Quitters No Longer Tolerated In Halo: The Master Chief Collection
Halo: The Master Chief Collection has been having some problems with players who quit the game abruptly when it looks like they’re losing. There are also “betrayers,” those who act against their own teammates….and then there are the unexplainable players who start a match and just stand there until they die.
As of this week, developer 343 Industries is applying a patch to the game that, among other things, puts the hammer down on quitters, betrayers and the like. After the start of voting and up until the game ends, if you intentionally quit at any time you will be temporarily banned from participating in any more matches. There’s no word on how long the temp-bans last, but if you return and do it again, the ban will be for a longer period of time.
So where does that leave those of us with touchy Internet connections who can get booted off at random? Well, Microsoft isn’t saying, but hopefully the coding can discern the difference. The patch does a few other things, but limiting annoying match behavior is the most important.
- 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
No word if these rules will also be applied to the multiplayer in Halo 5, which hits October 27.