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Re: On 'competitive-ness' in Halo 2
Posted By: Overswarm <overswarm@gmail.com>	Date: 8/30/05 6:14 p.m.
In Response To: Re: On 'competitive-ness' in Halo 2 (Sep7imus [subnova]) : I totally respect you, Overswarm. I really like your strategy guides, and I : trust that you have some serious knowledge about competitive Halo playing. : But, you make a contention that I've seen a lot of people make (so this : isn't just addressed at you) that I still find hard to but: the claim that : Halo 2 isn't "competitive." I didn't. Bungie did. I actually would prefer it if Halo was made to be competitive. It wouldn't be hard, but currently matchmaking gametypes are made to be fun REGARDLESS of whether you win or lose. In matchmaking, they want you to be able to play leaning back in your chair, having a good ol time. : Now, maybe I'm not understanding what you mean by "competitive," : but to me it means a game where people can compete with one another, where : there is a winner, and (though this isn't really a requirement since games : of chance CAN be competitive) where the winner usually demonstrates more : skill at the game than the loser. In any case, I REALLY don't see how Halo : 2 can be described as "not competitive." The problem is, to show more "skill", the game has to be balanced to where the ability to show said skill is attainable by all sides. In halo 1, you always had the handy pistol to keep you out of trouble, and you could shoot 'em up Texas style, regardless of what they had. If you were really good, you could take out the Overshield guy. Now, the pistol was a tad strong (only by one shot, in my opinion), but it wasn't the strongest. It gave you options, and different weapons were better in different circumstances. Now it's not quite the same. In halo 2, it is MUCH more difficult to show more skill than the opponent, ESPECIALLY if you are playing matchmaking. Maybe if you both spawned at equal distances from every power weapon and powerup on the map, but you don't. I've spawned next to the sniper on Beaver Creek FFAs, grabbed it, and I stood on the sniper spawn and got a killtacular right off the bat. I continued to get 4 more kills before I got low on ammo, and I wasted the rest of the shots, grabbed a BR, and waited for the sniper to respawn. Skill? No. It did take skill to get the headshots, it did take skill to ward off would be sniper stealers, but the enemy was ALWAYS at a disadvantage. Imagine how horrible basketball would be if one of the teams could have a higher goal than the other because of something else the opposing team did. Some people would argue that it took more "skill" for the team to do that (whatever they needed to do to raise the opponents goal), but in all reality it is just a gimmick. The only way to see "skill" is bare bones gameplay, with simple, yet with varying degrees of difficulty, objectives and rules. But as we all know, halo 2 is a GAME, and therefore that is less than desirable. The problem with matchmaking is that the gimmicks are more pronounced, and the actual meat of the game (aiming, manuevering, etc.) are overshadowed by the flaws inherent in the game. : (As a sidenote, I think an argument could be made that Halo1, without the : rankings of matchmaking, was actually a lot LESS competitive since : opponents - on things like XBoxConenct - were much more likely to be : unevenly matched in terms of skill. What does that have to do with the price on winter snow peas in China? Halo 1 had a fairly competitive streak, if I recall. Playing on XBC is just one way to play. You can say ANYTHING isn't competitive if you give it a small enough pool of people. Just because Halo 2 has XBL doesn't make it a better game, it just makes it more attainable. There's nothing competitive about : gettin on XBoxConnect and getting owned 50 to 5 by someone who's just way : better than you; nor is it competitive to be doing the owning. Thanks to : matchmaking, I think there's a lot more actual "competition" : going on in everyday Halo playing in Halo 2 than in Halo 1. Not competition. Matchmaking is just the "game" part. The "Fun" part. Not the competitive side. Competitiveness does NOT derive from matchmaking. If it does, it does so by accident. Bungie's words. But that's : just a sidenote and has more to do with the matchmaing system than with : game dynamics.) : First of all, it really isn't true, as others have claimed, that a level 1 : player (an actual level 1 player, not someone who just started that : particular playlist but is actually ranked much higher in others) can come : along and beat a level, say, 20 player just through lucky spawns or some : other random luck. It just doesn't happen. First off, you are effectively saying "a very bad player doesn't just come along and beat a decent player". That's true, no one will ever debate that. It doesn't matter if the game is Pong, that doesn't happen. However, the point you are trying to make is that the player with more experience, more rudimentary skill, will always win. Halo 2 DOES take skill. But so does peek-a-boo, technically. The competitiveness isn't there because it doesn't take skills to do certain things, it is taken away because it is extremely easy for a game to become one-sided. That's why there ARE different : matchmaking levels: because, no matter what you say above, different : people DO have different levels of skill at the game and those different : levels of skill DO affect how often they win the game and that DOES affect : what level they are. So, Halo 2 IS competitive in that way, even in : matchmaking. "competition" doesn't necessarily mean "competitive". There can be competitions about people guessing which hand is holding the marble; that doesn't mean it is competitive. : Now, here's what I think you REALLY mean (I apologize in advance if I'm : mis-characterizing your stance): Halo 2 is not as good as Halo 1 at : differentiating between different skill levels AT THE HIGHER SKILL LEVELS. From medium up, actually. Unless your brain is slowly being eaten away by brain-eating spiders, after a few months of Halo 2 you start to pick up on things that just irritate you SO MUCH. Those things that "irritate" you only irritate you because they cause you to lose, without fail. When you get them, you feel happy because you win, without fail. Once you learn not to make such stupid mistakes (like chasing after someone with a sniper rifle), you don't lose your advantages very often, and the game ends quickly. : Once you have memorized all the maps and the weapon spawn times, once you : can easily get the 4-shot BR kill, once you're a consitent one-shot : shiper, once you can stick people consistently across the map, etc. (i.e. : once you're really good at Halo 2 - and this probably corresponds to being : over level 20 or so in matchmaking), THEN it might be the case that : someone who also has those same skills and abilities could sometimes beat : you and sometimes lose to you based on luck (thus not making clear who : really is more "skilled"), but that is already at a high level : of skill. It's not hard at all to get a 4-shot BR kill, nor to get the weapon spawn times, headshots with a sniper, or anything like that. Medium-skilled players easily can attest to doing these things consistently. For the rest of us (the VAST majority of Halo players), just : getting to the sniper rifle first does NOT mean that we are going to : easily dominate the game. Then the player with the sniper rifle is making a grievous mistake. There is no feasible reason that a sniper could lose his advantage in halo 2 (at least in non-rumble pit) unless HE was unaware, and HE made mistakes. It has little to do with the enemy doing something right. And it IS competitive, because we'll fight with : each other for that sniper rifle and for any other little edge we can get. But whoever gets it first DOES have the advantage, and it is a much larger one than you'd find in most other competitive games. The fact that it is such a large gap between an SMG and a sniper rifle is what makes the game not so much competitive. : (Now, some might contend that there are other types of "skills" : that Halo 2 requires, like teamwork and stuff, and that the game actually : DOES reward those skills even at higher levels, but I'm not going to get : into that.) : Finally, let me just point out that in any game (take real life professional : sports, for example) there are going to be instances where luck or : something like it actually determines the outcome of the game, allowing : the less skilled to defeat the more skillful. It happens all of the time. But if it happened too often, the game would not be considered competitive. It would merely be considered a game. : That doesn't mean that football, or basketball, or hockey, or whatever : aren't competitive. It just means that luck is part of the game. Which is why the people in charge of making the rules for the sports (or games) should go out of their way to make it LESS random and luck-based, as randomness and luck take away from competition. That's : why they play whole seasons of games instead of just one tournament; it : evens out over the course of a season so that the more skilled players : rise to the top. See above statement. I contend that the same thing happens in matchmaking and : in Halo2 in general, which is, again, why there are different matchmaking : levels in the first place. But that doesn't change the luck factors in the game. Accidently slipping and dropping the ball in a football game is one thing. Winning games against otherwise equal teams because you got the sniper first is not. : -Sep7imus -OS

Message Index

New article at 1up.com...	Ename Nep	8/27/05 9:59 p.m.
I was expecting more from 1-up	Devil Mingy	8/27/05 10:07 p.m.
Re: I was expecting more from 1-up	Ename Nep	8/27/05 10:33 p.m.
Re: I was expecting more from 1-up	Devil Mingy	8/27/05 10:41 p.m.
Re: I was expecting more from 1-up	Ename Nep	8/27/05 10:47 p.m.
Pathetic. I also expected more...	Spartan Jag	8/29/05 10:40 a.m.
Re: I was expecting more from 1-up	kapowaz	8/31/05 8:07 a.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	Paladin117	8/27/05 10:15 p.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	Paladin117	8/27/05 10:23 p.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	Ename Nep	8/27/05 10:35 p.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	zink	8/27/05 10:55 p.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	Ename Nep	8/27/05 11:07 p.m.
Everything he wrote is correct.	JakeDaGreat	8/27/05 11:42 p.m.
Re: Everything he wrote is correct.	Devil Mingy	8/27/05 11:49 p.m.
Re: Everything he wrote is correct.	JakeDaGreat	8/28/05 12:13 a.m.
Re: Everything he wrote is correct.	Dave "IronSight"	8/28/05 11:51 p.m.
Re: Everything he wrote is correct.	lyKENthropy	8/29/05 1:48 p.m.
Re: Everything he wrote is correct.	Halo2needsthepistol	8/29/05 4:00 p.m.
Re: Everything he wrote is correct.	lyKENthropy	8/29/05 6:04 p.m.
You looking for a marksman?	[AMS] GreyThor	8/28/05 11:16 p.m.
Re: Everything he wrote is correct.	Doc Platinum	8/29/05 2:37 p.m.
Re: Everything he wrote is correct.	UNSCDF	8/29/05 5:09 p.m.
Re: Everything he wrote is correct.	Sep7imus [subnova]	8/29/05 2:41 p.m.
Re: Everything he wrote is correct.	Endbringer	8/29/05 3:04 p.m.
Re: Everything he wrote is correct.	hedfones	8/31/05 12:42 p.m.
That can't be right.	Pvt. Jenkins	8/28/05 12:59 a.m.
Re: That can't be right.	masterskill	8/28/05 3:04 a.m.
Re: That can't be right.	Ename Nep	8/28/05 4:23 a.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	Dean_Kreger	8/28/05 8:54 p.m.
Yes, broken halo.	WaLKa	8/28/05 10:49 p.m.
Re: Yes, broken halo.	Louis Wu	8/28/05 11:07 p.m.
Re: Yes, broken halo.	WaLKa	8/28/05 11:15 p.m.
Re: Yes, broken halo.	Louis Wu	8/28/05 11:19 p.m.
Re: Yes, broken halo.	[AMS] GreyThor	8/28/05 11:25 p.m.
Re: Yes, broken halo.	Louis Wu	8/28/05 11:27 p.m.
Re: Yes, broken halo.	[AMS] GreyThor	8/28/05 11:34 p.m.
Re: Yes, broken halo.	SuperMatt	8/29/05 4:59 a.m.
Re: Yes, broken halo.	shooty guy	8/31/05 2:58 p.m.
Re: Yes, broken halo.	Shocc	8/31/05 7:05 p.m.
Re: Yes, broken halo.	Count Zero	9/1/05 9:39 a.m.
Re: Yes, broken halo.	Spartan Jag	8/29/05 4:40 p.m.
Re: Yes, broken halo.	Scarab	8/30/05 1:11 a.m.
Re: Yes, broken halo.	shooty guy	8/31/05 3:04 p.m.
Re: Yes, broken halo.	Louis Wu	8/31/05 4:16 p.m.
Re: Yes, broken halo.	shooty guy	8/31/05 4:42 p.m.
Re: Yes, broken halo.	Scarab	8/31/05 8:25 p.m.
Re: Yes, broken halo.	Usul	8/31/05 9:41 a.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	Nug Blazer	8/28/05 11:14 p.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	Louis Wu	8/28/05 11:16 p.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	WaLKa	8/28/05 11:23 p.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	Louis Wu	8/28/05 11:25 p.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	WaLKa	8/28/05 11:28 p.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	Lion	8/29/05 8:13 p.m.
Louis	chaostheory101	8/29/05 8:40 p.m.
This is getting absurd.	Louis Wu	8/30/05 8:01 a.m.
Re: This is getting absurd.	Shocc	8/31/05 7:11 p.m.
Re: This is getting absurd.	Count Zero	9/1/05 9:38 a.m.
Re: This is getting absurd.	Shocc	9/1/05 5:12 p.m.
Bah.	Louis Wu	8/30/05 8:11 a.m.
Re: Louis	kapowaz	8/31/05 8:18 a.m.
Despite the previous message's subject line...	kapowaz	8/31/05 8:20 a.m.
Re: Louis	shooty guy	8/31/05 4:39 p.m.
Re: Louis	Louis Wu	8/31/05 4:46 p.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	zugy	8/29/05 12:24 a.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	Michael M.	8/28/05 11:52 p.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	WaLKa	8/29/05 12:08 a.m.
...What?	Michael M.	8/29/05 1:35 a.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	zugy	8/29/05 12:20 a.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	kapowaz	8/31/05 8:14 a.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	Louis Wu	8/31/05 10:32 a.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	mercury	8/31/05 12:39 p.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	Pizack	8/31/05 12:49 p.m.
It's all patchwork, folks	Mothergoat	8/28/05 11:54 p.m.
Re: It's all patchwork, folks	Mothergoat	8/29/05 12:00 a.m.
Re: It's all patchwork, folks	zugy	8/29/05 12:18 a.m.
Re: It's all patchwork, folks	Louis Wu	8/29/05 12:23 a.m.
Re: eek, what did I say?	Mothergoat	8/29/05 1:11 a.m.
Re: eek, what did I say? addend	Mothergoat	8/29/05 1:16 a.m.
Re: Damnation =/= Chill Out	Mothergoat	8/29/05 1:39 a.m.
Re: eek, what did I say?	mnemesis	8/29/05 1:52 a.m.
...Some of us are more prone than others... *NM*	SOA	8/29/05 5:23 a.m.
Re: eek, what did I say?	Louis Wu	8/29/05 8:53 a.m.
Re: The A, B's & C's	Mothergoat	8/29/05 9:27 a.m.
Re: It's all patchwork, folks	profhalo	8/29/05 3:18 a.m.
Re: It's all patchwork, folks	Endbringer	8/29/05 2:13 p.m.
Re: It's all patchwork, folks	Halo2needsthepistol	8/29/05 4:13 p.m.
Re: It's all patchwork, folks	Louis Wu	8/29/05 4:17 p.m.
Re: It's all patchwork, folks	zink	8/31/05 12:05 p.m.
good atricle	profhalo	8/29/05 2:39 a.m.
Re: good atricle	Louis Wu	8/29/05 9:04 a.m.
Re: good atricle	[AMS] GreyThor	8/29/05 4:39 p.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	Pkmnrulz240	8/29/05 10:56 a.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	Konrad	8/29/05 12:05 p.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	zink	8/31/05 3:17 p.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	Varsis	8/29/05 12:56 p.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	ratboy	8/29/05 1:23 p.m.
Re: New article at 1up.com...	Overswarm	8/29/05 4:35 p.m.
Re: On 'competitive-ness' in Halo 2	Sep7imus [subnova]	8/30/05 9:24 a.m.
Re: On 'competitive-ness' in Halo 2	Overswarm	8/30/05 6:14 p.m.
Re: On 'competitive-ness' in Halo 2	Devil Mingy	8/30/05 8:18 p.m.
Re: On 'competitive-ness' in Halo 2	Sep7imus [subnova]	8/30/05 9:03 p.m.
Re: On 'competitive-ness' in Halo 2	Red Dingo	8/30/05 10:55 p.m.
Re: On 'competitive-ness' in Halo 2	Mattat	9/1/05 8:54 a.m.
my intelligence was assaulted *NM*	Cuda II	8/29/05 8:06 p.m.
I have something to say...	Whisp	8/31/05 3:00 p.m.
This is ridiculous	Locksmitch	8/31/05 8:17 p.m.
Re: This is ridiculous	Louis Wu	9/1/05 8:02 a.m.
Re: This is ridiculous	Locksmitch	9/1/05 4:26 p.m.
Re: This is ridiculous	Anton P. Nym (aka Steve)	9/1/05 5:31 p.m.
Re: This is ridiculous	Locksmitch	9/1/05 8:43 p.m.
Re: This is ridiculous	Count Zero	9/2/05 7:29 a.m.
Re: This is ridiculous	Anton P. Nym (aka Steve)	9/2/05 8:03 a.m.
My opinion.	Shocc	9/1/05 10:49 p.m.
Grenades on midship	Narcogen	9/2/05 2:52 a.m.