The matchmaking update is great, but history for solo and squad rounds needs to be seperated.
This is anecdotal of course, so take this with a grain of salt. TL;DR at the bottom.
Since launch I've played "cautiously friendly" in solos and PvP in duos and trios.
In solos, I always shoot back if shot, shoot first if people act weird, KOS when someone breaches my keyroom, or tries taking my big arc loot without permission. I'm always on prox and help others, giving away arc loot, especially in matriach, queen and close scrutiny. I defib people, heal others, watch people's back, etc. Generally friendly, but definitely not a pacifist.
In squads, I pretty much always KOS, but still leave people alone if they're on prox and dont want the heat, I'll even protect squads going after the matriarch, queen or assessors, so they can focus on the arc while my squad focuses on other raiders. Depending on how much PvP we would run into, my squad lobbies would range from a mix of players, to 100% PvP oriented.
I never had trouble going from super heavy PvP squads to mostly friendly or carebear solo lobbies. Sometimes after a bunch of PvP in squads I would have to surrender a handful of times to get into PvE focused solos. I've never used this for easy kills in friendlier lobbies.
2 days ago, I ran several PvP heavy duos and trios raids. Yesterday I had more free time than usual, and was able to run quite a few solo rounds during the day, but my solo lobbies were the most aggressive solo lobbies I've ever been in.
It seemed like I was stuck in full PvP bloodbath solo lobbies. I dont mean "some PvP" I mean, nobody on prox, everyone KOS, mostly freekits and even though I built a kit each raid, I was spawning in late most raids. On top of that, I had 2 raids where I selected solos but ran into a trio squad somehow? I double checked and am 100% sure I didnt select "solo vs squads" matchmaking and I know they were squads because both raids, I downed 1 or 2 of them and watched them get picked up without a defib while I got knocked. It took a bunch of raids to get into mixed lobbies and once I did, I was running into more fake friendlies and hatch and extract campers than ever. Even if I didnt run into PvP, I could hear it going on and was finding so many bodies, at least 6 each raid.
It was to the point that I think I'm banished from carebear solos now lol.
I prefer to play friendlier in solos, and PvP is for squads. The general vibe that I get is that is how alot of people like to play.
I took the survey, answered everything and added a note at the end about the big question, I'm just sharing this to ask;
Has anyone else has had a similar expereince over the past couple days? How have your matches been lately?
TL;DR:
My preferred playstyle is friendly in solos and PvP squads. The matchmaking update seems to have made my preferred playstyle difficult to do. I'm loading in late more often with a kit and have ran into full squads in solo lobbies.
Here is the Survey link if you haven't taken it yet. Please make sure you guys respond to the survey and answer honestly, Embark is asking for and needs the feedback.