Wrong. Bungie pushed people into third party apps by refusing to put any lfg or consistent marching option in in-game. Blaming guided games is a hot take. It's wrong though.

That's fine. You don't have to agree with my opinion, but I stand by it. Guided Games was Bungie's attempt at in-game matchmaking for raids. And it did flop because it was a terribly implemented idea. Why? Because there was no way to ensure the people matching up were aligned in their goal (beyond the obvious desire to raid and get a clear). And Bungie recognizes that given that from previews of their new in-game LFG system. They have granted players the ability to now vet players, which is why matchmaking is inferior to LFG. Bungie sees that and why they opted to go with an LFG for D2 versus a matchmaking system.

There's no legitimate reason for there not to be *optional* matchmaking for every single difficulty tier. You always have the option to not use it. Quit apologizing for shitty decisions.

Never apologized for anything, so unsure where that came from. You can disagree with me, Bungie and the entire digital community regarding this topic. I'm not here to challenge your opinion as you've made it decisively clear. I expressed my opinion. You expressed yours. That's it. No harm, no foul. And there is optional matchmaking in Destiny 2...it's called Guided Games. Nobody uses it because it's a poorly conceived and implemented idea. LFG is superior to blind matchmaking.

Also, making excuses for it is the literal definition of being apologist... So yeah, your entire stance is apologist. By definition.

I don't know why you're so mad...or at least...your tone. I'm just talking here. I'm not making excuses for Bungie. I'm just talking. I've experienced Guided Games matchmaking, and sadly it just does not work. It's a volatile experience where you don't know what you're getting, but you'll be penalized if you leave. It's not a good system. That's not an excuse. That's a reason why matchmaking is bad. And I was a MASSIVE advocate for matchmaking since D1. I was all over forums expressing my desire for it to be implemented. And when D2 dropped with Guided Games I was SOOOOOO HAPPY. But then I actually got into it and realized it isn't as wonderful as it sounds. LFG is better suited for this then blind matchmaking.

Guided games was dumb. It's not matchmaking it's forced hand holding. Some simple requirement for matchmaking could avoid most of it. Like... You have to complete it at least once to use matchmaking. Boom, one lfg is a lot more accessible than "you have to find a new group on your own because we suck every time"

It's obviously not the entire digital community... In fact, there always more people asking why the -blam!- they're catering to you people it would have no effect on instead of giving the overwhelming majority what we've been asking for since OG Destiny.

Because the people asking for matchmaking have no actual idea how disastrous the experience would be in most cases. For example; You’d have to filter the pool by language for content requiring communication. Is it drop-in/drop-out or a hard lock system? Because in the first there’s no guarantee a replacement will want to start midway through a raid, in the second you cannot replace anyone if they were to leave. What if a player is being uncooperative with the rest of the team? Given current matchmaking systems, no host or vote to kick options exist. So you’re stuck with them until they leave. How do you ensure players will even communicate? Even if you enforce a must have mic policy to initiate matchmaking, there’s no way to dissuade players from simply not using it. I hope you’re perhaps starting to see why the LFG system is preferable to matchmaking. ————————————————————— Now if we wanted to talk about raising the matchmade difficulty bar for stuff like Legend Nightfalls, that’s a bit easier than a Dungeon or Raid. Though considering even current matchmade activities fall victim to no one running the champion mods, that may be a horrible idea.

There's no reason we can't have both, in-game. There's no reason not to have it for nightfalls of all difficulties. There's no reason not to have it for dungeons. And an easy fix to everything you've said is make the requirement to join matchmaking one successful completion of all raid encounters. That way you only have to lfg one time and it isn't an insurmountable task to find an lfg every -blam!- time.