There are heaps of updates in development studio 343’s latest patch for the buggy multiplayer modes in the Xbox One’s month-old Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Just how effective those are, however, is a bit hit or miss, according to my and some other players’ experiences.
Here’s the full list of fixes, according to 343:
MATCHMAKING & PARTIES
- Made improvements to matchmaking team balance
- Made an update to improve matchmaking search times and success rates, specifically expediting the “Players Found” and “Connecting Session” search phases
- Made improvements to prevent a player’s rank from resetting unexpectedly
- Made an update to resolve an issue that allowed players to be placed into an incorrect lobby after a matchmaking game
- Made improvements to prevent the party from being disbanded upon returning to lobby
- Made an update to ensure that players are sorted by team in the “Match Found” screen
- Resolved an issue where Team Slayer matches in Halo 3 could separate players onto individual teams
- Resolved an issue where players could be placed into a group of 7 players and unable to find more
- Made improvements to ensure that the party-leader is prompted to “Bring Party” when leaving a lobby
- Made an update to ensure that split-screen players cannot be divided onto different teams
- Made improvements to ensure that clients are not kicked from parties at the end of matchmaking games with a “failed to connect” error
- Made an update to ensure that Halo 2: Anniversary matches do not continue indefinitely after entire opposing team quits
- Made an update to ensure that parties are not separated when the party leader navigates through multiple titles
CUSTOM GAMES
- Made improvements to prevent manual team selection from getting reset after a Custom Game match
- Made an update to ensure that the “Make Party Leader” command functions correctly
ACHIEVEMENTS
- Made an update to ensure that the “Too Close to the Sun” achievement unlocks when prerequisites are met
- Made an update to ensure that the “Monopolized” achievement unlocks when prerequisites are met
- Made an update to ensure that the “Devastating” achievement unlocks when prerequisites are met
- Made an update to ensure that the “You’re Joking” achievement unlocks when prerequisites are met
GAME-SPECIFIC
- Made improvements to Halo 2: Anniversary objective pickup, specifically in regards to objective “juggling”
- Made an update to Halo 3’s movement input, specifically to resolve a deadzone issue which affected moving in a straight line
- Made additional improvements to Halo: CE fall damage scenarios
- Made an update to resolve a Halo 2 Classic campaign issue where a black screen could overlay the gameplay screen
STABILITY
- Made a variety of stability improvements across the following areas:
- Matchmaking
- Custom Games
- Halo 4 Campaign
MISC.
- Made an update to ensure that clan tags appear in the post-game carnage report for all players
- Made an update to ensure that players are sorted by team in the post-game carnage report
- Made an update to ensure that emblems are displayed correctly in the post-game carnage report
The biggest issue plaguing the Collection since its release has been the trouble players have connecting to multiplayer matches across any of the four Halo games in the collection.
In my own experience, even smaller matches would take upwards of 30 minutes to connect to, if they connected at all. Having tried the game a bit today, post-patch, that seems to have been fixed.
I’ve been able to connect to each of the multiplayer match options in testing today, and other players have been reporting the same. I’ve even joined lobbies to resounding hoots and hollers of affirmation from other players’ mics. People looking to join 16-player matches in Big Team Battles can expect to have longer wait times, but you can connect to them eventually.
Things aren’t as steady for all players, as reports on Reddit, Halo Waypoint and NeoGAF show that results are all over the board, with some players still not able to connect to any matches.
Most of the teams I’ve been placed in as of today have been fairly balanced, which suggests that another of the Collection’s faults may be fixed by this patch. The worst lingering issue I’ve experienced though, is with keeping a party together when leaving a match to go back to a lobby. Our own Kirk Hamilton was booted from my party three times during testing today.
Let us know in the comments if you’ve been playing and how your experience has been.
Comments
35 responses to “The Halo Collection Is Getting Better, But It’s Still Not Fixed After A Month”
I still can’t believe Microsoft botched their Number One franchise.
This and the upcoming Halo5 were my main reasons for buying an Xbox One. They screwed it so royally, that I ended up taking it all back.
I was so excited for this, and they just didn’t give enough of a shit to do it properly, first time.
They really blew so much goodwill by rushing this out.
Yep, same here. The console is slow and buggy, Xbox Live is down half the time, Kinect seems incapable of understanding anything I say or telling me apart from my couch.
I stuck with it because I really, really love Halo. But, alas, the MCC is the most disappointing game I’ve ever played. Matchmaking is broken when it isn’t nonexistent, campaigns don’t save, split-screen has these giant black bars taking up the sides of the screen…
I haven’t stuck the ‘Bone on eBay just yet, but that’s just a matter of laziness. I bought a new graphics card and I’m back on PC, where the online is free and never goes down, and if things don’t work a quick Google and a tweak will make it better.
I would say the Xbox One has turned me off consoles altogether, but I really love my WiiU.
/endrant
I’ve rejoined the PC master race recently and have all but ditched the XBone for the same reasons. I’m going to keep my XBone for now as eventually I may end up switching back to Mac as now that I’m on PC all I want to do is play games haha
Forza Horizon 2 is the only reason the XBone is getting any of my attention at all at the moment… Hopefully things might turn around with Halo 5, but I’m feeling kind of blase about the whole franchise at the moment.
I’ve only been playing the campaigns and haven’t had an issue but it’s unacceptable for a game to be out this long and still be broken.
Um, hello drive club? That is still more rooted and been out for months.
Doesn’t make this any more acceptable.
I never said other games weren’t broken? Just that it’s unacceptable.
There’s always some guy who actually gets offended that one console is criticised and not another, really hurt intelligent discourse and smacks of a special kind of insecurity. Video game insecurity.
Not really dude. Would hazard a guess and suggest my 30+ years as a gamer gives me an open view. I was alluding to the game having more than the mp. Making noise does not fix the issue, (which is not good), but clearly they are working on it. They had to push for Nov 11 for the 10 year halo 2 birthday. Remember that as a reason for lack of polish.
They “had to push”? I always find this sort of comment amusing. It’s not as if they didn’t know they were going to make this game, it’s not as though Microsoft’s biggest and most important internal development team didn’t know when the Xbox One was coming, it’s not as if Microsoft didn’t have this planned for a long period of time, foreshadowed by the remake of Halo 1. I don’t see how anyone involved in the creation of this product could have been “caught off guard” by its development and release. There should never have been a “push”, although you’re right, there probably was.
I don’t understand how this generation has had such a pathetic start. Every developer knew it was coming, every consumer knew it was coming, why is everyone caught with their pants down? It makes no sense to me.
thing is drive club cant disappoint as no-one had any expectations to begin with…
Same her my campaign hasn’t had any problems and its pretty fun going back through but multiplayer (the main reason I bought it) has really rubbed me the wrong way and I kinda wish I could return it and just grab something else
Inexcusable really. I’ve heard all arguments supporting and defending 343i, but I can’t in all good conscience let them off the hook for this. They have destroyed what would have been a lively and well populated community – now only the die hard Halo fans will remain.
or friends of the die hard like myself lol I much prefer gta v
I’m still dissapointed that the version of Halo CE in this collection wasn’t just a literal copy+paste of Anniversary. Anniversary did it right, but the version in MCC has way too many little changes that throw the whole thing off, like fall damage being way higher than normal, or Elite’s shields not flaring up and dissapating when broken when in HD mode.
Eh, there still were some problems in the Anniversary edition. Including up to complete areas being removed.
Shiiit, they did that? What’d they take out?
Wait, I know this. It was something a lot of people complained about in the original area. Some huge place you had to retread and get lost in…
The Library! It was the Library, right? They changed the Library or something.
There’s more than just multilayer. Great fun ripping through them again from first episode. It is disappointing, but will be fixed in time. Rather than whinge and whine, play another game instead.
Not sure how you can defend developers shipping broken games. This year has been a horrible year for the industry in terms of games being released in complete or flat out broken and requiring patches to be fixed. It shouldn’t be tolerated. I’m loving the halo collection myself but I bought it to replay the single player campaigns, I have friends who bought it only to play online again and they have been ripped off with a broken product.
100% this. We really shouldn’t be letting this slide with how rampant broken games have been this year.
Yes but people have paid full price for a fully working game now. If they wanted to play something else, they could have waited and in 6 months and bought the game when its price has dropped (and missed the peak number of other people playing online).
My halo 2 doesn’t even work co-op. So yes the campaigns are super fun to play through….IF THEY ACTUALLY WORK
I hate 343i proving me right >:
You are some sort of Halo prophet…
I first noticed it in that Halo cartoon when I realised it wasn’t as good as Batman: Gotham Knight.
It took me a full day to access the download. But since I’m playing the campaign only, I was locked out of a fully working campaign, because Micro-fuck denied me an option to ignore a struggling server update because of a total screwup on Microsoft’s side, and I couldn’t play the game at all.
After Microsoft declared class war on games rights seven months ago which they had to backtrack on, we see exactly where their nightmare world for us was headed.
They hate us but Love our money.
Can we get a team br mode. Im sick of always having people pick that. Hate the mode
Hey, go post that in the forums. You’ll just love the comments.
i still cant play halo 2 anniversary co-op! its the main reason they released the freakin game! MAKE IT WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That was the main reason I was GOING to buy the game. Luckily, my soured opinion of 343i caused me to wait. And it laid off.
Well you would be happy to know it’s a random incident and it only happens to random people. I am one of those randoms
Are all the maps spread out across 4 discs or did I read that wrong?
You read that wrong.
There’s one disc and a 15 gig patch.
It’s the maps from all four games, plus the ones from the PC specific versions, plus the new remakes… and I suppose you could include whatever gets made in forge mode too.
That’s awesome! When I read that it I thought you had to swap discs if your mates were on another one.
i cant finish halo 3 co-op as after tsavo highway the mission gets uber stuttering the fps must be down to like 5 its completely unplayable. really annoying.
Until they add real LAN features it will stay broken in my eyes