One other segment of Halo Infinite's latest March Update blogpost was a section about the game's "critical issues" and how they're addressed.
Most of the problems right now that have been prioritised were "unknown-before-ship" issues that had a widespread negative impact. Some issues (e.g. BTB matchmaking) have been fixed, and some have even had improvements (e.g. anti-cheat), while others are in active development.
Internally, the fix process is known as "Hotlist" - and every week it's refreshed and reviewed to see what needs to be priortised. The team is currently working on a "public facing version" of this Hotlist - similar to the Halo Master Chief Collection updates, to make it clearer to players about what's being addressed.
Since the launch of Halo Infinite, we have been carefully tracking and analyzing all critical issues negatively impacting players’ experience with the game and supporting services. The internal name we have for this process is the “Hotlist.” Every week, we refresh the Hotlist with new insights and review issue prioritization and progress toward fixes. The Hotlist serves as a vital internal planning tool for our monthly development sprints as well as the Hotfixes, Content Updates, and Seasons we deliver to you.
Some of the issues on the Hotlist are gaps in the Halo Infinite experience that we only fully understood close to launch and were unable to address at an acceptable quality bar before ship. An example of this kind of “known” Hotlist issue is “Spartan Career” aka score-based player progression. Examples of “unknown” issues at launch were vulnerabilities in our anti-cheat system and problems with BTB matchmaking that we didn’t realize existed until we launched the game at scale.
Thus far, we have prioritized acute, unknown-before-ship issues that have a widespread negative impact on the shipped experience. Some items have been addressed and cleared from the Hotlist (e.g., BTB matchmaking), some have had partial improvements but need more work (e.g., anti-cheat), and others are in active development but not-yet-released (e.g., Spartan Career, Campaign Co-Op, and Forge). We are working on a public facing version of the Hotlist, similar to what the studio did during the Master Chief Collection updates, so that all of you will have a clear and constant window into the status of Hotlist issues as we work to address them.
Until this "public facing version of the Hotlist" rolls out, the best place for information and help is the Halo Support website.
One other update from 343 was the reveal of the next Season 1 event. "Tactical Ops" starts next week (see above) - and will include variants on the Tactical Slayer mode, and new Mark VII core-focused rewards.
Halo Infinite's head of creative Joseph Staten signed off by thanking players again for their patience and passion and by asking them to continue providing feedback.
"On behalf of the entire team, thank you again for your patience and your passion. Please keep the feedback coming, know that we are listening and learning, and that we are working hard to deliver more Halo Infinite content that we hope you love to play."
What are your own thoughts about the current state of Halo Infinite? Leave a comment down below.
[source halowaypoint.com]
Comments 4
343 was given an entire extra year to release Halo Infinite after that initial trailer was so poorly received. What did they do with that additional time? They made a mess of a product that was missing many key features, among them the ability to play local multiplayer or co-op as Guests (the fact you can work around this with actual accounts speaks to it being DELIBERATE), a huge swath of the campaign that was left on the cutting room floor (including varied environments/weather that even the original Combat Evolved on XBox managed to pull off), or the Forge. But they did have time to implement new ways of monetizing the game, like skins and customizations some of which look ripped straight off of Fortnite.
Some may claim that COVID is responsible, but let's be real here. What is there when you boot up the game is what 343 PRIORITIZED, and what's missing is what they deemed less important than a secondary revenue stream after the original point-of-sale. And a critically flawed game that still hasn't been fixed, let alone received any tangible additions or maps, in three months and running is a bad look for the studio.
The bottom line: ask yourself whether you'd rather be able to don cat ears for your Spartan or have all of the basic features intact that players have come to expect from this franchise from Day One. 343's priorities simply didn't line up with those of most gamers, and it's no surprise that it's come back to bite them hard.
"Some issues (e.g. BTB matchmaking) have been fixed, and some have even had improvements (e.g. anti-cheat), while others are in active development."
BTB, absolutely has not been fixed. Nither has general multiplayer. Sure you cAN get into a game now without the entire game needing restarted.
However said game is full of lag and desync thanks to their 30hz servers. Shoot someone square in the chest with a rocket with 70% of the time they survive. Melee well before someone else and trade, or you just straight up die to them instead.
I've even back smacked someone, only the the desync to let them jump over me, and kill me, at the same time. And we both wound up with a backsmack AT THE SAME TIME from it. That shouldn't even be possible lol.
Things like this makes it obvious that 343 is pretty much ignoring any feedback. Just like they did the entire development cycle and through the network test. On top of that, with recent information, it doesn't even look like with 2 extra years that it would have been done. Which would have put Tham at ~8.5 years of development time.
Still nothing on allowing crossplay to be optional ?
Would be interested to know if respawn points is an issue for other people... I've lost count how many times I've respawned to find an enemy in front of me with an instant kill. Super frustrating.
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