Halo 1 & 2 for PC
This topic has moved here: Subject: For Lack of a Better Shot
  • Subject: For Lack of a Better Shot
Subject: For Lack of a Better Shot
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  • Noble Legendary Member

Halo 1&2 PC forum's resident OC ReMixer. Like rockified and metalized video game music? Subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Yeah. That's right. I don't have a 50 in H3. I never got Onyx in Reach. If a game sucks too much, I won't even bother trying for such trivial "accolades". Besides, I've done way more things that take far more skill and talent than anything that can be done in a video game.

This is it. After derailing of other discussions to determine whether or not Halo 2 takes skill , be it the Xbox version or its identical-in-terms-of-gameplay PC port, this is it. This is the throwdown. Once and for all, we'll put this issue to rest.


Marksmanship: The defining factor of competitive FPS

Competitive multiplayer FPS games, since their conception, have always revolved around a single concept. This concept is shared with other competitive types of games: The best man wins. In competitive FPS, it's the person who knows the map well, knows where to find those situational weapons, knows where his opponents will most likely move, knows where his teammates should go, knows where to fix himself up after he's been wounded, knows how to approach objectives, and knows how to do it better than his opponents.

But one thing has always separated the good from the bad and determined victory: Marksmanship. The one who has the better hand-eye coordination, reflexes, shot pacing -essentially, the guy who lands the shot better than his opponent- takes the win. And rightfully so. Marksmanship is the quintessential demonstration of FPS gaming skill, wrapping everything that could be applied to other areas of FPS gaming into a single idea. It's a winning formula, and basing your game around it always means one thing definitively: Players that are good will top the scoreboard, and players that suck will ride the bottom until they can get better.

If you enter a game like this, such as Unreal Tournament, Quake, Team Fortress 2, or Counter-Strike, you'll find a similarity between all of them. All of them have objective gametypes, some more focused on them than others, but they all require you to have better marksmanship than your opponent to defeat them. As a result, the better players consistently achieve victory, and the worse players have to stick it out until they learn the ropes. Nobody's place on the scoreboard is ever (or rarely) questioned.


Noobification: Changing the formula to pander to people that suck

In Halo CE, marksmanship was important. Not as important as in other games, such as those listed above, but still enough so. If you couldn't get aim, if you couldn't place your shots, you couldn't win. If you tried to go up against someone who could aim better than you, even with a power weapon, they could take you out simply because they held a counter that only good players could use effectively: The pistol.

The came Halo 2, which changed the winning formula that makes FPS games so great into something... else. This change applied to marksmanship in two ways.

1. The aim assist was boosted dramatically from the previous game. Essentially, it was boosted to the point where the game did most of the aiming for you. If a player ran by your screen, you didn't have to track him like other games; the game held your hand and made sure that your oh-so-difficult job of keeping your reticule over your opponent was made as ridiculously easy as simply staring at the screen. This allowed bad players that didn't know how to aim well at all match up against players that did.

2. The vector assist, or bullet magnetism as many like to call it, was dramatically boosted from the previous game. This allowed players who were so bad at aiming that they still missed their shots to hit their opponent anyway. The easiest example could be seen in the swipe snipe, which could yield a headshot even if you missed by a yard. Rockets became homing weapons, and hitting with the BR was essentially as easy as keeping your reticule within 3 feet of the opponent's player model.

When all was said and done, these two "features" allowed people who had never even touched an FPS game before to aim just as well as a seasoned pro. And just like that, bad players started topping the scoreboard.


The power weapon concept: Compensation for sucking

Imagine that there was an opponent that you couldn't possibly beat. He lands his shots much better than you ever could, dodges far too unpredictably for your tiny brain to react. Then imagine that there was a weapon that could nullify all of that and allow you to kill that player who you would otherwise lose against in a truly level playing field. Halo 2 gave bad players that option. The power weapon concept could easily be one of the worst things to ever happen to FPS gaming.

In other games, weapons were equal but situational. Nothing was "OP." Everything had its proper place, but no weapon could give a significant advantage over another. The flak cannon in UT was a great close-range weapon. However, if a player using a flak cannon went up against a better player in close range holding a sniper rifle, the advantage wouldn't be enough. The flak cannon guy might chip away a bit more of his superior opponent's health than if he was holding the sniper rifle, but he will still lose simply because that player is better.

In Halo 2 and beyond, that changed. If a terrible FPS player was holding a rocket launcher, and ran across a significantly better player holding a BR, the better player was more often than not as good as dead in less than a second. The same could be applied to every other power weapon. This mechanic allowed bad players to climb the scoreboards where they'd otherwise cradle the bottom, and pushed better players below them.

To allow bad players to beat good players simply by holding a weapon that gives a ridiculous advantage is simply absurd to have in a game where skill should be blatantly evident between players.


First-person cowardice: The frail argument that shooting shouldn't be important

In a recent thread, a point was attempted that would make any decent FPS player laugh so hard it hurt his sides. I did just that.

Essentially, it was argued that Halo 2 was a skill-based FPS despite marksmanship not being important. What was deemed "skillful" in this game was "using cramped maps to your advantage" and "waiting for a weapon respawn". Both of these are not only not skill-based at all, but are instead aspects of the game that remove skill from its gameplay.

Using a cramped area to your advantage is essentially choke point watching. You're slimming down the area that you need to aim at in order to make your shot count, solely because you wouldn't otherwise be able to aim at your opponent correctly if he were able to move around effectively. No skill-based game facilitates this mechanic because good aim by a player defines the skill-gap in FPS games.

Waiting for a weapon respawn would be pointless unless it was a weapon that gave you an advantage over players that are better than you. In the section above, it's clearly explained how the power weapon concept caters to the unskilled. Therefore, depending on these weapons to respawn to the point where they become critical to your success denotes that you have zero skill and wouldn't be able to win if the playing field was even among players.

These are but two examples. The point remains the same: if a game allows cheap tactics that anyone can do effectively to trump raw skill, the game takes no skill to play. In Halo 2, contrast to true competitive FPS games, marksmanship isn't even required to win the game. Marksmanship should never take a backseat to cheap tricks like camping, "map control", or power weapon whoring in a first-person shooter. When it does, it's no longer a first-person shooter, but a first-person battle to see who the biggest coward is.

  • 07.02.2011 12:27 AM PDT
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  • Noble Legendary Member

Halo 1&2 PC forum's resident OC ReMixer. Like rockified and metalized video game music? Subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Yeah. That's right. I don't have a 50 in H3. I never got Onyx in Reach. If a game sucks too much, I won't even bother trying for such trivial "accolades". Besides, I've done way more things that take far more skill and talent than anything that can be done in a video game.

A Baddie in Beast's Clothing: The illusion of skill

Crazy games that take no skill to play can be fun. Mario Kart, in all iterations, is largely luck-based, and a stroke of sheer luck could allow a player sitting in 12th to climb to first place. No reasonable person would claim that game defines racing skill. Super Smash Bros series features imbalanced characters, random environments, and other elements that create unskilled gameplay and allow a bad fighter to quickly turn the game and topple his opponent. No reasonable person would insinuate that the series is comprised of skill-based fighting games. Call of Duty 4 and beyond? Most of us have been down that road.

Halo 2 could have been that. It could have been that game that everyone gathers around solely for the kicks of it being so crazy fun thanks to its gameplay. But no.

Halo 2 essentially provides an illusion of skill. The most obvious of this on the Xbox version is the ranking system. Any decent FPS player who has ever played Halo 2 knows it is far from skill-based. Yet for some stupid reason known only to God and the developers, they decided to slap some falsified epeen onto the game's matchmaking system. In a game where skill means nothing, ranks breeded pretentiousness. Players who wouldn't be able to hold a candle to even the most casual UT player suddenly believed that earning a high rank in the noob's paradise made them God's gift to FPS.

The illusion applied on a subconscious level as well. A gladiatorial-style multiplayer, announcer and all, praising players for being cowards. I'll be the first to admit that killing four players simultaneously with an explosion feels pretty cool, even if I know I did it cheaply. But when the announcer lets forth a grizzly testament to your prowess, suddenly a bad player feels like he has skill. This, layered on with a numbered scoreboard that allowed bad players to proudly display all of their kills that they wouldn't have otherwise earned if the game didn't practically hand them over for free, essentially provided bad FPS players with a haven to retreat to.

At last, a player who would constantly ride the bottom of the scoreboard in a game where skill was required could now venture into a world where he could play with his genitals tucked firmly between his legs and believe he's good.

The bottom line is this: The game takes no skill to play. If you think it does, you're delusional.

[Edited on 07.02.2011 12:28 AM PDT]

  • 07.02.2011 12:27 AM PDT

wow...

You just took what I posted and made it ALOT better.

Thanks... I guess...

  • 07.02.2011 1:07 AM PDT

What about Halo 3? Is it more like Halo CE or Halo2?

  • 07.02.2011 5:39 AM PDT

Halo 3

hahahahaa I thought this would be really funny in response to this thread.

You got angry :D

But on a serious note: I decided to read this massive thread for myself. You contradict yourself all over the place and you show that you don't know how important the other things are that contribute to the skilled player, especially in Halo2+. Not only that, but you exaggerate/lie majorly about Halo 2+ and its components.

When I get the time to do so, I will make a thread in response to this horrid, one-sided thread explaining the components of a skilled player in ANY fps, but most importantly, Halo 2 and beyond.

It's going to be called: The fps skill factors.

Until then, have fun!

  • 07.02.2011 9:49 AM PDT
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  • Noble Legendary Member

Halo 1&2 PC forum's resident OC ReMixer. Like rockified and metalized video game music? Subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Yeah. That's right. I don't have a 50 in H3. I never got Onyx in Reach. If a game sucks too much, I won't even bother trying for such trivial "accolades". Besides, I've done way more things that take far more skill and talent than anything that can be done in a video game.


Posted by: Ben2974
hahahahaa I thought this would be really funny in response to this thread.

You got angry :D

Let's ignore this stupidity and skip to the part of your post that might be salvageable.

Posted by: Ben2974
But on a serious note: I decided to read this massive thread for myself. You contradict yourself all over the place

Explain how. It's not enough to just say I do; give examples.

Posted by: Ben2974
and you show that you don't know how important the other things are that contribute to the skilled player, especially in Halo2+.

Explain how. It's not enough to just say I don't; give examples.

Posted by: Ben2974
Not only that, but you exaggerate/lie majorly about Halo 2+ and its components.

Explain how. It's not enough to just say I do; give examples.

Posted by: Ben2974
When I get the time to do so, I will make a thread in response to this horrid, one-sided thread explaining the components of a skilled player in ANY fps, but most importantly, Halo 2 and beyond.

It's going to be called: The fps skill factors.

How do you expect to do that when you don't know anything about FPS?

  • 07.02.2011 9:53 AM PDT

Halo 3

For the last time, read my post. I said I'm going to make a thread in response to this one. I want to do this so this thread/argument doesn't get all messy and disorganized.

But no seriously, that youtube link fit perfectly. ;p

  • 07.02.2011 10:05 AM PDT
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  • Noble Legendary Member

Halo 1&2 PC forum's resident OC ReMixer. Like rockified and metalized video game music? Subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Yeah. That's right. I don't have a 50 in H3. I never got Onyx in Reach. If a game sucks too much, I won't even bother trying for such trivial "accolades". Besides, I've done way more things that take far more skill and talent than anything that can be done in a video game.


Posted by: Ben2974
But no seriously, that youtube link fit perfectly. ;p

Oh, I agree. That video is retarded, and it's in your post. A perfect fit.

  • 07.02.2011 10:07 AM PDT

Halo 3


Posted by: DusK

Posted by: Ben2974
But no seriously, that youtube link fit perfectly. ;p

Oh, I agree. That video is retarded, and it's in your post. A perfect fit.


It's not retarded. It's funny and fits almost perfectly with your culminated reaction to all our arguments.

There's always a reason to my posts :D

  • 07.02.2011 10:17 AM PDT
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  • Noble Legendary Member

Halo 1&2 PC forum's resident OC ReMixer. Like rockified and metalized video game music? Subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Yeah. That's right. I don't have a 50 in H3. I never got Onyx in Reach. If a game sucks too much, I won't even bother trying for such trivial "accolades". Besides, I've done way more things that take far more skill and talent than anything that can be done in a video game.

Posted by: Ben2974
There's always a reason to my posts :D

Your posts have had nothing to do with reason since you started posting. Hurry up and make your thread so I can destroy it with something you're completely incapable of; logic.

For anyone else looking to respond to this one, don't pull a Ben. Make your posts something worthwhile. If you think there's something wrong with my post, explain how instead of just saying it is. If you're in disagreement, give reasons why; Not elaborating beyond "lol ur an idiot" only makes you look like one yourself.

[Edited on 07.02.2011 10:35 AM PDT]

  • 07.02.2011 10:27 AM PDT
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  • Noble Heroic Member

"A life lived for others is the only life worth living" - Albert Einstein

"I have your RCON right here." - Iggwilv

"Always my pleasure to be lazy." - InvasionImminent

Posted by: Dr Syx
Posted by: Dr Syx
Lies down on a couch and tilts my hat to cover my eyes

Count me out, too tired of these discussions. Wake me up when Halo players realize they're better off enjoying the games in the series they like instead of bickering why the other person is a moron for liking another.
*Wakes up for a second, sees peoples' responses in this thread* I guess it's not time to wake up.

[Edited on 07.02.2011 11:12 AM PDT]

  • 07.02.2011 10:45 AM PDT

I'm totally with Dr Syx on this one, these arguments have been going on now for two weeks now. With neither one gaining the uper hand this is just pointless and is verging on the point of nerdity.

At this stage...

And for the sake of mine and ALL of our mental stabilities can you two just please...

  • 07.02.2011 12:16 PM PDT

This user is unavailable at the moment. Please wait a few hours then try again.
If the problem persists, eat a pineapple and press Alt+F4 at the same time. Otherwise, scream at top of lungs and pound on keyboard.
This user logs onto Bungie.net every second fry-day of the week in the monthly hours. Try to contact him while he is not asleep or masterbating.

FREE HALO 3 PC BETA CLICK HERE

Posted by: Dr Syx
Lies down on a couch and tilts my hat to cover my eyes

Count me out, too tired of these discussions. Wake me up when Halo players realize they're better off enjoying the games in the series they like instead of bickering why the other person is a moron for liking another.
.

Just take this pointless, fruitless argument to the PMs, Ben and DusK. I think nobody cares about which Halo took more skill right now...

  • 07.02.2011 12:53 PM PDT

Halo 3


Posted by: SpaceCade7
Posted by: Dr Syx
Lies down on a couch and tilts my hat to cover my eyes

Count me out, too tired of these discussions. Wake me up when Halo players realize they're better off enjoying the games in the series they like instead of bickering why the other person is a moron for liking another.
.

Just take this pointless, fruitless argument to the PMs, Ben and DusK. I think nobody cares about which Halo took more skill right now...


Yeah, you are all right. Me making another thread would very likely result in a replica of that 7 page thread, with 95% of the comments coming from Dusk and me.

I surrender, Dusk. Have it your way. ;p

[Edited on 07.02.2011 1:43 PM PDT]

  • 07.02.2011 1:16 PM PDT

Posted by: Nessy

The bungie.net community is the halo PC community that is renowned for being unbelieveably sucky.

H2 is much more user friendly than CE. I think that that was the whole idea, to make a game that looked like the original but was much easier for young kids to pick up, enjoy, and get hooked playing. I don't really see anything wrong with that. It was Microbungiesoft's decision, and from a pure monetary viewpoint, it was a great plan.
H2 wasn't really designed for the older crowd that spent countless hours playing split screen CE with friends. And for that reason, a lot of CE diehards were very disappointed with Bungie. But whatever, that was a long time ago. There are much better shooters out there than the Halo series now. Plus, with all the schemes Bungie has written into the multiplayer code like quit bans and other nonsense, it is even more clear who really plays the Halo games: immature kids. And personally, at my age, I don't want to play a FPS with young kids, so I don't play the new Halo games. I could spend a month and get really good, but that would be like winning a race in the special olympics.

  • 07.02.2011 2:14 PM PDT

Anyone who actually read that wall o' garbage gets free pizza from me.

I think it's official that DusK has OCD. Ben has said he will return to normality, thank God. The endless arguments may finally stop.

  • 07.02.2011 2:35 PM PDT
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  • Noble Heroic Member

"A life lived for others is the only life worth living" - Albert Einstein

"I have your RCON right here." - Iggwilv

"Always my pleasure to be lazy." - InvasionImminent


Posted by: Zetren
Anyone who actually read that wall o' garbage gets free pizza from me.

I think it's official that DusK has OCD. Ben has said he will return to normality, thank God. The endless arguments may finally stop.
Let's just hope...

  • 07.02.2011 2:56 PM PDT

Halo Reach PC über alles!

I would like to dub this "The Anti-Halo 2 Manifesto"


Posted by: Zetren
Anyone who actually read that wall o' garbage gets free pizza from me.

I think it's official that DusK has OCD. Ben has said he will return to normality, thank God. The endless arguments may finally stop.


HOORAY FOR COEXISTENCE!

Also your serving us pizza.

[Edited on 07.02.2011 8:14 PM PDT]

  • 07.02.2011 3:59 PM PDT

w00t w00t

Check out my Gaming Rig on EVGA Mod Rigs.


Posted by: Zetren
Anyone who actually read that wall o' garbage gets free pizza from me.

I think it's official that DusK has OCD. Ben has said he will return to normality, thank God. The endless arguments may finally stop.


LOL, I can't believe Dusk is still going on about this.

  • 07.02.2011 4:49 PM PDT
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  • Noble Legendary Member

Halo 1&2 PC forum's resident OC ReMixer. Like rockified and metalized video game music? Subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Yeah. That's right. I don't have a 50 in H3. I never got Onyx in Reach. If a game sucks too much, I won't even bother trying for such trivial "accolades". Besides, I've done way more things that take far more skill and talent than anything that can be done in a video game.

Oh look, I lay out a detailed and comprehensive post, and none of the Halo 2oobs can contribute anything beyond childish insults and general stupidity.

What a shock.

Seriously. If you're gonna post, at least make it worth it.

  • 07.02.2011 9:08 PM PDT

Something smells fishy...

Posted by: DusK
Oh look, I lay out a detailed and comprehensive post, and none of the Halo 2oobs can contribute anything beyond childish insults and general stupidity.

What a shock.

Seriously. If you're gonna post, at least make it worth it.

Yeah just ignore the insults. Sometimes you just have to cut through the negative remarks and read the parts that are more mature.

Without the pistol in Halo CE, vehicles and players wielding power weapons would be to hard to defeat. The pistol has the strength it has so that players can use it to survive against heavy/power weapons that are 1 shot kills. Obviously that doesn't mean players wielding power weapons lose every time to an opponent wielding a pistol.

In my opinion the pistol helps to balance the gameplay. It balances the gameplay by enabling players wielding a pistols to have some kind of counter to players wielding power weapons and heavy vehicles.

In addition the Halo CE pistol takes practice and skill to use effectively. Firstly the pistol requires skill to use because players using it need to manually aim their shots. Secondly the pistol required players to fire at a less rapid rate to effectively kill an opponent. Lastly the poor netcode, in addition to being required to aim, forces players to lead their shots by an even greater margin than the amount already set in place.

[Edited on 07.03.2011 4:01 AM PDT]

  • 07.03.2011 3:46 AM PDT
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  • Noble Heroic Member

"A life lived for others is the only life worth living" - Albert Einstein

"I have your RCON right here." - Iggwilv

"Always my pleasure to be lazy." - InvasionImminent


Posted by: DusK
Oh look, I lay out a detailed and comprehensive post, and none of the Halo 2oobs can contribute anything beyond childish insults and general stupidity.
You laid out a detailed and comprehensive post about stuff the Halo PC forum has known for what seems like forever. Things that people have put into comprehensive posts at least 5 times. We're just tired of all the bickering. It's so redundant that Albert Einstein would consider you insane: "Doing something over and over again expecting a different result." In fact, I'm partially insane for coming here each day expecting something of value when all I get is this -blam!- bickering.

In short, we don't care how comprehensive the post is as long as it is filled with the -blam!- everybody already knows. We just don't give a -blam!- anymore.

[Edited on 07.03.2011 7:21 AM PDT]

  • 07.03.2011 7:20 AM PDT


Posted by: DusK
This is it. After derailing of other discussions to determine whether or not Halo 2 takes skill , be it the Xbox version or its identical-in-terms-of-gameplay PC port, this is it. This is the throwdown. Once and for all, we'll put this issue to rest.


Marksmanship: The defining factor of competitive FPS

Competitive multiplayer FPS games, since their conception, have always revolved around a single concept. This concept is shared with other competitive types of games: The best man wins. In competitive FPS, it's the person who knows the map well, knows where to find those situational weapons, knows where his opponents will most likely move, knows where his teammates should go, knows where to fix himself up after he's been wounded, knows how to approach objectives, and knows how to do it better than his opponents.

But one thing has always separated the good from the bad and determined victory: Marksmanship. The one who has the better hand-eye coordination, reflexes, shot pacing -essentially, the guy who lands the shot better than his opponent- takes the win. And rightfully so. Marksmanship is the quintessential demonstration of FPS gaming skill, wrapping everything that could be applied to other areas of FPS gaming into a single idea. It's a winning formula, and basing your game around it always means one thing definitively: Players that are good will top the scoreboard, and players that suck will ride the bottom until they can get better.

If you enter a game like this, such as Unreal Tournament, Quake, Team Fortress 2, or Counter-Strike, you'll find a similarity between all of them. All of them have objective gametypes, some more focused on them than others, but they all require you to have better marksmanship than your opponent to defeat them. As a result, the better players consistently achieve victory, and the worse players have to stick it out until they learn the ropes. Nobody's place on the scoreboard is ever (or rarely) questioned.


Noobification: Changing the formula to pander to people that suck

In Halo CE, marksmanship was important. Not as important as in other games, such as those listed above, but still enough so. If you couldn't get aim, if you couldn't place your shots, you couldn't win. If you tried to go up against someone who could aim better than you, even with a power weapon, they could take you out simply because they held a counter that only good players could use effectively: The pistol.

The came Halo 2, which changed the winning formula that makes FPS games so great into something... else. This change applied to marksmanship in two ways.

1. The aim assist was boosted dramatically from the previous game. Essentially, it was boosted to the point where the game did most of the aiming for you. If a player ran by your screen, you didn't have to track him like other games; the game held your hand and made sure that your oh-so-difficult job of keeping your reticule over your opponent was made as ridiculously easy as simply staring at the screen. This allowed bad players that didn't know how to aim well at all match up against players that did.

2. The vector assist, or bullet magnetism as many like to call it, was dramatically boosted from the previous game. This allowed players who were so bad at aiming that they still missed their shots to hit their opponent anyway. The easiest example could be seen in the swipe snipe, which could yield a headshot even if you missed by a yard. Rockets became homing weapons, and hitting with the BR was essentially as easy as keeping your reticule within 3 feet of the opponent's player model.

When all was said and done, these two "features" allowed people who had never even touched an FPS game before to aim just as well as a seasoned pro. And just like that, bad players started topping the scoreboard.


The power weapon concept: Compensation for sucking

Imagine that there was an opponent that you couldn't possibly beat. He lands his shots much better than you ever could, dodges far too unpredictably for your tiny brain to react. Then imagine that there was a weapon that could nullify all of that and allow you to kill that player who you would otherwise lose against in a truly level playing field. Halo 2 gave bad players that option. The power weapon concept could easily be one of the worst things to ever happen to FPS gaming.

In other games, weapons were equal but situational. Nothing was "OP." Everything had its proper place, but no weapon could give a significant advantage over another. The flak cannon in UT was a great close-range weapon. However, if a player using a flak cannon went up against a better player in close range holding a sniper rifle, the advantage wouldn't be enough. The flak cannon guy might chip away a bit more of his superior opponent's health than if he was holding the sniper rifle, but he will still lose simply because that player is better.

In Halo 2 and beyond, that changed. If a terrible FPS player was holding a rocket launcher, and ran across a significantly better player holding a BR, the better player was more often than not as good as dead in less than a second. The same could be applied to every other power weapon. This mechanic allowed bad players to climb the scoreboards where they'd otherwise cradle the bottom, and pushed better players below them.

To allow bad players to beat good players simply by holding a weapon that gives a ridiculous advantage is simply absurd to have in a game where skill should be blatantly evident between players.


First-person cowardice: The frail argument that shooting shouldn't be important

In a recent thread, a point was attempted that would make any decent FPS player laugh so hard it hurt his sides. I did just that.

Essentially, it was argued that Halo 2 was a skill-based FPS despite marksmanship not being important. What was deemed "skillful" in this game was "using cramped maps to your advantage" and "waiting for a weapon respawn". Both of these are not only not skill-based at all, but are instead aspects of the game that remove skill from its gameplay.

Using a cramped area to your advantage is essentially choke point watching. You're slimming down the area that you need to aim at in order to make your shot count, solely because you wouldn't otherwise be able to aim at your opponent correctly if he were able to move around effectively. No skill-based game facilitates this mechanic because good aim by a player defines the skill-gap in FPS games.

Waiting for a weapon respawn would be pointless unless it was a weapon that gave you an advantage over players that are better than you. In the section above, it's clearly explained how the power weapon concept caters to the unskilled. Therefore, depending on these weapons to respawn to the point where they become critical to your success denotes that you have zero skill and wouldn't be able to win if the playing field was even among players.

These are but two examples. The point remains the same: if a game allows cheap tactics that anyone can do effectively to trump raw skill, the game takes no skill to play. In Halo 2, contrast to true competitive FPS games, marksmanship isn't even required to win the game. Marksmanship should never take a backseat to cheap tricks like camping, "map control", or power weapon whoring in a first-person shooter. When it does, it's no longer a first-person shooter, but a first-person battle to see who the biggest coward is.


Sooooooo who actually read the whining kids whole post? (Not me LOL)

  • 07.03.2011 12:54 PM PDT
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  • Noble Legendary Member

Halo 1&2 PC forum's resident OC ReMixer. Like rockified and metalized video game music? Subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Yeah. That's right. I don't have a 50 in H3. I never got Onyx in Reach. If a game sucks too much, I won't even bother trying for such trivial "accolades". Besides, I've done way more things that take far more skill and talent than anything that can be done in a video game.

Posted by: Twisted4293
Sooooooo who actually contributed anything useful to the thread? (Not me LOL)

Fixed for accuracy. And I lol'd at a kid calling me a kid.

This is the line in the sand. If you don't like the post, GTFO. If you can't post anything related to the topic itself, instead resorting to petty insults and stupidity, GTFO. If you're gonna post from here on out, present an argument relating to the subject matter.

So far, the only ones that have actually posted anything related to the subject at hand have been on my side. The rest have just be "lol ur dumb whining lololol" which only reinforces the point that you guys can't present a valid counter-argument. If you don't like what I had to say, at least explain why you disagree instead of posting like you never passed elementary school.

  • 07.03.2011 1:23 PM PDT