Edit: Wow, itâs almost an hour past EoD for the average IT person in Seattle, and we still donât have patch notes? Iâm doubting us getting it today at all now⊠/e
So, last I saw, the mid-season patch is supposedly coming out tomorrow. I was honestly expecting the patch notes to release yesterday, and Iâm hoping we donât have to wait until tomorrow to see them.
Has anyone come across comms from 343 or Uni or anyone about specifically when the patch notes will release?
We were told the patch was being aimed to release on Thurs Feb 24th (tomorrow).
It takes 4-7 days for an update to go through the Xbox certification process.
So shouldnât 343 already know whatâs going to be included in the patch at this point?
I expect weâll get them when the patch drops, so that way theyâre accurate in terms of (attempted) fixes incorporated. Iâd also caution that the language was âmay release as early as Feb 24â, not âitâs coming Feb 24â.
Hmm, so 1 day before hand, they still havenât confirmed tomorrow for sure? I thought Iâd seen a message late last week that theyâd started the update certification process and thatâs where they said they were targeting the 24th?
I guess maybe they could technically fail the cert and have to re-do that process.
I find it interesting that there hasnât been much communication about it, and not in a good way
I donât know if Iâd say thereâs been no communication - thereâ s an end-of-week or mid-week post every week since Jan 10. They also update things intermittently throughout the week on Twitter - though less consistently full of info than the weekly forum posts.
Theyâve also done and discussed like what, 3 or 4 playlist updates? Then the two patches, and the rank resets. The blog posts about desync and the ranked matchmaking.
While BTB was broken for too long, they did patch that - twice, plus the upcoming Feb patch.
So, while Infinite has issues to work through, I do think itâs fair to say that they have been working on it and have been communicative about several things. They have a ways to go, but itâs disingenuous to state they havenât done much. They just havenât touched on everything the community wants to hear about.
The weekly updates have been pretty lackluster.
They were mostly about the same topics (BtB, desync, anti-cheat, store)
There has been an occasional word on a few other topics but nothing major.
What about better progression?
What about more playlists/modes?
What about better customization?
What about Forge/Co-op?
The list goes on of things that the community wants to know about that they havenât touched on
Iâve only seen 1 playlist update and Ske7ch mentioned a future Slayer playlist update (he said it would be coming soon) back in Nov/Dec but no word on that since
Oh, you mean the 2 patches that most other games release weekly? Meanwhile it takes 343 MULTIPLE weeks?
That isnât live service
The blog post about desync, in smaller words was, we donât know what the issue is, we are adding stuff to the future update to figure it out.
All the rest was just flowery words to make it sound like it is a live service
And your point is? Other gameâs wouldâve had that patched in 2-3 weeks, it took them 3 months (yes, they had the holiday break, but they said they had people working on it over the holidays so that argument is kind of mute)
Oh, you mean the âBIG MID-SEASON UPDATEâ
Which is just a glorified patch, other games do the same amount of fixes on a monthly basis?
There has been barely ANY communication.
What happened to Inside Infinite?
Where did that go?
They havenât done much, that is a fact.
They added playlists that shouldâve been in at launch, they have MORE modes that could be added, but are holding them back, they stretched the Tenrai event out to pad the 6 MONTHS of S1 so it seems like they are constantly adding stuff to the game.
They have touched on very few things, and they touched on them very lightly
@GusTank04 and @N0_REM0RS3 itâd be nice if you two donât start going back and forth until someone starts insulting each other >.>
Tbf, I think 343 overall has done a ton more communication, hot fixes, and patches than the community gives then credit for with Infinite so far.
Iâm just sort curious as to why the mid-season patch is being left so ambiguous in the lead up to its release⊠The optimist in me thinks theyâre going to surprise us and drop 1-2 new maps, while the realist in me thinks theyâre going to basically just release a bunch of bug fixe.
I mean, that would be great, but doubtful.
Although, who knows, maybe theyâre holding back 1-2 maps and a few modes to then shove it in our faces like," HA, WE ARE SUPPORTING THE GAME YOU JERKS"
But that wouldnât be very professional
IMO, they did make statements on better progression - the two separate XP per game updates, the âweâre working on a separate progression system coming laterâ note, the adjustments of the event pass thingamajigs so thereâs not as much fluff.
I also do believe they have made statements on more playlists/modes - coming in events and adding to the game at some nebulous point - but, words were written on it nonetheless. Adding Fiesta and FFA. Rotating in (and unfortunately out) Attrition, as well.
They have made statements on customization, along with changes - filling out the event rewards with less boosters/swaps, made assurances theyâre adjusting the rewards for more customization, etc. We just likely wonât see those realized until the next season incorporates those changes, IMO. Maybe some of the events will incorporate those changes, they were starting to reflect them recently I believe.
Forge/Coop is missing an update - presumably in the roadmap Staten dropped the ball on, but I agree with this point, I want to know whatâs happening here. However, I also do understand why most of their communications have been about the functionality of the parts of the game that have launched.
Added Fiesta, adjusted ranked Behemoth, added FFA, the Attrition rotation. Again, never said they didnât have more work to do, but they have done things with/talked about this topic.
Iâve not experienced any games that release patches with that cadence consistently, not even on PC where thereâs no Xbox cert process. Do you have any examples of games with consistent bi-weekly patching?
Itâs my view that it is live service. It was done in order to address feedback and discovered issues and to update the game to take advantage of that discovery/learning? Isnât that all live service is, growing/changing the game over time due to feedback and learnings, with new content coming intermittently? I do hope new content does come soon, now that theyâre getting a handle on, or finally getting good data on, the technical side of the launch issues.
I mean, they did explain what it is, and generally gave insight into what is happening. As someone who troubleshoots software for work, knowing whatâs happening and knowing RCA for an undesirable event are very different things. I, for one, am glad theyâre adding telemetry and logging for issues that are popping up. I am also glad they explained whatâs happening, why itâs difficult to track down, and in the latest update - what theyâre doing to make progress on tracking it down (added telemetry).
Iâm not certain any of us can make accurate statements about how quick any other studio would have patched BTB - we donât know what was wrong, we donât know why their logging wasnât showing what was wrong, and we donât know what telemetry they had to add.
Until I see patch notes, Iâll reserve judgement on whether or not I consider it âbigâ. However, I expected it to be a patch, and so it is. Iâll also reserve judgement on whether or not the volume of fixes is in line with other gameâs consistent patch cadence until I see the release notes. I just hope they actually document the changes though, since game companies tend to keep crappy release notes for version updates.
I disagree that there has been barely any comms - I view the weekly updates as consistent communication, and they are relatively active outside of those as well. I do want them to touch on other things that I would like info on but they havenât gotten to yet, externally anyway, but I donât think theyâre barely communicating because they havenât gotten to them.
I do miss the Inside Infinite posts, but I assume they meant them more for pre-launch? I do wish theyâd bring them back, however.
I disagree that it is a fact they havenât done much, I think that is your opinion and youâre entitled to it, but I disagree nonetheless.
I do agree, however, that the majority of these missing playlists should have been present at launch. However, they werenât, and that is unfortunate.
I donât think theyâre holding back the game modes for nefarious reasons, and the extension of season 1 was done for the health of the dev team, according to their information released about its extension. I would assume - and I do acknowledge this is an assumption - that the extension of Tenrai to coincide with the extension of S1 is due to not wanting to just leave players hanging with nothing special to do in a 6 month season.
I disagree with your assessment here.
No insults planned, just responding with my thoughts and opinions.
That really isnât better progression, it is just a faster form of what they have now
That isnât communication.
That is what I am saying, almost everything that they have âcommunicatedâ is just," Weâre working on it"
The event passes should have play 1 match daily, get 1 level, then the event challenges are there as well, not what they have right now
Could you share them? Only thing I have seen is the one back in Nov/Dec
The only new events they have added with events are Fiesta and Attrition and Attrition was taken out of the game
That doesnât count as live service, they (and other modes) shouldâve been in the game at launch.
What statements? I have seen nothing of the sort
That is a progression change, not customization.
Again, where did they say this?
Their plan is to not release any new major content in between seasons, this is not appropriate for a f2p live service game.
All they have changed/added is 3 new playlists in 3 months and a few fixes to the game here and there, nothing major.
That is not live service.
Not sure he dropped the ball on it, I think they have to delay stuff even further and they donât want to say they do.
Even that is still limited.
1/2 of the stuff they have communicated involves BtB and the store, not other features and issues.
That doesnât have anything to do with the lack of gamemodes/playlists
The playlist update that added FFA, Tac Slayer, Fiesta, and Team Slayer months ago is the only chunk of content we have gotten.
Again, that does not count as live service since they rotated it back out.
If the game had more playlists, then this would be otherwise, but they shouldnât be taking content out of the game right now
Again, never said they didnât do stuff, but they have barely done anything.
Fortnite.
I may have exaggerated but the fact remains that they do not update the game nearly enough.
DL2 has had more updates/fixes added to the game in a few weeks than Infinite has had in 3 months
Opinions and views can be wrong
A live service game is a game that sees a constant stream of new content added post launch
occurring continuously over a period of time.
transmit or receive (data, especially video and audio material) over the internet as a steady, continuous flow.
We have not had a constant stream of NEW content added post launch.
No, they didnât.
In that blog post, they said that the issues were lag/latency.
The Anaheim championship still had issues and that was LAN, if the issue was lag/latency, it would not have affected that.
Um, yeah, we can, because other games get issues bigger than BtB had done in less time than it took them to fix BtB
It is a big patch, not an mid-season update.
There is a difference
Those weekly updates are basically the same thing, over and over.
That isnât communicating, not for a live service
How?
Almost all of the tweets that I have seen have been talked about in the weekly updates, they donât have anything different to say outside of the weekly updates
I mean, if you think adding 4 playlists and then adding another and then taking it out is live-service than you donât really understand the term and havenât played other games of service
Yes, they are.
They literally have 14 unused modes (ready to go) in offline mode, they are holding them back to drip-feed us content
They extended S1 because they knew they would need time to fix things that people were going to complain about.
They knew the backlash they were gonna get (probably didnât think it would be this severe) so they extended to give themselves time to make S2 a big update
They couldâve made more events or had a few playlists that rotated in and out if they wanted to give players something special.
It is only divided into chunks to pad out the season because they want to drip-feed content
I disagree with your disagreement of my assessment (lots of disagreeing, lol)
I have never seen a more succinct summary of the entire Halo community.
You both raise some good points for sure. I think an issue where we can all just keep poking holes in each otherâs arguments is that a blanket âthey do/donât communicate wellâ is that they have such a wide variety of communication depth across Infiniteâs issues.
Some really big issues the community complains about like a small volume of map and mode content have basically had no information provided. But then issues like the crazy store pricing and server/desync issues have seen multiple hot fixes and in-depth communication.
And then that brings us full circle back to the question at hand. Why havenât we really heard anything about the impending patch? If the rank reset is the biggest point of emphasis for them and thatâs why it was detailed, Iâll find that pretty disappointing
I dunno man, that is a succinct summary of gamers in general
Like, did you see the AoE community before AoE4 was released?
They were literally arguing over the graphics (they werenât pretty enough!!! They are perfect!!!)
Itâs my opinion that faster is better, in this instance in particular - launch progression was terribly slow.
I would agree if you said this wasnât progress, but I think it solidly is communication. Might not be what we wanted to hear, but I do think it qualifies as communicating what theyâre doing, IMO.
Here I was talking about their removal of the majority of the boosts and swaps in favor of actual cosmetic items instead.
On Feb 1, Andrew Witts (Lead MP designer) stated Attrition will be coming at some point in a more âconsistentâ manner - either its own playlist or as part of a new playlist, later. https://twitter.com/RevivedAntihero/status/1488587286342111232
No hard timeframe, which is disappointing, but it does point to the fact theyâre working on getting more playlists set up.
They also added FFA and SWAT, canât forget those. And yes, it seems a shame Attrition is gone just to come back later. Though, I do think that was an experimental inclusion to see if people liked the mode.
I both disagree and agree - I agree that they should have been there from the start, but I disagree that it is not live service - live service games add things post launch, and that is what this is - a post-launch addition.
In the 1/4 Tenrai update they made the statement that they heard feedback regarding the event pass not allowing enough earning of customization items: https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/fracture-tenrai-event-launch
I think the two are intrinsically tied - you have to be able to progress to customize in Infinite
I would point to the 1/4 Tenrai update again, and also the Cyber Showdown event pass where they increased the drop rate for customization options per the Tenrai learnings. I am assuming the same learnings will apply to future battle passes.
I donât believe we know what their plan is, unless I missed that roadmap somewhere.
If you make a statement with a deadline, itâs best to keep it. He missed his January deadline without a peep until people got upset. Granted, I totally understand heâs busy, but you should at least acknowledge youâre going to miss the self-imposed deadline before it passes.
As those had the most pressing needs at the time, Iâm sure thatâs why they focused on them. Most of the things the community wants to hear about are most probably in the realm of Statenâs roadmap, which is being worked on. If itâs going to be communicated there, do we expect it to be communicated in Unyâs blog posts first? I would think not.
It was intended to state that they are doing active work on the playlists - an example of active work on an existing playlist.
I think they also added some HCS game modes to customs later? HCS FFA or something like that, too. But yes, since the game fully launched on December 8th, we have not received a whole bunch of content.
While I agree I donât want to see content leave, I also understand they may have plans for how it will fit into the scheme of things that I donât have insight into.
General disagreement here - they got BTB fixed, which is massively important and was apparently time consuming. I do think the store modifications and event pass modifications theyâre making are important to get right as well, so I donât personally count that as âbarely anythingâ since itâs important to the game surviving as a F2P entity.
Fortnite does appear to be the only game Iâve come across that releases weekly patches, thatâs crazy!
If I look at other competing F2P titles, namely Apex and Warzone, those seem to be months between patches, let alone content updates.
I think Infinite is too early in its cycle yet to say how often itâll get content/patches, but I do suppose the roadmap will lay more of that out.
In this case, I donât generally think either opinion is wrong, just confusing to the other person. Clearly there is disagreement here.
Weâre also only 2.5 months post-launch - I am genuinely confused as to why people thought there would be new things that quickly after launch, with Christmas and everything. Personally, I wasnât expecting them to hit a cadence until spring/summer, given that there are almost zero smooth game launches these days. But I was also OK with Halo 3âs launch pre-DLC, and since Infiniteâs got around the same amount of content, I am also generally OK with that.
This is actually pretty close to my domain - I work in networking - and what they explained was more the interpolation of expected events given the inherent network and processing delay in game. This interpolation of what the game expects is where the issues come in because the client updates end up contradicting the interpolated results from the server processing and this causes issues. Basically - there is a bug in this process and theyâve added telemetry in the Feb patch to assist in examining it.
I think you are looking at the problems Infinite is having, from a technical perspective, as being relatable to the problems other games are having - there are no other games running on this engine, or this server code, and as such we canât realistically compare any other resolution time to Infinite, as the issue with BTB appeared to be something that wasnât logging well (they had to add telemetry to find it) and seemingly was just expected to work, as it was low-level code and that doesnât generally get changed often once itâs stable (and it was stable during the flights).
As someone who troubleshoots networking and software bugs for a living, low-level stuff breaking is a nightmare - it generally logs very poorly, and figuring out root cause stinks, massively.
Patches are code updates, and itâs coming mid-season? It would seem your expectations were set on what it was ahead of the contents being announced.
Disagree here - theyâre telling us whatâs top of mind and what theyâre working on and whatâs coming up in the immediate future. Itâs all been samey lately since theyâre working on the point issues affecting server functionality.
I think itâs more that the weekly updates collate the tweets and add a couple extra things in. But, they are responsive to people on twitter, just not to every single person. And they do respond on reddit occasionally as well - though not as often lately since people have been so aggressive.
I understand it just fine, I just disagree with your assertion. They have added content (albeit not much), but are also working on fixing the broken parts of the game (mainly server/client processing issues), which is a priority IMO.
And the offline modes all have large issues to tackle. Customs is downright janky at the moment - which is another thing they need to fix before they worry about new stuff. Quite frankly, I donât think those modes are probably performing reliably enough on the servers to work in matchmaking.
Joseph Staten, Head of Creative for Halo Infinite, explained the change in a blog post
âWe made the decision to extend Season 1 to give ourselves more time to ensure Season 2 meets our high quality bar and so we can finish development for Season 2 in a healthy and sustainable way for our team.â
The extension was so they could do it without crunch, according to that statement.
Nobody outside of current/former 343 employees knows whether or not your assertion is possible. We simply cannot know if it wouldâve been possible for them to make new events between when the decision to extend the season was made and when the first event wouldâve run out. You assume a lot of nefariousness in their actions here, which I find to be generally unlikely.
I agree, they do have varying depth of communication across the various content channels. My thought is this is likely due to the missing roadmap - the roadmap, to my general understanding, is more around new content (map, mode, weapons, season theme, etc) than adjustments to existing content. Thus, theyâre not going in depth beyond âWe hear you, we know you want to know more, and are working on showing you what we have lined upâ for the items that would be contained in that update (though, I wish they would give more there). Whereas, the store/server issues are for parts of the game that are already launched, and are thus tunable, and they can discuss in detail their tuning since thereâs no preallocated channel for that communication (i.e., no roadmap for tuning updates, those are to be done live).
For why no patch details - I would have assumed they could have just published the list of items in the patch and just update that the target has slid if they fail cert, but maybe theyâre trying to not say until it for sure passes cert? That one is a bit confounding.
I personally think this progression is horrible as it makes you play modes you donât want to and causes you to grind out challenges instead of playing the game to have fun and using teamwork
Wouldnât matter how fast it is, that is bad
Have to disagree
That was a good change
In other words, it is coming in S2, lol
That doesnât really count as communication, he is literally just saying, " It will return"
We all knew it was gonna return, we wanted to know when and why it left in the first place
I didnât
Live service games have a steady stream of content with major updates (seasons for Infinite)
We have not had a steady stream of new content
That isnât a statement on customization, that is a statement on progression
You also have to play matches to progress, does that mean adding a new playlist is a change to progression?
Fair enough
We kind of do.
The fact that we havenât received any new content since the Cyber Showdown event (and was taken away) pretty much proves they are going to drip-feed us content with seasonal updates
I totally agree.
But like I said before, Ske7ch mentioned a future Slayer playlist update coming soon 2 months ago and we havenât heard a peep on that since
I would think so.
Even just saying," Hey, weâre working on this and weâll have more info in the upcoming roadmap"
Just SOMETHING would be better than nothing
Iâd have to disagree
Adding HCS game modes to customs isnât really adding content, hardly anyone who plays customs is going to play the HCS gamemodes
How does it fit into the scheme of things? Other than prove my point again that they arenât doing a live service, they are sandbagging seasonal updates
Funny, you could only name 2 things and 1 involved the store, which is where they have spent the majority of their time.
It is clear where their priorities lie.
And BtB was a simple fix, at least it shouldâve been, that doesnât count as major work on the game
They have monthly updates but they also have lots of smaller things going on inbetween updates
3 months in is too early for you?
If they canât get updates pumping out on a regular basis within 3 months than I doubt they ever will
Obviously, otherwise we wouldnât be having this conversation
False, we are 3 months post launch, the MP launched back in mid-November
Maybe because any other f2p live service game has content that fast after launch.
The release date was their decision, they shouldâve prepared content beforehand to deal with the expectations, they didnât
If the engine code makes it that hard to solve simple issues than the engine will be the death of this game
Other gameâs mid-season updates tend to add content of some sort
My expectations were set on the industry standards
You are using a circle argument, I have already said that, yes, they have added content (very little) but nothing for quite some time.
That is not acceptable for a so called âlive serviceâ game
What âlarge issuesâ?
I have played them, they all seem ready to go other than Elimination
Theyâve lied before, I donât take anything they say anymore seriously
Events are not hard to do, Splitgate does it relatively easily with a fraction of the employee count
I donât think I will respond again, not that I donât think this is a constructive discussion, but I am kind of getting tired of going through and responding to all the different parts, lol.
All of 343âs posts feel like they are playing everything by ear, which is sad because the point of live service is that you already have the next thing done, and youâre working on the thing after it.
I thought their radio silence was 343 working ahead so they can say âOkay this will be out on X date, and this is projected to be around Y date.â I thought that was the point of the delay, so they can finish up Season 1 patches, events, and Season 2 with some wiggle room if something bad happens to season 1 (like the BTB issue.) Then they would spend at least the halfway mark (this month and on) working on season 2âs events and season 3. By the time season 2 drops, caught up with season 3 events and starting on season 4 and its contents. I hoped the 6 month delay meant they could finally catch up to being at least one season ahead
Instead it feels like they are still trying to figure out season 2 and season 3 is nowhere near started.
I knew the game was unfinished, but the longer we go without roadmaps, consistent updates, and release dates, the clearer to me how unfinished. If the product is this bad on our end, I can only imagine whatâs going on with their end. I donât know how they are going to catch up. And how will this effect MCC?
