First off, I want say that I am so thankful that Halo has this automated system that completely counters hacking/cheating across the Halo games. It took me a while to appreciate it. Especially since I was driven away from COD almost completely by the amount of cheaters in the older COD games (COD4 and WAW). Those were the last two games in the series that didn’t become plagued with cheap perks, killstreaks, poor map design, and the unbelievable amounts of camping. And I can’t play them without encountering hackers, cheaters, boosters, lag switchers and anyone else who breaks Xbox Live Terms and Conditions just because they think it’s “fun”. Even the temporary bans make sense since Halo multi-player is competitive (exception, Halo 4) and it needs to be treated like a competitive game. That means penalizing those who constantly quit early, AFK, etc. At least in Halo we don’t have to deal with that kind of stuff.
but we do …
In Halo 3 ranked team slayer I have unfortunately met more and more players with infinite ammo and aimbots. I’ve been playing Halo 3 for 7 years now and never witnessed what I see transpire today.
Not to mention there is still a ton of derankers, lag switchers, and host booters present too. I never knew I could lose so many matches by my game all of the sudden getting laggy when we happen to take the lead then go back to normal only when we are trailing, it’s such a disgrace it’s come to this. In fact, there was a YouTube vid showing a cheater get beat and lot of people were talking like the cheater was their hero and were saying tools that introduce cheats are ‘cool’ and only people who are ‘smart’ can do such things. If this is what our Halo community thinks then I am saddened. There is nothing ‘cool’ about breaking the xbox live ToS AND ruining the online matchmaking experience where people PAY for it. One guy even told me “well if you don’t like me cheating back out” … ok so by his logic “if you don’t like me stealing your credit card number cancel it!” is the logic I got from him. Either way it’s illegal to flood IP’s and cheat like they are and I wish they would actually get punished but we all know that won’t happen. Best we can hope for are more smart anti-cheat detection systems. Dedicated servers will thankfully help a little bit more.
In games like reach it may not seem as evident but I’ve come across plenty of ‘afk’ players who are clearly there trying to rank up all for the sake of a cheezy rank like lolinheritor.
On Xbox One I truly believe Halo will be much more safeguarded against those kinds of things with the more robust rep system and anti-cheat measures that are built into xbox live for xbox one already.
I’m not going to quote the whole person above me, but you have to realize a multitude of things.
One, that Halo 3 is in fact seven years old. Halo 2 (the best Halo yet) never even got 7 years of run time on XBL, in fact it was cut short at 5.5. There have been five Halo games (six if you include Spartan Assault) released since Halo 3. As OP said, try playing any CoD game that’s Black Ops or older, and you’ll be astounded by the amount of hackers and cheaters. And Black Ops came out three years after Halo 3.
Not to mention the fact that it took hackers over two years to crack Halo 3, as actual modders didn’t start appearing until late 2009 early 2010. Unlike CoD MW2, which was cracked from the get-go.
And on top of that, Halo 3 is an inherited title. It’s not even a 343i game, or a 343i influenced game. I’m very grateful that 343i continues to support Halo 3 servers, they could have completely abandoned them just like EA does with its games that are 4 years older or more.
The makers of Halo have always been more proactive than any other studio I have encountered when it comes to people that abuse the system. In most other cases, Microsoft is the only one that steps in to remove modders.
Could it be better? Certainly there is always room for improvement. But I’m very satisfied with what is, and has been done, and the feedback the makers of Halo have given when it comes to cheating/accused cheating.