Now that I am up to 30, I am nearing the end of my endurance. It has become very difficult just to stay at 30, much less move up. In fact, in the last 20+ ranked matches, I've been as low as 28 and only as high as 31. The players are just too good. If I make a bonehead move, I pay for it with a death animation and a respawn time.
I appreciate the many game types, maps, and variants that Bungie spends money and time on. Take Lone Wolves (my favorite lobby) for example. You can play Slayer, Swords, Crazy King, and Oddball.
But wait! What is Crazy King and Oddball?
Well, they are objective-based game types.
Shouldn't they be in a different lobby? Maybe Social Slayer?
Well, they do have to go somewhere, because for some people those game types are fun. The only reason I don't mind Crazy King only due to the fact that most of my 30 points have come via that game type. My strategy almost always pays off, so I either move up a point or stay where I'm at.
However, the bee in my MJOLNIR VI Bonnet is Oddball. This is a game type where a skull appears in the middle of the map, and you have to grab it and hang on while other people try to kill you. The first person to have a cumulative holding time of 50 seconds wins the game.
The problem is that there is very little skill involved. Some of the players don't even go after the ball. Maybe they don't understand the rules, or maybe they just like disrupting the flow. Either way, I got stuck playing Oddball (nobody vetoed the game) with a guy who had a shotgun and guarded the skull! That's right, he didn't pick it up, he protected it like a mother goose protecting her egg.
Another problem is that in a game like Oddball (and I'll admit, Crazy King) there is no real time to go after better weapons or sticky grenades. You need to get to the skull now, because someone is racking up the points while you are standing there earning nothing. So you are forced to fight the person with the skull using the assault rifle and frag grenades. (If you are one of the people who reads this blog but has never played Halo 3, suffice it to say this is a weak weapon combination.) The guy with the skull simply waits until you are within range, and then lunges forward like an Olympic speed skater and kills you with one "shot" by punching you in the face.
Congratulations, now you get to respawn across the map and start the process over.
This might just be a strategy problem on my part, but it annoys me when people are behind me and start shooting me while I am half a map away from the ball. I get that you want an easy kill, but here's a hint, Guy-in-the-Green-Armor: if you let me soften up the skull carrier, then you can kill us both and take the skull for yourself! This happens in Crazy King too.
Ultimately, Oddball is a necessary evil in Halo 3 multiplayer. If I want to play Lone Wolves, I have to play Oddball from time to time when no one vetoes it or it is the replacement game after a different veto. I think a game like Oddball, where it is so easy to lose a match 50-0 shouldn't be in a ranked Slayer room. It is so difficult now for me to move up, where I bite and claw my way from 30 to 31 only to fall again to 30, to then get stuck playing Oddball and having some guy grab it and run while everyone else pretends it is just a Slayer match.
Soon I'll be reviewing the levels that are out, and the three new ones once I get them. For now, let me say that while I'm good at Crazy King, I would sacrifice it out of Lone Wolves if it would take its skeletal sister-game variant with it. Let me succeed or fail with the barrel of my rifle or the tips of my energy sword, not via the cruel grinning death's head.
If Solstice01 could just pick up that 7-10 split...
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