Today, 343i introduced the latest updates to the Halo Infinite multiplayer suite including new playlists, challenge changes, matchmaking updates, and more.
Matchmaking Playlist Updates
At launch, we took a measured approach to include a baseline set of playlists in a simple and straightforward way. Thankfully, our beta period went very well, and we heard your feedback around wanting more variety and more control over the modes you play. And, following Halo Infinite’s first official event, Fracture: Tenrai, we heard your feedback around wanting Fiesta to persist as a regular offering rather than be limited to just the active event period.
We also heard a lot of feedback around a desire for a pure Slayer playlist – something that was always coming but was originally a bit further out as more time was needed to test and finalize new game mode variants. Slayer fans should expect this playlist to expand with new experiences in the months to come.
As a result of this feedback, we’re excited to bring four new social matchmaking playlists to Halo Infinite today:
- Team Slayer
- Free-for-All
- Tactical Slayer (“SWAT”)
- Fiesta
Ranked & Big Team Battle Matchmaking Updates
Since the beta launch, the team has been monitoring matchmaking data and keeping a close eye on the overall system to ensure it’s working as expected. Additionally, we’ve heard feedback from players who are concerned with how the rankings are working and/or express frustration with their ranked experience. Work will continue in this space but we’re making some targeted changes in the short term:
- We adjusted the ranked matchmaking rules to increase the priority of close individual skill matches, particularly for players at the higher skill levels. We’re taking this in stages – the first priority increase took place on Dec 11th, and the second took place today.
- We adjusted the BTB matchmaking rules to prioritize making matches with lower latency. This will mainly help players in lower population regions avoid high latency matches.
- We’re doubling the overall matchmaking timeout from 5 minutes to 10 minutes, to better accommodate very high skilled players finding suitable matches, particularly when in full fire teams or searching from low population regions.
Challenge Updates
Today marks the third overall update to Challenges and Progression since Halo Infinite’s beta launch on November 15. In each case, Challenges have been iterated and tuned, removing outliers and adjusting troublesome entries, while also helping to speed up overall Battle Pass progression. So far, we’re happy with the results of these changes, but we know there are plenty of opportunities to continue evolving and improving.
There’s a lot of work to do here to truly address player feedback around these systems – and broader changes are going to take time (i.e. performance based XP, per-match XP, additional progression vectors, etc..)– but in the interim, the team will continue targeting meaningful services-side updates to hone and improve the overall experience.
Today’s update aims to further alleviate frustrating challenges, adds brand new challenges to take advantage of the new playlists, and reduces the requirements for the weekly Ultimate Challenge. And, while it won’t come into play quite yet, changes have also been made for Event Challenges to help address some initial player feedback.
Challenge Pruning
Overall, a number of mode and activity-specific challenges have been removed entirely, had their requirements lowered, and/or had their weight reduced across the challenge pool. Additionally, the overall weighting of ‘General’ challenges has been increased.
We understand the inability to pick a specific mode to coincide with a specific challenge can be frustrating and today’s changes should help reduce some of that friction in the near term as longer-term work continues.
New Challenges
Today’s playlist additions will also usher in new playlist-specific challenges. You can expect to find specific playlist versions of each of the following new challenge types:
- Personal Score – Accumulate personal score in the specified playlist to complete
- Kills – Earn the required # of kills in a specific playlist
- Double Kills – Earn double kills in a specific playlist
- Complete Games – Play and complete games in a specific playlist
- Win – Win games in a specific playlist
The specific requirements and corresponding XP will vary depending on the rarity type of the challenge (i.e. “Normal”, “Heroic”, “Legendary”).
For even more details on the ranking system, HCS, and more, please make sure to visit Halo Waypoint!
