Cheating

A common complaint regarding Halo's online play has been the widespread cheating which occurred almost immediately upon the game's release. Users exploited bugs in the game and vulnerabilities of the network to win ranked games and thus increase their matchmaking rank.

StandBying
The first forms of cheating that took place were standbying, in which a player would intentionally press the standby button on his or her modem so that everyone in the game would freeze except for the cheater, so that the cheater would be given time to accomplish an objective in the game.

Dummying
Dummying is another cheat that exploded in the Xbox Live community, in which an elite model of a character enters and exits a vehicle in a manner that on the cheater's screen his or her character is still in the vehicle, while on everyone elses screen the character is out of the vehicle and standing still. When the cheater finally decides to exit the vehicle, he or she can grab the flag and then warp back to the body that remains motionless in a different location.

Softmodding
Cheating also includes softmodding, in which a player uses devices such as Action Replay and computer programs to give his player unfair capabilities.

Bridging
Bridging involves computer programs that are used to give a player 'host' status and therefore give him/her the ability to disconnect other players from the game session.