP. The word “cap” is quotated because I believe that 9 KP should be the limit for full points, but I think you should still be rewarded for more KP in lesser value. I think that making any KP over 9 worth half the pre-cap value encourages teams to take the fights that are necessary, but not chase after fights that jeopardize their game. I think that KP should also be worth less during early game, and the increase in KP value should mirror how ALGS scoring determines placement points. This would mean KP has (for example) 10% value before top 15, 25% value top 15, 50% at top 10, 75% at top 7, 100% top 5, 125% top 3 & 2, 150% on a win. This would encourage teams to take their necessary fights early based on rotation and isolated 3v3, and then play towards the win to maximize the value of their KP. Solution 2: Mirror ALGS scoring in a format where each team is 1-20. KP is still worth one point each, and placement is still 0 points 16-20, 1 point 11-15, 2 points 8-10, 3 points 6-7, 4 points 5th, 5 points 4th, 7 points 3rd, 9 points 2nd, 12 points 1st. Each game plays out in its entirety and then evaluates where teams rank from that game 1-20. A team with 3 KP in 15th would place “higher” than a team in 10th with 1 KP, as they scored 4 points versus 3. Teams within the top 10 (in total game scoring) would be given RP that starts at neutral (0) at 10 and scale upward to 1. Teams that finish 11th and down would lose RP. This creates a flat point distribution that measures a team’s capability to consistently to be in the top 10, which is the most common metric for advancement within competitive apex legends. This system would likely need some extra stipulations but I believe it sets a good baseline standard for an actual ranked system. LEGENDS/MAP System Legends: We’ve seen a significant increase in game pacing and fight pacing throughout ranked and pubs. Teams are often comprised of legends with ability to play quickly on pushing forward and retreating, which is horrible for the quality of matches. Teams can “int” a poor fight, initiate a fight onto any unassuming team, play poorly, and retreat while creating a fight that initiates a nearby time rotating in to third party, and this becomes a cycle of teams inting and dying on third parties with the teams that take a bad fight often able to leave the fight unpunished. We’ve seen ranked matches (particularly among the diamond+ lobbies) that end in round 2 or 3 (even round 1, shoutout blinkzr), and I believe this is attributable to the push-first nature of the higher-ranked lobbies that has been established by legend utility revolving around pacing. As a whole, this feels pretty bad as a huge fan of the game, and I would really like to see this change. Solution 1: Stop prioritizing legend kit changes involving pacing. Not every legend is designed to be fast and/or have movement advantages in close range. I don’t see the reasoning for changes like adding the horizon passive to vantage and pathfinder. Horizon having the anti-gravity effect comes directly from her kit and backstory, so adding it to other legends does not make much sense to me. Seer does not need to have a speed buff from hitting a tac scan, and does not need to have the sparrow double jump in ultimate. Changes that involve buffs that just increase legend speeds instead of focusing on the actual issues with the kits does not make the legend better for intended purpose, it just reinforces the capabilities of players to play at a pace that they may not have done before, or allows them to do so with less punishment. The inherent nature of a BR is just as much tactical and strategic as it is about gunskill and fighting. I am hoping for some changes that slow down the pacing of the game (just a bit), and reinforce the tactical and strategic elements of the game. While I believe that a large portion of the “best players” should be those with mechanical superiority, I think that the attractive part of BRs is the ability for a player to outsmart, or be more strategic than someone who is more mechanical than them. Ban System: In comp, we have legend bans for the most played legend in each game. While I understand that trying to implement a ban system on a game-to-game system would be very hard to implement into ranked, I think there is a way to bring it into ranked and pubs. I think devs could have a 24-hour ban for the x number of most picked legends during the prior 24-hour period. It could also go with the map changes as well. We have a 4 hour, 15 minute (I think) rotation on maps in ranked right now, so the legend bans could change along with that timer as well. I just think this creates an environment where “meta” legends can be banned from gameplay, and players don’t have to fight the same legends in every fight. I think it will help to make the game feel less repetitive and refreshing for everyone. Maps I know a lot of comp players are going to have opinions that they should have access to ranked practice on comp maps, which I think that there is some merit there, as the three comp maps in current rotation are (in my opinion) the best maps. With that being said, developers have put a lot of time and effort into other maps, and having those in rotation has a benefit for keeping things refreshing. With that being said, there are some quality of life improvements and community-oriented suggestions for map rotations. Community-voting: I think that having community members vote for the maps they want to play in ranked would be beneficial to keeping concurrent player counts up, and I think it improves the community’s perception of devs. It makes it seem like the community’s input matters, which it doesn’t really feel like we have a connection for our voices to be heard, and hasn’t for a long time. Obviously, it doesn’t have to be a direct mirror of maps being played, but having community-voted maps in rotation would be a step in the right direction. Community maps could be 1 or 2 of the maps in rotation with one of the others put into rotation. It could be a weekly system where community-voted maps go into rotation for a week once or twice a month. I also think that having community voting could be an olive branch into forum voting and surveys that could be used to identify *why* the community has prioritized certain maps, and helps to offer some insight into the perceived issues in certain maps by community experience. Weekends! Many games have weekend events or dedicated promos that occur on weekends. Weekends are times where the largest portion of the player base has the most availability (in general), so I think that weekend events offer the best opportunities to test things. Some of my thoughts may be difficult to test as concepts, and I think that utilizing weekends would be a great way to utilize an isolated block of time. Legend bans, community-voted map rotations, and any other change would be great to test on weekends. There is even the opportunity to have these changes implemented as a separate playlist or a time-blocked event on the weekend in an effort to not tamper with regular gameplay. I would like to close by reiterating that these are solely my opinions as someone with very little knowledge into the functions that come from within designing the game, and are purely based on observations and experiences from playing and watching the game. I think ranked feels really unrewarding, comp and scrim quality has been bad quality for a while now, and I felt like I wanted to share my opinions. Love y’all!💜