Clan night stats

Posted by request.  Click for huge.

Of note: OmniscientDeath went 21-32 for a K/D of -11 last week when matchmaking put him on the other team.  He went 97-30 this week in games on Exile when gunning in the Gauss Hog for a K/D of +67 with 68 Gauss Cannon kills.  gtdroptop was -17 in those games with a combined 72 assists as driver to enable those stats.

Octurian Pewn had a very impressive showing this week, green across the board.  Kudos to Mean Mrs Monkey for a non-negative game on Ragnorak.  Jests go out to darknorpo for somehow turning in a -12 performance on Exile when he couldn't get in his Banshee.

John Out Sick Today

I've come down with some kind of stomach bug and feel terrible.  I'm going to pass on clan night tonight to try and rest up.  The rest of you fools should still log on though.  You need the practice.  :)

Clan Night Postmortem

Here are some highlights from last night.  Since we had a bunch of objective games, I didn't filter them out this week.  Also worth noting, even though it's not highlighted in the table, is Mean Mrs Monkey's career best game with 8 kills and +4 spread on Anchor 9 DMRs.  Most people seemed to really enjoy zombies last week, and there is talk of playing Left 4 Dead more than just once a month.  I've put a new poll up on the blog, go and vote to voice your opinion if you'd like to play L4D more or less.

Jerk Rating

Anybody who has spent any time within Halo Reach is intimately with Assassinations, sweet-ass animations that you can trigger if you are able to get behind somebody and hit the kill button.  They are fun as hell when you are delivering them, and extra embarrassing when you are the recipient.  The animation is a reward and celebration of sorts because assassinations can be pretty hard to come by.  A key component of the assassination is that both players are vulnerable to fire during the animation, which means either killer or killee may be killed before the animation completes, effectively stealing the kill.  If your teammate is assassinating somebody and you kill their victim before they finish, it is called a Yoink and Bungie awards a special medal for that.  As funny as it is sometimes, it's totally a dick move.  If you save your teammate by killing an opponent who is in the midst of assassinating them, it is called a Showstopper and Bungie awards a special medal for that as well.  Showstoppers are hard to get and awarded for exceptional teamwork on the battlefield.

Given these two stats, I have developed a "Jerk Rating" to see who Yoinks and Showstoppers the most in our clan:

As you can see from the table, FragginURdoodz is clearly the biggest Jerk in the clan with a 6.9 Jerk Rating, highest Yoinks Per Game ratio, and only 1 career Showstopper to balance it out.  OmniscientDeath and darknorpo come in a close second.  OD claiming the clan high of 21 Yoinks and norpo logging a surprising 0 Showstoppers.  MEAN MR MONKEY is amongst the nicest team players when it comes to Jerk Rating.

Clan Night Postmortem

Halo Charts has a new Game Aggregator tool that produces some pretty interesting data.  Thought I would share some highlights from clan night last night.  Below is some key stats from our Slayer games (objective games excluded).  Numbers will obviously be tilted slightly for people who were helping the clan while on the other team...

A Monument to All Your Sins

One of the most difficult (or tedious) achievements to get in Halo Reach is "A Monument to All Your Sins," awarded for finishing the entire campaign on Legendary, solo.  Congratulations to Octurian Poon and CoolerSopranos2 for accomplishing this impressive feat!

See the chart for some comparison of Campaign data, click for huge.  Winter Contingency continues to be the easiest level, and The Pillar of Autumn continues to be the hardest.  Interestingly, on Solo, Long Night of Solace has bubbled up to be the second hardest level of them all, but also the highest scoring.  If you notify when you finish Legendary Solo, I'll be happy to compile your stats as well.

Campaign by the Numbers

So I've now finished the campaign on Normal Co-op (4 players), Legendary Co-op (2-4 players) and Legendary Solo.  Here's some tidbits that the data suggests:

• Level 2 "Winter Contingency" (this is first "real" level, level 1 is just cutscenes), as would be expected, is the easiest campaign level.  It has the fewest enemies, takes the shortest time to finish, and is the easiest to survive without dying.  Would be a good level to work on the Campaign commendations, especially "Flawless Cowboy."
• Level 10 [Title redacted for spoilers] is overall the hardest campaign level.  I won't say much more here to avoid spoilers in case anybody hasn't played it yet.
• The game does not appear to adjust anything for co-op play.  Enemies, weapons, ammo, available points are all essentially the same whether you are playing solo or co-op.
• Pro: This means there are fewer enemies each player needs to kill in co-op.
• Pro: Co-op brings with it significant advantages in that you can respawn in place when you die instead of returning to a check-point.
• Con: Because the game also does not generate more ammo and vehicles for co-op, so that can be a restriction on occasion.
• Con: The total number of points stays the same, so you will generate score more points per person playing on solo.
• Level 5 "Tip of the Spear" has the best opportunity to generate kills on co-op.  On my two co-op playthroughs (Normal and Legendary), this level ranked #1 in kills per minute.
• Level 10 had the highest rank in points per minute per person on co-op.  On Legendary Solo, Level 8 had the highest rank in points per minute.
• Level 4 "Night Fall" and Level 10 both start out with good opportunities to work on the "If They Came to Hear Me Beg" achievement.  I got it on level 4, OD got it on level 10.

There's still a handful of Campaign commendations that I'm working on, so I'm happy to join folks in playing some Campaign if people are interested.  I'm consistently on-line every night from 10pm-1am.

Reach Midnight Campaign Run

Starting now starring gtdroptop, OmniscientDeath, Fishbone10 and TimMAY 1023.  We'll have an Xbox Live party running if you'd like to pop in to say hello.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo 3.

Exactly one week to Reach.  We have a full team signed up for a midnight campaign run: gtdroptop, OmniscientDeath, TimMAY 1023, Fishbone10.  If there are others who want to commit to a 7 hour campaign run at midnight, have pre-ordered their game at a retailer open at midnight, and are looking for friends, I'm happy to help coordinate.

HR: Player Profiles

I've gone through and spent some time analyzing the clan's stats from the Beta and have some interesting data to share.  Our clan falls out into a few basic groups of players.  I'll post one profile a day until I've got everybody's up.  If you want yours early, comment here and I'll prioritize.  You'll see "types" of players from these defintions:

• Style
• Ranged: Prefers medium to long range weapons, excels at headshots.  These players use weapons like the DMR, Needle Rifle and Magnum most often.  Can operate effectively alone, but is most effective supporting teammates that are up close in battle.
• Run and Gun: Prefers short range encounters, tends to jump straight into battle.  These players  use the AR and melee most often.  They put most of their rounds into the body area and have higher assist numbers, generally most effective when operating in groups of 2 or more.
• Bombadier: Prefers short to medium range encounters, tends be more cautious during battle and may pull out to avoid fire or allow shields to recharge.  These players use the AR and frag grenade most often.  Typically do well when supported by Run and Gun types.
• Role
• Precision Slayer: All "Ranged" style players are classified as Precision Slayer.  This means they are skilled at getting precision headshots and cleaning up kills at range.
• Frontline Leader: This is seasoned player that thrives on the frontlines.  They can hold their own and get kills without support, but are best utilized when leading fireteams into the fray.
• Frontline Support: This is a player that enjoys being in the firefight, but would benefit from being able to drop out of the fight on occasion to recharge.  Best suited for following a "Frontline Leader" player and providing support fire.
• Specialist
• Some players gravitate towards power weapons or other specialty roles.  I will point this out when appropriate.

As an example, here is my profile to start things off:

Player: gtdroptop

• Rank: Warrant Officer Grade 2; Arena Season 1: Silver
• Games: 168; Kills: 1796; Deaths: 1647; Assists: 666; Time: 1:00:18; Wins: 83; Medals: 2398
• Win %: 49%; K/D: 1.09; K/G: 10.69; D/G: 9.80; A/G: 3.96; M/G: 14.27; Encounters/G: 25.55

Ranged Precision Slayer, Hammer Specialist. Having logged the most games in the Beta, gtdroptop leads the clan in more stat categories than anyone else.  Seeks out the DMR and Gravity Hammer, when available, is also comfortable with similar precision weapons like the Magnum or Needle Rifle.  Has the highest Kill/Death ratio in the Beta, also notably has high Kills/Game and Medals/Game ratios.  Comparatively low Assists/Game numbers indicate a propensity to get headshots at range.

Best suited: Medium to long range slayer, providing precision kill support to team mates on the front lines.

ODST Road to Recon

If you've looked in your Xbox Live inbox lately, you may have noticed that I have finished the Road to Recon and unlocked the coveted Halo 3 Recon Armor. Far and away the hardest achievement in this quest is Vidmaster: Endure which requires completion of the Firefight 4th set on Heroic difficulty with four players. The recommended map for this achievement is Alpha Site due to its strategic geometry, but it's still really hard and takes over 2 hours to complete. The 4th set activates the Mythic and Famine skulls, in addition to almost every other skull available. That means enemies are extra hard to kill, they all have shields, and ammo is extremely scarce. Completing this requires precision team work and smart kills using ALL the tips outlined in previously in this blog. You must use the correct weaponry on each specific enemy, or you will waste ammo, run out, and be left defenseless. In my opinion, one of the leading indicators of how effective a player is in Firefight is their points per kill stat. This stat is higher for players who are streakier (Killing Spree), get harder kills (Brute Chieftain), get better kills (headshots), get kills on higher difficulties (Heroic) and with more skulls activated (Mythic). Here's some key stats for the active players in the clan. Useful for picking Firefight team mates and looking for ways to improve your own game. Leave a comment here if you're looking for folks to play with. OmniscientDeath and myself are up for gaming most nights of the week after 10pm.

Halo Wars Skulls and Black Boxes

There is a Skull and a Black Box hidden on every campaign level. The Skulls all require killing a certain number of enemies before they appear. Here are some tips that OmniscientDeath and I picked up on our playthroughs.

• Xbox Life has the best guide for Skulls and Black boxes I've found yet, including screen shots
• Xbox Life only goes up through Mission 12 however, so for the last three, Xbox 360 Achievements does an adequate job
• Unlike Supply Crates, Skulls and Black boxes can be claimed with any unit, including air units. In fact, some are only accessible with air units.
  
• Mission 1 Look Daddy! skull: The tricky thing here is having enough Grunts available to kill. You want to be sure the Spirit dropships don't get killed before delivering their Grunty payload. I recommend rushing into Alpha base and taking out the Wraith before the Shortsword is called to extend the battle. Then concentrate on the Covenant units around the edge of the base, ignoring the ones that get dropped in until the end. Be sure to leave a unit right next to where the Skull spawns (see Xbox Life screenshots) because you have very little time after the 100th grunt is killed to grab it. It's easier to just switch to that unit with Down on the D-pad, then to try and race a Warthog back.
• Mission 5 Fog skull: I recommend not jacking Wraiths until you've killed all 5, otherwise you may run out of Wraiths that spawn.

Halo Wars Campaign Special Achievements

There are special achievements associated with each campaign level. Here are some things OmniscientDeath and I picked up on our playthroughs.

• Xbox 360 Achievements has a decent achievement guide posted
• Mission 1 Everything's Better with Bacon: This is hard because your Warthog gunner tends to kill grunts before you can splatter them. I recommend using the queue movement command. If you press and hold "X", your unit will go there after it's done with its current action. Send in one Warthog at a time and click "Y" on the Grunt as soon as its visible so the gunner stops shooting. Immediately (before your hog gets to the Grunt), queue up a Warthog move to retreat back out of range so that your Warthog automatically turns to come back as soon as possible and doesn't gun down any remaining Grunts. Do the same thing at Alpha Base, but be careful to position Forge and your Marines well out firing range. It took my 81 Grunts to get 50 splatters. Take your time.
• Mission 3 Coveneant "Hot Drop": You don't have to get all 5 kills at one time. If you don't get all 5 the first time, just turn the bridge back on and try again.
• Mission 4 The Real Winner: See the screengrab from Xbox Life. Open the console next to the black box and Adam should come running out.
• Mission 7 Micro Manager: You can get this by just hitting the Scarab with the MAC cannon, and not moving any of your units. The only caveat is that the Scarab will likely burn through the ruins and start hitting your base before you can get enough MAC blasts in. Spend your time building up resources. The Scarab will take out the closest turret and closest building before starting on your command center. Once those are gone, just keep building Supply Pads in the empty space, the Scarab will hit that one first before going back to your command center. It costs 100 resources every time and they go quick, so be sure to keep an eye on your MAC recharge time.
• Mission 10 The Procrastinator: Recommend building Scorpions and Wolverines to escort the Gremlins.
  
• Mission 12 Battened Down the Hatches: As soon as it starts, use all your resources to build Cyclops until you max your headcount. Don't forget about the two airlocks furthest from the power core. Be efficient, it takes almost exactly 4 minutes on easy if you are perfect
• Mission 15 Thinkin' About My Doorbell: Be careful, when you open a door, the glass panels fall away. Any ground units you have parked on them will die. Also, the doors will only if you have cleared all the aliens away from the control panel.
  

Halo Wars Tips and Tricks

OmniscientDeath and I have played through the entire campaign, collecting all the skulls, black boxes and special campaign achievements. Here's some general tips:

• Playing campaign on co-op is more fun than playing by yourself.
  
• The game can get laggy though, so recommend a fast connection.
• Budget about 7 hours to get through on Easy if you're working co-op on skulls and black boxes.

Clan night tonight, 8pm PT, Left 4 Dead

I'm moving the clan mail to a blog soon. This way, items in these weekly posts will be archived, and you can avoid clutter in your inbox. For the handful of you that prefer the e-mail, I can auto-email up to 10 of you. For the rest, I'm happy to help you setup RSS feeds so that it automatically shows up in iGoogle, My Yahoo, or your favorite reader.

Effectively, the entire clan has moved to Left 4 Dead. It's hella fun. Active players: gtdroptop, FishBone10, darknorpo, OmniscientDeath, MEAN MR MONKEY, Mean Mrs Monkey, BeerMonkeee, QuelBelle, Beer4Porter, CoolerSopranos2

Clan Games

Halo is starting to feel a little tired, so I'm starting to look for a new clan game. These are the requirements for a clan game:

• On the Xbox 360 and supports Xbox Live multiplayer
• Has buy-in from myself, BeerMonkeee and OmniscientDeath (want to be on this list? show up more)
• Ideally supports at least 4-player or greater teams or co-op
• Fun enough to play for at least a year

Games vetoed for clan play:

• Rock Band 2 - No interest.
• Call of Duty: World at War - Game mechanics not "fun" enough. Too hard to differentiate friend or foe. Learning curve too steep for multiplayer.
• Fable II - Only 2 player co-op. Wonky camera makes combat impossible.
• Civilization Revolution - Games take way too long.
• Gears of War 2 - No critical mass amongst clan
  
• Rainbow Six Vegas 2 - No critical mass amongst clan
• Splinter Cell: Conviction - No critical mass amongst clan
• F.E.A.R. 2 - No critical mass amongst clan
• Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. - Fun factor too low
  

Games still under consideration

• Left 4 Dead
• Street Fighter 4
  
• Halo Wars (3/3/09)

Halo 3 Service Tags

• B80: gtdroptop (John Wei)
• B81: BeerMonkeee (Scott Lenker)
• B82: TimMAY 1023 (Tim Romero)
• B83: CoolerSopranos2 (Kevin Copeland)
• B84: OmniscientDeath (Ryan Averill)
• B85: FishBone10 (Laurence Day)
• B86: Beer4Porter (Brien Porter)
• B87: Available
• B88: Available
• B89: darknorpo (Nory Ison)

Halo 3 Final Stats

It's been a year since H3 came out, so this is the last week that I'm going to update the stats like I've been. Here's a dump of the past year:

• gtdroptop was promoted to First Lieutenant. Represented as clan overlord with a massive number of games logged, specializing in Team Slayer by optimizing play for K/D ratio and leading the clan in fewest deaths per game in all game types. Finishes the year with most games played, most custom games, most campaign missions, most enemies killed, best campaign K/D ratio, most achievements, highest gamerscore, most skulls, most meta-games finished, highest campaign level finished, least ranked deaths/game, best ranked K/D ratio, most social games played, least social deaths/game, least total deaths/game.
• BeerMonkeee finished the campaign on Legendary. Finished the year with the least ranked deaths (owing largely to very few games played there). The stats don't show it, but BeerMonkeee is an assist machine and is far and away the clan's best vehicle specialist with over 1300 Wheelmans and over 200 Splatters!
• TimMAY 1023 finished the year as the highest ranked active clan member as a Major, grade 2. TimMAY was a ranked matchmaking machine, logging some 4X the number of ranked games as the next closest person, and 7X the clan average! He had the most matchmade games, the highest skill, the most EXP, the fewest friendlies lost in campaign, the most ranked games, the most ranked kills, and the most total kills. His most important contribution is taking up his role as team sniper, something Bada Bing has always desperately needed, logging over 500 sniper headshots, and over 1100 total kills with the human sniper!
• CoolerSopranos2 fell from grace during H2, but has regained a shadow of his former glory. Though he remarkably leads in zero stat categories, he has maintained a positive social K/D ratio for almost eight straight months. An impressive feat, considering how few games he logs.
• OmniscientDeath is the clan leader in kills, taking the reigns from darknorpo's H2 reign. ODeath leads the clan in games/skill rank, skulls found, meta-games finished, campaign level finished, social kills, social kills/game, social K/D ratio, total kills/game, and total K/D ratio. His score-whoring is welcome because of his unparalleled skill on the chain gun. He proves that it's more than spray and pray, with two Untouchable and one Invincible medal in his medal chest.
• FishBone10 has been our small team's most consistent fourth. His video game ADD syndrome hurts his H3 skills, but he has racked up an impressive body of work, considering how many other games he has had to play to chalk up a clan leading 15,860 gamerscore. Though he doesn't lead in any individual stat categories, he does trail in the fewest, showing a consistent strength across the board.
• Beer4Porter gets special notice here for being far and away the most persistent n00b, sticking through the tough times to come out on the other side as a respectable team member. Gone are the days of being double digit negative, Porter finished a stringent training regimen through the lower ranked game playlists and actually bests CoolerSopranos2 in several real categories including: games/skill, games/exp, ranked deaths/game, social deaths, social deaths/game, total deaths andn total deaths/game.
• darknorpo has let work take priority over his true love, and his H3 stats have suffered accordingly. Once a clan powerhouse, he is now relegated to being an occasional average contributor. He does shine in games/exp, ranked kills/game and fewest total social deaths. But norpo is a shell of the master chief he once was. Maybe with the new map packs and new achievements, we'll see more of the pink wonder.

As a clan, the active members have logged:

• 4,253 games
• 44,764 kills
• 38,343 deaths
• 10.53 kills/game
• 9.02 deaths/game
• 1.17 kills/death