Only 3 days to season 5, this post comes a bit late, but I think this would make a massive difference, so I hope this still gets implemented.
The idea is that bronze lobbies should be made of: Bronze 4, Bronze3, Bronze2, Bronze 1 and Silver 4,
Silver lobbies: Silver 3, silver 2, silver 1 and gold 4, and so on
This already happens with Diamond 4 (who play in plat lobbies), but inexplicably it does not apply to other lobbies.
A few words of explanation are warranted: I have been playing since season 0 and I had never played an online fps. I was a horrible player. But I kept playing and when ranked came along I got Gold in season 1. I thought I would NEVER get to plat, because the lobby was too difficult and the RP entry cost too high. But I kept playing with people who were better than me, and in season 2 I got to plat. Same thing happened again and I got Diamond in season 3 and both splits in season 4.
THIS IS CRUCIAL: if Apex is a competitive game, you come back to it to do better than you did in the last match. win too much, it gets boring, get destroyed every match and it gets boring.
What made me improve, was having to fight with and against people who were better than me and who strived to get more RP to reach the next rank.
There is a massive problem with ranked though: when you reach the next rank you are not ready for that lobby and that RP cost. So you just play aggressive and try to improve and doing so RUIN THE MATCH FOR YOUR TEAMMATES. I had so many matches thrown away by overaggressive rank IV players that did not respect neither the spirit of the game nor the needs of the teammates and just played for kills. And you don't really improve that way either: as every good player will tell you, aiming is not the most important thing, decision-making is more important and just rushing to battle is not the way to train that.
What would change with this new system? Every player would be playing to get RP. A plat 3 would not want play foolishly, lose points and go down to plat 4 to play with the gold players. And a diamond 4 that cannot reach dia 3 knows they are not at the level of competing with dia 3+; they would instead play in a lobby with people of their similar skill. On the other hand, they would not have to sweat every time they get matched with a plat 4 (octane) who just rushes into battle because they have nothing to lose.
So, Apex community, do you agree? Would you like to see this system implemented?
Ps: LOBA IS COOOOOOL
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/gg44la/rank_iv_should_play_with_the_previous_rank/