Stacked Teams in Ranked Over? Never!!!!

[WhiskeyDitka85]

First off I'm a 2 player stacker but i do have 2 xbox'ss sitting right next to each other with 2 TV's and i play with my roomate. Now, pre-patch all we needed to do was search hit X again the games would come up and its the first one up there. Now, I doubt they randomized the list so this will not stop stackers on a mission. Right after the game they play just search quickly and you will get right back into the next game. Initailly it will be a pain but mark my words stacked teams aren't gone.

Secondly, Epic I want you to know I love this game and the new patch is perfect for me. However, in the near future i see people getting annyoed. You've just made it harder to stack not impossible.

Third, nice work removing the cameras in ranked my 2 t.v.'s often gave me a very unfair advantage in ranked games when my partner died before me.

[Evil Edz]

Didnt even read what you said but you might have the sweeeetest screen name on this site! haha good work

[WhiskeyDitka85]

Da Bears!!!!

[Pwning j00z]

That's interesting, I'm gonna have to try that with a buddy from work I play with just to see if it works over distance. It might be you 2 are just getting it sorted exactly the same because you're on the same router and the search is finding the exact same list of games to match your ping because you're getting the exact same connection to matches.

[Cool N Ski]

I have no doubt that the 'stackers' will find a way. Man, people are persistent. Hopefully, I'll get a few good weeks in first.

[Pwning j00z]

Yeah, be nice to play on even ground with 5-7 other people for once after so long.

[rustybayonet]

First off I'm a 2 player stacker but i do have 2 xbox'ss sitting right next to each other with 2 TV's and i play with my roomate. Now, pre-patch all we needed to do was search hit X again the games would come up and its the first one up there. Now, I doubt they randomized the list so this will not stop stackers on a mission. Right after the game they play just search quickly and you will get right back into the next game. Initailly it will be a pain but mark my words stacked teams aren't gone.

Secondly, Epic I want you to know I love this game and the new patch is perfect for me. However, in the near future i see people getting annyoed. You've just made it harder to stack not impossible.

Third, nice work removing the cameras in ranked my 2 t.v.'s often gave me a very unfair advantage in ranked games when my partner died before me.

well its not going to work the way you would like because the host name dose not show up at all anymore im guess it will just be the name of the map how many rounds and how many players. but when the patch comes out i hope someone finds a way around this so i can play ranked matches with my friends.

[AZRoboto]

Playing with your friends in matchmaking is a bad thing?

In Halo 2, it was an actual feature, and as of today it's still the best feature on Xbox Live!

And GOW is still not supporting it. How lame. And the community is saying it's a bad thing.

[IronStarSavior]

Maybe persistant folks will still find a way to stack, but at least there will be fewer of them overall. Also, anything that annoys the stackers is a good thing.

[WhiskeyDitka85]

well its not going to work the way you would like because the host name dose not show up at all anymore im guess it will just be the name of the map how many rounds and how many players. but when the patch comes out i hope someone finds a way around this so i can play ranked matches with my friends.

I guess you don't understand what Im saying. I'm telling you that I don't need to see the name of the game as its the first game on my list everytime. So, unless they randomize the position of the games I'll know exactly where the game is.

[Myrrah]

Yep yep, I agree. I play the game like CliffyB said it should be played: Using Teamwork. I cant communicate well enough with 3 randoms, so I like playing with friends. Its not against the rules.

[crosswinds]

Playing with your friends in matchmaking is a bad thing?

In Halo 2, it was an actual feature, and as of today it's still the best feature on Xbox Live!

And GOW is still not supporting it. How lame. And the community is saying it's a bad thing.

Only Some are saying it.The VAST Majority want some form of a ranked system that lets you play with friends.The others apperently have no friends,and never have played with someone that they know and realized how much fun it is.

[FOXX]

Playing with your friends in matchmaking is a bad thing?

In Halo 2, it was an actual feature, and as of today it's still the best feature on Xbox Live!

And GOW is still not supporting it. How lame. And the community is saying it's a bad thing.

It's not a bad thing at all, Epic just wants to keep the current concept of completely random ranked matches just that: completely random to discourage cheating in accordance with MS's Live developer policy. Read it yourself.

This isn't the be-all end-all update as they've stated time and again. You wanted a patch right now instead of waiting for a full-featured game update with a moveable lobby system with its own leaderboard so here you are. In a while longer they'll put in a group system that plays against other groups so it can even be legal with the Live policy on ranked matches. If people wanted it all at once they shouldn't have been crying about having a patch for the more annoying problems immediately.

Things take time. I'm personally glad to see fixes now and can't wait to see the additional features planned roll up in a few months.

[Triba]

All you do is send messages to relevant friends about the (obscure: 11 rounds) number of rounds your doing, the map and the connection speed.

[FOXX]

All you do is send messages to relevant friends about the (obscure: 11 rounds) number of rounds your doing, the map and the connection speed.

And all that takes? Lots of button presses, recording, time, and generally just flat-out annoyance. Compare this to, say, the player matches where with two, maybe three clicks you can invite a friend and they can instantly join. Saying one's as good as the other is saying your Pinto is as good as my Viper. Sure, they both get from point A to point B but one's a LOT nicer.

The solution isn't to make it easier to stack games in a ranked match system designed for single players, it's to make a SEPARATE ranked system that allows premade groups to play premade groups. It even has the added benefit of reducing headache for you and your friends since you won't hear from the random-made people about how their teams suck and you'll get better competition. For that, you'll just have to wait though.


If they held off on the patch we'd still have the ten-yard-long grenade tag and inability to hear people in player matches after it's running. Rolling updates are a Good Thing.

[Triba]

And all that takes? Lots of button presses, recording, time, and generally just flat-out annoyance. Compare this to, say, the player matches where with two, maybe three clicks you can invite a friend and they can instantly join. Saying one's as good as the other is saying your Pinto is as good as my Viper. Sure, they both get from point A to point B but one's a LOT nicer.

The solution isn't to make it easier to stack games in a ranked match system designed for single players, it's to make a SEPARATE ranked system that allows premade groups to play premade groups. It even has the added benefit of reducing headache for you and your friends since you won't hear from the random-made people about how their teams suck and you'll get better competition. For that, you'll just have to wait though.


If they held off on the patch we'd still have the ten-yard-long grenade tag and inability to hear people in player matches after it's running. Rolling updates are a Good Thing.

I completely agree with you. I was just offering a speculative technique to bypass this problem. On top of the pre-group ranked matches, they could also bring in an area specific group that you could filter, to always allow for low lag.

[Dirty Sh0tz]

lol theres 2 problems i have with not being able to play with ur friends
1) you can't play with ur friends like comon
2) this patch will cause people to find more glitches and exploit them in ranked matches because people will always need that little advantage to win so this host removal thing is gonna cause cheaters to join innocent game and ruin it even worse then having a stacked team against a not stacked team.

[FOXX]

lol theres 2 problems i have with not being able to play with ur friends
1) you can't play with ur friends like comon
2) this patch will cause people to find more glitches and exploit them in ranked matches because people will always need that little advantage to win so this host removal thing is gonna cause cheaters to join innocent game and ruin it even worse then having a stacked team against a not stacked team.

1)Yeah, I HATE not being able to host a match and invite my friends. That blows...wait, I can. Awesome. If all you want to do is play with your friends there you go. If you want something more you've got to be more specific.

2)I'd love to see this supported, it already happened...it was called the Standby cheat in Halo 2 which DID allow for movable lobbies. Please explain how removing an *effective* movable lobby will make it worse.



Triba, I see, sorry I misunderstood and apologize if I gave/got the wrong impression.

[Dirty Sh0tz]

Now im just wondering when they say cheat detection code that means its talkin about stand-bying and modding and such but nowhere in the patch content that says anything about fixing glitches so you most likely will still be seeing roadie run shoot glitch infinite tag grenades out of maps and probably more.

[FOXX]

Now im just wondering when they say cheat detection code that means its talkin about stand-bying and modding and such but nowhere in the patch content that says anything about fixing glitches so you most likely will still be seeing roadie run shoot glitch infinite tag grenades out of maps and probably more.

Glitching is a form of cheating so yes, there will more than likely be fixes for some of those. Standby doesn't work in GoW because it's nondeterministic (all you're doing is not telling the server what you're doing...if someone else kills you before you send the server the packets that say you shot them it doesn't care, you're still dead. Not the case in deterministic games like Halo 2).

You don't need to worry about modchippers, there isn't one currently available for the 360. There's firmware cracking on the DVD drive but nothing that allows you to play full-fledged backups to my knowledge (though, like all active scenes, that is subject to change). Even if you did, the game won't have the activation code which = ban from live, hence why you got banned VERY easily from live using a modchip on an original XBox.

A machine in the middle doing a forced man-in-the-middle-style attack by modifying the content of the packets from the 360? Now that's a whole other can of worms and one that can't really be fixed. If it could there'd be no such thing as the Denial of Service attack.



Some glitches, such as level glitches (getting on top of a crate you're not supposed to for instance) can't really be fixed. Checking to see if someone's shooting while roadie-running isn't hard at all. I hope that clarifies a bit about how cheating control works and what you can expect in the patch.

[Dirty Sh0tz]

ya i know that glitching is a form of cheating but n the patch content it doesn't say anything about fixing cheating it just says cheating detection code which im not sure if you can detect if some1 is glitching in a game because its not tampering its just finding something that is in the game that the testers didn't know about.

[oboro shogun]

Ageed. I'll find a way. What gonna happen now is people joining matches just to find their friends and then quitting when they don't. Repeat over and over until they are found.

[FOXX]

ya i know that glitching is a form of cheating but n the patch content it doesn't say anything about fixing cheating it just says cheating detection code which im not sure if you can detect if some1 is glitching in a game because its not tampering its just finding something that is in the game that the testers didn't know about.

About the only thing that isn't transmitted at some point is the level itself. Your POSITION has to be transmitted but what that is relative to the level typically doesn't matter since the level is assumed to be known. Also nobody could build in a check to see if you're "out" of the level since that'd require boundaries in the level itself. Level hacks like getting out of the boundaries is pretty much undetectable.

Everything else on the other hand usually is. Such as, if you're roadie running and shooting then on your own machine as well as others there's a stream of information that says you're doing two things you cannot be allowed to do. All one needs in order to "check" for it is a larger truth table to see if that's going on (in this case an exclusive or operation on roadie run and firing/changing weapons). Why wasn't it there to begin with if it's so simple? Because if you test for absolutely EVERY case it'll bog things down. Just like with level design and AI design, you must fool the player into thinking the world is bigger than it really is (hence why everyone thought F.E.A.R.'s AI was incredibly advanced when really the levels were just designed that well). Glitches and hacks like this are what happens when someone finds something you forgot to check for, it's simple enough to add it back in under most cases.

[Cool N Ski]

Ageed. I'll find a way. What gonna happen now is people joining matches just to find their friends and then quitting when they don't. Repeat over and over until they are found.

As a random, that is exactly what I am forced to do now! Join, see if a team is waiting on one side or in middle, and leave if so. Sometimes I even have to sit there for a while only to hear the famous words "Can you go on Locust side so my friend can come over here?" Oh well, at least its a pain in the ass for YOU now and not me.

[Doc Bruce Banner]

It's actually a pain for most people now.

[annunaki 23]

Ageed. I'll find a way. What gonna happen now is people joining matches just to find their friends and then quitting when they don't. Repeat over and over until they are found.

Yep. Then once they have had enough of that nonsense they find a new game altogether.

[blackoper]

not for me. I like playing alone and with new people all the time. Still player matches are way better anyway

[annunaki 23]

not for me. I like playing alone and with new people all the time. Still player matches are way better anyway

And that is just fine that you want to play that way. Epic has made the game even easier for you now. Congrats-now how about the rest of us?

[FPS JL]

I'm sure there are going to be ways around this. Why would they put the damn achievments in ranked, like, people boosted to get them anyways, might as well make them in player matches, it's all I want is "Seriously...", and now it's going to be ridiculous.

[ChiefMegadeth]

Playing with your friends in matchmaking is a bad thing?

In Halo 2, it was an actual feature, and as of today it's still the best feature on Xbox Live!

And GOW is still not supporting it. How lame. And the community is saying it's a bad thing.

I agree wtf epic?i love this game to death but why wouldn't you let your mates play with in ranked its a added bonus...

fix it so we can play against other teams aleast!!!!

[Rogue Soldier]

Yep. Then once they have had enough of that nonsense they find a new game altogether.

yep that's the complete reality of it. All my buddies have now went and bought Rainbow 6 vegas so they can play together in a competitive setting...to tell ya the truth i don't really like the Rainbow games, but if none of my buddies are gonna be playing Gears, i'll probaly give it a shot too. I don't believe that because the game sold over 2 million copies that epic would ever just throw in the towel and say a job well done, on to the next game. Im sure there will be something in the works to allow us to play with friends competitively on something like the leaderboards

[annunaki 23]

yep that's the complete reality of it. All my buddies have now went and bought Rainbow 6 vegas so they can play together in a competitive setting...to tell ya the truth i don't really like the Rainbow games, but if none of my buddies are gonna be playing Gears, i'll probaly give it a shot too. I don't believe that because the game sold over 2 million copies that epic would ever just throw in the towel and say a job well done, on to the next game. Im sure there will be something in the works to allow us to play with friends competitively on something like the leaderboards

You would think. All they had to do was say "hey don't worry we'll have a solution for groups to play each other soon". The forum would be such a better place right now if they had. The fact that they didn't really says they have no intention of doing such a feature.

[syncomm]

All my buddies have now went and bought Rainbow 6 vegas so they can play together in a competitive setting...

I haven't played Rainbow 6: Vegas, but I thought it would have the same issue. The gaming site Hexus had an interview awhile back with the lead designer of that game which seemed to indicate it was in the same spot as GoW with multiplayer matchmaking:

HEXUS: Rainbow 6: Vegas will use a True Skill Rating system to ensure players are matched up online against similar ranks, does that apply to teams as well?
J.P: We don’t use the Halo-type party grouping system and actually Microsoft doesn’t allow rank matches to take place with friends or allow you to send invitations to ranked games. Microsoft wants ranked matches to be really competitive, so you play against other people and everyone is of the same skill level with the same rating. When you join a ranked matched with similar build players, you won’t be able to invite your friends. It’s not a limitation in the game but it’s something that Microsoft is imposing on all games that use the true skill rating system.

from:

http://gaming.hexus.net/content/item...em=7121&page=2

[Rogue Soldier]

I hope you're wrong man, waiting until GoW 2 for something like a party based system....that just seems wrong

[syncomm]

There have been rumors of a "unified" clan system coming to XBL. I can only imagine that once it is out, GoW and other games will incorporate it. It would need some heavy adjustments to the TrueSkill algorithm to deal with matches based on teams/groups. Also, these matches would likely not affect your individual TrueSkill rating -- only the overall rating of the clan. This would also probably require its own seprate leaderboard. In the meantime, assuming the rumors are true, most publishers are going to not waste the man hours engineering their own, as it could be incompatible.

[SwitchBlade]

People will play Gear & Lost planet until next month when the halo beta is released with crackdown. Then everyone will be playing the halo beta......

[syncomm]

Then everyone will be playing the halo beta......

Which will also use TrueSkill ;-) TrueSkill actually came about because of issues noticed in the ranking system of Halo 2. My bet is on no party invites for ranked games there either.

[Rogue Soldier]

Perhaps a "Nobody has skill" leaderboard for Player matches?

[Jechtshot78]

Which will also use TrueSkill ;-) TrueSkill actually came about because of issues noticed in the ranking system of Halo 2. My bet is on no party invites for ranked games there either.

Think again....

[TheGuardian]

Epic just needs to learn to listen to the people and let people play with friends the 3 people out there that dont like it well that sucks for them there r more ppl that want a party system like halo 2 and if u go that way people wont do that point stacking cheat that they can do now