It’s been a rough go for the team over at 343 since the launch of the Halo: Master Chief Collection a couple of weeks ago, and the complaints from gamers who still can’t get the multiplayer to function properly continue to pile up. Issues ranging from matchmaking errors, to long wait times, to severely imbalanced teams keep coming in, despite multiple patches on both the server side of the game and the game client since launch.
Late yesterday, Bonnie Ross, head of 343 Industries issued a statement on the Halo Waypoint blog acknowledging the issues and promising multiple fixes in the coming weeks. Ross was quick to point out that the issues gamers are facing are not problems that appeared in their pre-launch test environment, and noted that the team is trying to come up with new solutions to address the issues.
Ross also stated that they intend to “take care of all owners of Halo: The Master Chief Collection” and that we’ll hear more about what they intend to do after the lingering problems have been resolved. The full statement from Ross can be seen below.
On Nov 11th we released Halo: The Master Chief Collection. The goal being to create a tribute to Halo fans around the world, and to celebrate the Master Chief’s debut on Xbox One. With the initial release of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, however, we have not delivered the experience you deserve. I personally apologize for this on behalf of us all at 343 Industries. Our team is committed to working around the clock until these issues are resolved.
While our team works on continual improvements and towards solutions, my commitment to you is that we will take care of all owners of Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Our primary and continued focus is first on fixing the issues at hand. Once we’ve done that, we will detail how we will make this right with our fans.
On the matchmaking front, we have encountered unexpected issues that were not apparent in our internal test environment and that have resulted in a frustrating experience, including long matchmaking times and low session success rates. Within 343 Industries and Xbox, I can assure you that resolving these issues is our #1 priority. We continue to partner with the Xbox platform team to analyze all data to make ongoing server-side adjustments to continually improve the matchmaking experience. We are also preparing additional content updates that will address existing campaign, UI, and other issues to improve the overall experience. With each update we will carefully analyze data to confirm that the improvements we’re seeing internally are also happening with fans at home.
Know that we’re trying to be as nimble as possible to put fixes in place. We are planning multiple server-side tweaks and game content updates over the coming weeks. Looking forward, I want to give you a high-level cadence of the latest updates we’re currently working on. Development and testing of our latest content update continues and we are on track for release later this week. We will update you on the status and patch notes of the content update once we have a better understanding of our release window. Only through making changes on both the “server side” (matchmaking and other server rulesets) and, via content updates (to the game itself), can we make the significant progress we’re working towards. And in the interest of expediency, we’re attacking the problem from both sides, non-stop.
As we have been, we will continue to post the details of our updates and other adjustments on Halo Waypoint. Please check our forums at http://aka.ms/mcc_updates for the latest details as we roll out further fixes.
Please accept my heartfelt apologies for the delay and for the negative aspects of your experience to date. We’re doing everything in our power to resolve it as quickly as possible.
It’ll be interesting to see what they have in mind for owners of the collection. Some form of DLC that was originally supposed to be paid content is the safe bet, but we’ll have to wait to know for sure.
If you’re still suffering through the plethora of problems in the competitive multiplayer modes, or if you’ve seen an improvement since the last patch, head the comments and let us know what you’re experience has been like.
Source: Halo Waypoint
Starman
I haven’t actually played the multiplayer as I’ve been playing the campaigns… or I was until the latest patch which causes the game to force close when I try to resume. Bloody annoying. I hadn’t actually had a single problem until now.
Dylan Gregson
That’s a pretty big and inexcusable problem though.
Hopefully it’s all running smooth across the board soon, it looks like such a good collection to buy into.
beeje13
Ive only played single player too, and I’ve just gone on to continue, and my progress has been put back to the beginning of the mission.
Starman
That’s kind of what happened to me. It prompted me to update when I found a terminal that plays a video via the halo app. After updating and resuming I was on the previous level, the screen was black but I could fire & jump etc and get the sound effect. Subsequent reboots just force close when I try to resume.
Perldrummr
FYI if your screen is black after resume try pressing whatever button select is called now (or whatever control you have set for the switchable graphics and the screen will show up again.
Forrest_01
“We are planning multiple server-side tweaks and game content updates over the coming weeks”
He’s a poet & he didn’t know it! Or perhaps he did – Who knows?
Kennykazey
It’s a she. :-)
Forrest_01
Yes, you are right – The name Bonnie being the giveaway there!
D’oh.
Unfortunately, I missed that & just read ‘Ross’.
Also D’oh.
Kennykazey
As annoying as it is, I’m not mad at them. There’s no point in that. This is what happens when multiple studios work on a collection of multiple games and try to make everything work under one roof.
It’s nice to see the frequent updates server-side on Waypoint. It offers confidence that they’re working on it.
Just make it work. This is an important title for Xbox, equivalent to Mario Kart in some ways. A game most of the userbase will have, and continue to play for years.