Halo MCC Bugs, Rage, and Tips

Like everyone else, I am raging over the poor launch of 343's latest Halo, which is essentially recycled content, but is behaving more like garbage.


Here are some of my issues with MCC:


1. NO BUNDLES!
Let me state that there was no reason to buy an Xbox1 prior to the launch of Halo MCC. It had basically the same games as a PC or PS4 and less power hardware wise. Also it was more expensive than a PS4 due to Microshaft forcing the kinect sensor on people who would never use it. Therefore, I decided to wait until Halo came out and I would buy an Xbox1 then. I figured Microsoft, or some retailer, would surely create a Halo MCC bundle, or at least bundle the game with a console much like the Assassin's Creed bundle. Unfortunately no bundle came by launch and I was forced to buy the AC bundle.


2. Matchmaking broken
This one is quite obvious. Matchmaking is simply broken. Very few people wanted to buy this game just to play the campaigns they already beat a dozen times. They wanted to exerience the best console multiplayer of all time in 1080p with dedicated servers. I was VERY excited about this fact and when the game launched, I was so dissapointed. You can't form a party and you can't find a game. You spend 1-2 hours trying to get into a party and into a game. Once you succeed it splits up the party members, people drop out, or the game locks up. Also, every game I've managed to get in had uneven teams. The game prefers 6vs2 over 4vs4, wtf? I also noticed that the game won't wait to fill up, it will essentially start with the minimum players required. In the past each playlist had a set number of players (i.e. slayer was always 4vs4 and BtB was always 8vs8). Now slayer starts with 6 players and BtB seems to always be 10 players.


3. 343's track record
343 has now put out two buggy games with bad launches. For me Halo 4 died out in a month. I was just sick of the CoD copy game with horrible maps, bad lag, team killing without penalties, and uneven teams. Halo MCC just seems to be following suit and it shows how great Bungie was as a developer compared to Microsoft's own studio. Putting out buggy games and fixing them a few weeks later seems to be their go to strategy to save on quality and testing. The game is basically an alpha/beta the first 2-3 weeks of launch. They may as well call it that and just give early access to people who pre-order and want to play a buggy game for a while.
On top of all that 343 knew they had a buggy game and released it anyway at full price. The other thing is their lack of PR on the subject. No public apologies or statements about the issues. I had to research the internet and found a twitter post about them working 24/7 to fix issues. No patch after a week and still no word on exactly what day it will come.


4. Broken achievements
This is not as big of an issue for me, but there are achievement whores out there who simply love to farm every achievement in a game. I don't have the time or patience for that personally. I just want to get in and de-stress with a couple hours of multiplayer after work. However, for those who play for achievements, the rage is real. How do you create achievements and not give credit for them? The only playable aspect of the game currently is the campaign, yet you can't get some of its achievements. That means you have to go back and play the campaigns yet again if you want the achievements. That's just bad!


Ok now that I've raged a little here's a quick little tip for getting into a game with your friends. Each person should get into a slayer or big team queue, if it says "in lobby" and "searching for player" in each empty player slot then you're set. Now press your xbox controller middle button to go to your dashboard. From there you want to snap your party to your game. Then hover over the "invite party to game" button. Once your game starts to populate you want to quickly invite your friends. The hope is that they join before the game fills up. This was THE ONLY way I could play with my friends and let me say that 10% of the time it works every time. Most of the time the games fill up too fast and you're stuck playing alone or just quitting the game entirely and restarting your search.