In-Depth Suggestions for Modern Warfare by a CoD Veteran (Long)

edit: for some reason, my first post was removed. If any moderators could let me know if I've broken any rules before removing again, I would highly appreciate it.

First of all I would like to take the time to thank all of the devs and everyone who worked on the game, because regardless of how you perceive the game right now, it’s obvious they all worked really hard on this project.

I think the reason for a lot of the player base having very emotional reactions to this game is that we can see the potential that it has. Modern Warfare has the best weapon customization in CoD history (maybe in all of FPS history) with great gunplay, art design, free DLC, no loot boxes and the ability to play with friends on other platforms. So, when you see someone being irrationally upset over the design choices for the game, just know that the reason they’re so emotionally invested is that they can see how great the game could be, but is being held back.

I feel similarly, and just wanted to write up a level-headed response to the dev team in hopes that this game is not just wasted potential. For context: I have been playing Call of Duty since the original game released on console, played online since CoD3 and have competed in online ladders and online/LAN tournaments since CoD4; unless major factors are changed, this will be the first CoD in history where I do not reach level 55 (or whatever pre-prestige max level is per game) and the only CoD I will not have played competitively. For comparison, I have over 380 hours in Black Ops 4 (maybe 50hr from the first week?), but about 10 hours total in MW (first time where I was done with the game after the first day). edit: Bo4 hours are just used as a comparison since it is the previous game, I have similar play time in each CoD other than MW.

I’m not a game developer by any means, so excuse me if there are suggestions I make that are impractical, or clash in some way with core game mechanics or design philosophy.

General:

• Mini Map – The original mini map needs to be reverted ASAP; I don’t see a compromise that the core player base would be happy with at the moment. Suggestions were made in the beta about wrapping the compass on the outer edge of the mini map; however, I feel that we’re too far gone to implement this now. Fans are burned by the approach the devs have been taking regarding criticism since the beta, and it doesn’t help that this makes two games in a row where one of the most core mechanics in CoD is meddled with (Bo4 Fog of War).

• Maps – If anyone from IW has been on social media since release, they know fans’ feedback regarding the launch maps. From a consumer perspective, I feel deceived when head developers admit to catering the maps and game mechanics to players who are not their average user. I understand that maps shouldn’t be LIMITED TO a traditional three lane layout, but that doesn’t mean the 6 6v6 maps included with a $60 game should be designed in a way that is meant for little league baseball coaches with a miller light addiction to get 4 kills and 9 deaths versus 2-24. “3 lane maps” have just become a buzzword at this point, where the majority doesn’t even know what it means and how lanes affect game flow. Due to the unoriginal and repetitive maps in the recent titles, most people think frequency is a bog standard 3 lane map, but raid, slums, crash or strike aren’t. There is a reason the highest regarded maps of all time use a three lane layout (Dust2, Inferno, Midship, The Pit, Raid, Slums, Crash, Strike, etc.), just because a map has three lanes doesn’t mean it can’t be unique.

  • Additionally, unless you hop between game modes regularly, you likely feel the game has very little to offer map-wise. Ground war only has 2 maps, players who play gunfight have 7 small maps and 6v6 public match has 6.
  • To summarize: The maps offered on launch, have terrible flow, sightlines, objective placements, spawns and are too cluttered in general. I don’t want to speak for the community when mentioning remastered or DLC maps, since it is largely subjective, but personally I am suggesting to focus on remastering MW2 and MW3 maps. We just had MWR 3 years ago, so a remaster of CoD4 maps may feel a bit repetitive.
    

• Modes – Game modes are almost in a worse spot than maps at the moment; the game launched with 5 core modes (TDM, Dom, SnD, Cyber Attack, HQ), the least in the series. Sure there is hardcore, realism and I assume NVG will be added soon, but typically players tend to stick to their respective playlists, so only a small minority will play both standard AND hardcore; this leaves both parties with limited ways to play the game.

  • Hardpoint is an integral mode to both the public match and competitive CoD scene, but was left out at launch for the second time by IW (Ghosts). Understandably, spawns are very difficult to nail for this mode because there are so many moving pieces and variables to account for, but that shouldn’t mean that a top 5 popular mode should be left out completely in public matches. I suppose the decision was made by the team to launch the game with Headquarters to reel in players via nostalgia and assume that dedicated players wouldn’t mind because the modes are similar IN THEORY. In reality, HQ and HP play completely different, especially in MW. In HP, you must always have one player in the objective and the rest of the team fighting for map control in order to spawn closer to the objective than the enemy. Compared to Headquarters, which is a clown fiesta until the point is captured, followed by the defending team playing as passive as possible due to no respawns.
  • This is totally a personal opinion and in no way objective, but the lack of hardpoint is almost as significant of a reason as SBMM and map design for me not playing the game; I have spent more time playing bots in hardpoint than I have playing public matches.

• Kill confirmed is highly regarded by core public match players and uses similar spawn logic to TDM, yet still left out.

• Search and Destroy has a lot of problems at the moment, bomb sites and player spawns need to be adjusted ASAP; for example, on St. Petro, B bomb site is located in the defending players’ spawn and the offense reaches A bomb before defense, making it an easy win for offense. I do not have all of the answers for this problem, so I implore IW to reach out to professional players to determine the fixes needed for offense/defense timing.

• Additionally, there is no viable third game mode for the competitive scene and the Call of Duty League. In the CDL Ruleset v1, DOMINATION is accompanied by Hardpoint and S&D. Domination is not a competitive mode in the slightest, being: you can win while only holding one point, ties can occur, the game can be mathematically impossible to win while there's still time left, one side is easier to hold two points (the team with the better side of the map on second half is poised to win if they have streaks from the previous round) and in this game you cannot neutralize an enemy flag (thanks to /u/EightBitNacho). Dom is not indicative of the level of skill professionals have, in a competitive setting it plays like this: win initial gunfights for map control, capture B flag, play passively holding map position, acquire kill streaks to snowball your lead into the second half and grenade flag points when needed. It is incredibly boring to watch as a spectator, and as a competitor it is in no way unique and does not allow individual talent to shine.

  • A different game mode for esports needs to be added immediately; typically the third mode is Capture the Flag, but I’m sure the community would be open to try Demolition or any other mode that hasn’t been a failure as a competitive game mode in the past.

• SBMM – Hands down the biggest reason for why I and many others have quit playing the game. I understand that IW doesn’t want new players to have a poor first experience, but sacrificing higher-skilled players’ and the core of your player base’s experience IS NOT THE SOLUTION. At higher MMR, every single match plays the exact same way, this is not a hyperbole. The best players in the game are the best for a reason, they use their years of experience to learn the game faster than everyone else. Thus, if you are in this skill bracket, you are limited to using the most efficient loadout and playstyle to even keep up with the enemy team (which makes going for camos on non-meta weapons incredibly frustrating). This is perfectly fine in a ranked mode, considering the goal would be to have the highest win percentage possible, but for public matches, this leads to stale and frustrating gameplay. I’ve seen criticism from casual fans, stating that if you are playing against “sweats,” then, by SBMM logic, you are as well. To give some insight to players with less experience, at an arbitrary threshold of skill, some players will be better than the average, even when they are not trying. After perfecting the main mechanics in CoD (shooting, map control, movement, etc.), everything else is pretty trivial; this is the reason why someone like Shroud, who doesn’t play much CoD, can drop several nukes in the same day, he has exceptional fundamentals which compensates for his lack of loadout/map/spawns knowledge.

  • This is a bit ridiculous, but let’s use basketball as an example. Do you not think LeBron could dominate the local YMCA using only his left hand while wearing an eyepatch and playing in flip flops? Should he be forced to play against NBA talent at all times, even when not playing competitively?
  • Matchmaking should prioritize CONNECTION ONLY. Variance in player-skill over all players is inherently RANDOM, thus making connection-based matchmaking balanced, over the entire duration of the game’s life. With CBMM, newer plays will get demolished some games, true, but will also do well in others; this creates variety, making every game feel different and each kill more rewarding.
  • Personal opinion: even if every issue in the game is fixed other than SBMM, I will still not play the game again.
    

• Killstreaks – I understand a majority of the marketing for this game used nostalgia to lure in players who have left the series since 2010 or so. However, we shouldn’t revert back to a system that is objectively more flawed for the sake of marketing. Killstreaks in culmination of other problems this game has led to the slow paced and boring playstyle active today. I believe the killstreak system should be overhauled completely and turned into scorestreaks by default, with the pointman perk changing them to killstreaks. This not only changes the pace of the game due to objective incentives, but makes users who prefer to play for killstreaks choose pointman or ghost, which would give a counter to people playing passively (if you choose pointman to play for killstreaks you will show up on UAVs – discouraging camping, while if you use ghost you are more inclined to capture objectives to inch closer to scorestreaks).

• Footstep Audio – I’m really proud of this community for speaking up against the abysmal audio design for footsteps in this game. Normally, footstep audio is critiqued by competitive players only (the best players in the world disagree with getting free information from across the map, who knew?); I suppose the outcry from the average player is a testament to how loud footsteps are this year compared to previous games.

  • I’m sure IW is already working on this, but just to reiterate: overall footstep volume should be lowered and crouch walking/walking while ADS should be 100% silent; leaving current audio for double sprinting is fine, as there should be a downside for moving faster.
  • Currently, crouch walking is still very loud which sets off an explosion of balance issues: No option to silently move > Dead Silence is a crutch > Can’t use trophy system field order because you need DS > Have to run EOD and Battle Hardened because you don’t have a trophy system > Grenades and tacticals become useless because every player is using counter perks > Can’t use other perks in slot 1 and 3 because you have to run EOD/BH > Killstreaks are overpowered because you can’t use cold blooded unless you want to die to grenades.

• Movement Speed – The base movement speed was obviously nerfed since the beta, which I think many players were okay with. The pace of the game in its current state is way too slow, and discourages moving. Professional players mastered the movement in the beta, using double sprint in combination with jumping to “camera” (see the enemy around a corner before they see you), which is probably a reason why the team decided to lower the overall movement speed. I would suggest reverting back to the base speed of the beta, while giving more downsides to double sprinting (louder footsteps, slower sprint out time, slower time to jump after).

• Doors – The addition to doors is very unique and I applaud IW for innovating, but they have no place in competitive. Doors essentially function as a non-lethal claymore; for example, let’s say you have the bomb planted in a building in Search and Destroy: all you have to do is keep doors closed in order to block lines of sight, can use process of elimination to determine where the enemy players are located and if someone opens a door you will hear it and can check that location.

  • There needs to be an option in private match to have open doorways for the esports ruleset.

• Battlechatter – This is obviously a hot topic at the moment, and for good reason. I’m not going to beat a dead horse here, but your battle chatter should only be heard by your teammates in public matches and DISABLED COMPLETELY for competitive. You shouldn’t gain free information just because your player model spots a pixel of an enemy across the map; this inherently lowers the skill gap and lessens the importance of communication.

• Hip fire Headshot Multiplier – I’m surprised I haven’t seen anyone mention this yet, but if it’s not fixed I am expecting the community to be up in arms about it by January at the latest. I don’t agree with headshot multipliers being in any game with flinch (dying first to someone you shot first because they get a free headshot is not fun), but I could live with it if headshot multipliers were disabled completely for hip fire. Why should someone be rewarded with higher damage based entirely on randomness? Hip fire is based entirely on RNG, and being 1-tapped by a deagle hip fire may be the most infuriating thing in this game.

Perks/Field Upgrades:

• Dead Silence – Needs to be a perk in slot 2, players would choose to either: have silent footsteps, not show up on UAV, or enable killstreaks.

  • Regardless if that is possible, please consider making double-sprint not 100% silent. You already get a movement speed buff with DS, so players with DS available have an advantage over others with no real downside at all (similar to ability usage in Bo4 or Overwatch, the player with the ability up has a massive advantage). This just turns into whoever makes better use of their DS in SnD wins, rather than player skill/map knowledge.

• Trophy System – Needs to be tactical equipment, not a field upgrade. This would lower the amount of grenade spam by the trophy’s use and also mitigating the amount of tacticals thrown due to having to choose a trophy over a smoke/stun/flash.

• Ghost – Needs to only work while moving, when ghost is active at all time it promotes staying in one place because the only way the enemy team can know where you are w/o a mini map is by seeing you physically.

• EOD – Should delay claymore explosives, easy counter. As it is right now, claymores still make you weak when using EOD, which is an easy kill for the player who set the claymore.

Equipment:

• Claymore – Remove explosive radius behind the lasers and delay explosion when double sprinting. There is no way to counter claymores without EOD, even if you use Spotter, you typically can’t get an angle on a claymore behind a wall.

Attachments:

• Thermal – Absolutely needs to be able to see through smoke grenades; without a counter, smoke grenades are ridiculously overpowered (see WW2). Without being able to see through smoke, it completely negates the rock-paper-scissors balance of smokes-thermal-cold blooded (If the other team is using smokes, you put on a thermal scope. If you’re using smokes and the other team is using thermals, you use the cold blooded perk. If you’re using the cold blooded perk, you can’t use EOD and can die by a grenade).

  • The best teams in the world who are winning all of the SnD tournaments online have just been running 5 smokes and Dead Silence: smoking an area of the map and running 100% silently through the smoke to gain map control at no downside at all.

• Extended mag – Not really a huge deal, but I can see this becoming a problem in the future because there is no real downside compared to its infinite upside.

Weapons:

I will admit I am not as knowledgeable on weapon balance for this game yet, just because the M4 is hands-down the best weapon, and there is no reason to use any other gun.

• M4 – Overall the best weapon in the game. It is the jack of all trades and has ZERO downside to using it. It has great recoil control with attachments, great base range, great hip fire accuracy, fast fire rate, fast strafe speed with Singuard stock attachment.

  • There needs to be either some large downside to using the M4, or make it the “decent at everything, great at nothing” weapon.

• MP5 – MP5 would be the best weapon in the game if the maps were smaller. The 10mm magazine attachment is ridiculously overpowered and gives the weapon M4 levels of range. I think the weapon is pretty balanced with normal 9mm bullets, so perhaps just nerfing the range or recoil on the 10mm attachment would suffice.

• MP7 – If the MP5 and M4 deserve a nerf, then the MP7 definitely needs adjustment. This weapon can literally kill across the ground war maps; the damage isn’t as great as the MP5, but if you hit your shots it’s deadly long range. Recoil needs adjusting or range needs to be nerfed IMO.

• PKM – This will be the best weapon in the game if they nerf the M4. You can kit this weapon out to have similar movement and ADS speed as an assault rifle. I don’t really use LMGs since they are typically banned in competitive, so I have no suggestion on how to nerf this weapon other than higher recoil.

• 750 – Should’ve just called this the model 1887, needs a massive range nerf.

• FAL – Recoil is terrible, it seems it veers up and to the right which is odd for a single shot weapon.

Honestly other than that, the weapons seem pretty balanced for the most part.

Bugs:

Not going to waste your time here talking about known bugs that are mentioned often, but ones I feel that need addressing that haven’t been acknowledged yet.

• When killing the bomb carrier in Search and Destroy, the bomb floats mid-air.

• You are able to tell when an enemy player is defusing the bomb in SnD at any spot on the map.

• You can see enemy names through smoke and doors (doesn’t seem consistent).

That’s all that I can think of off the top of my head, but will come to update the post later if more arise.

Thank you to everyone who made it this far or read any of this post, if any devs are reading this I really appreciate the work you’re doing and hope you consider making a few of these changes.

One final note:

If anyone at IW, Treyarch, SHG or Activision is reading this, please consider hiring someone with in-depth knowledge of how CoD plays as kind of a liaison between devs and players. I believe there is a large disparity between developer in-game skill/knowledge and their game development knowledge; the Call of Duty devs are the best in the business, that’s why they are the ones working there, but from what I’ve seen (maybe anecdotal) devs spend so much time creating awesome games that they don’t have the time to play, which causes them to make odd balancing choices. I think hiring former professional players would be beneficial because they could serve as a guide to developers on why game mechanics work and what balancing means to the pace of the game.

Submitted November 01, 2019 at 02:40PM by walrxs https://ift.tt/2q8DPyz