Halo 4 Critically Flawed & Unplayable, Bye

Games Other Halo
1

Hello 343 Industries, I really hope you read this.

I’ve been playing Halo since it launched the XBOX a decade ago. It is by far my favourite gaming franchise. I’ve spent more time and money on Halo compared to any other video game. To my memory I’ve bought the following Halo merch

Halo 1, Halo 2 special edition, 2 copies of Halo 3 special edition, 2 copies of Halo ODST, 2 copies of Halo Reach LE, 2 copies of Halo 4 LE, Halo shirts, Halo comics, Halo controllers, Halo figurines, Halo books, Halo Audio books.

I’ve spent thousands.

But after 2 months of Halo 4 I can no longer play. I’m not angry with the game, I’m not upset over weapon balance, map quality, ordinance drops, loadouts or any of that. In fact, I don’t even want to stop playing Halo at all.

But I have no choice.

Why? It all comes down the lack of single little feature.

’Prefer good connection’

The three sweetest words to an Australian gamers ears. Without this option an online shooter is a train wreck. The games are laggy, we don’t stand a chance because we find ourselves playing off international hosts. Grenades takes an entire second to appear, enemies require more hits to kill, we get killed through walls and our enemies simply vanish before our eyes. In short our ability to properly compete and enjoy ourselves is utterly hamstrung. This option was present in Halo 3 and Halo Reach and we enjoyed game after game of lag free Halo goodness. Seeing someone from another country in our game happened once in a blue moon.

But Halo 4 was missing this option. Naturally, the games were incredibly laggy!

So naturally, we asked for this option. You responded and told us the option was still there but working in the background but it needed time to learn our data. So we waited, but nothing improved. In Reach we Aussie Halo players could play for weeks without playing with someone overseas but Halo 4 had this happening constantly. Then after our thread on these forums with over a thousand votes and hundreds of replies you said that you had ‘pushed out a fix and are continuing to monitor results’.

Nothing changed. The lag just got worse.

I’m going to help you a bit and provide you with some data from my recent games. I played on two seperate nights and recorded details about the people I was matched with and the quality of the connection. I played during peak time for Australian population in the most populated playlist, Infinity Slayer:

Session 1

Game 1 - Countries involved: AUS, USA
Connection quality: Bad

Game 2 - Countries involved: AUS, USA, England
Connection quality: Bad

Game 3 - Countries involved: AUS, US, England
Connection quality: Bad

Game 4 - Countries involved: All Aussies
Connection quality: Good

Game 5 - Countries involved: All Aussies
Connection quality: Good

Game 6 - Countries involved: AUS, England, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Spain
Connection quality: Bad

Game 7 - Countries involved: AUS, USA
Connection quality: Bad

Game 8 - Countries involved: AUS, New Zealand
Connection quality: Good

Game 9 - Countries involved: AUS, USA
Connection quality: Bad

Game 10 - Countries involved: AUS, England, France
Connection quality: Bad

Game 11 - Countries involved: AUS, New Zealand, Germany
Connection quality: Bad

Game 12 - Countries involved: AUS, USA
Connection quality: Bad

Game 13 - Countries involved: All Aussies
Connection quality: Good

Game 14 - Countries involved: AUS, Japan
Connection quality: Bad

Game 15 - Countries involved: AUS, Japan
Connection quality: Bad

Game 16 - Countries involved: AUS, USA
Connection quality: Bad

Game 17 - Countries involved: All Aussies
Connection quality: Good

Session 2

Game 1 - Countries involved: AUS, USA, Japan, New Zealand
Connection quality: Bad

Game 2 - Countries involved: AUS, USA
Connection quality: Bad

Game 3 - Countries involved: AUS, USA, New Zealand
Connection quality: Bad

Game 4 - Countries involved: AUS, USA, Mexico
Connection quality: Bad

Game 5 - Countries involved: Aus New Zealand
Connection quality: Good

Game 6 - Countries involved: AUS, USA
Connection quality: Bad

At this point I gave up, frustrated at laggy match after laggy match. As you can see, getting a good match was uncommon. Then I wondered if Reach was as good as I remembered in terms of connection quality so I threw it in and put it through the same test. Here goes.

continued below /

2

Session 3 - Halo Reach, good connection enabled

Game 1 - Countries involved: All Aussies
Connection quality: Good

Game 2 - Countries involved: All Aussies
Connection quality: Good

Game 3 - Countries involved: All Aussies
Connection quality: Good

Game 4 - Countries involved: All Aussies
Connection quality: bad

Game 5 - Countries involved: All Aussies
Connection quality: Good

The only difference is it took up to 5 minutes to find a game. But I didn’t care. In an hour, Reach, with just 750 people in slayer (compared to 5000 people in Halo 4) provided me with consistent and enjoyable connection quality. We don’t want instant games, we want consistant games. We’d rather wait and play 3 good games instead of playing 6 instant games that make us angry and frustrated.

So here I am at the end of my patience. I haven’t played properly in weeks and I cannot bring myself to endure another frustrating night in front of my TV. For years now, Halo was the way my friends and I relaxed after a hard day at work. It was our bar, our Cheers, our hang-out. We’d poured 100s of hours into Halo, it was out home away from home. But now, all of my friends have moved on to Call of Duty or other games. After dozens of night of turning our Xbox off in frustration we’ve given up. And I have no choice either. I’m going to grab Black Ops 2 so my friends and I have a place to do virtual battle.

I’m not quitting Halo, far from it. Believe me, I want to keep playing Halo. I don’t want to play Black Ops. Understand me, I’d much rather have Halo in my disc tray and stay in that world instead of Call of Duty. But the game is nigh unplayable for us Downunder. So please understand, this is not one of those I’m quitting Halo statements cause the truth is 343 Industries it’s you who has quit us. And make no mistake if you remedy this problem I’ll be back in a heart beat.

343 Industries you inherited me as a customer from Bungie and I gave you the benefit of the doubt. I have spent a decade and thousands of dollars on Halo and I’d like to spend another 20 years doing the same with you at the helm of Halo, but if you really insist the problem is fixed despite no improvement in the situation then I just cannot spend another minute of my precious time or another one of my hard earned dollars with you.

On behalf of all international Halo fans.

3

as an aussie who plays just about every night… usually about 10 games a night sometimes more… maybe 1 of those 10 will be a bad connection… donno what your internet is like but mine isnt the best and I very rarely get unplayable games… maybe you play during the day more when the bulk of US players are online and bugger all aussies… which I imagine would make it bad

4

I have enjoyed this long read, please do more in the future.

5

Such an inspiring thread . And we won’t give into this fight , we’ll fight for what is right . Lag-less freedom today !!

6

> as an aussie who plays just about every night… usually about 10 games a night sometimes more… maybe 1 of those 10 will be a bad connection… donno what your internet is like but mine isnt the best and I very rarely get unplayable games… maybe you play during the day more when the bulk of US players are online and bugger all aussies… which I imagine would make it bad

If you read my thread I play at night during peak population. All of my friends from Perth to Sydney have had the same problem and hundreds of people in the major thread about it agree.

Maybe you don’t notice the lag so bad or something, or maybe you pull host over US players. Either way you’re an exception to the rule by my experience.

7

usually play with 2-3 mates in aus/NZ… maybe we just get lucky and one of us gets host since theres several of us in a match

8

Sorry to hear that. If I had consistent lag problems, I would probably stop playing as well.

9

> usually play with 2-3 mates in aus/NZ… maybe we just get lucky and one of us gets host since theres several of us in a match

I played with someone from Perth who would get host every - single - match.

It was fun, we’d make Americans quit all of the time cause they’d play off Australian host. Maybe you’re in the same situation.

10

> usually play with 2-3 mates in aus/NZ… maybe we just get lucky and one of us gets host since theres several of us in a match

Here’s the main thread about it

https://forums.halowaypoint.com/yaf_postst129636p69_NO--REGIONAL-FILTER----OR--GOOD-CONNECTION.aspx

11

bye

12

> bye

Ciao

13

So you made a huge wall of text to basically say this “the game sometimes gets laggy”.
I agree, they do need to add search options, but the wall of text isn’t needed. No one cares about your thousands spend on a franchise, or that you bought multiple copies of a game.

14

Thank you for spelling out exactly why (and very exhaustively so) you’re leaving instead of taking a dump on the porch and stomping off. I hope that the Aussies will one day find that mythical good connection and be able to enjoy matches with the rest of us.

15

That is a long goodbye.

16

> Thank you for spelling out exactly why (and very exhaustively so) you’re leaving instead of taking a dump on the porch and stomping off. I hope that the Aussies will one day find that mythical good connection and be able to enjoy matches with the rest of us.

Cheers. Like I said I don’t want to leave at all, but I can’t stay.

17

You know what the best part of all the things you’ve spent money on is? You still have them.

18

2edgy4me

19

This post has been edited by a moderator. Please do not create alternate accounts to bypass forum bans. Alternate accounts will be permanently banned, and offending users will be subject to both temporary and permanent bans.

*Original post. Click at your own discretion.

Its a shame if 343i doesn’t read this.

This is a legitimate problem that will probably be flooded by:

“HATE ORDNANCE SO MUCH AND 343!!!”

“JIP RUINZ TEH GAME!!!”

“BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH IRRATIONAL COMPLAINT BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH”

20

This post has been edited by a moderator. Please do not post spam.

*Original post. Click at your own discretion.

Well it’s a good thing I don’t care about you not playing the game anymore. Otherwise I’d be reading that wall of text.