Policy Differences Blops 2/Halo 4

Games Other Halo
1

Before I start, I wanted to say that I am not a Black Ops player, I’m not a fan of Call of Duty.

There is however one thing that I am a fan of, and that thing is this:

http://www.callofduty.com/message/413500949

This is Treyarch’s posted security & enforcement policy for Black Ops II. In my opinion it’s very clear what they will not allow.

Now here is Halo 4’s version of the same thing.

http://support.xbox.com/en-US/games/halo-4-banning-and-enforcement

Kinda covers banning, but doesn’t really give much in the examples dept. Now look at this

http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-live/account-banning-and-player-feedback/account-suspensions-and-console-bans

There’s one portion in particular that caught my interest.

<mark>The Xbox Policy Enforcement Team does not have the ability to resolve game-specific bans and suspensions. If you have lost privileges in a specific game, contact the game’s developer for assistance:</mark>

Then it lists Halo: Reach, Halo 4, and Call of Duty.

From what I understand, the only way to report someone for cheating in Halo 4 is by reporting them on their Live profile, but from what the link says, XBL doesn’t handle that.

Anyone that’s been voice muted for a week and doesn’t own a mic will tell you that the voice banning system works like a charm (sarcasm), which leads me to believe that the only true policy on Halo 4 is the players.

For example, if a player boosts a game and its just him and some friends. They’re not going to get caught, because no one is going to report them.

Same thing with the voice ban, if you’re on a team full of friends and you don’t trash talk after a game. You won’t be voice banned, because no one reports you.

The only other alternative is reporting them on the website, which would work if players were encouraged to do so.

Trying to voice ban someone through the website is going to be difficult, but if you’ve got solid proof that someone was clearly cheating, whether its from their own game history or a live feed that was posted on a site. Then that should be acknowledged. Not swept under the rug like it didn’t happen.

That shows me the company is either too lazy or utterly incapable of doing anything about it. Personally I hope its the latter because like the credits said after finishing the campaign. I trust 343 to continue the journey, but not like this.

2

Have you ever heard of the banhammer?

3

If a player is boosting by themselves/with their friends - why do you even care? It hasn’t affected your game at all, go about your business.

I’m not sure if you arguing that there are too many voice bans, or that there are too little cheating bans.

Voice bans can only be done via crowd sourcing, there just isn’t a feasible way of detecting trash talk. This is of course open to abuse.

Boosting bans can be/are done automatically. There automated policy is as strict as they like it - why would they need you to submit a video of something that has already been determined?

4

Yeah, there’s just a few things I wanna know…

Is it Xbox Live, or is it 343i that swings the banhammer?

If they do swing it, under what circumstances is it swung?

And if this is the case, then why is it clearly not being swung when it should?

Treyarch has listed their policy in a manner that tells players exactly what they expect and if you don’t follow these guidelines, you’re done.

5

It’s an AUTOMATED BANHAMMER FROM HALO 4, so indirectly 343i. However, boosting in a FULL party is frowned upon, but legal. It works entirely truthfully.

6

The only good enforcement on you will see is on forums like this one lmao.XBLE is and always will be a joke.I’ve met people in real life that have been modding like crazy for the past few years and never even had 1 suspension.

The banhammer on XBL is a plush toy i assure you.Since it is just a automated system that tracks how many reports a person receives within a certain amount of time.Though sending a video of say someone shooting rockets out of a carbine to certain people can get a quick result.Which is really the only way banning will occur in quick response.Not sure on how many reports it takes in a certain amount of time on XBL, but its a rather high amount.Mostly due to people abusing the report function for childish reason’s such as “this person killed me with a boltshot, i’ll report him for modding”.Perhaps even for just being higher than them on the scoreboard on their team, it doesn’t take much.

So as long as we have immature people who do not use the report function correctly we will never have a reliable reporting feature.

7

An automated banhammer? That’s interesting and that’d explain why the detail isn’t present in Halo 4’s policies.

You basically press your luck against a machine. Slots anyone?

You say it’s alright to boost in a full party… so lets use an example.

I like to master my weapons but I wanna do it legit, no matter how painful the going might get. Least favorite weapon = Plasma Pistol

What you’re saying is that I can fire up Regicide with 5 other friends and we all stand there and take turns getting killed with a plasma pistol so we get our Loadout armor?

So now I have my armor and the game history to prove that I have indeed boosted to get it done. But for this example I’m a cheater and don’t care.

Someone else jumps in my lobby, notices my sweet armor, gets on Waypoint and sees my game history… now he wants the armor, so he starts boosting.

Pretty soon everyone would have the same sweet armor, using the same boring method. Where’s the fun in that?

It may not have impacted me directly, but mastery is supposed to take time. Not something you can get done in an afternoon or so. That’s what boosting promotes, and why I’m against it, whether its in a friends only game or not.

8

Cheating in itself is a violation of the xbox live ToU and CoC, report them with your dashboard tools.

9

> An automated banhammer? That’s interesting and that’d explain why the detail isn’t present in Halo 4’s policies.
>
> You basically press your luck against a machine. Slots anyone?
>
> You say it’s alright to boost in a full party… so lets use an example.
>
> I like to master my weapons but I wanna do it legit, no matter how painful the going might get. Least favorite weapon = Plasma Pistol
>
> What you’re saying is that I can fire up Regicide with 5 other friends and we all stand there and take turns getting killed with a plasma pistol so we get our Loadout armor?
>
> So now I have my armor and the game history to prove that I have indeed boosted to get it done. But for this example I’m a cheater and don’t care.
>
> Someone else jumps in my lobby, notices my sweet armor, gets on Waypoint and sees my game history… now he wants the armor, so he starts boosting.
>
> Pretty soon everyone would have the same sweet armor, using the same boring method. Where’s the fun in that?
>
> It may not have impacted me directly, but mastery is supposed to take time. Not something you can get done in an afternoon or so. That’s what boosting promotes, and why I’m against it, whether its in a friends only game or not.

The Q still remains … Who cares? If people “full party boost” for fancy armor then let them…it’ll be repetitive and boring as hell, hence why people usually don’t boost, it’s a very small percentage…it effects you and your “fun” in no way if done as a full party…so again why do you care?..and this is coming from me who never boosts and just plays the game for entertainment.

10

I care because its wrong. Any form of cheating whether its boosting, modding, using hacks, or other devices should be discouraged from use.

Not to mention that Halo 4 actually specifically mentions that boosting will get you banned.

Sure on a scale of severity, boosting is minimal compared to the other reasons for getting ‘banhammered’ but really what’s stopping those players from going to the next level?

And for those players that are already onto that next level, the banhammer isn’t swinging for them either.

I come on here and see topic after topic after topic about how 343 has jacked up Halo, they screwed this up, they screwed that up.

I find it ironic and hilarious that the ‘automatic banhammer’ may also be broken or screwed up and 90% of the community says “why do you care?”

11

Actions speak louder than words.