Thu Dec 20, 2012 8:44 pm
Lots of reasons, I always try to improve. I'm not really that good, just good at long-range because most people don't seem to try to control the flinch. Also confidence doesn't mean competence. I know what the weapon will do and I know what I can do with it, so I'm confident with my DMR that whatever happens with it is supposed to happen. I HAVE become pretty confident about my own competence at long range with it, especially when people are fighting back, because aside from a few situations (one of which I'll detail below) I just tend to win long range fights with it. People seem to think that their landing shots is a way of keeping you from doing the same, that's a mistake.
In one game on Complex I kept losing straight up long range fights against this one specific guy. That's OK, I know there are tons of people who are better than me at this game, but you can feel it when someone is just that much better than you. This guy didn't play especially intelligently or interestingly, he just wanted to snipe while we played the objective. On multiple occasions I got the drop on this guy at range and he'd just turn and pop my shields with a sniper rifle with minimal effort. When we saw each other at the same time and just straight-up DMRed each other he won every time. Nothing fancy going on, no cool strafes, no higher ground, no evidence whatsoever that he was doing anything to dodge my shots since they kept hitting. His just hit faster and I lost all those fights. The only conclusion I could draw is that he was just much better at controlling his flinch than I was (I'm not great at it, I just do it when most people don't) OR he was running Stability. If it was the latter than the difference was incredible.
To control flinch you just pull down on your stick, simple as that. Stability halves flinch, so your reticule has half as far to travel as everyone else's in order to return to target. Your sensitivity will affect how fast you can move your reticule. The DMR kills at the same speed no matter what your range to the target, the only thing that slows it down are misses, adjusting to the target's new position (They're strafing), and flinch because it has to pull back down to target before it's ready to fire (same effect as a strafe, just your problem not your enemy's). There is no bullet travel time, so you either slow it down by how you aim or you get hit and have to adjust. Stability decreases the amount you must adjust, thereby shaving a tiny fraction of a second off, and lets you get the 5th shot in before the bad guy.
I have no problem admitting when someone is better than me, most of the time you can't actually judge a player's overall skill by their performance in one game though. The answer to that question isn't actually important. He and I were mostly playing the same way though, especially when it came to DMRing each other. The consistency of his victories made me think he must have had an edge, because even if you're worse than someone you'll get them every once in awhile.
The reason I suspect Stability will be big is because the DMR is big and marksman rifles are big and sniper rifles are big. They don't scope out when hit anymore, so people are adapting to that and fighting scoped more often. It's one of those things unique to Halo 4, so the thing that affects it is going to be popular. Even if people weren't scoped as often, whatever the marksman rifle is in a Halo game is the top tool of destruction for most players. Something that affects those fights, which are common, will become common. Just like the DMR only kills a moment faster than a BR though, people are going to use the thing that shaves that blink of an eye off their kill time.
^ Credits to Mics R4 Chumps