Guardians, The refinement of your competitive ecosystem continues. As you battle each other in the Crucible and discuss those experiences on the forum, we're taking stock of your reactions and sharing them with the team. Today, that same team is sharing back to you with some news on what's changing. [b]Effective Immediately[/b]: New Matchmaking settings are live in [b][u]Control[/u][/b]. We've taken additional steps to increase the emphasis on connection quality. Skill ratings will be less a factor in finding you a match. Lag will be even further diminished. Enjoying a game with your friends who are more/less skilled than you are will be easier, but your opponents will be more random, so you will stand a better chance of getting your ass kicked - or vice versa. There is still some form of protection to insulate the casual players among us from the most hardcore, but those considerations will have much less impact on the technical quality of the matchup. We have also extended Damage Referee ([url=https://www.bungie.net/7_This-Week-At-Bungie--02042016/en/News/News?aid=44307]click and scroll down to "[b]Out of Bounds[/b]" for context[/url]) to govern the impact that poor connections have on matches in [b]Clash[/b], [b]Rumble[/b], and [b]Freelance 3v3[/b]. It is still live in [b]Control[/b], where it was originally deployed. As always, your visceral real-time reactions to these changes in a live-fire exercise are more important than the math. Sound off and let us know how it feels. For now, your test-bed for the new settings is exclusive to [b]Control[/b]. Get in there and control the zones. Let us know if you'd like to see these changes deployed far and wide. It's an ongoing process, and you're the most important part of it. Thank you! [b]UPDATE (02/18/2016): Matchmaking tuning has been revised to prioritize finding people who are close to your locality in the interest of further reducing lag.[/b]