Go from "Timmy" to MVP in 13 in-game lessons!
Go from "Timmy" to MVP in 13 in-game lessons!
"I want to play like those guys... how do they do it?!"
Become the Hero your team needs you to be.
Come to Timmy Boot Camp™.
Every other Monday night, a rotating panel of 2o2p Halo veterans hosts a two-hour Custom WarGames session that will put a small class of noobs up against all the hell they can think of to throw at you. Each bi-weekly TBC will focus on a few of the most mission-critical skills, tactics and tools that can turn you from cannon fodder to Father Cannon.
That is, if YOU can master them... we can teach you to kill; we do NOT guarantee you will survive.
Of course, no training-wheels playground can teach you what the war zone can, Timmy.
So in between Boot Camps, you'll have assigned "homework", in the form of a few specific camp-related challenges to go after in WarGames (Tip: You may want to friend and join your TBC classmates in custom games to keep the playing field level at first, before you take on the open matches where Spartans train like they mean it). This is on the honor system — your trainers have their own wars to fight — but all carefully designed to give you (whether you meet the challenge or not) exactly the field exposure you need to practice and gain confidence.
There will always be Timmies. You do not have to be one.
Enlist in Timmy Boot Camp™ today.
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Yep, I'm sure you guessed that's all a total fabrication...
Such a thing as Timmy Boot Camp does not already exist, does it? If it did, I would enlist today. Sadly, that also means that I cannot create the multiplayer training experience I'd love to join. But for the hope of seeing it happen, I'd sure volunteer some time and effort on the organizational side of things.
I realize that I am "thinking big" here, and reality would likely involve launching on a small scale. That said...
Any thoughts?
Yes and no. There are a lot of good players on this site, and they'll happily play custom games with lesser skilled players. Hell, there used to be a lot less mingling than there is these days, but I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's start this over.
So, a while ago, there was this game called "Halo 2". And during its reign, a lot of teams were formed to play the game, scrimmage against each other, and be competitive. Words were exchanged, jimmies were rustled, and some folks still hold some bad blood, but these times are spoken of very fondly for a lot of members. Of course, some more casual folks in competitive clans that weren't as skilled were left out in the cold, and a lot of lower skilled folks were likewise out in the cold. We had lots of custom games running every night.
Halo 3 happened, and I came around here at about that time. There wasn't clan support as there was in Halo 2, the fervor wasn't quite there, because some folks got older, more mellow, or had kids and had less time, but it was still pretty competitive for a lot of folks.Teams were formed or maintained, and games were played. We had a few threads that got folks to input their games for constructive criticism, with a lot of support, submissions, and was a pretty good time all around. I got into this community by getting a couple of friend requests, then getting onto Friends of Friends Gamertags, and sending out a shit ton of invites to build up for games. We had tons of custom games running all the time.
Reach happened, and due to a combination of the game being horrible, burnout, and other Call Of Duty-led factors, the game dropped off a lot, and the team structures and competitive play on this site fell to practically zero.
Halo 4 is here, and, slowly, the pieces are being picked up and put back together. Folks are mingling, but competitive folks are trying to get back into teams and start playing more customs. The problem this time around is the Barbie dress-up. See, you get more credits for playing matchmade games, and some folks really like that, and others are very ambivalent towards it. Getting those folks together, to play custom games, can be a pain in the ass at times.
So, back to the present day, in an overly-tidy nutshell, you want to learn how to play Halo better? Get your games captured and post them here. Want to get into some lobbies and play with more folks? That can be done as well. What is it you're looking for?
The Halo site mixer is tonight. Customs abound. Get into Dixons room for smaller/comp type maps and settings or Deep's room for Hog Wars......
We also have clan night tonight.
Well...Shit!
10 Eastern. Same goes for you other Profanitarians that might be reading this.
I give lessons at 1600 MSP per hour ;)
LOL
Okay, thanks for the reality check... I figured that would happen.
My problem is that I am a way bigger "Timmy" than I'd realized. I still don't even know what "BTB" is, and I just figured out last night how to use the FoF menu to find you all. For the record, I was on last night, and saw a few GTs I recognized from here, but you are all SR50 and up for crying out loud — and were already in pretty sizeable parties of like rank, not a noob to be seen. I'm already getting seriously destroyed every time I try WarGames, so I really do want to find some "uber casual" parties I can use to survive long enough between spawns to at least try to practice something of strategic value.
For that matter, I'd also love to get into some "purely fun" stuff, like mongoose racing, or matches of HORSE. Anybody doing that in H4 yet? I'm playing around in Forge for the first time, too, but I can see it will take a good while for me to have anything worth sharing. At least it helps me know those maps better.
Seems to me that the game ought to be able, by now, to use all my WarGames stats to help put me in games with players much more noob-like, as I am. Not my SR30, which totally came from solo SpartanOps and commendations; I just learned I can actually play at Legendary and win (KDR takes a hit, but I don't care) — that is, until I wander into multiplayer. Clearly, you guys are all way beyond Legendary. Yeesh.
Already enjoying all this interaction with the group, even if I'm still looking for a way to crack into the social gaming side.
I really am "too old to play."
Cheers!
Oh and BTB= Big Team Battle. I don't even know what it's officially called now....Big Team Infinity??
The super competitive folks can be pretty pliable, depending on who you play with. All that's asked is some semblance of teamwork and effort.
ZombieKitten, thanks — I figured some others must be like me, with higher SR than our skills can live up to! No worries, I will press on and makes invites until I make friends. Gonna get some good time slots to play this weekend... hope to team up some.
@ Dixon when I said "don't care how you play" that's what I meant :) Some of you competitive kids are cool with us negative k/d people, so long as we try to be a team player. Cos you're cool like that!
yeah, they good players let me play on thier team all the time.
i think they do it so they know where the other team is when i run out in the open and die in .2534 seconds by being team shot.
i'm a 50 something, but it means nothing.
send a FR or invite anytime Kenny. i suffer from RIDS too. (repetitive instant death syndrome)
Flag carriers, oddball holder etc. You'll get lots of Distraction medals too!
that's probably one of my top medals after kills and assists. lol
Finally, my first night on a team... now THAT was good fun.
Thanks for the invite Dixon (Phil). It was getting late for me, so I almost didn't jump in, but I had a blast. Got off to my usual HaloTard start but doubled my score in round 2, and by the time we'd played four rounds — let's see, I ranked up (almost twice)... earned the "I <3 Red vs Blue" acheev... got my first several ordnance drops ever (first one actually startled me and I died trying to reach it)... oh, and my first kill with a sticky detonator (second drop). Hopefully, that went as payback to whoever killed ME with that damned thing. Ouch.
Back in dashboard, I did find my console voice chat was set to "friends only." So, I fixed that for next time. Apologies again to your other two guys who were locked out of my headset; I sent FRs to both, appreciated the games.
I hope to be in on some of the Tuesday scrimmage action this week. So not ready for the Over 40 tournament...
For you, start with map knowledge. Know where things are, how to get from point A to B in multiple ways, and know where the callouts are. That's the easiest part to fix, so that's certainly worth doing first. Check the callouts here: http://halo4nation.com/multiplayer/all-maps-with-callouts/
Also, stop playing campaign and Spartan Ops. That doesn't make your skills any better. The only thing that's good for is getting used to a new controller scheme if you change it.
so what you are saying is................
Don't play with Ixtab cause he stands in a corner lobbing grenades at his feet
LOL!
KVD be Damned, I'm playing strictly for fun!
Stop playing campaign? Stop playing Ops?
Not a chance. I'm a writer by trade, and the stories are what brought me to Halo. I would forever walk away from WarGames before I stop interacting with the story behind it all... Yes, I know those missions are not helping take my skills to the level of the players in MP. But on the other hand, they HAVE made me better than I was before I started. Same way that teaming up with you 2o2p folks has already quickly made me a (albeit slightly) better player in the social game.
As for map knowledge, I am making (slow) progress. I've made oversize, laminated wall copies of each default map (from the big fancy prima guide) and started exploring them in private custom sessions. Not sure how everyone memorized all ten — and a bazillion callouts! — so fast, but I am on the way. Meanwhile, I liked Z0mbieKitten's tip to replay my games in theater and watch them from the POV of the top players... too much to assimiliate instantly, but plenty to absorb as I keep playing.
Spartan Ops will likely fizzle out for me after Season One ends; budget's too tight to keep buying more. But I've already started playing back through all the campaigns from the very beginning, something I've been wanting to do for a couple years but was too rusty to get motivated. Halo 4 blew my basic training cobwebs off nicely, and the first few missions of CE are proving every bit as engaging as they were eleven years ago.
Would love a co-op partner for the Legendary experience...
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
You're going to have a much tougher job getting better in this game, kind sir. The AI in the game pales in comparison to playing against people.
We haven't all memorized the call outs lol
im lucky enough to play with people who generally figure out my own, made up COs. I just call what it looks like and at least one person always gets it. Then sometimes they tell me it's called Purple Dishwasher or some shit that makes no sense...and I promptly forget Purple Dishwasher and continue using my own CO. :D
I'm pretty sure you told me that a guy was hiding behind the Asparagus tree last night. That's my Favorite callout in H4 that I've heard so far! Screw the "official" callouts!
Kenny,
Congrats on overthinking the shit out of it.
Oversized laminated maps? What the shit?
From someone with thousands of games of Halo under his belt who remains awfuls, you need three words...Embrace. The. Suck.
Revel in it. Throw grenades at your teammates. Snatch up power weapons and run to the opposing base. Drive off without a gunner. Teabag kills that don't belong to you and after going 1-13 talk smack to the other team in the lobby.
Callouts? Here's three more words for you "on my X." You'll be dying a lot and there's no point worrying about where you are when it happens. That's someone else's resposnsibility *cough-Dixon*
You said it yourself, fun is the key and the stories are what bring you back to the game. I like the canon as much as the next guy but nothing tops the stories you'll be telling in a few years when you've been playing with the same monkeys for a few thousand games and they still put up with you.
Trust me. I know.
11,000 games of Halo played
.91 KPD.
They call me Bubba, because I've never adequately explained my GT. Hit me up some night and we will die in flames together.