The “live service” aspect of the game has been pretty sad. Just 4 updates since launch is not very good, especially since the Jan. 19 update just broke BtB even more and was the only thing it affected other than that oddball glitch or whatever. Also, the Dec 8. update did nothing to the MP, so in reality, in the span of 3 months, there has been 2 updates to the multiplayer…for a live service game…
Onto the Feb 3. update however!
This was a very pleasant surprise, I thought we were just getting a BtB hotfix, but no!
We got:
Matchmaking service improvements for Big Team Battle (BTB). Players should find full matches quicker and more consistently.
Scorpion Tanks and Wraiths will appear more frequently on BTB maps.
Fireteam members in BTB matches will have the selected Fireteam Marker color, but may still start the match in different areas of the map.
Join in progress rules updated to avoid matchmaking into games which are nearly complete.
Changes to Oddball in both Ranked and Arena Multiplayer playlists:
If the score is tied when a round’s timer runs out, one minute is added back to the timer. If the score is tied at the end of the additional minute, then the round will be declared a tie.
The match will end if two separate rounds end in a tie and the victory will go to the team with more rounds won.
Halo Championship Series (HCS) variant of Free-For-All Slayer added to the Custom Game modes list.
In Custom Games, changes to Free-For-All Slayer, FFA Oddball, Neutral Flag and Tactical Slayer game options update correctly.
overall, a decent update when all we were expecting was a BtB fix (about time!!! lol)
the hopium tank just got filled a bit
what are your thoughts?
It’s more that it’s a targeted hotfix vs a full patch, IMO. An optimization pass would likely come as part of the upcoming patch noted for mid-Feb. We do similar things at my work - more urgent fixes get a smaller software release (BTB not working across ANY platform is something I would consider urgent), and then bigger things that aren’t emergencies get a bigger software release, which is slower.
That said, I do hope they touch on optimization and crashes on PC in the mid-Feb patch. I also hope that patch actually comes out mid-Feb.
They don’t have to fix everyone’s PC, they just have to fix their game on PC. It stems to memory leakage but still, they won’t even be transparent about it. Ignoring the issue is showing they see no issue.
The issue was clear as day when during HCS they were all crashing, yet they pinned it on AMD’s drivers and left it at that, what a joke.
The lack of acknowledgement is probably due to a focus on telemetry vs user accounts of issues. Game devs get tunnel vision on telemetry to tell them when something’s wrong vs user input a lot of the time. It’s a bad dev habit, basically. Endemic in the industry.
Most of the issues people complain about don’t happen to everyone, it’s probably because different builds can require different types of fixes in order to get it working.
I barely have any issues in this game at all. I think I’ve crashed like 3-5 times total in my 140 hours of play. Most of it was due to me alt tabbing out of the game and back in, trying to multi task. Frames are always high too and so forth.
Game pass or Steam? Game pass for me is unplayable with multiplayer, just crashes to desktop when trying to load the map. Steam version is playable but every now and then, it will crash. I have a video showing that every aspect of the game pass version works but multiplayer…
That said, I do hope they touch on optimization and crashes on PC in the mid-Feb patch. I also hope that patch actually comes out mid-Feb.
Didn’t the people who redeemed the nail polish codes get a mail that the cosmetics would only become available in-game following a patch at the beginning of March? If that mail is correct they might have pushed the mid-February patch back.
Has anyone heard anything else about that? If nothing else has been said via other channels I’d not take a mail by a third party as prove of this but it sounds like a possibility.
Only thing I’ve seen is from Unyshek’s and Ske7ch’s socials, and that’s where the mid-Feb thing was mentioned if I remember right. Until they, or some other 343-associated source says something to the contrary, I’m operating under the assumption that mid-Feb is still the plan.
I hope that’s not the case, this game is in desperate need of fresh content (attrition NEEDS to return, along with at least another social gamemode, infection, race, I don’t know, just SOMETHING)
Maybe in sum total, but I kind of disagree in actuality.
I hate BTB’s design (randomized asymmetrical vehicle drops, ew) in this game, it has been unplayable for months (though its hopefully better now), and BTB maps don’t crossover into 4v4, so thats 3 maps that I never play on.
And Launch Site is too big for the vast majority of 4v4 modes imo.
So that’s really 6 maps that I get to play and enjoy regularly in 4v4, and I’ve played each mode dozens of times on each map. This is a live service game. and its at the 3 month mark. We should’ve had at least one new 4v4 map imo in addition to the modes they’ve been slowly adding.
I really do hope we get something for the upcoming mid-feb update, new gamemodes is more likely. It needs to be something with high replayability though and not sweaty, just fun
So 343 has time to make trailers and whatnot but cant fix multiplayer desync after 4 months? This is a worse MP launch than BF4’s netcode issues.
Im glad I can que into a BTB without having to “glitch” into a game, but BTB is still unplayable.
There is NO reason we should be getting this desync and the atrocious 150+Ms ping.
I don’t think that people realize that most of their effort and resources are going into the mid feb patch which should fix some issues that many are complaining about.