In my opinion, the last patch made a very big difference for the issues that were most frustrating to me.
All along I was never really experiencing issues with getting into games. I would say that 9/10 times I would be able to successfully get into a match. Until yesterday’s patch, 10/10 games would present lag to the point where the game would be entirely un-playable. Every couple seconds in game I would be brought to a black screen (the one it shows when a player disconnected back in the old P2P days) while all the other players would remain playing. This would happen throughout the game, every single game. Finally I am now able to play as this no longer happens. As far as team balancing it is much better for me. I would say 7/10 games we are matched evenly, although this is definitely not perfect.
The last issue that still persists and is bothersome is the fact that the game doesn’t appear to be tracking any of my stats after the matches I have played since yesterday’s patch. Kills aren’t updating, games played is still set at a fixed number, and time played has been the same since about 2 weeks ago. Although the game is still not perfect, I am beginning to get a little less frustrated at 343 after being able to play a few classic games of Halo 3.
As far as everyone else, how is everything working after the last patch? I am located on the east coast of the US and a lot of people over here seem to be doing pretty well.