I've had a series of crazy thoughts about matchmaking lately (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Thursday, October 08, 2015, 17:40 (3600 days ago) @ Cody Miller

If I think back on all of the best times I've had with Destiny, exactly zero were with a matchmade party. Literally everything that's the most enjoyable has either been solo, or with a fireteam.

We were talking about matchmaking in videogames on the most recent RUL Podcast (should get posted today or tomorrow), and that got my brain going a bit. We were talking about games like Evolve and Rainbow 6 Siege, and how playing with randoms through matchmaking almost always has a negative impact on your experience. I mentioned that there is an interesting correlation between Destiny's most praised activites (raids, trials, nightfalls) and lack of matchmaking. When I find myself getting frustrated at Destiny, it is almost always due to matchmaking: getting matched into unfair teams, getting thrown on to a losing team half way through a game, teammates quitting out of strikes or not paying attention, etc. Still, I kept going back at myself and saying "of course the game must have matchmaking"...

... but what if it didn't? Is matchmaking as 100% required as we tend to assume it is?

To be clear, I'm not saying we should get rid of matchmaking. I'm just saying, maybe it isn't always the best way to go. I know 3 people who still play Evolve, and all 3 of them say playing with randoms kills the game. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that I never want to play fully matchmade activities in Destiny. I do it because it is the only way to play certain missions or gamemodes.

On the other side of the coin, there are some overwhelming facts that support the inclusion of matchmaking. Not everyone has a friends list full of people playing the same game all the time. Many people have inconsistent or unpredictable schedules that make it difficult to set up events with friends in advance. And for many, many people, they just don't want to spend the time thinking about this stuff in advance. They want to sit down and play whenever they feel like it and jump in to whatever activity they want. If matchmaking was removed from Destiny, the truth is that most people wouldn't play it. Just look at the PSN trophy data; as of today, only 23% of Destiny players have completed a raid. By omitting matchmaking from any specific activity, you chop off 3/4 of your player base.

This got me to thinking about Destiny in a bit of a different way. What elements of the game are made better by matchmaking? In my opinion, there are 2 places: The tower, and patrol. Hear me out: in neither of these activities is matchmaking crucial, per say. But I think Bungie has begun to scratch the surface of a giant ball of untapped potential in terms of ways to help people play together other than typical matchmaking. Seeing other players in patrol is often inconsequential, but it has also lead to some of my favorite moments in Destiny. The convergence of patrol events and the way that can pull players into working together on the fly is something special, with loads of room to be expanded upon.

And then there's the tower. We've had plenty of conversations here at DBO about ways the Tower could function as an in-game LFG hub. I think the current limit of 16 players per instance is a real barrier to these ideas... hopefully that's something bungie will be able to push further once last-gen consoles are out of the equation. Imagine a much larger social space with dozens of players running around, gathering in various meeting areas to put together groups and go off and play together. Yes, that would be more "work" than hitting a button and automatically being thrown together. But that "work" is the difference between feeling remotely connected to the people you play with vs just a list of names. If we have to put in a couple minutes of time to find a group to play with, we're less likely to ditch them mid-game because things aren't going perfectly. The focus becomes playing with people, rather than just playing along side other people.

I know, I'm probably insane. But maybe there is something to this. Maybe there is a way for Destiny to move forward without traditional matchmaking?