Rank with friends

Recently I realized whenever I play with my friends, rank lobbies get extremely harder. We all gold. 2 or less. We usually play couple hours a week. But in few days we realized lobbies get extremely tighter whenever we play together compared to solo. Yesterday we got into a lobby with 2 golds, 3 diamonds and rest of all were plats. 

This really look like we getting punished for playing with friends. I don’t like to play pubs. I don’t enjoy it. Rank gives perfect balance between fun and gameplay. 

is this temporary or permanent?