All upcoming matchmaking changes in Destiny 2 Season 19

Over the past few seasons, Bungie has implemented many changes in its PvP domain in Destiny 2. While weapons and ability balances have received specific priority, the developers have also been focusing on matchmaking.

Matchmaking plays an important role in almost all PvP modes in the game. Without appropriate matchmaking strategies, it's almost impossible to have fair competition, as PvP matches are governed by numerous factors, including but not limited to player skill.

In their latest blog post, the developers detailed some more changes they planned to implement in Season of the Seraph and Lightfall.

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Bungie working on more matchmaking changes for Destiny 2 Season 19 and Lightfall

At the onset of Season 19, Bungie introduced a new method of matchmaking known as Fireteam-based matchmaking. For the uninitiated, Fireteam-based matchmaking ensures that teams of six will be queued against each other for any activity in Destiny 2.

This ensures that the matches are fair for the most part because queuing as a team means there's proper communication between the players. Communication is paramount in PvP matches, justifying the overall implementation of this new matchmaking mechanic.

Bungie will continue to monitor and collect data from such matches to polish their matchmaking strategies even further. The developers have mentioned that as their confidence in this system increases, the number of freelance nodes in game modes will decrease. They plan on implementing this with the upcoming Iron Banner on January 31. So Guardians will need to brace themselves for fewer freelance nodes the next time the Iron Banner goes live.

Once the developers have managed to iron out the issues with this matchmaking system in the Iron Banner, they will be extending the Fireteam-based matchmaking feature to the Trials of Osiris and eventually to the 3v3 Competitive modes.

It's unclear if the changes will make it to the latter modes in Destiny 2 Season of the Seraph itself. However, there's a high chance that Guardians might notice these changes from Lightfall onwards. Notably, Lightfall is the harbinger of many changes to the game, so it can be considered an important expansion in terms of quality-of-life upgrades.

Moreover, once the developers are confident that their Fireteam-based matchmaking is working as expected, they will incorporate dynamic skill-based matchmaking.

It currently needs to be determined how this entire system will work, but Bungie will detail this in forthcoming blog posts.

While these changes don't seem like much, once implemented, they can definitely improve the overall experience that Guardians have in the game. The PvP segment in Destiny 2 has been a thorn in Bungie's side for a while now, with the community continuously expressing their concerns. It will be interesting to see how everyone reacts to these changes.