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The Official Halo 3 Thread

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Willeth said:
You'll only get booted if you betray people excessively. This is persistent across all gametypes and playlists IIRC - so even if you're playing with a bunch of friends in matchmaking and are betraying to have fun because it doesn't matter, that meter is swinging further and further out of your favour, to the point where an accidental betrayal in something unrelated could well prompt your team-mate to boot.

The short answer is just not to be a dick.
Trust me I try! The last game, I was betrayed 3 fucking times by the same guy, so I retaliated, first time I killed him I was booted! :/ It's fucking ridiculous!
I just don't understand why it's not, one betray= one boot if you decide!


fix your game bungle
 
Shake Appeal said:
1. Your experience of Xbox Connect is vastly, vastly different to mine. I won't call you a liar, but I never, ever played a game via XBC that wasn't effectively unplayable by today's standards.
2. Halo 1 is a simpler game than 3, sending considerably less information between players (especially physics information). Fewer packets means less chance of one getting held up or even going astray entirely, and thus a smoother experience.
3. BR spread! Hey, that's something that you can legitimately blame on Bungie!
4. Most important of all, the games you play in, the players you face, and then general conditions of networking, are constantly changing, and are not easily comparable.

You are so off base in this post it is amazing. I swear this thread is full of a bunch of 13 year olds (no offense dax).

1. You probably didn't know how to lead in Halo1 and therefore probably sucked off-host on XBC. Even playing LAN you had to lead considerably. Most people played 2v2's and limited the match connections to less than 100ms, but there were games where I have played 4v4 on blood gulch with 150ms+ and still have been able to pistol a sniper rifle half-way across the map. If you ever played Halo2 on XBC you know you can play a game with 200ms+ and the game will still be considerably smooth.


2. Seriously Shake, do you know what you are talking about? Halo1 was designed to be played on LAN while Halo3 was optimized to be played over the internet. Think about you are saying here. Even Bungie has released traffic model information regarding the differences between bandwidth usage and packet size between Halo1 and Halo2. There has been tests done that prove that "the client packet rate has been reduced, packet sizes have no longer a single fixed value per game and the mean packet size has decreased (so Halo 2 requires less bandwidth)". It's safe to assume they kept, or atleast tried lol @ that, the same model regarding bandwidth usage for Halo3.

3. I'm not talking about having bad aim and blaming your problems on BR spread. I'm talking about watching your bullets hit your opponents shield in theater mode all the while lighting up their shield meter only to show that their shield did not go down. All my bullets will hit but it just doesn't register. Like I said earlier my proof that Halo3 netcode is horrendous is the sniper file in Halo3. You can watch the bullet hit your opponent and have blood splash out only to have him pop out of the corner with full shield. This is where the fundamental problem with the netcode is. They need to work on the client-side hit detection.

4. Really? Thanks I did not know that.
 
Brigadier_Grade_One.png


I probably just finished my last Team Slayer game for awhile. It's gotten to the point where these people are far too good and I can't keep up or compete with them.
 
Dax is actually quite good. Don't be such a dick, juices. (hmmm)

Congrats, Dax.

Been having a very good time in the 4th of July playlist. 80% flag, with a smattering of 'splasers. Works for me.
 
A Penguin said:
*looks at own rank, cries silently*
so who wants to carry me in TS?
Highest skill 44? Do you still have it? I guess I could risk my 45 if it means helping you. I'm online now.

Edit: Will I lose my General rank if my level goes down to a 44? Either way, it doesn't matter. I'd be willing to help you.
GhaleonEB said:
Dax is actually quite good. Don't be such a dick, juices. (hmmm)

Congrats, Dax.
Thanks. Yeah, if I really try, my skill level is at least somewhat respectable.
 
Louis Wu said:
About host:




This is all well and good, except...

Okay, so 95% of the games I play, nobody mentions host or who has it. (98%. Whatever.)

The remainder always has AT LEAST TWO GUYS BITCHING ABOUT SOMEONE HAVING HOST - BUT THEY'RE ALWAYS BITCHING ABOUT DIFFERENT PEOPLE.

I'm pretty sure that whether 'you can kinda tell', or whether the shots hitting the players changes or not, MOST PLAYERS HAVE NO CLUE WHAT THE FUCK THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT.

(At least at MY crappy level of play. :lol :lol :lol )
Yeah 99.9% of games, I never hear any bitching about host.
 
I bitch about host every damn game. Just went into a game of SWAT and almost every encounter you can look at my bullets and see a visible headshot but I get none of the kills. Its why I play the same every game but sometimes I go +10 and sometimes go -10. Ridiculous.

Put me on LAN and I'd destroy these kids.

And yes I understand the internet and gaming and lag, doesn't mean I can't bitch about it. My fucking connection sucks fat dong.
 
KevinRo said:
1. You probably didn't know how to lead in Halo1 and therefore probably sucked off-host on XBC.
I'm not talking about latency or minor instances of lag. I'm talking slideshow. Funny how user error (I don't know how to lead targets!) applies in this instance, but not in Halo 3, where it is Bungie's "netcode" that "fails". I'm glad you have such a good experience, but I could not stomach five minutes of XBC. It was like playing Q2 CTF on a 28.8 modem all over again. As someone who has been playing online shooters since then, let me tell you that Halo 3, for all its flaws, has been one of the smoother experiences I've had from an online FPS, with or without dedicated servers.

KevinRo said:
2. There has been tests done that prove that "the client packet rate has been reduced, packet sizes have no longer a single fixed value per game and the mean packet size has decreased (so Halo 2 requires less bandwidth)".
Sigh. Yes, packet sizes have been reduced and so games demand less bandwidth. But bandwidth becomes less relevant when you still have to negotiate 20+ hops to another country, accumulating latency (RTT) all the way. It doesn't just matter how big your pipe is, or what size the packets are, it matters how long they are taking to travel. And compared to its predecessors, Halo 3 has more objects (bullets, grenades, bubble shields, warthogs, cones...) performing more calculations, and that means more data to synchronise between users. You are arguing that when these do not occur at close to light speed across continents that Bungie's coding is to blame. I don't know what I can say to that, I really don't.

KevinRo said:
3. I'm talking about watching your bullets hit your opponents shield in theater mode all the while lighting up their shield meter only to show that their shield did not go down.
I have explained why this happens, and why it is not Bungie's fault: latency. Latency. Until someone evolves or invents an alternative to the very fundamentals of how the Internet works, there is nothing that can be done about latency across countries and continents, especially in peer to peer games. Like I said before, it's not your airline's fault that the countries you want to travel to are far away. It's not their fault when you experience turbulence. They are not masters of space, time, geography, and the weather, and it is asinine to expect them to be.
 
Christ, I play on a sub-par connection in the UK and even I don't have the gall to blame a poor performance on the connection. If you lose it's because you didn't play as well as the other guys. Holy hell.
 
Willeth said:
Christ, I play on a sub-par connection in the UK and even I don't have the gall to blame a poor performance on the connection. If you lose it's because you didn't play as well as the other guys. Holy hell.
You're sadly mistaken if you actually believe this.
 
With all the talk of latency and bandwidth, it's important to remember that there is a third factor that is pretty important to your gaming experience: packet loss. While not quite as common as latency or bandwidth issues, packet loss can be pretty devastating to online play. It tends to be most common with wireless connections - especially if somone decides to microwave a burrito while you are playing. Another big issue is simply the changing nature of people's pipes - a great looking host can suddenly become pretty terrible the moment a roomate spins up bittorrent.

The quality bar in Halo dosen't simply measure ping - it combines a whole bunch of different measurements to get a general quality of connection.
 
backflip10019 said:
You're sadly mistaken if you actually believe this.
Yeah, connection has so much of an impact. Making all your decisions on information that is even a fifth of a second out of date makes for lots and lots of frustration when other plays can walk over your grenades, shoot you around corners, and generally evade death. All I'm saying is Bungie's netcode isn't even close to being the main factor in this.

...which is not to excuse them for things I feel they genuinely could work to improve (storytelling, "true HD"/some measure of antialiasing, gametype/playlist management, etc.).
 
backflip10019 said:
You're sadly mistaken if you actually believe this.
The vast majority of players are playing under the exact same conditions you are. The fact that one of them might have a slight advantage pales in comparison to superior teamwork and play. I'm not saying that Bungie's code is perfect, of course, but it's in no way the biggest factor.

It really is a case of a bad workman blaming his tools.
 
Domino Theory said:
Play one match of Gears. Just one.

lol
:lol Yeah I know. Gears is waaaaaaaay worse but Halo is still pretty bad at some points.

And Willeth, when you're playing against people who can 4 shot every time, the extra milliseconds actually make a huge difference as it decides who gets first shot and ultimately who can win the battle.
 
Merguson said:
May I cry with you?
I was thinking about that earlier. If anybody should be able to get their 45s it's you and Penguin. You guys play at a much higher level than a 43 and 44 respectively. Too bad Mr. Bungle Wanking System(TM) thinks otherwise.
 
backflip10019 said:
And Willeth, when you're playing against people who can 4 shot every time, the extra milliseconds actually make a huge difference as it decides who gets first shot and ultimately who can win the battle.

Hm, haven't noticed that much, if at all, when it's regular Slayer. Only in SWAT do I notice things like a millisecond earlier hit making a difference.

But honestly, above connection, inconsistent weapons, et al, Halo is more of a mental game to play, to me. Having that unconsious confidence going into ANY battle will help you a lot, above having a good internt connection and a consistent weapon to use.

Before almost any BR battle I get into, I shoot a couple bursts out and don't reload. It's a mental note to myself that I don't need the extra 6 bullets to win in any fight. So far, it's helped every single time compared to the majority of players who feel the need to reload all-the-fucking-time.
 
Domino Theory said:
Hm, haven't noticed that much, if at all, when it's regular Slayer. Only in SWAT do I notice things like a millisecond earlier hit making a difference.
Where do you live? What sort of results do you get from a site like speedtest.net?

Merguson said:
May I cry with you?
Are you not a Brig? I remember you joined some Eurogamer customs a while back when I'd been playing nothing but L4D for months and you beat the shit out of us in a few of the games. I mean, I've never been great at Halo, but I used to play a decent enough standard about 12-16 months after launch. You made me feel bad about myself. :(
 
Penguins, I guess we'll try later. Tomorrow, maybe? We were getting close. We just need to get past that "gain level, lose one game, lose level" stage and we should be good.
 
Domino Theory said:
From the closest server to me:
510296230.png


From my place to London:
510296802.png
That upload is beastly. That's a really, really good connection. Couple that with your location (west coast USA), and you are probably hosting games the majority of the time. And even on the occasions when you aren't host, you will have experience no problems with any solid games in the US: your ping is probably 50ms at most in the vast majority of your games, making the effects of latency close to negligible.

In short, you have a massive advantage going into almost any Halo game.

Here's what I get connecting to San Jose, CA:


If we were pitted against one another, it is likely you'd have at least a fifth of a second headstart over me in everything, even in the games you weren't hosting.

(Not that you'd need it.)

Edit: your London result shows the flipside of this. If the host was based in the UK, you'd suddenly find yourself struggling with shots and melees not registering, getting shot around corners, etc. Fortunately for you, almost no one in the UK has an 8mbit upload, and they're so far away from west coast USA (I'm guessing your viability as a host is decided by pings from Microsoft/Xbox/Bungie servers somewhere in Seattle) that you are going to run into UK hosts almost never, if at all.
 
Dax01 said:
Penguins, I guess we'll try later. Tomorrow, maybe? We were getting close. We just need to get past that "gain level, lose one game, lose level" stage and we should be good.
Yeah, it's extremely frustrating alternating between 43 and 44. So damn close. Thanks for playing with me, though. My goal is to at least hit 45 by the end of the summer.
 
A Penguin said:
Yeah, it's extremely frustrating alternating between 43 and 44. So damn close. Thanks for playing with me, though. My goal is to at least hit 45 by the end of the summer.
I'll boost you in TS sometime soon. We should be able to get it no problem.
 
Shake Appeal said:
That upload is beastly. That's a really, really good connection. Couple that with your location (west coast USA), and you are probably hosting games the majority of the time. And even on the occasions when you aren't host, you will have experience no problems with any solid games in the US: your ping is probably 50ms at most in the vast majority of your games, making the effects of latency close to negligible.

Hm, from my hosting experience in Halo, I never host BTB games, very small amounts of 5v5 games, and a lot of custom games (since I played a lot of customs with 2-3 other people before HaloGAF swooped into my gaming life and I hosted the majority of them; host history in customs must've built up in my favor). But yeah, I mostly have a solid off-host experience in Halo.

But in COD4, I am almost always hosting. Always. Thermite and Voltron can back me up on this. :P

And Gears, well, Gears chooses host based off of all party leaders in the room (yes, it neglects all those who are not party leaders, even if one of the non-party leaders has a beastly connection). And it strictly looks at ping. For shame. :(
 
What's the deal with GAF customs tonight? Are they on? If not, I kind of feel like some non competitive matchmaking games for some fun. I think I'll be streaming as well.
 
Tashi0106 said:
What's the deal with GAF customs tonight? Are they on? If not, I kind of feel like some non competitive matchmaking games for some fun. I think I'll be streaming as well.
I'm on right now if you want me to throw you an invite.

And the July matchmaking update is here. Just got Team Stickies in Actionsack.
 
backflip10019 said:
I'll boost you in TS sometime soon. We should be able to get it no problem.
Thanks, man. If all else fails, I can also give doubles a shot. I actually played with a booster who got me up to a 33 for free, so I still have a backup plan.

And since all the cool kids are doing it, here's my connection from a year ago:
297142980.png


Here's where I am now:
510308475.png

lolwut
 
Domino Theory said:
Hm, from my hosting experience in Halo, I never host BTB games, very small amounts of 5v5 games
That's surprising, but then I really have no idea what the 'average' connection is like in the US these days, and I imagine a lot of Halo players, especially in the upper reaches of ranking, know and care more than the average customer about getting good service. It's possible there are plenty of dudes swaggering around with fat 8Mbit and upwards uploads, stealin ur action.

I can't really complain about my connection, though, as my 3-4Mbit upload is definitely above average around here. But I'll only get host once in a blue moon in Halo, and I'll only notice because every American on the team is swearing blue murder about the game being "a laggy piece of shit". I've been playing PC games for the first time in a while this past week, and I've been getting pings in the 10-30 range when connecting to European dedicated servers. I'm guessing that's what you experience most of the time even in peer to peer Halo games, for which you should be thankful.
 
A Penguin said:
Yeah, Fremont :D

Cool beans. I'm in Cupertino right now. Although I'm moving to LA this Fall.

We should meet up for the lolz sometime.

Shake Appeal said:
I can't really complain about my connection, though, as my 3-4Mbit upload is definitely above average around here. But I'll only get host once in a blue moon in Halo, and I'll only notice because every American on the team is swearing blue murder about the game being "a laggy piece of shit". I've been playing PC games for the first time in a while this past week, and I've been getting pings in the 10-30 range when connecting to European dedicated servers. I'm guessing that's what you experience most of the time even in peer to peer Halo games, for which you should be thankful.

Hehe, yeah, I still think dedicated servers for Halo should be in its future, but for now, I guess it's pretty good. Not perfect, but good enough. Although I hope for Reach they figure out more workarounds to make the online Halo experience even better as well as tuning ODST's FireFight and campaign co-op netcode so that they're not identical to Halo 3's crappy campaign co-op netcode.
 
Domino Theory said:
Cool beans. I'm in Cupertino right now. Although I'm moving to LA this Fall.

We should meet up for the lolz sometime.
Nice! Sucks that you're moving though. Usually my school holds LANs as fundraisers throughout the school year, would've been cool if we could do work in the doubles tourny, lol.
 
Looks like I may be able to sneak a few games in today if we get customs up and running. I'mma hop on now.


And for kicks I'll compare my university's connection to my home's:

University:


Home:


Not as bad as I thought. Problem is my connection at home is really unstable.

Home to NYC:


Home to London:
 
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