Halo: The Master Chief Collection's delayed and much-needed patch will be released later today, 343 has announced.
The Top 5 Competitive Halo Maps Of All Time
A post on Halo Waypoint explains that the update will launch mid to late afternoon Pacific Time, so those in earlier time zones won't be getting it until sometime tonight. The post lists extensive patch notes, which will focus primarily on fixing the severe matchmaking issues.
Extremely long or indefinite wait times have plagued players since launch (GameNGuide can independently confirm the issues, which render matchmaking nearly unusable), but the fixes in this update should go a long way in improving the experience.
HBO GO Is Now Available On Xbox One
Below are some of the highlights, and the full list of game-specific fixes can be found on the announcement. The Master Chief Collection will hopefully look like a different game when it comes out the other end of this update, and players will recognize many of these fixes to be blessings:
- Addressed a number of issues that resulted in extended matchmaking times and low matchmaking success rates.
- Made a number of updates to how matchmaking progress is communicated to the player. With this update, you'll see better, more frequent and more informative status updates throughout the matchmaking flow - so "Players Found" for example, will be displayed to let players know where they are in the matchmaking process instead of simply wondering if it's going to connect.
- Made an update to ensure that parties stick together when returning from the post-game carnage report
- Prevented the ability for players "kick" other players from matchmaking games
- Made an update to ensure that the Roster correctly displays the "searching" UI rather than "My Game Session" while searching for players
- Removed the possibility to boost ranking through a custom games exploit
- Made an update to ensure that players cannot get stuck in the matchmaking screen during map voting
- Made an update to ensure that the "Connecting to your game" message no longer incorrectly displays in the lower right of the screen during gameplay
- Made an update to the "team creation" phase that allows players to be grouped by team
- Made an update to prevent players from seeing the "connection failed" dialogue if disconnected during the map voting screen
- Improved roster / matchmaking lobby stability
- Made improvements to the accuracy and stability of the "Game Session Details" UI
- Improved version compatibility
