There have been many complaints and outcries when it comes to Bungie’s most recent title, Destiny. One of the largest and most widely agreed upon gripes is that some missions (such as weekly nightfall and raids) need matchmaking. On top of that, people are demanding private matches like those available in the Halo series. Bungie has listened and Deej (community manager) has spoken for the developer.

For anyone out of the loop, matchmaking is literally what it sounds like: match making players. For example, if you were to jump in as a lone Guardian into a strike, the game will match you up with two other random players and then send you into the game. For whatever reason, Bungie decided not to include this feature in the higher level/more difficult game modes.

This gripe is mainly brought against raids due to the fact that a raid requires six people and those six people have to be able to get online for a good chunk of time at the same time. Sometimes schedules simply don’t match up, some people don’t have that many friends, so you can likely see what the issue is.

As for private matches, that was one of the shining features of Halo. Many gamers found their joy in Halo when they got to jump into a game with their friends and just screw around. Unfortunately that is currently not an available option. Here’s what Deej had to say about everything:

You don’t need to sell us too hard on the value of Matchmaking at Bungie. It’s something we helped to pioneer. Yet, we understand its limitations. In the recipe of a Bungie game, Matchmaking has always contributed the ingredient of a team built to play one match of competitive multiplayer. As you’ve probably witnessed in recent weeks (or years), many of those fresh allies have failed to go the distance together.

The Raid was designed for solid teams of killers who have made a commitment to solve a dense and explosive riddle. Most of the raiding parties who have emerged victorious from the Vault of Glass have sworn that one weak link would have doomed their chain. There have been other stories, of course. We’ve heard tell of Guardians who met each other just outside the door that leads into that vault. Strange tales have reached our ears – tales of total strangers who have banded together to see the Raid all the way through to a triumphant finale.

Those stories surprise us, but the players of our games always have. The best I can do to answer your question is to let you know that you’ve been heard. We’re having conversations about how Matchmaking might support the more challenging activities in Destiny. It’s a start. Keep sounding off about it, and maybe someday some matchmade Fireteam mates will hear you, too.

Deej has promised to keep speaking up in meetings on behalf of the players, so only time will tell if we’ll see the features we crave any time soon.

My Opinion:

I understand the positives and negatives of including matchmaking in such difficult game modes. Sometimes you do need people you’re comfortable with to play through something as rough as the Nightfall or the raid. On top of that, someone just leaving the raid in a situation like the final boss would be catastrophic. However, that’s not to say that matchmaking will always fail. Sometimes you jump into a game with randoms and you find that you end up working like clockwork with this person that you’ve never met. Hell, you might not even be talking to them. As for private matches, that should definitely be included. I would love to see something like Griff Ball happen in Destiny. I loved Griff Ball.

Myles K Farrington is one of the MONG Senior Editors and has recently been losing a lot of sleep due to Destiny. There looks to be no end to the fatigue in sight and he’s not too broken up about it. Keep up with him over on IGN, Twitch, and Twitter as well!