This is due to the way group matchmaking seems to be set up, or if most people are to believed, ALL matchmaking. Specifically for group matchmaking though, it appears to pair groups with groups of similar or equal size first before other modifiers (if any) are applied. Meaning skill, gear, reputation level, account stats, hours played, win percentages, etc. none of that matters if you're playing in a group of any size. This is a problem for a multitude of reasons, but I'll explain my situation first:

I play solo most of the time. Solo queue is generally pretty fun, occasionally you get put in with groups, but I like to consider myself above average, I've a good fistful of hours under my belt and a decent understanding of the various characters, I sit at Rep 5 with maximized gear. Conversely, I have friends who are either half my time played or are relatively new to the game, on the cusp of Rep 1 with their first character, as well as a couple Rep-2 45 gear level friends. If I pick up any 3 of those individuals we are immediately paired up against another group of four, generally Rep 2's to Rep 10's who are grossly more familiar with the cheese builds of the month, abusing equally cheesy mechanics, all of them with maxed out revenge builds. This isn't just one or two matches, this is every match that we play, back to back. These players have more hours, higher account stats, higher gear stats, higher Rep level, and even if they were averaged across their entire party, would double anything my group could manage.

Likewise, I've been on the giving end of one of these situations just through the solo dominion queue, as I've gotten on with a team of clan-tagged players against what I assume was a group of friends. Between the clan players and myself it was an absolute steamroll, like 150-1200. I felt just as cheated rolling over and subsequently pissing off a group of friends trying to enjoy playing together as I do having the same thing happen to me. Simply put: Nothing about playing with friends is fun in this game. If your friends aren't competitive, aren't specifically geared to cheese, don't know the counter to every strategy, aren't adept at fighting 1v2, don't "main" a spread of classes that can counter other classes, or are even remotely 'new' to the game, it does nothing but hurt the experience of playing the game for every party involved. I've already had a few people simply quit the game over this crap or put it down waiting for a patch to address class balance and matchmaking issues.

So I've voiced a complaint, that doesn't help too much, so how about voicing some solutions?

The first and easiest one that comes to mind is to simply open the queue lock of group vs. group. Meaning a group of two is just as likely to get paired up with six solo queue's rather than forcing it to be against another group of two, so long as they've all got similar matchmaking statistics. The second thing I'd suggest is averaging the group's account statistics for use in matchmaking. We know all of that is being tracked, you can view a lot of it right in the uplay launcher, so why does it always feel like it takes a back seat or simply isn't factored when it comes to matchmaking? Why would a bunch of sub-30 hour players get saddled with 120+ hour players? Why would a bunch of 1:1 KDR players get stuck against 3:1 KDR players? Using an average and opening the group lock means that even grouped players will get matched up with equally matched players and it ends up being modestly more balanced. It would also protect new players from just getting dumped on simply because they and three friends all picked up the game at the same time.

Am I alone in thinking matchmaking needs an update or at least some more parameters to better decide matching? I know I'd be willing to wait an extra minute in queue if it meant my group could actually have a fair fight more often...