If you can’t add a playlist you can play in custom games because of “technical limitations” the game ain’t ready there chief
22 Likes
They are hitting these limitations now and we are 3 months into their 10 year plan. My magic 8 ball says the Outlook is not good.
17 Likes
“Technical limitations”, meanwhile Xbox 360 games from 2004 were chock full of playlists.
I think by 'technical limitations" they mean “slow drip game content for each season”
Unless the game engine is truly that broken.
Meanwhile, Indie game Split-gate has like 20 different gametypes and a dozen plus playlists and they use Unreal Engine 
14 Likes
I don’t get it either.
It wasn’t an issue in any other Halo Game.
But now, a Halo Game that is supposed to be a live service game, is not able to handle changes to the UI.
At this point I highly doubt that there will be any sort of big updates in this year. Maybe I’m too pessimistic right now, but the last 3 months didn’t give me any hope.
9 Likes
I’ve been thinking a while now that it actually is THAT broke lol
“Technical limitations” is most likely just “we don’t actually have the playlists because we’ve been doing jack -Yoink!- for 5-6 years”.
3 Likes
“Head, head, head. It just keeps repeating.”
1 Like
I just don’t see what limitations stop them from using custom games that already exist in a playlist. If it really is that bad that they change one thing and the whole card stack falls down, that’s pretty bad
3 Likes
That’s what ya get for trying to ducktape together some crap engine just so you don’t have to share some money for a 3rd party engine
3 Likes
You’re wasting you’re time trying to make people scroll, since Waypoint has quick jump functions in posts now, just fyi
(Though I know you’re just going to post another troll post, so I’m probably just going to add you to my ignore list)
2 Likes
I mean, they managed to achieve one of the crappiest engines in human history, so sure!
2 Likes
Yep lol hahaha it’s pretty bad
2 Likes
The thing is, as a programmer I can see how complex programming projects like a videogame can become unwieldy to the point where very small changes can have huge implications making it difficult to change seemingly simple things. I also know that because that’s the case, if you need a product to be agile and able to be modified you build that into the system from the ground up. If they haven’t… then I don’t know what on earth they were thinking when they designed this game.
In theory from an end user perspective who is familiar with custom games options and how easy they are to modify, we’d imagine a matchmaking playlist is as simple as “Load up random chance of one of X custom game variants. Populate it with players. Add some UI for playlist selection. Add some code to the servers to make it all work” and that’s it. Hell, that should be how it works for 343s sake. There is additional work on the content side ofcourse when it comes to designing the objective and weapon layouts for maps, but we’ve been doing that for years so that’s also nothing new. We even know that their skill based matchmaking is universal across all playlists so it’s not like adding a new one should really affect anything drastically, and if it does it should be built in a modular fashion that’s easy to implement.
But then here’s the thing. Customs don’t even work currently. A couple weeks ago neither was BTB matchmaking. Supposedly the UI is a pain to work with. Sounds like none of these systems are at all built the way a sane developer should have ensured they are. So who knows how they’re supposed to sustain a live service game from here, they might be overhauling their systems MCC style for years before it’s in a state to really work as intended.
Anyway, this all stinks of poor project management to me. You’re right, a “10 year” game shouldn’t be struggling like this a few months in after the devs had 6 years to make it (or however long it was after they canned their previous project).
4 Likes
That’s what happens when you have contractors developing an engine.
You work on it for a year, then the new employees come in and have to learn how to use the engine fast
1 Like
As @SpaeRockMatt said, it shouldn’t be taking that much time in a well-made engine.
I’m beginning to wonder if they’re, quietly, behind the scenes, reworking the engine parts to make it more manageable - and that’s what is taking so much time… We might never know though unless someone leaks what’s actually being worked on.
2 Likes
This is only my humble opinion, but 343i don’t build games for fun they build them for ultra hardcore pro competition. They concentrate on slayer with weapon and 4v4 map balancing to the extreme and they couldn’t care less about other game modes (with maybe the exception of CTF).
They have proven time and again they don’t care about the larger player base and providing fun to the more casual player. Bungie play tested all their multiplayer maps and game types internally with out any pro-player input. That’s why Bungie’s multiplayer has always been the gold standard, sure Halo 3 was a slow moving multiplayer game, but its player retention was and still is head and shoulders above anything 343i have put out to date.
2 Likes
Ok
1 Like
Without actually saying names, all the issues can be traced back to who is at the top of 343i. Bad management always leads to bad output.
2 Likes
It is because of the way they hire.
Contractors can NOT build an engine or develop on a custom built engine, simple as that
You kick out your old contractors and the new ones have no idea how to use the engine and it leads to a horrible mess
5 Likes
To build from this, there’s a difference between a video game and video game engine - the difference captured in the comparison of the following sentences: “I’m developing using Unreal” and “I’m developing Unreal”. Developing a game engine is a monster unto itself and is especially sensitive to poor design choices.
The UI should be it’s own subsystem and I’d expect there would be a whole gaggle devoted to the front end/presentation - whoever they are/were they need to to freshen up on design patterns. Possibly the Gang of Four or Game Engine Architecture. However they should have done that before creating the engine let alone releasing the game. Now they’ve saddled themselves with technical debt that they’ll either have to spend manhours to payoff or ignore and receive the dividends anytime they introduce a change and inevitably burn through developers as the codebase becomes something the Grinch wouldn’t touch with a 10.5 ft pole.
It reeks of incompetence. Poor design choices makes me question how well informed the developers were/are. If not well-informed then 343 needs to tighten their screening process to include design pattern questions. If well-informed it makes me question how they attempted to inform the business regarding the tradeoffs of poor design. If the business was well–informed then they’re absolute melons and there’s a leadership issue. If not well-informed then they need a project manager/developer advocate who can frame technical trade-offs in terms of business impact and champion best practice.
To be fair, I think the core game is really fun when it’s working. It just lacks consistency and several core components - reliable anti-cheat and quality net code - a multiplayer game should have before focusing on monetization and new content.
4 Likes