Ranks in Apex Legends serve as easy way to highlight the achievements of a player in Respawn Entertainment's battle royale or warn others not to mess with them. Whether it's because they've reached predator for the first time or finally made it into gold, veteran players usually display their ranks on their in-game profiles in fairly gaudy fashion.
With Season 18 underway, players dropping into the action are looking forward to testing various ranked changes in addition to Revenant Reborn, to see if the legend's recent rework has paid off.
Finding out another player's rank is sometimes useful to determine the skill of opponents in your lobby. Now, however, players are arguing that it's getting very hard to tell whether you're actually up against someone far more skilled than you.
Apex Legends hidden ranks frustrate players
Before players load into the new season for the first time, user TheRealLordofLords has taken to Reddit asking: "Why is Respawn trying to hide (people's) ranks from everyone else?"
The player argued: "You can't see anyone's rank, even on your own team. Now they've (even) removed it from (being) seen while spectating. Why have ranked then, if you have no clue who you're secretly matching with and what rank you're playing against?"
Other players in the thread seem to agree with is stance. "I think at this point (Respawn) know they can never truly balance matches so it's a smokescreen to cover up the faults of the system," one theorised.
- Read more: Apex Legends tier list - Best Legends to use
While Respawn Entertainment hasn't elaborated as to why it's decided to make it harder for people to check out the ranks of opponents, some players think the change is in order to prevent them from complaining about a potential lack of balancing. One claimed: "This way, you can't know how bad the matchmaking is. For example, you can be a silver or gold in a lobby with masters and won't know."
Despite player frustration, the Season 18 update contains a number of adjustments to ranked matchmaking, in order to create more competitive matches.
In a recent blog post, Respawn Entertainment stated: "The new matchmaking algorithm is producing more competitive matches overall and matchmaking gameplay metrics are up across the board."
Although there's some annoyance with the inability to easily check the ranks of opponents, the game's developers are hard at work to ensure Apex Legends ranked play remains a competitive experience for all.
For more, take a look at our Apex Legends tier list showcasing the very best Legends to use in the early stages of the new season.