as long as we get new maps ,gamemodes and forge comes out in a good state
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It has a much lower player count this week than it did have for weeks.
This week it dropped around 30k-70k players when it had been steady since the second week of beta at around 150k players.
First week plummets and steady drop offs overtime are common, a week of 25%-50% plummets are not.
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I’ve already dropped this halo and that’s saying something I’d never thought I’d say.
the campaign is boring i beat it once did a speed run on the second and feel no need to 100% it at this point. I’ve also finished the BP so there’s really no reason for me to play unless they add spartan ranks which i doubt we’ll get before the new BP in may so I’ve gone back to playing modded skyrim and dirt rally 2.0 till this game gets its issues sorted out.
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New maps, gamemodes, and Forge mode; lack of content… Alright, but you do realize that there are various other issues with the game that the Halo community has to face that you did not bring about, issues such as:
- Cheaters w/ESP and aimbot
- Poor optimization
- Crashing
- Broken Custom Games
- Bad SBMM in “Socials”
- Forced Crossplay
- Hit Detection
- Desync
- Challenges ruining teamplay
And that’s just a few that I can come up with right now in my head. 343i has created far too many issues with the game and I have no doubt that they will not be able to fix all of them in time before the player base declines significantly in a few months from now.
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There are issues, and you named a lot of them, but a lot these have been in the game since Beta, yet the game held a very steady population for weeks despite these issues, until this week.
Now it’s entirely possible that 25%-50% of the population said “enough is enough” to these issues and scooted off to greener pastures, but it’s more likely that something impacted the gameplay suddenly and caused the exodus.
More than likely it’s the BTB issues which sprung up after the playlist update that were the catalyst in this case.
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There were many games over the past years, where population dropped quite quickly after launch.
In general: This is a terrible sign for the current state of the industry. They release unfinished and unpolished games over and over again, and everybody knows it.
However: Halo is one of those games which actually has a very solid fan base. Unlike Anthem for example, which was completely new. There hasn’t been any relationship established to this game. So when everybody saw it was garbage, it was easy to leave and never come back.
Because of this fan base, because Halo “has a name”, I think it’s very likely for the population to grow again - that is of course under the condition that things are fixed.
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its the new slipspace engine if they would have stuck to Unreal we most likely wouldn’t have had half of these problems
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compare that to every multiplayer shooter that launches for free
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i havent had any of these issues only crashed once for me
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Those that got it on Steam got exposed to gamepass. Steam isn’t top dog anymore.
I think multiple of reasons can be given on why player count is dropping some out of their control like general trends, and other in.
- Many were never going to stay regardless, they would check out the latest of that halo series they played back in the day get tired and move on. Same with streamers; they’ll try it since it’s the new hotness then it’s back to the usual grind of whatever is mega popular. Some may stay, but not most. I could be wrong since I don’t follow streamers at all; but the sway they potentially have I could see them ditching halo after a week and most of their audience losing interest as a result.
*Halo was never going to return to the glory days at launch. There’s still a lot of of loss ground it, and Xbox in general, has to make up for due to the Xbone. Potentially it can if they launch dlc campaign expansions like new games, I could see it happening if 343 and MS as a whole maintain their current course.
*MCC is wrapping up its final major season. I imagine a number of players are going back and forth, or sticking predominately with MCC since its season ends sooner.
*Lack of features. There is no forge, no firefight, customization is lacking (more on that later), very few maps, and custom games haven’t taken off either. I haven’t really looked but is there a lack of file share and/or custom game options? If so that’s a huge problem crazy customs ended up being apart of halos dna. The lack of persisting lobbies add to this. I can no longer check out other players history, armor, and file share. It’s makes spreading that player created content harder. If those options do exist then the scene will grow in time, and I imagine it’ll explode with forge.
*The customization options are lacking. Regardless of your opinion, the base game having less colors for armor than CE and less customization options than H3 is never a good look. The store prices are insane and lack selection. Currently only one daily changes out, otherwise your stuck staring at bundles you have to buy as bundles, and not just the pieces you want, for an entire week and are difficult to justify price wise . Especially when it’s something old being sold back to you like Hazop; I know hard work in went into remaking it and it looks great, the feeling is still there though.
*the season pass offers the best deal, but it’s going to run dry sooner rather than later lasting 6 months. Making it feel hollow is the fact it’s filled with gear from noble team; items players are intimately familiar with at this point makes it lose some luster. There’s not the feeling of excitement of something new and unknown. Similar to the hazop example above, the work is appreciated and they look great. But the lack of cool new stuff in the pass hurts and seeing mundane items shoulder be split up, or the abundance of swaps double on it.
*Final one on customization I promise, but the final nail is the lack of cross core customization reeks of finding more ways to nickel and dime players. Now you gotta get that red visor twice, that exact color mix twice, ODST helmet twice. As of right now the new mjolnir isn’t the best one to use, it’s better to get the pass and stick with Mark V, which circles back makes the store less appealing. Why would I by a fancy chest piece for an armor I have nothing else for?
*General gameplay issues. The lack of playlists currently, player collision being an issue with enemies and making melee feel off at times, btb issues got worse with the last update, general unbalance of random vehicle drops in btb, and I’m sure I’m messing other issues that are hampering the actual experience of playing.
Now I’m not saying it’s not being worked, because they have addressed and begun work on multiple things I mentioned, the unfortunate timing of the holidays slows progress and I won’t blame them for that. I won’t necessarily blame them for how the game is now. We know development was hell, add creating an engine for the game your working on while working on it…well that spells disaster. This isn’t supposed to be a hit piece, they deserve the benefit of the doubt that everyone tried like hell to make an amazing game and in many ways they have.
This is just a list of reasons why players are leaving, or going back to MCC for the time being, or whatever else. These would be the reasons why the game is losing players, and what needs addressed to retain and entice players back.
Also note I’m not saying the game isn’t healthy population wise. We don’t know exact number for Xbox but it could cap out at whatever it sits at now and be fine. If there is a sudden drop of players, or the steady decline worsens, aside from a hit new game coming out to temporarily steal attention away, these are the reasons.
To be clear, I’m loving the game, the core gameplay is amazing; it just sucks we have to wait for so many things to be added that we’re standard launch. As well as suits meddling with the store and making every last penny. Regardless, I have high hopes for the game and am excited to see what they will add!
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What do you consider decent? I play MCC almost daily, and have been playing it since launch 7 years ago. Aside from ranked, I still find matchmade games fairly quickly, and when I host custom games on CE in the CGB (probably the least popular Halo multiplayer in terms of numbers), I still get people joining most of the time. The playerbase might not be gigantic, but I’d say it’s decent. The population did noticeably dip during Infinite’s launch, but it bounced back to normal after a number of hardcore Halo fans tried out Infinite and went back to MCC.
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This is a trend for every major release ever. You can check steam charts my guy. This follows the existing formula. There is always a huge peak at launch followed by a steep decline.
Game is free. It’s normal to have a lot of people trying the game for the first time, especially now that it’s on PC. Many came from COD, looking for something different, but most hate the higher TTK and skill gap, so they went back to Vanguard. People in this forum are trying to make the game look dead and a total failure. The reality is very different. Most likely there are at least 200k active players considering all platforms. The game is great, need tweaks, need new content, but nothing is going to happen during holidays. The game is solid as is right now and will likely get much better next year. The console build is super smooth. No crashes, no problems whatsoever. Steam still needs some fixes, but it’s working for the majority of people. To address some of the “problems”:
- Forced crossplay is not a problem. It’s a new reality. All PVP games will have crossplay, period. Hackers are far from being an issue at the moment and MkB vs Controller is super balanced right now since they nerfed melee and AA.
- Hit Detection, Desync is not a breaking issue. Everyone has it, everyone is playing under the same conditions. This is not the reason why you suck at the game.
- SBMM in socials is not a problem. You suck. period. I’m D6 and every time I jump on casuals, it feels very relaxed. You are not going to play BOTs if that’s what you’re after. In this day and age we can’t simply have randoms in the team so new players get completely destroyed and have no fun at all while the veterans stomp them.
You’re right on one point only everyone has desync however this is warzone launch bad even battlefield and vanguard aren’t this bad and they’re bad as for forced crossplay yeah nah I’d rather play against controllers after the warzone incidents period pc proved untrustworthy for crossplay and the fact the crap ignores when you turn off crossplay through system setting is crap why even have those settings if games are going to ignore them especially first party games published through the company itself. Whole thing is garbage and let’s not forget how broken trying to play the game with skulls is and I’m bot talking broken like easy broken I’m talking you cant capture fobs pick up cores or the different abilities broken
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I love the Multiplayer but I’m old now, and the sweats and their git gud attitude kinda dampen the experience for folks with kids and a house to maintain lol.
Compound that with the wonderful open world sandbox full of goodies we just got in the campaign Ihave been taking my time slowly with it and don’t have time to do the Multiplayer.
I’ll be back,just let me smash out campaign stuff first lol.
Maybe so but I am still getting games very quickly, mind you I am not a high ranking ranked player, I just have a crack at the weekly for the rewards, slay some good and some bad matches and then watch The Office, pass out and do it all again.
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well, the multiplayer got released on the 8th, i basicly stopped playing and never returned 4 days later. why play a game that is worse than expected ?
I did…… I swear it’s just excuse after excuse with people sticking up for 343.
These types of comments happen when you hate to agree with the OP and are getting absolutely annihilated in you’re own arguments within the subject at hand.