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‘Halo: Master Chief Collection’ Adding Infection This Week, Player Block Cheating Fixed

By Scott Grill
Published on: 14:56 PST, Aug 22, 2015

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is mixing up the playlists this week with the addition of Infection. Developer 343 Industries is also fixing an issue with some Xbox One players abusing Xbox LIVE’s reputation system to avoid players that are better than themselves.

Playlist Shakeup

When the Halo: The Master Chief Collection multiplayer playlist is updated the week of August 23, the following Infection game types will replace Action Sack as the featured playlist:

  • Halo 3: Braaaains, Creeping Death, Save One Bullet, Hide and Seek, Speed Demons
  • Halo 2: Anniversary: Infection, Cadre
  • Halo 4: Flood, Hivemind, Last Stand

Action Sack has proven to be immensely popular, however, and will not be rotated out of the playlist. Instead, it will stay in the lineup and the Halo Championship Series playlist will be removed now that the season is over. Presumably, it will return sometime in the future when the third season of the competitive eSports league begins.

An exact release date for The Master Chief Collection playlist update hasn’t been determined yet. Developer 343 Industries is targeting this week though, and it will also include the following changes.

Team Hardcore

  • The Construct TS map will be updated to the correct TS variant for Halo 3

Team Doubles

  • SMG starts will be removed from Halo 2 Classic

Big Team Battle

  • All AR-start Assault Halo 3 game types will be removed (until BR variants can be added)
  • Big Team (8v8) Dominion will be added
  • Weighting/frequency of Remnant will be reduced

Halo 4

  • Small team (5v5) Dominion will be added
  • Pitfall and Vertigo will be added for Legendary Slayer
  • Ragnarok CTF will be added

Halo 2: Anniversary

  • Weighting/frequency of Remnant will be reduced

Halo 3

  • Voting options rebalanced

No More Player Block Exploit

Halo: The Master Chief Collection (Xbox One)

Over the past few weeks, high-ranked players in Halo: The Master Chief Collection began noticing their Xbox LIVE reputation falling. This is due to some players reporting high skill players to avoid them in future matches in the hope that they can rank up their character against easier competition.

The Xbox reputation system is meant to avoid players who may cheat, taunt, or otherwise ruin someone’s gaming experience. It’s instead been turned into an exploit to lower the chances that a Halo player will be matched up against someone better. Take this post from Reddit user Alan LJ as an example who discovered his reputation was on the decline.

“Over the past week my reputation has fallen from green (good player) to amber (needs work). As soon as I hit level 40 in halo 3 I noticed my rep start to decline and I reckon it’s only a matter of time now until it changes to ‘avoid me’.”

Developer 343 Industries finally acknowledged the cheating issue and worked with the Xbox team to push out an update just for Halo: The Master Chief Collection that ignores the player blocks on the following playlists:

  • Halo 2: Anniversary
  • Team Doubles
  • Halo: CE
  • Halo 2
  • Halo 3
  • Halo 4
  • Team Hardcore

The ability to message or chat with blocked players is still enabled. Cheaters just won’t be able to avoid better Halo players with this current work-around. The developer is open to feedback on how this can be improved.

[Images via Halo Waypoint]

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