Well...
After my bro-in-law Brent left, it had me thinking that I was really close to being an "officer"* in the Halo 3 rankings and that I might as well dedicate a couple Saturday afternoon hours to "making the grade." I had 80-something exp and 7 highest skill for those of you who know, and I simply needed 3 ranked wins to get to 10 highest skill and secure my place in the corps and 2 (two!) achievements.
So Saturday, I entered the Ranked Lone Wolves playlist and started winning some games. But after winning a couple of games and not seeing my skill rise... I had to go look up what my problem was. Oh, so unlike EXP, SKILL only goes up by small amounts as determined by how soundly I beat or was beaten by others and what their comparative SKILL is. So, in other words, if I deserve to be a 7, I'll be always be a 7 regardless of how much I play. It's a measure of... erm... skill, and not... ahhh.... experience. (can you smell the lightbulb going off over my head?)
Well, I persevered and made SKILL 10 after about 8 games or so and saw I got my "lightswitch" Lieutenant rank. I waited for that little "pop" that tells you you're now just that much geekier than your peers who don't have as many achievements as you. IT NEVER CAME! Furious, I ran to Teh Innernets (LLC) to see why/how the achievements were glitched. Well, despite what all of the achievements have to say, I guess you don't get the achievements for achieving Lieutenant rank globably. You have to achieve it in any one of the super-many playlists. And for that you need 50 wins on any playlist. BLAST, I SPENT MY TIME GRINDING THE WRONG PLAYLIST!
Well, back to the salt mines. I did "have fun" whilst "playing" the "game" so I guess not all is lost... I just failed to... "achieve" something "worthwhile". The worst part is that I could have been spamming Team Slayer (my highest EXP at 25 or so) with friends and maybe having EVEN MORE FUN, but no... I went off and played Lone Wolves instead. :(
Does anyone here besides C3PX have/play Halo 3? We should set up an OT.com night sometime and get a bunch of players.
*That sound you hear is the sound of my non-cool geek factor going EVEN HIGHER! I was so shamed to explain to my wife that I was trying to be, and then eventually succeeded in becoming, an officer of the Halo 3 corps.