Apex Legends developers have provided an extensive update on their ongoing efforts to improve matchmaking, focusing on transparency and community feedback. The update addresses five major pain points and details recent tests and their outcomes.
Defining Matchmaking Pain Points
The development team acknowledges player frustrations with long queues and overly competitive matches. While most matches are fast and fair, a smaller percentage are deemed unacceptable. Five key pain points guide their matchmaking improvements:
- Queue Times: Players shouldn't wait longer than they play, especially in Ranked.
- Lobby Skill Disparity: Veterans and casuals should not be in the same lobbies. Solutions are tailored for Ranked and Unranked.
- Solos vs. Premade Imbalance: Solo players are at a disadvantage against coordinated three-stacks, particularly in Ranked.
- Teammate Quality: Inconsistent teammate skill or playstyle impacts match quality.
- Sweaty Lobbies: Not every match should feel hyper-competitive; players should know when they're opting into such an experience.
Recent Matchmaking Tests and Results
Over the past year, several tests have been conducted on specific regional servers to gather clear data:
Increased Maximum Queue Search Times
- Pain Points Addressed: Queue Times, Lobby Skill Disparity, Teammate Quality
- Test: The search window for closely-aligned skill levels was increased from 30 to 60 seconds before expanding criteria.
- Results: Positive impact on match quality and fewer skill mismatches, especially at high levels, in both Ranked and Unranked, without significantly increasing queue times.
- Next Steps: Implemented globally on May 7th, 2026, for Ranked and Unranked Trios. Further tweaks and monitoring are ongoing.
Bots in Lower-Skill Unranked Lobbies
- Pain Points Addressed: Queue Times, Lobby Skill Disparity, Teammate Quality
- Test: Bot-fill was enabled in mid-tier Duos and Pub Trios matches (no bots in Ranked, bots don't fill empty squad spots).
- Results: Bots positively impact matchmaking quality in lower-skill matches, enabling fair matches during off-hours and reducing skill mismatches. However, bots are still being improved for higher-skill scenarios.
- Next Steps: Continued investment in bot improvement and gradual rollout to situations where they enhance player experience, particularly in onboarding and facilitating improved matchmaking in wide-match scenarios.
Diamond+ Solo-Queue Only
- Pain Points Addressed: Solos vs. Premade Imbalance, Lobby Skill Disparity
- Test: Later in Season 29, Ranked will be solo-queue only for Diamond+ players across all regions. Premade squads will not be allowed.
- Rationale: Addresses significant frustration among high-tier players regarding solo vs. premade imbalance. Data shows premade squads reach high tiers faster and have a performance disparity over solo players.
- Trade-off: Acknowledges that this removes playing with friends at the highest tiers, prioritizing fairness. Community sentiment and match data will be closely monitored for two weeks to evaluate if the fairness gain is worth it.
- Why not split queues? Splitting queues fragments player populations, leading to longer queue times and wider matches for everyone. A solo-only constraint keeps the player base intact and queue times reasonable.
4.5-Hour Ranked Map Rotations
- Pain Point Addressed: General Quality of Life improvement
- Test: Shortened Ranked map rotation from 24 hours to 4.5 hours.
- Results: Systems were healthy, more players experienced more maps weekly, and community feedback was positive.
- Next Steps: This is now standard for Ranked. Further testing of rotation schedules may occur.
Active Test: 1-Tier Locked Ranked Premades
- Pain Point Addressed: Lobby Skill Disparity
- Test: Limited squad-ups to 1 tier above or below a player's rank (down from 2 tiers). This aims to reduce instances of wide skill band squads (e.g., Platinum players matching with Masters) that lead to frustration.
- Status: This test is currently active, with results to be shared later.
The Challenges of Testing
The developers also addressed past issues, specifically the matchmaking outage during Overclocked's launch. This outage was attributed to moving too fast, last-minute changes, and a missed bug. To prevent future incidents:
- Process Enforcement: Stricter adherence to change-management workflows.
- Technical Safeguards: Implementation of automatic mechanisms to release queue pressure, allowing for more graceful and faster recovery from failures.
When matchmaking systems crash, queues overload databases. The team had to manually clear the queue and gradually reintroduce players at reduced capacity to restore service.
Conclusion
The team emphasizes its commitment to transparency, rigorous testing, and iteration in the complex space of matchmaking. More updates on matchmaking and Ranked are promised in the coming months.
