Compettive Halo: Should I be denied participation?

Community General Discussion
1

I love competitive FPS gaming, I love Halo. I have a problem however that I need to bring up because it affects my ability to participate in competitive events, and I want to start a public / community debate on what I am about to bring to the table.

I have Cerebral Palsy, for your convenience I have copy / pasted a basic description of what the condition is, you can read more about it at the source…

http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/brain/cerebral_palsy.html

About Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral palsy is one of the most common congenital (existing before birth or at birth) disorders of childhood. About 500,000 children and adults of all ages in the United States have the condition.

The three types of CP are:

Spastic cerebral palsy — causes stiffness and movement difficulties
Athetoid cerebral palsy — leads to involuntary and uncontrolled movements
Ataxic cerebral palsy — causes a disturbed sense of balance and depth perception

Cerebral palsy affects muscle control and coordination, so even simple movements — like standing still — are difficult. Other vital functions that also involve motor skills and muscles — such as breathing, bladder and bowel control, eating, and learning — may also be affected when a child has CP. Cerebral palsy does not get worse over time.

The disability can affect people in a variety of ways as you have just read above, in my case I have been fortunate in the sense that I could be much worse off than I actually am… I live a normal life, at least for the most part.

My hands attempt to mimic each other, if I move one wrist / finger the other hand will try to copy those movements no matter how much I focus on resisting said motions. Imagine how that translates to using a controller and two thumbsticks that perform two completely different and important actions in FPS games. My thumbs can’t do it, not well enough for the precise aiming required to play at a competitive level.

I have found a solution to that problem, in fact I have been using it for years on my consoles… the only problem is that the use of the device I am about to speak about is frowned upon by most because they consider it cheating, I’ve even received hate messages after I explain why I use what I do.

I play on my X1 / PS4 with a gaming mouse / keyboard like I would on my PC. I use a device known as the XIM4 that translates the controller functions over to my PC setup and it works wonderfully. Movements with my thumbs that affect my ability to aim / move within the game using your standard X1 controller suddenly vanish, the act of using a mouse / keyboard setup solves a problem I cannot physically help and allows me to perform to the best of my ability.

You can read more about the XIM4 here…
www.XIM4.com

So that brings us to my dilemma, I want to participate in tournaments online that have the potential to lead to LAN events if my team performs well enough to qualify. I want to enjoy the LAN experience like anyone else would without being harassed about how I play the game… and that’s if they would even let me compete at a LAN event with my mouse / keyboard setup.

Would I even be good enough to make it onto a team that has a chance of going to a LAN event? I doubt it to be honest, but you never know… right? What I want is written and clear as day permission from those who run LAN events to play Halo the only way I can where my disability does not affect my ability to compete. Without that I would feel guilty about joining a competitive team that would have to replace me for LAN events because of my XIM4.

So what does this community think? Am I crazy for hoping to be treated like a normal person wanting to compete at LANS? My XIM4 only translates the controls, it does not add anything a regular controller user cannot do.

2

The only thing that matters in gaming tournaments is your ability to play well enough to make it in. If someone has no hands but can play with their feet on par with everyone else, they’d be let in. At the same time if someone has no disabilities and simply can’t play well then they’re not making it into the tournament. If you can’t play on par with other people, it doesn’t matter the reason why, you just won’t make it in. That is unfortunate but that’s just how it is. You don’t put someone in a wheelchair in a race with Usain Bolt, it’s an entirely different experience for the two of them. There are other ways of supporting the community, such as creating great forge maps or being an organizer.

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> 2533274844635278;2:
> The only thing that matters in gaming tournaments is your ability to play well enough to make it in. If someone has no hands but can play with their feet on par with everyone else, they’d be let in. At the same time if someone has no disabilities and simply can’t play well then they’re not making it into the tournament. If you can’t play on par with other people, it doesn’t matter the reason why, you just won’t make it in. That is unfortunate but that’s just how it is. You don’t put someone in a wheelchair in a race with Usain Bolt, it’s an entirely different experience for the two of them. There are other ways of supporting the community, such as creating great forge maps or being an organizer.

Is not my solution of using a mouse / keyboard setup similar to player who learnt to use his or her feet? What if it was still a controller just shaped differently than a regular controller so that the buttons were reachable by someone with a particular disiability that required the buttons be relocated?

Why should we be denied access to LAN events because our input method is different? We are still bound by what a regular controller can do.

4

Scuf controllers were considered cheating in the past until MLG and Co. “legalised” them for LAN events but playing with a mouse/keyboard on console at LAN…I don’t think that’s ever going to happen.

5

I’m sad to say it but I think that even if you were allowed to play there would be instant complaining if you did well.

If you want to play with someone that’s non-tournament, just plays for fun, hit me up.

6

It completely depends on whether or not using the XIM4 gives you some type of advantage over other players, such as better accuracy. I’ve never used it, so I can’t tell you whether it makes aiming easier, harder, or neither, so I can’t tell you whether or not you should be barred from competing in tournaments with that setup.

If it does give you some type of advantage, then allowing you to compete against other players who are using controllers is kind of like allowing a lame man with superior robotic prosthetic legs to compete against regular athletes in physical sports. It’s cool that it allows the disabled person to play, but it’s not completely fair because the technology overcompensates for the disability.

All that said, I think it’s really cool that you found a way to work around your disability and do what you enjoy.

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> 2533274805712917;6:
> It completely depends on whether or not using the XIM4 gives you some type of advantage over other players, such as better accuracy. I’ve never used it, so I can’t tell you whether it makes aiming easier, harder, or neither, so I can’t tell you whether or not you should be barred from competing in tournaments with that setup.
>
> If it does give you some type of advantage, then allowing you to compete against other players who are using controllers is kind of like allowing a lame man with superior robotic prosthetic legs to compete against regular athletes in physical sports. It’s cool that it allows the disabled person to play, but it’s not completely fair because the technology overcompensates for the disability.
>
> All that said, I think it’s really cool that you found a way to work around your disability and do what you enjoy.

The same question could be asked of SCUFF controllers. At the end of the day any pro controller user is equal in skill if not better than a XIM4 user, do I perform better than your average controller user? Most likely, that isn’t to say I never lose gun battles, because in reality, I do.

If MLG and the community can learn to accept SCUFF users I don’t see why they couldn’t learn to accept XIM4 users with a disability preventing controller use from being possible at a competitive level.

Chances are I will be limited to ONLINE tournaments, I can live with that (At 27 I’m not exactly in my FPS prime). It would just be nice to know I have the same opportunities as anyone else, I don’t like the thought of being left out of LAN events because of how I play, it doesn’t seem justified.

I mean check my Halo records (You can do that). I’m not exactly tearing it up in match making am I? Do I often end up near the top of the leaderboards? Sure, when I do play Halo and get into it that does tend to happen… but I’d like to attribute that to the fact I am a half-decent player most of the time.

8

SCUF controllers only add more buttons so you dont have to take your thumb off the stick, a mouse inherently allows for better accuracy.

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> 2533274844635278;8:
> SCUF controllers only add more buttons so you dont have to take your thumb off the stick, a mouse inherently allows for better accuracy.

My mouse is limited to what the standard X1 controller can do, the XIM4 does not have any magic powers that make it better than a controller. There is a team of XIM4 users that play GB matches of CoD:AW and just last night they went against Team Fear and lost. It was a close game but in the end Team Fear won against people using M/K for CoD on the X1.

Don’t sit there telling me my input method suddenly makes me better than everyone else.

10

I dnt think its in anyway cheating. Its more accurate with aiming true but u still hav to b able to aim. U still need skill to be good with whatever ur using. Besides, what about those game pads for fighting games, or the steering wheels for racing games. I think what you play with is just preference not cheating. It does magically make u better or alter gameplay so whats the big deal.

11

Please don’t revive very old threads thanks, this one is nearly 2 years old