Halo 2 rant #2
I hate idiots who think that whenever they lose they're being cheated against. "The host always gets better spawns" is actually something I heard today. I mean, that's just not true. The spawn system, as I understand it, is a function of the map itself. Most likely there's a function call whenever someone is needed to spawn that does some random number generation and factors in whether or not you're on a team that you should spawn close to, etc. Regardless, there's always that random factor, and it's most likely simply part of the map. Modders can change spawn locations, and that's because they fuck with the map itself - which is why they can only screw with the new maps that aren't part of the original game's DVD. Those new maps are simply files on the xbox's harddrive, which they modify. So yeah, this guy who told me this was insistent upon the fact that you bridge simply in order to get host, the ONLY reason for which was to get better spawns. I'm pretty sure this guy is about as smart as a dead squirrel. He played like one too. Bridging is where you set up your xbox to connect to xbox live through your computer, so you can run a firewall program that shows you all the connections being made. Properly set up (and I'm sure there are nifty applications for this) you can disconnect a player from the game at will, and somehow you can futz with how much bandwidth is given to them, causing them to lag if you want. Yes, the host has advantages such as things like the shotgun doing more damage from longer range, and your bullets hitting "first" if you shoot at the same time as somebody else, but bridging is about messing with the connections of the players.
Futhermore, the ranking system is broken. I don't know how many times in the past few days that I've been in games of equal ranks, and my team gets absolutely rocked by the other team. The ranking system, if you think about it theoretically, should work in such a way that over time, people will generally become situated within a few levels of their "true rank". This is clearly not the case. Cheaters bring people down unfairly, so there's a huge assortment of skill levels hovering around 25-35, from people who are actually these levels, people who have cheated their way into them and are actually terrible without hax, and people who are some of the best players around. Also, people who "boost" screw with the system. I played six games in a row against boosters. Boosting is where you have at least one player with an extremely low rank on your team, who is actually much better than his rank implies. Doesn't sound so sinister on the surface, but the way matchmaking uh... makes matches.... is that it averages the skill levels of the people in the game and searches for people near those levels. There used to be a link about this on bungie.net but I can't find it anymore. Anyhoo, as we've all taken algebra, we know that this kind of stray number has an effect (and if there are multiple occurrences of non-representative numbers, the effect is heightened) on that average. So, a team with a higher skill level than is represented by the average rank will likely play a team that is better represented by its average rank. So, yeah. Bullshit I say.
On the upside, I had a game the other night where I got absolutely smoked and was being taunted throughout the game. Clearly, this sucked, but from that point on I've been singleminded in my play to simply improve. I know that I'm faster than the majority of people, and somehow this new focus has improved my gameplay by leaps and bounds. So, this kind of bullshit has motivated me beyond earlier levels to play faster and better. Also, luckily, this focus allows me to avoid flipping out at the game quite so often, an unexpected side effect. Clearly though, it has not kept me from rants such as these which are oh-so-slightly tinged with bitterness and uhm... misanthropic levels of loathing. So aye, caffeine ninja is relearning how to play Halo, and learning it the right way. Death to nubs!
Also, I've done a shitload of painting in the past couple days. I should demand payment from my parents, as I've probably saved them a few hundred dollars. Maybe I can convince them to pay for the rear-wheel ball bearing that's going to break in my car in a few months, which is apparently going to cost $453.78 to replace.
Futhermore, the ranking system is broken. I don't know how many times in the past few days that I've been in games of equal ranks, and my team gets absolutely rocked by the other team. The ranking system, if you think about it theoretically, should work in such a way that over time, people will generally become situated within a few levels of their "true rank". This is clearly not the case. Cheaters bring people down unfairly, so there's a huge assortment of skill levels hovering around 25-35, from people who are actually these levels, people who have cheated their way into them and are actually terrible without hax, and people who are some of the best players around. Also, people who "boost" screw with the system. I played six games in a row against boosters. Boosting is where you have at least one player with an extremely low rank on your team, who is actually much better than his rank implies. Doesn't sound so sinister on the surface, but the way matchmaking uh... makes matches.... is that it averages the skill levels of the people in the game and searches for people near those levels. There used to be a link about this on bungie.net but I can't find it anymore. Anyhoo, as we've all taken algebra, we know that this kind of stray number has an effect (and if there are multiple occurrences of non-representative numbers, the effect is heightened) on that average. So, a team with a higher skill level than is represented by the average rank will likely play a team that is better represented by its average rank. So, yeah. Bullshit I say.
On the upside, I had a game the other night where I got absolutely smoked and was being taunted throughout the game. Clearly, this sucked, but from that point on I've been singleminded in my play to simply improve. I know that I'm faster than the majority of people, and somehow this new focus has improved my gameplay by leaps and bounds. So, this kind of bullshit has motivated me beyond earlier levels to play faster and better. Also, luckily, this focus allows me to avoid flipping out at the game quite so often, an unexpected side effect. Clearly though, it has not kept me from rants such as these which are oh-so-slightly tinged with bitterness and uhm... misanthropic levels of loathing. So aye, caffeine ninja is relearning how to play Halo, and learning it the right way. Death to nubs!
Also, I've done a shitload of painting in the past couple days. I should demand payment from my parents, as I've probably saved them a few hundred dollars. Maybe I can convince them to pay for the rear-wheel ball bearing that's going to break in my car in a few months, which is apparently going to cost $453.78 to replace.