Matchmaking exists in Destiny where it works, namely the Crucible and Strikes. The Raid experience is something different in nature that Bungie feels cannot be filled with matchmaking alone. Where a 'lone wolf' mentality is acceptable in the Crucible and Strikes, it is an absolute detriment to the Raid experience. Bungie wants people who Raid to work together and cooperate, and the best ways to ensure that are difficult to determine. Bungie doesn't want to give the same generic experience we've had before - and matchmaking definitely has a lot of shortcomings due to the culture its grown up in. For that reason there needs to be alternative methods of bringing people together, and in a way that they understand cooperation and communication is a necessity.

If by absolute detriment you were referring to the lone wolf mentality, I think I might be able to agree, but without actually seeing a raid I cant say for 100%. Honestly the biggest reason I see for them taking out matchmaking is that they want to ensure cohesive teams. With matchmaking quitting would be a rampant problem (especially if they are as long as I have been hearing), and there would be problems with people not communicating, resulting in stupid actions that cause the entire group to go back to the last checkpoint (I'm looking at you, guy who charges the boss while both his team mates are down). The problem is for people like me who don't have any IRL gaming friends with their own consoles. We are forced to find players online, which can take a long time, and even if you meet someone cool and add them, there is no guarantee that you will be on at the same time often enough to raid. Yes, you can join a clan, but I joined one before the beta and never got one game request. The few people I messaged didn't reply and the only friend request i got from the clan came after beta ended. So clearly, clans as they currently function (as something only on Bungie.net) are not enough for those of us who are not very outgoing/social. The optimal result would be for clans to either be fully integrated into the game, perhaps with a clan lounge and stuff like that so clan members can easily find each other without needing to go to the website or add them as friends, or have more easy ways to find like-minded players.

You say that matchmaking would be an "absolute detriment" to the Raid experience? But how can you know that given you've never experienced a Raid? Bungie's explanation on why they have excluded matchmaking is due to difficulty. That's it. By my understanding what we know so far is that in order to play Raids we are required to manually invite others rather than jumping into a game as you normally would in most multiplayers. I am happy to talk about a new and improved system to supplant traditional matchmaking but Bungie's system as they have presented it is ridiculous to my mind because we are required to have friends that we know to invite as a prerequisite to even participate in Raids and they can't even be tackled singlehandedly. Bungie can avoid being generic without circumscribing player-freedom in such a heavy-handed way. Also "communication" is a necessity to varying degrees in all online difficult co-op games and they function perfectly well with matchmaking. What specifically makes Destiny the exception?

We've asked the same questions and haven't been given any response other than Bungie feels Destiny is special and needs to break some sort of mold. I didn't make the thread to argue against matchmaking, I made it instead to find some common ground between the developers' beliefs and the wants of the community. There might be other social functions and features that can bridge the gap to solve these problems in similar ways. The answers you want is something Bungie hasn't confided in us yet.