I had the exact same experience when first attempting PvP. As background I'm a middle age gamer who has never really played a competitive FPS PvP. I've played a lot of FPS, but due to the steep learning curve when moving from PvE to PvP I've always been turned off by it. Destiny was the first time I've liked a game enough to actually give it a proper chance, and though it wasn't until about 9 months after launch that I actually started spending any time with it, it's now my favorite activity. I too had a lot of friends who played who were all veteran Halo or CoD players and whose Crucible skill level was much higher than my own. When initially playing with them I definitely noticed how much more difficult my games were than when playing solo. As such it took me a good 3-4 months of playing solo before I was able to come even close to hanging with them. I have mixed feelings about SBMM. While your point is taken and removing it entirely would increase the variability in difficulty from match to match, part of me liked the ability to back out into my own lobby where I was matched with others of similar skill and gave me a chance to learn the maps, try various weapon types, etc, before being thrown against top tier players. I'd fully support a player's ability to choose which they'd prioritize SBMM, or CBMM, but I'm not sure removing it entirely is a good thing if we want to encourage new players to enter the Crucible without fear of being so outclassed they just give up.