Halo: Master Chief Collection Playlists Removed To Speed Matchmaking

The matchmaking issues with Halo: The Master Chief Collection are still going, it seems. 343 Industries has decided to fix the problem by removing a few playlists.

The following four playlists are being removed temporarily by the developers:

• Team Hardcore
• Rumble Pit
• Halo 4
• SWAT (rotational)

343 Industries hopes that this change will speed up the ability of players to find matches in the other playlists:

• Team Halo 2: Anniversary
• Halo Championship Series
• Team Slayer
• Big Team Battle
• Halo 2 Classic
• Halo 3

While this may help players, 343 acknowledges that it won't solve the problems with Master Chief Collection's matchmaking altogether. They're planning content updates and server-side changes to further fix multiplayer.

Until those other changes arrive, all 343 can do is offer advice. They reiterated that if you're having problems finding a match, the best thing to do is restart the process after a few minutes.

"Back-end data is showing that the majority of successful Matchmaking matches are found within 2-4 minutes of searching, When searching, if you do not find a match within 5 minutes, please return to lobby and restart the search, as this will reset the search parameters and increase the likelihood of finding a match within the aforementioned range."

When you're searching for a match, the column on the right of the screen should say "In Lobby." Several gray boxes with the word "Search..." should be underneath your name. Otherwise, something's gone wrong.

"If it’s in any other state, or you don’t see that it says “In Lobby” as pictured, you will not successfully join a game. Simply press “B” to back out to the main menu, then go back into Multiplayer and Find Game. You should see “In Lobby” and have a much better chance of finding a good session. These shots demonstrate “good” and “bad” conditions you should be attempting to get to."

343 provided these two photos to illustrate the point. Here's what you want to see on the right hand side of the screen while matchmaking:

And this is what you don't want to see:

Executive producer Dan Ayoub apologized to Master Chief Collection owners on Wednesday, stating that matchmaking issues are their "first priority."

"From everyone at 343 Industries, we are truly sorry and feel your frustration," Ayoub said. "You deserve better and we are working day and night to find solutions as quickly as possible."