My Love, Hate Relationship with S4 League

I play in the EU S4 League, and I love it, no I hate it, no wait, maybe I love to hate it?

If you have been playing S4 League within the last year you have probably seen me as BasiliskGaze, I am the one cruising around as a chick in glasses crushing your head in repeatedly with the so called most useless weapon in the game, the StormBat, just to prove I can, and either angrily shouting at you for lag exploiting to win, or belligerently yelling at my own team for sucking in general.

It’s quite appalling actually, and I do apologize for this behavior; it is the only game I continuously play that makes me so livid that I stoop to a level of immaturity that matches the majority of the players in it.

S4 League, for those that do not know is a free to play third person arena shooter with MMO elements tossed in to give a sort of feeling of progression.

Most modern shooters do this now so thats nothing particularly unique anymore, what is, is the games sense of fast, frenzied combat, it’s level of polished weapon balance, addictive “just one more round” gameplay, and near total lack of any real hackers.

This is what I love about the game and keeps me coming back.

What I hate about the game is the entire player base.

Thats right, You! You ruin this game!

You, with the ping over 350 happily swinging away with a Counter Sword, and killing people who were never even in range.

You, with the Gauss Cannon shooting completely through that wall in your base at the Tunnel map.

You, the guy that toggles your porn downloads on, and off to give yourself a “Lag Shield” on command.

You, the moron that rapidly spams the “BOOM!” emote every time your side wins a game, because you think that irritating ass sound is so hilarious, that no matter how many times you hear it, it will never get old.

You, the tool that flashes the macro, “Score brought to you by (Stupid name goes here) clan.” every time anyone on your side scores a point, even if you don’t know them.

You, the guy playing as a half naked girl standing in the base with a Simi Rifle shooting at the opponents base, but not actually hitting anything, because your too busy checking your toon out.

You, the one who lags so inconceivably hard on that wifi connection you are leaching off your neighbors, your avatar actually has an out of body experience, and start killing people who can not even see you.

And you, the one who has played the game constantly for months, and the only skill you have manage to develop is doing mechanically memorized jumps to score in Touchdown mode on the Subway’s and OldSchool maps, and acting like that alone makes you pro; I especially hate you.

Like Mos Eisley Spaceport “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

I have never encountered anyone in S4 League in all the time I have played I wanted to befriend; ever.

S4 has become my angry time game, I play it when I am angry, and want to drop a beatdown on some people that deserve it.

Almost everyone in this game deserves it.

I stay angry while I am playing it thanks to the myriad ways people have found to use the unending lag to stack the odds in their favor, and I log out angry because I almost never find a legitimate match where there is not at least one person using lag to try and fix the game for their team.

The lag is the root of all the evil, and most of my fury in EU S4.

In a totally unlaggy environment, S4 League is a perfect symmetrical, and balanced shooter. There is no omni weapon, or weapon skill combos that are game breaking, which is exceptionally rare, even when compared to western made shooters you actually have to play for.

But throw in the monkey wrench of lag into this delicate machine caused by players from all across the planet trying to connect to servers based in Britain, and the games finely tuned balance flies right the hell out the window, falls 12 stories, and lands on a spiked metal fence.

Certain weapons become virtually impossible to evade.

People die from shots fired after they already got behind cover.

Some people can become invincible, and sprint a ball clear across the map without ever running out of HP, or AP regardless of how long they run or how many bullets you embed into their skull.

The entire thing is a mess, and everyone is well aware of how to exploit it to their advantage, and almost all of them do.

Yet I continue to play, which I guess attests to the quality of the game itself, and my hope that once the US servers open up I can actually join games where everyone isn’t running with a ping over 300.

Then again it could just be the vindictive joy I get from repeatedly batting every single creature that dares cross me into infinity.

By, Justin Miller