A thousand people have asked for it a million times. Optional match-making. Consoles are for the casual player. The living-room gamer. Sure, they’re used by hardcore gamers. And some that consider themselves hardcore gamers. But the console market was, and is, primarily made up of casual players. Players who play as a hobby, not a life. They’ve got a console becase they couldn’t justify the money for a gaming PC. Or because a console is simpler (as well as cheaper). A console is geared toward making it easy to game. Every online multiplayer game on consoles has a built-in matchmaking system. A system designed specifically to find you people to play with. Sure, it matches you with random players. Some of them are absolutely terrible. Some don’t play, especially in a game like Destiny. I’ve only been playing since March, and I’ve seen my fair share of AFKers, and players without mics, and players who couldn’t find their asses with a map and both hands. I’ve also run into players that made an effort, even with a damaged mic, to communicate during a boss fight. Who used the emotes (wave) to signify understanding. I played my first run through the Level 28 Prison of Elders with a fella from New York who also ran a Defender Titan. We wrecked that shit. We communicated. This is a dude whose name I don’t even know, and we had a great time. Sure, 28’s not hard. But I have no doubt that I could have run 32 with him. Or 34, eventually. Even without being partied up, or match-made, I’ve encountered some really awesome folks on Patrol. Hunting down the Wolf packs with a group of randoms. Waving thanks when they revive me, and sprinting to revive them. Hell, one dude who invited me back to Patrol with him when I lost connection. We ended up running Patrol on Venus for a good hour together, just hittin’ Wolf-packs and collecting special synths. Even one fella on the Moon who gave up his opportunity to farm the Ether Key chest just so that myself and another Guardian could find it. These people have all been random, and I remember these incidents way more than any AFKers or terrible match-made Strike partners. Sure, I know I had them, but they don’t stick out in my memory like these folks do. Even further back, before Destiny, with Halo 3. The “Party Up” option led to countless hours of fun after being randomly match-made. I loved it. I’m pretty terrible at PvP and I loved it. And it was possible because of the match-making built into the game. Not all randoms are bad. I’ve had more successful strikes than not, using random match-made players. Players who I’ll likely never see again. They’re out there, and they’re good battle-buddies (most of them, at least). I’d run into a lot more of them if more of the game had more match-making options. Look, I’m a young man who lives on his own and supports himself. I work a minimum of 50 hours a week. I’ve got four pets to take care of. One of them’s a blind old dog that pees and poops on the floor at least four times a day. My girlfriend takes care of her parents’ house, and her father recently went through some medical issues that laid him out for about three months. I don’t have a ton of time to game. I don’t have time to trawl LFG sites for random players. The few times I’ve tried I haven’t even gotten replies. And honestly, even when I have time, I [i]refuse[/i] to use LFG sites. Either way, I’m going to get random players. I shouldn’t have to find them myself. Not in 2015. And then, in the updates Deej/Bungie bemoan the lack of players completing raids? That’s a real slap in the face. It’s like criticizing a tennis player for a bad performance after you took his racket away and made him use his hand. You break our knees and then bitch when we don’t run your race. Complain that we don’t even try. Well no, mothertrucker. [i]You broke our friggin’ knees[/i]. The hell did you expect?! Quit ignoring the community. You, the community, and the reviewers know that optional match-making wouldn’t hurt a damn thing and could actually breathe some life into this increasingly stale game. Those who feel that they're too good for match-making won’t have to use it. Those that have a stable group of friends that play can [i]keep using that group of friends exactly like it’s always been[/i]. It will hurt nothing, and will help everything. And mayhap, just mayhap, I can actually run a damn raid in the little time I get to play. Or finish my first damn Nightfall, even.