Dear 343:
Are you going to put effort into Halo 5 to ensure that lag-switches are rendered useless? Will you have enough respect for the Halo franchise, and for Halo fans, to go with a dedicated (AND authoritative) server to host games? I have been playing Halo for a decade now, and as ridiculous as it may sound to some people, this game holds sentimental value. That is why I was so -Yoink- excited to not only hear that there was a new Halo coming out (after having waited for so long, and with all the friggen multiplayer/hosting bugs that plague 3) that 343 was doing it. I read every article, examined every screenshot, and I don’t think I have ever been as excited for a new game to come out as I was for Halo 4 (Halo vets, you know exactly what I’m talking about). You blew me away at first… the campaign, the graphics, the gameplay, the way that you paid homage to other Halo’s while making this your own and saying to the world “this is how Halo Multiplayer should be” with Halo Infinity left me awestruck.
And then the Infinity Challenge started… and the Halo bliss I had been experiencing was destroyed, and this incredible game was overcome with a plague of players exploiting the one thing you so severely overlooked… the game hosting. Epic Fail as the kids say these days…
I cannot speak for the entire Halo community of course, but I know that there are some Halo Vets out there who can agree with me that this is the ONE thing that you should not have dropped the ball on. Granted, there are rotten apples who only want to get ranked #1 no matter how much cheating/lag-switching is required, but there are those of us who absolutely love this game Franchise, and we take pride in KD ratio and our rank, and for you to allow SO MANY players to make those numbers meaningless (they are not to me, I am proud of my KD, but as far as a ranking system is concerned they are 110% meaningless) is a kick to groin.
I f-ing love Halo, and I would love to know how I am ranked against other players in it, in an authoritative server-environment so that I know 95% of my rank is earned, whether it be good or bad, at least YOUR SERVER was the decision maker, and that lag switches have been rendered useless. I would buy every map-pack, I would even purchase new colors or skins or anything!!!..
I’d buy it all (my Xbox avatar proudly wears a halo helmet and hoodie as much as this game can frustrate me with it’s matchmaking/host setup), but you did the one thing that I was hoping you wouldn’t do, and you screwed up and went with the same damn Matchmaking system using players consoles as the game host rather than using a server?!?!? I expect that from titles like Black Ops II, but Halo? Especially Halo 4, after it being SO long since 3? Where is the pride in the franchise? Because the kids that are taking advantage of your hosting system don’t have a friggen clue what it means to be a Halo vet. This game has always been on the cutting edge, always been the -Yoink-, hand-down as far as FPS’s. This is f-ing Halo, and you haven’t done the name much service. You built new maps, you built guns, you built an awesome Inifinity system, and then you put it all on top of a hosting system akin to Call of Duty’s? That game, and it’s lagging punks, will never know true FPS like those of us who’ve been playing Halo for over a decade will. This should be FPS at it’s finest, all being brought down by the same crappy hosting system that plagued Halo 3.
I expected more 343. Not from the get-go, but at some point. I knew things would be buggy, players would be finding exploits (I will admit you’ve fixed quite a few exploits), but you’ve done nothing to fix the game hosting situation? I have too many years of experience of dealing with this crap with Halo 3 to have the same things plaugue my gameplay in 4. It’s not that they exist at all, it’s that it is the same exact crap! Minus the auto-aim that punks used in Halo 3, I see no improvement in the matchmaking system whatsoever. Infinity Multiplayer is awesome, until you get into a game where EVERYONE but one player is lagging… and your game does nothing about it… it will just go on the entire match?! Are you friggen kidding me!? You built Halo 3 with better graphics and new maps with some RPG elements, and you completely ignored what every Halo fan has been begging to be fixed since day one!!! And the worst part is that the chumps at COD:BO2 bested you… their system actually switches hosts if the host is laggy… but not yours. No, I get what I got with Halo 3, which is a game that lags the entire time.
Halo 3 came out before every punk in the universe could youtube how to create a lag-switch, so having to deal with that BS is a given. But this day and age, not going with an authoritative server is purely a financial decision, and one that will cost you a player if Halo 5 is the same.
You had me 343… up until the Infinity Challenge when you said to the world “find ways to exploit our game and you could be in Halo 5!!!”. Probably should have put a little effort into the game-host situation beforehand, but then again I guess that wouldn’t help your bottom line as much as the next map pack, huh?