In the MMO shooter Destiny , matchmaking has been changed over the past months without informing players.
In the last Weekly Update from Bungie, the developers admitted that since The Taken King they have been relying more on skill-based matchmaking in the Crucible. This results in more challenging and balanced matches, but it also affects connection quality. As the skill level becomes more important in match creation, the connection quality between players becomes less significant.
Because this was not communicated properly, but rather admitted only afterwards, many PvP players are quite upset with Bungie.
That’s why so many are outraged with Bungie right now
It was easy to overlook in the Weekly Update. In the “internal interview” between Community Manager DeeJ and PvP designer Lars Bakken, it was as cozy as a foam party in Taka-Tuka-Land. Both made sure not to use harsh words in their answers.
For example, DeeJ didn’t ask: “Hey, there’s a lot of lag in the Crucible lately and people are losing their minds, do you want to address that?“, instead, DeeJ chatted: “Hey, how are you? Rumor has it that the situation in the Crucible has been a bit tense lately.“
No one really admitted to problems or spoke – heaven forbid – plainly. Instead, they promised solutions for issues that they didn’t even fully acknowledge. As a reader, you had to know exactly what was going on to understand what they were really talking about.
Stressful matches with more lag or sometimes one-sided matches with less lag – Bungie has decided for you
Bakken said: We had many problems with one-sided matches in the first year, that’s why we introduced a new system with The Taken King to provide Guardians with “tighter games”.
The system was gradually extended to more areas until it was finally applied everywhere in December. Players were not informed to avoid manipulation of the system.
Translated, this means: The increasing lag that you’ve all noticed is because we are matching you with opponents who match your skill level. We’ve been doing this for four months now. But we didn’t tell you so you wouldn’t exploit it.
Less lag, more transparency in the future
Players have indeed noticed in recent months, that lag has significantly increased. Questions to Bungie designers like Derek Carol about whether any changes were made were denied. They simply didn’t know. All these changes happened behind the scenes. Players felt that PvP in Destiny was simply becoming pointlessly terrible and getting worse.
Now Bungie has at least stated that they want to reduce the “lag” caused by the new matchmaking method and that soon. Furthermore, they want to be more transparent the next time they adjust the Crucible.
Top PvP player says: You are killing the game
Well-known PvP players like tripleWRECK are extremely disappointed with the development. Not only is transparency terrible, but a “skill-based matchmaking” where each match hangs by a thread is also absolute nonsense. Such systems have ruined other games. Certain modes in Destiny could have skill-based matchmaking, but that should be optional: players should have the choice of whether to compete “normally” or “hard” against equally matched players.
Bungie is trying to solve a non-existent problem here and is killing Destiny, as tripleWRECK states in a video.
Most of the time, players just want to relax and have fun in the Crucible of Destiny. One-sided matches are not a problem; they just happen. Sometimes you dominate, sometimes you get dominated, sometimes it’s close, sometimes it’s clear – that’s how games are. As long as the lag goes away and it’s fun again, that’s the opinion of tripleWRECK, which is surely shared by many players.
