The-Halo-Bulletin-5.29.13
The-Halo-Bulletin-5.29.13
Hi, Bravo here! Each week, someone in the studio has a new story about one (or many) of their recent Halo 4 matches. Sometimes it’s a crazy multi-kill in SWAT from Frankie, sometimes it’s an unbelievable killing spree from Michael on the test team, and most recently, it’s an unbelievable Plasma Cannon tag-team-duo story from the Community Forge Island playlist from Quinn and yours truly. Across several games of Extraction and Capture the Flag on Elevated, we used the Plasma Cannons so much that even our teammates (and enemies) started ripping them off their mounts every chance they got. We actually haven’t stopped talking about our plasma-powered preponderancy, and now the whole studio knows about it. If your immediate response is “pics or it didn’t happen,” then I have prepared the following especially for you.
They say that strength in character can defeat strength in numbers. Unless the numbers are armed with Plasma Cannons.
bs angel, on the other hand, told the epic tale of her Halo 4 “Road to 50” from this weekend. After fighting match after match alongside her trusty teammates, I hear she landed at a CSR level 8. Well done. Only a few more games to go.
Whether it’s ridiculous theater-worthy multi-kills, fun antics with weapons such as the Plasma Cannon, or slowly leveling up in the Capture the Flag playlist with a group of good friends, we know that every session of Halo gameplay has the potential to be unforgettable. This being true, we’d like to invite you to join us in an Xbox LIVE Community Playdate on June 3rd to kick off the release of our multiplayer weapon tuning update.
Several members of the 343 Industries team will be playing online from 5-7 PM PDT in a selection of playlists which will likely include Rumble Pit, Big Team Infinity Slayer, Capture the Flag, Team Objective, and possibly more. Be on the lookout for the full details, schedule, and Gamertag list for the event later this week on Waypoint. We cannot wait to play with you, and we are sure there will be some epic screenshots, clips, and 4-shots (we do have bs angel on our team, after all) to show for the evening.
If (for some crazy reason) you are interested in the full details of what you’ll see online in Halo 4 Matchmaking come Monday, continue reading.
We have made it to the long awaited June 3rd Matchmaking Update and the full details are below. First, let’s start with weapon tuning and gameplay changes that will affect all of Halo 4’s Matchmaking playlists. Also, each of the images you see below have been handcrafted to double as beautiful desktop wallpapers to hold you over until Monday.
Final State of Weapon Tuning 
Starting Monday, June 3rd, the following updates will be applied to Halo 4 War Games Matchmaking:
Battle Rifle
- The Battle Rifle damage has been increased. The Battle Rifle is now capable of killing in four bursts.
- The Battle Rifle rate of fire has been slightly decreased.
- The Battle Rifle red reticle range (range at which auto-aim benefits kick in) has been decreased.
- Two bursts from a Battle Rifle followed by a melee will now kill an opponent (2-shot melee).
Carbine
- The Carbine damage has been increased. The Carbine is now capable of killing in seven rounds.
- The Carbine accuracy has been increased (projectile spread decrease).
- The Carbine red reticle range has been decreased.
LightRifle
- The LightRifle zoomed rate of fire has been increased.
- The LightRifle un-zoomed rate of fire has been slightly decreased.
- The LightRifle red reticle range has been increased to match the updated DMR range.
DMR
- The DMR red reticle range has been slightly decreased.
Assault Rifle
- The Assault Rifle damage has been slightly increased. The Assault Rifle now kills in three less rounds.
- The Assault Rifle auto-aim angle has been reduced.
- The Assault Rifle projectile spread has been decreased.
Storm Rifle
- The Storm Rifle damage has been increased. The Storm Rifle now kills in three less rounds.
- The Storm Rifle auto-aim angle has been reduced.
- The Storm Rifle projectile spread has been decreased.
Suppressor
- The Suppressor damage has been increased. The Suppressor now kills in three less rounds.
- The Suppressor auto-aim angle has been reduced.
- The Suppressor projectile spread has been decreased.
SAW
- The damage has been increased to maintain double the damage-per-second of the Assault Rifle.
Magnum
- The damage has been slightly increased. The Magnum is still capable of killing in six rounds.
Vehicles
- The damage has been increased on both the Mantis and Warthog Chain Gun.
Lastly, base player movement speed has been increased from 100% to 110% across all playlists and modes. All of these balance tweaks will be released this coming Monday in order to provide a more fast-paced, optimized matchmaking experience, and all of Halo 4’s applicable Matchmaking game types will be affected by this change. Team Snipers, Grifball, and Action Sack’s Rock N’ Rail will not see any changes, however, as the weapons in these game types are not affected. Some game types (such as Action Sack’s Lightning Flag), will not receive the change due to the preferred pace and balance in the current tuning. Moving forward, select game types in the Action Sack playlist may use alternate weapon tuning, and we will be sure to provide information on these game types when the time comes.
We’re sending out a special thanks to the Multiplayer, Sandbox, Matchmaking, Test, and other teams who worked tirelessly on this update. And lastly, a big thanks to you, the community, for your attention and patience as we tweaked, tuned, and tested the settings for this update.
We look forward to hearing your feedback - once the update goes live, be sure to head to the War Games Feedback section and let us know what you think. The Matchmaking Systems Team will review your feedback as they continue to refine the War Games experience.
Matchmaking Playlist Update
In addition to the above, the following updates are also being made to Matchmaking:
The “Slayer Pro” game mode in Big Team Infinity Slayer and Infinity Slayer will now have an Assault Rifle loadout. Also, the “Global Skill searching,” or CSR matching duration, will be increased once again for all playlists. This increase will help ensure that Matchmaking is primarily searching for both teammates and opponents at your per-playlist CSR level. As mentioned last week, we will continue to monitor the speed at which players are being matched, as well as the consistency of CSR matching.
In an effort to always offer DLC content in Matchmaking, we are happy to announce that the Majestic DLC playlist will return next week as the “featured DLC” playlist. We will continue to offer a variety of DLC maps in this slot, and may update the game types, maps, and even team sizes moving forward to keep DLC content fresh and available in Halo 4 Matchmaking. The Community Forge Island playlist will be retired, as the maps will return to the hands of the talented Forgers who created them so that they can be fine-tuned and possibly integrated into existing playlists. Special thanks to the Forgers, Community Cartographers, and all the players who made this playlist a success.
In Capture the Flag, the overtime period has been increased from one minute to two minutes in order to allow for even more nail-biting, and “big party matching” has been turned on, which ensures that parties of three or more will get matched with parties of three or more. In King of the Hill, the hill point limit has been increased from 25 to 50, and the score to win has been increased from 150 points to 250 points to provide more control-based game play.
Lastly, the multiplayer design team has been updating all of Halo 4’s maps with new weapon (ordnance) locations, new weapon drops, updated starting and objective spawns, and even new Forge objects to diversify and balance gameplay. For example, Haven now uses Red / Blue spawns, lifts, and colored halls across all game types, Abandon has some crates added as well as a central, equidistant Overshield for optimized map flow, and much more. Some maps have received updates to vehicle locations and selection as well. We expect these updates to slightly change up the way these maps are played and help freshen up the Matchmaking experience. The full details of the Matchmaking update will be posted on Monday. As always, we can’t wait to bring this update to you, and look forward to hearing your feedback.
Wow, sounds like the garden variety Halo experience is going to be a lot closer to the MLG/AGL/competitive brand. That's a good thing.
I am very curious to see what changes were made to the maps. Especially the spawns, weapon drops and objectives placement. I hope they don't lighten up on the vehicles.
Well, in fairness, I'm relatively sure you haven't played any games on the competitive variants of, say, Haven. Give it a whirl. It certainly sounds like that's going to be getting back to basics, Halo 4-style. The Warthog gets a buff, so you should be happy. Everyone's happy! I might actually play the game again!
Everyone is not happy though. People are raging about the increased ROF on the LR. This what happens when info on proposed settings is released early. Some people were imagining how they were going to run the games with the OP LR. Then there is this whole campaign to remove sprint and re-impliment descoping.
I think it's obviously hard to say what's going to happen. We are all just pissing in the wind until we finally get to play the new settings.
I am curious to see how much the reduction to the red reticle range truly influences the DMR and LR. Yes, the increased ROF on the LR will make the weapon a much more viable choice, but I don't forsee it being OP. Again, it's hard to say having not played the new settings.
You're letting that word get in the way of a good time. Seriously, though. Check out a competitive variant of that map. Some of the spawns are changed around, weapons are static, and there are more colors and markers to give you a feel of where you are or where the other team's spawns are. All of these things fix/address some gripes that even you have about the game. No, the game doesn't rise and set on Haven alone, but if you might want to get a better feel of what they're talking about, that may be soething to look at, no?
Removing sprint and re-implementing de-scoping, which I'm in favor of, wopdate, but if that's being talked about, and the merits of such things are being brought up, it certainly is worth letting them know how you stand on the issue.
Also, this appears to be pretty spot on: http://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/1fb8uq/halo_bulletin_52913_june_3rd_update_halo4turbo/ca8lh8v
Remember Subnovahenge, where you wanted to make a map that catered to competitive and casual folks? We figured out how to break it and make it not work in about twenty seconds. Your response to making it better is to put constantly spawning fusion cores in the area in question. The point of that small story is that I don't think you understand what competitive Halo is. At all. I think you see that "c" word, and you shut off completely. You look at that word, and think that means you're going to have a terrible time.
Also, for this entire sprint and de-scoping thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ag5GtGTyxj4
I can't watch that film because I know what I like and I shut off other ideas.:P
Now all they need are good maps.
So every precision loadout weapon has had its range reduced? Except the lightrifle which increases its range to a reduced DMR range.
The AR changes and precision changes make me very wary of this update.
You give and you take. If you play a variant with no automatic weapons, the sandbox should feel a lot more clean, with more weapon parity amongst the precision weapons.
Yet ARs are now in Pro gametypes.
Precision weapons now require people to get closer in to the effective range of a damage boosted AR.
Hopefully it plays better than it sounds, and the map changes could be good at least.
Yes, but it's the red reticle range meaning the range at which the benefits of the red reticle are fully realized - things like auto-aim and magnetism. Beyond the red range I guess we'll have to actually be accurate with our shot placement..gif "85")
BR is pretty awesome right now, can't wait for it to be more effective at a range :)
At a shorter range you mean, right?
At medium range it is just as effective as the DMR, though it fires slower.
Reducing the range of most weapons allows for greater map movement. Valhalla with the DMR is a disaster. Holding top-mid is no longer essential to win in slayer matches on that map. Although, depending on how buffed the light rifle's range is, reducing the range of the dmr could be for naught.
The way I read it, the range on the weapons is the same, it is just that the recticle turns red at a shorter range, making you think it isn't as effective.
If the reticule isn't red, the magnetism isn't as effective (or strong). In turn, that will allow greater map movement, unless you're a great shot.
I haven't used the Light Rifle very much, but I guess I'll have to try a LR/Magnum loadout now.
I see the Firepower tactical package being used in btb, dominion, and larger ctf maps. BR for short to mid-range, and light rifle for long range.
I use firepower til I get ordinance bc I run the ordinance priority with it as well, and thruster pack in EVERY playlist.
My secondary loadout is camo with the ordinance swap perk with "ammo" so basically whatever ordinance I call has extra ammo. It's nice having a spartan laser with 150% charge :)
Remember REACH? Remember the short lived 'bleed through' settings?
Remember the AR rush 1 melee kill?
Remember how 343i neglected to tell us about the head health glitch?
Now see in Halo 4, 343i is touting the BR 2 shot melee kill.
Doesn't this imply the buffed automatics will be the new casuals' AR rush 1 melee kill?
Funny that 343i neglected to mention this possibility.
Funny how the BR 2 shot melee wasn't mentioned until a week before release.
I guess we'll know for sure next week.
Reach with bleedthrough is the best Reach.
AR melee rush started in Halo:CE. I played with a number of people who lived and died by that strategy. I never saw a problem with it until insane lunge distances and aim assist were added in the follow-up titles.
The BR has been a noob crutch from the start of this game. With the 2 shot + melee that continues.
[img]http://blog.fiverr.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/drevil2.gif[/img]
If you look at it compared to DMR it is simply a way to be less accurate while still getting hits and headshots. That's all I meant. SWAT is an excellent example of this. Now they make it easier to noobrush someone up close with a melee and BR.
Compared to other Halo titles its pretty clear to me, dunno
That's how it was in previous Halo games. The good ones. It means you can battle within melee range and not be at a disadvantage because you are holding a precision weapon.