Card based (priority) matchmaking is not working it should. At least when compare that to the statements Bungie has made about crucible in general and their overall philosophy towards PVP.
I should have known people here don't read well, so Im going to move this from the bottom to the top as my "mission statement" or TLDR.
[b]I'd much rather play 8 or 9 straight sweaty matches against people within 100ELO of me instead of playing 3 easy matches then running into a team who hasn't lost a game in 2 weeks. That's not fun.[/b]
Let's give up this card based matchmaking. It's creating ridiculously unfun situations. Leave it at skill. Or, kick me to orbit and tell me to requeue in a few minutes. Here's a perfect example of unfun:
Our ELO vs Theirs
Game 1: 1340 - 1800 (LOL RIP)
Start new Card
Game 1: 1340 - 1200 Eh, too far in our favor
Game 2: 1342 - 1300 Good
Game 3: 1342 - 1318 Good
Game 4: 1342 - 1719 Um?
Game 5: 1342 : 1853 Really?
Game 6: 1342 - 1492 Howd this get here? (Better, was a fun, sweaty match)
Game 7: 1342 - 1922 LOL RLY?
If you think Trials is just about getting gud, you've missed the mark. Trials should be built to bring people together of like skill levels and abilities throughout the card. That way as you start to win, your ELO will continue to rise. As it rises, each card will be set against harder opponents. At some point, you will cap out but you will continue to play against people who are AROUND your skill level, not in another galaxy.
More Data (I'm sure most of you have stopped reading, if not, congrats - I respect you)
Below me someone mentioned that "Us 1700 don't complain" and you probably don't have a reason to. At 1700, you sit between the top 4000 and 7000 in the world (On XBL at least). You are in the top 1% (1.5% to be precise) Based on how the matchmaking is now, your chances of matching against someone at or below your skill level is FAR lower than someone who is lower than you.
Examples:
I pulled someone who was at the bottom of the 1700 ELO train and looked at their past 9 games:
Them vs Others:
1780 - 1208
1780 - 1092
1780 - 1469
1780 - 1431
1780 - 1613
1780 - 1615
1780 - 1961
1780 - 1435
1780 - 1688
Only once did they play someone within +-100 and beyond that, they played a team that was considerably better. That's not efficient or well designed code. I wish I had access to the DB information as I'm very confident that this is played out time and time again. I would wager a lot that these scenarios are playing out far more frequently than it should because the game gives up on trying to find players around you and prioritizes on the card instead of skill.
In regular crucible, it should be 100% connection based - I think the outcry for this has been consistent. In Trials, dare I say it, but I'd rather play people right around my skill than perfect connections. I'd give up a little connection quality to know the fight was fair and fun. No one wants to constantly be matched up against the upper 1% (Just the other day, matched against someone who was top 300 in world -.-) I just want to fight people who are near my skill level. Halo 3 for all that was wrong, did this rather well. My matches from rank 45-50 were always sweaty and while we would get an occasional god team to play against, the matches were far more consistently close than they were blow outs.
Whoever made the decision about card based really missed the mark and hasn't been checking the data.
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You want Bungie to listen to you? If your answer is yes then don't touch ToO if too many ppl do it Bungie will eventually tweak it.