Season 3 will bring many updates to Halo Infinite and that includes new content for matchmaking, new playlists, as well as improvements to the ranking system.
Let's dive in and check out what you can expect, and get the details on what’s changing for Season 3!
Playlists For The Month
Season 3 brings with it 3 entirely new maps in Chasm and Cliffhanger for 4v4 Arena, as well as Oasis for Big Team Battle. Our version of “gun game”, Escalation Slayer, also makes its way into Season 3.
As with Empyrean, we’re offering a special playlist for the first week that only features Chasm and Cliffhanger called New Arena Unlimited. After a week, New BTB Unlimited will rotate into that slot and exclusively feature Oasis for the next week.
New Arena Unlimited
4v4
Maps: Chasm and Cliffhanger
Modes: Escalation Slayer (new mode!), CTF, King of the Hill, Slayer, Strongholds, One Flag CTF
New BTB Unlimited
12v12
Map: Oasis
Modes: BTB Escalation Slayer (new mode!), CTF, Slayer, Fiesta, Fiesta Total Control, Total Control
We’ve also updated most of the playlists to feature Season 3’s new content with an increased weighting for the start of the season.
Playlists Featuring New Content
Quick Play
Bot Bootcamp
Fiesta
Team Slayer
Tactical Slayer
Big Team Battle
And here’s a look at the full calendar for the month so you can see when each playlist will make its way into the game.
We can’t wait to jump into matchmaking with you on March 7 when Season 3 releases!
To talk about ranked, I’m going to pass it over to Tashi with the latest.
Ranked Improvements
CSR-Based Matchmaking
As announced and released on February 28, we’ve made an update to the ranking system to match based on CSR as opposed to MMR. From a philosophical standpoint, this means teams will match based on what they’ve accomplished in the system as opposed to an underlying skill rating. While today we’re nearing the end of the season and almost all active players have settled into a rank, the experience will be different from prior seasons on March 7 when the rank reset hits. There will still be placement matches but you might find that early on there are higher skilled players in matches where there weren’t ones for prior season starts. Because matching is done on CSR, the players at the higher skill rank (Onyx, for example) will have to qualify (Diamond 4 is highest placement) and then work their way out of Diamond and into Onyx. This will mean that you might see some more lopsided matches at the start of the season, particularly for true Diamond players, while players settle into their ranks. And, for those wondering, we will use MMR to match players who are still completing their placement matches.
The Fireteam CSR Limit range has not changed as part of this update and is as follows:
For 899 CSR (Gold 6) or lower, there are no restrictions.
At 900 CSR (Platinum 1) a limit of 900 points is introduced.
Between 900 CSR (Platinum 1) and 1500 CSR (Onyx) the Fireteam CSR limit will slowly tighten as you climb the ranks. It will start at the 900 limit mentioned above and tighten to its final destination of 500. This essentially means that on the way to Onyx, every 2 CSR gained will tighten the Fireteam limit by an increment of 1 CSR For example, if a player progresses from 900 CSR (Platinum 1) to 1200 CSR (Diamond 1), their Fireteam CSR limit would tighten from 900 to a stricter 750. At this new 1200 CSR, the lowest rank they could party up with would then be 1200 (their CSR) – 750 (the Fireteam CSR limit) = 450, or Silver 4
At 1500 CSR and above, the limit is 600 points For example, if a player was Onyx 1700, the lowest CSR they could party up with would be 100 or Platinum 5
We’re going to closely monitor the performance of these changes across all CSR divisions to ensure things are behaving as expected via data as well what player feedback we see online.
Placement Matches
Placement matches are in place to ensure we’re accurately putting players in the appropriate division to ensure they have a smooth and fair experience once they’ve been placed. While this is working, we’re also finding that the number of placement matches is also creating a barrier between friends who want to play together but haven’t finished their matches yet. In order to alleviate this, we’re reducing the placement matches required from 10 to 5.
Our hope is that we see more players complete their placement matches and continue on their ranked journey to improving and testing themselves against other players.
Like with CSR matchmaking, we’re going to keep a close eye on the performance of this update and will make further tweaks in the future if needed.
We’re excited for these playlist and Ranked updates to come together with the launch of Season 3: Echoes Within, and we’re looking forward to jumping in to play them with you on March 7.
To get a closer look at the three new maps, be sure to check out our latest Maps & Modes Preview blog!
Our biggest quality-of-life update since launch! A rewrite of the main interface, faster movement, tons of new items and features all suggested by players!
-=[ v1.1.7 ]=- - Pre-jump "animation" movement speed 2x faster - Big fleet battle lag is fixed - Improved all game interface buttons - New death effects look better and fix memory leak bug - New pathfinding logic plots better courses - Captains get a new 'Item Upgrade Bonus' with each upgrade! - New Crafted Item: Nanobot Charge Kit gives ships a tech bonus - New Ship Mod: Paladin grants +Max Hull and Guardian tech - Crafting an Emperor-Class ship also crafts a Paladin Ship Mod - Destroyer-Class ships gain Advanced Hacking by default - Ship Mods like Medic no longer replace other ship tech - Remove and reclaim Ship Mod and Retro Skin items - Ships gain Evasive Maneuvers or Intimidation at Elite Rank 1+ - Cloak duration increased and battery cost decreased - Sneak Attack! Critical Chance & Damage Bonus from hiding - Scan negates all nearby Sneak Attack bonuses - Tank special gains new Taunt ability (Ultra-Rare+) - Technician technology protects from Taunt (See Wiki) - Scan no longer reveals your location to enemies - Scan cooldown and battery cost decreased significantly - Frigate "Passive Scanning" always counters Sneak Attacks - Frigate "Passive Scanning" cloak detection chance increased - Use :BUY or :SELL in chat for recent auction history - Settings -> Graphics -> Death Effects Quality - Settings -> Graphics -> Low Quality Drones - Settings -> Gameplay -> Camera View Offset - Settings -> Sound -> Ship Jump Sounds
Ahoy captains! Long time no see! Our development team has big news to share with you today - the full release of Sea of Craft is coming on March 10th! Following meticulous polishing and optimization of the Early Access build, the team are proud to unveil new and improved shipbuilding parts, game modes and other features!
Realistic Physics, Freewheeling Building Sea of Craft offers over a hundred distinct shipbuilding parts to put to work in environments ranging from barren deserts through lush archipelagos and endless open ocean, all built on a realistic physics framework for unlimited creative potential. Join the pantheon of master shipbuilders and satisfy your every whim at the Ship Expo, where you and other captains around the world upload and share the blueprints to your finest works, be they titanic warships or fearsome airborne dragons. Pilot your very own vessels and wander the opens seas, quest for treasure hidden amongst the archipelagos, join hair-raising melee battles and do battle with fierce pirates and sinister monsters from the deep. The immersion knows no bounds!
Rip-roaring Gameplay, Ocean Adventures In addition, camera performance and the building system have been improved across the board, alongside quality of life optimizations to stability, performance, Open Sea item distribution and the first-time gameplay experience. As if this wasn't enough, you can now soar higher than ever before using new Flying class shipbuilding parts!
The future holds even greater promise for Sea of Craft, with new single player content, enhanced social features for the Ship Expo, more automated and Flying parts and much much more! Sandbox building enthusiasts and veteran sea captains, take out your log books - we set sail this March 10th!
This release brings the custom engine to Linux! We've tested it for you on the Steam Deck and built in some tailored settings for the best experience straight out of the box. If you're on Linux and you were previously running the Windows build, you may need to manually disable Proton to get the native Linux build (check your compatibility settings).
Major updates
The custom engine is now available on Linux (including Steam Deck)!
Features added
The music and SFX volume can now be changed from the settings menu
The settings menu now uses a consistent font
Bugs fixed
The fallback engine now desyncs less often on slow machines
Bop and Bit now have their shadows on the title screen
Internal changes
All stages support BPM changes
The birds in Meet & Tweet still bop when the "end pose" event isn't used
As always we're working hard on making the game better, so here's this week's update!
Features
New Map Area - Central Plateau!
The Zone has once again changed! This time the Central Plateau is experiencing anomalies and reverting back to its original state, better check it out for loot! :Eyes: Other parts of the map have also been changed, too!
Reload Animations!
Reloading with the Active Reload Mechanic will now play custom reload animations! Each weapon has its own
VFXs!
Updated and improved a lot of VFX! We also realized that the explosion VFX for bombs weren't ACTUALLY showing the size of the explosions! (ooopsie)! Now all explosions correctly show the explosion area
New Explosion VFX for Enemies!
Improved Little Mac's Slow VFX!
New Revive VFX!
Enemies Rebalance
Ground Launcher has increased a bit in size!
Enemies will now never spawn inside objects! Which means the game is slightly harder because more enemies will come for you!
Fixes and Improvements
Fixed enemies spawning inside objects!
Fixed some places where Little Mac was getting stuck (Thanks for the feedbacks!)
Fixed some crashes
Fixed all explosion VFX not having the correct size, they were actually HALF the size!
Fixed combat text appearing when Explosive enemies dealt damage to other enemies
Fixed Portal not closing properly for the Host Player
We've also done A LOT of internal changes to prepare the game for huge changes in the future
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Director's Commentary
Hey everyone!
I'm super happy with the progress we've been having on the game, not only in what we've been capable of releasing but also with everything we're currently working on behind the scenes. This week was basically that, we released some cool stuff for you guys but in reality, the star of this update was all the updates we've been doing on the back end for features you guys will only see in a month or two from now. Can't wait to show it to you all!
- Updated the "Whoop This!" description to be more accurate. - Fixed a crash when exiting at the start of the final phase in the final boss. - Fixed an issue where the final boss wouldn't die in the final hit of the first phase sometimes. - Fixed an issue where dying at any boss wouldn't reset the per level timer. - Fixed an issue where completing the final level using the gate, then completing the final level naturally in another save file would disable some objects and end in an unintended way.
Special bonus for everyone who buys the bundle — Premium license for 90 days!
We remind you that a Premium license grants all pilots greater rewards for each battle. The pilot, who receives a premium license from the Command, quickly masters new ships due to increased experience gain in battle. And when the battle ends, pilots with a premium license have two bonus attempts at trophy search — this means that the chance of getting new unique equipment becomes higher!
When purchasing multiple DLCs, the time for premium licenses is cumulative.
Hey in this Demo update we reworked the tutorial to make it explain the game mechanics in a better way.
So if you stopped playing halfway through the tutorial because it was too difficult to understand it might be worth it to give it another try!
We also made small adjustments and added an indicator to show if the shop has similar spirits as the ones you already have on your board (easier to spot and make 2 or 3 Stars Spirits).
