Respawn Entertainment has shared the results of two temporary Ranked matchmaking tests from Apex Legends’ Overclocked season and said neither will become a permanent rule set. The studio said the experiments were meant to reduce the impact of stacked, high-skill squads, but the results showed limited gains in one case and a worse overall Ranked experience in the other.
The findings matter because Ranked depends on player confidence in the system. Respawn framed the goal as making matches feel fairer without pushing friends apart, and the studio said it is still looking for ways to reduce the advantage of coordinated top-tier teams.
Why Respawn tested Ranked changes
In its announcement, Respawn said the experiments targeted a problem it sees in the data and hears about from players regularly: premade squads of very skilled players can create bad matches for everyone else, especially in lower-skill lobbies. The studio said a premade duo plus a solo fill wins 19% more often than a squad of three solo players, while a full premade trio wins 17% more often.
The developer also said the issue is concentrated at the top end of play, noting that 85% of Masters squads are premade three-stacks. With that backdrop, Respawn tested two temporary approaches during Overclocked:
- a one-tier party restriction, instead of the previous two-tier allowance
- a solo-queue-only rule for Diamond, Master, and Predator players
Respawn said the tests were designed to answer two questions: whether match quality improved, and how the changes felt to play. The studio made clear that player experience was just as important as raw numbers.
The one-tier party limit barely moved the needle
The first test limited parties to players within one tier of each other, rather than two. Respawn said the aim was to stop wider-band squads from bringing lower-tier players into high-tier lobbies.
The outcome, according to the studio, was small and narrow. Diamond players faced about 8% fewer Diamond opponents and about 8% more Platinum opponents, while Platinum players saw more Diamonds in their lobbies. Outside those tiers, Respawn said nothing meaningful changed.
That limited effect was not enough to justify the restriction, especially given how many players would have been affected. Respawn said the trade-off was not worth it for people who were used to queuing with friends within two rank tiers of their own. As a result, the company said it is not making the one-tier restriction permanent.
Solo queue worked technically, but the experience got worse
The second test was more dramatic. Diamond, Master, and Predator players were forced into solo queue, removing premade groups from the top of Ranked entirely. Respawn said the system did what it was supposed to do mechanically, but the broader outcome was not good enough.
According to the studio, match outcomes barely changed. In Diamond, the distribution of results stayed roughly where it had been. In Masters, the top squads’ win rate dipped slightly, but the gap between the top 10 and bottom 10 teams remained 9%. Respawn’s conclusion was blunt: even without premade coordination, the best squad in the lobby still tended to win.
Respawn also said the change had an unintended side effect. Because the matchmaker builds lobbies by pulling 60 players of similar RP and splitting them into thirds, taking away premade high-tier groups did not remove them from the queue. Instead, those players were distributed one per squad, spreading top-end players across more matches.
For lower-ranked players, that meant more games containing a Master or Predator. Respawn said the effect was amplified by the pre-match skill display, which could make very different kinds of lobbies appear identical on the screen. The studio said it is going to keep iterating on that display.
“The best squad in the lobby still wins, whether or not they queued together.”
“This is the result we did not expect, and it is the most useful thing we learned.”
“This test was meant to improve the Ranked experience. Instead it thinned out Ranked.”
Respawn said the top-tier solo queue test also hit player retention among some of the game’s most engaged users. The weakest return numbers were in Diamond and above among players who had been queuing in duos and trios, and the studio said that drop in Ranked participation could not be ignored. In Respawn’s view, Ranked improves when more players at every skill level stay in the queue, because that creates tighter bands, shorter waits, and closer matches. Anything that pushes players out of Ranked hurts the system it is trying to fix.
What comes next for Ranked
Respawn said it is not moving forward with solo queue as a permanent requirement for high-skill lobbies. At the same time, the studio did not rule out more solo queue experiments in the future. Its view is that the version tested this season was simply too broad.
Instead, Respawn said it will keep working toward the same goal in a different way: reducing how often players run into fully coordinated top-tier squads without taking away the ability to play with friends. The studio said it is preparing additional tests to address matchmaking pain points and will share details closer to implementation.
The biggest upcoming changes tied to these tests are planned for Ranked in Seasons 31 and 32, with more information promised in October. Respawn closed by saying that Apex is built around competition, and that the best experience comes when players across all skill levels keep participating in Ranked.
For now, the headline is that both Overclocked experiments have been ruled out in their current form. Respawn’s broader matchmaking work is continuing, but the studio is looking for a less disruptive way to improve fairness at the top of the ladder.
60-player lobbies are the real problem