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[Riam]

First off, lemme start by saying that I cannot agree with PGI's new concept for Phase 3 Matchmaker in the slightest. The general idea is that there are two queues: Players in units and players without units, and only players in a unit will play with other unit players and no-tag players play with other no-tag players. This does absolutely NOTHING apart from attempt to make a new player's entrance into CW smoother.

The issues with this matchmaker:
1. There are no laws stopping new players from joining a unit right off the bat.
2. A unit tag does not mean a player is better than a player without a tag.
3. Players with unit tags are NOT necessarily equal in skill.
4. Unit players dropping alone are still able to get matched against large groups (hence the continuation of big scary 12 mans rolling poor defenseless PUGs. But it's okay now since they have unit tags so they must be good!)
5. Players are now completely incapable of playing CW with friends unless they're in a unit.

Grouping players by whether or not they are in a unit is an extremely shortsighted solution that only serves to make the long queue times in CW even longer. This new matchmaker erroneously assumes that players with a unit tag are better than those without (not true) AND equal in skill to others with a unit tag (even more untrue). The skill discrepancy is still there, the possibility for large 12 mans vs. solo players (read: unit players dropping alone) is still there, and one of the main deterrents from CW (Potential 5-15 minute queue time) is made EVEN WORSE!

Now, you may be thinking "But Riam, CW is now improved for solo players! They have no big scary 12 mans to fear now!"

Cool. But isn't the whole purpose of CW supposed to be "end-game content" for units and groups of players? And even if PGI decided they wanted CW to cater to solo players, there is still the skill discrepancy. There are a number of extremely skilled players without unit tags and they are by no means the equal of a new Steam recruit. All the new matchmaker does is gimp small units and lower queue times.

The alternative is easy. Just implement a difference between group and solo queue like you have public drops and match by an MMR system like every other sensible multiplayer game out there. I don't know why PGI chooses to avoid a straightup ranking system but rather decides to use Tiers in public queue where everyone can get to Tier 1 with enough time or splitting unit players and Lone wolves in CW. Make it so Loyalists can vote for which planets are designated group queue and solo queue for the attack phase or something, it doesn't matter what they do as long as the matchmaker actually separates players by skill and group size rather than an arbitrary on/off switch in the form of a unit tag that says absolutely nothing about them as a player.

Reading through this, I realize it may come off as just another salty scrub ranting on the MWO forums. But seriously, there is nothing sensible at all about the new matchmaker and the solution is quite simple.