We, in the WoW community, had the same discussion about raiding a few years ago when Blizzard went from Destiny's current model of raiding (find your own group) to LFG (which is basically MatchMaking).
I'll sum up what happened and try to be objective and un-biased in an attempt to explain what most of you might be missing in this argument.
The complaint back then was that more time was spent looking for a raid group than actual raiding. To be fair, a part of that was because the raid group was up to 40 players in the beginning, now it's 25.
After a few years, Blizzard eventually introduced LFG (which, like I said, is just like MatchMaking).
The initial result was what we expected, faster setup times pre-raid... but that had an undesirable effect that a big portion of the community did not anticipate.
You see, raids used to be a HUGE deal. They took hours and hours to setup, and even longer to progress. It was a grueling trial of not only skill, but leadership. You could have the talent and gear necessary in your group to complete the raid, but without some level headed leaders directing the group you would be destined to fail.
Finishing that hours/days/weeks long raid? That was the ultimate feeling. Finally, after all that time spent forming a group, training a group, making all those friends and enemies after nights of failure... you down that last boss. Nothing beats that feeling in gaming, nothing.
Now? The raids feel watered down. You log on, click that "find a group" button. Wait 10 minutes. Teleport to the raid, no words are spoken, just throwing 25 random players at a raid that most of the group has done 100 times already. No friends, no enemies. Just a sea of nameless, empty players grinding away at this now trivial Raid. Failure no longer means waiting a day to regroup because half the team had to go to sleep. Failure now means waiting another 10 minutes for another tank to queue up for the raid.
What used to feel massive and utterly rewarding has now become a chore. A chore that you must perform over and over again until you can find no enjoyment short of getting that occasional gear upgrade.
Blizzard addressed this by lowering the difficulty of "LFG" raids, and made "Normal" and "Heroic" modes that you HAD to group up for. But still, the damage has been done. You never enter a raid with your friends anymore. LFG has become mandatory to gear properly for the "Normal" and "Heroic" modes, but by then you've done these fights dozens of times. There's no thrill of exploring, no thrill of learning the fights and the map. Just a different type of grind that has already lost its appeal days/weeks before you even needed to find a real group to do it with.
Look, I know I said was going to try to remain unbiased, but the truth is MatchMaking ruins raiding. Raiding SHOULD NOT be something you do easily. Raiding is a test of your skill against PvE as much as it is a test of your communication skills. But when you allow for a "fast track" method to access the raids, you turn it into a chore that you simply throw yourself at until you arbitrarily find a group that has the DPS/HP numbers on their side.
If you're arguing FOR MatchMaking in raids, what you're asking Bungie to do is water down the whole raid experience. Yeah, you'll get to do raiding more often... and that sounds appealing. But I promise, you don't know what the long term damage will be.
Please consider this before you make another "PETITION FOR BUNGIE TO ADD MATCHMAKING TO RAIDS".
Thank you for reading.
English
#Destiny
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4 RepliesI stopped reading at WoW.
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25-40 ppl vs 6 ...... Im pretty sure they will be nothin alike
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Welcome to destiny. Not sit down and shut up
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1 ReplyEdited by Luffione: 8/1/2014 9:06:57 PMI think if they implement a system where you can look up players that are in town or that aren't doing anything major to go and do raids would be great. Just how you would in a MMO where you can bring up a player menu so you can send them a private message to see if they wanted to join or not, but I do have to agree that match making can be boring. I remember in FFXIV A Realm Reborn that whenever I did some missions with random players through the duty finder the only thing they cared about was completing the mission to get better gear. They didn't care about talking to you, and the only time that they would talk would be when someone was messing up a lot. It just destroyed the experience for me since I wasn't playing with people that wanted to do the quest because it was a fun one, instead I was playing with people that only cared about what type of gear they would get at the end of the quest. I'm not saying that this is always the case, I have made some friends and met some cool people by match making, but at the same time you will meet people that don't even want to talk to you or have anything to do with just as long as you don't mess up while on the quest. I think another issue is that in order to talk to people you had to be on their team or have them as a friend to send them a message to see if they want to play. If they could implement a way to talk to whoever you wanted like how there is a general chat box in MMO's could work. A issue that would come up though would be that you might need to hook up a keyboard to your Xbox One or PS4 to type because typing through the controller can take forever. I don't think it would be an issue with people that are ready with a team since they can just use their head set, but before having a team or group ready it might be an issue since organizing a group takes time.
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2 RepliesMy friend got WOW for me about 10 years ago, but I never played it because I was to busy. College, work, counter-strike, Halo lan parties. Although I'm glad I've never played it. I appreciate you weighing in on the subject that could affect a huge part of this game. I vote that Bungie knows what their doing. They are banking millions on the fact that they do. So I agree with MrDysprosium! It's to easy to join a friendly clan on Bungie.net to want "MatchMaking"
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I stopped reading at WoW
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3 RepliesEdited by Synns: 8/1/2014 6:11:42 PMI wouldn't normally have a problem with this but the chat and friend making tools in this game are crap, if you didn't have to add everyone to your psn and the game had a better guild system then this would be fine. As it stands currently destiny even makes defiance look good in this department. If they fix this then I'm fine with only friends, if they don't then I'm not.
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3 RepliesThere's no comparison between a 25man raid in WoW and a 6man raid in Destiny. Raiding in Destiny will be easier than a normal 5man dungeon in WoW for the simple fact there are no class roles, just 6 people with guns blasting everything in sight and reviving the occasional teammate. There are no healers in Destiny, no devoted crowd control, no tanking, only dps and playing smart. When Destiny introduces an actual healer subclass, required to run raids, then and only then will it be even close to the difficulty level of 5man dungeons in WoW.
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Oh yeah man. I agree with you totally!
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Did you take this from Reddit, or are you the OP?
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Great post... Also, I'm willing to bet the getting 5 pals (I'm sure you'll be able to meet at least 1 to 2 people while getting to level 20 and one of those people will know at least 2 other people etc) will be infinitely easier than getting 40! Jeez, AND you had to babysit people to make sure they had the right resistance gear and such. I'm really looking forward to a simplified 6 person version!
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Raid setup was frustrating, tedious and boring, and I do not look back on those days very fondly. The only sense I recall feeling is the the feeling that I had a second job. I'll probably skip the raids, YMMV.
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This. Exactly this. Good show sir. I'm prior wow player and I have had the exact same thoughts since people started asking for match making.... And yeah I am understanding from what Bungie is saying... And hoping that it is exactly as demanding as it can be and that I can run it with friends that will actuality share the triumph together. I would implore people to please wait for the game to come out before complaining about mechanics they haven't experienced yet
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I agree, I don't want matchmaking, just another excuse for people to not have their mics on, and stand around. I want my select group of FRIENDS, buddys that actually use their mics, buddys you can have a regular conversation with, and that I can actually count on. I'm sorry but I'm not a big fan of playing end game content with people whom I've never played with before, if you know one of my buddys and he can vouch for you, then sure, ill give you a shot. Anyone that's played a game with a matchmaking system knows there's wayy to many people out there that join and do jack shit. Sure PUG groups work, but when a pug begins to fail, everyone bails, one by one. Nobody wants their time to be wasted, I sure as hell dont. Especially when they have dedicated x amount of time and really want to succeed in something like a raid.
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Edited by PegLegFury: 8/1/2014 12:37:12 AMI hated LFG raids in WoW because you'd get complete noobs doing their own thing causing the group to wipe or ragequitting. If raids are as hard as Bungie is saying then I'll just go in with friends and clanmates that I can trust
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Edited by Blaqcaliber: 8/1/2014 12:51:41 AMI started WoW back in "vanilla", played through Burning Crusade (which is my favorite), Wrath of the Lich King and loved the raids; Not so much in the newer expansions. The grinding through waves of enemies, the teamwork to navigate through boss attacks and AoE's, and as said... the communication. It was fun talking, making fun of each others blunders, but it was also even more fun working as a unified team to complete the objective. In my opinion, for WoW, its true downfall was the LFG/LFR system that offered a lemming setting for people to grind through everything because they were too impatient and didn't want to work towards achieving something greater than just self satisfaction. Even when they modified it to sort people with a particular gear rating needed to do certain tasks, was an equally big failure. I didn't like how people joined raids and if the guild wasn't going to finish it til three days later before reset; someone who was in it, opens it up and throws together a quick raid (PUG) to finish it. I would rather see a clan only movement that should certainly be locked out (with an unlock code, possibly, set by the leader of the raid) til clan leaders (raid leaders) reopen it themselves and send the invites to those that sign up. There is just too many variables that need to be considered before doing anything. If anything, I think a server 'realm' system should be in place like WoW had. Theirs was mainly PVE, PVP, but also had other options available. If Bungie did make match making available, it should be to realm specific without the ability to transfer realms. I want a world my own that my clan can work through together as a team, not as a PuG. It doesn't matter if the game is MMO or FPS, match making hasn't always been highly favored and tends to lead people to easily and quickly become bored and uninterested in the game when it pertains to raids. Looking at Destiny, I believe that Bungie is trying to not just blur the lines between MMO and FPS; but creating a new ideal for gaming and not allowing it be one or the other. I am certain Bungie will find the options needed to make everyone happy. I do believe this is just the beginning of something much greater than we imagine. Remember, before we had this, we had Pong. As always, it is the challenge that we the gamers seek. The challenge comes with the quality of the game, not a shortcut to the end of the game.
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1 ReplyOr Bungie could make matchmaking for Raids optional. Then, if you want to gear up and group up with friends, you can do that. And if none of your clan mates and friends are playing you can still play with people. Or, Bungie could allow you to talk to anyone and not just people on your Fireteam.
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7 RepliesIn WoW you could communicate with randoms. In destiny, even though you matchmake with someone, you can't communicate. What if you match with someone that completely sucks, can't talk to you, makes the team lose and restart at the beginning of the boss fight, and eventually just leaves and causes everyone more pain and suffering from them just having a presence there?
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9 RepliesI don't understand why people are crying about no matchmaking get out of you moms basement make a few friends and make a raid team its not hard. I can go on my account and find more than 6 Ppl playing a game I want to play any time.
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Edited by Toolieo: 8/1/2014 3:28:04 AMi do agree here, i spent a year on wow and once i got to the lvl cap and tried out some raids, that were supposed to be easy and only a few hrs long, took over 8 and we all sucked and i ended up leaving coz i had people coming over. i didn't understand why it all turned to crap untill a mate told me that i probably didn't know how to play as my class properly. You really need to understand how all the classes worked with each other to ACTUALLY get to and then beat the boss.
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Wow, just... wow. Your post is like something one of the stupid youtube neofeminists would say. You didn't even make it past the TITLE without establishing a with me or against me environment, blatantly insulting anyone who won't agree with you. You could at least make your point first. Because of the intro, it made reading what came after painful, seeing as how the opening put you pedestal and anyone arguing against you down in the muck. And you say "Unbiased" in your post. I don't buy it. Regardless of whatever valid reason someone may have against not having matchmaking, you've already picked a side and deemed the other side to be "kiddies".
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Well said.
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2 Replies......this isn't WOW....it is Destiny. Just sayin
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2 RepliesI completely understand that raids in Destiny are meant for high level, prepared, fireteams. I understand communication and teamwork will be necessary for success. However, I only have one friend who plays Destiny (or any game for that matter); my best friend of nearly 20 years. We always play 2-player co-op if a game has it. We will certainly attempt the raids as a two-man fireteam. I do not expect us to be successful, at least until we are way OP for the difficulty level of the raid. That being said, match-making should still be an option; just like in strikes. There is no harm in bringing a few randoms with us if we don't have a 6-man fireteam. So what if they can't communicate with us. So what if they don't coordinate tactics with us. They won't make it more difficult. Worst case they stand in a corner dancing, or leave. Best case they are observant and coordinate as best they can (flank right if we flank left, etc.). More than likely they will do their own thing, kill a few baddies, and provide additional targets for the baddies to shoot so they aren't all shooting at my friend and I. Not exactly helping, but certainly not hindering my friend and I either. Give us the option. If you don't want to match-make, don't. Play as a well oiled private party fireteam. Congratulations on having a robust circle of friends or at least being sociable enough to know a lot of people. But Bungie should not disqualify and bar entry to raids for those of us who do not have a robust circle of friends or are sociable enough to know a lot of people. Options are optional and don't hurt anyone. Not providing options alienates your player-base and fragments the community.
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2 RepliesThe thing is, most guys here (i suppose) just want to play it and get through it. It isn't something they PURPOSELY want to spend a lot of time on (even if the end result is supposedly that awesome feeling like you said) We are fps players, so...i guess spending that much time isn't very attractive. That said, i might have been digressing/not very easy to understand. I think what people want is not to decrease the difficulty, but why not just add the matchmaking? After all, if you are truly good, then you'll still be able to succeed while wasting less time. If you are not, then TOO BAD, because you tried and you failed, so now go find that group of friends to redo the raid with.
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2 RepliesI agree with your view, however the lack of communication in game is what will be the downfall, in wow you could message or general chat, in destiny there are only fireteam invites, which are god awful, and the default psn messaging/party up which also will lead to annoyance.