Halo: The Master Chief Collection's online troubles are well-known by now, with slow matchmaking and party issues plaguing the game since launch. A series of patches have slowly improved functionality, and the latest is a large and fairly comprehensive one.
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Friend rosters have remained buggy, often delaying the list of what others playing The Master Chief Collection are currently doing in-game. Joining and keeping parties together had been more work than it should be, and the patch aims to address these issues alongside general matchmaking speed improvements.
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There are also improvements to how Halo: Combat Evolved plays, particularly hit registration. Here are highlights from the official patch notes, courtesy of Halo Waypoint:
Parties/Roster
- Made several improvements to party joining and management.
- Resolved an issue where players that were in a party could not join another party from the Roster.
- Made changes to ensure that parties cannot exceed the maximum party size of a playlist.
- Made an update to ensure that Party Leaders can assign a new Party Leader or Kick a player from their party.
- Made fixes to reduce the amount of time it takes to update the Roster:
- Players will now be discovered sooner after starting the game.
- Changes to the roster will be more immediate to better reflect friend activity.
Matchmaking
- Made improvements to the reliability of Matchmaking parties.
- Local split-screen players will now always be on the same team in Halo 2 Matchmaking.
- Made an update to allow players to use Voice Chat during loading screens in Matchmaking.
- Made an update to ensure that players are not forced into an incorrect party after encountering an issue in Matchmaking.
- Resolved an issue where the "Winning Team Won" text was shown in the Carnage Report.
Custom Games
- Made a change to ensure that teams selections are correctly carried over in Custom Games.
- Made an update to ensure that player settings do not revert to a previous state after completing a Halo 2 Anniversary Multiplayer match.
- Made an update to ensure that players do not disconnect after completing a Custom Game.
- Resolved an issue in Custom Games where parties would disband if some players were playing in Split-Screen.
- Made a change to ensure that Halo 3 Custom Game variants display correct author information.