Hello, everyone. My name is Louis and I play Halo: Reach. A lot.
Okay, definitely not as much as your average teen (who already saw Captain America last weekend, so what else would he do this weekend?), but… I’d like to say definitely more than your modern, poor, adult writer.
That’s still not to say that I come home from work, drop everything, grab a headset and yell at dudes who can’t at least kill trade in SWAT for the entire night. Because, really, it’s not a daily obsession.
However, it’s probably worse. Because, for me, playing Reach revolves completely around my very unhealthy need for Credits (CR). Credits and, at the moment, getting to General rank (only 73625 CR to win!).
Unfortunately, this is an excellent visual representation of "73625 CR to win!" In short, "You'll never make it. Not until that mountain grows enough."
Yes. That’s right. In the shameful tradition of grinding based “Gamer Quirks”, I’m completely focused on attaining CR (that I don’t spend) to achieve a higher rank for my Spartan (which doesn’t matter at all in the social spectrum). Well, actually, okay–I do spend my CR… on armor I don’t want (because on your profile, they note how much of the available armor you’ve acquired). And it does matter socially because maybe, before a match starts, one of the dudes you’ve been paired up with (and who you’ll never see again) may take a moment to note that you’re a higher rank (98% doing so without looking at your Gamertag [which is at most three inches of screen away], so… maybe it does matter?).
No really, it doesn’t. And still, I fight for it. And maybe it’s because I’ve already done some of the most unhealthy grinding ever; my first ever serious marathon was in my third run through of Final Fantasy VII. Outside of Fort Condor, in the area where you first encounter Yuffie, I found out you can work on your Limit Breaks by fighting a bunch of flying bird things for hours and hours. There was absolutely nothing to stop you from getting all of the Limits if you were just unhealthy enough to sit there for hours working at it. So I did it–first for Cloud. Then for everyone else. And I mean everyone–the moment I got Cid, it was trips back to the woods outside of Fort Condor to finish up Limit Breaks. And after that first time, I always did it, even if I just didn’t want to. In fact, I’m sure that if I did another play through tomorrow, I’d do it again.
Worse than that was my Final Fantasy Tactics Mandalia Plains marathons. Before I get into it, I just have to say that even seeing the Mandalia Plains is enough to make me shutter now. Why? Because I’m not sure how long I was actually at it, but I swear it feels like I spent at least a year of my life on those Plains. How? Because when you start off the game, you have your intro and battle at Orbonne Monastery. Then you cut back to the past, have another intro battle, then head to Igros Castle, going over Mandalia Plains (for a plotted battle) to get there. After the fight on the Plains and the cinematic at Igros, you can walk back and forth between the two landmarks, triggering random encounters on the Plains and buying supplies from the castle. In short, you can stay there forever to level up your characters as much as you want. And how long did I stay there?
Until everyone in my party was level 99.
“What!?” you ask yourself. “You must’ve had a billion fights!” As if the truth makes this any better at all, I have to say no–there’s a system I created that can get you to level 99 in a handful of fights. Of course… they were (and I’m not kidding) each three-four hour long fights… I was a lot younger then (I remember my brother shoving me awake because I’d fallen asleep half way through a session and Mandalia Plains was sitting there, all rain and booming trumpets).
But I digress. All of this to say two things:
First, that it’s a challenge with Reach. I don’t fancy myself the grinding master of video game town (I will never, ever make level 99 in Symphony of the Night or Chrono Trigger), but an attainable high rank in a game I really love is something I have a very hard time passing up.
And second, it’s there, with the leveling strategy–with the horribly focused effort–where the ugly really comes out: your average Reach player accrues CR in multiplayer matches with other people. They interact and learn (experiencing, at least, a semblance of healthy society) even if they don’t use headsets.
But I get all my CR from Firefight, the game’s horde mode (specifically Score Attack, which puts you in horde mode without any other players [human contact]). And why do I so isolate myself? Because Score Attack has a pretty solid CR yield with no outside interference. For hours it’s just me and the bots, killing each other in the same exact ways over and over and over. And all the while, I’m only using pistols, or only machine guns, or aiming for sprees and multi-kills, all for the sake of earning Commendations (in-game awards that amount to [surprise surprise] big CR jackpots). So when I play Halo, it’s another complex, deeply strategic, lonely race for XP. A deceptively active (but still largely boring), never-ending grinding session that will eventually result in… Well…
See, that’s the problem: I know–I know–that it doesn’t really matter. At all. It doesn’t improve my life in any really positive way. If I ever get to one of those ridiculously lofty ranks (Noble, Legend), I’d just be very sad and disappointed in myself. But I still do it.
And, hopefully, that’s where this series of posts, CR to Win, comes into play.
My proposition: I post on occasion with my rank/CR progress and detailed stats about what I did to make it. Perhaps you can call it reality gaming? At any rate, I’ll lay bare my obsession, and hopefully we’ll both learn from it (because I know I’m not the only one who’s ever grinded for ever and ever for little reward). I’ll, of course, include constructive/social things I didn’t do because I was busy earning CR. And maybe, just maybe, at some point, I’ll really be able to stop grinding in Firefight for no good reason.
Tuesday, July 26th, 2011
- Play Time: Roughly 2 Hours
- Mode: Campaign (only because the weekly challenge [worth 10,000 CR] is to beat the game again on Heroic [even though you've already beaten it a million times]).
Note: I was mere seconds from investing those two hours into Score Attack when Darth Healthcare (Ken) couldn’t get his internet running. Good save, Ken!- Social Sacrifice: Man, this is already embarrassing; I didn’t attend a party I could’ve tonight. But it was not to sit home and play Firefight; it was to write, which I am doing, and because I have work early tomorrow morning!… Yeah, it still sounds unhealthy.
- Professional Sacrifice: Cooooouuuuld’ve been working on my novel with those two hours…
- Unhealthy In-Game Maneuvers: Killed every single tank we encountered as quickly as I could. Why? Because they’re floating, slow-moving Double Kills just waiting to happen and I’ve got a Multi-Kills in Campaign commendation to work on!… <sigh>
- Progress: About 4000 CR
Wednesday, July 27th, 2011
- Play Time: Roughly 2 Hours
- Mode: Campaign. I wasted a good amount of time killing Moa (indigenous animals in the background) to complete a challenge worth 2000 CR. This possibility of a more immediate CR yield resulted in Ken and I not devoting as much time as we could’ve to the weekly (so we’re really getting into my addiction hampering my addiction now).
- Social Sacrifice: None today. Aside from, ya know, maybe going outside? Breathing fresh air? Taking some new photos?
- Professional Sacrifice: I could’ve written a-whole-nother story for this very site.
- Unhealthy In-Game Maneuvers: All of it; I convinced Ken to waste time killing Moa with me instead of finishing the weekly and maybe having more free time on my weekend… Because I guess if I naturally word it like that, Reach is work?
- Progress: 4579 CR
Thursday, July 28th, 2011
- Play Time: About an Hour
- Mode: Score Attack. No one was around and all of the Daily Challenges were for Firefight. The sad thing? I turned on Reach just to get the image for this post (which means technically, I wasted way more time in-game than I would have you believe). Just before signing off though, I ruined my day by checking the Challenges. To my credit, I realized two of them were ridiculous and I didn’t even try.
- Social Sacrifice: Could’ve read more A Dance with Dragons so that my friends who are hundreds of pages ahead and itching to talk to me about it could stop hating me.
- Professional Sacrifice: Could’ve gotten more sleep before the super fun overnight I have to work tonight.
- Unhealthy In-Game Maneuvers: I sat there in matchmaking, continually passing on maps because there was one in particular I needed for one of the Daily Challenges. And then, I proceeded to get honestly upset when the map (Outpost) wouldn’t appear as an option to play on. And no, we’re not talking crying-upset but heavy-sigh-upset, sure… And only now do I realize just how stupid that is… I think CR to Win is starting to work! Although, I did at one point think, “I wonder if anyone on YouTube has pointers for gaining CR?” To which my brain replied, “You’re not going to find and FAQ about gaining CR. You’re not.” It was nice to hear my brain being so sure I wouldn’t. Because I’m not.
- Progress: 11766 CR
