Nine months had pa.s.sed, and he had both Myrmidon and Daedalus" accounts in Challenger. You had to be in the top two hundred ranked players on the server, in your region, to qualify for Challenger. These rankings were processed every twenty-four hours. So if you missed even a day your ranking could drop out.
This meant that they played both accounts every day.
Daedalus" account had acquired some deaths by the time he hit master, and now in Challenger, it was slightly tougher. Not much because he was predominately playing Master ranked players as well as a few Challengers.
In the European Region, which also included the UK, there were four million players of CyberMech.
After the first three months the price dropped, and after another three it dropped again. It was now only one bitcred a month, and you could pay off the cybernetic implant over twenty-four months. This meant that anyone who wanted to play, could. It was well within the standard wage as long as you did not have any other expensive hobbies.
Etana had two accounts in the top two hundred players out of four million, and he was only ten years old.
The Daedalus account kept rising and would be in the top ranking soon. It was often monitored by the GMs, but they never found anything amiss. Because nothing was. They were surprised to find he had turned off a.s.sisted manoeuvring until they found out he used an AI to a.s.sist. None of this was against the rules.
The Daedalus account was invited to a team for a professional match. He was a guest of a North American team. He had avoided clans, which was highly unusual, but pickup groups absolutely adored him, they always won when he was on their team. Many players queued solo when they knew he was playing, on the off chance they would be in his group.
All professional teams were organised, and he could probably not play professionally without joining one. Ranked league matches were eight versus eight, so a professional team usually had ten regulars with eight playing on any given day.
His first invitational match was at four am, as he was playing with Neo-angels in their region. They were a new pro team which contacted him a week earlier. It was supposedly a trial, but he would never move to New York, no matter the offer.
After getting rid of Cisse, he went back to sleep to prepare for the match.
Myrmidon: she is right you know. We should do some exercise.
Daedalus: you mean me. You merely ride along in my head.
Myrmidon: all the literature and other informative media sources have a common message that physical activity will improve health, increase your lifespan and even improve our gameplay in CyberMech.
Daedalus: you"re joking. How can physical exercise improve our gameplay?
Myrmidon: don"t take my word for it. Read for yourself.
And with that statement Myrmidon linked hundreds of articles, medical journals and white papers stating that physical exercise improved many attributes and functions used to play CyberMech. Including motor control, focus, lower stress levels, cognitive processing and subconscious problem-solving.
Daedalus: I don"t care.
Myrmidon: I suspect there is an illogical reason you do not care.
Daedalus: Correct!
The match between Neo-Angels and the number three ranked NA team Thresh started at four am Paris time which was seven pm LA time and the NA primetime for live streaming professional matches.
Daedalus was invited to play but was also being paid two bitcreds per kill with one being deducted per death. It was the best of five matches, eight versus eight, and unlike ladder matches no resp.a.w.n.
This type of match suited Daedalus much more, if he could take out an enemy, they would not resp.a.w.n. They would be unable to collect in the sp.a.w.n area and swarm him on ma.s.s.
He lined up with his teammates watching the countdown light go from red to yellow to green, and the buzzer sounded.
The team leader gave him an order, which he followed for thirty seconds before imagining a grim outcome.
Daedalus: sorry leader, I cannot follow this pattern.
Leader: do as instructed, we are paying you.
Daedalus: actually you are paying me for kills. If I don"t make any kills I don"t get paid.
Leader: breaking formation will…
Daedalus cut the comms.
Daedalus: let"s go wide the terrain is high on near the edge of this map it will give us their flank and height advantage.
Myrmidon: this is the most optimal course of action, thank you for ditching meatheads.
Daedalus had referred to his teammates as meatheads once and Myrmidon forever more referred to other players as meatheads. It did not go unnoticed that he was a lone wolf in what was a team game. His only deaths were when his enemy successfully boxed him in and was able to fire from multiple sides. This rarely happened, even with hundreds of matches in master and challenger
Daedalus KD ratio was still by far the best in all of CyberMech.
His play style and stats caused a ma.s.sive amount of hate for him in the game forums, where they were text, audio or video, all of which he ignored.
One of his teammates followed him to the western edge of the map, this was fairly normal, players tended to follow him in ladder matches as well.
His current mech was tuned for speed, agility, manoeuvrability and firepower. Armour which was quite expensive in terms of weight and points was dumped to the bare minimum. With this extreme tactic, he had to dodge every beam, railgun round, flamethrower, grenade and worst of all missile thrown at him.
He quickly left the friendly mech behind while zigzagging between buildings. If he topped them, he would be seen for long range, which was something he avoided. The loadout on his configuration labelled cheetah was merely a sword lance and a railgun. The two highest damage weapons if used correctly.
Myrmidon: I predict the professional opponent will come through the centre with two long-range heavy railgun mechs atop the buildings, four close combat types on the ground with the remaining two hunters roaming, hiding and scouting. They have two main engagers, the long-range Hawkeye and the speedy roamer Rex the team revolves around these two.
Daedalus: What"s their maximum range on this map?
Myrmidon: four hundred meters. But only three hundred with high accuracy.
Daedalus: ok, lets camp and if an opportunity arises we circle behind or take out a roamer.
Normally a mech would not have been able to reach this position without being spotted by an enemy roamer. But that was because a normal mech did not have the speed of Cheetah extreme. Plus they had used every opportunity to block LOS (line of sight) from the north.
Their senses started picking up movement noises, the minimap pinged.
Myrmidon: false ping, the enemy, is lobbing city structure parts ahead of themselves.
Daedalus: Bricks or broken off staircases?
Myrmidon: cl.u.s.ters of bricks
They would use this against the enemy. The enemy laid a trap for them by creating a false ping to lure them out. Daedalus doubted many other players could calculate false pings and the origin, mainly due to the fact they did not have a competent AI like Myrmidon.
Myrmidon: ninety percent probability the false ping is Rex.
Not surprising given he was one of two roamers and one of their engagers. His tactic was probably to lead back either the initial contact or better yet the second wave of revenge attack to the main group.
Myrmidon created a hologram overlay showing the optimal path to take to avoid detection and to create a flanking opportunity on Rex for their medium to long Railgun distance.
Within moments Rex was in sight, standing next to a large pile of bricks, his lance and flamethrower sheathed. The combination of lance and flame was common amongst close combat mechs. The two weapons possessed the highest burst damage in the game and were short range. In Daedalus" opinion, it was a poor loadout which only worked well against tactically weak foes.
It only took him moments to line up a shot with Myrmidon"s holographic crosshair and railgun level guide. He did not hesitate to pull the trigger, players as good as Rex could instinctively sense danger and move, just from a feeling of being watched. Daedalus had learned to never pause, never delay. Fire and move.
The round was set at the maximum velocity which gave it the poorest accuracy and the highest damage.
The poor accuracy attribute did not phase them, they easily compensated for it with a perfectly calculated trajectory and motion prediction.
The round entered through the side of Rex"s head, it was a critical hit to the smallest and most vulnerable target.
The HUD showed the kill to all players.
Daedalus had blocked his teammates, so he did not hear the congratulations followed by the yelling as the enemy engaged them.
What he did see was the scroll of his teammates dying one by one in quick succession until only him and the rogue, the player which attempted to follow him to the western edge of the map, remained.