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[ZangBa]

The problem is that if the casual player has constant bad impressions of that content due to poor group performance, they're more likely to walk away with a negative impression and they'll, in turn, start blaming everyone (including Bungie) but themselves for it. People who have negative opinions of something tend to voice them more often and much louder than those who are ok or who enjoy it.

The most common complaint is likely to be the difficulty, and that could be a fair assessment if it takes 16 hours for a team composed outside of matchmaking fail anyway. It's all right for it to be balanced around a group of 6 friends, Bungie doesn't have to cater to the complainers by nerfing their content for the lowest common denominator. People are going to complain either way.

 

[Jest Chillin]

And you're simply missing the point...most people are simply not going to be that social of a gamer...they are going to want to play with their group of friends..they won't have other people to join up with..they are not going to try out different players in the other modes to see who plays well with them...that's just asinine...

Bungie is going to HAVE to add match making because they are going to face a shit storm from people that feel they are being blocked from a mode simply because they don't have enough friends available to play with...

I'm not missing the point at all. If people really are having that hard of a time playing with their core group of friends all the time then they'll have to play with randoms in the earlier content. And that earlier content has matchmaking so they WILL play with them. It's also not that rare at all to friend "strangers" that you have a good session with. It happens often in every game that's out. Most gamers friend lists are not compiled only of people they know in person.

This game really is Bungie attempting to introduce a new style of playing to a mainstream FPS audience and I don't think that audience is so dense as to not understand that the game wants them to be more friendly to other players than most FPS require.

There is a risk though, that you're right, and Bungie is explicitly aware of that. However they're going to give a shot. Regardless of what happens down the line, Bungie wants to try to introduce new concepts to the mainstream FPS audience on consoles and that's not inherently a bad thing no matter what the knee jerk reaction may be.

The most common complaint is likely to be the difficulty, and that could be a fair assessment if it takes 16 hours for a team composed outside of matchmaking fail anyway. It's all right for it to be balanced around a group of 6 friends, Bungie doesn't have to cater to the complainers by nerfing their content for the lowest common denominator. People are going to complain either way.

The problem is that perception > reality when it comes to these situations. People who have a negative opinion of something tend to be very vocal about it and if vocal enough.... they can easily influence many others. Influence enough people and Bungie would be forced to make changes, even if they don't feel those changes are warranted.

This thread is actually a great example. The title and OP of the thread focuses only on no matchmaking in Raids. So that's what people focus on. Many don't even realize that you can get some of the best gear in the game from Nightfall Missions which are daily and weekly activities that only require 3 players and seem to allow for matchmaking. They award Exotic gear and "the best arcane gear in the game." Yet that information is in the article linked in the opening post of the thread. Once someone sets a tone, people tend to follow. That's where complaints can become a big problem for a developer. It happens all the time in other games. Socom 4 bombed due to a loud echo chamber of negativity combined with the PSN outage. Many MMO's end up nerfing classes and content due to negative feedback, even when not warranted. It's not a rare occurance.

 

[sankt-Antonio]

I have two friends with consoles, and i never see them online. Playing for more then an hour is getting harder and harder to justify for me. But at the same time, i dont think that Destiny is targeted at people like myself.

It's sad to be me :'(

 

[Lemondish]

Im sure you're right but I just wish they would stick to their guns with difficulty as opposed to inaccessibility. Either way people are gonna bitch.

The most common complaint is likely to be the difficulty, and that could be a fair assessment if it takes 16 hours for a team composed outside of matchmaking fail anyway. It's all right for it to be balanced around a group of 6 friends, Bungie doesn't have to cater to the complainers by nerfing their content for the lowest common denominator. People are going to complain either way.

Absolutely they will. Allowing matchmaking confuses the message, though. It presents this content in a way that suggests it can, and should be done in a random party. It urges players to do use the system because it presents the path of least resistance when getting started.

In the end, I think those who are ill prepared for the content are best to exclude intentionally. It avoids any unfortunate messaging and saves many, many players from a negative experience.

 

[Marshmellow]

The most common complaint is likely to be the difficulty, and that could be a fair assessment if it takes 16 hours for a team composed outside of matchmaking fail anyway. It's all right for it to be balanced around a group of 6 friends, Bungie doesn't have to cater to the complainers by nerfing their content for the lowest common denominator. People are going to complain either way.

I'm not missing the point at all. If people really are having that hard of a time playing with their core group of friends all the time then they'll have to play with randoms in the earlier content. And that earlier content has matchmaking so they WILL play with them. It's also not that rare at all to friend "strangers" that you have a good session with. It happens often in every game that's out. Most gamers friend lists are not compiled only of people they know in person.

This game really is Bungie attempting to introduce a new style of playing to a mainstream FPS audience and I don't think that audience is so dense as to not understand that the game wants them to be more friendly to other players than most FPS require.

There is a risk though, that you're right, and Bungie is explicitly aware of that. However they're going to give a shot. Regardless of what happens down the line, Bungie wants to try to introduce new concepts to the mainstream FPS audience on consoles and that's not inherently a bad thing no matter what the knee jerk reaction may be.

These 2 overviews are very accurate. The first is the sad hard truth of gamers and the internet (much like news, always filled with negative sh*t). But in such a good community we get to enjoy a lot more positive things than others might view on the general interwebs.

The second i think is definitely correct in terms of bungie. Down the line they may add in a matchmaking system for the "raid" component of the game, but the fact they they are happy to stand there and give a good old kick up the arse to the gamer and force us to be active, social and attempt to build up our friends list for enjoyment of their game i think is good.

Personally i have already added about 12-20 active people from Australia just from GAF and i have about 5 friends playing, even then i think i will likely struggle to easily pick up and just head along to a raid. It will likely be something we organize for a weekend or on the DestinyGAF AU forums.

 

[ZangBa]

The problem is that perception > reality when it comes to these situations. People who have a negative opinion of something tend to be very vocal about it and if vocal enough.... they can easily influence many others. Influence enough people and Bungie would be forced to make changes, even if they don't feel those changes are warranted.

Honestly, though, I think people will complain about the difficulty even without matchmaking. People are going to group up with randoms through archaic methods anyway, and won't be prepared for what a raid entails.

Do you think the absence of a matchmaking tool will significantly reduce complaints about difficulty? I honestly don't think it will have much effect.

 

[Flipyap]

EDIT: A join in progress matchmaking means players could just quit join until they join at say the 6 hours mark ending and all the other players have done the leg work etc.

Not if matchmaking were to happen only at checkpoints. That way you'd still have to get to that 5-hours-mark checkpoint, but it would at least allow you to continue even if your fireteam fell apart by that point.

 

[Metfanant]

I'm not missing the point at all. If people really are having that hard of a time playing with their core group of friends all the time then they'll have to play with randoms in the earlier content. And that earlier content has matchmaking so they WILL play with them. It's also not that rare at all to friend "strangers" that you have a good session with. It happens often in every game that's out. Most gamers friend lists are not compiled only of people they know in person.

This game really is Bungie attempting to introduce a new style of playing to a mainstream FPS audience and I don't think that audience is so dense as to not understand that the game wants them to be more friendly to other players than most FPS require.

There is a risk though, that you're right, and Bungie is explicitly aware of that. However they're going to give a shot. Regardless of what happens down the line, Bungie wants to try to introduce new concepts to the mainstream FPS audience on consoles and that's not inherently a bad thing no matter what the knee jerk reaction may be.



The problem is that perception > reality when it comes to these situations. People who have a negative opinion of something tend to be very vocal about it and if vocal enough.... they can easily influence many others. Influence enough people and Bungie would be forced to make changes, even if they don't feel those changes are warranted.

This thread is actually a great example. The title and OP of the thread focuses only on no matchmaking in Raids. So that's what people focus on. Many don't even realize that you can get some of the best gear in the game from Nightfall Missions which are daily and weekly activities that only require 3 players and seem to allow for matchmaking. They award Exotic gear and "the best arcane gear in the game." Yet that information is in the article linked in the opening post of the thread. Once someone sets a tone, people tend to follow. That's where complaints can become a big problem for a developer. It happens all the time in other games. Socom 4 bombed due to a loud echo chamber of negativity combined with the PSN outage. Many MMO's end up nerfing classes and content due to negative feedback, even when not warranted. It's not a rare occurance.

I understand what you're saying...and that's why I said originally that I applaud their stance...however I think they could save themselves a whole bunch of headache by just putting match making in for launch...

There are ZERO negatives to having match making as an option...those that have fireteams of 6 already...will just simply by pass the need and jump right in...

I'd even be ok if they put SOME restrictions on the matchmaking..

- require groups of at least 2 (3?) To begin the match making process so that you're not dealing with COMPLETE randoms?..

6 is just too many for the average group of gaming friends to come up with on a consistent basis...especially for the length of time that these things apparently take..

 

[Marshmellow]

Honestly, though, I think people will complain about the difficulty even without matchmaking. People are going to group up with randoms through archaic methods anyway, and won't be prepared for what a raid entails.

Do you think the absence of a matchmaking tool will significantly reduce complaints about difficulty? I honestly don't think it will have much effect.

Complaints do not matter in the slightest. The difficulty will be what it is because the content is there to be challenging.

Wildstar has done this with their Raids and people are enjoying the difficulty (some people like being challenged in games not just riding the rails).
Direct comparison with the inclusion of matchmaking would be WoW who introducted LFR to the detriment of the raiding community, who then grouped with these people who went into real raids thinking everything was a cakewalk (it generates a horrible community).

 

[Jest Chillin]

Honestly, though, I think people will complain about the difficulty even without matchmaking. People are going to group up with randoms through archaic methods anyway, and won't be prepared for what a raid entails.

Do you think the absence of a matchmaking tool will significantly reduce complaints about difficulty? I honestly don't think it will have much effect.

I think the absence of Matchmaking will make players take the content more seriously and thus make them less likely to write off failure as someone else's underperformance or Bungie making it too hard.

The effort required for people to create random groups will weed out a lot of players who would drop groups, troll, or just aren't really prepared for Raids.

The big negative that I see is that it's too difficult for people to actually form groups in-game. That needs to be addressed. But not having Matchmaking isn't a problem imo.

 

[ZangBa]

Complaints do not matter in the slightest. The difficulty will be what it is because the content is there to be challenging.

Wildstar has done this with their Raids and people are enjoying the difficulty (some people like being challenged in games not just riding the rails).
Direct comparison with the inclusion of matchmaking would be WoW who introducted LFR to the detriment of the raiding community, who then grouped with these people who went into real raids thinking everything was a cakewalk (it generates a horrible community).

I agree the complaints are irrelevant, I welcome challenging content with randoms. There are enough games that hold your hand and present circumstances that are almost impossible to fail in.

 

[Marshmellow]

The effort required for people to create random groups will weed out a lot of players who would drop groups, troll, or just aren't really prepared for Raids.

This is a fantastic point, as nothing will black mark it as bad content and un-enjoyable faster than people going into it for 10mins to 1hour and half paying attention.

 

[Duress]

I doubt any mmo raid players will make a big deal; out of the amount of time the raids take.

 

[Metfanant]

I think the absence of Matchmaking will make players take the content more seriously and thus make them less likely to write off failure as someone else's underperformance or Bungie making it too hard.

The effort required for people to create random groups will weed out a lot of players who would drop groups, troll, or just aren't really prepared for Raids.

The big negative that I see is that it's too difficult for people to actually form groups in-game. That needs to be addressed. But not having Matchmaking isn't a problem imo.

Lack of matchmaking won't make people take it more seriously...buy it will piss them off if they feel they are being kept from playing something because their friends are not available ..

This is a fantastic point, as nothing will black mark it as bad content and un-enjoyable faster than people going into it for 10mins to 1hour and half paying attention.

But it will also prevent people who generally DO want to take it seriously from playing if their group of gaming friends is too small...

I doubt any mmo raid players will make a big deal; out of the amount of time the raids take.

But youre (Bungie) asking long time console gamers to jump head first into the deep end of MMO gameplay with that...you're simply asking for headache...

 

[ZangBa]

I think the absence of Matchmaking will make players take the content more seriously and thus make them less likely to write off failure as someone else's underperformance or Bungie making it too hard.

The effort required for people to create random groups will weed out a lot of players who would drop groups, troll, or just aren't really prepared for Raids.

The big negative that I see is that it's too difficult for people to actually form groups in-game. That needs to be addressed. But not having Matchmaking isn't a problem imo.

I can see where you're coming from, however, I have to disagree based on my own experiences in the past. People will continue to drop groups, troll, and be unprepared regardless, it will just make it will harder for legitimate players to form groups without a tool on their own. Since we're likely to argue in circles about the significance the impact of not having a matchmaking tool would have on things like this, we'd probably be better off to agree to disagree.

 

[Kettch]

The effort required for people to create random groups will weed out a lot of players who would drop groups, troll, or just aren't really prepared for Raids.

The absence of a match-making option doesn't facilitate this. The presence of a manual group option does.

If you want to weed out those players, just make your own group. Meanwhile, I would happily be playing with the trolls over not playing it at all.

 

[nephilimdj]

Even if they included a brilliant matchmaking system for this, I think people will quickly discover that Raids (and high level Strikes even) just aren't going to be worth the time when you're coin tossing between these kind of players:

Randoms in Reach Firefight
-AFK for credits
-Grief
-Yell obscenities on mic
-Waste live pool
-Accumulate 30+ deaths

Randoms in CoD Ghosts Extinction
-Ignore skillpoint challenges (how do you fail a challenge that requires you to only melee for 30 seconds...)
-Refuse to share ammo or boosters
-Also yell obscenities on mic
-Quit in the lobby if someone doesn't have the right equipment selected

Both of these games have voice chat btw.

I never had this, there was always a 10-14year old who wanted to lead the party and was really helpful. Teamwork always went pretty well. thats in the Dozen matches I played on xbox one.
edit: in Extinction

Anyway if a raid is going to take hours, they need drop in drop out on console

 

[Two Words]

Frankly, I don't see how Bungie could even make a raid that is fun for 16 hours.

 

[Cantthink278]

Yeah im not a fan of this. Matchmaking should be allowed for raids, no reason for it not to be. At least give us the choice.

 

[David___]

Frankly, I don't see how Bungie could even make a raid that is fun for 16 hours.

Who's saying the raid is 16 hours?

 

[JMizzlin]

Yeah im not a fan of this. Matchmaking should be allowed for raids, no reason for it not to be. At least give us the choice.

Except that there is a reason and it has been made quite clear.

 

[Twilight Gap]

Frankly, I don't see how Bungie could even make a raid that is fun for 16 hours.

People are blowing the 16 hour thing out of proportion. My first playthrough of Cairo Station on Legendary in Halo 2 took me 3 hours, and now I can do the same mission in less than 30 minutes. When the encounters are learned and people have the right gear equipped, it wont take anywhere near that long. And there are checkpoints if you do find yourself going over your allotted game time.

 

[NullPointer]

As far as we've seen there is no matchmaking in story missions (I could be wrong here), but I also don't think Strike missions are the best places to recruit people for raids.

Strike missions are meant to be replayed, and as mentioned above, they will be farmed. That means farmers rushing through the linear content, killing the bosses as quickly as possible, popping the chests - rinse, and repeat. People will play in parties of two or three or with mics muted because you don't require close teamwork to overcome them.

I'm not sure what makes that a great environment to pick up randoms to be would-be raid players.

 

[D i Z]

Frankly, I don't see how Bungie could even make a raid that is fun for 16 hours.

Why is everyone getting tripped up on this number? It's not a 16 hour raid. It took 16 hours worth of attempts and still wasn't cracked.

 

[Felessan]

6 is just too many for the average group of gaming friends to come up with on a consistent basis...especially for the length of time that these things apparently take..

I hope there will be other ways to find a party than friend list, like Clans or Dufty Finder.
I am certainly sure that raid hardly doable even when you have 5 friends that plays Destiny, as raiding usually requires having specificly minded friends and not just any friends. I, for the most part, start raiding with completely strangers (and as it's usually done in static parties we got friendly quite fast) than gathering my friends to do this, as most of my long-time friends are casual-style players and they are just not really suitable for hardcore raiding.
People just don't understand the usual complexity of such activity, and this complexity is what leads to put raids behind premaid party wall.

 

[NoMoreTrolls]

Luckily, though, Bungie has seen fit to make this great app that facilitates communication with the vast Destiny fan base on their forums, so finding a group is a matter of taking out your phone. Clans are easy to join, as well.
If that doesn't float your boat, this is a forum that's teeming with hardcore gamers to group up with

 

[Highlaw]

The more I read this thread the more I see people contradicting themselves (about MM being more random than forum hunting), Do you honestly believe that option 2) is better than 1), and furthersome that option 1) can not exist because it would damage the experience....somehow, while option 2) wouldn't do the same anyway (players complaining about the difficulty)

1) Matchmaking - Huge pool of players, worldwide. Searches based on your competence (things like your gear, performance on previous runs, etc) and preferences (such as mic-on only, regional only, etc). If you are full of legendary gear you'd never be matched with someone in greens, for instance. Automatic, instant process.

2) Guys on a board that happen to be available (a VERY small pool). You have no idea if they just got to lvl20 or if they are full of epics, either way you don't care because you won't find anyone else so you better stick with them if you hope to enter the raid, you need to manualy type 5 gamertags, send a friend invite and make a chatroom, Doing this every time you ever want to do a raid Cumbersome, inconsistent, frustrating.

Yeah, in a dream world you'd stick with the same group of 6 forum buddies for these next 10 years and you wouldn't have to repeat this process... let's see if that'll happen

3) Actually gathering with 5 other IRL friends on a regular basis. Hah, good one.

Have you beaten every Halo on Legendary? Now think of that difficulty, but with coordinating a bunch of players with no respawns. I'd say that can be as hard as your standard WoW raid.

Yes I have, some of them with no checkpoints, solo and co-op runs with a friend. It was a fun challenge that took me roughly a week with each halo. I (and him) knew it would be hard and we'd die over and over again trying to find out the best route. I still don't see how this is an argument to not have MM

 

[NullPointer]

Luckily, though, Bungie has seen fit to make this great app that facilitates communication with the vast Destiny fan base on their forums, so finding a group is a matter of taking out your phone.

I remember another piece of tech Bungie came up with to solve this problem too.

 

[Felessan]

Frankly, I don't see how Bungie could even make a raid that is fun for 16 hours.

Raiding includes two phases - pre-clear learning and post-clear farming.
The first phase can take a very long time (our group spent more than 60 hours on current last boss in ff14), but this time have no relation to how long fight will take when everything done smoothly, as now we kill it in 15 min.

 

[Felessan]

2) Guys on a board that happen to be available (a VERY small pool). You have no idea if they just got to lvl20 or if they are full of epics, either way you don't care because you won't find anyone else so you better stick with them if you hope to enter the raid, you need to manualy type 5 gamertags, send a friend invite and make a chatroom, Doing this every time you ever want to do a raid Cumbersome, inconsistent, frustrating.

Learning usually done in more or less static parties where you can replace really bad players. And farming usually requires "previous clears" that are easily checked through trophy/achievement list.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

Not if matchmaking were to happen only at checkpoints. That way you'd still have to get to that 5-hours-mark checkpoint, but it would at least allow you to continue even if your fireteam fell apart by that point.

Now you're running into two more developer conundrums;

1. Player pools to match make with. Imagine all the different raids, all the different progressed characters/ranks, the specific checkpoint progress etc. You're drilling down too far into a niche pool of players, you just wouldn't match with players from the same region at the same time at the same character and raid progression points. It's too utopian. Now imagine that months after the game launched...it just doesn't work that way in reality. On paper maybe.

2. Developer resource investment, this would require a fair amount of development and up keep for very little pay off as in point 1.

 

[Jest Chillin]

Lack of matchmaking won't make people take it more seriously...buy it will piss them off if they feel they are being kept from playing something because their friends are not available ..

There is less anonymity in forming groups manually as opposed to matchmaking. That puts people in a different mindstate. Anyone who played WoW Pre-LFG/LFR and post will likely agree.

But it will also prevent people who generally DO want to take it seriously from playing if their group of gaming friends is too small...

People who really do want to Raid and take it at seriously who aren't willing to manually form a group aren't really taking it seriously imo. The exception would be the player who wants to try the content but doesn't have a lot of time and in those cases, they'd likely have to drop group after a few wipes anyways. Matchmaking would help them get started quickly but not necessarily give them the time to progress meaningfully.

But youre (Bungie) asking long time console gamers to jump head first into the deep end of MMO gameplay with that...you're simply asking for headache...

While there will be a lot of FPS primary players.. the overlap between genres is much larger than I think you're giving credit to here.

The absence of a match-making option doesn't facilitate this. The presence of a manual group option does.

If you want to weed out those players, just make your own group. Meanwhile, I would happily be playing with the trolls over not playing it at all.

Experience with MMO's makes me feel like you'd get just as frustrated as those of us who are arguing the opposite have been in dealing with trolls during dungeons/raids in the past. But I can't speak for you and you believe what you believe so this is firmly in impasse territory.

Frankly, I don't see how Bungie could even make a raid that is fun for 16 hours.

It's not a 16 hour raid. That's just the total time they racked up due to not clearing.

As far as we've seen there is no matchmaking in story missions (I could be wrong here), but I also don't think Strike missions are the best places to recruit people for raids.

Strike missions are meant to be replayed, and as mentioned above, they will be farmed. That means farmers rushing through the linear content, killing the bosses as quickly as possible, popping the chests - rinse, and repeat. People will play in parties of two or three or with mics muted because you don't require close teamwork to overcome them.

I'm not sure what makes that a great environment to pick up randoms to be would-be raid players.

We've only seen one Strike mission thus far and it really wasn't that difficult. However there are plenty of people who have had people drop from even that Strike mission, myself included. The way these types of games are designed.. as you progress to higher level Strikes (dungeons) the fights get harder and more complicated. They're made to better prepare you for the task ahead in Raids if you're so inclined to attempt them.

Strikes (dungeons) are a great place to recruite future Raid members because it will show you who plays well with you, who's willing to stick it through if things get difficult and who can pick up on boss patterns, weakpoints, and general strategy needed to progress.

 

[Trickster]

Why is everyone getting tripped up on this number? It's not a 16 hour raid. It took 16 hours worth of attempts and still wasn't cracked.

A lot of people that are gonna play Destiny have no real understanding of raids.

That so many people are clamoring for the option of getting thrown into the raid via matchmaking with 5 other total strangers just really underscores that fact.

Luckily, though, Bungie has seen fit to make this great app that facilitates communication with the vast Destiny fan base on their forums, so finding a group is a matter of taking out your phone.

I have a windows phone :|

 

[logikk]

I think Bungie can make this work in two seperate ways:

1) Keep it as it seems like it will be (6-man raid with no matchmaking system), but they will really need some sort of communication mechanic for this to work for most people. Either some sort of in game calender, or messaging system, or chat. The only way I really play with friends is by either calling them or talking to them in vent. Not sure how this would work on a console.

2) Adopt a matchmaking system, and add some sort of system where you can maintain a friend list. That way you can play with randoms and create a group from multiple runs that way. Without this, it seems like you would just have to try your luck with 5 other people in your guild, although I'm not sure how you would schedule a raid in-game.

The main thing that makes all of this hard is that I've heard nothing about an in-game chat system. That would act as the match-making system, and everyone wins.

 

[Kettch]

Experience with MMO's makes me feel like you'd get just as frustrated as those of us who are arguing the opposite have been in dealing with trolls during dungeons/raids in the past. But I can't speak for you and you believe what you believe so this is firmly in impasse territory.

Again though, there's no reason for you to be frustrated with a match-making option. No one's arguing that we should take away the ability to form pre-made groups and force you to play with randoms.

 

[Jest Chillin]

The more I read this thread the more I see people contradicting themselves (about MM being more random than forum hunting), Do you honestly believe that option 2) is better than 1), and furthersome that option 1) can not exist because it would damage the experience....somehow, while option 2) wouldn't do the same anyway (players complaining about the difficulty)

1) Matchmaking - Huge pool of players, worldwide. Searches based on your competence (things like your gear, performance on previous runs, etc) and preferences (such as mic-on only, regional only, etc). If you are full of legendary gear you'd never be matched with someone in greens, for instance. Automatic, instant process.

2) Guys on a board that happen to be available (a VERY small pool). You have no idea if they just got to lvl20 or if they are full of epics, either way you don't care because you won't find anyone else so you better stick with them if you hope to enter the raid, you need to manualy type 5 gamertags, send a friend invite and make a chatroom, Doing this every time you ever want to do a raid Cumbersome, inconsistent, frustrating.

Yeah, in a dream world you'd stick with the same group of 6 forum buddies for these next 10 years and you wouldn't have to repeat this process... let's see if that'll happen

3) Actually gathering with 5 other IRL friends on a regular basis. Hah, good one.

There is no way that matchmaking could possibly check for all the things you're suggesting and still be an "automatic, instant process." And even if it could, the nature of matchmaking checking players to that degree would automatically restrict players who were late to the game or progressed slower than the general playerbase.

Likewise recruiting players on a message board allows you to actually ask them what their experience, level, and gear is ahead of time. It would also serve to allow more experienced and geared players to group with less experienced and geared players to help them progress. They also share the camaraderie of a community, making them more likely to stick things through than a random group of players who couldn't care less what you think of them.

Again though, there's no reason for you to be frustrated with a match-making option. No one's arguing that we should take away the ability to form pre-made groups and force you to play with randoms.

Matchmaking players automatically by it's nature insinuates to players that they should be able to complete the Raid with a matchmade group. The frustration comes from failing when the game sends the message that you should be able to do it.

I have a windows phone :|

This genuinely sucks. Not that you have a Windows Phone.. but that Bungie hasn't made an app available for people with a Windows phone. Even though I don't feel like the App is enough in terms of helping players form groups, it sucks that you don't have access to the App at all. ;/

 

[Kettch]

Matchmaking players automatically by it's nature insinuates to players that they should be able to complete the Raid with a matchmade group. The frustration comes from failing when the game sends the message that you should be able to do it.

Then hide the match-making option behind several warning windows that the content will be impossible. I'm perfectly fine with that.

 

[Jest Chillin]

Then hide the match-making option behind several warning windows that the content will be impossible. I'm perfectly fine with that.

This has been suggested a few times but I don't think that will really be enough. Many people skip text in games regardless of the message and even if there's a warning, that doesn't preclude them from over-reacting to failing.

For example, when Blizzard was creating their Cataclysm expansion.. they made it a point to say loud and clear, over and over, that the dungeons would be much harder than they were in the previous Wrath of the Lich King expansion. The playerbase acknowledged as much. When the game went live however, a lot of people had trouble clearing it and turned around and complained it was too hard. Blizzard was forced to nerf the content.

 

[Twilight Gap]

We've only seen one Strike mission thus far and it really wasn't that difficult. However there are plenty of people who have had people drop from even that Strike mission, myself included. The way these types of games are designed.. as you progress to higher level Strikes (dungeons) the fights get harder and more complicated. They're made to better prepare you for the task ahead in Raids if you're so inclined to attempt them.

Strikes (dungeons) are a great place to recruite future Raid members because it will show you who plays well with you, who's willing to stick it through if things get difficult and who can pick up on boss patterns, weakpoints, and general strategy needed to progress.

Strikes are also great if one doesn't have many friends, doesn't want to use their mic, and doesn't have enough time to recruit people or play long missions.

They're also apparently really challenging.

 

[tranciful]

I'm glad Bungie isn't compromising the content for the lowest common denominator.

 

[Metfanant]

I'm glad Bungie isn't compromising the content for the lowest common denominator.

this is some high horse, elitist type crap right here...i dont think ANYONE is asking for them to compromise the content...simply just the ability for some matchmaking options lol...

 

[tranciful]

this is some high horse, elitist type crap right here...i dont think ANYONE is asking for them to compromise the content...simply just the ability for some matchmaking options lol...

WoW has already proven that's a terrible idea, sorry.

 

[Surface of Me]

I'm glad Bungie isn't compromising the content for the lowest common denominator.

"Everything should be catered to me and my opinions! And no one else's!"

 

[GraveRobberX]

Also most of you forget to realize the Raid aspect will take awhile to crack

I mean there will be a few level 20's running around quickly, but then they have to gear up for said Raid

Matchmaking will almost be a shortcut for others to be carried through tough content

If the community wants matchmaking real bad, then Bungie damn well sure put up certain gates, some restrictions of people joining in just cause
You better have 2 exotics equipped and Light level 100+ to be even remotely ready for it

They are taking the MMO raid element and trying to see how the FPS community will adjust, most of you asking for MM are diluting it

We still don't know how a goddamn Raid goes, but with Strikes I've played with randoms has shown me this community want to do big numbers, fuck teamwork/communication, they just want their drops, if too hard quit
No wonder people keep associating Destiny with Borderlands, it was the same goddamn thing there, but at least the game adjusted to how many players were in the game
If Destiny Raid is really trying to steal the MMO genre end game and mold it into it's IP, lets see how it goes

I mean FFXIV has weekly lockouts, RNG loot, weekly caps, reset timer is when everything starts a new
For a lot of players saying they don't have many friends or the time to even play hardcore, how are you going to even Raid?

 

[tranciful]

"Everything should be catered to me and my opinions! And no one else's!"

Are you mocking yourself? You're one of the ones demanding they change their design and cater the game to you, remember?

 

[Metfanant]

WoW has already proven that's a terrible idea, sorry.

and this isnt WoW....no matter how much you want to pretend it is...

Are you mocking yourself? You're one of the ones demanding they change their design and cater the game to you, remember?

again, nobody asking for them to change their design...but really should my group of friends not be able to play because there is only 4 of us that have PS4's and Destiny? thats bullshit...period...

 

[Sevyne]

A lot of people that are gonna play Destiny have no real understanding of raids.

That so many people are clamoring for the option of getting thrown into the raid via matchmaking with 5 other total strangers just really underscores that fact.

What an ignorant statement. If you were actually paying attention to the comments in here, you'd clearly see that quite a few folks with lots of experience with raiding in MMOs (including myself) see the lack of matchmaking as ridiculous in a game that already lacks every single social feature of an MMO. Hell, it lacks most social features of even FPS games of the last decade, and is trying to be passed off as a social experience while being completely anti-social.

Listen, if the tools for communication were available within the game then I'd agree that matchmaking wouldn't really be an issue. However, if Bungie was going to do one or the other, what do you think it would be? Would they completely restructure and add more social features to the toolset, or would they just enable the already existing matchmaking system to also work for raids? People are just being realistic here. They have a much better chance of getting matchmaking than the full social suite.

 

[Marshmellow]

WoW has already proven that's a terrible idea, sorry.

No, not exactly.
What Blizzard did was implement a system that catered to what was the majority of casual players to allow them access to the content and reflected poorly for 20-30% of the community as they straddled both standard and casual content.

There is nothing stopping Bungie adding matchmaking in a smart way. (After i made some posts earlier and have now read more) I really like the logical suggestions people have made about checkpoints for raiding, worked in with a matchmaking system to enable free access to the content.

I will make another reference back to MMO's though that wildstar made good challenging content but when you throw an un-organized group at it, it does create a very upset community where everyone with organized groups is enjoying the content and the rest are left to complain about bad players and crap PUG groups.

It's a delicate balance, but i am sure they will handle it well regardless of the actions they take.

 

[Highlaw]

People who really do want to Raid and take it at seriously who aren't willing to manually form a group aren't really taking it seriously imo. The exception would be the player who wants to try the content but doesn't have a lot of time and in those cases, they'd likely have to drop group after a few wipes anyways. Matchmaking would help them get started quickly but not necessarily give them the time to progress meaningfully.

In my WoW days we filled the rest of the group in the most casual manner. The first ranged DPS with decent gear got in (if we needed rDPS). We didn't do it because we wanted to meet the player and know his strategy, we did it just because we needed to. If we had the chance I'm sure we'd opt for an automatic system. "Please oh please computer fill these 2 slots with ranged DPS of at least X item level, I don't want to bother spamming the chat"

And we were dedicated and taking raiding seriously, but even with a medium sized guild there are off days. 1 or 2 guys missing. That'll happen in Destiny too, and it's more annoying because we have to do all of that out of the game.

Learning usually done in more or less static parties where you can replace really bad players. And farming usually requires "previous clears" that are easily checked through trophy/achievement list.

Both of which can be easily done with an automatic system called matchmaking. Good players play with good players (after a few runs the game would know where you fit in the bad/good spectrum). And there would be no need to check 5 different achievement lists when the game can do that for you.

-----

Am I the only one thinking long term? Are you guys happy that you'll need to repeat this process of not only searching for 5 other players, but good ones, over and over again? Adding and removing friends, making chat rooms out of the game, and so on...

I'm really curious about the ratio of players that will stick with the same group of people (not just in the first couple of weeks, but 2, 4, 8 months down the line) and those who will look for new groups. I'd bet the group hoppers will be a far greater %

It's easy for a youtube personality, or someone engraved in a community like Gaf to get people (I think that's why most of you guys don't care for MM, because you already have a reserved raiding seat, so why would you care?). But not everyone who likes this end-game stuff participates in forums. I like to lurk/read, and only occasionaly participate, where is my luck now? I'll have to get to know people in the bungie forums, DestinyGaf, a subreddit or even /vg/ to get a temporary raiding group. All of that because there isn't a MM option.

There is no way that matchmaking could possibly check for all the things you're suggesting and still be an "automatic, instant process." And even if it could, the nature of matchmaking checking players to that degree would automatically restrict players who were late to the game or progressed slower than the general playerbase.

Why? Math is quick for computers. Just grab your total gear score (say you have 500 of Armor + dis/str/int) and look for players in a 40 gear range, so 480 to 520. It's simple but effective. And since bungie records a lot of stats it could also take into account some sort of "raid KDA" or "score to deaths" or "score per minute".

Ex: You might only have 480 "gear score", but since you play so well in raids you can get up to the 540 range and play with better geared players. (and vice versa, you can have good gear but play like shit so you would rank slightly lower)

Also new players wouldn't be left behind. There are always new players so they would get grouped with them.... Know how new players would be left behind? With no MM. In 8 months if I started playing It'd be hard to find a 8 month-old raiding group willing to play with be regularly.

Likewise recruiting players on a message board allows you to actually ask them what their experience, level, and gear is ahead of time. It would also serve to allow more experienced and geared players to group with less experienced and geared players to help them progress. They also share the camaraderie of a community, making them more likely to stick things through than a random group of players who couldn't care less what you think of them.

Yes that is a good advantage but you won't have the patience to do that (5x each time) on your 34th run, now will you? It becomes more of a process as time goes on and you'll want to get over it quickly.

It's all fine and dandy for the first few runs, to meet new people and actually ask them to add you and whatnot, here "forum hunting" is better imo. But in the farming phase (when you completed the raid more times than you care to remember) you just want to get it done, that's where matchmaking helps.

 

[Kettch]

Are you mocking yourself? You're one of the ones demanding they change their design and cater the game to you, remember?

People who want options added in to the game in addition to those already in the game are not asking to be the only ones catered to, no.