There is a lot of negativity and whining around here so I figured it would be nice to start a thread posting tips that people have noticed help them out whether it be matchmaking, campaign, stability or whatever.
Here are some things I do that seem to help, some of which are pretty obvious, some not so much:
Matchmaking:
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When leaving matchmaking with a party, don’t try to join the party back up right away. First back out to the campaign menu, then go back to the multiplayer menu and join the party leader. I’m not sure why, but since the last update that has never failed to get me right back into the party I was just in as long as EVERYBODY in the party follows those steps. Its really only about a 10 second round trip and much more convenient than quitting the game entirely.
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Make sure your NAT type is OPEN! This is a rather obvious one that anybody who has played previous halo games should be familiar with but I am still not convinced people actually know that it is open and they just assume it is. There are multiple ways to accomplish this:
-Enabling UPnP on your router can work, but if you have more than one xbox or just not a great router, the table can get screwed up and give you a strict or moderate NAT without you realizing it.
-Placing your Xbox on the DMZ can work as well, but this can be a security risk and when I have tried it in the past, it hasn’t been as reliable as you would think.
-The best way I have found to guarantee an open NAT is to set your Xbox up with a Static IP and forward all the proper ports to it. You can follow one of the strategies outlined here: Create a Port Forward for Xbox One in your Router
please note that the ports between the Xbox One and the 360 are close but not all the same, so if you did this for your 360 back in the day, you will need to make further adjustments and not just reassign the rules you already have set up to the new IP address
- Another obvious one but when joining a party everybody connect to the person with the best connection. And no that’s not a T1 or DSL. shoot for a quick cable connection or even better, fiber if one of your friends has it.
Campaign:
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For people having trouble with checkpoints not saving properly… There isn’t much you can do about this right now other than wait for an update that will fix this. Because of that, a little planning will go a long way to alleviating your frustration. Make sure that when you are playing through some campaign missions you have time to get through the whole thing and don’t save and quit until right after the next mission starts. Also, if you don’t have time to do that, just pause the game and leave it running. I have done that successfully, paused the game, went to watch some Netflix, and when I went back to MCC it was still waiting and had been running in the background.
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Blank screen when loading H2A campaign. Sometimes switching from the new engine back to the old engine and vice versa takes care of this. Usually not when it has happened to me, but sometimes…
General Stability:
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Quit out of any program that you had been using before starting MCC. for example, if you were watching netflix go to the Netflix app, hit the menu button, then “Quit”. The increase in stability is probably more a consequence of the last update than anything but doing this seems like best practice anyway.
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Set your Xbox to “Low Power” mode instead of “Instant On” (or whatever those power options are called, I’m not sitting in front of my Xbox at the moment) That way when you turn it off it actually turns fully off, clearing out the memory and allowing the system to start fresh next time you go to use it.
I have been following those tips for the last couple of weeks and having great success finding games quickly, joining lobbies with my friends and the general stability has been good. It seems like experiences with MCC are all over the board so these may not help for everyone, but they are worth a shot and could reduce your frustration considerably if they are effective.
If you have any other tips that seem to work post them here!