Halo Reach: Another Patch

So, just off the heels of the last patch, Bungie’s patching Halo Reach’s matchmaking system again.

As a little pre-update, the long awaited Campaign Co-Op playlist in Matchmaking is finally here. It’s 4-players (maximum of 2 per Xbox) and the mission and difficulty (no Easy here) are selected by majority vote. Note that:

• there’s no spoiler-prevention system to prevent people from playing the last mission first
• you have to have a rank of at least Corporal to play in this playlist
• you have to have a hard drive; owners of Core, Arcade, and 4GB consoles are out of luck unless you buy a hard drive. Microsoft has said that they’re working on it, but no concrete details have come up yet.

And there’s another patch due out Tuesday!

Playlist updates:

• New playlist: Team Snipers.
• New playlist: Living Dead (for Infection and variants thereof).
• Rumble Pit: No more Infection (see above), Safe Havens (see above), Race, Rally, Headhunter Pro, or any Classic variants, period. Gametype frequencies have been adjusted so that the crazier gametypes are less heavily weighted.
• Team Slayer: No more Team Snipers, period. See above.
• Team SWAT: New gametype: SWAT Magnums.
• Team Objective: No more Multiflag Classic, 1-Flag, or 1-Bomb on Hemorrhage. No more Oddball or Hot Potato on Boardwalk. No more 1-Flag Classic or Headhunter Pro, period.
• Multi Team: No more The Cage, period. No more SWAT or Classic, period. Gametype frequencies have been adjusted so that Rocket Race will not always be a voting option.
• BTB: No more Multiflag on Boneyard or Spire.
• Invasion: Now has 3 voting options instead of 2.

Map updates (these only apply to Matchmaking):

• Zealot: In Matchmaking, all Slayer gametypes (not just Arena) now use Arena Zealot instead of Zealot. Arena Zealot has altered initial spawns and a “Return to Battlefield” soft-kill time limit in space. In addition, Arena Zealot has been updated so that players now can no longer shoot below the shield by crouching on the edge of the generators in space.
• Asylum: The tops of the sniper buildings now have “Return to Battlefield” soft-kill time limits.
• Boneyard: The spawn points for Slayer gametypes have been modified.
• Hemorrhage: Spawn zones for both bases have been modified. Warthogs now all have a 120-second respawn time.
• New map variant: Cliffhanger. Created by Bungie’s Lars Bakken, it’ll appear in Rumble Pit, Team Slayer, Team SWAT, and Team Objective.
• New map variant: Atom. Created by a Bungie.net member named JoeSki73, it’ll appear in Team Slayer, Team Snipers, Team Objective, Multi Team, and BTB. Here it is, if you want to get some practice rounds in ahead of time.

Gametype updates (again, Matchmaking only):

• All CTF gametypes now have 10-second player respawn times. For Assault, player respawn time is 10 or 15 seconds, depending on map.
• Touch-Return has been enabled for all Classic CTF gametypes.
• Flag-At-Home-to-Score has been enabled for all Classic CTF gametypes and disabled for all other CTF gametypes.
• 1-Flag gametypes played on small maps now have 10-second flag return and 30-second flag reset times.
• All other CTF gametypes now have 30-second flag return and 45-second flag reset times.

Score Attack updates:

• All leaderboards have been reset.
• The Glacier map now appears in all gametypes.
• No more Crashsite, period. It may return in a future patch.
• Time limit for all gametypes is now 15 minutes instead of 12.
• In Sniper Attack, weapon pickup is now disabled, and the melee modifier now matches the damage modifier of 150%.
• New mode: Mythic Score Attack. Same as Score attack, but with Mythic on (enemies have double health).

Firefight Matchmaking updates:

• The Glacier map now appears in all gametypes.
• Friendly fire and betrayal booting have been disabled.
• Time limit for all gametypes is now 30 minutes instead of 10.
• Round limit for all gametypes is now 1 Set instead of 1 Round. A Set is 3 rounds, plus an endless bonus round. During the bonus round, all skulls are on, including Iron, which means no respawning; the bonus round ends when everyone dies. In Firefight and Generator Defense, the bonus round is Grunts-only; in Rocketfight, it’s Elites-only; in Sniperfight, it’s Hunters-only.
• Skull progression is now out in full force: Tough Luck (enemies dodge more effectively) is enabled from the start, Catch (enemies throw more grenades) is turned on during Round 2, and Cloud (no radar) is turned on during Round 3.

And here’s some more stuff that’s coming later (NOT during this patch):

• The rank cap will be lifted when the community collectively completes a total of 117,000,000 daily and weekly challenges. According to Bungie, this is on track to happen sometime next month at the current rate. Exploiting the disconnection glitch (where unplugging your Ethernet cable when you complete the challenge allows you to complete it twice) does not count and can (and will) get you banned from earning credits for one week. (Accidental disconnects are OK; it happens to everyone.) If you feel that you have been unfairly banned for exploiting the disconnection glitch, you can appeal on the Bungie.net forums, but fair warning: unsuccessful appeals get you another week’s ban, and no appeal has yet been successful.
• The first map pack (Noble) comes out November 30. 3 maps, 800 MSP ($10). There will be a “Noble Maps Only” playlist, and the Matchmaking algorithm will do its best to group Noble owners together and show Noble maps as voting options if everyone in the lobby owns them.
• Limited-lives Firefight is in the works for Matchmaking.
• Firefight Versus is in the works for Matchmaking; it may start as a weekend playlist before getting its own permanent playlist. Like Firefight, but with limited lives and human-controlled Elites; teams (Spartan and Elite) alternate each round, and the highest score wins. Killing an Elite nets you an extra life.
• Bungie is currently running a Forge contest; it runs until November 28. There are seven categories, each with a grand prize of an autographed limited edition Halo Reach 250GB Xbox 360: Invasion, Infection, BTB, Team Slayer, Symmetrical Arena, Race, and CTF. Any extremely awesome entries will be put into Matchmaking. (Note that the rules have been updated; entrants in the Invasion category no longer have to support both Invasion and Invasion Slayer. They can support either or both.)
• An MLG playlist is in the works, and will be released as soon as MLG finalizes gametypes and map variants, hopefully by the holidays.
• A Grifball playlist is in the works; GrifballHub is currently soliciting gametype settings and map variants. The playlist will hopefully be out by the holidays.