How you helped change the Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer

Remember that Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer beta that closed out the end of 2014? It wasn't just to give you a sneak peek at the upcoming new installment of Microsoft's blockbuster franchise, although I'm sure that's what many of you used it as. That's cool though, because even if you played it for simple enjoyment, your participation provided valuable feedback for developer 343 Industries.

"In the past, betas for games on console have typically been used for online scale testing in the weeks prior to a game’s launch. In our case, we provided a true ‘working’ beta that was a snapshot of our game in development. Halo 5: Guardians represents one of the most substantial evolutions of core combat in franchise history. We felt it was crucial to get it in the hands of fans early to ensure we have enough development time to react to key learnings and deliver the best possible game when we release later this year. This represented a shift for us as a team and a studio by sharing the development process with our community and having you help shape the game."

In total, twenty million matches were played; nearly 290 years of gameplay were logged; and more than 181 million kills were confirmed. While more stats can be seen in the infographic above, the point is that your gameplay has given the developers a ton of data. And the result is an "extensive list of improvements" for Halo 5, which is due out this November.

While you can read the logic behind each change over at Halo Waypoint, below are the list of improvements being made as a result of last year's beta.

Spartan Abilities

• Increase base speed (faster base movement)
• Increase strafe acceleration (faster, more responsive strafing)
• Reduce top sprint speed (narrow the delta between base movement and sprint)
• Modify Ground Pound controls to prevent conflicts w/ crouch jumping
• General tuning & bug fixes for all Spartan Abilities (Thrusters, Clamber, Ground Pound, etc.)

Weapons

• Sniper Rifle: improve scope experience to making it less “clunky” and faster to scope
• DMR: adjust position of the scope to improve visibility
• Bring back the SPNKr Rocket Launcher as a legendary version of the weapon
• Reduce bonuses for automatic weapons in Smart-Link & w/ headshots
• Remove grenade detonation in mid-air based on weapon fire
• Ability to turn on/off vibration feedback for weapons
• General tuning and bug fixing for all weapons

Presentation

• Post-death replay: this will become an opt-in feature. After death, players will see a traditional follow-cam and have the option to view a replay of their death from the killer’s perspective (as long as the feature is enabled within the playlist)
• Medals: decrease frequency and number of medals displayed in the medal feed
• Spartan chatter: players will have the option to turn this on or off in the settings menu
• Adding highlights to placed/dropped weapons to make them easier to see
• General tuning for announcer and Spartan chatter to reduce the frequency of events and focus on the information that matters most to players

Competitive Skill Rating (CSR)

• Improved skill detection during placement phase
• Improved skill matching
• Improved team balancing
• Prevent skill boosting
• General bug fixing & tuning

Matchmaking

• Much faster matches
• Better skill matching
• Better feedback to players in the lobby and matchmaking experiences
• Allow players to set desired datacenter for matchmaking (may impact matchmaking speed and skill balance)
• Improved party vs party matchmaking
• Hide CSR ranks until in match to de-incentivize quitting
• Punish quitters with CSR penalties and matchmaking bans

That's all for now, though 343 Industries notes that there's a "laundry list of other bug fixes and improvements" that they're currently tracking. Things like weapon placement on maps, to lighting improvements, to rule tweaks in game modes will undergo tweaks up until launch.