I decided to play some Ranked by myself yesterday, for shits and giggles. Naturally someone of my pedigree is best suited to the social hopper or embedded comfortably within a team and not brining down ranks of other folks.
I also was suffering from a touch of madness - so I decided to hop into Team Snipers. Despite the first game, Snipes on High Ground served as a glaring reminder of my place in the competitive Halo community - a handful of kills and I somehow managed to betray the best person on my team (for which I immediately apologised).
Despite this, I wanted to give it another go. I jumped back in and hoped for a nice big open map and got it, Sandtrap. Despite my completely below average sniping ability I had fun, loads of fun. I was able to outsmart my opponents on numerous occasions and it more than made up for my inability to head-shot them and the typical lag any Eurofolks receives playing with random Yanks.
It felt like a game of chess. Sure the opponent's pieces looked cool and they could move faster than me, but it didn't matter one bit to the flow of the game, as long as I moved my pieces accordingly to counter.
Next, high from the happy feeling of a decent Snipers game, I thought it walk into Lone Wolves and give that a shot.
Lone Wolves is the play-list in which I have my highest rank, 35. I'm very proud of this minor achievement - I've obtained it through through my own endeavours and without having the luxury of team mates (something I use as a crutch some times).
Then I encountered one of the most common problems that has plagued Halo 3 as the months and years go past, second accounts. As the game loaded up, a quick look at the other players showed that most of their accounts had been recently created with a low amount of games - tell-tale signs. I sighed, this was going to be painful.
As I was checking out the other players in the pre-game lobby, the countdown timer on the veto was ticking away. I managed to veto just in time but we were one vote short of a map change - the game was going to start, me versus a bunch of second accounts on one of my least favourite maps in the entire game - Narrows.
The game begun, I started off on top of the hated bridge out in the open and whatever shred of luck I was clinging to was starting to disappear. Within minutes I was down in fifth place - my only consolation was that the sixth guy in the game was faring slightly worse that I was.
Playing with fellow HaloGAFer's has taught me to accept my skill level. Everyone has good and bad days but sometimes other folks are just better than you and there's little you can do about it. I know this is true. But sometimes, I don't care. If I know I can't win, I know there's something else I can do. Whilst I can't pull victory out of a losing situation on demand, I can try my plan B.
A game of Lone Wolves ends when the leader reaches the magical kill limit. You simply need to delay the leader reaching this limit to increase the chances of the leader being dethroned and increases the chances of you winning - though in my case, I;m usually happy with the first outcome, stopping the leader from winning.
Suicide runs, stickies at point blank, long range grenade tosses. In that last minute I was desperate. I didn't want to lose my rank but most importantly I wanted to lash out at the second accounting players that were ruining the fair and balancing battlefield and also lash out at the damm level (guess I
really hate Narrows).
The other players had the same idea as me, well, they started grenade spamming like crazy nearer the end that was helping me out. I can just pretend that they were reading my thoughts and unconsciously serving my whim, against their better judgement.
The leader, the guy that was clearly first place for the entire game, dropped to second place. Someone else had caught up with him. I noticed who this guy and I was happy to offer him no resistance and let him usurp the leader with my death. The game ended. The leader has been dethroned, relegated to second place. In the confusion and madden race at the end the kills at somehow evened out. Two second accounters had tied for third place. With me.
I'd "won" - clinched a position in the top three, despite sharing it with two other folks. The other guy in the game had stayed in sixth place.
I needed a smoke badly but I was out and the shops were closed. No more Ranked for me this night.
