Miklo's Super Post on Reach Tips

[Miiiklo]

-NOTE- Sorry about it taking so long guys, alot of material i want to cover, check back late tommarrow and it should be done

Hey guys, so i figured because so many people are complaining about how many threads i post. Ill just post one fatty thread with all the things i've been wanting to share. So this pretty much is going to be a compilation of all the tips i have come across in my halo experience and all the personal things that i have learned from watching gameplays, guides, videos, streams and all that nice stuff. Enjoy! I hope something in here helps you.




The Mental Side of Halo

There is no doubt that the heat of battle exposes a persons weakest points. Do you ever get aggravated while playing? Are you sometimes nervous when playing Pros or people you presume to be better than you? Do your hand sweat profusely during intense games? If you answered yes to ANY of these, then you have been "Playing the Mental Game" without even knowing it!

If your personality is negative while gaming, then you better expect to play worse and worse as the game progresses. Lets just say your going into MLG Matchmaking alone, and you just went -10 the game before. Chances are, your going to be in a bad mood and already your going to most likely not play to your fullest ability. You get a game, none of your teammates have mics, and one guy on your team is named DaNGeRDooD117. You start a game on Sanctuary Bomb and Mr.Dangerdood takes your sniper, and wastes 4 shots as your pushing ring to help with rockets. BOOM. All of a sudden theres a rocket halfway up your ass, and your frustrated to say the least, if not already about to throw your controller at the wall. At this point, EVERY halo player will do one of two things.
1.Complain
2.Shrug it off

If you are easily aggravated or annoyed, then expect things like this to repeat itself all game long. Soon you will find yourself whining, making excuses, or blaming other players in the game, or more commonly, LAG! This is a HUGE no-no. It will be hard to do, but you need to train yourself to bite your tounge and let it roll off your shoulders. If you dont the only thing it will do is make you play worse, and develop a bad habit which will ultimately work its way into your gameplay so that pretty soon, its and every game thing. Remember, if you lose, theres always another game out there to be played! Heres some tips that will help you stay Mentally Tough during your games.

1.Stay pumped even when your discouraged
2.Act as if your winning even if you are on the path to getting Steak'ed
3.Stay relaxed and loose at all times
4.Plan your strategies before the game starts
5.Follow the same guidelines before beginning each game
6.When the game gets faster and more intense, enjoy it, dont get scared.
7.Thrive on having fun while playing.
8.Stay Positive no matter how bad the match gets
9.Stay aware in game and dont repeat your previous deaths
10.Stay confident no matter what the score is.
11.Always bring your A+ Mental Game, Be tougher than your opponent. The mental side of halo is more important than Skill!

-Concentration-
This is one of the fundamentals to doing anything competitively. If you cant concentrate, then how do you ever expect to win the game? Being well rested is one of the biggest things you can do to help your concentration levels be up come game time. Think about it like this, Ever had too little sleep and awoken feeling groggy and delusional? Theres no well that can be helping your Halo game. I personally try and get between 8-10 Hours of sleep a night. No more or less. Sleeping too much can backfire just as bad as undersleeping. I know sometimes when i sleep too long, the first 2-3 hours im awake im near WORTHLESS. I feel like i cant focus on anything, im spacing out all the time, coming close to nodding off. Even a monster wont help at this point. So make sure to get your sleep schedule under control.

Exercise is another key factor that alot of hardcore gamers overlook. Now, im not saying you have to be like T2 and be in great shape, but it definatly helps to burn off some of that extra energy your body has stored up from sitting around all day gaming. Exercise actually increases your Memory and Concentration levels as well, Which means more learning from your gameplays and better gameplays to learn from! Also, It gets the blood flowing through your body and gets your mind ready to focus on whatever it needs to. Maybe just go on a walk around the neighborhood, lift some weights, ride your bike down to the store, anything you can do to get the blood flowing, do it.

Stress. Its a killer on your brain and your gameplay. Simply enough, if your stressed out your mind is going to be in other places and you wont be able to game to the fullest until the problem that is stressing you out is resolved. This could be anything from Friends, Girlfriends, Boyfriends, Work, School, everyday problems or even Halo itself! Take a break if your stressed out and work on yourself for a day or 2, then come back and get gaming.

One of the biggest mistakes i see and hear about people making is playing too much. Playing for long periods of time is very strenuous on your brain. Playing in MLG events is a sure example of this, many people come into round one ON FIRE and over time, they lose by round 4 because of mental exhaustion. Having mental Stamina when playing seriously gives you the edge over your opponents. If your able to last longer in the heat of battle, then your going to have the upper hand in and outside the games. A perfect example would be a Gamebattles Game i played against The New Kids on the Block. We lost the first game, and instead of being discouraged, we kept our momentum going, and let the other team hype up and get too comfortable. We then proceeded to play 4 GAMES of zealot bomb, because we kept tieing the games 1-1. By the end of the 3rd game, we could hear the discouragement in their voices, and knew we had it. We then won that next game and the rest is history. If you start to feel a loss in focus and your eyes are dried out from not blinking enough while playing, then your body is telling you its time to call it a night. Remember, YES you CAN play too much halo, however you want to sometimes push your limit so that you can build your mental stamina.

Gaming Equipment

If your going to go Pro, or just be good at Reach, then your going to want to use the best possible equipment you can. The reason why i STRONGLY advise the Wired controller over the Wireless controller is because there is NO delay and you're not aloud to play in tournaments with wireless controllers either. Not many people know this, Whenever i am giving lessons to people i always ask what kind of controller they use. This is because having a laggy controller is doing more harm then you think, Also i get the players who have a laggy wireless controller with a big LAGGY plasma TV. That combination is where it really gets difficult to play!

Why Wired? Wired controllers dont have a delay unlike wireless ones. Anything wirelessat this point DOES have a delay. Wireless internet is a perfect example, there is a signal being transmitted between the wireless router in your house and your wireless laptop/desktop computer. this does cause a delay in internet speeds. The wireless controller has a transmitter built inside it, this transmitter sends a wireless signal to your Xbox. The receiver for the xbox is located next to one of the memory card slots on the left, you know, the little black thing. Alot of people say, who cares about a little delay? well the truth is your shots are NEVER going to be as fast as they should be. When playing XBL its already laggy as it is, so you should want everything that can be normal, to be normal. Having a delayed controller means delayed movements on your screen. Some people can notice it when they make the switch and others cant, but believe me its there.

Now moving onto why Big TVs are Bad TVs. All these new LCD, Plasma, LED TVs come with a Delay, similar to the wireless controller delay i spoke about earlier. This delay is called as "Response Time". Having a high or slow response time means that your TV cant refresh its pixels quick enough, meaning that what is displayed on your screen may be milliseconds behind. I personally have only heard of a few big LCD and Plasma TVs being able to have GOOD response times. But for the most part you can expect a laggy screen

I Think everyone should play with headphones, They give you an edge like no other. just like i tell people to buy wired controllers during my lessons, i always say the same about headphones. They will provide you with a nice clear surround sound so you can hear just about anything that moves. Whether they are above you, below you, in our outside a base, you can hear them perfectly. When you have sound beaming directly into your ears you pick up sounds and other things that you normally wouldn't pick up on! I'm so used to my headphones, its VERY hard for me to perform well without them.

Xbox Live

Some people know how Hosting works on Xbox Live but most people don't. If your one of the people who don't, id advise you read this carefully. Most games on XBL have a player dedicated connection. What this means is, Xbox Live or the game your playing chooses who has the best connection out of everyone playing with or against you in that game, as the host. If you have a good connection with an open highway, then most likely you will be given host majority of the time. What i mean by an open highway is; your router has open ports so that other players in the game can connect easily. The reason why host is so important is simple. if you're the host of the game, everyone has to connect to your xbox. meaning, you have an advantage over everyone in that game. You use certain factors of the game to your advantage. You also don't have to worry about lagging! If your play someone from across the ocean, your connection is generally very bad. The game can't be played normal because of how laggy the connection is and most of the time you'll end up losing. But if your Host, then you dont notice the lag, because the other players have to connect to YOU!

Disadvantages of NOT being host
~Grenades are thrown slower
~You may have to reload your gun twice
~your shots don't register as fast or accurate
~you may play bad because you are lagging

Advantages of being Host
~Grenades can be thrown faster
~You don't have to reload your gun twice
~Your shots register faster and more accuratley
~You don't lag

Videos that are sure to help you!

~Map Callouts~
Asylum - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbIaf3Fgcjk
Countdown - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47E8C5UCacI&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Zealot - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj2Nayh2V2c&feature=related

Obviously the above videos will have some callouts in it that are slightly different then some of yours. Its just to give you an idea of where things are. Theres no such thing as a wrong callout, As long as your team know what your talking about you can call Ring 3 Top Doughnut.

The following are videos from Ninja's youtube channel, i find them very informative .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xC_nj8N_KY&feature=channel_video_title -Zealot Bomb tips-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxzf7w1AxlU&feature=relmfu -Grenade Launcher tips-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiFDzJcTLDw&feature=relmfu -Countdown Spawn Traps/tips
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlnH3kSp1Wo&feature=relmfu - Sniping / DMR Tips
http://www.youtube.com/user/HyperNinjaVs#p/u/11/7buLhdaoIjc -Sanctuary Pointers-
http://www.youtube.com/user/HyperNinjaVs#p/u/12/L08JIhj_Y0g -Zealot Pointers-

Thats it for right now guys, if i think of more ill edit it in. Check back every day or two, promise ill try to add more! Thank you for reading and if you have anything to add, PM me it.

@Thxgnificent (:
Gamertag - l Malo l , if theres anything i can do to help you, let me know
www.youtube.com/mlgmiklo <--- Just incase you guys want to watch some of my gameplay ;)
Believe the Hype 2011 (:

[Miiiklo]

If you add a tip, ill throw it in. This is where i will write down the peoples name and their quote, along with putting it in the main post.

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Thanks to everyone that has submitted a tip.

[HEA7]

This is the kind of thread i love to see. Good job Miiklo

[chris_cr33p]

very nice read

[WIERDO]

i got everything except the wire controller.

[Miiiklo]

im not even halfway done, MAYBE 1/4th. ill try and have it done by tonight

[itzcritty]

This is an intense thread

[phreekopath]

Very useful, well thought out, and well presented post. A majority of the information is very pertinent, and I've known many people who have been off their game for hours because of one bad game and they just end up raging for the rest of the evening.

Beyond that, though, I hate to rain on your parade, but the propagation of incorrect or misleading information is something that irks me to no end, so I want to make sure that everyone knows as much as possible about some of the things you deem to be inadequate or substandard.

The argument of the speed and latency of the wired vs. wireless controllers seems like a good starting point for me, so I'm going to throw out some numbers:

speed of electricity in a copper cable = 200,000,000 meters/ second
speed of radio waves = 299,792,458 meters/ second

based on these numbers, the wireless controller (assuming the same distance from the xbox) will actually be faster in it's communication. When you take into account that your wireless controller can be 3 feet from your console, but your wired controller's data will always have to travel the full length of the 10-foot cable regardless of distance from the console, that would just reduce the travel time of the data even more. Though it is true that the wireless must run through the controller chips in the xbox and the controller itself, but the USB signals from the wired controller must also run through their own controller chips. If we can assume that the wireless conversion may take longer, due to the increased overhead of the wireless transfer, at best this would be a wash, as far as latency performance are concerned.

Signal interference, however, is a whole separate issue. If there is a lot of wireless noise on the frequency channels being used by the wireless controllers, then they will perform worse. Essentially, they will drop packets (best analogy I can come up with) due to the garbled signal from all the noise and interference. As long as you're not vacuuming, microwaving, running wifi, have your wireless mixamp, have 12 neighbors running wifi, and on your cordless phone and cell phone at the same time, it shouldn't cause much of an issue due to the advent of channel hopping to avoid such interference.

Internet or connection latency is a logical step from here, as we're still discussing latency and interference, so lets move on, shall we? Wired connections are better, I will not deny that, but speed wise, in certain situations, it won't make a difference. Lets review our numbers again, ok?

speed of electricity in a copper cable = 200,000,000 meters/ second
speed of radio waves = 299,792,458 meters/ second

So by this, we can tell that the radio waves for our WiFi will be faster than the signals traveling on the ethernet cable itself, but when it comes to network we should be more concerned with throughput, so lets see what those numbers are:

speed of wireless router = 40% of theoretical throughput
802.11B = 11 Mbps (theoretical) / 4.4 Mbps (actual)
802.11G = 54 Mbps (theoretical) / 21.6 Mbps (actual)
802.11N = 150 Mbps (theoretical) / 60 Mpbs (actual)
= 300 Mbps (theoretical) / 120 Mpbs (actual)
= 450 Mbps (theoretical) / 180 Mpbs (actual)

Actual throughput of ethernet = 80% of theoretical
10BASE-T = 10 Mbps (theoretical) / 8 Mpbs (actual)
100BASE-T = 100 Mbps (theoretical) / 80 Mbps (actual)
1000BASE-TX = 1000 Mbps (theoretical) / 800 Mbps (actual) **
**moot point, as the Xbox 360 currently only runs at 10/100 speeds

As we can see here, if you are running a 802.11 B or G router, you will see significant improvement in your LAN connection speeds using a wired cable. If you run 802.11N-150, you will see marginal difference between the two, but the wired will be superior. As we get into the newer 802.11N 300 and 450 standards, you can see that they outperform the throughput of a wired 100 Mbps ethernet cable by nearly 200%. Again we must take into account that the signals must be processed by the wireless controller chip, just as the wired signals must be processed by the ethernet controller chip. Also, the same rules as before with signal interference can come into play here. In most cases, if there isn't enough RF interference in your house to fry an egg, you probably won't have major issues.

However, if we look beyond your local network (the part inside your house, that is) we can see where the true bottleneck lies: The average download speed of US high speed internet customers as reported in December of 2010 was 3 Mbps. So, essentially, when you're playing on XBL, if your connection speed to the internet is near the national average, it will not matter if you use wired, wireless, or a midget running back and forth from your router and your xbox, the bottleneck is not going to be something that is easily or cheaply remedied.

As we continue this dump of information, we'll revisit a post I made a while back addressing the issues of input lag or screen delay... Rather than typing this all over, I'm jsut going to leave this right here:

http://thelannetwork.com/forum/showthread.php?2359-2011-Halo-Reach-MLG-Equipment&p=48148&viewfull=1#post48148

Now, in the grand scheme of things, take all of this into account, we are still talking about thousandths of a second. I would assume this equates to less than your reaction time would be. Now I am all in agreement on using the best quality equipment available to enjoy your gaming experience, to be in accordance with the rules, but to say that you will be all around better by buying expensive high-rated MLG-sponsored pro-quality equipment is just a fallacy. There are far too many other factors that must be taken into consideration. Surely someone will say that they play better on their new wired controller, but that coult be attributed to it being new, for one... or that it has less of a slow turn problem, or the sticks are grippier, or any of a number of other reasons. It could also very well be something car nuts refer to as the "butt dyno" ... the illusion that something is better just because in your mind you imagine it should be better.

So that's that... for those of you that question some of the things I've had to say in this post, feel free to look at some reference pages and make up your own mind instead of being swayed by the crowd's general concensus:

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/213831/new_report_united_states_25th_in_internet_speed.ht ml

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_Speed_of_a_radio_wave

http://www.wildpackets.com/resources/compendium/ethernet/propagation_delay/printable

http://www.350zmotoring.com/forums/off-topic/5124-what-butt-dyno.html

[cF WiNGER]

Glad to hear more about monitors and screen lag. My teammates have been telling me to get a gaming monitor, but I can't afford one at the moment lol. I got my Envy controller so no more slow turn, but dam would be nice to not have screen lag!!!!! Nice write up, look forward to reading the rest dude!

[TLN Frost]

I have uno question

Why are kids XBL warriors and cast "Heal Party" all the time...fucking tanks >_o Cannot be my connection. 20mb/s down 2mb/s up

Reading now. Reserved =D

[xxlilxdragonxx]

nice thread

[Miiiklo]

Thanks for the support guys, it was extremely irritating trying to get it together lol.

[Eclipse]

Xbox Live

Some people know how Hosting works on Xbox Live but most people don't. If your one of the people who don't, id advise you read this carefully. Most games on XBL have a player dedicated connection. What this means is, Xbox Live or the game your playing chooses who has the best connection out of everyone playing with or against you in that game, as the host. If you have a good connection with an open highway, then most likely you will be given host majority of the time. What i mean by an open highway is; your router has open ports so that other players in the game can connect easily. The reason why host is so important is simple. if you're the host of the game, everyone has to connect to your xbox. meaning, you have an advantage over everyone in that game. You use certain factors of the game to your advantage. You also don't have to worry about lagging! If your play someone from across the ocean, your connection is generally very bad. The game can't be played normal because of how laggy the connection is and most of the time you'll end up losing. But if your Host, then you dont notice the lag, because the other players have to connect to YOU!

Disadvantages of NOT being host
~Grenades are thrown slower
~You may have to reload your gun twice
~your shots don't register as fast or accurate
~you may play bad because you are lagging

Advantages of being Host
~Grenades can be thrown faster
~You don't have to reload your gun twice
~Your shots register faster and more accuratley
~You don't lag



I was about to write a rant about dedicated servers, and xbox live, then i re-read what you said. But what I put in bold is not always true. If your connected to a player that has a varying connection from Great to Terrible, it will mess everything up.

[GetTraumatizeDD]

fuckin dangerdude xD

[D2theHass]

Nice work. Love the thread. Excellent read too.

[Miiiklo]

Cmon guys lets keep this thread up theres plenty of people out there that could learn something from this.

[MS eMeRaLd]

Nice read, can see alot of effort went into this. Good job.