Ever since Deej/Bungie announced that Skill Based Match-Mkaing is in FACT, implemented into the game, I ahve been thinking on how EXACTLY this system works Now, I don;t have hard evidence, but all I'm about to say has happen to me. You can try for youself Now, since I;m pretty sure you wouldn't understand, I'll make it easy to understand In Bungie HQ, they have a rnaking system from 1 - 10 1: horrible player 10: Amazing, skilled player You go to Control. Your rank is 8. 11 more players join the match. 4 players are rank 8, inlcuding you. 3 are rank 2 5 are rank 4-7 Now, if you have a full team of rank 10, that means that, by addign it up, the highets rank sill a team can have is 60 on 6v6, right? So, with that information, what the matchmakign will do its try to get both teams skill ranking as close to each other as possible Now, I'm not inclduign fireteams into this. The sum of all the skill rank is 58 The results would be: Alpha: 30 Bravo: 28 That is the closest it can get with those numbers avaible. Now, this isn;t awalys the case. What fi you have 6 rank 10 players, and 6 rank 8 players? The game will then put a team of 4 rank 8 players, and 2 rank 10 players, adding up to 52, while the other team being 56. Here is when the problem occurs, however, which I think si why Bungie kept this hidden until now, and didn't implemented this earlier The problem is Fireteams, and attempting to balance teams with a super high skill player into a full n00bs team Let me explain: There is a HUGE advatnge into going to the crucible with a fireteam. Not simply are your chances of joining a game in progess lowered, lowered even more the more players you have, [b][i]With a fireteam of SIX players, you can't NOT join a join in progess game. Which is why lately, there has been more fireteams of 6, especially in Iron Banner and Rift, Zone Control and 3v3 gamemodes. You can't not join a game in progess, which doesn't give you a almsot guaranteed lose [/i][/b] The highly skilled players, know this, whcih is why they play a lot with fireteams. It can also cause problems on the matchmaking system A game starts with 11 players. Forget about their ranks, is there is a firteam of whatever amount of players, it will be put inot the lesser team. In other words, the team of 5 will ALWAYS have the fireteam players, unless there is quiintg before the game loads up, out of the SBMM control. A fireteam increases the player skill by deafult. Why? Even if they are not communicating, is much more common that you stick with a fireteam, and help them while you batlle. Let this be Capturing/Defending a flag or area. Taking heavy, or waiting for your firends to be near heavy/special ammo so you both get it. Help them win gunfights, or make orbs near them. See what I mean? Another problem SBMM can bring is go out of the way to get high skilled players. From Asia/United States to United States/Asia, the time it takes for information is 0.25s. That is with the highest Up and Down connection speed possible, and that there is no problems in between, and with the best dedidcated servers. Destiny is not simply peer to perr liek this is the 90s, is also ahs SBMM with no connection based system in place. Which is why TRIALS OF OSIRIS, the "elite competition" gamemode is the most casual, and with the least lag in the game at the moment.