Halo 2 on XBox Live - Beware of cheaters!

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Halo 2 on XBox Live - Beware of cheaters!

Halo 2 on XBL is... an interesting creature. It can be very fun, most of the time. In fact, I recomend you buy this game and play it if you haven't already. But there are things, especially in online matchmaking, that are seriously flawed.

For starters, the level system. It is used to rank players from 1 to 50, 1 being lowest, 50, the highest. When you go into matchmaking, it uses your level to try to pair you together with other players around your skill level.

In theory, this is all well and good. It doesn't work that way, though. What it does, is pair you with someone at the same level as you.

This level could be achieved using many nefarious means, most of which I shall be going into.

The first would be by de-leveling. This is where someone goes into games and loses on purpose, so as to be at a lower level, to fight against easier players, resulting in easier wins for the de-leveler.

Next, there's boosting, wherein 2 or more players of high skill level get one of themselves a new XBL account, start at level 1, play with the higher level friend(s), so the matchmaker pairs them with people between their levels, but at a lower skill level.

For example: A level 30 with a new account at level 1, playing with his friend, a level 30, will be matched against people around level 15, enabling an easier win for the level 30s, thereby allowing the player at level 30 to level faster then if they had been playing against other level 30s. Trade places, and soon the players with skills at level 30, are level 45.

Then of course, there's the out-and-out cheating. Modding and standby-ing are the two most common forms of this. Modding is basically the illegal use of a map, modified by yourself, in a way that benefits you. Example: Modding the map 'Warlock' to allow you to just super-high, and have one-shot kills with any weapon. (This has actually happened to me!)

Standby-ing is a much more annoying form of cheating, and the easiest to do and get away with. Certain internet routers have a 'Standby' button on them. Pressing this button in-game allows you to force the other players to lag, while you are fine. This lets you run around, killing people and capturing flags as normal, while the other team can do nothing to stop you.

It is in my personal opinion, that 95% of players level 34 and higher have cheated in some way to attain this level. I have no proof of this, this is just from personal experience. Not everyone, of course, just most. I have learnt this by playing opposite level 30s to 35s, as a level 30 myself. I have been victim to all of the above in my Halo 2 career.

Bungie, the creators of Halo, and maintainers of it's online capacity, have tried to cut down on the cheating by using their 'BanHammer'. What this just means is that if they catch you doing something like this, your account gets banned from Halo 2 online.

But there are hundreds of thousands of accounts, thousands of games going on at once, they can't moniter them all. Their efforts, while good, aren't enough.

What they need to do, is fix the leveling up/leveling down system. This is why I believe so many people cheat. It's like this: at level 30, it takes roughly five wins to level up. To level down, however, it takes only two losses. And when you do level down, you are around halfway down the previous level. So you need to win two or three more games just to get back to your previous level, on top of the five needed to level up further. Therefore, if you have an unlucky few games, you've lost maybe two to three hours worth of hard-earned wins! And that is simply unfair.

So my warning to you is this: Play Halo 2 with caution. Playing it with your friends offline, or in a custom game online can be great fun. I encourage you to do so! But the matchmaking of Halo 2 online... Be wary of it. For you have no idea what it is you are getting into...

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