The new Competitive model has every player play 7 games to determine what rank they fall in (this first season, you can only rank as high as gold). Players then play and based on "Wins/Losses and personal performance", each players rank will go up or down accordingly. You can be promoted up through ranks when you have gotten better, and demoted to lower ranks when you aren't playing as well as you used to. And that's all fine and dandy, if you matched people within their own division.
I'm an above average player in PvP. I used to be better years ago, but I can still very well hold my own. I won 7 of my 7 placement matches (4 were shutouts) and was obviously placed in Gold 3 (which is bottom of Gold Tier). I then went to play some more games so I could rank up and move up, and my very next game blew my mind. There were TWO people in the lobby that already had the "Glorious" title, which means they had already hit Platinum rank. I don't know why on Earth as a player ranked bottom Gold, I have to face players in Platinum to rank up. I lost, obviously. Next game was the same thing, Glorious people in the lobby, and I lost. I got thrown into "Relegation" where I have to win 2 of the next 3 games I play, or else I get demoted to Silver. The pattern doesn't change, I lose both games and get demoted.
If we get placed into our Divisions based on our performance/skill, then why isn't the matchmaking grouping players together based on their division? It's matching me based on Bungie's hidden skill tracker (the system they mentioned in a TWAB that ranges from -1000 to 1000). So even though this is a new system and a new season, I'm getting thrown against the same people I would have played at the high end of comp last season, or trails last year. If I get to Platinum and other people in Platinum kick my -blam!- and knock me down to Gold, that's fine because that makes sense. But when Bungie tells me I'm not good enough to be Gold because I lose to Platinum ranked players, makes literally ZERO sense.
If you don't matchmake based on Division, you can't see anyone else's rank, and it's not an accurate representation of individual skill; then what's the [REDACTED] point of this entire system?
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Its still really early in the season so no one should really be all that upset with how its working so far. Having said that, SBMM is a freaking scourge. I guess I'll just stop before I type a ton of rambling that no one is going to read but I don't see how sbmm would ever be able to give an accurate picture of everyone's ability relative to each other while also providing an experience that's about the joy of playing Destiny.