So I stopped playing destiny in maybe mid October and I have been kinda wanting to go back. My question is: as someone who has zero interest in purchasing the expansions, is there enough new content to make the game feel fresh again?

A handful of new quests, a couple of new raids, a new item here and there.

Still Destiny.

@atwa: did they at least implement raid matchmaking?

@conker: Unfortunately no. They added matchmaking for the weekly heroic strikes, which is nice for sure, but there still isn't any matchmaking for raids or the nightfall strike. I'm glad they added it for the weekly heroic, but not adding it for the other two was just dumb. What's even worse is that their reasons for not doing so are just ridiculous, especially since the vast majority of people want matchmaking. Bungie is essentially telling everybody what they want instead of just listening to what everybody wants.

@tyrrael: that is INCREDIBLY disappointing. Guess I'll just pass and hope they fix the sequel :(

As someone that has a regular group of six to run raids with that has also tried LFG sites here and there, the difference is vast. I've never had very good experiences with pick up groups, even when people claimed to know what they were doing. Matchmaking for raids would be a bad experience for most involved a large majority of the time. I can sympathize with people that don't have a group to raid with, but matchmaking is not the answer.

This is a case of the developer knowing better than the player. People think they want matchmaking, but in reality it's not the best thing for the player. Just looking at the weekly matchmaking, more often than not I get matched up with people that try cheese simple encounters, don't know how to match burns, or don't bother reviving teammates. And that's just mindless strikes that don't really have mechanics, you throw a bunch randoms together in a raid and things wouldn't go well.

Now, you may say LFG is basically matchmaking so why not go all the way? Well, at least with LFG you have the opportunity to screen your teammates, make sure everyone has mics, make sure people know what they're doing, put together a balanced group of classes, etc. Matchmaking would be a random grab bag of shit. Now, I'm all for implementing more tools in the game to help people group up for end game activities, like an LFG system in the tower, but matchmaking as it exists in the rest of the game would be a disaster for raids.

When it comes to adding matchmaking to the weekly heroic strikes, I disagree with you the absolute most a person can possibly disagree with someone about something. That's the best thing that ever happened to the weekly heroics. I've spent countless hours in the past trying to get people to join me in the tower, and I'd say about 1 out of 5 times they would inexplicably quit during the strike, even if we're doing amazing. Now, I just hit the button, and I'm off. 90% of the time it goes perfectly fine. Yes, sometimes people don't bring the proper burn weapons, but that's no reason to waste ridiculous amounts of my time trying to find people just to have them screw you over. Nightfalls, at the very least, should have it too. I would like to run nightfalls more, but there's no way I'm wasting the amount of time I did in the past trying to find people. Every time I've ever done a nightfall, the group I was with stuck with it until we finished it.

I'll just say this: Matchmaking allows for more screwups from people, because it makes up for it with pure efficiency and ease of finding new people. If it takes me 2 hours to find people to do a weekly heroic (or at best, 1 hour), I could quit or have other people quit a dozen times and retry via matchmaking before it took that long to find people to complete it with. The most I've ever restarted a weekly heroic after matchmaking was twice, and it took a grand total of 5-10 extra minutes.

It's not yours or anyone else's place to tell people what they want. Bungie can deny it, but they DO NOT know better than the player here by a longshot. The people have spoken. They want matchmaking. I want matchmaking, at least for the nightfalls. FFS they're just different variations of the same strikes people have done countless times before, just like the weekly heroics. I've done them, and matchmaking for them would be a godsend. I honestly can't speak for the raids firsthand though, as I've never done one. The reason is because I can't use a mic due to my living situation, but if matchmaking were available, I could at least try. Worst case scenario is it doesn't work out for some people. But that possibility shouldn't be enough to deny it to people and then tell them that they're just too dumb to realize that they don't know what they want. I knew I wanted matchmaking for the weekly heroics and nightfalls the first time I ever tried to do one and realized that it wasn't there like in the strike playlists. Then they add it, the vast majority of people are happy about it (I'm sorry you're not, but you're in the minority here), and they come up with another bullshit reason not to add it to the rest of the things people want it added to.

I could go on forever, but I'll stop and end with this. Instead of Bungie, and people like yourself I'm sorry to say, telling people they're too stupid to know what they want, they could add matchmaking to the game, and it would be no more worse for wear. People could still join up the other ways, but matchmaking would give people like me, who have no problem joining up with random people, a chance to experience more of the game more often. People are bound to have bad experiences, much like yourself, but then there's people like me who's experience has been overwhelmingly positive. The more I think about it, the more I question why matchmaking wasn't there the whole time. It's saved me countless hours looking for a group, and I don't have to dread someone up and leaving and having to find someone else. I can retry immediately if it all goes to shit. Eventually, I hope, everybody, including Bungie, can look back and realize just how dumb it was to not have matchmaking the game the entire time, because I'm so glad I can FINALLY get my strange coins each week without hassle. Thank you for the matchmaking Bungie. Now implement it everywhere else like the VAST MAJORITY of your followers want.

I'm right there with you, and there's already a Bungie apologist trying to convince me why matchmaking is a bad idea and how myself and others are too dumb to know what they want, even though I'm so glad they finally added it to the weekly heroics. I can get my strange coins without it taking a full day with all 3 characters combined. *smh* It makes no sense why people want less efficiency in finding a group in this game. Matchmaking is a no brainer here, and I'm glad you agree.

@tyrrael:

Please don't put words in my mouth. I never said matchmaking for weekly heroics was a bad idea and I certainly NEVER said you or anyone else was dumb for wanting matchmaking in raids. I was merely using the weekly heroics as an example. The fact that there are players even in such a simple, easy, and mindless activity as a heroic strike that can't manage basic teamwork and situational awareness with random matchmade teammates doesn't give me much confidence that a group of random matchmade players would have a very good time in a raid.

Like I said, I understand and sympathize with those that want matchmaking for raids because they otherwise can't do them, but again, matchmaking is not the answer. Someone matchmaking into a raid with no microphone and zero prior raid experience would more than likely ruin the experience for everyone else. I understand you haven't done raids before, but they aren't like strikes. Communication and teamwork are essential, and one bad teammate can be a huge burden for inexperienced groups. The chances of getting one person out of six that doesn't have a mic or doesn't work well with others is fairly high when you're relying on the random chance of matchmaking.

Again, I am all in favor of more ways within the game to group up for end game activities, but matchmaking would be bad. Bungie needs to implement some kind of grouping feature that gives players at least some way to choose who they join up with. A way to see a player's class and gear, a way to see their name (So you can avoid things like xX420BLUNTSM0KERXx), a way to see whether or not they have a microphone. Being able to see these things before you get randomly tossed in front of the Vault of Glass would certainly help in putting together a better experience for all involved.

To be clear, I'm NOT CALLING YOU DUMB, but the fact that you yourself admit you haven't done a raid shows you don't really know what you're asking for. I'm not advocating for less efficiency, I just think Bungie needs to be careful with how they implement a grouping feature for raids. Just taking the existing matchmaking infrastructure and slapping it onto raids is not the best way to do it, and clearly they know this since they would have done it by now otherwise. It may be something a vocal group of people wants, but just because people want it doesn't mean it's the best thing for the game and its players.

Bungie has made tons of mistakes with Destiny, and having no grouping options for raids is among them, but not caving to pressure and just bolting matchmaking onto raids has and continues to be a good decision.

@conker: I've had some good luck with the Destiny LFG page, but not having matching for Raids is super lame.

How is it not the best thing for the player? If i want matchmaking i want matchmaking, why would effect you in anyway when you have a group to raid with anyway? Not having matchmaking negatively effects me since i never had a group to raid with, and never will have one lol.

Anyway, every time i think i want to try destiny again i just look at the dlc price and turn on diablo instead. If they have a sale for like 20 or 15 for all packs I may jump back on board, i was level 28 with base content and never getting to do any raids.

Perhaps it's just due to our language, but when you say someone knows what someone else wants more than the person who wants it (or in this case, millions of people), it sounds like you're flat out calling that person dumb, regardless of your intention.

I said straight out that I had never done a raid before, which is why I focused on the nightfalls. Perhaps you shouldn't put words into my mouth here. I focused on the nightfalls, and you focused on the raids. This simply implies that you either have no problem with there being matchmaking for nightfalls, you don't care, or you don't want it but don't have a good reason for it, which would be why you ignored my primary focus in the first place.

I fully agree that there should be other ways to find a group within the game, much like you highlighted in your third paragraph, but matchmaking would at least give people some kind of option, as opposed to the huge amount of nothing in the game right now. It's like I said before, they could add matchmaking and the game would be no more worse for wear. There are going to be people that have good experiences and people that have bad experiences, but the possibility of people having bad experiences shouldn't lead to people like you telling everyone that they don't know what they want and, in this case, leave it to the professionals to decide for them. That is blatantly condescending no matter how you look at it.

Keep in mind that my primary focus is on the nightfalls. I would still like matchmaking for the raids, because if I were to join and it didn't work out, I could just go to orbit and try again immediately, not having to worry about spending ridiculous amounts of time finding more people. That's what this is mostly about, SAVING TIME, which I GUARANTEE matchmaking would do, just like it does for countless people, including myself, doing the weekly heroics.

I'm right there with you. I just don't understand how this is going to effect anybody who can get a raid group together without any trouble anyway. It just gives other people at least a chance to try it. Not having matchmaking only has negative effects, because people that want to put together groups any other way still can, but having it then also allows people to just jump in on the spot when they have time. I just can't stand people like that other poster, because ffs, only around 20% of people have completed a raid. That should be enough for Bungie to get off their asses and just add matchmaking, or maybe put in a little actual effort and add some kind of LFG mechanic in the game.

I honesty think the matchmaking right now is backwards. You don't really need matching for the weekly heroic as they can be soloed fairly easy. Nightfall and raids i can understand having some sort of match making but the heroic just seem unneeded.

I fail to see why Destiny can't have matchmaking for raids.

Add an easy mode for the raid so players can learn, easy must be completed before attempting normal.

Only a team of three can matchmake to find another team of three to pair up with.

Before the start have a minute cooldown so players can sound each other out.

No matchmaking for hard mode.

They're adding matchmaking for the standard difficulty Prison of Elders, which is the arena/horde mode thing we're getting in House of Wolves. Maybe that will be a good step in the right direction for people.

For what its worth, I don't think matchmaking for the current raids would be a bad idea, I just have a feeling most people would have a bad experience with it.

I would be in favor of something along these lines. Despite what some posters in this thread think, I am a proponent of an in-game way to group up for raids, I just don't think a completely random matchmaking system would be the best way to go about it.

@ll_exile_ll: I don't know how bad your luck is but before I took a short break I was running through Crota once a week on Normal and Hard for 2 months and there was maybe two times when I didn't get through either relatively quickly with a group. I have to disagree with your stance. There is nothing that Bungie will make that won't eventually be relatively easy for a group of random to complete together. I've seen random groups do raids in their sleep for weeks.

LFG allows you to choose your group though. Matchmaking would just throw you in with random people. People with no mic, people that have zero raid experience, people that go AFK, people that straight up quit, six year old kids, etc. LFG at least gives you some means to avoid those issues. I feel like I've said it a million times in this thread, but I am completely in favor of Bungie implementing an in-game way to group up with strangers for raids, but I don't think the matchmaking system they use for strikes would be a good fit for raids because the chances for bad experiences would be much too high.

It still takes me way less time to do the weekly heroic with a group than solo though. I will say that Bungie should have left the option to start solo instead of forcing the matchmaking, but given the choice, I would still easily choose to have matchmaking as opposed to not having it. It's just the better, more efficient option. If I had to choose between matchmaking for the weekly heroic and matchmaking for the night fall though, I would definitely choose it for the nightfall. Although, there should be no reason for us to even be discussing this. Bungie should just add the matchmaking. All it can do is help. It doesn't change anyone else's ability to get a group the way they've been doing it up until this point. It just gives other people like myself a chance to just jump in when I have spare time.

@ll_exile_ll: @tyrrael: Alright, I feel like Exile is being piled on quite a bit here, so here goes my attempt to jump in here. As someone who has played with him quite a bit, and has played hundreds of hours of Destiny myself, I hate to tell you guys, but you are wrong. I won't bore you with details like being called a c*nt in a message just this Tuesday from a matchmaking random (just kidding since I just did that), but matchmaking is tossing a coin in the air for the enjoyment and ease of running any activity. On lower difficulty missions in Destiny it's fine, and you rarely have issues. But when it comes to Nightfalls, Raids, and new content like Prison of Elders and Trials of Osiris, I 100% agree with Exile that it shouldn't be there. In essence there is a direct correlation to how much I don't want Matchmaking and how contingent finishing that content is on someone else's potential ability. And with high level content, I'm too dependant on other peoples ability to finish or do well in that content. Side note, I'm completely fine with Matchmaking on Prison of Elders level 28 Easy and Weekly, as those are not dependant on someone else's skill level, which cannot be said about the other late game content.

1. By implementing matchmaking you aren't just helping those without groups, you are hurting existing groups that don't have full groups, 100% of the time. Your right, it doesn't effect full fireteams, but what about that Raid group of 5, or that guy trying to Solo or do any late game activity with fewer than required people? They get matchmade with a randoms to fill in the extra slots. No more Solo for Nightfalls, which is something I sometimes enjoy doing. No more Solo Crota runs that I wish I would have tried already, sorry TheLegendHimself, no more showcasing your stupid ridiculous skills. So don't tell me your Matchmaking doesn't effect me, its absolutely does. Specifically in Nightfalls and Raids, where one bad player can ruin the event for an entire rest of the group because the success or failure it contingent on the worst player on your team.

2. The only restrictions to matchmaking, as it is currently, is 3 levels below content and above. When it comes to both Nightfalls and Raids, because of the level disparities, a person who is not within 1 level of the content receives such a huge penalty in damage reduction and damage sustained, it's makes that content near impossible to finish with a single fireteam member below that. It would often make that content nigh impossible to complete.. You would then have to carry that player through the content, without him/her contributing in any meaningful way. With matchmaking, this would be the norm, not just an occasional bump in the road. Again, and giant hindrence to my game, without my ability to prevent it from happening.

3. No more Raid Checkpoints. Who's matchmaking checkpoint do we use? Yours, mine, that other guys. How would you determine the leader? The only way to address this would be to completely remove Raid checkpointing from Destiny. I for one would be pretty upset about that, and so would pretty much everyone else.

4. With matchmaking you have no way to screen the skill, mic situation, personality, and gear a random player will have. You could be stuck playing this Raid for hours, with a player you cannot stand playing with, or with whom you cannot complete that content with because of their gear or skill level/experience. You would then have to quit and start over from the beginning, since, as we established earlier you don't have a checkpoint anymore. Now I have to make the choice to quite and start over on all of these activities, or leave someone dead and do the content without them when they continually put me in bad situations, like bad spots on Nightfall that if I go revive you, I wipe and we all get sent to Orbit. Even though that may be the best thing for the completion of the activity, if will upset that player every single time. Queue C*nt messages.

Tyrrael, I don't understand why the advice and thoughts of an extremely experienced Destiny player chaps your a** so much. Exile is among the most experienced Destiny players on this forum. He didn't give you a long bullet point example or a few of the reasons you are wrong, but he shouldn't have had to. Some of us have played every part of Destiny hundreds of times, and to be honest, we do know better. Players like Exile have completed well over a hundred Raids, content you admit to having zero experience with. So why should your experience and advice count and his be thrown out the window?

An in game LFG system IS what Destiny needs, and desperately needs, not Matchmaking. If Bungie does something on in the realm of helping group guardians together, why do you want them to go the easy and lazy route? If we get Matchmaking for late game content, you can throw any possible form of LFG out the window because there is no chance they invest resources into that if they put in Matchmaking. And why would we want them to implement a system that hurts as many people as it helps, especially at the expense of the most dedicated and loyal players? How about we hold out for them to do the things that help the entire community, like Clan implimentation in game, which would drastically solve many of the issues with people wanting Matchmaking (having to friend request clan mates is obnoxious). I'd love it if they added both online (don't show everyone, just those online) Clan mates, and Alliance players to the Roster page. Also, let them figure out how to create a useable LFG system within Destiny. Suggestions for that include increasing the player count in the tower and dedicating a place in the tower, or just creating a giant Dome/Arena, where players can specify what type of activity they are looking for.

PS: As a side note, someone please explain to me how Matchmaking would work outside of making an always on Matchmaking system. As far as I can tell, you can't just impliment Matchmaking on something like VOG Normal. Bungie would have to recreate VoG or Crota from the ground up, and change some of the mechanics, and then add that instance to the menu of VoG or Crota. And if we are being honest with ourselves, they can't afford to do that and keep working on future content. So what we would get is just Matchmaking as it was implimented for the Weekly Stike, which is what most of us experienced players who don't want Matchmaking take issue with.

You are the most wrong person I have ever heard about this, because you're not criticizing the idea of matchmaking so much as criticizing bungie for not putting a little extra work in to try and add the most options possible. Everything you said could be done if bungie put the time in to make it so. I agree that the weekly heroics could have easily had one button for matchmaking and another for just launching it solo like before, but I would choose matchmaking over the time wasting idiocy of finding a group anyday. The same could be done for anything else that has or would have matchmaking. Your essentially saying that all the problems you have with it couldn't be fixed, when they could be remedied if bungie made it appoint to remedy them. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, you said is not a reason for there not to be matchmaking, at least in some form.

And I also have 100s of hours, if not 1000+ like yourself, of destiny played, and I've done everything except the raids, including nightfalls. Everytime I've done a nightfall, the group I'm with is the one that finished it. I've never had a group with friends or a mic and I've never had anybody quit (primarily because not any of my friends play on PS4), so it IS absolutely possible and 90% of the time it goes rather well. I also quite like doing nightfalls, but there's a reason why I stopped. You are 100% as wrong as someone can possibly be about nightfalls specifically. I've done at least a couple dozen of them, and in doing so have spent 3-5 times the amount of time looking for a group as the amount of time it actually took to complete the strike. That is fucking ridiculous.

Also, you need to get over yourself a little bit here. You being an "experienced" destiny player is one of the most presumptuous things you could have said, and it actually sheds light on the problem in and of itself. The mere fact that only about 20% of people have completed a raid is reason enough for bungie to get off their asses and do something about it. Fuck future content if the present content is inaccessible by 80% of your playerbase. I can agree that just slapping the same matchmaking on as the weekly heroics may not be the best idea. I kind of implied this before, but it would be something, at least for the nightfalls. All the nightfalls are the same old strikes everyone has done hundreds of times with some shielded enemies and modifiers. I've only ever done them with PUGs (or solo here and there), and it's almost always (90%) gone perfectly fine. It would be a quick and dirty bandaid for now, but all they would have to do is remedy the things that you mentioned. After that, your point in it's entirety would be completely moot, and you'd be onboard with matchmaking just like the vast majority of players already are.

Finally, I'll say this: I want matchmaking for nightfalls, so I can play them. I want matchmaking for raids, so I can play them. I wanted matchmaking for weekly heroics, and now it has it and has been a godsend. After it's finally implemented in some way for the rest of the content, then maybe the other 80% of players will be able to be as "experienced" as you. Until then, stop trying to explain to people why they shouldn't have a way to actually play the game. You're wrong here. You're as wrong as a person can possibly be. I'm simply promoting a way for people to be able to experience the content of the game, and you're just telling them that they're idiots for wanting a way to do that because you've played more than them. It won't effect you at all if bungie just puts the time and effort in. I'll never be able to play a raid without some form of matchmaking, and yeah, it "chaps my ass" when people like you are arguing against a way for me to do that. Your experience is irrelevant. Your time played is irrelevant. Why? Well, because 80% of people haven't done a raid. Stop trying to explain to them why they shouldn't be able to, because that's all your doing.

LFG is a much higher bar than a matchmaking button in game. If you find people on LFG you know they are somewhat motivated. Just run a couple of weekly strikes and you'll see what a simple matchmaking button would do for raids. It would be a disaster. It's fine for weekly since they require 0 teamwork and 0 coordination but try running a raid for the first time with maybe half the people micced up and half the people who don't know what they're doing. By using the LFG user base as an exemple you are overestimating the average Destiny player's abilities by a lot.

Again, Bungie should have a in game LFG system and better clan support but regular matchmaking for raids? Terrible idea.

@hestilllives19: @tyrrael:It's like you aren't actually reading what myself and some others in here are saying. The three people in this thread that have said they are against matchmaking for raids have all said we want Bungie to introduce a grouping system for raids. I want you and others like you to be able to raid. I want everyone that plays Destiny to be able to raid and I want Bungie to address the current system that prevents a large majority of people from raiding.

You need to stop getting caught up on the term matchmaking, because it's not the only way achieve the result you're looking for. Why does it distress you so much that I'm advocating for Bungie to come up with a better means of allowing solo players to join raids than just the standard matchmaking that's in the game? The personal attacks don't help either. Calling someone "as wrong as they could possibly be" just for disagreeing with you (about a subject you have admitted you have no experience with) is rude and counter to having a legitimate discussion.

The thing that is actually really starting to annoy me though is that we don't actually disagree with you as much as you believe, yet you act as if we are 100% against you on every single point. You've taken this hostile approach because we are against matchmaking, but I genuinely want Bungie to implement some means of allowing people to group up for raids. Just because I want them to do it right and I don't think matchmaking specifically is the best solution DOES NOT mean I don't want you and others like you to be able to raid.

@conker: As someone who has played through most of the content of Destiny and got pretty burned out finally in the last two months, there is a lot to be excited about for House of Wolves. I'm sorry your question got derailed into what it has become now, but to your question about Matchmaking and the new content, I think HoW makes Matchmaking much less needed anyways since all of the content is for 3 player fireteams. There is also Matchmaking for the level 28 Prison of Elders content as someone mentioned earlier, so you can easily play that through a few times and find people you work well with while dipping your toes in so to speak. They have fixed a lot of the broken systems Destiny used back in September so it would be a great time to jump back in. It all comes down to how much you enjoy this game, and what your looking for out of it. If you just want to play through the story of Dark Below and House of Wolves, I promise you will be disappointed, because that alone is definitely not worth $35. But if you plan on getting into any of the events, Raids, Prison of Elders, Trails of Osiris, etc, there is plenty of content worth that investment. You probably wouldn't be entirely wrong if you just spent $20 on HoW alone, since unless you plan on playing Crota's End and will be upset if Will of Crota is the Weekly/Nightfall, there honestly isn't enough content to justify the extra $15. Anyways, if you need to find people to play with there are plenty of GBers here that would love to help you out. Or join one of the Lincoln Force groups, Cerberous Wolves, or find another on Bungies website. It's a hassle, and I wish it wasn't, but I promise it's well worth the investment, especially if you plan on spending a significant time in Destiny. Hope this helps you decision making some.

@tyrrael: Pure auto Matchmaking as it currently exists for the Weekly Heroic, is the only thing I am blatantly against. All of those reasons are clearly stated in my previous post so I won't add them here. But based on your last message we already are all in agreement that Pure Matchmaking is not feasable or neccesary to be added to late game content such as Nightfall, Raids, Prison of Elders (32, 34, and 35), Trials of Osiris, etc. You said it yourself.

"criticizing the idea of matchmaking so much as criticizing bungie for not putting a little extra work in to try and add the most options possible. Everything you said could be done if bungie put the time in to make it so. I agree that the weekly heroics could have easily had one button for matchmaking and another for just launching it solo like before"

As long as we have identified the problem (lack of players ability to connect with other player to complete content) and agree that Pure Matchmaking is NOT the solution, then we should probably figure out what should be done to fix this problem and why. Agreed? Ok lets do that.

So what your advocating, to my understanding, is for Bungie to add a level 30 Nightfall auto matchmaking option that you can choose, just like a level 15, 18, 22, and 30 option already exists in game on most missions. Honestly maybe they should do that, it would take relatively little time for them to implement this and have no real effect on other players, other than UI changes that we would get use to. Then, they need to redo the existing Raids to accomodate another Matchmaking playlist added to the current drop down box for Normal and Hard difficulty. Now this is when it gets dicey. You can't just add Matchmaking as an option, you would have to lower the difficulty so that any new group without experience, can complete each encounter without voice chat. Both Vault of Glass and Crota's End would need major overhauls to accomplish this. Checkpoints, gone. In both Raids you would need an onscreen text or video, each player must acknowledge and accept they read or saw, being allowed to skip only after a successful completion of the Raid, to explain each encounter since you can't just throw them in the deep end that first time. Each time an item, Relic in VoG or Sword in Crota, another video would play to explain that item to the player, which again would only display if they had never used it. You would need to add a voting system for kicking players, so if 4 players agree, another player is gone. Now you need to add an auto kick for players inactive while alive for more than 90 seconds, because in a Raid, if you sit still for that long, you probably just ruined that section of the Raid for your team. Also, no players would be dropped into that Raid until that specific section was completed so that only the players that earned the gear for that section would be rewarded with it. Revive timers need to be lowered to 10 seconds from 30, and the content must only be Normal mode, because lets be honest, it would be impossible to do a Hard run with randoms, those are difficult enough as it stands with experienced Raiders, all working together and miced up. Then you have the specific changes you need to make for each Raid. Vault of Glass, Gorgon section, removed entirely, jumping puzzle, gone. Jumping off from Templar should teleport you to the Atheon room. Crota may only need minor adjustments, like lowered amounts of thralls in all sections of the Raid. The amount of time this would take Bungie to do just isn't feasable. The cost would be too high for this one feature, and there is zero chance Activision would allow them to do this, when it would bring in zero extra revenue, and create relatively little good will from existing players. At the end of the day it's a business not a charity. It also just creates substatially more work for them, for every single piece of content that will ever be created in the future, of which that have just over 9 years left. In essence, it would also dumb down any and all future Raid content by neccessity. Besides that, your 20% number in reality won't jump more than 10% sInce only 31.1% of Guardians have even ever equipped an Exotic piece of Gear. Those players will never play a Raid/Nightfall/Prison of Elders/Trails of Osiris, it just won't happen.

• Only 31.1% of Guardians have equipped a piece of Exotic gear.
• Only 23.8% of Guardians have worn Legendary/Exotic armor in every slot.
• Only 24.2% of Guardians have earned max Vanguard marks in a week, while just 16% have maxed their Crucible marks in a week.
• Only 23.1% of Guardians have reached rank 3 with the Vanguard.
• Only 19.2% of Guardians have completed a Raid.
• Only 16.9% of Guardians have maxed out a Warlock or Hunter subclass, and just 15.2% have maxed out a Titan subclass.

That was as of a month and a half ago since I'm too lazy to look it up myself on PSN. http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/03/25/destiny-stats-remind-us-just-how-casual-the-playerbase-really-is/

What I'm saying is, any form of Matchmaking on high level content just isn't worth Bungie's time to fix. So how do we then hope they fix this problem, that everyone agrees that regularly plays Destiny has with grouping players together?

The solution Exile, Pyro, and myself are presenting is to create some sort of in game LFG. That would be using existing assets, such as the upper room in the tower where only Lord Shaxx hangs out, and is only there once a month, for this exact purpose. Or they could create and entire space cheaply, like a big arena, for this explicit purpose. Allow Guardians to go to the Tower/LFG Arena and somehow indicate that they intent on doing some dirt in Nightfall, Raids, Trials, PoE, etc. Let players join local Voice Chat parties to talk to each other and then join into a Fireteam right there. To do this in the Tower or Arena they would need to make those Social Spaces larger and allow more than 16, preferable 50+ players to to join into servers with each other for this exact purpose. This solution would be much cheaper for Bungie to do, in other words, it would be way more likely that it would happen, and it would serve the game much better than just a cheap Matchmaking system, for current and future content.

As a side note, like I mentioned earlier they need to also fully implement the clan system they already created on Bungie.net for Clans in game. If I could always see who on my clan was on, it would solve many of these issues as well. They should also make it possible to search for, find, join, etc those Clans in Destiny itself. Because as they stand now, all it does is give you a clan tag and a message board to talk to clan mates outside of Destiny itself, which in all honesty is just a waste of having Clans in your game to begin with.

So please, explain to me logically why your system is better, more efficient and much more likely for Bungie to put into Destiny, not just that I'm the wrongest wrong person to ever wrong the face of this wrong planet... wrong, just an extra one for wrong's sake. By the way, you have already spent way more time on this agrument than it would have taken you to hook up with a group on any Destiny forum anywhere, DO a Raid on Normal, and then send friend requests to those players so that you could do future Raids/Nightfalls/Trials/PoE etc. Just saying.

@hestilllives19: I'll try to keep this as brief as possible. First, that's not what I'm saying in that quote. What I'm saying is that bungie could add matchmaking without removing other features people may like. That's what I meant when I cited the weekly heroics not being able to be done solo anymore. They could have had a matchmaking button and a regular button. This could also be done for the other modes, primarily nightfalls, which I still will say, having played at least a couple dozen that the exact same matchmaking could be used just like in the weekly heroics and it would be just fine. That's all I'm really doing when I'm asking literally every single person in the tower that is the appropriate level anyway. It just way faster to hit that button and get people that want to play, rather than having to ask every single person if they want to play. The raids may be different for the reasons you stated. I use matchmaking as a, more or less, universal term for automatic player matching of all kinds. That is, there could be options that people could set, level restrictions or being able to check people's gear before starting, for example, but the automatic matching of people would still be there. I'm all for more options. The more the better, especially with this game, because it is sorely lacking in that department.

I absolutely disagree that nightfalls couldn't work with the same matchmaking as the weekly heroics. They absolutely could. I've done them where all three people haven't had mics and we did fine 90% of the time. That's essentially all I'm doing when I ask a bunch of people in the tower anyway. It's not like we're looking over each other's gear and then leaving if someone doesn't have a Ghorn, for example.

I haven't done a raid firsthand, but I do know a bit about them. I'm not going into this blind. The same matchmaking may be a quick and dirty for people like me that don't have a problem jumping in, but bungie shouldn't remove the other ways of team building just to add matchmaking. Both would be fine. It shouldn't be one or the other. I'm with you on that.

If there is one thing that I can say we do agree on, it's that there needs to be a LFG function within the game. I mean, there's not even scrolling text. Seriously, FFS bungie. That alone would be a great help. And in lieu of matchmaking, they could add something as simple as an option to put a symbol over your head in the tower. One for weekly heroic, one for nightfalls, and one for each raid. Then people that are also interested could just walk up and join your fireteam, which you could choose to have temporarily open for a certain amount of time. Something as simple as this would help tremendously, and the reason I often talk about this topic with such vitriol is that they're literally doing absolutely nothing about this problem.

I don't want either of us to leave angry, so I'll end with this. The game needs a LFG function badly. We both agree on that for sure. While I may be ok with matchmaking as it is, especially for nightfalls (I can't stress this enough), I'm not opposed to more options. I welcome them, and hopefully, someday, there will ways within the game to throw a team together in the tower with ease and be off raiding or doing whatever without wasting any time at all. I look forward to the day there are systems in place that everybody can be happy with, but as it stands, anything is asking a lot, which is a real shame, because I want to play this game more than I'm currently able.

First, those aren't personal attacks or insults. Those are directly referring to the logic you're using. I have said repeatedly that I have plenty of experience with nightfalls, which is my primary focus for having matchmaking. As I've said before, they are just the same strikes people have done dozens of times with a few modifiers thrown in. I've only done them with PUGs, and almost every time at least two us didn't have mics. There is no reason why matchmaking couldn't work for nightfalls as it is now. I'm proof that it absolutely would work, because the people that I find after hours of searching that may want to do a nightfall could just do the exact same thing I would do. That is, simply go and push the matchmaking button. Having specific classes is absolutely unnecessary in nightfalls. However, after saying all this, I will say that I'm not saying that bungie should take away the option for people to solo if they want. I felt the same way with the weekly heroic. They could have had one button for matchmaking and one button the old way which would start the game solo if you weren't with anybody else.

I can't stress this enough. I'm not attacking you personally. I'm attacking your logic and reasoning.

I actually posted a response to someone else right before this that you should read. I think it may clear things up a little, but the gist of it is this. We both want LFG systems implemented in the game. That we agree on for sure. I'm all for options, and I'm all for people wanting to group however they want. I have no problem with bungie just adding matchmaking as a quick and dirty option. I'm sure other people like myself would be fine with it, but I'm not saying that they should remove other people's ability to group the way they currently do. If bungie added matchmaking to the nightfalls tomorrow and took out the ability to solo it, that's not my fault. Having both isn't a problem at all, however, if given the choice, I would choose the matchmaking option any day.

Bungies logic of not putting matchmaking in because it would basically be too hard with a random group is insane. Wish they'd stop pretending they know what a community of people are capable of.

@frodobaggins: You should do matchmaking in the weekly a few times. Most people who play this game are real bad. It doesn't matter when you run a weekly since you can run these things solo no problem but in a raid? Having half the team not on mics, dying all the time, not cooperating and not reviving teammates would be a horrible experience.

LFG or an in game version is a terrible idea, it's just as random as pure matchmaking. Matchmake an easy mode for fireteams of three is all you need people can learn and make friend for higher difficulties without matchmaking. The raids are a big problem for Bungie atm end game activity which most players will never see, the raids itself are badly design with obtuse mechanics and many parts relying on a single player. HoW is very big step in the right direction a horde mode with replayability in mind that all Destiny players can enjoy is much better.

@thepanzini:

1-It's not as random if you can group with people while looking at their profile and browse group titles or something. You make it so the team leader has to approve everyone who wants to join. He can then kick people who are terrible or the ones who don't communicate.

2-I strongly disagree with your position regarding raids. Besides, their horde mode is randomized only at lvl 28 in the easy matchmade version of the activity. There are 5 other harder challenges that are based on the horde mode but they are always the same and you can't matchmake into them.

@pyrodactyl:

1. How is matchmaking any different?

2. Ok poor choice of words on my part but you must see the marmite appeal of the raids obtuse design. I never mentioned matchmaking with horde, but my points still stands everyone can play horde. Prison of Elders nightfall type activity can be structured slightly different each week Bungie can also very easily add more rooms, it's not perfect but HoW is a much needed step in the right direction.

@thepanzini: 1. If you read the posts above, we state exactly why Matchmaking is different than an LFG. Matchmaking directly breaks activities more than it fixes them, for the vast majority of the Destiny player base that would benefit from Matchmaking at all. It would also needlessly hinder existing activities, or be too hard for Bungie to implement, and if they did implement it, it would dumb down the rest of the late game content for the other 9 years of Destiny's lifespan. As a side note, like I mentioned above, of the 30% of players who have even put on an Exotic piece of armor (the only group of players we are talking about because the other 70% will never do any of the activities like Nightfalls and Raids), 20% or 2/3 have already completed a Raid. That 10% or less is the only group of people that would benefit from Matchmaking in Destiny at all. So this isn't as big a problem as everyone is making it out to be.

2. The "obtuse design" is the whole appeal of having a Raid type activity in the game at all. It's the only content in the game that is mostly unique, and requires intense focus and cooperation from an entire group of 6 people. Any one player not on the ball at every moment, can ruin the experience for the entire group. Hence why most regular Raiders do not want matchmaking. Prison of Elders is great, I'm a fan, and I'm glad it's in the game. But it doesn't even come close to the Raids, those are a whole other animal, and I'm excited to play the next one that will probably launch in September with the next expansion.

@hestilllives19:

1. My response was to previous poster "It's not as random if you can group with people while looking at their profile and browse group titles or something. You make it so the team leader has to approve everyone who wants to join. He can then kick people who are terrible or the ones who don't communicate." you could do this with matchmaking. I'm not asking for a blind matchmaking system, but it would be far easier to add some sort of limited matchmaking.

2. Again the stats back up my second point PoE is better than a raid for the majority of Destiny players. "The "obtuse design" is the whole appeal of having a Raid type activity in the game at all. It's the only content in the game that is mostly unique, and requires intense focus and cooperation from an entire group of 6 people. Any one player not on the ball at every moment, can ruin the experience for the entire group." Never disagreed but this is the reason majority of people won't like the raid.