Halo Collection Patch Starts Punishing Quitters More Severely This Week
The next content update for Halo: The Master Chief Collection has passed certification and is expected to launch this week, Microsoft has announced. Now, 343 Industries has posted the complete patch notes. As explained previously, this patch will introduce new penalty systems for quitting, betrayals, and idling.
Players who quit a match at any period after the start of voting up until the game ends will receive a ranking hit and a penalty to their Xbox One reputation profile. Once the update is applied, players who quit, betray, or too frequently idle during a "set period of time" will be temporarily banned from matchmaking.
343 didn't say how long the temporary bans will last. But should offending players engage in negative behavior once they are reinstated, they can expect to receive longer temporary bans.
This week's Master Chief Collection patch also makes various stability and ranking calculation improvements. In addition, in the case of a map/mode selection voting tie, the game will randomly assign a winner instead of defaulting to the left-most option.
The full patch notes are below.
Players will now receive a quit penalty and rank penalty for quitting any time after matchmaking voting begins in all matchmaking playlists, both ranked and unranked
Added matchmaking betrayal booting for Halo: Combat Evolved
Matchmaking voting now randomizes winner in the case of a tie, rather than selecting the left-most option
Made a variety of improvements to ranking calculation
Fixed an issue which could result in ranking down after winning a match
Emblems and clan tags, in addition to gamertags, are now hidden while searching for a match
Updated Team colors to always appear correctly in Forge mode
The level of menu music will now drop when other players join a lobby / are connected to other players
Fixed an issue where menu music could cut out after a game or on startup
The controller schematic for H1 "Boxer" now correctly matches the in-game control layout
Improved Classic/Remastered UI launch settings for Halo: CE and Halo 2 Campaign
Improved matchmaking messaging to players
Fixed an issue where lobby player positions could shuffle after a promotion to party leader
Fixed an issue where players could select and use nameplates that they had not unlocked
Fixed an issue where profiles could match into a game after the match started
Made a variety of fixes for players who could become stuck at the “Downloading Latest Data” screen
Fixed the glitched Who Needs Them? achievement
Improved a variety of compatibility issues
Made a variety of stability improvements
After this update is released, 343 will shift its focus to an additional playlist update. Looking further out, 343 said it plans to deliver some back-end adjustments to improvement matchmaking across the globe.
If you've already moved on, you don't have to wait long for the next Halo game, as Halo 5: Guardians arrives on October 27 for Xbox One.
