Halo: The Master Chief Collection Discussion

[Von Manstein]

First build in spring 2018... Biggest issue for me, aside from not working in random ways, is hit recognition across all OG games. Make it work and have great hit rec and I’ll be back in.

[CIutchy]

After the big fixes we need some smaller stuff like party restrictions along with ranks being tighter.

[AArkham]

I'm so hyped for this MCC update. I was heartbroken with the busted release, but still put countless hours into it. I'm so willing to forgive the launch and state of the game for years if it means a functioning product for the series I love. The improtant thing is that it works, and that it is a hub for players to play these games for the long time foreseeable future.

 

I'm very interested to see if the games are going to run in 4k on Xbox One X and what will specifically be changed.

[TeeJaY]

I feel the community should start compiling a list now so that when they do ask, it's all there. Orderly and concise.

[FarSight XR~20]

I feel the community should start compiling a list now so that when they do ask, it's all there. Orderly and concise.

 

The lists are out there. They know where to find them...but do they want to?

 

Also, from the Bonnie Ross video:

 

"even if it's half-baked or we don't know what we're doing"

 

They've got an out. Classic.

[AArkham]

Sketch just clarified that the game is being fixed and enhanced for Xbox One X. Guess that means I'm in the market for a 4k tv...

[TeeJaY]

The lists are out there. They know where to find them...but do they want to?

 

Also, from the Bonnie Ross video:

 

"even if it's half-baked or we don't know what we're doing"

 

They've got an out. Classic.

Yeah I don't really have my hopes up, but the least we can do is make it easy for them.

[Simplicityyy]

I love it. Shocked Bonnie brought it up. 

Pleeease work right this time.

[ripharambe]

Hell is freezing over.

[Riddler]

Even though its 343 we're talking about here, I'm not going to dismiss a potential update just because of past actions. You want a list, here is a list @@Tashi  

 

If anyone at 343 reads this, thank you for your time. 

 

What I think are reasonable requests that would make MCC a great game to play:

 

1. fix party system. People should always be able to connect to each other. No more quitting the build. EVEN if it means separating the games into 4 separate games, please just do it. It's not 2014. The promise that we could switch flawlessly might just be too much to handle. If separating into 4 games makes this whole mess easier to deal with, just do it. 

 

2. JOIN IN PROGRESS for custom games! Not being able to has butchered the casual halo fun gametype community. In halo 2, halo 3, reach, halo 4, games like FAT kid, troy, tower of power, duck hunt, etc kept on rolling because as people would quit out, more people would join between the rounds. Same thing goes for FFAs which were so common during halo 2 and halo 3's era. We need join in progress for custom games. If you can add it to CE, that'd be great too! Just make sure theres an option to close parties as well so people don't join a full 4v4 sweaty try hard mlg game :p

 

3. Quitting penalties. All tied to the address of the xbone. If I quit on gamertag A, quitting penalty of 15minutes. If I quit on Gamertag B on the same xbone, then the penalty increases to 30minutes. If you quit out again, banned for the day. Now if you do this within the next week, you start banned for the day. If you quit out when its already 3v4, then no quit penalty. Make sure dash boarding before the game starts/turning off your xbox before the game starts counts as quitting out. 

 

4. If theres going to be quit penalties, there can't be garbage game types. The only gametypes that are really bad is any gametype that doesnt start you with a BR or Pistol. No AR/SMG starts unless its action sack.

 

5. Delete the menu music. It's volume has been tampered with long enough, and it has never worked. Please save us our ears and just delete the music if you cant do turn it off Halo 2/3/reach style where you start the countdown for a game/playlist but then stop before it hits 0. 

 

6. Regional matchmaking when in ranked playlists. I don't want someone from the UK in my game if I'm from USA. At least make it an option before searching. I'd personally rather search for 1hour then be matched against someone from a different continent. 

 

Game bugs:

 

CE: 

 

1. Remove spawn sounds. For 2seconds off spawn, you will make no sounds. this is to replicate the OG xbox feel where you can't hear where people spawn. Being able to hear where people spawn breaks the balance of the game. 

 

2. Reduce the sound distance by half. The distance in which you can hear noise is over twice the distance on the OG game due to better processing power I assume. Fix please.

 

3. Go pay some modder on halo PC to fix all the Halo PC bugs. Seriously about 95% of the bugs on halobugs.com are KNOWN halo PC bugs that can be fixed (make sure you sort by HALO MCC, excluding HALO PC as it is used for both now). I know you (343) did this to for the first CE patch that fixed registration and a number of other issues. Just fork over a reasonable size commission to a guy since we all know it wont be a long lasting job. (User 002 is very respected. I dont know how available he is to do it). Even if you don't need to hire any outside guy, the bugs are listed in immense detail on halobugs.com with videos showcasing the bug. Some even show how to reproduce it. If you need help fixing them, please just ask! 

 

4. Please fix the sounds. Almost every sound uses their anniversary sound, which is not like "how it played back in the day." Not only are they not correct, but they're also worse. How can sounds be "worse?" Well frag grenades are harder to hear and pretty much everything is easier to hear. Remember most serious players will be playing with a headset or with high quality speakers nowadays so we need to adjust sound settings so they don't break game balance. Please just use the original sounds for pvp multiplayer. (heck for the grenade sounds in particular, 343 actually promised us they were going to fix it, but never got around to it  http://www.halobugs.com/#?b=17)

 

halo 2:

 

Fix the spawns so it's like halo 2's and not h2v. Pretty sure there has been a workaround for this on Vista before.

 

Pretty sure the radar doesnt work properly. 

 

halo3:

 

The sounds don't work properly. What I mean by this is certain sounds will sound closer or farther away than they actually are. So basically Surround Sound is busted. 

 

halo2/3:

 

The registration on MCC is worse than if I played h2 or h3 on xlink kai (a tunneling program) or even halo 3 BC. There is obviously something wrong going about with the hit detection. 

 

BTB:

Make it so you can match 6v6 or 7v7. The amount of times we have 12-15 people matched for 1-10minutes is astonding. Just kick one unlucky soul out if its 15 people and you cant match the game within 20seconds like Bungie did with halo 3. 

 

Also for btb only, have there be 4 games to vote for. Halo ce, 2, 3, and the 4th slot is 50/50 halo 4 or halo 2A.

[ChieftaiNZ]

Don't let this new MCC Patch make you forget that the Jedi blew a 10,000-2 lead.

 

rip zedd in 4k. What will he post now?

[Riddler]

Halo 2 has draw distances issues, similar to Halo 3's BC. What I mean is: objects and/or characters from a distance have visible black pixels on them. There is also an exclusive graphical glitch in Halo 2 which is bad... and I mean REALLY bad. By the way, that old 360 dashboard makes me nostalgic. Halo: CE seems relatively fine - no noticeable emulation issues for that game.

 

The reason OG games look clearer on the 360 is because of the Component or HDMI cables. I use an A/V cable for my OG Xbox, and I think I'll stick to playing games that were designed for that hardware. Phil Spencer said that OG Xbox games will look, and play better on the Xbox One, but that remains to be seen.

Ah yes, I've experienced that bug myself. Though it seems to be pretty rare since I've watched a good number of Mr monopoli streams (he speed runs h2 on the 360), and I've never seen it occur. 

 

For the 2nd point, while increasing from 480p to 720p will have a noticeable difference, that's not the case with halo 2. Going from 480p halo ce OG xbox to 480p hdmi/components on the 360 looks about the same honestly. However going from 720p on halo 2 OG xbox to 720P on the 360 has a vastly improved experience (same for 480p).  

[VinnyMendoza]

The biggest problem for CE on MCC is the hit registration and how it makes the pistol and sniper feel easier and more reliable. The Plasma rifle and shotgun need better latency correction or just at least intuitive lag consistency so I know ok I have to lead it a foot to make the shot connect reliably. Right now it feels like one match I can take a guy out no problem with a shotty blast straight to the chest, the next match I'll shoot the exact same way and he lives through 2 point blank blasts. It's so frustrating.

 

The pistol and snipe need less forgiving lag compensation or something. I'm not sure how it works but I am a sniping God on MCC but average on LAN. Swipe sniping is just too easy on MCC I think. And the same goes for the pistol.

 

Need to fix the game pulling bullets downwards to certain parts of the torso as well which causes the wall or floor to intercept bullets where you're aiming above the floor. It makes regaining top control nearly impossible when you can't just shoot your way out of the bottom. It reinforces turtling instead of aggressively trying to shoot your way out of a situation.

[Arena1999]

Ah yes, I've experienced that bug myself. Though it seems to be pretty rare since I've watched a good number of Mr monopoli streams (he speed runs h2 on the 360), and I've never seen it occur.  

There is a way to prevent that glitch from happening; one the comments posted on the video confirms it. You have to start the 360 with an empty disc, then put Halo 2 on the tray.

[Arena1999]

343i has a lot to make up for almos three years of a broken compilation of games. My fingers are crossed.

[VinnyMendoza]

For the sniper and pistol being too forgiving, here's a good explanation from halobugs.com. And this along with just more consistency in hit registration would go a LONG WAY to turning CE into a viable competitive shooter on MCC moreso than any of the other bugs on the website. These are the things which completely change the feel of the game to something that is bastardized and frustrating when compared to LAN:

 

Lag Compensation Seemingly Based on Ping+/-Fixed Amount, Not Variable to Average Ping or Deviation Thereof or Weapon Choice - HBWhipshot, Mar 18 2015, 19:38:09 PST - #128 Bug Status Unknown 343 Industries Unknown

While lag compensation is necessary for a modern game, and I am for it's inclusion in Halo, to many players it seems obvious that shooting is significantly easier sometimes than it would be on original Xbox.

 

The traditional base equation for lag compensation is Registration Time = Server Time - Ping of Packet

 

Because of additional possible problems, games often add in a "interpolation" factor, or fudge factor.

 

To experienced players of Halo CE, it seems obvious that currently,

Registration Time "Range"= Server Time - Average Ping of Packet +/- Fudge Factor.

This gives a larger range of time to make a possible shot. Just guessing I'd say you almost universally apply over 20ms.

 

The problem is that when applied to player who doesn't have much deviation (say 10ms) on ping, 20 ms can be a much larger than advantage than on one with a much higher (say 40ms) deviation on ping. This also is incredibly biased to certain weapons that would normally have a much smaller time range to successfully hit a target. Most noticeably, the sniper rifle has lost much of it's status as a very difficult weapon, gaining much more benefit from this than the pistol.

 

I suggest an alternative equation, that would correct this issue by relating the Lag Compensation more appropriately to average ping deviation, and the weapons intended aiming compensation.

 

Registration Time = Server Time - Ping +/- (Ping's Average Deviation (not standard deviation) * (1+(Weapon's Auto-Aim Angle in hundredths))

[Jake Teh Nub]

I didn't even know that you still couldn't JIP in custom games. That's ridiculous  That seriously shit on any plans I made with people when the game came out because someone ALWAYS had problems getting into the lobby and if we started the game they were screwed.

 

That needs to be one of the first things they fix if they want people to come back to the MCC. Customs will always be better than MM.

[Arena1999]

I didn't even know that you still couldn't JIP in custom games. That's ridiculous  That seriously shit on any plans I made with people when the game came out because someone ALWAYS had problems getting into the lobby and if we started the game they were screwed.

 

That needs to be one of the first things they fix if they want people to come back to the MCC. Customs will always be better than MM.

This is the first time I'm hearing about this. My jaw dropped when I read this sentence:

 

JOIN IN PROGRESS for custom games! Not being able to has butchered the casual halo fun gametype community.

[WildCherry]

While I doubt they actually give a fuck and will fix H1/H2 specifically, here are some things I know need fixing in H2:

 

Spawns: The spawns are easily predictable in this game especially in TS/Ball/Koth gametypes. You spawn with your teammates 99% of the time, I feel that this current build of H2V is set on the 1.1 update spawn system from OG when instead it should be on the latest 1.5

 

Trading: Trading was RARE in H2, only situations I recall trading in OG was when the host pooped out a shotgun blast or a grenade. You can obviously tell something could be fixed because a lot of the time when you kill someone, you see their br STILL FUCKING FLOATING and shooting an extra shot even when their body is falling.

 

Radar: The radar in Halo 2 should not be pulsating, it needs to be constant and never refresh.

 

Emblems: This should be addressed for Halo 2 because emblems are actually over the players head in-game.

 

Shot registration: While the shot registration feels great sometimes, there is also a problem with un-scoped shot reg. I.E. In OG I can un-scope out BR someone from red eli to pink street on middy fairly easily whereas on MCC version I have to scope in 99% of the time to get the full registration. Same goes for long distance sniping, on OG I can 5x scope someone from small tower to big tower on ascension and on MCC I find myself having to go 10x most of the time to make sure it fully registers.

[Basu]

While it's cool that they're going to do something with MCC again, I'm not holding my breath. They're still talking about "improving" and "enhacing", not fixing any issues. And even if they fix all the bugs and glitches, the game still has tons of issues:

 

• Cross-game playlists with no filters and the resulting mass quitting and QTB
• Low population due to being broken 3+ years
• Terrible playlist and gametype management. They haven't done a good job the last 3 years, why would they suddenly start now?

 

But still, a functioning MCC would be great just to use for LANs and customs, even if MM continues to be garbage. And I will definitely be there for the beta build and give my feedback, but I'm not getting too excited for this. A few small bug fixes for the major issues and one or two playlist updates is all I expect.

[FarSight XR~20]

I just KNOW that, if by some miracle things actually get FIXED instead of "improved", they're going to focus on the stuff they developed themselves, as in NOT the Bungie trilogy that I and so many others BOUGHT AN XBOX ONE FOR. Even so, here I go farting into the wind with the fixes I want to see...

 

*sigh*

 

@@Frankie @@Tashi @@ske7ch

 

Number one, and the absolute priority, DEDICATED SERVERS 100% OF THE TIME, INCLUDING IN CUSTOM GAMES. Throw out every shred of P2P code. Not only is this how Halo 5 works, but the lack of dedicated servers was given as the reason why Halo Anniversary didn't have multiplayer.

 

Number two, REPLACE THE HALO 1 AND HALO 2 PC PORTS WITH THEIR ORIGINAL CONSOLE VERSIONS. The differences are pretty much all negative, especially from a competitive point of view. I played some Halo PC once, and neither the gameplay nor the graphics felt nearly as tight as the AWARD WINNING, XBOX BRAND DEFINING console original. I also recall Halo 2 PC being viewed negatively compared to the console version. Details of Halo 1's differences can be found here, here, and here. I'm not as well versed in Halo 2's differences, but some can be found here. Oh, and don't say it's not possible. We know you have a team that can do it. And do a complete 60 FPS conversion this time.

 

Number three, fix the matchmaking, ranking, and playlists, which are the most broken/half-assed parts of the game. Halo 2's online multiplayer worked almost flawlessly ON LAUNCH DAY IN 2004. Take a moment and think about that.

 

Number four, match each game's control schemes up to their originals. Some are incorrect, as well as incorrectly labeled (at least they were the last time I played, I don't think I bothered trying the most recent patch).

 

And number five, fix the menus. Pretty sure they're still buggy and crudely organized. Having each game's original menu music would be a nice touch as well. Give the game the slick, snappy presentation every other Halo title has.

 

Bonus request: Add a custom game browser. I think Halo 5 has one? But get the rest of the game working first.

 

You've taken up the challenge - now show us what you've got.

[OldBlu]

I'm cautiously optimistic.

 

but even if MCC gets every fix it could possiblely get the population will still be terrible.

 

"MCC's online component will be free to play on all current and future Xbox One platforms without a gold subscription."

 

^that's the news I really want to hear, because even a fixed MCC after this long will be the shell of the game it should have been otherwise.

[Rudzki]

Did anyone else see the Xbox Store box art leak that suggests it’s also going to be available on PC?

 

 

Direct link; https://compass-ssl.xbox.com/assets/32/e6/32e64d98-fbc4-4b10-aeb3-6a82a4a0e393.jpg?n=X1S-Halo-5-MCC-Boxshot-500GB_Content-0_740x417.jpg

[Moa]

Did anyone else see the Xbox Store box art leak that suggests it’s also going to be available on PC?

 

 

Direct link; https://compass-ssl.xbox.com/assets/32/e6/32e64d98-fbc4-4b10-aeb3-6a82a4a0e393.jpg?n=X1S-Halo-5-MCC-Boxshot-500GB_Content-0_740x417.jpg

Just a mistake by whoever made it - hence why it also says "ONLY ON XBOX ONE".

[Dalahi Lama]

 

 

I like your optimism but frank and sketch don't come here anymore and Tashi is just here because of PR, he'll disappear in a few.