Yesterday, Community Manager “DeeJ” took to the Bungie website to inform players that the matchmaking system in Destiny will be modified to address connection issues for the upcoming Iron Banner event.
The last weekly update from Bungie confirmed something that Destiny players had suspected for a while now. The developers had made changes to the game’s matchmaking, and had done so without telling the player base. Previously, the system had prioritized connections. This is especially important in a game like Destiny, which utilizes peer-to-peer connections as opposed to dedicated servers. However, Bungie had activated a new system in December that prioritized matching players based on their skill level. The reason given for hiding this from the community was that they needed “raw, unbiased data” to evaluate.
The result was that connection issues spiked for everybody. Players soon began to encounter opponents from halfway around the world, and games suffered as a result. When questioned, Bungie employees denied that any changes had been made. But now, with the admission that they had been lying, there has been major backlash from the community. This controversy came at a time when the player base is already demoralized by a lack of content or an idea as to what the game’s future holds.
After many YouTube rants about the loss of faith in Bungie, DeeJ responded yesterday by informing players that, as of tomorrow, a new system will be implemented for Iron Banner. This system will give greater consideration to connection issues, says DeeJ, while still looking at player statistics. This means that the first day of the Iron Banner will still utilize the current system, but this is intentional. DeeJ says, “The 24-hour gap will provide us with two sets of data to compare and scrutinize…”
As of right now, the new system will be limited to Iron Banner, pending further analysis of the data by Bungie.
