Destiny Matchmaking Decreases Skill Based Searches
By Weston Albert 09 December 2016
In response to ongoing fan complaints, Destiny‘s matchmaking changes to make skill less of a factor and focus more on stronger connections between players.
There’s no question that one of the hottest debates among Destiny fans is matchmaking in PvP. Ever since Bungie implemented skill-based matchmaking last year without telling fans, the developer has tweaked matchmaking settings again and again to try to balance connections between player and keep games competitive.
Many Destiny fans have called for skill-based matchmaking to be completely thrown out, however, and would rather Bungie give fans more of what they want. Today, Bungie took steps towards that goal by adjusting settings to lower skill-based matchmaking and increase the search for stronger connections.
Bungie says the main goal with the changes is “to reduce the number of matches that begin before they fill up with players.” In order to achieve that, the range of skill is wider in the initial search for a match. The system will also search for a match with stronger connection, even if it means searching for a longer period of time.
What most players will be happy with is this summation of the changes, which state:
“Essentially, this puts a stronger bias on connection quality, with less emphasis on skill matching.”
However, as with all things, there is a trade off. Matchmaking may take longer in general as the system searches for stronger connections. It also means that players could potentially match with other players well outside their skill range, which could result in less competitive matches and total blowouts, also known as “getting pubstomped.”
These changes are live in every playlist in the game, including Iron Banner, which is active this week. However, this system will not be active in Trials of Osiris, where connection and similar win status are the primary search criteria for that playlist.
Bungie says, “We hope the tradeoff is worth it to improve the Crucible ecosystem in general.” Fans can give feedback about the changes and their experience on Bungie’s forums.
Last month, Bungie revealed the details of Destiny‘s matchmaking system, saying that connection is always the highest priority for a match, but skill rankings do play a part in the search. Even so, players still insisted that the skill-based part of Destiny‘s matchmaking is too strong, and have continued to complain about facing matches filled with latency that are too competitive to be fun.
If all goes according to plan, this should give Destiny a new feel to its matchmaking, which could potentially please the complaints many fans have been leveling at the game.
Destiny: Rise of Iron is available now on PS4 and Xbox One.
