20 million matches played, 2.5 million hours logged — after a borderline disastrous start to the next-gen Halo experience, 343 Industries staged a major turn-around with an extremely successful beta that brought a better quality game than the “finished” product of Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
After taking feedback from the fans through the Halo Community Feedback Program (HCFP) 343i has made some significant changes to the upcoming continuation of the Halo franchise.
The base movement speed and strafing of Spartans is a bit quicker now, but the top sprint speed was reduced.
Weapons have various general changes. The Sniper now has less delay to look down the scope, the DMR scope position has been altered to improve general visibility, and some of the most exciting news is the return of SPNKr Rocket Launcher. The rocket will appear in the game as a “legendary version” of the standard launcher.
A variety of minor background tweaks and changes will also be incorporated into the final release.
Outside of gameplay, post-death replay of your Spartan and Spartan “chatter” will be included as an opt-in feature.
The devs have worked to make the matchmaking system more efficient and balanced with better skill matching and faster matches.
Halo 5 will be encompassing all these changes and more in the mutliplayer experience with a new seven-tier competitive skill rating system. The new system puts a heavy emphasis on team-play.
Philosophically we believe that in a team sport the only thing that should matter is wins and losses. We also believe that incentivizing players to prioritize their own individual stats in a team game can undermine team play. – Executive Producer Josh Holmes
For more info and details on how the new skill rating system changes the Halo experience check out the community blog update on Halo Waypoint.