When the game first released I had an excellent online experience.
The dedicated servers seemed to be working perfectly for me and I’m in Australia.
But it didn’t take long for me to hear a ton of complaints online regarding server disconnects and the ban rules.
I thought that I was just lucky regarding having a fiber internet connection with almost no ping and awesome up and down speeds.
I saw a whole lot of people explaining rather well why they were sure the population online would dwindle. I didn’t pay their well thought out posts all that much attention.
But now, the longer the game is out the buggier it seems to get.
I have had my first ban due to a whole bunch of server disconnects.
Yes, I have done all of the networking checks. My internet is second to none, almost perfect. I say “almost” perfect because I’m naturally a pessimist about perfection.
Anyway, it was only a 10 minute ban, but on principle it pissed me off massively. I am a team player, I’m relatively good, usually ranking platinum 6. I have only ever purposefully quit 4 or 5 games due to career or family commitments popping up in unavoidable ways. (real life comes before games)
But for the past three days I have had tons of random server disconnects, which lead to my short ban (stupid system!) and before that was unable to access my reqs.
Now with my first two games post-ban. I had randomly ranked down to plat 3, do bans do that too?? and I was in a team of another plat 3 and two golds against a team of 3 diamond 4’s and one onyx. Naturally, we got flogged. The longer the game went on the better we all got at adapting to their skill, but the ranking system clearly isn’t working properly either…
Next game, I applied my legendary RP boost. 3-4 mins in, I was 5 kills, 4 assists, 0 deaths, about the land a headshot and waiting for a grande to bounce around a corner to give a teammate an assist, and server disconnects! So out of a mixture of frustration and vexation toward an inevitable looming ban due to their broken servers mixed with their literally useless ban rules I gave up on even attempting to get into another game, and the entire thing is acting like a pre-ban. Making me not even want to waste my time attempting to enjoy a game and service that I paid for.
And I will openly agree that serial quitters, betrayers, cheaters and such totally deserve a ban. Not that a ban will do anything, but they deserve one.
So to the population issue that I originally never paid much mind to, I completely understand. As much as I’m a loooooong time Halo fan, and a good team orientated player who’ll take a flogging just for good sportsmanship, I seriously question how much more interest I, and others, are going to have in this game that massively mistreats its fans.
As a business owner myself, I find it despicable to take people money in exchange for a service/experience, and then blame them when the system doesn’t work.
What are everyone else’s thoughts regarding population and how long or if you’ll stick with Halo 5?
I’m not trying to start a flame thread, but I am genuinely both curious and disappointed.