Halo 3 - General Discussion & Info

[quote name='BackInBlack']Sorry Bungie...COD4 came out in November.[/quote]

Right now, I am in a COD 4 withdrawal state, as when ever I play all I can say is "Why am I playing this rubbish!" Maybe the update will fix that.
 
[quote name='help1']Right now, I am in a COD 4 withdrawal state, as when ever I play all I can say is "Why am I playing this rubbish!" Maybe the update will fix that.[/quote]

Hey man i understand that...i played Halo 3 a hell of alot before i got COD4 at the begining of December. I just think its stupid that they waited this long to get things going.
 
I got tired of COD4 as well, but I don't usually care for realistic shooters (the fact I got it at all says how awesome it is).

Sounds like a good start towards the melee problem (WAY late btw), I'll pick up Halo 3 again when it goes live.
 
Nice to see I am not the only one who grew tired of COD. Some time off will be good for restoring my urge to play it again.

Still, with this melee update, I am still going to be anticipating GTA 4 and UT3.
 
Lone Wolves pisses me off.
That and my quest for level 45 that will never end. I lost my 43 in Lone Wolves because people like to crouch around and throw grenades in hallways
 
[quote name='Friend of Sonic']Lone Wolves pisses me off.
That and my quest for level 45 that will never end. I lost my 43 in Lone Wolves because people like to crouch around and throw grenades in hallways[/quote]


Just keep at it, thats all i can say. Its a tough road. It took me up until sometime in January to finally pull off a 45 in that playlist. Now for Overkill and Level 50...
 
Lone Wolves has gotten me nowhere either, been bouncing between 40-42 the last month or so and at this rate will probably never hit 45 (just his Colonel grade 2 as a matter of fact).

The fix is great, as I have put CoD4 on the backburner because I was getting tired of it. However, Rainbow Six Vegas is only a month away so at this point who knows how much time I'll put into Halo 3, and of course after that is Unreal Tournament.
 
That fix is pointless...the game is fun as is. I mean trading deaths is even worse...all it means is you'll have less death sprees and less killing sprees. I can't see how anyone who dislikes the game solely dislikes it cause of the melee. This change won't help anything...it will satisfy a couple complainers, and anger those who like the current system.
 
[quote name='GuilewasNK']The melees aren't the problem in Halo 3. It's stupid stuff like Oddball in Lone Wolves.[/quote]


Thats the worst problem? after the match making update the objective lone wolves matches were less of an occurence.
 
[quote name='Friend of Sonic']Lone Wolves pisses me off.
That and my quest for level 45 that will never end. I lost my 43 in Lone Wolves because people like to crouch around and throw grenades in hallways[/quote]

TS and TD are easier to get 50's in.
 
[quote name='life.exe']TS and TD are easier to get 50's in.[/QUOTE]

I've been trying forever. I can't get a 45 anywhere.
I was at 43 in LW and I won six straight without it getting me to 44. I lost one and it deranked me to 42.
 
Well if Team Slayer is easier to get 50 in then add me. I'm completely Joe-Streak at this game. I get streaks of +10 then the next game I'm -10. Infact I just got about 10k in kills and 10k in deaths or so giving me just above a 1.02 k/d in RANKED games.

Kills : 10224
Deaths : 10041
K/D Ratio : 1.02

I'm going to be playing this game a bit over the next weeks (tired of COD4) and going to attempt to hit 45 and maybe someday 50 whether It's Team Doubles, Team Slayer or Lone Wolves.
 
How come we don't have CAG game nights for this? I think we should start some because after playing CoD 4 so much I've been getting kind of bored of it. I booted up Halo 3 for the first time in a month and had a blast! Any other CAG's play this?
 
[quote name='Monsta Mack']Well if Team Slayer is easier to get 50 in then add me. I'm completely Joe-Streak at this game. I get streaks of +10 then the next game I'm -10. Infact I just got about 10k in kills and 10k in deaths or so giving me just above a 1.02 k/d in RANKED games.

Kills : 10224
Deaths : 10041
K/D Ratio : 1.02

I'm going to be playing this game a bit over the next weeks (tired of COD4) and going to attempt to hit 45 and maybe someday 50 whether It's Team Doubles, Team Slayer or Lone Wolves.[/quote]


Are you legit serious about starting up a Team Slayer crew? I would like to play with a group of 3 people every night to work up to a 50 someday. Add me if you want to play Halo 3 sometime regardless.
 
I would also be willing to play TS to work my rank up to 50 as currently I am a 36. Send me a FR if you are interested in getting a group together.
 
I'd be up for anyone interested in playing Team anything (Slayer, Doubles, Control, Objective, whatever)

I'm not terribly good but I like playing with a team that at least tries to work together. Control seems like a mode that a group of four really working together could do well as every other match there are people who don't seem to realize WTF they are doing. Of course that could also be related to the fact that I just got my feet wet in that mode so I have a very low rating.
 
I generally play with my cousin CzechLuv in Team Objective (Rank 10-15'ish) & Ranked Big Team Battle (Rank 6?) and we communicate (when the team aren't idiots) and do pretty decent. We're not fans of the territories gametype. Don't play a whole lot at the moment but more players who would communicate would be nice. (I generally drive the warthog for him as of late as I've gotten pretty good at driving and him at gunning)

He said he was coming over today so we'll likely play it this afternoon for a while. Outside of that I'll be free to play in afternoons and maybe saturdays when I'm not playing Lost Odyssey. Once I'm done with Lost Odyssey though any afternoon PM's should be noticed pretty quickly unless I'm gone and I could hop on for a little bit if needed (or at least send a live message via xbox.com).
 
i want a team for ranked slayer or ranked big team who will go into forge for all the maps, and pick out names for all the different locations, form a strategy and proceed to Pwn N00b5. No but seriously. lets do this, im sick of playing with people who are like whats "top gold". Friends request with a message if your down to take your team work to the next level. there is super fun times to be had.
 
I'm a long time player of Battlefield 2 for the PC, where teamwork is essential. From that game I learned how much fun teamwork is when done correctly... with that resume out of the way,I'm looking for some people to team up with on a semi-regular basis.

I just got the game, so my stats are low, but I'm not horrible.
PM if you're looking for more people for your team. I can usually play from 7-8pm EST and then after 11:30 est most weeknights. Weekends we'll have to see.
 
[quote name='Smeag']Is there a date for when the Heroic DLC will become free?[/quote]

No.

Also

[quote name='bungie.net'] In the wee hours of Wednesday, Feb 20th, PST, the Halo 3 AutoUpdate will go live, and address some minor bugs and gameplay issues.[/quote]
 
Hopefully that's true if not a little sooner. While I don't regret buying the map pack as the forge variations are pretty cool, it would be nice to have more people to play Grifball and the like. Haven't been able to get a full Grifball game going as not enough people I know are willing to play Halo 3 and have the map pack.


And if anyone is serious about going for rank 50 in Team Slayer I could join in if really needed. I tend to play more casually but don't mind getting a little serious if it's just in that game type. Currently I'm around rank 30 after hitting rank 32 in about 60 to 70 games a while back but haven't really touched it in a while. Just send me a friend request but I don't think I'd be to into it until next Monday as I should be finished with Lost Odyssey by then.

Though when my cousin is over I tend to switch to Ranked Big Team Battle and Team Objective.
 
I may now play this game again.

[quote name='Bungie.net Top Story']
Halo 3 AutoUpdate
Posted by Frankie at 2/19/2008 5:45 PM PST

Multiplayer Design Lead Tyson Green checked a week ago in with a lengthy explanation of the melee system in Halo 3, how it’s different from Halo 2’s what worked about both versions, what didn’t work and how it’s being addressed by the auto update. here's a reminder of what he explained.

Tyson says:

The Short Version

Melee contests will only produce a winner if he has a sizeable health advantage over the loser. Otherwise, both players may die in the clash.

What Halo 2 Did

Put simply, in Halo 2, whoever threw the first melee won. Sounds perfect, right? Not quite.

Get your Einstein on, we’re going to talk about relativity. Specifically, the relative observations of host versus client. In Halo 3, across our entire population, we observe an average latency between host and client of around 80-100ms, which is around three frames. Assuming 90ms of latency, consider what happens when the host and client both throw melee attacks at exactly the same time. The host will see the client’s melee attack as many as three frames later, while the client will see the host’s melee attack three frames later. Who attacked first?

Well, in the halcyon days of Halo 2, the host made that determination. Which means his melee was first and the client lost the melee fight far more often than they should have. And in the event of two clients attacking simultaneously, the one with lower latency to the host would appear to have attacked first, and would be the winner. In a peer-to-peer environment with latency, it is nigh impossible to determine exactly who attacked first.

Over Halo 2’s three years online, many people adapted and got used to preemptively throwing a melee, but it was still fundamentally unfair in favor of the host or people with faster connections.

So, to be clear and upfront, we will not be returning to those days of letting the host win when the outcome is in doubt, aka. first melee wins.

The Halo 3 “Fix”

In Halo 3, there is explicit special treatment for what is called a “melee contest”, which occurs when two melee attacks occur almost simultaneously. Specifically, when the host starts to throw a melee attack, there is a short window after that (three frames, or approximately 100ms) during which the host will watch for a retaliatory melee attack. If one arrives inside that window, it is a contest. Besides smoothing out the latency differences between clients (it works the same way when one client melees another), this allows a client with a ping as high as 100ms to compete with the host on a far more even footing than Halo 2 allowed.

So now we have the contests, but how are they resolved? Having determined that we cannot trust timing in an environment with latency, we instead use the remaining health (including shields) of the contestants as the tie-breaker. This is about as fair as you can get, within the conventions of Halo—the guy who did more damage comes out on top. Specifically, the winner of the contest still takes melee damage from the loser, but is protected from death and lives to fight another day.

On paper, this method addresses the host advantage (among others) and is scrupulously fair. There’s just one problem:

The Fatal Flaw

Halo 3’s system is inscrutable. This is most famously illustrated by a splitscreen film (eliminating latency as a factor) of two players running at each other, firing, and throwing melee attacks on the same frame. One drops dead, and it isn’t clear why, so the result is declared to be random. The real reason is, of course, that one player landed one or two more bullets than the other, but that isn’t anywhere near obvious.

Any time you have a game system which players cannot understand, it might as well be random. No matter how fair the tiebreaker may be, if a single Assault Rifle bullet can slip by and decide the outcome, it might as well be random. And randomness is a poor substitute for tactics and skillful execution.

Addressing the Flaw

We considered and ultimately rejected some ideas that could have made melee contests produce a less inscrutable result. A major consideration was that we wanted to minimize the impact on how Halo 3 plays to the greatest degree possible, while still addressing the problem. Radically changing the mechanics of melee combat is not something we want at this point.

Ultimately, the change is targeted at the unpredictable outcome of a contest. Simply stated, it works like this: when a melee contest occurs, and both players are close to the same health (including shields), no special protection is given to either player. This means the outcome of a close melee contest can be death for both participants, but that a player who decisively injures his opponent prior to closing for a melee will continue to enjoy the victorious outcome.

For those of you uninterested in the precise details, the upshot is this: if you close for a melee attack and are at a clear advantage (or disadvantage), the outcome will be clear. If the outcome is unclear, too close to call, you will likely trade kills with your victim. But you should no longer watch your opponent saunter away for no clear reason (and if you do, check the film—it tells all.)

The Nitty Gritty

If you’re still reading, you’re probably interested in some details, so we won’t skimp.

A player in MP has a grand total of 115 hit points (to adopt a common term.) 45 of these are body hit points, 70 are shield hit points. For reference, a single AR bullet does 7.5 points of damage, and a BR bullet does 6. A melee attack does 70 for most weapons, with some weapons (notably the Brute weapons) doing 72.

When entering a melee contest, the combined body and shield hit points are compared. If the difference is above a threshold, then one player is determined to have won decisively and is protected from death. After testing with a variety of weapons, we settled on a threshold of 26.5 hit points (slightly rounded.) This translates into 4+ AR bullets worth of damage to decisively win a melee contest, instead of simply having 1 more hit point than the other guy.

There is one more wrinkle to this: your invisible body hit points do recharge, but at a different rate from your shields. While ordinarily this is a non-issue (we’ve always made this largely transparent), it can affect the outcome of a contest. For those of you keeping score, body hit points start regenerating 10 seconds after last taking damage, at a rate of 9 hp/sec. So if your shields are up but you’re fresh from taking a beating, you could still be in trouble in a contest.

YMMV, etc.

Despite our best efforts, this system cannot cover all cases: if your latency is beyond 100ms, you can still get into situations where the host legitimately believes that your melee did not arrive in time. In testing, we did catch a couple of films where perfectly balanced, simultaneous melee attacks produced an unexpected winner. But these were films recorded by the client—the host film told a different story, showing a very late melee.

The moral: when in doubt, check the host’s film, because latency still matters. Just a whole lot less than Halo 2.

Also, while we were in there, we excised a BXB-style glitch before it gathered popularity, and fixed that strangeness where bodies would be hurled with unearthly force by a mid-melee death. We sincerely apologize to people who enjoyed the latter bug—it was pretty funny."[/quote]
 
BULLSHIT. I won several games at 44, and was winning King of the Hill. Then Xbox Live randomly signs out. So I lost. Lost the next game and now I'm a 43 in Lone Wolves.
I fucking hate this game.
 
Played a little bit yesterday afternoon but most of the games were at least a little laggy. So I had a hard time telling if seemed more fair or not.
 
The big difference I noticed were both people dying on simultaneous melees. My first few matches (did social FFA) paired me against people that were way worse than me - first time that's happened :lol: - but once I got in with some people around my max rank I had that happen 3 or 4 times in a match.

Not sure if I like it any better but it didn't seem any worse so I'm cool.

Linkin - What's the Graduate achievement glitch? I got that one w/o a problem.

"Also, while we were in there, we excised a BXB-style glitch before it gathered popularity"

What does BXB-style mean?
 
[quote name='wubb']The big difference I noticed were both people dying on simultaneous melees. My first few matches (did social FFA) paired me against people that were way worse than me - first time that's happened :lol: - but once I got in with some people around my max rank I had that happen 3 or 4 times in a match.

Not sure if I like it any better but it didn't seem any worse so I'm cool.

Linkin - What's the Graduate achievement glitch? I got that one w/o a problem.

"Also, while we were in there, we excised a BXB-style glitch before it gathered popularity"

What does BXB-style mean?[/quote]

BXB was a glitch where you could beat down 2 times really fast. IT was prevalent in Halo 3, but BXR and BXB were menaces to Halo 2, and invented by the Major League Glitchers (MLG)

As for the patch, I am loving it. I have won some battles I wouldn't have won before, and I had some of those simultaneous killing beatdowns where we both died.
 
[quote name='help1']As for the patch, I am loving it. I have won some battles I wouldn't have won before, and I had some of those simultaneous killing beatdowns where we both died.[/QUOTE]

Most of my kills are from melee hits. I'm definitely finding it harder to get kills now with the fix. I've gotten the mutual death numerous times. I'll learn and adapt. I definitely enjoy the game, more than I figured I would.

I wish I could find some players who aren't jackasses. I spend most of my time pregame muting these people.

I'm also tired of losing because my team is either hopelessly without a clue, or maliciously indifferent to winning. Like last night, we had a guy who wanted to be a jerk, so he kept opening one of the gates on social bomb and then announcing that he did so. I guess he wanted to piss us off.. it didn't... I just reported him for unsportsmenlike conduct and moved on.

CAGs are more enjoyable to play with right?
 
[quote name='Advocatus']Most of my kills are from melee hits. I'm definitely finding it harder to get kills now with the fix. I've gotten the mutual death numerous times. I'll learn and adapt. I definitely enjoy the game, more than I figured I would.


CAGs are more enjoyable to play with right?[/quote]

Ah, see my sentiments likely differ from yours due to my controls setup. I use bumper jumper, which means that I can adequately jump and shoot at the same time, and that I can beat down while aiming and shooting, which gives me a slight advantage in firefights, especially after this update.


Don't know since most of them shun this game and refuse to play it.
 
[quote name='help1']Ah, see my sentiments likely differ from yours due to my controls setup. I use bumper jumper, which means that I can adequately jump and shoot at the same time, and that I can beat down while aiming and shooting, which gives me a slight advantage in firefights, especially after this update.


Don't know since most of them shun this game and refuse to play it.[/QUOTE]

Hmm I'll have to try that set up. I use boxer after numerous failed attempts to the reach the B button in time. I do enjoy it for shotgun/punch. That works wonders in small spaces. Just offset the triggers by a milisecond and it's death to the enemy.

If you're going to be on, My buddy and I will be on from at least 6pm-8pm EST. We're not good, but I can usually keep a 1 K/D ratio. We're going to be doing Big team tonight. Send me a friend if you're interested.
 
I love the update, it seems kinda silly that it took this long but if you read the patch notes it's pretty damn complicated lol...

But yeah, we should get a CAG game going one of these nights.

Side note: Is it just me or is the Halo 3 crowd much more polite than the CoD 4? Not bashing CoD as I play it frequently, but I ALWAYS hear loud annoying people on CoD as opposed to the...dare I say 'polite' people on Halo 3. I get 'Good game' comments almost everytime the game ends in Halo 3, to be honest it shocks me every time.
 
[quote name='Nealocus123']I love the update, it seems kinda silly that it took this long but if you read the patch notes it's pretty damn complicated lol...

But yeah, we should get a CAG game going one of these nights.

Side note: Is it just me or is the Halo 3 crowd much more polite than the CoD 4? Not bashing CoD as I play it frequently, but I ALWAYS hear loud annoying people on CoD as opposed to the...dare I say 'polite' people on Halo 3. I get 'Good game' comments almost everytime the game ends in Halo 3, to be honest it shocks me every time.[/quote]

I feel the same way. They Halo community always gets a bad wrap, but CoD 4 is much worse, probably since more kids are addicted to that game right now.
 
[quote name='Nealocus123']Side note: Is it just me or is the Halo 3 crowd much more polite than the CoD 4? Not bashing CoD as I play it frequently, but I ALWAYS hear loud annoying people on CoD as opposed to the...dare I say 'polite' people on Halo 3. I get 'Good game' comments almost everytime the game ends in Halo 3, to be honest it shocks me every time.[/quote]

I haven't played CoD4 but I've been very surprised how tame Halo 3 has been. Once in a while I may run into them but it's been the complete opposite of what I experienced in Halo 2. The only problem I frequently see in Halo 3 really are quitters.
 
[quote name='Advocatus']
I wish I could find some players who aren't jackasses. I spend most of my time pregame muting these people.


CAGs are more enjoyable to play with right?[/quote]

I can't speak for other CAGs, but feel free to send a friend request my way if you want. I tend to prefer slayer gametypes, but I don't mind the occasional objective games.
 
I bet there is a difference in Ranked vs Social. I have a feeling Ranked are the more serious players who log on to play not to argue with squeaky voiced teens.
 
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