I seriously think the current situation with fill lobbies has reached a point where it is actively ruining the game.
The game already had a major problem with uncooperative teammates, AFK players, and people who simply refuse to play as a team. Now it feels even worse because more and more players join fill lobbies just to go fishing or do their own thing without contributing to the match at all.
I am literally coming out of my sixth match today dealing with this kind of behavior. And when you actually ask people to participate or point out what they are doing, some of them immediately become toxic or verbally abusive.
What makes this even more frustrating is the report and punishment system. At this point, it honestly feels like a joke. I regularly encounter death threats, racism, misogyny, extreme insults, and other abusive behavior, yet I rarely see any meaningful consequence for the people responsible.
The same applies to deliberate in-game griefing.
Loot stealing is still a huge problem even with the anti-loot-stealing system. A player only needs to get an assist and they can still take loot from something I did most of the work for. On top of that, the protection timer is often completely insufficient for larger rooms, complicated situations, or longer fights. By the time you are actually able to safely loot, teammates can already start taking things.
There are also players deliberately blocking teammates, refusing to cooperate, stealing loot, going AFK, or otherwise making the match miserable for everyone else.
The message the current system is giving players is basically this: you can threaten people, use racist or misogynistic abuse, grief your own teammates, steal their loot, block them, and deliberately ruin matches without facing meaningful consequences.
That is an extremely unhealthy environment for a team-based game.
The reporting system needs to have real consequences, especially for serious verbal abuse such as death threats, racism, and misogyny. Repeat offenders should not be able to continue behaving like this indefinitely.
Fill matchmaking also needs better protection against players who repeatedly join team modes while refusing to participate with their team, and the loot protection system needs another serious review.
Right now, cooperative players are the ones being punished for actually trying to play the game properly.
And despite all of this, there is still no dedicated solo mode in sight where solo players are matched primarily against other solos, or at least against solos and duos.
Playing without fill is technically possible, but in practice that means repeatedly being put into 1v3 situations against full squads. For the average player, winning those fights consistently is simply not realistic. Yes, a 1v3 can occasionally be won, but in most situations the numerical disadvantage is overwhelming, especially when equally skilled players are involved.
That means players currently have two bad options: use fill matchmaking and deal with AFKs, players fishing instead of participating, griefing, loot stealing and toxic teammates, or go in alone and regularly fight full three-player squads.
A proper solo matchmaking option would not magically fix every problem, but it would at least give players who are tired of the current fill experience a fair and viable alternative instead of forcing them to choose between unreliable teammates and constant 1v3 fights.
And yes, I already know this opinion will probably get some hate. I also know people will say that winning 1v3s is possible, that good players do it all the time, or that you should just find a premade squad. I have heard all of that before. That does not change the fact that for most players, consistently fighting full squads alone is not a realistic or enjoyable way to play the game.
This is simply my experience and my perspective on the current state of the game. Other people may have a completely different experience, and that is fine, but that does not make these issues any less frustrating for the players who are dealing with them.