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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Halo 4: A truly FAIR review of Halo 4 by a Die-Hard Halo Fan.


Unseenz

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Disclaimer: I am and avid Halo Fan. Therefore, please do not discredit me right off the bat as not being one. Some things you see may make me seem not a Halo fan, others you will praise and agree with. As a rule with all of my topics: Follow the Forum Rules, be courteous to my review (because I took time to write it), and read it fully before jumping to the worse of the worse and passing judgment on me. AND PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOODNESS, do not suggest I go play BLOPS2, because I have and its meh.

 

OVERALL I give Halo 4 an 8/10, see why below.

 

 

Hello community,

 

I decided to write an extensive, well-thought-out review of Halo 4. I will highlight the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of the game after my review of each individual part of the game. Below will be reviews of the Campaign, Spartan Ops, and Matchmaking (OH GOD NOT ANOTHER ONE OF THESE!). So please sit back and enjoy. I will be more than happy to answer questions and post replies to your concerns. Always a Halo fan, never will stop being one. ALWAYS, the review will be SPOILER FREE!

 

 

Campaign:

First, the campaign was absolutely AMAZING. I felt like I was in a move. There has been scrutiny by some as the campaign was "linear" or did not have really anything exceptional. I disagree wholeheartedly. The campaign had little to none in the way of glitches (for me anyways) and offered a good, clear, and concise story backed up by the terminals you find in the game. The terminals were so good in this game I cannot see straight, they offered a different perspective of the campaign and offered better insight on why certain people were in certain places or why certain people or races arrived in the campaign and the way they did. The campaign, overall, touched on all the senses that make a good game: emotion, action, and story. 343 did an absolute EXCELLENT job on the scenes. The scenes, at first, actually seemed like live-action clips and not graphical rendered scenes.

 

Rating: 10/10

 

 

Spartan Ops:

Spartan Ops is by far the coolest thing. Yes, it is not Firefight, but honestly I got so bored of firefight I was falling asleep in Halo: Reach. Mainly, because I played the absolute crap out of Firefight in Halo: ODST but I realized the game needed a different touch. The scenes for Spartan Ops, again are on par with the campaign's. 343 did so good in this aspect of the game it shadowed some others, I will get into momentarily. The overall glitches and issues with Spartan Ops are not terrible. Yes, there is sometimes annoying lag but it is not Matchmaking, therefore, I am more receptive to dieing in Spartan Ops and just respawning. Really, Spartan Ops is easy as crud. It is not challenging at all and sometimes leads me to believe Halo 4's Spartan Ops was somewhat OVER-HYPED on the DIFFICULTY. Which is fine, because I honestly only play Spartan Ops to sit back and relax.

 

Rating 9/10

 

 

Matchmaking:

This part of the review will be rather long. The new "style" of matchmaking is undeniably "different". It offers a different feel to the Halo series and shows us what 343 has up their sleeves in respect to future Halo releases. The multiplayer ideas are so fascinating and original (OH NOES HE ACTUALLY DOES NOT REALIZE HALO COPIED BLAH BLAH). This is incorrect, while Halo 4 did "take" ideas from other "modern games" you have to understand that Halo 4 did them oh so much better. I love the Battlefield-COD-like Halo. It takes the good from those games and takes out the ugly. The playlists are another story, there is absolutely nothing innovative here (except Dominion). Regicide is by far the worst piece of garbage playlist and gametype that was ever added to the HISTORY of Halo. This playlist is so bad, I wont even touch it ever again. It is stupid. Infinity Slayer on the other hand, follows suit as "borrowing" ideas from other modern games and making them better. The ordinance drop system is cool and offers something different to the game. I disagree that the ordinance drop system should be randomized, because it is absolutely purely luck for another team to consistently get Damage Boost or Sniper Rifles EVERY SINGLE DROP. (I will discuss further what I believe needs fixing later). I swear it seems like half of the time I am the only one that gets nothing out of them. The whole "fast-paced" change to Halo 4 is kind of good, I think sprint should have continued to stay as an armor enhancement. It makes spawn killing and clean-up kills WAY to easy. I have killed so many people and always seem to get a guy who just spawned, sprint half the map and still somehow kill me before I can get away. This promotes camping and not-Halo play. More or less the spawn system, is terrible. I sometimes spawn move an inch or two and get triple-team DMR'd across the map. That is plain stupid, especially considering the game promotes teamwork but only sticks you with the team that looks up in the sky and grunt dances while you are being shot at instead of helping. The overall, "true-skill" is stupid. Yes, it promotes "fair" play but 99.99999999% of the time it is me versus Final Boss and Str8 Rippin. The game was designed to prevent this, it has not.

 

Pause, before you say "YOU SUCK THEN BLAH BLAH" I have an almost 2.0 K/D and I am SR 47. So please refrain from using that comment.

 

Back, anyways, the game "promotes" competitive play but falls short because of the broken true skill system and terrible spawns. The maps, overall, are pretty decent. I have noticed on specific game modes there is a specific side Red or Blue, that has an overwhelming advantage because of their spawn point. On Complex for an example, blue team SPAWNS by the rooftops, and can easily hold them down and absolutely dominate / spawn kill with proper team play. Oh but wait, the true skill is supposed to stop this. You are right, whenever I am blue team I get true skill rank 1 kids versus a true skill rank of 40000000 and the other team rolls us and vice versa. Halo was always known for its "SOCIAL" playlists not "I NEED TO TRY HARD EVERY SINGLE GAME or its not fun". While I agree with some things in Matchmaking I DISAGREE with a lot of things. I will talk more about it below.

 

Rating: 7/10

 

 

Now, before you read these lists, know that I love Halo 4 I just think these are some things that I have noticed are issues or are extremely good. Do not "discredit" what I believe and look at my A) Rank, and B) K/D ratio before you start flaming "You are terrible and thats why you think these are bad or ugly".

 

The Good:

- The "new" style of Halo 4 (combination of other modern games to create something unique)

- The campaign

- Spartan Ops

- Class loadouts are awesome!

- Specializations are cool, and offer rewards for ranking up.

- Commendations are not totally useless after all (You only got exp in Reach, now you get COOL armor).

- Armor customization (I think the armor looks the best so far).

 

 

The Bad:

- Forge World (take something good and make it as worse as possible by limiting things and giving small maps to work with)

- Playlists (YES, they are adding some but still, you should have had playlists that are actually popular with HALO fans not garbage Slayer Pro - that was a Reach fan base that consisted of a total maybe 40,000 people who actually liked it.)

- Vehicles (are so fricking weak its stupid, oh wait the banshee takes 4,000 shots to kill but a warthog takes about 10). Some over powered some too weak.

- Certain weapons that should not be in "Competitive-like" play (the incinerator cannon - is WAAAAAY too good. A noob can pick it up and pwn with it, that does not sound like a "competitive game" to me nor does it promote it)

- Some Perks are just stupid (i.e. Promethean Vision, because you get a specialization at 50 that can completely negate this perk. 343 should have thought a little bit more when allowing certain specializations and when you can actually get them.)

 

 

The Ugly:

- True Skill (stupid, plain stupid. Does not belong in a "HALO" game. It is broken and does not seem to work because 90% of the time I AM PLAYING PROS not just mediocre players and uncoordinated people + it allows people to abuse it by joining games with "trash friends" so they can beat up on people to keep their 5.0 FALSE KD).

- Joining sessions in progress (Yes there are "Pros" but the "Cons" definitely out weigh them. I like to have a full team in the beginning not be put into a game 2v5 CTF, its not fair nor is it reasonable because half the time no one joins and it gives other teams free wins).

- No punishment for leaving games (thought I should add that because if you have a "join in progress option" YOU HAVE TO punish people for leaving games. Plain and Simple, this way it promotes actually staying in games and does not punish people who do. (i.e. people who stay 2v5 and get roflstomped in CTF) So am I just SUPPOSED to lose when that happens, not fair play.)

- Spawn system promotes spawn camping and camping in general.

- While weapon loadouts are freaking awesome they do not promote usage of most weapons, they promote using the best weapon and that weapon only. Something 343 said that weapon loadouts would promote, but fail to realize when you make a said weapon amazing and the others take twice as many shots, herp derp, no one will use them and be successful. (AKA DMR wins over everything, period. No point in using anything else because any sort of FPS experience with the DMR beats every other weapon in the game).

- Gametypes (Yes, Dominion out of the new gametypes is AMAZING, others are garbage i.e. Regicide. Why not keep the player count on most things to 4v4 like Halo should be, grr 343).

- How in the world do you use an old peer-to-peer system of matchmaking when Halo: Reach (an atrocity) had a better and well-balanced host system in place. HERP DERP, you went backwards and not forwards on how people connect to the servers, the lag is sometimes unbelievable, and host selection takes an hour and a half (and most of the time you are booted to the lobby when you were doing good).

- No banhammer feature.

 

 

My Proposed Fixes:

- Nerf the DMR and the Boltshot ("OH NO HE ACTUALLY SAID TO NERF MY GUNS I USE", yes I did. You have class loadouts for a reason, use other weapons and get good with everything make a "balanced" approach to multiplayer 343 not make it so one weapon can win in any long range engagement and the other win in any close range engagement. Not to mention, INSTA RELOAD, on the boltshot is so stupid and over powered I cannot see straight when I think about it.

- Fix the filter systems in place (meaning actually help people who are lagging their butts off because of your garbage filter system or add a regional filter. Plain and simple.)

- Tweak "True Skill", make it so whoever has the highest true skill in the party finds matches with said true skill. Makes no sense to add something like this for people to just abuse. Its stupid and promotes cheating more than helping people. Plus I unseeingly continue to face pro teams and full teams constantly, there is no middle ground and it frustrates me when people say true skill matters, when really it matters for extremely terrible halo players not people with a 1.0 KD or higher.

- Fix the gametypes, we want 4v4 CTF not 5v5, its stupid.

- Add a ranking system faster than "EARLY" 2013, yeah right. Add it next week, it is seriously annoying to only play against high ranked people who will probably never touch social playlists when the ranking system comes out. Give the community what it wants by adding ranking sooner, not even going to mention the obvious that it should have been added in the beginning of the game. We are not trying to take a step back from previous installments of Halo.

- Forge World, obvious fixing. Make it so the community can add cool stuff on file share, etc. At least make it consistent and easily accessible (very glitchy currently).

- Increase the XP Cap to like 150k per reset (12 am and 5am resets), its stupid to have double exp promotions when I hit the cap after 10 games. Fix it. Let's not re-live the rage of Halo: Reach and it would get rid of like 50% of the garbage threads on all the forums screaming "WHAT HAPPENED TO MY XP", etc.

- Increase the damage it takes to kill a warthog slightly and decrease the damage it takes to kill a banshee ALOT, banshees are WAAAAy to good its stupid. If I can go 30-2 in a vehicle and stay alive the entire match its OP.

- Spawn System needs to be reworked. Too many instances where I get continuously spawn killed and cannot even react.

- Buff the Suppressor a bit, make it not as inaccurate, the AR rapes a Suppressor user. It does way too little of damage for how much the spread is.

- Remove the incinerator cannon from any and all close quarters maps.

- BRING BACK THE BANZHAMMERZ! Lol the Banhammer system was phenomenal and actually banned the crud out of people who were lag switching, or breaking the rules. Need to be implemented in the game again.

 

Overall Ratings (Lasting Appeal):

 

Graphics: 10/10

Sound: 10/10

Gameplay: 7/10

Lasting Appeal: 8/10

Re-playability: High

 

Again, I am an avid Halo fan and want to see Halo 4 succeed. At its current state, I approximate about half of what we see online will be gone VERY soon if some thing is not done and fast. I know of a lot of people who left the game for something as stupid as the XP Cap, so let us not relive Halo: Reach all over again and nip some concerns in the bum now. I actually like Halo 4, and while there are fixes I proposed some are not detrimental for me to stay playing the game. I love 343, so far, more or less because of them salvaging an atrocity of a game Halo: Reach but it makes me wonder if they are following in Bungie's footsteps of "Oh we released the game, oh well screw everyone we like it".

 

 

Now, let the comments start rolling. Happy Gaming.

 

-UnSeEnZ

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Don't worry about the trueskill system, that will boot in I think January. You will be playing with people of your skill level (Not Spartan Rank) based on all of your past (current if you are reading this in November/December) BPR, including K/D, Wins/losses, especially betrayals, assists, etc. (I am sure you get it lol) but some of the things you stated I agree with 100%

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Don't worry about the trueskill system, that will boot in I think January. You will be playing with people of your skill level (Not Spartan Rank) based on all of your past (current if you are reading this in November/December) BPR, including K/D, Wins/losses, especially betrayals, assists, etc. (I am sure you get it lol) but some of the things you stated I agree with 100%

 

Oh, I thought the True Skill system was built in. I think 343 mentioned it was an addition in the game and would explain why I am playing considerably better players. No problem with that, just frustrating when I get stuck with the worst of the worst it seems like every single game. Not really "fair" atm.

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Great review! my only thing is the campaign was more of a 3/5 for me.It lacked alot and seemed messy.Like those movies that have terrible transition between scenes and story.Mission 6 and 7 were boring as welll.It just needed more.I'm a huge fan of the story and read all the novels.The terminals made it better,but it left me unsatisfied and a bit confused by the story arch of the Didact compared to the novel.I like this review its honest.

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Great review! my only thing is the campaign was more of a 3/5 for me.It lacked alot and seemed messy.Like those movies that have terrible transition between scenes and story.Mission 6 and 7 were boring as welll.It just needed more.I'm a huge fan of the story and read all the novels.The terminals made it better,but it left me unsatisfied and a bit confused by the story arch of the Didact compared to the novel.I like this review its honest.

 

Thank you. I tried to not be, too overly critical. BUT, there are issues that DO need to be addressed and I will gladly just play Dominion or playlists I do like.

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Anyone who says the DNR needs to be nerfed has bad logic, so I just won't pay attention to this review.

 

Wait what? It needs to be "slightly" nerfed. I mean this because only having one good weapon DOES in fact defeat 343s purpose of having multiple guns, etc. I asked if you would please be receptive to the argument and realizing the issues with having one good gun at long range and the other at short range (Boltshot) does in fact promote non-linear play and and spits on competitive value. Just saying.

 

I appreciate your input, the next time please post something more substantial or support your claims.

 

Thanks,

UnSeEnZ

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I agree with this for the most part, but the constant same tron-like missions in the end of the Campaign is just stupid. Halo 3 went from a rainforest to a WW2 base to a highway to the inside of High Charity, that was epic. Halo 4 for the most part is just inside forerunner structure or a ship. It feels like I'm playing the same place multiple times.

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I agree with this for the most part, but the constant same tron-like missions in the end of the Campaign is just stupid. Halo 3 went from a rainforest to a WW2 base to a highway to the inside of High Charity, that was epic. Halo 4 for the most part is just inside forerunner structure or a ship. It feels like I'm playing the same place multiple times.

 

Yeah, kind of repetitive. I think I was so amazed by the opening scene on Chapter 2 I did not even care. (Remember with all those forerunner structures in the beginning right before the warthog driving part?) So amazing.

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Similar to your thoughts, I can't wait for the ranking system and I agree that it should have came out sooner, along with other playlists, with team snipers and team doubles having yet to make an appearance. But the playlists and ranking system will be updated so it's all good. I haven't had to much trouble with lag so far but spawning has been somewhat of a nuisance. I feel like smaller and more gunplay based maps should be implemented such as Haven. I'm not too much of a fan of sprinting all the way across a map just to have a chance at finding an enemy, and it's even worse to get killed from the side or back after all that sprinting. 343 should follow the model of success from Halo 3 and Halo 2. Make small, symmetrical (or mostly symmetrical) maps, as these maps always had the most exciting gameplay. This shouldn't constitute all the map variation but I would say half or more. I see your points on all of those issues. Well said.

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Similar to your thoughts, I can't wait for the ranking system and I agree that it should have came out sooner, along with a slew of other things. Playlist being the most notable, with team snipers and team doubles having yet to make an appearance. But the playlists will be updated so it's all good. The incineration cannon is a pretty powerful weapon. Possibly more powerful than the rocket launcher. I haven't had to much trouble with lag so far but spawning has been somewhat of a nuisance. I see your points on all of those issues. Well said.

 

Thank you for your input sir! :) Go Halo 4! :)

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I definitely agree with most of what you said, great review!

 

I'm not sure any of us are totally sure about the skill system yet. Hopefully it's a by playlist type, with an overall average (closer to 3, I hated reach MP). In any case I seem to get stuck on team stupid more often then not...

 

Flag is in the middle of the field on Ragnarok, warthog driver: "I'm just gonna do doughnuts behind the base, it's awesome!".

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I definitely agree with most of what you said, great review!

 

I'm not sure any of us are totally sure about the skill system yet. Hopefully it's a by playlist type, with an overall average (closer to 3, I hated reach MP). In any case I seem to get stuck on team stupid more often then not...

 

Flag is in the middle of the field on Ragnarok, warthog driver: "I'm just gonna do doughnuts behind the base, it's awesome!".

 

HAHA, yeah those games...

 

But I think, I saw something that 343 built in a skill system. Maybe they just said that to attract more competitive gamers, maybe they just arent telling us the full details. No matter, I will still play just trying to look at the glass half-full when playing this game. Knowing that the game never really had a public beta worried me, but for a game that did not? Wow, there are a lot of positives. I try to think of this game as Beta, and any suggestions, etc. from the community is probably what 343 is looking for, much like Reach.

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I liked most of what you had to say. However some of my problems are you rated the campaign a 10/10 and spartan ops 9/10 and claimed that you really like them. Then when all you mostly did was point out the negatives in matchmaking gave it a 7 out of 10. So to me that says something.

 

Now I agree with most of what you said HOWEVER, I feel that the campaign was totally bogus and whacked out. Where was the challenge the hours of frustration b/c you cant beat a certain point. A friend and myself beat it in under 8 hours (we also had a TON of lag issues to where we couldn't do parts b/c it lagged so freaking bad) What about the hunt for the skulls instead they just give them to you. I was not very satisfied with the campaign at all. I also have not watched the terminals, mainly out of discuss for the campaign game play and lack of challenge. I rate the campaign at a 4/10.

 

Spartan ops seems fun. Here we are in week 2 and yet we are still on the same 5 maps though seems kinda lame. Exact same missions yet on different parts of the map. It has some great potential but I feel that if you use the same maps your just doing the same thing over and over which was your point in firefight. BORING. 6/10

 

Matchmaking I agree 100% with what you said about this. I however though feel that the ordinaces are not balanced or fun by any means No weapon spawn other than RANDOM drops that seem to only be in the benefit of the team that is leading is dumb. This is a way for the team that is ahead to stay ahead. What ever happen to map control won the game. With weapons spawning, half the battle was knowing spawn timers and being able to control the map. I don't think taking the best from other games was a way that Halo should have went. If I wanted to play CoD or Battlefield i would. Halo defined FPS with the original halo game. It was a unique character and was its own. Now I feel like i'm running around with Gears sprint, CoD ordinances on an Unreal Tournament battlefield. I miss when halo was its own individual personality. I Rate matchmaking 2/10

 

Overall I think this game was taken in the wrong direction and has way more draw backs than perks. I will still play halo in hopes that it does get cleaned up and shines again.

Now i'm know your ready to flame but i'm just like you when you go look at my k2d its positive (not the greatest but at least a 1.5) I have played halo since the beginning even stopped off at halo wars just b/c it was halo. I am also an avid fan of halo!

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I liked most of what you had to say. However some of my problems are you rated the campaign a 10/10 and spartan ops 9/10 and claimed that you really like them. Then when all you mostly did was point out the negatives in matchmaking gave it a 7 out of 10. So to me that says something.

 

Now I agree with most of what you said HOWEVER, I feel that the campaign was totally bogus and whacked out. Where was the challenge the hours of frustration b/c you cant beat a certain point. A friend and myself beat it in under 8 hours (we also had a TON of lag issues to where we couldn't do parts b/c it lagged so freaking bad) What about the hunt for the skulls instead they just give them to you. I was not very satisfied with the campaign at all. I also have not watched the terminals, mainly out of discuss for the campaign game play and lack of challenge. I rate the campaign at a 4/10.

 

Spartan ops seems fun. Here we are in week 2 and yet we are still on the same 5 maps though seems kinda lame. Exact same missions yet on different parts of the map. It has some great potential but I feel that if you use the same maps your just doing the same thing over and over which was your point in firefight. BORING. 6/10

 

Matchmaking I agree 100% with what you said about this. I however though feel that the ordinaces are not balanced or fun by any means No weapon spawn other than RANDOM drops that seem to only be in the benefit of the team that is leading is dumb. This is a way for the team that is ahead to stay ahead. What ever happen to map control won the game. With weapons spawning, half the battle was knowing spawn timers and being able to control the map. I don't think taking the best from other games was a way that Halo should have went. If I wanted to play CoD or Battlefield i would. Halo defined FPS with the original halo game. It was a unique character and was its own. Now I feel like i'm running around with Gears sprint, CoD ordinances on an Unreal Tournament battlefield. I miss when halo was its own individual personality. I Rate matchmaking 2/10

 

Overall I think this game was taken in the wrong direction and has way more draw backs than perks. I will still play halo in hopes that it does get cleaned up and shines again.

Now i'm know your ready to flame but i'm just like you when you go look at my k2d its positive (not the greatest but at least a 1.5) I have played halo since the beginning even stopped off at halo wars just b/c it was halo. I am also an avid fan of halo!

 

90% agree with this, I kind of think I pointed out the faults of MM because the MM is what is truly broken right now. Much like you, I want to take a break from this game and even though I still will play I will NEVER admit this game being the best in series. It offers a REALLY REALLY Good balance of a "new-style" of Halo but fails to support, again like Reach did, avid-ex-old-school-Halo players.I think rating the matchmaking a 2/10 is kind of low, considering there has definitely been worse halo multiplayers on Lauch (i.e. Reach). So i think that is a bit extreme. The spartan ops issue is something totally different I rated it a 9/10 because the spartan ops was supposedly "tough as nails" when really i could solo it in my sleep on legendary.

 

I agree with, again 90% of what you said and the "HOPES" of 343 fixing this game. If I wanted Halo 3 I would play Halo 3, but if I want to play a "HALO" I would like to play a Halo with the social and ranked playlists not this garbage MM system right now in place.

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I agree, there is no ranked i joined game with people who die 25+ times and kill 3 or 6 before the match ends the dmr is overpower it is pointless to try use another weapon the farming sys.. i mean the respawn system is horrible specialy in big team slayer.

 

Very nice work OP you got my support

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I agree, there is no ranked i joined game with people who die 25+ times and kill 3 or 6 before the match ends the dmr is overpower it is pointless to try use another weapon the farming sys.. i mean the respawn system is horrible specialy in big team slayer.

 

Very nice work OP you got my support

 

Yeah I made sure that I was clear that the DMR is not necessarily over-over powered, but it NEEDS to be tweaked. Having one weapon that beats everything else makes it herp derp pointless to have or use any other weapon. Needs to be tweaked slightly.

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Oh, I thought the True Skill system was built in. I think 343 mentioned it was an addition in the game and would explain why I am playing considerably better players. No problem with that, just frustrating when I get stuck with the worst of the worst it seems like every single game. Not really "fair" atm.

yeah its not in yet cause me playing with level 70s while im level 36 and them destroying me is not a ranking system.
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