The “Break it Down” Blog

When Halo 3 released one of its many great features was the great multiplayer matchmaking system.  However, the one glaring annoyance with matchmaking is that in groups of more than 4 you have to push a button to talk to your team mates.  Not only does this make it hard to coordinate attacks with large teams it makes the game feel a lot less personal because there hardly anyone talks.  Fortunately, Bungie announced this past Friday that they are expanding the Push To Talk requirement to only be when there are more than 6 people on a team. While I would still like to see it removed completely expanding it is better than doing nothing.

Push to Talk Restriction Increased
Since Halo 3’s release, if a player were to join a Matchmaking playlist with a team size larger than four, he or she would have to push a button on the DPad to communicate directly to their team. After the January update, the PTT restriction is being increased to 6 players per team, meaning that players will not need to use the D-pad to communicate on any Matchmaking playlist but Social Big Team.

What does this mean for players? Well, for starters, it means communicating to teammates in 5v5 or 6v6 playlists will be trivial. However, this could mean an increase in bandwidth necessary for these larger format playlists, which means the potential for “laggy” games is increased. The best way to avoid lag in these games is to ensure that you are not constantly broadcasting to your teammates, and that your teammates are not constantly broadcasting to you. If you often play with strangers, be prepared to mute and report players that abuse their microphone. To mute a player quickly during a game, hold the back button to bring up the scoreboard and select their name with the left stick. Then press X. Muted! To report players, select their name in the post game carnage report and view their gamercard, then use the Report Player options listed therein.