State of the Game with Farns
What a month! Halo 3 launched, and the train keeps moving as we focus on getting ODST ready to flight. In my section this month, I am going to go more in depth on some items, so check it out below:
I wanted to start with a large thank you to our players that are helping us out by being part of our Ring 1 & 2 flighting groups. Halo 3’s launch has been well received and you all played a HUGE part in that. Thank you for all your bugs, feedback, and dedication as you work with us on each of these games. The same goes for all those dedicated folks that are participating in our Ring 3 (“Halo Insider”) flights. Over the past 6 or so months, we’ve developed a very strong core base of players who are always engaged and give us excellent feedback and bugs – thank you for taking the time to work with us and make the games better for everyone. This has helped us as we move forward and continue building new plans for more development work for the future.
Last year we began laying the groundwork to bring Saber Interactive back into the MCC development mix to help shore up gaps in our plans to bring MCC to PC, add additional features, and content to both PC and Xbox. Starting in January, Saber took over all primary development for MCC that Ruffian & Splash Damage helped to start. Saber has proven to be a strong partner and will continue to work with us on the remaining titles as well as some of the features listed below.
TOP COMMUNITY REPORTED ISSUES
Below is a status update to the top Known Issues which we’ve previously discussed in prior MCC Development Updates (December, January, February, March, April, May, and June). As updates are made between blogs, you can always check out the latest status discussed in the MCC Development & Flighting Updates (https://aka.ms/FridayDevFlightUpdateMCC), and also please review the Known issues found on the Halo Support site for latest details. Please know that while our #1 priority is driving towards the release of Halo 3: ODST and the rest of MCC on PC, the team is still progressing on various backlog issues and feature requests as possible. The scope and implications of these issues vary greatly so while some may see good movement in a given month, others may not.
Challenges not progressing or resetting: An update earlier this week on 7/29 helped address several core issues with challenges not progressing and resetting. We will continue to investigate reports from players around them not completing correctly. If you encounter any issues with challenges, please submit a ticket at the Halo Support site.
Unable to play Halo 2: Anniversary Co-op Campaign: This issue is under investigation and we are working with the community who has submitted support tickets to understand the core issue. If you have not yet submitted a ticket on this and are experiencing it, please submit a ticket at the Halo Support site.
Achievement Issues: We have continued to fix bugs around reported achievement issues. We are aware the “All According to Plan” achievement is not unlocking currently. If there are other achievements that you are still encountering issues with specifically, please submit a ticket at the Halo Support site.
Co-op Disconnect Issues: We have released a handful of server-side updates to address issues with connectivity when playing co-op Campaign. If you are still encountering disconnects, please submit a ticket at the Halo Support site.
Players Unable to Matchmake on the Same Internet Connection: There have been some reports relating to this that we are trying to investigate and work through. If you have not yet submitted a ticket on this and are experiencing it, please submit a ticket at the Halo Support site.
Inability to Login and Play: Our team is actively investigating reports relating to this issue. If you are experiencing any issues where you can’t get past the login screen or beyond the main menu, please submit a ticket at the Halo Support site.
Game Crashing with UE4 Errors: We are still investigating this issue on our end.
Halo 3 Hit Registration: As discussed above, the team is actively investigating this and working on a full solution that will benefit everyone across the game. Please be patient and we will let you know about progress. Thank you!
Key Bindings Reset on Game Close: The team is currently investigating this. If you are encountering this and have not yet, please submit a ticket at the Halo Support site.
View Model: This work has been verified as working for Halo: Reach and is now in active development for merging into our main branch and extended the functionality across all games prior to release.
GLOBAL FEATURES AND DEVELOPMENT STATUS
Let’s take this month’s blog to get a snapshot of what we’re currently working on and committed to for 2020. I am not going to commit to specific dates as things need to remain a little flexible in our development schedule as some items may get moved around depending on how development priorities shift over time.
Features Planned for release in 2020
- Crossplay
- Input Based MM
- Sever Region Selection
- Custom Game Browser
- Per Game Graphics Options
- Per Game Audio Options
- M&K Support for Xbox
- PC Fileshare
- Double Keybinds for all games
- Viewmodel adjustments for all games
- In game FPS Cap/Adjustments
- Steam Account Linking
I can also give you a window into some features that are planned to be released together based on how they’re progressing:
- Planned to release together: Crossplay, Input Based MM, and Server Region Selection.
- Planned to release together: Custom Game Browser, Per Game Graphics Options, and M&K Support for Xbox
In addition to the above, we are committed to bringing ODST Campaign & Halo 4 on PC, as well ODST Firefight (with updated networking) to both Xbox and PC in 2020.
Quality of Life Improvements
As we move forward with features, it is also important that we continue to support bugs and quality of life improvements. Aside from our normal bug fixing efforts, we have a team that will be solely dedicated to bug fixing spinning up in August. This will include areas like:
- Performance improvements for all games on both PC & Xbox
- Improved Uncapped framerate (looking at you Reach & H2A)
- Community requested bugs
- UI/UX Improvements around navigation, roster, customization, and many more areas of the game
- Achievement issues
Seasons
Due to unforeseen development issues, Season 1 lasted much longer than planned. We have now resolved those issues and have stood up our content pipeline alongside the launch of Halo 3 on PC. We are building A LOT more content that will allow us to bring some new and exciting things to you on a more regular cadence. We will continue to share some of this as pieces come online.
Mod Support
There has not been a lot of communication from us on this and I’ve been asked about this a lot when speaking to people in the community. Our goal is still to support modding, but due to shift in development priorities that tends to happen over the course of a project, modding has continued to get pushed back over the past 6 or so months. The good news here is that we have reached a point where we are now able to spend some cycles to get the conversations, design, and planning going again. I am also now in active iteration on the EULA that lays out the ground rules for modding and player generated content with our legal team.
I understand this will be disappointing news to many of you, but the silver lining here is the EULA is in late stages. Once it is ready, we will re-assess what we can accomplish in the short, mid, and long-term timelines. Modding is close to my heart so I hope to be able to ramp this effort up more soon.
Support Tickets & Process
We’ve had a lot of feedback here and while I don’t have much to share yet, I will say that we are actively having conversations and have adjusted process so that we are ingesting tickets that come in from support in a more efficient manner. This will enable us to turn around quicker feedback loops as well as action on bugs and problems more rapidly. We will continue to iterate on this process as time goes on.
Actively in Development
- UI/UX Improvements around navigation, roster, customization, and many more areas of the game
- View Model Adjustment for all games
- Steam Account Linking
- In Game FPS Cap/Adjustments
- PC File Share
- Additional Video Settings/Options (Added)
- Custom Game Browser (Added)
- Input-based Matchmaking (Added)
- Regional Server Selection (Added)
- Cross-Play between Xbox & PC (Added)
- Double Key Binds for all games (Added)
In Design Iteration
- Additional Mod Support
- Text Chat Improvements
- Better ways to Report Players
- VFR Improvements to Reach & H2A
- Per Game Audio Options (Added)
In Backlog Pending Further Discussions
- Text chat on/off Option (Added)
- Idle System Improvements
- Bringing PC Features to Console (Like FOV Sliders)
- Additional Accessibility Support
- Split Screen on PC
- HDR Support on PC
As always, there are likely some things we’ve neglected to mention in here. Please reach out to us through the various forms of social outlets and let us know your thoughts to help us build our topics for the next development blog.
-farn