"Horrible so far" - Apex Legends Season 17 ranked system receives widespread criticism

Respawn Entertainment's Apex Legends has struggled to create a decent ranked system for its playerbase to progress through. Since a competent enough system to give a challenge to progress through was missing, the community has their hopes up with announcements for a brand new system coming in Season 17.

"Hopefully ranked gets better in higher ranks, this s*** is horrible so far unfortunately."

Tweet from TSM Albralelie (Image via Twitter)

Pro player Albralelie tweeted about the experience of high-level Ranked in Apex in Season 17, which has been extremely unpleasant for him to play. Many other professionals have also gone on to make similar remarks regarding the current state of the ranked system.

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Apex Legends fans frustrated over overhauled ranked system in Season 17

Season 17 promised to deal with a number of issues that have been plaguing the game for the past few seasons. The changes made to not just the LP system but also the entry cost, have let to numerous problems, making the current ranked system unbalanced and problematic.

The newest rendition of the overhauled ranked system has two primary objectives, namely:

1. Evolving matchmaking to enable consistently competitive matches instead of one-sided ones.
2. Adjusting the scoring system to focus on the essence of playing the battle royale game as a team.

While these objectives filled players with hope as the new season launched, the reality, however, went on an entirely different tangent.

Pro player sweet recently posted a tweet about securing Predator rank in Season 17 without doing a single point of damage.

sweet highlighted how easy it had been for him to simply hide up in trees and earn the highest rank in the game without contributing anything to his team. He urged Respawn to take a look at the loopholes associated with the latest ranked system.

Disregarding any other arguments, the possibility of making one's way to the highest rank without doing any damage, or even contributing anything to the squad is a cause for grave concern. The community believes that Respawn must definitely scrutinize the flaws associated with the system that allows for such possibilities to arise.

Another pro player, ImperialHal, posted a clip of him landing and eliminating an entire squad without the latter even acknowledging his presence. It is apparent from the video that he was matched against low-rank players who stood almost no chance against such a highly skilled lobby.

These clips display not only a lack of decent matchmaking, but also greater issues and loopholes that have made their way into Apex Legends Season 17. A lot of criticism has been made against Respawn since it promised to fix the rank disparity among players, but has made no such changes to address it.

Another user on Twitter went into detail about the constant disparity in ranks they experience when they solo queue in ranked in Season 17. This has been a problem since the inception of the title and has resulted in many players being frustrated for the same.

The new matchmaking algorithm for Season 17 was focused on grouping players in ranked based on a hidden MMR. This, however, seems to run in contradiction to the overwhelming amount of tweets and responses pointing out the unbalanced and unfair matchmaking that the game has put them into.

As user TheCaramelGamer mentioned, having Gold or Silver teammates while in Masters rank should be impossible. It is definitely causing a great number of problems to those who are trying to grind up the rank ladder.

Twitter user jokerscorazon pointed out the inflated amount of players who have successfully reached Masters rank in Apex Legends in Season 17. It brings the competitive integrity of the entire game into question when the second-highest rank in the game is inflated with over 100,000 players within a month's time.

It is a cause for concern when the majority of the playerbase is somehow in the second-highest rank in the game, and yet, many are unable to find decent matchmaking at such levels in Apex Legends.

User _Frosts, highlighted the problems associated with climbing from a lower rank, and facing full stacks of Predators and Masters in doing so. It is yet another jab at the neglected state of matchmaking in Apex Legends, which definitely needs a rework.

It is unacceptable that a title that has grown over four years refuses to make improvements to the matchmaking system. It has been a major factor in the downward trend in Apex Legends' playerbase in recent times.

Pro player Reps also made a sarcastic comment about Respawn's yet another failed attempt at fixing the ranked ladder issues that Apex Legends has been undergoing for the past few seasons.

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It is clear that the entire player base, from the lowest to the highest ranks, feels the need for an improved and revamped rank system, catering to the competitive integrity of the game and the players. Respawn Entertainment needs to take a serious step to correct the wrongs associated with the current rank system in Apex Legends if it seeks to improve the health of the game.