LAN Party Problems - First Halo Party in a Decade

Games Halo: The Master Chief Collection
1

I hosted my first Halo Party in over a decade. We played Halo CE, 4v4, two rooms, two xboxes, two tv’s, and it was just like old times - and it was gloriously amazing, but also very frustrating. I firstly would like to thank you for enabling us to do this, as it’s going to be a new tradition (again) among my friends - we are all 30 now.

That all being said, we ran into some problems that only allowed us to play about 6 to 7 games over the course of 3 hours. But those 6 or 7 games were amazing. I’m wanting to list the issues we confronted that we’re hoping gets fixed, as we probably won’t gather again until they are.

We played Private Custom Matches Only, Playing Only Halo CE:

  • One Custom Match will Cause Disconnect: After completing a match, the non-host xbox will try to reconnect and fails every time. Furthermore, when trying to reconnect that xbox to the host, it will not. The non-host xbox will then need to host a new game for the two to connect again.- Bug Changing Teams: When a creating a new custom match, and during so, another team joins, it will cause a bug that will remove the option to pick Red or Blue. The option to “Change Teams” will be there, but once selected, it’ll be a thin bar in the middle with the choices for Red or Blue removed.- Changing Teams, Period: The process of changing teams doesn’t have to be so tedious. Couldn’t this be rebinded to the left and right D-pad? Opposed to having to Press X (opens Roster), figure out which guest you are, then select “change teams,” then change it. And this happens over and over again… it’s horrible guys!- Default Auto Teams: When creating a team custom game, it auto creates teams. The teams should auto-create based on which xbox they’re on. People on same xbox, same team. But, currently, the game chooses two players from each xbox and puts them on the same team. Strangely enough, it chooses the exact two players every time! It’s strange that teams wouldn’t just be those who are on the same xbox should be on the same team. Makes sense…?- Custom Player Names / Profiles: This is easily the most frustrating part that we all miss about the original Halo CE experience, which is sorely missing. Unfortunately, I know most of this issue is with the Xbox One user profile system which requires each profile to sign-up with an email etc. The solution that we chose was to just sign-in as guests, but that take a lot of the fun out of it, e.g. “killed by username(1)”. When we’re talking like 16 people who are hopping around xboxes, with different settings. There just has to be a better solution…- Custom Match Playlists: It would be nice to queue up a playlist to play through different maps and mode without having to go back to through the game creation process. Is this possible??Hopefully, these issues will be resolved, as I’d like to host 8v8’s sometime soon, but the way things are, it would be a nightmare to get everyone on the same page. Setting up a game would, no joke, take like 20 minutes! It’s brutal guys! Please fix!
2

damn this game is pretty messed up…

3

Thank you for posting your experience from a good old fashioned LAN party! I have been looking all over the net for some information about this topic.

Just wondering, how was the actual gameplay through the matches you played? I understand that it was a pain to get a game started, but were there performance issues during the game such as frame rate dips, input lag, host advantage, etc.? I have read that splitscreen games have functioned poorly.

I am contemplating picking up a One and all the necessary gear to get a LAN party going while all of my friends are in town over Thanksgiving, but I am nervous of a disappointing experience from all the bad press I have been reading about the game.

4

> 2734998523709297;3:
> Thank you for posting your experience from a good old fashioned LAN party! I have been looking all over the net for some information about this topic.
>
> Just wondering, how was the actual gameplay through the matches you played? I understand that it was a pain to get a game started, but were there performance issues during the game such as frame rate dips, input lag, host advantage, etc.? I have read that splitscreen games have functioned poorly.
>
> I am contemplating picking up a One and all the necessary gear to get a LAN party going while all of my friends are in town over Thanksgiving, but I am nervous of a disappointing experience from all the bad press I have been reading about the game.

Concerning the gameplay / connnection: It appears that the connection is being routed through an Xbox Live server, despite what the developers have been quoted saying, “the xbox one is pinging Xbox Live only for game ownership verification.” But sadly, this is not true. We were noticing some strange aberrations where a spartan would flash in/out not unlike the token horror movie scary child/ghost. This isn’t on our end, as we were connected up through the same high-speed gaming router, pinging in the 1-2 ms. So, unless 343 can chime in on why we’re seeing this strange lag like stuff, then I don’t believe “LAN” is strictly LAN connection, sadly. Although, there was little to no input lag, controls felt good. Sniping was sharp, and everything else felt dead-on LAN quality. So, I’m not sure why these others strange internet-like connection issues were peaking in. Maybe just buggy netcode for Halo CE??

Concerning Host Advantage: We honestly didn’t play enough to take note of host advantage, as we were just excited to play the game when it was actually playing! :slight_smile:

Concerning framerate: 4 player splitscreen framerate was really great! A freind of mine came up to me astonished about how great it looked and played. It’s really something special to play Halo CE in 1080p at 60 fps, but with 4 player splitscreen, it did dip when there was a lot of vehicles and/explosions, but never below 30. Largely the framerate dips were unnoticeable. Keep in mind, we only play 4 player split on Halo CE, which IS vanilla graphics. I would imagine on Halo 2 anniv. it probably tanks a bit more.

All in all, we were honestly surprised at how much fun we were having though. Through all the bugs and kinks of learning the illogical menu UI, once we were playing, we were screaming across house at each other and it was honestly just as fun as the first day we played. Like no time had passed. It was incredible. Even the female spectators were greatly enjoying it. There’s just so much nostalgia with Halo CE, and low skill curve, that we had people who had never played it before, pick it up and have amazing fun with it. It was a joy.

Halo CE is just so great in that way, that from skilled gamers to non-gamers, Halo CE is still the perfect party game where everyone can enjoy it. It’s quite remarkable.

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> 2533274809623339;2:
> damn this game is pretty messed up…

Considering the scope of what they tried to achieve, it’s not messed too bad.

As long as 343 quells the problems with a concerted effort and quick updates (not dragging it out months and months), then all will be fine. I just hope they are quick to fix these issues, else the excitement will turn to dust.

6

Lan Party. #Merica #Halo2 #pizza&beer

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> 2665299958074404;6:
> Lan Party. #Merica #Halo2 #pizza&beer

LOL We had Sierra Nevada and Costco Pizza. =)

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> 2772528520603036;7:
> > 2665299958074404;6:
> > Lan Party. #Merica #Halo2 #pizza&beer
>
>
> LOL We had Sierra Nevada and Costco Pizza. =)

+1 for Sierra Nevada.

9

Did y’all notice any hit registration problems, I.E. The spartan lighting up but not hearing that annoying hit chime that says, “yes, you hit that dude”? I’ve noticed it a lot in customs and online matchmaking and a little bit with my buddy on my home network.

The more I play Halo CE compared to other titles, the more I get bummed. It seems like so many shots fall off and I’m kind of hoping that’s less of an issue over a strict LAN.

10

You are spot on with all the bugs listed. Three of my friends and I, also 30+ years old, played exactly the same set up as you for a good 8 hours last night. We found the same problems as you which were very frustrating.

I love your idea of creating a playlist! Listen to this OP 343!

Halo CE was a lot of fun and playing it in 1080p 60fps was brilliant! I noticed the frame rate dropped significantly when playing Halo 2 Anniversary maps split screen which was very disappointing but still playable and enjoyable none the less.

It seems so many people are reliving their past with halo system link parties which is fantastic.

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> 2535407296651900;9:
> Did y’all notice any hit registration problems, I.E. The spartan lighting up but not hearing that annoying hit chime that says, “yes, you hit that dude”? I’ve noticed it a lot in customs and online matchmaking and a little bit with my buddy on my home network.
>
> The more I play Halo CE compared to other titles, the more I get bummed. It seems like so many shots fall off and I’m kind of hoping that’s less of an issue over a strict LAN.

I didn’t notice any of that, tbh. All I could noticed was a very slight increase in leading the target at long ranges over LAN. I couldn’t remember if that was how the original game was or not, but it wasn’t a problem for me to acclimate to, as it was so subtle.

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> 2533274868171561;10:
> You are spot on with all the bugs listed. Three of my friends and I, also 30+ years old, played exactly the same set up as you for a good 8 hours last night. We found the same problems as you which were very frustrating.
>
> I love your idea of creating a playlist! Listen to this OP 343!
>
> Halo CE was a lot of fun and playing it in 1080p 60fps was brilliant! I noticed the frame rate dropped significantly when playing Halo 2 Anniversary maps split screen which was very disappointing but still playable and enjoyable none the less.
>
> It seems so many people are reliving their past with halo system link parties which is fantastic.

Yeah man, custom playlists would be very nice!

Needless to say, despite the problems, we are super eager to play again, I just hope much of these problems are fixed by the time we do! :):slight_smile:

13

Kudos for keeping halo alive even at your age :’)

14

I just wish this game had a TRUE LAN option! This is the first Halo game to not have a true LAN option to play system link offline. What the heck?

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> 2533274809372792;14:
> I just wish this game had a TRUE LAN option! This is the first Halo game to not have a true LAN option to play system link offline. What the heck?

I agree, although in saying that it seemed to work fine if it’s through xbox live still. I noticed practically zero lag. I understand it would be way better just to be able to connect them without internet like the “old” days.

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Is anyone having problems, once a custom game is finished, with getting back to the game creation? Everything my friends and I finish a game we get stuck at the results screen and have to restart the entire game.

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> 2533274812509981;13:
> Kudos for keeping halo alive even at your age :’)

Hey man, it’s not like I’m 60 here bro! As an aside, I shared this wife, and it made us laugh. :wink:

18

> 2533274809372792;14:
> I just wish this game had a TRUE LAN option! This is the first Halo game to not have a true LAN option to play system link offline. What the heck?

Yeah, I wonder if MS is anti-LAN moving forward. The reality is, this choice for removing lan is anti-consumer, as there’s no logical reason to remove a feature that is as old as video games themselves, other than for monetary purposes with xbox live. Real shame really.

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> 2533274849726780;16:
> Is anyone having problems, once a custom game is finished, with getting back to the game creation? Everything my friends and I finish a game we get stuck at the results screen and have to restart the entire game.

We only had the issue where the client xbox wouldn’t connect to the host xbox, whereby the guest would have to host for the two to connect again.

20

Man congrats on your LAN party, wanting to do one so bad. Nothing like halo, beer, friends, and food

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