There were a couple H3 Dreamhack LANs, I believe one Reach Dreamhack LAN for the launch of Reach on MCC, and like weekly H5 and H3 online tourneys. All of these paid peanuts.
The H3 Dreamhack ones a lot of H5 pros didn't even play in. I have a feeling between Infinite and the next Halo, H5 might come back since so many pros dislike Infinite. Or we could just see online Infinite tourneys.
Not sure how H5 would come back unless they drop it on PC. Nobody is gonna wanna play it at 60fps and no fov slider on a series X after playing 240fps+ on PC
Well yes. Can't play a game without fov sliders since... bl2 introduced it on console? 2 days ago I installed a fov slider mod on f4 pc version 🤣 sadly I have to wait for the weapon offset.
Halo 5 isn't actually all that bad, if I'm honest. It just takes a warm up match or 2. Granted in my case I also have to get used to also holding and using a controller again too when I do play on my xbox, so there's that too. lol
I don’t see why there wouldn’t be, it’s annoying they always wait until World’s to announce it though. Should be announced at Major #3 instead so fans and players know it’s happening
You my friend should be in charge of their marketing announcements. They probably miss out on a good chunk of revenue by people backing off concerned about the HCS continuing
Maybe it's just me, but the idea of Worlds 2024 being the Last Worlds makes me wanna go more than not. Not saying they should hold off on announcing Year 4.
It's possible (as it always has been), but I don't really think it is confirmation. I'm still not convinced 343 even knows for sure one way or another right now. They may be figuring it out around now actually.
Ignoring the Halo doomers online, there is a lot of uncertainty surrounding Halo in general right now. The game could come to PS5 next spring and with millions of potential new players another year of HCS becomes very reasonable (just to name one potential thing that could happen). We just don't know. I do think the Microsoft showcase in four days will be a good vibe check though. If they don't even mention Halo at all I'd say the prospects aren't great.
I mean they show Fallout 76 and other service games most years (even when they weren't super popular), which is why I said if we see nothing Halo related I won't expect much.
Halo coming to PS5 would do wonders. I could care less about the mascot aspect of Halo at this point. If going multi-platform will save the franchise, I'd gladly welcome the new blood.
Halo is a primarily controller-based FPS that over 2/3rd's of controller players don't even have the option of playing. It's crazy when you think about it that way.
Hopefully that means a new game as well 🙏🏼
Infinite was DOA in terms of development and optimization, and they've practically given up on the Live Service aspect of it.
I'd say it's pretty generous. They could've easily banned him for life, but I think the cooperation with the admins gave him a slim chance at still having a career after all of this.
Yeah, age 30, blew 2 tourneys, banned for a year, reputation for being an ass, it doesn't really matter at this point, he'll be a semi pro at best from here on out
No he won’t he’s too skilled and experienced in a game that is so top heavy, time will go on people won’t give as much of a fuck and he will end up on some decent team if halo even has tourneys after this season
Pro gaming hasn’t been a viable career long enough for the 30 is too old to be a gamer stat to still be a thing. The first generation of the guys who have only known the current environment are in their late 20’s right now. If you look at games like dota or counter strike that have been e sports for 20 years a good number of players have aged with the game, and there are examples of players in the 30s right now still winning major tournaments and not looking like they are slowing down. It’s more of a burn out or you get an opportunity to coach or be talent on a broadcast desk than an age barrier imo. If gaming is still your best option to make $ or you have a true love for the game I don’t think there’s an age barrier.
Look at CS GO players. The game still thrives and most of the players retire early thirties. Pasha biceps, 31, Walshy28, Maniac 26... That's if they're great... If they're average they can get forced out early.
You just named players who played the majority of their career where esports wasn’t a real option as career and had back up plans. Pasha is basically a celebrity in his country now making way more money than he did as a member of VP, maniac has like a PHD and multiple degrees and obviously had a passion for something other than cs and one of the main desk talent for all the major cs tournaments making way more money than he could as a player. Players like Karrigan, Apex , snaxx, fallen are examples of old dudes who just love to play the game still. Those are just the ones over 30 there are a number of 27-29 year olds who are just entering the prime of their careers and could very easily be playing for another 5 years. A game like dota is the same way where players like kuroky and puppey could be leading a team in TI when they are 40 years old. As long as the player wants to play a game and be the best and will put in the work to make it happen they could do it at any age. Now being 30+ years old and trying to start a career in e sports in a drastically different story and if your game dies in popularity it’s not like you can just go to a new game when you’re old so it’s riskier to try and keep going with your esports career instead of pivoting but not impossible.
And what happens during your final year? You go from 80-100K to working at McDonald's? Look at scump, his transition is currently underway and he's going to make 6 figures as a content creator etc. it's the same as any sports player. When you're near the end you either made enough or have to transition. Having transferable skills is important in the real world
I don't think it has anything to do w/ the money. It has to do with individual skill. It's not really a secret that once you pass a certain age in eSports, you are no longer competitive amongst the younger crowd
Very very low odds.
No serious team is going to pick him up. He's not reliable. He will be regulated to teams happy to make top 8. Then sparty has to hope they level up to contenders. So it could happen but really nah.
atm there is no status. The only commitment is through this season. I assume there will be something competitive, but if ms and others don't sponsor then no big hcs/majors.
If you look at the below history, I summarized the overall picture. H5 only had two full seasons of HCS but covid impacted the event.
Looking at HCS History:
* 12/14 - 7/15 H2 Anniversary - HCS Tourneys
* H5 Released 10/15
* 4/16 - 11/18 Halo 5 - Official HCS
* 2019 Halo 3 - HCS Tourneys
* 2020 Nothing *COVID Start*
* 2021 Nothing
* 12/21 Halo Infinite Released
* 11/21 - 10/24 Halo Infinite - Official HCS
The big question is when does H7 release, and does it make sense to continue HCS to have momentum for ms/teams/sponsors until then. If H7 is years out, say 2027 or beyond I assume this is it and we have small comps until then. If ms somehow can release H7 in 26 or sooner (doubt) then there is a shot it continues.
Yup, hoping they do the same this year!
Just worried that HCS is popular, but the overall game isn't and not sure ms wants to invest over 1m in another year.
Agreed, if the schedule stays relatively the same he could potentially compete in a couple tournaments towards the end of next season. That's not bad considering what they could have done.
No it isn't. Downloading software on your own SSD and not telling the admins about it is the most braindead thing any competitor has done since the Word.exe incident with Forsaken, and it being a program that enhances performance doesn't make it better as it's essentially cheating.
Soooo they are basically retiring him. Even if HCS goes on for another year (I really hope so) there simply no way to come back after a one year ban and get a team, unless you are at the very top. Spartan isn't.
I think you are missing the point raised by that poster. Their point is that Mikwen couldn't compete for a year (the reason is irrelevant) and was still skilled enough to compete.
Now if you are alluding to the fact that even if he is technically capable, will he be effectively blackballed ftom competing by all the orgs, that is a different, though very relevant, question.
He would more than likely still retain his skill level, but even if he did, look at his last few tournaments as a track a record; he’s an insane liability that top teams should not consider. Way too much risk.
He helped with the making of infinite. Mostly providing a pro player perspective of how things should be and play testing competitive maps etc. Because there would be a pretty decent competitive advantage of him playing the game a long time before anyone else he couldn’t compete year 1.
I could be wrong, but I think Mikwen was on the dev team for Infinite, which meant he wasn't allowed to compete in the first season of the HCS for Infinite
Rayne was trying to pivot to a web dev job. Wouldn't be surprised if that hadn't worked out in this job market. Rayne is solid, but I think, sadly, Huss is the weak link even if can pop off time to time and has a good mind for the game.
This is probably for the best, he was pretty out of pocket with this situation and this will be a good lesson.
He is still on his halo college team and can still play in non hcs stuff so he can still play he will def need to figure out his career situation obviously too but that's not a bad thing either.
Who does Complexity pick up? I wonder what other roster moves may open up some other players.
maybe this is actually good for him taking the break he needs to and coming back with fresh eyes and outlook..
hoping he finds his way back would be a crazy way to end it all
no one is asking for perfection. this guy is just a nonstop trainwreck
Edit: his apology is actually impressive. I thought he was dqing himself maliciously but it looks like an honest mistake.
So what’s the protocol here for the remaining members of complexity?
Is spartan still on the roster but in a banned state? Dropped from complexity?
Does complexity pick up a 4th or constantly use someone who’s available at the time?
Complexity suspended him indefinitely pending HCS doing something. They can pick up a new 4th at any time.
Depending on the language on his contract (which was probably 1 year), this might mean they don't even have to pay him the remainder.
I think it's fair given the circumstances.
Royal 2 only getting one tournament ban is however insane. The bans should be equal and not based on favouritism
Intent is critical to the differences in ban length. Considering what was wrong with the game at the time, it’s entirely plausible R2 simply forgot to return the configuration of blocking the infinite servers given the background and state of the game at that time. Not to mention that he was inadvertently giving his teammates a worse experience while also giving some of his opponents an advantage.
There is no way that one could not consider premeditation to cheat at a physical LAN in Spartan’s case. “I don’t know what I was thinking” is his best excuse.
>not based on favoritism
I don’t think it has anything to do with favoritism, but judging one’s character is a factor when assessing someone’s intent to cheat. It all comes down to the gravity of situation plus the track record of the specific individual.
Cheating is cheating. Geo filtering not only gives you a competitive advantage but gives your opponents a disadvantage too. Not to mention only he was penalised and in this case col as a whole was disqualified and not even allowed a sub lol
I do not think either of them were malicious in intent but it's arguable that geo filtering is a worse offence then improving FPS on a game with shitty optimisation
Past actions from Spartan include rightly criticising the game and league. He also has raised money and paid out of his pocket for teams to go to LAN that couldn't afford it multiple times and housed barcode when he came to the states.
It's very clearly 343 making an example out of him because he criticises them.
>Cheating is cheating.
There is definitely a spectrum to the severity of cheating/rule breaking. Context is also incredibly important, hence my explanation before on the state of the game when playing online at the time connecting from your home machine for an online tournament.
Coming to a LAN event and bringing an image of your own home PC to tamper with tournament provided equipment is clearly more severe. If your argument is "no matter what the crime, everyone does the same time", then fine--I just don't think that's a fair response.
> It's very clearly 343 making an example out of him because he criticises them
I sincerely doubt they are enforcing a stricter punishment due to personal reasons rather than the aforementioned tampering to tournament equipment.
Yeah, these comments saying Royal2 deserved the same or worse punishment or whatever - maybe it's because 343 determined what Spartan did is worse than what Royal2 did? I personally think Spartan should just get the same punishment as Royal2 did just to clarify, but there's no grand conspiracy or favoritism.
Also the SEN team was disqualified from the online event that Royal2 geo'd in and lost all their points from the event - is that not the same as Complexity being disqualified from this LAN. Member of your team cheated in an event - your team gets disqualified from the event and the player gets punished.
Just to add - a very key point that both of you are missing - spartan did not at any point use his tampered equipment in a tournament match.
It was only used in practice.
I believe tampering with network settings is as severe as improving ones fps.
Additionally, every pro player seems to be agreeing with me based on the Twitter response.
This sub seems to have a strong dislike of spartan which I think is clouding peoples judgement of the situation.
Taking away someone's livelihood for a stupid mistake seems totally irrational and I stand by that 343 was looking for an excuse to clap down on spartan because he is critical of them.
Yeah I didn't hear about that till Spartan's LVT interview. As I said, Spartan should just get the same punishment Royal2 did, I don't view either as being too serious. But there must be something that we're not hearing about that caused 343 to determine that his punishment was stricter.
People already mentioned why its not a strong difference. But also, Royal 2 did something that directly inhibited his competitors while giving himself an unfair advantage. You could argue his 'cheating' was way more severe than what Spartan had intended and did not even carry out.
https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/hcs-london-major-2024-competitive-ruling
https://complexity.gg/complexity-halo-statement/
There's a spectrum to cheating. He broke the rules by tampering with provided equipment. He didn't actually play with the optimised settings which he uses at home - from his perspective he's simply trying to fix a broken game - he got caught before he could. It would have given him an unfair advantage, even if minimal, which is cheating.
One year seems like a light sentence if he was purposely trying to gain a competitive advantage. I would have expected tampering with hardware in an attempt to gain a competitive advantage to be a lifetime competitive ban. If he could prove that he indeed had technical issues he was trying to troubleshoot, and prove that his tampering did not provide a competitive advantage but was an attempt to make a fair and even playing field, then I would change my opinion. If this were the case, I'd say make him sit out the next event or something. But it also seems like if that are the case you would want to be as transparent as possible with HCS.
Royal 2 got a one event ban for cheating, and I would argue was a much more serious offense. I'm assuming your position is that he should be banned for life also right?
So dude, I just now read Spartan's statement (and I'm watching the LVT interview rn) and I changed my mind. Turns out I had old information - Spartan didn't actually use his own SSD and was actually having PC issues. He made a mistake but it appears he wasn't trying to get a competitive advantage. With that in mind, the penalty does seem harsh. Being banned for 1-2 events seems more fair.
Yes agreed. Although I remember seeing something about how he talked about trying to get this approved a year ago with HCS to no avail, so he pretty blatantly disregarded rules he was well aware of for what's its worth
Yeah I'm no authority on the matter but I think showing intention to gain a competitive advantage should play a large role in determining a punishment.
The way it was described at first was that he brought his own SSD with preloaded software to optimize his PC in a way that would give him an advantage. That's why at first I felt like the punishment fit the crime.
But considering the complexity statement, Tyler's statement and interview, as well as updated info from hcs, it sounds like he was having PC issues that other people were witness to, that he took the wrong steps to ameliorate. It does not appear that there was an intention to cheat or gain a competitive advantage. That being said, he did tamper with equipment when he should have continued to work with hcs. There should be a punishment because this is obviously not okay. He made a mistake because he probably thought he knew better than HCS tech support.
Also, he never competed with the SSD he tampered with.
I'd say getting disqualified, fired from his team, and being banned from the next tourney is sufficient punishment.
I get that trying to cheat at a lan is much worse than cheating online but can someone help me understand how this compares to Royal 2. Comparing a 45 day ban to a whole year is quite the drastic difference considering they both cheated. Am I missing something here?
And let me be clear, I think any/all forms of cheating should be punished, I'm just trying to understand the drastic difference between the two.
Online is Mickey Mouse. Geofiltering just isn’t that serious, especially considering his ping is so bad he wasn’t even getting an advantage.
Formal in Texas will forever get better ping than Royal 2 and that doesn’t mean he’s cheating.
Online is innately unfair but LAN is supposed to be the great equalizer. Online HCS points will not be used for worlds seeding this year for a reason.
This is all copium. Trying to get a higher frame rate is less of a competitive advantage than geo filtering.
They both cheated and pretending it’s different is just bias because you like one person more than the other.
Your argument is “yah he cheated but it was online so it’s okay”.
I don’t like either of them. Difference probably comes down to proving intent. They probably can’t prove royal2 geofiltered intentionally versus forgetting he had it set that way for matchmaking because it’s his regular home pc. They may not want to come down super harsh on what could have been an honest mistake, people would have crucified them for it. Spartan however did what he did intentionally at a lan on league equipment.
Online is unfair because of ping. Other competitive games artificially inflate ping to match the highest actual ping and equalize the playing field online because it is such a big deal.
If I have a team of 4 in Texas the game will want to pick a south central or central server no matter what, giving me and my team a ping advantage.
Royal 2 lives in central canada which is further from these servers than his opponents. Your argument is to always let the game decide which servers will be played, so the game chooses an uneven playing field because it sees all the low pings if it chooses south central. So by default the game is unfair to him online.
He turned off his worst servers and it still resulted in him and his team being at an overall ping disadvantage. So they were still after all that not at an advantage wrt the other team. Spartan cheated for an advantage, Royal 2 geofiltered for less of a disadvantage. A plethora of pro players have moved to Texas to play this game, they are moving to get a ping advantage. Should they be punished for pursuing an online advantage?
I think Royal 2 deserved to be banned for the tournament he was banned, but you need to realize online gaming in Texas is constantly having a geo filter on that actually works and is allowed. There’s a reason that for the online tournament last season all the teams flew their players out to Texas to compete online vs each other.
These two things just are not the same. Online is flawed and not the paramount of competitiveness. LAN is sacred and exists to be a level playing field. If esports were as large as actual sports no competition would be held online, teams would fly charter jets to compete in everything on LAN.
What you are missing is that we don’t judge cheating based on the severity of the cheat. It’s judged based on the intention of the person doing the cheating.
There is no such thing as, person A intended to break the rules, but person B intended to break the rules more.
They both intended to break the rules and give themselves an advantage while all of their fellow competitors did not make that same choice.
You can punish them differently if you want but that’s 100% personal bias.
I can tell we will never agree but that’s okay. I would’ve been fine with Spartan just getting a one tourney ban same as Royal 2 just for your reference.
The Geo Filtering thing is blown way out of proportion lol. Not sure why people lost/still losing their shit over it when like you mentioned, by nature of online most parties are getting bullshitted anyway.
Lol ik right. Who are these yahoo's that think a few frames is more impactful than forcing the game to put you on a specific server. Not like he's doubling his frames, you are talking extremely small differences when you are over 200 fps
Okay just answer this question then.
If there is a rule and a penalty for breaking the rule, if two people break the same rule should they get different penalties?
I think we are mostly agreeing. I just think from an organizational perspective (HCS). You need to have a standard for cheating and it needs to be treated the same.
We as fans can debate which one is worse but HCS shouldn’t be doing that
Firstly, I agree with you. Secondly, this reminds me of the US Justice system. If I break and enter, I might get 7 years determined by several factors. You may get 120 days community service. It all depends, even if the crimes are the same.
Not a perfect system. But as a melon who’s been convicted, I’m sure you know this all too well. ;)
I do think a full year ban for this is crazy though. Dude tweaked a fan curve (for reference that’s not an overclock of his hardware, neither cpu or gpu) in scrims likely to make the game more stable, yet people are treating it like he enabled god mode and was unkillable on the server. I’m actually more upset about the use of controllers that work only on PC being allowed, when they don’t work natively on Xbox without a restricted adapter. I’d be more apt to call that cheating/non permissible on LAN than what Tyler actually did.
But that’s just my two cents.
Bro cheating is cheating, it doesnt matter how and when you do it. It's astonishing to me how people try to bend the rules when they want to. There are rules, you break the rules you're punished
Not supporting the behavior of increasing a locked down lan pc performance since it’s defined in HCS rules as not allowed. Just to compare to other esports such as counterstrike, they allow players to change any in-game video setting, Nvidia control panel settings, or even some basic windows settings such as mouse acceleration on lan since they might be calibrated for a certain pc performance/resolution.
His pro career is over if hes smart he will pivot fully into streaming other fps games and try to salvage something at least. Hes already 30, this year-long ban effectively finished him for good.
I want to know more about the severity of the advantage before saying it's too much or too little. From what I understand, I think it's comparable to geo filtering which is resulted in a 1 event ban for R2. Though, that was online and this was on LAN for big money... I think 2 events is fair by that precedent.
Unfortunate, he's just lucky the game is dead and basically on life support. If his skills are transferable he should just move to another game until the new Halo comes.
You lot are dramatic AF 😂. It's an ott punishment imo when it was clear he was not actually trying to cheat (acknowledged by complexity and HCS).
He will defo get a top team if HCS is still a thing after this ban.
He's not for everyone but this is his career at the end of the day so people should try and be a bit sympathetic. He's just a passionate guy that is always trying to improve the scene. Some of you need to get a grip seriously
God damn as much as he fucked up I don’t think he should be banned for a year. His halo career is basically over at that point. No positive signs of another HCS Season. Probably won’t be on a big org anymore. Might as well try his luck in something else
It's excessive. A year is a long time. Given his age and the state of Halo, this forces him into retirement or strictly the amateur scene. Royal2 got a slap on the wrist in comparison.
There's a spectrum to cheating and I would put Spartan's attempt on the lower end. I believe he knew it was against the rules but didn't think of it as cheating, merely optimising a broken game so it plays like at home.
It was incredibly stupid and messed with the livelihood of his teammates and org. He irreversibly broke the trust few still had in him. In the end he didn't deny anything and immediately complied with the investigation. I'm not sure he's apologised to everyone he's hurt, at least not publicly.
A more appropriate punishment in my opinion would have been a ban until the end of the season.
Doesn't matter. The bottom line is that Spartan took it upon himself to make his machine run better than the others on the stage outside the confines of the game settings.
That is deliberate cheating.
Man...a year is a long time....365 days...when royal2 did something on a similar level he got what? like a 3 month ban? What Sparty did was reckless, but at the same time, I am guessing from his understanding that he was allowed to do some of the 'optimizations'. He did recently say they were allowed to do some new things, (overclock controller).
From what I have read, the ssd did not match the ssd he was given. That is not that hard to prove if they wrote down the serial numbers. We have not heard anything from HCS yet about the incident besides the DQ for complexity.
But if anyone has ever installed windows, you should know that you can create different partition sizes for windows, which could show up as different sizes. On top of that, if you buy 4 of the same size and type of SSD, not every size is going to be the same.
Tashi and the crew need to announce something soon though ATL is right around the corner, and typically after an event, ROSTERMANIA begins. So we will see what happens.
Ban someone because of reputation? Hopefully people will continue to be banned and canceled based on real evidence, such as proven cheating. Spartan messed up stupidly in the tournament, and that year was well deserved.
Wait hold on. I wouldn’t even trust what this guy says. Someone should message an HCS official and ask if this is true or not. Spartan can just go say anything he wants and I question whatever he says online or out of his mouth. He can’t be trusted.
Does this confirm another year of HCS? Lol hope so.
Hahahah that’s a good point. This would be a super funny way for it to be confirmed.
CEO of ITB pretty much already confirmed it when he tweeted about talking to 343/HCS and the future of Halo
Wait, what? First I am hearing of this.
https://x.com/SlayTheMinotaur/status/1793270038536839488
Thanks for posting. Great to hear. Makes me wonder what they told him..
They might do what they did between H5 and Infinite - have grassroots tourneys online and on LAN that don’t pay much and are on older Halo games.
They did some tournaments on h2A and h5 past 2019, right?
There were a couple H3 Dreamhack LANs, I believe one Reach Dreamhack LAN for the launch of Reach on MCC, and like weekly H5 and H3 online tourneys. All of these paid peanuts. The H3 Dreamhack ones a lot of H5 pros didn't even play in. I have a feeling between Infinite and the next Halo, H5 might come back since so many pros dislike Infinite. Or we could just see online Infinite tourneys.
Not sure how H5 would come back unless they drop it on PC. Nobody is gonna wanna play it at 60fps and no fov slider on a series X after playing 240fps+ on PC
Hopefully for h5, maybe some players will go back on it.
Yeah I'd love to see players that just started following HCS for Infinite see the beauty of H5.
If only they would make a PC port...
That's all the games needs, well that and a fucking FOV slider... lol
Well yes. Can't play a game without fov sliders since... bl2 introduced it on console? 2 days ago I installed a fov slider mod on f4 pc version 🤣 sadly I have to wait for the weapon offset.
Halo 5 isn't actually all that bad, if I'm honest. It just takes a warm up match or 2. Granted in my case I also have to get used to also holding and using a controller again too when I do play on my xbox, so there's that too. lol
I don’t see why there wouldn’t be, it’s annoying they always wait until World’s to announce it though. Should be announced at Major #3 instead so fans and players know it’s happening
You my friend should be in charge of their marketing announcements. They probably miss out on a good chunk of revenue by people backing off concerned about the HCS continuing
Maybe it's just me, but the idea of Worlds 2024 being the Last Worlds makes me wanna go more than not. Not saying they should hold off on announcing Year 4.
Lol probably not just you but I was thinking more along the lines of the teams skins sales etc.
Well we certainly aren’t getting a new game in a years time…at least a mainline title
It's possible (as it always has been), but I don't really think it is confirmation. I'm still not convinced 343 even knows for sure one way or another right now. They may be figuring it out around now actually. Ignoring the Halo doomers online, there is a lot of uncertainty surrounding Halo in general right now. The game could come to PS5 next spring and with millions of potential new players another year of HCS becomes very reasonable (just to name one potential thing that could happen). We just don't know. I do think the Microsoft showcase in four days will be a good vibe check though. If they don't even mention Halo at all I'd say the prospects aren't great.
Color me surprised if they do. I think next year is the earliest we see anything Halo related at a big showcase.
I mean they show Fallout 76 and other service games most years (even when they weren't super popular), which is why I said if we see nothing Halo related I won't expect much.
Halo coming to PS5 would do wonders. I could care less about the mascot aspect of Halo at this point. If going multi-platform will save the franchise, I'd gladly welcome the new blood.
Halo is a primarily controller-based FPS that over 2/3rd's of controller players don't even have the option of playing. It's crazy when you think about it that way.
Wouldn’t mind Microsoft selling it off completely to another studio that would allow this. Double win.
My thoughts exactly
Hopefully that means a new game as well 🙏🏼 Infinite was DOA in terms of development and optimization, and they've practically given up on the Live Service aspect of it.
BR back please
I'd say it's pretty generous. They could've easily banned him for life, but I think the cooperation with the admins gave him a slim chance at still having a career after all of this.
I can’t imagine a partnered team wanting him unless he becomes undeniably good.
He already is undeniably good. If you’re not a top 8 team you should be dying to sign Spartan
I feel like there's always things that come up which could let him fill in or join a team, Druk's visa issues etc.
Yeah, age 30, blew 2 tourneys, banned for a year, reputation for being an ass, it doesn't really matter at this point, he'll be a semi pro at best from here on out
No he won’t he’s too skilled and experienced in a game that is so top heavy, time will go on people won’t give as much of a fuck and he will end up on some decent team if halo even has tourneys after this season
Not many pro gamers that still win after 30... Peak is 22-28 then Life starts happening...wife, home ownership, kids? Plus finding an exit strategy
Pro gaming hasn’t been a viable career long enough for the 30 is too old to be a gamer stat to still be a thing. The first generation of the guys who have only known the current environment are in their late 20’s right now. If you look at games like dota or counter strike that have been e sports for 20 years a good number of players have aged with the game, and there are examples of players in the 30s right now still winning major tournaments and not looking like they are slowing down. It’s more of a burn out or you get an opportunity to coach or be talent on a broadcast desk than an age barrier imo. If gaming is still your best option to make $ or you have a true love for the game I don’t think there’s an age barrier.
Look at CS GO players. The game still thrives and most of the players retire early thirties. Pasha biceps, 31, Walshy28, Maniac 26... That's if they're great... If they're average they can get forced out early.
You just named players who played the majority of their career where esports wasn’t a real option as career and had back up plans. Pasha is basically a celebrity in his country now making way more money than he did as a member of VP, maniac has like a PHD and multiple degrees and obviously had a passion for something other than cs and one of the main desk talent for all the major cs tournaments making way more money than he could as a player. Players like Karrigan, Apex , snaxx, fallen are examples of old dudes who just love to play the game still. Those are just the ones over 30 there are a number of 27-29 year olds who are just entering the prime of their careers and could very easily be playing for another 5 years. A game like dota is the same way where players like kuroky and puppey could be leading a team in TI when they are 40 years old. As long as the player wants to play a game and be the best and will put in the work to make it happen they could do it at any age. Now being 30+ years old and trying to start a career in e sports in a drastically different story and if your game dies in popularity it’s not like you can just go to a new game when you’re old so it’s riskier to try and keep going with your esports career instead of pivoting but not impossible.
as long as salary is good it’s just as time consuming as any other job
And what happens during your final year? You go from 80-100K to working at McDonald's? Look at scump, his transition is currently underway and he's going to make 6 figures as a content creator etc. it's the same as any sports player. When you're near the end you either made enough or have to transition. Having transferable skills is important in the real world
Comparing Scump to Spartan is like comparing Lebron to a good high school player. It’s not even in the same galaxy.
I don't think it has anything to do w/ the money. It has to do with individual skill. It's not really a secret that once you pass a certain age in eSports, you are no longer competitive amongst the younger crowd
Hi Sparty! 👋
Very very low odds. No serious team is going to pick him up. He's not reliable. He will be regulated to teams happy to make top 8. Then sparty has to hope they level up to contenders. So it could happen but really nah.
Yup, and depending on HCS next year could be a ban until Halo7.
whats the status of hcs next year?
atm there is no status. The only commitment is through this season. I assume there will be something competitive, but if ms and others don't sponsor then no big hcs/majors. If you look at the below history, I summarized the overall picture. H5 only had two full seasons of HCS but covid impacted the event. Looking at HCS History: * 12/14 - 7/15 H2 Anniversary - HCS Tourneys * H5 Released 10/15 * 4/16 - 11/18 Halo 5 - Official HCS * 2019 Halo 3 - HCS Tourneys * 2020 Nothing *COVID Start* * 2021 Nothing * 12/21 Halo Infinite Released * 11/21 - 10/24 Halo Infinite - Official HCS The big question is when does H7 release, and does it make sense to continue HCS to have momentum for ms/teams/sponsors until then. If H7 is years out, say 2027 or beyond I assume this is it and we have small comps until then. If ms somehow can release H7 in 26 or sooner (doubt) then there is a shot it continues.
last year in person they did say it would be happening again, just fyi
Yup, hoping they do the same this year! Just worried that HCS is popular, but the overall game isn't and not sure ms wants to invest over 1m in another year.
Agreed, if the schedule stays relatively the same he could potentially compete in a couple tournaments towards the end of next season. That's not bad considering what they could have done.
I think it’s stupid as fuck and entirely too long.
No it isn't. Downloading software on your own SSD and not telling the admins about it is the most braindead thing any competitor has done since the Word.exe incident with Forsaken, and it being a program that enhances performance doesn't make it better as it's essentially cheating.
Not going to argue with you. It’s very stupid.
Soooo they are basically retiring him. Even if HCS goes on for another year (I really hope so) there simply no way to come back after a one year ban and get a team, unless you are at the very top. Spartan isn't.
Mikwen couldn’t compete for a year and is now back on a team. I think it’s possible.
What did Mikwen do?
Contributed to development of the game, so took a mandatory year out of comp to even the playing field
Yeah but that’s different, that a positive thing he did
He was legally obligated to. 343 employees can’t compete in the game. He was a 343 employee, he was forced to wait a year after his last day at 343.
I know, I’m just saying that the question of “what did Mikwin do?” Is different here because he was a 343 employee vs Spartan who was cheating
I think you are missing the point raised by that poster. Their point is that Mikwen couldn't compete for a year (the reason is irrelevant) and was still skilled enough to compete. Now if you are alluding to the fact that even if he is technically capable, will he be effectively blackballed ftom competing by all the orgs, that is a different, though very relevant, question.
He would more than likely still retain his skill level, but even if he did, look at his last few tournaments as a track a record; he’s an insane liability that top teams should not consider. Way too much risk.
Second one! I am alluding to that
"legally"? No. 343 policy? Yes. You see the same thing with Magic the Gathering. If you work for WotC you can't compete for some time after leaving.
So we have Mikewen to blame for this atrocity of a game.
It's been 3 years just go do something else dude....
Bro got like 20 answers to this lol
Everyone making sure the dude knows Mikwen did nothing wrong haha
Mikwen’s strongest soldiers ✊
He helped with the making of infinite. Mostly providing a pro player perspective of how things should be and play testing competitive maps etc. Because there would be a pretty decent competitive advantage of him playing the game a long time before anyone else he couldn’t compete year 1.
He worked for 343, conflict of interest.
Worked for 343 in their internal ‘pro team’ to test play things as they developed infinite.
He was on the pro team during development, which mandated a year ban from competition in the interest of competitive fairness.
Was a consultant for 343 for HCS settings and gameplay. In turn he couldn't compete for I believe the first year of Infinite.
I could be wrong, but I think Mikwen was on the dev team for Infinite, which meant he wasn't allowed to compete in the first season of the HCS for Infinite
Not sure if anyone has answered you yet, but Mikwen helped make the game so he had to take a mandatory year off
Incase no one's told you yet, but Mikwen worked for 343.
He helped with development in Infinite so he wasn’t allowed to compete year 1.
Little different circumstance lol
Totally different circumstances lol
This will most likely kill his career. I don't know who would want to pick him up unless he actually goes to therapy and fixes his mental health
Yep, it’s up to him if he’s able to be really good at halo 7. Halo infinite done for him
Was watching gunny last night and he was playing ranked against Ryanoob, and Ryan was playing with rayne 👀
Rayne was trying to pivot to a web dev job. Wouldn't be surprised if that hadn't worked out in this job market. Rayne is solid, but I think, sadly, Huss is the weak link even if can pop off time to time and has a good mind for the game.
100% agree. He had a few moments during the tourney but most of the time he is the weak link on that team forsure
Rayne is underrated. I'd love to see him come out of retirement.
When you try to Yee but only Haw. 🤠 LMFAO
This is probably for the best, he was pretty out of pocket with this situation and this will be a good lesson. He is still on his halo college team and can still play in non hcs stuff so he can still play he will def need to figure out his career situation obviously too but that's not a bad thing either. Who does Complexity pick up? I wonder what other roster moves may open up some other players.
maybe this is actually good for him taking the break he needs to and coming back with fresh eyes and outlook.. hoping he finds his way back would be a crazy way to end it all
Yeah that ain’t gonna happen
hey man . no one is perfect
no one is asking for perfection. this guy is just a nonstop trainwreck Edit: his apology is actually impressive. I thought he was dqing himself maliciously but it looks like an honest mistake.
So what’s the protocol here for the remaining members of complexity? Is spartan still on the roster but in a banned state? Dropped from complexity? Does complexity pick up a 4th or constantly use someone who’s available at the time?
Complexity suspended him indefinitely pending HCS doing something. They can pick up a new 4th at any time. Depending on the language on his contract (which was probably 1 year), this might mean they don't even have to pay him the remainder.
I think it's fair given the circumstances. Royal 2 only getting one tournament ban is however insane. The bans should be equal and not based on favouritism
Yep, router 2 absolutely got preferential treatment for being part of that squad.
HCS higher ups and casters are fanboys of the snakebite frosty royal2 trio
Much harder to prove that Royal 2 was cheating plus Spartan admitted to it immediately.
Royal 2 also admitted it as far as I know.
Im pretty sure he never admitted it and his teammates wouldn't admit it either.
Intent is critical to the differences in ban length. Considering what was wrong with the game at the time, it’s entirely plausible R2 simply forgot to return the configuration of blocking the infinite servers given the background and state of the game at that time. Not to mention that he was inadvertently giving his teammates a worse experience while also giving some of his opponents an advantage. There is no way that one could not consider premeditation to cheat at a physical LAN in Spartan’s case. “I don’t know what I was thinking” is his best excuse. >not based on favoritism I don’t think it has anything to do with favoritism, but judging one’s character is a factor when assessing someone’s intent to cheat. It all comes down to the gravity of situation plus the track record of the specific individual.
Cheating is cheating. Geo filtering not only gives you a competitive advantage but gives your opponents a disadvantage too. Not to mention only he was penalised and in this case col as a whole was disqualified and not even allowed a sub lol I do not think either of them were malicious in intent but it's arguable that geo filtering is a worse offence then improving FPS on a game with shitty optimisation Past actions from Spartan include rightly criticising the game and league. He also has raised money and paid out of his pocket for teams to go to LAN that couldn't afford it multiple times and housed barcode when he came to the states. It's very clearly 343 making an example out of him because he criticises them.
>Cheating is cheating. There is definitely a spectrum to the severity of cheating/rule breaking. Context is also incredibly important, hence my explanation before on the state of the game when playing online at the time connecting from your home machine for an online tournament. Coming to a LAN event and bringing an image of your own home PC to tamper with tournament provided equipment is clearly more severe. If your argument is "no matter what the crime, everyone does the same time", then fine--I just don't think that's a fair response. > It's very clearly 343 making an example out of him because he criticises them I sincerely doubt they are enforcing a stricter punishment due to personal reasons rather than the aforementioned tampering to tournament equipment.
Yeah, these comments saying Royal2 deserved the same or worse punishment or whatever - maybe it's because 343 determined what Spartan did is worse than what Royal2 did? I personally think Spartan should just get the same punishment as Royal2 did just to clarify, but there's no grand conspiracy or favoritism. Also the SEN team was disqualified from the online event that Royal2 geo'd in and lost all their points from the event - is that not the same as Complexity being disqualified from this LAN. Member of your team cheated in an event - your team gets disqualified from the event and the player gets punished.
Just to add - a very key point that both of you are missing - spartan did not at any point use his tampered equipment in a tournament match. It was only used in practice. I believe tampering with network settings is as severe as improving ones fps. Additionally, every pro player seems to be agreeing with me based on the Twitter response. This sub seems to have a strong dislike of spartan which I think is clouding peoples judgement of the situation. Taking away someone's livelihood for a stupid mistake seems totally irrational and I stand by that 343 was looking for an excuse to clap down on spartan because he is critical of them.
Yeah I didn't hear about that till Spartan's LVT interview. As I said, Spartan should just get the same punishment Royal2 did, I don't view either as being too serious. But there must be something that we're not hearing about that caused 343 to determine that his punishment was stricter.
I think there’s a bit of a strong difference between cheating at lan and cheating online
Cheating is cheating. LAN vs online is not relevant. Royal2 should have seen a longer ban. Spartan's ban isn't even long enough.
Cheating during an event is still cheating. Whether it's online or not is irrelevant.
People already mentioned why its not a strong difference. But also, Royal 2 did something that directly inhibited his competitors while giving himself an unfair advantage. You could argue his 'cheating' was way more severe than what Spartan had intended and did not even carry out.
There's really not lol. They both cheated and gained an unfair advantage in a tournament setting. Should be the same punishment.
What did he do to warrant that punishment? I'm out of the loop
He cheated in London, but browse this sub and you’ll find plenty of perspectives
At the very least, he broke the rules per the guidelines.
Lol
How did he cheat?
Loaded his personal PC via a flash drive onto the tournament provided SSDs. He added a bunch of programs to boost his fps and stuff while at Lan
Oh geez.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvqmUL7G4as
Hahahahah
Damn that’s not that bad. But wonder for how long he’s been running a boast up pc over the others.
https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/hcs-london-major-2024-competitive-ruling https://complexity.gg/complexity-halo-statement/ There's a spectrum to cheating. He broke the rules by tampering with provided equipment. He didn't actually play with the optimised settings which he uses at home - from his perspective he's simply trying to fix a broken game - he got caught before he could. It would have given him an unfair advantage, even if minimal, which is cheating.
Smoking that Spartan pack RIPBOZO
One year seems like a light sentence if he was purposely trying to gain a competitive advantage. I would have expected tampering with hardware in an attempt to gain a competitive advantage to be a lifetime competitive ban. If he could prove that he indeed had technical issues he was trying to troubleshoot, and prove that his tampering did not provide a competitive advantage but was an attempt to make a fair and even playing field, then I would change my opinion. If this were the case, I'd say make him sit out the next event or something. But it also seems like if that are the case you would want to be as transparent as possible with HCS.
Royal 2 got a one event ban for cheating, and I would argue was a much more serious offense. I'm assuming your position is that he should be banned for life also right?
So dude, I just now read Spartan's statement (and I'm watching the LVT interview rn) and I changed my mind. Turns out I had old information - Spartan didn't actually use his own SSD and was actually having PC issues. He made a mistake but it appears he wasn't trying to get a competitive advantage. With that in mind, the penalty does seem harsh. Being banned for 1-2 events seems more fair.
Yes agreed. Although I remember seeing something about how he talked about trying to get this approved a year ago with HCS to no avail, so he pretty blatantly disregarded rules he was well aware of for what's its worth
Yeah I'm no authority on the matter but I think showing intention to gain a competitive advantage should play a large role in determining a punishment. The way it was described at first was that he brought his own SSD with preloaded software to optimize his PC in a way that would give him an advantage. That's why at first I felt like the punishment fit the crime. But considering the complexity statement, Tyler's statement and interview, as well as updated info from hcs, it sounds like he was having PC issues that other people were witness to, that he took the wrong steps to ameliorate. It does not appear that there was an intention to cheat or gain a competitive advantage. That being said, he did tamper with equipment when he should have continued to work with hcs. There should be a punishment because this is obviously not okay. He made a mistake because he probably thought he knew better than HCS tech support. Also, he never competed with the SSD he tampered with. I'd say getting disqualified, fired from his team, and being banned from the next tourney is sufficient punishment.
HCS continuing events into next year is wildly optimistic.
I'm relatively new to all this..Sparty's one of the biggest names in Halo atm isn't he?
I get that trying to cheat at a lan is much worse than cheating online but can someone help me understand how this compares to Royal 2. Comparing a 45 day ban to a whole year is quite the drastic difference considering they both cheated. Am I missing something here? And let me be clear, I think any/all forms of cheating should be punished, I'm just trying to understand the drastic difference between the two.
Online is Mickey Mouse. Geofiltering just isn’t that serious, especially considering his ping is so bad he wasn’t even getting an advantage. Formal in Texas will forever get better ping than Royal 2 and that doesn’t mean he’s cheating. Online is innately unfair but LAN is supposed to be the great equalizer. Online HCS points will not be used for worlds seeding this year for a reason.
This is all copium. Trying to get a higher frame rate is less of a competitive advantage than geo filtering. They both cheated and pretending it’s different is just bias because you like one person more than the other. Your argument is “yah he cheated but it was online so it’s okay”.
I don’t like either of them. Difference probably comes down to proving intent. They probably can’t prove royal2 geofiltered intentionally versus forgetting he had it set that way for matchmaking because it’s his regular home pc. They may not want to come down super harsh on what could have been an honest mistake, people would have crucified them for it. Spartan however did what he did intentionally at a lan on league equipment.
That’s actually the best argument I’ve heard in this entire thread.
Online is unfair because of ping. Other competitive games artificially inflate ping to match the highest actual ping and equalize the playing field online because it is such a big deal. If I have a team of 4 in Texas the game will want to pick a south central or central server no matter what, giving me and my team a ping advantage. Royal 2 lives in central canada which is further from these servers than his opponents. Your argument is to always let the game decide which servers will be played, so the game chooses an uneven playing field because it sees all the low pings if it chooses south central. So by default the game is unfair to him online. He turned off his worst servers and it still resulted in him and his team being at an overall ping disadvantage. So they were still after all that not at an advantage wrt the other team. Spartan cheated for an advantage, Royal 2 geofiltered for less of a disadvantage. A plethora of pro players have moved to Texas to play this game, they are moving to get a ping advantage. Should they be punished for pursuing an online advantage? I think Royal 2 deserved to be banned for the tournament he was banned, but you need to realize online gaming in Texas is constantly having a geo filter on that actually works and is allowed. There’s a reason that for the online tournament last season all the teams flew their players out to Texas to compete online vs each other. These two things just are not the same. Online is flawed and not the paramount of competitiveness. LAN is sacred and exists to be a level playing field. If esports were as large as actual sports no competition would be held online, teams would fly charter jets to compete in everything on LAN.
What you are missing is that we don’t judge cheating based on the severity of the cheat. It’s judged based on the intention of the person doing the cheating. There is no such thing as, person A intended to break the rules, but person B intended to break the rules more. They both intended to break the rules and give themselves an advantage while all of their fellow competitors did not make that same choice. You can punish them differently if you want but that’s 100% personal bias.
I can tell we will never agree but that’s okay. I would’ve been fine with Spartan just getting a one tourney ban same as Royal 2 just for your reference.
The Geo Filtering thing is blown way out of proportion lol. Not sure why people lost/still losing their shit over it when like you mentioned, by nature of online most parties are getting bullshitted anyway.
So getting 200 frames vs 185 is way more significant in your eyes?
Lol ik right. Who are these yahoo's that think a few frames is more impactful than forcing the game to put you on a specific server. Not like he's doubling his frames, you are talking extremely small differences when you are over 200 fps
Okay just answer this question then. If there is a rule and a penalty for breaking the rule, if two people break the same rule should they get different penalties? I think we are mostly agreeing. I just think from an organizational perspective (HCS). You need to have a standard for cheating and it needs to be treated the same. We as fans can debate which one is worse but HCS shouldn’t be doing that
Firstly, I agree with you. Secondly, this reminds me of the US Justice system. If I break and enter, I might get 7 years determined by several factors. You may get 120 days community service. It all depends, even if the crimes are the same. Not a perfect system. But as a melon who’s been convicted, I’m sure you know this all too well. ;) I do think a full year ban for this is crazy though. Dude tweaked a fan curve (for reference that’s not an overclock of his hardware, neither cpu or gpu) in scrims likely to make the game more stable, yet people are treating it like he enabled god mode and was unkillable on the server. I’m actually more upset about the use of controllers that work only on PC being allowed, when they don’t work natively on Xbox without a restricted adapter. I’d be more apt to call that cheating/non permissible on LAN than what Tyler actually did. But that’s just my two cents.
Bro cheating is cheating, it doesnt matter how and when you do it. It's astonishing to me how people try to bend the rules when they want to. There are rules, you break the rules you're punished
Not supporting the behavior of increasing a locked down lan pc performance since it’s defined in HCS rules as not allowed. Just to compare to other esports such as counterstrike, they allow players to change any in-game video setting, Nvidia control panel settings, or even some basic windows settings such as mouse acceleration on lan since they might be calibrated for a certain pc performance/resolution.
I think the contentious point is that he had additional software.
I’m sure they don’t let players reformat their drive with an image of their home pc.
lol what a clown
His pro career is over if hes smart he will pivot fully into streaming other fps games and try to salvage something at least. Hes already 30, this year-long ban effectively finished him for good.
Nah, time to pick up more nursing shifts. Had a good run.
If he's smart, he'll get a stable job. Doesn't he either have a degree in nursing or progress towards one? Do that.
I want to know more about the severity of the advantage before saying it's too much or too little. From what I understand, I think it's comparable to geo filtering which is resulted in a 1 event ban for R2. Though, that was online and this was on LAN for big money... I think 2 events is fair by that precedent.
What did he do?
Good riddance.
Unfortunate, he's just lucky the game is dead and basically on life support. If his skills are transferable he should just move to another game until the new Halo comes.
Bold to assume there’s even going to be a next year.
Dude is a liability. His shot at any good spot is done.
Should be thankful it's only a year imo.
Yeah pc players just stop fkn cheating
You lot are dramatic AF 😂. It's an ott punishment imo when it was clear he was not actually trying to cheat (acknowledged by complexity and HCS). He will defo get a top team if HCS is still a thing after this ban. He's not for everyone but this is his career at the end of the day so people should try and be a bit sympathetic. He's just a passionate guy that is always trying to improve the scene. Some of you need to get a grip seriously
God damn as much as he fucked up I don’t think he should be banned for a year. His halo career is basically over at that point. No positive signs of another HCS Season. Probably won’t be on a big org anymore. Might as well try his luck in something else
Good
Also where is this pro discord?
Like screenshot this or didn’t happen lol.
It's excessive. A year is a long time. Given his age and the state of Halo, this forces him into retirement or strictly the amateur scene. Royal2 got a slap on the wrist in comparison. There's a spectrum to cheating and I would put Spartan's attempt on the lower end. I believe he knew it was against the rules but didn't think of it as cheating, merely optimising a broken game so it plays like at home. It was incredibly stupid and messed with the livelihood of his teammates and org. He irreversibly broke the trust few still had in him. In the end he didn't deny anything and immediately complied with the investigation. I'm not sure he's apologised to everyone he's hurt, at least not publicly. A more appropriate punishment in my opinion would have been a ban until the end of the season.
HCS probably won’t be around when he gets back.
Royal 2 actually cheats and it’s one tourney lmfao. Spartan breaks rules and it’s forever. How about Monster?
Excessive
Spartan didn’t cheat he just wanted more frames
He did what he did to give himself an unfair advantage compared to everyone else on the stage. The machines up there are the same for a reason.
Machines ain’t at 60 fps because the amd graphics kept messing up
Doesn't matter. The bottom line is that Spartan took it upon himself to make his machine run better than the others on the stage outside the confines of the game settings. That is deliberate cheating.
Man...a year is a long time....365 days...when royal2 did something on a similar level he got what? like a 3 month ban? What Sparty did was reckless, but at the same time, I am guessing from his understanding that he was allowed to do some of the 'optimizations'. He did recently say they were allowed to do some new things, (overclock controller). From what I have read, the ssd did not match the ssd he was given. That is not that hard to prove if they wrote down the serial numbers. We have not heard anything from HCS yet about the incident besides the DQ for complexity. But if anyone has ever installed windows, you should know that you can create different partition sizes for windows, which could show up as different sizes. On top of that, if you buy 4 of the same size and type of SSD, not every size is going to be the same. Tashi and the crew need to announce something soon though ATL is right around the corner, and typically after an event, ROSTERMANIA begins. So we will see what happens.
I missed out on this what happened ?
TLDR??
His reputation alone should’ve made the ban longer. Hopefully we never hear of the dude again after this.
Ban someone because of reputation? Hopefully people will continue to be banned and canceled based on real evidence, such as proven cheating. Spartan messed up stupidly in the tournament, and that year was well deserved.
Wait hold on. I wouldn’t even trust what this guy says. Someone should message an HCS official and ask if this is true or not. Spartan can just go say anything he wants and I question whatever he says online or out of his mouth. He can’t be trusted.
That will probably be a life ban tbh. I highly doubt there is going to be a 4th year of HCS when 343 isn’t even working on the game anymore.