Matchmaking Update!
And since it’s been a good, long while since we had our old friend Shishka lend some of his soothing words to our weekly update regarding Halo 3’s matchmaking status (and since he promised to deliver above), here’s what the man had to say for himself:
You may have noticed the “MLG FFA” shaped hole in Matchmaking.
MLG FFA’s removal is the first step in preparing Halo 3 for Reach’s release. Between now and the day Reach is in your trembling hands we’re going to actively downsize and concatenate Halo 3’s matchmaking lineup. What does this mean?
- Playlists are going to be combined, modified, or removed, based on how we predict they will perform once Reach is released. Ultimately the number of playlists will be reduced from its current number.
- No new playlists will be added from this point onward.
- Playlists will progressively become DLC required, leaving Social Slayer and Lone Wolves as the only DLC-optional playlists once again.
- Double EXP weekends will come to an end on 9/13. But not before we throw them a little going away party.
- 7 on 7th will live on, but beyond the release of Reach no further updates are planned for Halo 3 Matchmaking.
In summary: If you have a favorite playlist, you should start playing it now, because it might not be around forever.
Now that everyone’s digesting that bit of sobering news, I thought I’d try to slip past Sketch’s censor and talk a bit about Reach’s matchmaking plan. As I write this, test is banging their bug bats against Reach’s matchmaking system, which a prototype configuration representative of what Matchmaking will be like the day you take it home. And when test is done playing Matchmaking for the day, the rest of the team are taking devkits home and playing at night. As people are getting locked out of Reach and are unable to do anything but play, we’re getting more hands on deck and everyone is providing feedback on the multiplayer experience. It’s nice to see the guys that have been so focused on the campaign finally getting to see the other side of Reach, and really liking what they see.
The plan we’re going with for now includes six hoppers under a “competitive” category. This is the final name of the “standard” category you saw in the beta. These playlists include 8-man FFA, 4v4 Slayer, 4v4 Objective, 2v2v2v2v2 Multi-Team, 8v8 Big Team, and 6v6 Invasion. Then there’s Arena, which has 7-man FFA, 2v2, and 4v4. Arena is all Slayer, all the time, as we’ve explained previously. Incidentally, this isn’t the entire offering you’ll find in Matchmaking, but it should give you something to look forward to.
Right now, someone has closed their Bungie Weekly Update window, started a new post in the Reach forum, and are titling it “No SWAT playlist? Really, Bungie?” Simmer down. SWAT and Snipers are now roommates. Their address is Team Slayer, Voting Slot 3. We’re not opposed to gametype-specific playlists later down the road, but we want to avoid a situation where a player new to Halo (believe it or not, they exist) find their first experience in a niche hopper (even if it’s a popular one). That should give you a glimpse into how we’re looking at using voting, at least for launch, as well.
Speaking of voting, we took a look at how voting worked in the beta and made some changes. Specifically, a non-vote no longer counts as a vote toward the first option on the list. If Jimmy Matchmaking finds himself in a party that isn’t voting, and he votes for something all by his lonesome, he gets to play what he voted for. If nobody votes, the first option on the list is selected. Hopefully through the use of your “psych profile” (IE, your social preferences), you’ll find people that want to vote for the same things you do, though. Oh yeah, we made a slight change to that. Entering Matchmaking in an Xbox Live party or with your headset unplugged is the same as setting your Chattiness to “Quiet,” regardless what you actually set it to. This way, people searching for fellow chatty players are less likely to end up in mic-less games (remember, the psych profile is additional parameters that will preferentially match you to players within your matchmaking pool if compatible players can be found. If for some reason the game can’t find you a player of similar chattiness, it’ll match you with whoever it can find).
I think that’s enough to chew on from now. You’ll be hearing again from me soon, though.
