I just got the game today and I'm trying to solo as much as I can, but as I understand that's not feasible for much of it. I don't have any friends playing it so I was wondering what your matchmaking experiences have been like.

Are people talkative? Is there much strategy? It is a free-for-all? Is communication needed??

Basically, I'm wondering if it's worth trying to hook up with fellow duders for most missions or if matchmaking is ok enough to get through.

Thanks!

while leveling matchmaking for missions is just fine and if your gear isn't horrible and you've been crafting soloing missions isn't to bad. Most people are quiet (xbox one) and its while some strategy is needed its mostly self survival. Beyond that at max level hard missions are kinda the same the only time you really need to strats and coordination i'd say are the challenge modes.

The dark zone is another matter. Doing it solo is definitely something you can do and get your fair share of loot and fun i'd say matching up is where its at. I've done some random match making groups and while not as efficient as your friends but overall it went well. Right now the state of the game really hurts you to go rogue so while people are trying to get to dz50 people aren't going to mess around with going rogue. Just don't make it easy for someone to drop a grenade on the group of you then you'll be fine.

tl;dr match making has been a positive overall experience for me and got me through 99% of the content. Challenge modes are the only place you need to coordinate.

The only things I'd be concerned about (there being no choice but) grouping for are Challenge difficulty missions and that's an end-game difficulty that doesn't even unlock until you hit the lvl30 level-cap. They aren't scaled for solo play at all and from what I gather they're basically impossible even if you're a great player. You simply can't spec up to the point where they can't overwhelm you.

In the PvE overworld then the relative difficulty (different zones are different levels like a lot of RPGs - if you walk as a lvl4 from the south west dock to the north east then you'll quickly find enemies outlevel you and you have to turn back) is roughly scaled to your party (so playing solo it's a barren wasteland designed to heighten the isolated feel of a city after the apocalypse with mob packs designed for 1 person to fight as long as you're level appropriate [map gives level bands for regions] for the area you're walking through).

If you're not incredibly unlucky with gear drops (and wait until you're at or just beyond the minimum recommended level for a mission) then doing missions on the default Normal difficulty is totally great as a solo experience. The mission instances scale down when there's only you there. They've tweaked the scaling to make them easier in groups but that's only a major factor when it comes to Hard. The matchmaking is meant to be easy if you want to group, but it's not mandatory. I've run every mission solo at least once and sometimes the end boss is a bit tricky but its' never been a major issue (and I'm no FPS MVP).

In the PvP (DarkZone) then everything is scaled for groups but this also means you're going to be looking at it as a real challenge (but it's totally playable, especially near the instance boundaries). Stay to the southern end of the DZ (north is harder enemies and definitely more for truly exceptional play or groups - if you're not coming prepared with a plan for stuns and damage then you're dead; also the north is always lvl29-30 recommended and doesn't scale down to you level) and go in mainly when you're at an instance boundary (eg lvl19, lvl24, lvl29). You can, with ok gear and using your talents and consumables and grenades (or at least two of those - I'm terrible at activating my consumables), slice through those roaming packs of 4 armoured mobs (red health bar = no armour; 3 tiers of increasing armour = blue, purple, & yellow health bar) in the DZ and even pick at the chest-defenders and Landmark areas with Named elites (these are yellows but also often the "special" mobs [similar to L4D special zombies] that have even more health or armour than normal). As long as you're keeping to the south then you've got a good chance and will learn about how best to use your talents and so on to crowd-control - just remember to be very cautious and have a plan on how to best engage as death comes very fast in the DZ (and that's before you consider that it's open PvP so other players can take potshots at you).

Teaming up with at least 2 other people is really really important, especially later on in the game. I forget which character level it is (I want to say either level 16 or 18) but there is a big difficulty spike. You'll get crushed if you don't team up with others. There are a bunch of duders here on the site that are teaming up on together and have their gamertag info here on the forums. You should check the thread for what system you are playing on and look for other people.

Very Slow for me

Thanks, everybody! Sounds like I'll keep trying to solo until it gets to be a chore, then find some duders to team up with.

Matchmaking has been great for me, no problems.

Only matched up while playing with a friend on xbone. The one talkative guy was pretty cool; unfortunately we kept breaking on the rocks with the one mission we were playing (it was a yellow health bar guy with exploding tanks on his back), the mission broke where we started spawning outside, and then i accidentally kicked him from the group. :( It was 4:30 am so I think I have an excuse.

I'm tempted to keep matchmaking as it was a positive experience, but i'm a pretty quiet guy so it may be awkward.

Its been pretty fine for me. Biggest issue I've had is matchmaking for a daily hard and ending up in a group with a guy under 30 and his level 30 buddy hoping to carry him through it, only to find out that upon completing the mission I don't get the rewards for doing the daily. Its pretty annoying to have to run those missions twice, even if they're super easy.

Like most things in life, this game is indeed easier when people work together and communicate well, sadly there's not much of that going on in mission matchmaking, dark zone matchmaking is more people talking about things they've found or people they've come across. Occasionally you get a good group who understands the benefit but it's no different from other games.

I pretty much solo'd the whole thing, so I wouldn't worry about feeling you have to group up through matchmaking if you don't want to.
Of course, it's a co-op game and fun to play with others but it's definitely not required.
That being said, I have no input on matchmaking.

I've started matchmaking a few times, but lost patience and started the missions before anybody joined. I'm not sure whether that means it doesn't work right or not.

I grouped up with randoms while leveling. Even doing challenge modes at 30 with random groups has been mostly fine. There isn't much strategy to discuss, so it doesn't matter if anyone talks. Don't get dead and revive others when it's safe to do so. People don't need to time their cooldowns or anything.

I've been getting matched with a lot of people from Asia and the latency in those groups has been pretty bad. Also, earlier today I did a challenge mission with a guy yelling "TAIWAN NUMBER ONE!" over and over, so I muted him like I have so many before that had hot mics.

Speaking of hot mics...there is no self voice indicator, at least on PC, and the default VOIP option is set to Automatic and not PTT. Please, if you have a mic hooked up on your PC, either adjust your sensitivity, change to PTT, or mute your mic. It's practically reaching epidemic levels at this point.

Thanks again, y'all. I'll take it all into account and see how rough it gets.

I used matchmaker for the first time last night. It went well enough, but it seems some people would just quit if the mission isn't done on the first try. Other than that, it was pretty good. Probably going to try it more often.

Xbox One here. Been running most missions on hard mode through matchmaking (today was actually the first time I tried one on normal, by accident). Matchmaking for hard mode can take a few minutes, often times you'll get a group of 2-3 people and get sick of waiting so you'll just start the mission. I've never matchmade into a 4 player hard mode group. The only real issue that I've encountered is when there's a large level gap between players. On hard mode, the enemies' level scales to the highest level in the group (the number of enemies scales to the number of group members, so they're very doable with two people at close enough levels).

I had a scenario today where I was level 8 and the guy I matched with was level 5. We were having a pretty hard time because he wasn't much help on elite level 8 enemies. Granted this was partly my fault, because the mission's recommended level was 6. He disconnected shortly before another level 8 connected. We were both doing well and got through 75% of the mission before a level 12 connects. Suddenly all the enemies are level 12, and me and the other level 8 were just getting destroyed. On the final encounter of the mission, the other level 8 disconnects, then shortly after that the level 12 disconnects, and then I found out that the game keeps that highest level for your instance. So I was stuck alone (you can't toggle matchmaking in a no-respawn zone) at the end of a mission with level 12 enemies at level 8. I had to Google how to leave a mission because it's not obviously apparent (the only way is to fast travel out to a safe zone or leave the mission area, which wasn't possible in this case). I've encountered this same sort of quitting behavior when the group is dying a lot multiple times in the matchmaking system, and it has been frustrating. Reminds me a lot of Destiny in that regard.

That being said, I mentioned earlier that today I accidentally chose quick matchmaking for a mission on normal mode. I immediately got into a full group, and was invited to an XBL party by the group leader where everyone had a mic. We weren't very tactical, mostly calling out chests/ammo stores, but it was still a lot of fun. We then ran a hard mode mission after that with mostly no issues, besides one group member's inability to conserve ammo and having to use a pistol by the end of almost every encounter. It became a sort of joke by the end of the mission though, and overall I had a very positive experience with those guys.

I would say give it a try, at least on normal mode. The game really ramps up the number of enemies with a 4 player group, and it can be a blast if you're used to playing alone and dealing with 4-5 enemies at a time.

Surprisingly enough, even if everyone is dying a lot and it's a real struggle, I've yet to see people outright quit out. None of my friends really play this game so I'm constantly matchmaking with strangers and it's been a pretty good experience. Some groups are better than others. Yesterday for instance I had one group that was completely struggling to get through stuff, maybe we we're under-geared as this is all endgame content, but it was rough and seemed somewhat uncoordinated. Another group (I actually uploaded this HERE - also notice how in the beignning of that mission the game announces that the server is too full and then seamlessly transfers all of us over without a single load screen or interruption) we just steamrolled through the daily mission. Sure, it was only the "hard" version, but even still the pace at which we aggressively ran through it was amazing.

Overall I think the matchmaking options are great in the Division. You're able to matchmake into basically everything, teleport to missions and group members. It's exactly what Destiny completely fumbled and refuses to integrate to this very day. When your game is based around group activities and you promote it as such, it's completely baffling that you wouldn't include even a basic matchmaking option.

I've played 5 co-op missions so far and matchmaking has been a breeze. got into 3-4 player groups first try except for one with only another player but they started the mission before more players could join. The only person with a mic I have encountered so far was also that person and it was also the first time the game kicked me out right as the boss showed up and said the servers were down, but I was able to reconnect in a few minutes. Even without anyone using a mic every group I have been in has just rolled over enemies in Hard mode with ease. Haven't tried challenge mode though cause my gear still sux.

Overall co-op with Randos has been fun and has changed my opinion of the endgame now that I can actually grind PC and gear easily. Before I was ready to quit the game till the first DLC arrived.

Well something really annoying happened to me last night playing co-op with randos. We just finished General Assembly and as I was looting I got kicked from the group. Luckily I grabbed all my purple drops first, but the game kicked me back to my BoO and all my other loot was gone.

So up until now, matchmaking has been super enjoyable. Let this be a lesson to anyone who plays with strangers.

@puchiko: Yeah, I saw a post on Reddit about that being a pretty common place dick move people are pulling, booting people right when the mission is ended or about to end so they don't get the loot. Luckily it hasn't happened to me.

So to bring back this topic, I've been wondering if the matchmaking is global.

Recently I've noticed more people on mics on the PC when jumping into the daily Challenging mission (finally broke my stream of bad luck with the Russian Consulate plus randos recently - everything else has always seemed ok to walk through: even when I've been in under-geared groups then that WarrenGate Power Plant timer has never seemed too tricky, it's the final room where I've wiped with randos). But also not always something I can understand (this makes perfect sense, I'm European, we do have quite a few languages here).

Thing is I'm pretty sure I've heard more than a couple of American accents and have been recently grouped with two parties where the dominant language was Japanese (I'm also playing at slightly weird times for my region). Sure, this could just be people in Europe who speak like that matchmaking in. I'm just wondering what everyone else has been experiencing? Does it seem like we're each on regional servers with only friends lists being used to push us into shards which share connections or does it seem like there is one server network and they all talk to each other?

Oh, it should be pointed out that there didn't seem to be much if any lag when playing. So that was pretty good (I wasn't the party leader, if the game even has a concept of host that's tied to that - it seems like the server-side hit-confirmation is the model so I'm not sure if they even have a P2P host system in place when grouped or if it all goes via dedicated servers that are doing the server-side checks as you play to prevent cheating and arbitrating the DZ conflicting client views).

Lately I've been getting a lot of Asian, Hispanic, and Russian/Ukranian players. Been noticing a lot of lag as well. Players/enemies warping around and hits not registering. I emptied an entire clip into an enemy at point blank range and took off only a quarter of their health and my weapon has stability and accuracy mods. Most purple/yellow enemies I can easily drop in one clip or less.

I've been seeing a lot less mics as people seemed to have settled into a rhythm knowing the missions so well from running them so many times, so strategy is not being discussed during the mission. One annoying result from this is people are becoming impatient to finish the mission. While waiting for a group to fill up, numerous times someone will Leroy Jenkins into the mission area and somehow still survive so good gear is making hard mode a cakewalk.

I solo'd every campaign mission on the normal difficulty. Not bragging, just saying that it is certainly doable if you don't have the chance to link up with anyone. As others have said; it's really just about making sure to keep your gear competitive. The game is actually pretty good about dropping useful loot as you level up. Only real tip I would give is to make sure to do the side missions as they become available: It provides the crafting blueprints for some of the better gear until you hit the level cap (and start your hunt for gold items).

To your actual question though: Matchmaking with friends has been easy, but I have been encountering some problems trying to join random groups. The game will pop a message saying that you've joined and then show another saying that you've been kicked, forcing another loading screen o get back to your solo session. Not sure if it's on the game itself or I just had bad luck and got tossed out by the group's leader before I even officially joined up.

Also, not that you asked, but once you get to the max level, you'll probably be able to solo the missions on Hard as well. Doesn't say much about the difficulty balance, but, yeah, you can run all of them alone if you're geared right.

@puchiko:

"I've been seeing a lot less mics as people seemed to have settled into a rhythm knowing the missions so well from running them so many times, so strategy is not being discussed during the mission. One annoying result from this is people are becoming impatient to finish the mission. While waiting for a group to fill up, numerous times someone will Leroy Jenkins into the mission area and somehow still survive so good gear is making hard mode a cakewalk."

I've been noticing this too. Just a bunch of puffy coat fools running in there, SMGs blazing. Then again, you can steamroll most missions on Hard by yourself I you play it right. Even the UN Assembly Mission, one I despise because of the end of it, I completed alone not long after hitting the cap.

@neozeon: That kicked from group, specifically if you are on challenge modes, is probably people still trying to do the 20+ player mission glitch. I had a few groups trying that the other day even though Massive said they patched it. That was a ton of fun when it was a thing though if you didn't experience it. Made Challenge runs take like 5 minutes each, and it was pure insanity of having 20 or more Agents mowing down AI. As far as solo on Hard missions, once you gear up to all iLevel 31 Superiors or better, that is a cakewalk. I join randoms for that just so it takes less time but I can't remember that last time I was even downed on a Daily, and my gear isn't much to speak of compared to other since I'm only around 145K DPS, 70K Health, and 27K Skill.

@hestilllives19: Ah so that's what it was! Good point. I think I just assumed they had patched that out completely by that point. Dailies are certainly a joke at this point, no doubt. Especially if you grab some of the named weapons with your regular credits (Pakhan, etc.) in addition to crafting a few, like a High End Vector, yourself.

I mean, today dailies are _a_joke_ because they're broken so no dailies (yay!)

But ye, I've slowly moved from mainly purples to golds (mixing ilvl30 and 31 based on stat combos - by the time I hit 30 Id' already found a nice ilvl31 weapon that did me well for getting competent) and even when I was mainly lower down (which should have matchmade me with others in similar gear if the Massive pre-release interviews about how they matchmake are accurate) then Challenging was less challenging as long as matchmaking didn't leave me with people who didn't know how to form killzones and progress through each missions. Even then, it was more a case of stuff being slow (and never have I had it so slow we didn't get the timer in the power plant - been pretty close once but normally that's not really that much of a gear check) rather than impossible.

I'm wondering, with ilvl32/Gear Score 200+ equipment and the Set bonuses being pretty strong, if they have to rebalance the missions to make Challenging... challenging again. First week of release, when people got to 30 and were just learning the encounters, those things offered something to push back against. Now, even with only a few hours to put into lvl30 gearing, I feel like they're rather trivialised and a new tier of gear arriving is only going to make them something where players end up not bothering with cover and just going regen+mitigation builds to speed-run them. As long as Phoenix Credits are the end game currency then they probably need to tweak those missions.

@shivoa: But do they really? Here is my question, do we really want this game to be 10 enemies at a time all with 4 million health that takes two full clips of headshots to down? I personally hate that kind of bullet sponge enemy. Especially since, even at a competent level if you aren't paying attention or do something silly for 1 second you are dead even with level 30 and 31 mobs. I'd much rather them stay where they are and when the DLC launches just throw more and even more varied enemy types at us that challenge us in different ways. Just adding an extra million to every enemy's health on every update will be stupid. Not saying I don't think that's exactly what they will do, probably is, but it's not what I want them to. Plus if you keep adding to their health pool, damage dealing abilities will just keep getting more and more irrelevant, which at best right now they are pretty useless. The only abilities worth using are ones that augment your damage capabilities because your guns do infinitely more damage than those damage abilities.

@hestilllives19: I mean, I'm ok with them rebalancing the encounters with more and varied mobs rather than just boosting levels (and corresponding health) of the mobs as the solution to this.

I'm just saying that as ilvl32 arrived tomorrow and ilvl33 next month then we can't just keep getting PCs from the Challenging missions we currently have because they'd be trivialised to the point of just being pure time wasting. They have to offer some challenge otherwise it's just spending 15 on a rollercoaster of shooting with no point to get the credits to pay for the loot we want every day. And that's no fun.

As the loot drops (at least for named) is linked to level then I'm strongly in favour of pushing that up in the Challenging missions when new end-game content becomes available, effectively injecting that end-game loot onto the loot tables of the named bosses in those missions (because if they go up a level then the loot table references the new ilvl gear).

I think they're going to have to rebalance the abilities to make the Electronics builds be something other than a few niche ideas and a healer but that's a bigger issue than weapons currently moving to be the only dps-focussed thing you can play as (backed up by dps boosting abilities that directly boost those weapons).

Just an FYI, with the new update other players can see your Gear Score now. A lot of reddit posters are saying they are getting kicked out of matchmaking groups because their gear score is too low. Haven't had a chance to login today but this makes PUG'n less friendly now. But then again I am always the group leader when I PUG now to avoid being kicked.

@puchiko:

I was seeing the same sentiments over there as well and was curious to see if anyone here has experienced something like it yet. Guess I'll be hosting from now on just in case.

It's interesting seeing the matchmaking in action now we know Gear Scores. So far I've not been kicked (but also haven't tried the incursion yet).

I don't think I've seen a player who is below GS170 yet (guess we'll have more data on that in a week) except for myself (~GS160, depending if I get out my high level gear or the gear I actually think is the best to play with). I suspect that'll go up everywhere as people buy in their gear from the easy sources (I took one look at the Phoenix costs of a new high-end weapon and decided to maybe wait for a potential patch to lower those prices or RNG luck to drop me something I really wanted - already got a high-end DMR I don't really like over the purple I really do from the drop changes).

I find around now that the thing to do in the game are completing mission on Hard or Challenging and then doing the Incursions. Everyone worth their salt has run those missions before, so I find the getting a good group is less about communication and more about knowing how to save yourself and help you comrades. Maybe, being on the mic with a request for "A little help" doesn't hurt, but most of the tactics are well known.

The only problem I have is on Challenging level missions or Incursions where two other guys will start with us... then drop. We can do most Challenging-level missions with three decent people, but then you REALLY have to watch each other backs and not dick-around.

The recent update has at least fixed what was most truly evil about the matchmaking, the fact that you couldn't drop into a no-respawn zone on a mission.

I am kicked from groups constantly despite having a gear score of 196. It's not impressive, but to STILL be kicked from Challenging missions immediately is actually the #1 thing that makes me want to drop this game, of all the extremely logical other reasons to do so. I don't have 3 friends masochistic enough to buy this so it's either I matchmake or nothing on a given day. Meanwhile they don't even let me in the gate for Incursions.