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XBox (Games)

Halo 2 Stats Reset 58

Posted by Zonk from the hours-of-pwning-down-the-tubes dept.
Press the Buttons has commentary on the recent Bungie patches and stats reset for Halo 2. From the article: "Previously a Level 30 player would not be matched against a Level 2 player because the Level 2 player would lose the game before the game's title screen even appeared. Now that the stats have been reset we have Level 30 players out there who appear to be Level 1 players and these folks will play against real Level 1 players. Resetting a number on a screen doesn't reset the gaming skills of the player. This actually doesn't seem very fair at all."
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Halo 2 Stats Reset More

Halo 2 Stats Reset

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  • Yeah... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Acidic_Diarrhea ( 641390 ) on Thursday May 05, 2005 @12:42PM (#12442550) Homepage Journal
    But weren't some of those level 30 players skill rating artificially inflated because of glitches in the game were being exploited? I don't play Halo 2 but that's what I thought I read in regards to the patch and the reset of stats.

    Also, didn't this happen awhile ago?

    • Re:Yeah... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Fred Or Alive ( 738779 ) on Thursday May 05, 2005 @01:23PM (#12443070)
      Yep, they gave two reasons why they reset the stats. One was that the old stats were just plain broken, most of the higher level people had cheated their way up the leaderboard. They basically decided peoples stats as they were couldn't be trusted (even if you didn't cheat, your rank could be affected by other people cheating in the same game), so wiped them all.

      The second was that they wanted to alter how the levels worked themselves, to tweak it with experience of how the system actually worked in practice. I'm not sure if that would really need a complete reset (although it depends how deep the changes are) but they took the opportunity to implement it anyway.

      Personally I don't mind that much, it was only a number, and all the ultra good players will head up the rankings in short order, I mean it all sorted itself out when Halo 2 was released the first time. It's only a number anyway, although having it on display (with a leaderboard) probably didn't help dissuade cheating, and the impression that it's some sort of person-defining score.

      The stats themselves reset at about 7:30pm BST (GMT+1) May 4th IIRC. They had been talking about doing it for a while, the past month or so has been a gradual phase in of various changes (the v1.1 patch, then the new maps, and finally the new playlists and stats reset).

      The playlist tweaks have been good as well, although I haven't played much, I'd need a while to sound it out. Playing the same sets of matches again and again was getting quite boring after 6 months, hopefully the new maps and playlist changes will freshen the game up a bit. My love of objective games on small maps like Warlock or Midship still cannot be described in words suitable for a public forum however.
      • My love of objective games on small maps like Warlock or Midship still cannot be described in words suitable for a public forum however.

        Wait, because you love them so much or so little? Whichever one, please explain why.
        • I really don't like Warlock or Midship for objective games[1]. They're fun for some hectic Slayer (deathmatch), but I find them rather too hectic for objective games, and those two maps in particular suffer a problem that you can get disorientated easily (especially at respawn). This is particularly a problem in Assault, as you can kinda find it hard to find your own base, which can be a problem if someone is arming a bomb in it (or is about to). Foundation also suffers from the disorientating design, on th
          • I can see what you're saying. I guess I've had reasonably good experiences on Foundation and Midship objective games. On the bigger, more unwieldy maps (here I'm thinking of Coagulation and Colossus) if you die you usually respawn to far away to make a difference.

            My gamertag is I Have No Mouth, if you're looking for another Friend or if you want to practice objective games on those maps you dislike.
          • I really don't like Warlock or Midship for objective games (Well, I really mean Capture the Flag and Assault, so it's games with bases really).

            You played Crazy King on Warlock?
      • EXACTLY, the stat reset was much needed, and Bungie gives damn good excuse for it. Funny how that isn't in the posting at all.....Nor is the fact that the leaderboards are already up to around level 25 or more across the board. If they were a 30, they'll be there again within the next week. Go bitch about something else. Like Slayer Pistols, after they weakened them.....

  • What is your point (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Mr.Dippy ( 613292 )
    In Warcraft 3, people have mulitple accounts. So a 30 level user can switch to his 2 level account and man handle some noobs. It's not right but it is just a videogame. Deal with it pink boy.
    • People do that with Xbox Live gamertags as well (two month trials I guess). I think some of the clans may do it as well, dissolving and reforming the clan so they return to Level 1, and can own some noobs (rather cheap really).

  • What doesn't seem fair... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by centauri ( 217890 ) on Thursday May 05, 2005 @12:47PM (#12442602) Homepage
    ... are people who have high stats due to exploitation of broken combos, glitches, or loopholes. Now that the recent updates have dealt with many of these problems, it's fair to have everyone start over from a new, level playing field, instead of waiting for the false ratings to drop down through the ranks to their true level.

    The point of the ratings is to have everyone play people close to their skill level. Yes, resetting the stats screws this up, but only for a short time. There are already players up to level 20 on the leaderboards.

    Read the actual release from Bungie.net: http://bungie.net/News/TopStory.aspx?story=stathop perupdate&p=3243913 [bungie.net]
    • Agreed.

      I just checked and there are several people above 20, one is at 24. For those noobs who are scared about being owned by an elite player, just wait it out for about a week. But instead of worrying, why not try playing against these guys, just to see how good they are. In a couple of weeks, you'll never have the chance because you'll level off at 10 whereas they will be up to 30+ or something. There's nothing wrong with being humbled a little bit now and then. Maybe it will keep you from tellin
      • Exactly

        I loved going up in rank because I lacked skill in comparison. I would get better playing beter players as i learned their tactics. Once you finaly master those skills, you go up in rank and get owned again.

        Its also interesting seeking players in action at different skills. early on people hunt for the sword and fought up close. then people start duel weilding wepons that are the same or shotgun camp. Then they learned to charge the wepon in the left hand, blast the shield and cap them with a
        • Ah, but the sword is still very good on defence for CTF in WaterWorks etc. It is still good in close quarters (with no snipes especially) like in Midship. Personally, I only go for the sword when I'm playing defence or I'll sometimes pickit up if the wielder dies in front of me. If only to keep it out of their hands for a bit. I leave the snipers to the professionals and still stick with the old combo of SMG and PR, unless I am going grenade happy (usually against snipers or rockets).

  • It is the only fair thing to do. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nathanmace ( 839928 ) on Thursday May 05, 2005 @12:48PM (#12442611)
    It is the only fair thing to do since they pushed down the latest patches. A lot of high level gamers got that high level by cheating. The patches stop the exploits the cheaters used. Now the rankings have to be reset to get everyone back to a truly level playing field.

  • ...so? am I missing something? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gerad ( 86818 ) on Thursday May 05, 2005 @12:48PM (#12442621)
    I don't really see what the big deal is. What do you think the game was like when everyone first signed up? I would imagine everyone started off at the same level, leaving Halo 1 experts and Halo 2 newbies playing against each other. From TFA (not the article linked in the story, the REAL Article [bungie.net], "It'll take several games before skill levels begin to even out again, so initially, players will be matched against folks who're a lot better, a lot worse and everything in between. As you start to level up, you'll also level off, and find yourself playing against similarly skilled players once again." Furthermore, does your "level" even influence anything other than the people you play against? I dunno, it seems like a big deal about nothing.

    • Re:...so? am I missing something? (Score:5, Informative)

      by imitier ( 674794 ) on Thursday May 05, 2005 @02:47PM (#12444103)
      Everything you said is pretty much right. It is a big deal about nothing.

      And, as I recall from Bungie's site, they revised the way rankings are calculated in part to make it quicker for people to rise up to their level. So those people who should be highly ranked aren't going to be level 1s for long -- the rebalancing is supposed to make everyone find his level more quickly than before.

  • ok... (Score:3, Informative)

    by eamonman ( 567383 ) <eamonman2@[ ]mail.com ['hot' in gap]> on Thursday May 05, 2005 @01:15PM (#12442980) Journal
    but this sort of thing will sort itself out in a week or two. The vets will dominate and once their levels rise, they can start finding real opponents again (or open another account). This isn't too newsworthy. Now, if this happened on a WoW sever, THAT would be a truly wrath-inspiring, riot-inducing, flame-provoking, comment-whoring slashdot story.

  • Should used a sliding window (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Leknor ( 224175 ) on Thursday May 05, 2005 @01:24PM (#12443101)
    Bungie keeps all the stats needed to recalculate your rank. What they should have done is switched to a sliding window where your rank was based on your last 30 days or something. Give enough time people with inflated ranks due to cheating will fall back into line and you don't have the current situation where the newbies get rocked as the genuinely good players climb back up the ranking ladder.
    • Even without cheaters, a score weighted by time would be helpful. If I put the game down for a few weeks, my score should drop a level or two (I know my skill does).
      • Bungie did this with the Myth series (which had highly competitive online play) by implementing "rolling resets" whereby three of the twelve or so game types were reset to zero every month. It was a great system, people couldn't simply whore points in one game type for any great span of time, and players who became inactive lost all their points in a set amount of time. It also allowed to players who were best at the game to rise to the top, instead of just those who were best at one game-type.

  • You should be archiving your stats... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MrScience ( 126570 ) on Thursday May 05, 2005 @01:25PM (#12443114) Homepage
    There are tools out there that let you monitor the RSS or HTML results of your games. No matter what Bungie does with the stats, you can keep your progress stored on your computer.

    I've authored one [darkphibre.com] that I'm quite pleased with (stores everything in a relational database, includes over 30 reports, including a clan management report and personal stats report [comic-watch.com], archives the original HTML, comes with command-line scraping utility for scheduling, and more), but there are lots [darkphibre.com] of them out there that provide varying levels of granularity.

  • Interpolate (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anm ( 18575 ) on Thursday May 05, 2005 @01:49PM (#12443444)
    I wish all these multiplayer games that have any sense of persistance would begin using a temporary interpolation period when switching algorithms. Whether it is game ranking stats or commodities pricing in your favorite MMOG, discontinuities lead to exploits, even if temporary. Discontinuities can be alleviated by running both alogrithms in parallel and interpolating the values over a week or a month phase out period.

    Anm

  • It doesn't matter (Score:5, Funny)

    by M.C. Hampster ( 541262 ) <M...C...TheHampster@@@gmail...com> on Thursday May 05, 2005 @02:02PM (#12443589) Journal

    I still suck.

    • I know what you mean - they need to start you out with a rating of 1200 and adjust it like chess, so those of us with a couple of hours to burn a weekend can play likewise "insufficient practice" players. I would love to play against 800 equivalent players and have some fun instead of being sworn out for 5 minutes (wow, live's audio chat really enhanced my game-play experience when I had to turn it off immediately because of the steady stream of swearing). I finished the game single player, so I'm not *tota
      • For random matchmaking play, the audio chat is rarely of any value whatsoever - other than the idiots opening their mouth to spew crap so you can find the people to leave negative feedback for.

        However, playing with friends - especially when you're all on a team - shows that there is a lot of value to the chat. Keeping teammates informed about what's happening leads to better team play - get told where the sniper is so you can avoid/kill them, know where they're taking the flag/bomb, call a teammate over t

      • It helps to have a circle of friends on your list that are actual adults with jobs. They usually don't feel the need to swear you out when they beat you (to which my response is usually "Wow, you are so great at this online game, you are right, I am your bitch!"), plus most of my friends have families, so they don't play 4 hours a day.

    • I hear you. I was only Level 3 before the reset, and I'm probably going to wait a couple of weeks before playing ranked games again, just so most of the people who've been playing nonstop since November will have leveled up "beyond the horizon" and won't be put into the same game with me.all

      (Though one thing I noticed, looking at the charts on bungie.net, is that the "horizons" have changed. Before, as Level 1, I could be sure none of my opponents would be higher than Level 5. Now that's been stretched

      • I didn't see any evidence of such a change on the stats overview page [bungie.net]. Can you point me to where they have that information?

        Besides, now that the levels should be a lot more even in skill level, the games should actually be MORE interesting and closer than they were before. At least once people start drifting to the proper levels.
        • The info in question is on this page [bungie.net]. The Google cache [64.233.167.104] of the page currently shows the tables as they used to be before the changeover.

          The table in question is the one headed "Level" and "Maximum Match." The old table started out with Levels 0-5 allowing +5 levels, Levels 6-10 akllowing +6 levels, and on up to Levels 36 and up allowing +10 levels. The new table shows the maximum match for Level 1 is +10 levels, Level 2 is +9 levels, on up to Level 6 being +5 levels, then the maximum match slowly increas

          • Wierd - I must have been seeing a cached version when I was looking, because nothing had changed.

            I'm not worried about the lvl 1 range. The change in the experience levels out to get people up and out of there quickly enough that there shouldn't be too much of a skill difference for those that do hang around there long term - and the ones that are better get out of there quickly anyway.

            I'm quite interested in seeing how thing settle out now with the changes. I should be able to get back up to 12 in no t

      • Bad news for me, even though my usual "quality bar" for a Halo 2 match is just not finishing in last place...)

        Man, my goal in Slayer is to just get a kill. ;-)

        • Gee, someone who sucks worse than I do...

          At least I can understand Slayer, which is pretty much, "If it moves, shoot it; if it doesn't move, shoot it anyway." I've never played any playlists other than Rumble Training and Rumble Pit, because I just don't know how those games are supposed to work...and when a round of Oddball or King of The Hill comes up in those two playlists, I just scramble like hell to keep up, but it's tough.

          I estimate that I make my "quality bar" anywhere from half to three-quarters

          • Gee, someone who sucks worse than I do...

            Ok, so maybe it was exageration. And actually, I have improved quite a bit over the last two weeks. However, Slayer is definitely my worst playtype because I don't seem to be very good at aiming. If I take someone else head-on, I almost always lose, unless I have something like the shotgun.

            As for other gametypes, I find those more enjoyable because I can usually contribute something to a team. I'm fairly decent at returning flags, if I can get to it.

  • Come on now (Score:2, Redundant)

    by Tom7 ( 102298 )
    The stats reset made perfect sense. Lots of people had high ranks because of abuse (the bugs were numerous and explotation was rampant), and now that the playlists have changed, the engine modified, and levels have been added, the game is quite different. It's true that matchmaking will be a bit screwed up for a little while, but all that means is that people will gain their true ranks much more quickly.

    I, for one, welcome our new no games played overlords.
  • I think Bungie made two mistakes with the level system. The first one is that all new players (or rather previously unranked players) start at level 1, rather than whatever the average level is. This means that you constantly have people playing who are much better than that, and they race up through the ranks meaning their first 50 or more games are rather pointless. Apart from wasting the time of good players on easy games, this means that people who are actually ranked low constantly have people of much

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