I've mentioned this in another post but I'll state it again, I honestly believe that the no matchmaking for Raids is the best thing to happen to multiplayer since dedicated servers. Here's why: in some 99% of multiplayer games you are likely to find people with no headset, players that lone wolf in team based game modes, players with headsets that shout obnoxious things into the mic, players with headsets that play loud music into the mic, players that have whole conversations with people outside the game, and the list goes on and on of bad multiplayer player behavior. Historically games have facilitated these bad behaviors through apathy, design and forced match making. Chief of these reasons being forced match making. When a player misbehaves or acts outside the realm of what the community would deem appropriate there is little or no consequence for that action. For the most part players are left to police themselves, leaving players who do not wish to interact with these bad players few options. Mute the offending player, report the offending player, or quit out the match and start looking again. While convention says mute is a great option, it takes one (or more) player(s) out of the team and does not correct or address the issue, it is by this definition a form of apathy. The next option is to report, and this is something that should be reserved for the most heinous of offence (racism, sexism, hate filled messages, bullying, personal threats, etc); but it does not cover the "this player who ran the raid with me showed up with no headset and ran off without the group, died several times out in the open in the middle of firefights, and when they got the loot he wanted he quit out the match leaving the rest of us to fight the remainder" scenario (I know an extreme example but not uncommon). Which leaves responsible players who find themselves among bad players to quit out, which to be fair is the opposite of what Bungie and other responsible players want. No player should have to endure bad player behavior and no player should be forced to quit a match because of bad player behavior, but in some 99% of cases online this is the easiest option. But how long or better yet how many times must one quit out before they all together quit playing or quit trying to group up. We see this scenario a thousand times, "I don't play multiplayer because the people are dicks," I prefer single player because I don't have to put up with irrational people online" and so on. And at the root of this issue, forced match making. Because you have to play with these people, the game pairs you up with them and you have to endure it, or take one of the aforementioned options. Well by taking away the forced match making players get the ultimate ability that more multiplayer games should adopt, CHOICE! No match making means you choose who you play with, if you get a bad player then you kick them, enough kicks and that player will start to get the message that people don't have to put up with their crap. What this does is, through a process called negative reinforcement, it guides players toward their best online selves or face having no one to play with. It allows communities to form based on commonalities not random match making. Will it be hard on players such as yourself (and me) who adopted next generation before their normal group of friends, or those who have switched platforms (also me...I switched from Xbox 360 to PS4); yes, but only to a certain degree. In absence of my normal friends from 360 I've found hundreds of friendly gamers in other games and some from the beta (even found a clan through this forum). My point is that players are out there in abundance and the best part is getting to choose who to play with. Lastly I would argue that if you wait until endgame to find people to group up with you are likely doing it wrong to begin with. as a fellow MMORPG player of WoW merit I would say that there is a great amount of content that you should look to complete in a group, not just the raids. PvP and strikes all bring you to new players and if the beta is any indication (4.6 million people played the beta) you should have no issues finding five additional players who are reasonable to create a group for the purpose of not only raiding but playing together in general. This is the basis of communities, people coming together out of common necessity but end up being more than pieces needed to complete a task. They become...dare I say it...your friend.

I read everything you said. IMO you don't really need to express your experience in the games you've played (doesn't hurt you either though), what you wrote has concrete validity to it enough that there's enough consideration there for players from experience you've obtained just by the way you explained your point/s. ;o) So what you said is proof of your experience enough. It's only "speculation" on my part that I believe this situation pertaining to "RAIDS" isn't Bungies doing. IMO (and my opinion in no way dictates fact) the situation with Raids and the way they have been set up to be obtainable is a trait or characteristic of ACTIVISION's doing. I'm not one who has seen nor been there at the table when their partnership was signed off on. But this whole thing strikes me as something Activision is behind. Please anybody correct me if I'm wrong but from what I've read the feature is ONLY obtainable by players on your friends list WHEN TRYING TO BE achieved. In Bungies history I don't recall Bungie ever implementing a system by which the only way to achieve something in a game was only obtainable by doing it only with people on your friends list. Now granted, it's easy to understand that we can simply add people we haven't known for long to our friends list that we meet in game or on these forums so we can achieve RAIDS. However the nature of our friends list is to play games with our "friends". People we've known long enough to trust, people we have played with and know they aren't an idiot, and people we know will be reliable. So when it comes to RAIDS due to what I've come to understand as the "friends list restriction" it comes across as an attempt to convince our friends to (put simply) "Dude, you gotta buy this game", or "I need FRIENDS in order to achieve this and if my friends buy it we can achieve it easier". O_O So, in the interim, this appears to be a tactic to boost revenue and/or preorders by somebody like our beloved "Activision". If I got any of the aforementioned restrictions pertaining to RAIDS wrong I APOLIGIZE profusely, as there is so much on here about them and so many varied posts it's been a little difficult to nail down the simple specifics. IMO there's nothing wrong with recommending Destiny to your friends. It's a game that is well worth the investment to me, AND my friends (of which I have many that I've been gaming with over a decade, some even 20 years). I recommend that if we don't have enough true gaming friends on our lists, and we know the difference between a friend and a buddy or pal or just an online gaming associate... that we DO take the time necessary to properly vette and invest time in the games community to assiciate ourselves with those we deem reliable and enjoy the company of for RAIDS. If I can help it, I wouldn't necessarily ENABLE this kind of business model. When you buy a game, you've purchased it, and when there's a restriction within the product you buy that disallows you're ability to achieve playing a part of your game unless others you trust buy it to unlock what you bought.... You're pushing a consumer to push others to access what you already payed for. So, unfortunately.... If ACTIVISION is behind this I hate to break it to you, but I've got no problem adding decent people already in the game to play RAIDS with instead of pushing friends of 10-20 years to buy something so I can access PARTS OF what I already bought. Does any of that sound like Bungie to you? Yea, me neither. See you all at the traveller, and looking forward to playing with you all. **note: If I got anything wrong pertaining to the restrictions of Raids, and facts of functionality I apoligize.

I agree with The counter argument below (or above not sure) by Aristodemos, however these are my points. 1.Being put up with random players is just too uncomfortable for a lot of serious players. They don't want to depend on someone they have no chemistry with (not saying people who want matchmaking aren't serious) 2. Blasting random music players. (don't even tell me there's a mute button. the point of a raid is teamwork.) 3. People continuously talking and yelling into the mic a language in which most players cannot understand. Not even talking about the game and just yelling abruptly and so close to the mic you cant make out a word. (Again, mute button argument is invalid if you want to talk with the team) 4. People who are clearly unprepared and simply want to site see instead of help. 5. Players who do not care about loot system. Want the loot for themselves and could care less about the other team members. That is why we have clans. Join one on the forums. Its really not that difficult and most of them treat every member equally. 6. Everyone relates their experience to WoW. which is a completely one sided argument. I'm going to bring up Dragon Nest. Their "Match making" system could be an alternative. Simply start a joinable party and people join the party, you talk and assess your strengths and strategy before even leaving. that way there is no random who you will have a problem with. Some want matchmaking raids because they've played a different game that has it. Some want it cause their too reluctant to find friends on line. Simply make the social aspects in the tower more effective, proximity chat etc as well as in explore or in crucible chat or in story proximity chat. That way people can get the friend's they need in order to do raids. I even made a friend or two just by walking around killing things, dancing with others and playing with the ball. Its not that hard. I understand WHY people want matchmaking raids. But for Destiny, i see it more as a problem than anything. Aristodemos put it nicely below me in his topic about the difficulty and nerfing. People cry for nerfs. I don't want this game to be like maplestory in which there is no earning your professionalism any more.

If you played wow, you likely tried lfr, also if u played wow before mid cata expansion, you know people can raid just fine without lfr. Bungie directly said raiding isnt for EVERYONE, and that they DO NOT want random desperate groups of strangers attempting them. direct qoute, and cant really get more blunt and to the point then that. Soo i really dont see how u can use wow as an example why matchmaking for raiding is needed, also wow was at its peak,WITHOUT matchmaking system. TBC/WoTLK?

I'm going to throw out a counter argument here which I believe is the primary reason some players are against a matchmaking system for raids. This primary concern is that a matchmaking system for raids, which Bungie has clearly stated will be very difficult, will lead to a large public outcry to nerf the raids thereby making them easier. For the players that thrive on a serious challenge, and don't mind dying over and over while working through the trial and error process required to overcome said challenge, the thought of this one part of the game that Bungie has taken a bit harder core stance on being dumbed down is a bit much to bear. I know that you're probably wondering what the difference is with or without matchmaking, and the way I see it the difference is this: Without matchmaking the reason for failure is that you and your collection of friends failed, you didn't t play well enough, you need more practice. It can essentially be attributed to the group you CHOSE to go in there with. With matchmaking the reason you failed will be primarily attributed to the content being too difficult. If it's as hard as Bungie claims, the vast majority of random groups that attempt it would probably be unsuccessful. The likely outcry is that Bungie is dumb for creating content that is too difficult for the groups that their matchmaking system assembles to attempt it. Now, don't get me wrong, there will be cries for nerf either way, the primary difference is that one of them is essentially endorsed by and attributable to Bungie and the other is not. I'm definitely biased here. I want the raid to be as challenging, and subsequently rewarding, as possible. I don't want anything to put that at risk, and I think a matchmaking system would definitely do just that. Let me know if you think I'm off the mark here with this concern. If you agree that this is a plausible concern but can see any way to diminish the risks I'd love to hear that as well. I want as many players as possible to enjoy every aspect of Destiny as they can, including raids, but not to the point that the content becomes so watered down that there isn't a true sense of accomplishment when you overcome it.

Ya know they could just create 2 completely separate playlists. One that has Matchmaking and the other that doesn't. Solves the problem completely. They already have matchmaking for strikes. It shouldn't take much to add it to raiding. Kinda like COD core and hardcore. In this case [u][b]core[/b][/u] would be matchmaking raids and[b] [u]Hardcore[/u][/b] would be without matchmaking.

Couldn't have said it better myself. It tries to be an mmorpg in so many ways but fails at one of the most crucial [b](social interaction)[/b]. I would love more ways to communicate with players in game. Using forums almost exclusively to find other players seems terribly outdated.

As Bungie has stated many times Raids are end game content aka the last thing you do. I know a lot of people are updating to new systems or don't have many friends getting Destiny. Yet you all will be playing story mission, strikes and PvP. Do people expect to not make any friends during any of these events? Just because you start the game friendless doesn't mean you will end the game with no friends and if you do that is kind of sad. Just saying that you will make the friends you need to complete the game as you play the game.

Deej gave a one sentence answer to this.... http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/67388637/0/0/1 Gee thanks...

They should have a system similar to WoW's Flex raid finder. Where you can join into a matchmaking queue even if your group is not complete. They based this game around 3 classes, so you could have a complete 3 man fire team. You should be able to queue for end game raids with a group of 3. If you get 2 other friends in a group you should be able to find another group of 3 friends in a fire team and link up with them. It increases the social aspects by taking two separate groups of friends, combining them into a match for the raid. Prevent party chat, and put the 6 people into one game chat, and make having a microphone required possibly. Its a ridiculous problem with so many options for better gaming out there. They can do better.