Board Thread:Dark Souls II/@comment-5264386-20130801122019/@comment-16047389-20130827162558

I can understand their reasons, but it's still a bad idea. They should "encourage" players to join up with people they haven't met before, but they shouldn't design the matching system to prevent friends from joining up. The whole point of joining up with a group of friends is to improve group cohesion, familiarity, and just make the overall game experience better. And while dealing with other players I've never met before was sometimes an enjoyable experience, it was also extremely frustrating when it turned out bad, and mainly just encouraged me to play offline entirely some days.