# Call of Duty: Black Ops **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [November 8, 2010, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909 "2010-11-08T15:44:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 25
**Author:** ![Randy\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee7513/32.png) [@Randy\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randy_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909/482 "2011-06-15T22:35:24Z")
> [@Palooka](#): > > I dunno, man. I see it as the equivalent of Player 1 being the guy who goes in, gets the flag, carries it back halfway across the map, gets fragged, then Player 2 picks it up and caps. By being in 82 more battles, it almost certain Player 1 was basically playing a 2v1. Maybe Player 2 wasn’t pulling his weight, but Player 1 still isn’t very good. There’s a word for the guy who wins exactly 50% of his battles. “Average.” If Player 1 hadn’t been playing at all, the final score would have been 1500-300 when time ran out, an absolutely titanic victory. Whereas if Player 2 hadn’t been playing at all, it would have been a draw. > [@](#): > > Can we agree that low KD means you’re bad and low volume means you’re bad? I think we can agree that low K:D means you’re bad, and low volume can mean you’re bad. As long as we also agree that high volume does not mean you’re good. I get annoyed when I play with kids who don’t appreciate that every time they die, the other team gets a point. I’ve been in lobbies where someone gloats over his 20-25 game. “Dude, I fucking rocked you. See that? Twenty kills, assholes.” But he was minus five for the game – he actually hurt his team by participating. (All this, of course, applies only to TDM game modes.) ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909/483 "2011-06-15T23:14:33Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > If one of the players is hosting the game on their machine, it’s impossible not to have the “connection bias” - at best you can artificially create lag on the host by delaying the resolution of what they do to simulate lag, but I doubt any game actually does this. The triple AAA titles on the 360 don’t suffer from much lag at all, if any. You notice it if the host is downloading porn or something, or if the ping is prohibitively high. There are lag switches and ways to augment it and screw everyone else, but developers and Xbox Live crack down pretty hard on that kind of thing. The connection bias I was referring to seems to be native to Blops. For some reason, the multiplayer architecture Treyarch has set up prefers West Coast hosts. You don’t notice the same fuzziness in the connection in, say, Modern Warfare 2 or Halo 3 or Halo: Reach unless there are low level shenanigans (something else hogging bandwidth on the host’s connection, for example) or playing against people overseas. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909/484 "2011-06-15T23:16:44Z")
> [@Randy\_Seltzer](#): > > But in most cases, the person who gets the point would have gotten it anyway. Because, as you note, the weapons are so lethal in this game. So an assist is a contribution to your team in statistics only, rarely in practical terms. And it’s also a sign that you couldn’t seal the deal. So all-in-all not a good indicator of skill. > I disagree. The guy who sits in the corner of the map (or the corner of a room) ready to noob-tube anything that comes by will end up a typical game about 5-2. That’s a 2.50 K:D ratio, which is pretty impressive. He’ll also likely get a bunch of assists, because explosives tend to breed assists, and anyone who camps like that probably doesn’t have the skill to seal the deal. So they’re a bad player in that they have very little skill, but they’re a good player in that they’re contributing to the team total. > If you mean that lifetime total number of kills is a good indicator of skill, I have to disagree with you. That’s just a good indicator of how much you’ve played. > > If you mean total kills within a particular game, combined with K:D, I agree with you, but I think it’s simpler just to call it a K:D differential. E.g. if you went 12-5, you’ve got a +7 differential, and if you went 9-10, you’ve got a -1 differential. You’re correct that this is the most accurate indicator of how much you contributed to a particular game. The guy who went 12-1 contributed more than the guy who went 30-22 contributed more than the guy who went 5-10. The only x-factor is the guy who calls in team-helping killstreaks. > > I wish the game kept track of your average per-game K:D differential. I’d much rather have that stat than K:D ratio on the leaderboards. As others have pointed out, you are mistaken. Another (much more complicated) way to look at it is that when time runs out or when one team hits 75 kills, the winning team will be whichever one has the positive cumulative K:D differential. So having a big positive K:D differential is more important than having a lot of kills. A player that has played the entire game and gone 5-2 is not a useful player to have on your team. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909/485 "2011-06-15T23:21:42Z")
> [@Randy\_Seltzer](#): > > Maybe Player 2 wasn’t pulling his weight, but Player 1 still isn’t very good. There’s a word for the guy who wins exactly 50% of his battles. “Average.” If Player 1 hadn’t been playing at all, the final score would have been 1500-300 when time ran out, an absolutely titanic victory. Whereas if Player 2 hadn’t been playing at all, it would have been a draw. I think we can agree that low K:D means you’re bad, and low volume can mean you’re bad. As long as we also agree that high volume does not mean you’re good. > > I get annoyed when I play with kids who don’t appreciate that every time they die, the other team gets a point. I’ve been in lobbies where someone gloats over his 20-25 game. “Dude, I fucking rocked you. See that? Twenty kills, assholes.” But he was minus five for the game – he actually hurt his team by participating. > > (All this, of course, applies only to TDM game modes.) I lean towards this more. Going even with your kills and deaths is solid. It’s average. I have no problem with someone that goes even, but if you’re getting 50 ills and getting 50 deaths, we’re all pissed off at you because you’re playing like an idiot. If you’re 10 and 10 and communicating effectively, that’s perfectly bearable. 50-50 over the course of a handful of games is going to get everyone mysteriously leaving after that. A hypothetical person that would get 50 kills and 50 deaths isn’t even necessarily a BAD player. Just a stupid one. There’s something to work with, but it’s a chore to work around that. ---
**Author:** ![Randy\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee7513/32.png) [@Randy\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randy_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909/486 "2011-06-16T01:00:19Z")
> [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](#): > > A player that has played the entire game and gone 5-2 is not a useful player to have on your team. Disagree. Perhaps they could be more useful, but as long as a player puts up a positive K:D, he is helping. If everyone on your team is 5-2, the match will be slow and boring, but you’ll win it. Final score 3000 to 1200. A 5-2 player is useful because, amongst other reasons, they’re taking a roster spot from somebody who is going to be negative. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909/487 "2011-06-16T01:01:41Z")
> [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](#): > > I lean towards this more. Going even with your kills and deaths is solid. It’s average. I have no problem with someone that goes even, but if you’re getting 50 ills and getting 50 deaths, we’re all pissed off at you because you’re playing like an idiot. If you’re 10 and 10 and communicating effectively, that’s perfectly bearable. 50-50 over the course of a handful of games is going to get everyone mysteriously leaving after that. > > A hypothetical person that would get 50 kills and 50 deaths isn’t even necessarily a BAD player. Just a stupid one. There’s something to work with, but it’s a chore to work around that. Why is 50-50 worse than 10-10? ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909/488 "2011-06-16T01:04:02Z")
> [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](#): > > The triple AAA titles on the 360 don’t suffer from much lag at all, if any. You notice it if the host is downloading porn or something, or if the ping is prohibitively high. There are lag switches and ways to augment it and screw everyone else, but developers and Xbox Live crack down pretty hard on that kind of thing. There’s nothing special about the xbox 360 that can change the nature of computer networking. The host is always going to have 0 ping because his data is just going directly to his own machine. Anyone else is going to be at a disadvantage to that. And typically residential connections are behind way more jumps than a data center or other server hosting facility, which means that your latencies are going to be larger than they are to purpose-built servers. Now - the disadvantage can become relatively small and hard to notice, but it’s luck of the draw. I’ve played mw2 with its completely shittastic matchmaking system, same as used on the 360, and about 20% of the time (of games where I wasn’t the host) I’d get what I’d classify as a good game. If I were to play mw1, I’d get good games 100% of the time - and not by having an artificial host advantage over anyone else. Lots of players could be on equal footing. Here’s a [video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plzHrMZmcVE) showing how host advantage works even on a 4 bar (ugh, really, pings are too complex to figure out?) game. I suspect a lot of the things you don’t notice are because you’ve never had better, so you don’t understand what it is you’re missing - if peer to peer matchmaking is all you’ve ever experienced, it seems like the norm. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909/489 "2011-06-16T01:10:15Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > Why is 50-50 worse than 10-10? Because at 10-10 there’s still plenty of time to take up the slack. 50-50 essentially cuts the game in half, which reduces the amount of time your teammates have to make up any deficit. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909/490 "2011-06-16T01:26:14Z")
> [@Randy\_Seltzer](#): > > Disagree. Perhaps they could be more useful, but as long as a player puts up a positive K:D, he is helping. If everyone on your team is 5-2, the match will be slow and boring, but you’ll win it. Final score 3000 to 1200. > > A 5-2 player is useful because, amongst other reasons, they’re taking a roster spot from somebody who is going to be negative. Not necessarily. I go in with a full group almost exclusively. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909/491 "2011-06-16T01:33:15Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > There’s nothing special about the xbox 360 that can change the nature of computer networking. The host is always going to have 0 ping because his data is just going directly to his own machine. Anyone else is going to be at a disadvantage to that. And typically residential connections are behind way more jumps than a data center or other server hosting facility, which means that your latencies are going to be larger than they are to purpose-built servers. > > Now - the disadvantage can become relatively small and hard to notice, but it’s luck of the draw. I’ve played mw2 with its completely shittastic matchmaking system, same as used on the 360, and about 20% of the time (of games where I wasn’t the host) I’d get what I’d classify as a good game. If I were to play mw1, I’d get good games 100% of the time - and not by having an artificial host advantage over anyone else. Lots of players could be on equal footing. Here’s a [video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plzHrMZmcVE) showing how host advantage works even on a 4 bar (ugh, really, pings are too complex to figure out?) game. > > I suspect a lot of the things you don’t notice are because you’ve never had better, so you don’t understand what it is you’re missing - if peer to peer matchmaking is all you’ve ever experienced, it seems like the norm. I do also appreciate the depth of your console gaming experience. I’m not telling you that playing over Live is perfect. I am, however, saying that when done right, peer-to-peer is really solid. I haven’t played a lot of games with dedicated servers (most recently, the steaming pile that was Homefront), but that was done horribly and worse than any Halo or Call of Duty. In this instance, Blops’ online quality is the worst of any Call of Duty and worse than any Halo games, which I’d consider to be the gold standard. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909/492 "2011-06-16T01:35:33Z")
What does console gaming experience have to do with? I know how networks work, I can even design them. There are also plenty of PC games that don’t use dedi servers for when it’s deemed unnecesary like say borderlands with 4 player coop. I’m just saying you can’t get around the inferior nature of hosting games on someone’s residential connection on their machine - both in that they always get an advantage, and that their connection is certainly not ideal to be hosting that sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909/493 "2011-06-16T01:36:08Z")
> [@Randy\_Seltzer](#): > > Disagree. Perhaps they could be more useful, but as long as a player puts up a positive K:D, he is helping. If everyone on your team is 5-2, the match will be slow and boring, but you’ll win it. Final score 3000 to 1200. > > A 5-2 player is useful because, amongst other reasons, they’re taking a roster spot from somebody who is going to be negative. Again, that’s not accurate. Someone sitting in one area, influencing the spawn, sometimes prohibitively, just going 5-2 is not helping. A team of 6 people going 5-2 is 30-12. What about the rest of the game? ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909/494 "2011-06-16T01:38:23Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > What does console gaming experience have to do with? I know how networks work, I can even design them. There are also plenty of PC games that don’t use dedi servers for when it’s deemed unnecesary like say borderlands with 4 player coop. I’m just saying you can’t get around the inferior nature of hosting games on someone’s residential connection on their machine - both in that they always get an advantage, and that their connection is certainly not ideal to be hosting that sort of thing. You’re not playing with the 360 over those connections anyways? Do we really have to continue the needless hijack? ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909/495 "2011-06-16T01:38:50Z")
Then the timer runs out. In TDM, a kill is a point for your team, a death is a point for the other team. If you kill more than you die, even if you’re a low score per minute camping asshole, you’re still going to win - how could you lose? You just might win after the timer runs out rather than racing to the score limit. > [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](#): > > You’re not playing with the 360 over those connections anyways? Do we really have to continue the needless hijack? I have a 360, and I’ve played on live before - I just don’t know why you think it’s relevant to the discussion of whether or not a player hosting a game confers an advantage to that player - it would do so on any platform. You said most xbox games don’t have that connection bias, as if the xbox somehow magically changed the rules of networking. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909/496 "2011-06-16T02:21:38Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Then the timer runs out. In TDM, a kill is a point for your team, a death is a point for the other team. If you kill more than you die, even if you’re a low score per minute camping asshole, you’re still going to win - how could you lose? You just might win after the timer runs out rather than racing to the score limit. > > I have a 360, and I’ve played on live before - I just don’t know why you think it’s relevant to the discussion of whether or not a player hosting a game confers an advantage to that player - it would do so on any platform. You said most xbox games don’t have that connection bias, as if the xbox somehow magically changed the rules of networking. That’s true, at least as far as the first part goes. There is a time limit. The problem comes with having an entire team that’s disciplined enough to camp and wait. Again, the connection bias I was talking about was Blops only, with regards to West Coast hosts. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909/497 "2011-06-16T03:35:51Z")
I have no idea why or how it would systematically prefer west coast hosts, that sounds strange. You’d think if they were going to deliberately build in a geographic component to evaluating who was host, they’d favor people from the center of the continent. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909/498 "2011-06-16T12:19:29Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > I have no idea why or how it would systematically prefer west coast hosts, that sounds strange. You’d think if they were going to deliberately build in a geographic component to evaluating who was host, they’d favor people from the center of the continent. Agreed, but that’s what it seems like. Treyarch is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, so that may have something to do with it. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909/499 "2011-06-16T18:01:47Z")
Is it possible to put bullets into a B-52 or Phantom dropping napalm? Can one shoot down a care package delivery? ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909/500 "2011-06-16T19:13:16Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > Is it possible to put bullets into a B-52 or Phantom dropping napalm? Can one shoot down a care package delivery? [No](http://callofduty.wikia.com/wiki/B-52), [no](http://callofduty.wikia.com/wiki/Napalm_Strike), and [yes](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe6cO-ERYoY). The care package will drop wherever the helicopter gets shot down. The best way to do it is a SAM turret, and if your opponent calls in the care package and it happens to come over the SAM turret at the edge of a map, the care package won’t even be retrievable. Also, when you hear they have a chopper gunner or something like that coming in, find out what side it’s coming on and get the launcher ready. You can lock onto it before it’s even firing or over the field of play. If your team works together, you can take it down before it even fires a shot. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909/501 "2011-06-16T19:25:00Z")
Interesting. Can an RPG bring down a Cobra with one shot? What about a China Lake or underbarrell launcher? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909.md?page=24) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-of-duty-black-ops/559909.md?page=26)