Problems with CoD : Black Ops multiplayer design. - EDITED

[Octorok]

I agree with a lot of these, but not with the bit about the claymores. There's a lot of ways to avoid them, including using flashbangs and stun nades, which disable equipment, or using hacker, which spots equipment through walls. If someone on the other team is using Hacker (and trust me, at least one person always is), with some decent communication the entire enemy team will know where each and every claymore on the map is. Add to that that fact that most people who use claymores place their claymores to guard a position that they're sitting at, and the claymore basically becomes a huge red sign that says "I'm right here, please lob a grenade into this room."

People only get killed by claymores when the claymore is well placed, and when the person in question wasn't careful enough to avoid the claymore. When you learn the spots that people normally place claymores, and you're more careful about how you visit those places, you're much less likely to die by claymores.

Are they powerful? Sure. In fact, unlike most equipment, when you place down a claymore at the perfect angle, and in the correct spot, you're almost certain to get a kill with it, but it does take some skill to use claymores effectively, and even when used properly, there are still ways of avoiding them. I really don't see them as overpowered at all. Also, they're great for balancing out those damn RC cars that everyone and their mom seems to use.

You'd be quicker getting a claymore to explode by flashing your tits than throwing a stun/flash grenade, those things don't work 90% of the time

If you think that the flashbangs and stun nades aren't working because they don't blow up claymores, then you're obviously doing it wrong. Flashbangs and Stun nades don't blow up claymores, they temporarily disable them, as represented by the claymores sparking. This also works on RC cars.

Yeah, it doesn't *really* work on RC cars, though, does it? You'll never see a car and be able to get off a grenade before it can have reached you, killed you, and raised family in your charred remains.

 

[legion431]

To quote Yahtzee: "You can't judge a game based on multiplayer because there are the things in the way of multiplayer the game can't help."

 

[Motiv_]

Definitely agree on the knife bit. I'm of the belief that it should be at least a 2 hit kill, except with the Ballistic knife perhaps.

Was playing Sharpshooter the other day, and the weapons switched over to L96AI's with ACOG sights. I was the only one actually shooting, everyone else just ran around knifing. It was extremely annoying.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

This is exactly why I don't play the COD games as they are just casual arcade FPSs. If I'm supposed to play the game for 100+ hours online, it better have deep, hard-to-master gameplay, COD does NOT have that. How could COD be the gold standard for online shooters when it doesn't even have something as basic as a proper spawning system? And, you forgot to mention health regen, that's a big no-no for online shooters as well.

Why is health regen a big no-no? Surely it's just a matter of preference?

I'd never argue that COD isn't arcadey but I prefer the fast pace of games with health regen. It just feels more action packed to me, I hate running around scrambling for health packs.

No health packs either. The reason health regen sucks is because 1) it's not realistic in the least (unless there's some technological reason like in Halo, it shouldn't be in a shooter) 2) it allows a player to run around in the open get shot (but not killed) then be able to get to the player that shot him and be on an equal footing when they meet when the person who got shot should be at a health disadvantage. Not to mention health regen makes teamwork less important. If I almost kill someone, a teammate should be able to come in for the easy kill.

I hope you have a PS3 or PC because the 360 has no hardcore shooters. Metal Gear Online is the most old-school, innovative, hardcore shooter this gen. MAG is the best console FPS this gen. Warhawk takes a great deal of skill to play as well. None of these games have moving spawns or health regen. And, hopefully SOCOM4 ends up turning out well.

Every game takes skill to master. Sure, COD has many annoying skill equalisers but if you go up against a team of organised, experienced players then of course you are going to need to be skilled to beat them.

Any online game is only as skillful as the people you're playing against.

Some online games are A LOT more skillful than others. COD only requires you to know the spawn system and stay away from your team to do well in TDM. In TDM, you can just camp or stay away from your team and kill the other players as they spawn in you general location and get your kill streak rewards. There is not much execution skill required once you are properly positioned as aiming is pretty simple. On the contrary, in Metal Gear Online, a high level team will still own a normal level team even if the normal level team has out positioned the high level team as a high level player will most likely kill a normal level player if shot at first. Oh, and COD is a FPS without leaning (why would any FPS not have this as the FPS control scheme is so basic?) while MGO, a 3rd-person shooter, has leaning while in 1st-person mode. The MGO controls take longer to master than the single player of COD.

COD just rewards camping far too much. In MGO, there's an item, the e-locator, that you throw like a grenade that makes it so all enemies can be seen within in a 15ft radius of where the eloc lands. If the team is camping, throw an eloc to expose them, simple as that.

And, then COD is all matching making so almost all the time when a good team parties up, they are going against random players so they will dominant. In MGO, you join rooms (instead of lame matchmaking) and can face equal competition. In COD, you literally have to use a 3rd party like GameBattles to set up even battles among clans, and COD still doesn't have clan support. In MGO there's survival (a mode where you put together a team and go against other teams) and tournaments (same as survival but tournament structure) every week. Also, COD has no way of telling who is a good player and who is a bad player as you just need to play the game to level up. In MGO, your level is based on how well you play not how long you play. Levels can be boosted but you can tell if someone boosted their level super easy as there is such a skill divide between player levels.

 

[Ramin 123]

I agree with a lot of these, but not with the bit about the claymores. There's a lot of ways to avoid them, including using flashbangs and stun nades, which disable equipment, or using hacker, which spots equipment through walls. If someone on the other team is using Hacker (and trust me, at least one person always is), with some decent communication the entire enemy team will know where each and every claymore on the map is. Add to that that fact that most people who use claymores place their claymores to guard a position that they're sitting at, and the claymore basically becomes a huge red sign that says "I'm right here, please lob a grenade into this room."

People only get killed by claymores when the claymore is well placed, and when the person in question wasn't careful enough to avoid the claymore. When you learn the spots that people normally place claymores, and you're more careful about how you visit those places, you're much less likely to die by claymores.

Are they powerful? Sure. In fact, unlike most equipment, when you place down a claymore at the perfect angle, and in the correct spot, you're almost certain to get a kill with it, but it does take some skill to use claymores effectively, and even when used properly, there are still ways of avoiding them. I really don't see them as overpowered at all. Also, they're great for balancing out those damn RC cars that everyone and their mom seems to use.

You'd be quicker getting a claymore to explode by flashing your tits than throwing a stun/flash grenade, those things don't work 90% of the time

If you think that the flashbangs and stun nades aren't working because they don't blow up claymores, then you're obviously doing it wrong. Flashbangs and Stun nades don't blow up claymores, they temporarily disable them, as represented by the claymores sparking. This also works on RC cars.

I really don't know why I said explode I meant stun.....wtf

 

[MiracleOfSound]

No health packs either. The reason health regen sucks is because 1) it's not realistic in the least (unless there's some technological reason like in Halo, it shouldn't be in a shooter)

I don't think realism is fun, so I have no problem with that

2) it allows a player to run around in the open get shot (but not killed) then be able to get to the player that shot him and be on an equal footing when they meet when the person who got shot should be at a health disadvantage. Not to mention health regen makes teamwork less important. If I almost kill someone, a teammate should be able to come in for the easy kill.

That's an interesting point. I can see how some would prefer it that way, I noticed in my short time in Halo that assists are valued more than they are in COD, it's much more of a team effort. People get mad about assists in COD but in Halo it's seen as really helping the team.

Then again, it makes free for all modes all about being a killstealing asshole

COD just rewards camping far too much.

This I can agree with 100%, especially with the motion sensor/ghost/claymore combo.
and the focus on building killstreaks

And, then COD is all matching making so almost all the time when a good team parties up, they are going against random players so they will dominant. In MGO, you join rooms (instead of lame matchmaking) and can face equal competition. In COD, you literally have to use a 3rd party like GameBattles to set up even battles among clans, and COD still doesn't have clan support. In MGO there's survival (a mode where you put together a team and go against other teams) and tournaments (same as survival but tournament structure) every week. Also, COD has no way of telling who is a good player and who is a bad player as you just need to play the game to level up. In MGO, your level is based on how well you play not how long you play. Levels can be boosted but you can tell if someone boosted their level super easy as there is such a skill divide between player levels.

That was a good read... I was unaware MGO supported its community in that way. I wonder why Treyarch/IW don't have Clan v Clan playlists? Seems like something that would be quite popular, especially if there were MLG type rulesets that disallowed the use of certain perks and equipment.

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

My only real complaints with the game stem from the users. We get it, the game has 4 overpowered guns. Give the other ones a try every now and then. You won't die if you don't win a round or two.

The other is with the map design. Since CoD1, the maps have always had the left path, the right path, and the middle path. Every CoD map has suffered from that formula and it's getting a tad boring.

Problem with the overpowered thing is why would you really bother using anything else? Sure we can say it would be better if we could use other things, agreed, but face it... no one is going to use anything less then the best.

For this reason they should of not bothered really making this weapon better then that, all weapons of the same class should be more or less the same with only minor differences... cause face it, that is how RL is. A Warsaw weapon or a NATO weapon, doesn't matter because the differences between the two don't make you any less dead to be shot with them. Between weapons using the same rounds the differences become even less, often coming to cosmetic changes!

One gun might have just a slightly better, and I mean slightly, accuracy over distances we don't see in games anyway or having a fire rate a tad faster that you would have to measure in milliseconds to notice the differences... cause lets face it, 30 rounds in a mag means you really are firing one weapon maybe half a second longer then the other before you have to reload anyway.

Weapons should simply be as close as realistic counter-parts, cause then it won't really matter what you use as all weapons will be effective.

Now the maps... I've ranted on maps sooooo often it isn't funny.

The whole railroaded problem that has existed since the earliest FPS is something I would easily fight against. These map limitations are, in my opinion, what makes every other problem faced with COD apparent. That people are forced to go through pre-determined positions makes it way to easy to abuse the perks and equipment to best effect. Not to mention it leaves just two tactics of use: Run and gun, and camp.

Forget real tactics, we would have to have a larger realistic map to be able to do that.

 

[Octorok]

To quote Yahtzee: "You can't judge a game based on multiplayer because there are the things in the way of multiplayer the game can't help."

That has literally nothing to do with our discussion. Good job.

I never said I was judging the game based on multiplayer, that's a bizarre presumption and you should read threads with more care in future before randomly posting irrelevant quotes.

 

[MaG iiC 3E]

I agree wholeheartedly. MW1 was the last good CoD game out there. Sure, it isn't perfect, but the knife is still a better humiliation weapon than something that instantly breaks CQC.

I think the whole "unlock" system that FPSes seem to keep using is what's pissing everybody off. People should be better because they play better, not because they have a better weapon addon.

 

[Octorok]

Snip

Any half-decent driver will be zipping through cover and moving constantly, making it a pain in the arse to hit wth a flash or stun grenade. Also linked to the cluttered maps - open areas for you to get RC cars in the wider spaces are few and far between.

 

[gphjr14]

Spawns are atrocious on several occasions. Especially in Nuketown which really should've just been a beta or demo stage not a map for online because you have dickheads who camp just at the back of the houses because they know you'll respawn at least 4-5 times in the same fucking backyard before the game realizes there's a whole 3/4 of the map for you to spawn in. In general its just a horrible map also I primarily play HQ to lvl up faster and this is always how the stage starts :

[http://img52.imageshack.us/i/screenshot9qa.jpg/]

SOG always starts behind Spetsnaz ALWAYS. I've gotten plenty of first blood medals just turning around and killing an enemy that are usually (not so much anymore) blindly chucking nades over the house.

Last stand DOES NOT need to be in MW3 its a ***** move and I talk shit online to anyone who uses it friend or foe. You get gunned down accept it and move on don't fuck the person over who killed you. If it must be in the next COD games give people less (a 10th) XP and cash for kills made during last stand. Also scavenger should supply gun ammo and grenades only not grenade launchers and claymores.

Knifing is too sporadic sometimes you get a lunge and others a swing and miss even though if you and your target were any closer you'd be siamese twins. It also depends on you and the person's connection I've been right on someone and gotten the jab animation only to have them 5 feet away unscathed.

It also depends on the version you have I've seen vids of the 360 version and its clear I along with other PS3 players got fucked over big time. The alleged update is widely seen as a failure because it was/is. The hit detection, weapon damage or whatever the fuck is the problem needs to be fixed because now Hardcore is about the only mode I can play. Normal modes it takes waaay more bullets to kill people than it used to.

First few days I was loving this but as more people got it and the patch its become unplayable
Only plus side is the loss of martyrdom, health boost, and way less kill streaks. No more campers racking up kills and ending an objective based game with a tactical nuke.

 

[Octorok]

Snip

Any half-decent driver will be zipping through cover and moving constantly, making it a pain in the arse to hit wth a flash or stun grenade. Also linked to the cluttered maps - open areas for you to get RC cars in the wider spaces are few and far between.

With that comes the assumption that most people who use the RC car are any good. This assumption is quite wrong. Most of the time, when someone using the RC-XD sees an enemy, they go after them in a perfectly straight line, without using any cover, and without making any attempts to dodge incoming fire.

This is also partly down to the fact that a lot of players will just charge, because they know their car is so small and fast. I'm just saying it takes a bad car driver, and a pretty aware defender to actually get the car out of action safely. And there aren't many maps where they can charge in a straight line for more than a few seconds through the open, this is all assuming you even see the car. If it pops out behind you, or it spawns right near you, you're fucked.

Also scavenger should supply gun ammo and grenades only not grenade launchers and claymores.

That's actually the way it works in black ops. Scavenger no longer resupplies anything except ammo, and hand thrown grenades. It does not resupply claymores or under-barrel grenade launchers.

It's a godsend, but I never said that Claymores were bad because they were refilled. Often the kill they get will be pretty inconsequential, but it's those times where you'll be running to plant the flag, get hit by a hidden Claymore from behind cover, which you could not have known about, and the enemy returns their flag, that you really wonder if you deserved to die that time.

But also, by the time you've respawned and hit the area again, knowing that the Claymore is gone, it's perfectly possible that anyone else has put another Claymore in the same area.

I understand that Hacker is the counter to this, and as such I do use it sometimes, but I shouldn't be pigeon-holed into using it because 9/10 people will just throw down Claymores everywhere, covering whole sections of the map that you are planing on infiltrating.

 

[Hosker]

Pretty good points; they're exactly what annoys me. Although I don't think spawns should be set. It would promote spawn camping and the game would be a lot slower overall.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

That was a good read... I was unaware MGO supported its community in that way. I wonder why Treyarch/IW don't have Clan v Clan playlists? Seems like something that would be quite popular, especially if there were MLG type rulesets that disallowed the use of certain perks and equipment.

Thanks for being understanding as most people aren't; I think most people see my anti-COD posts as just COD sucks and MGO is great, I have very valid reasons for opinions. Realism isn't a big thing for me either (MGO is far from realistic) but to me, health regen creates too big of a disconnect in a game that is somewhat going for realism; if a game is set in the real world, it should at least adhere to its most basic rules. I come off like I hate COD but I really don't. I had a ton of fun with COD4, which was my first FPS online experience. It's just that I see COD as a pretty casual, arcade FPS and there's nothing wrong with that. COD delivers a fun action-packed, movie-like single player (which it does very well) with a decent multiplayer. What I do hate is the gaming media (who give these games 9s) and COD players who think the COD games are the gold standard for FPSs and online shooters and think these games are sooooo HARDCORE. The online multiplayer has so many flaws, it's ridiculous and there's usually balance issues as well. How can COD be the gold standard for online multiplayer when it can't even get something as basic as a spawn system right?

 

[gphjr14]

Snip

Any half-decent driver will be zipping through cover and moving constantly, making it a pain in the arse to hit wth a flash or stun grenade. Also linked to the cluttered maps - open areas for you to get RC cars in the wider spaces are few and far between.

With that comes the assumption that most people who use the RC car are any good. This assumption is quite wrong. Most of the time, when someone using the RC-XD sees an enemy, they go after them in a perfectly straight line, without using any cover, and without making any attempts to dodge incoming fire.

This is also partly down to the fact that a lot of players will just charge, because they know their car is so small and fast. I'm just saying it takes a bad car driver, and a pretty aware defender to actually get the car out of action safely. And there aren't many maps where they can charge in a straight line for more than a few seconds through the open, this is all assuming you even see the car. If it pops out behind you, or it spawns right near you, you're fucked.

Also scavenger should supply gun ammo and grenades only not grenade launchers and claymores.

That's actually the way it works in black ops. Scavenger no longer resupplies anything except ammo, and hand thrown grenades. It does not resupply claymores or under-barrel grenade launchers.

It's a godsend, but I never said that Claymores were bad because they were refilled. Often the kill they get will be pretty inconsequential, but it's those times where you'll be running to plant the flag, get hit by a hidden Claymore from behind cover, which you could not have known about, and the enemy returns their flag, that you really wonder if you deserved to die that time.

But also, by the time you've respawned and hit the area again, knowing that the Claymore is gone, it's perfectly possible that anyone else has put another Claymore in the same area.

I understand that Hacker is the counter to this, and as such I do use it sometimes, but I shouldn't be pigeon-holed into using it because 9/10 people will just throw down Claymores everywhere, covering whole sections of the map that you are planing on infiltrating.

I'm not 100% on that because I remember a guy pre patch that camped in the building at the end of the street in Havana and he'd kill people plant claymores and never left. I ran into his claymore, respawned right near the building (of course) walked in the room got killed again by one of his claymores. Either he started with two claymores or he resupplied with scavenger.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Thanks for being understanding as most people aren't; I think most people see my anti-COD posts as just COD sucks and MGO is great, I have very valid reasons for opinions. Realism isn't a big thing for me either (MGO is far from realistic) but to me, health regen creates too big of a disconnect in a game that is somewhat going for realism; if a game is set in the real world, it should at least adhere to its most basic rules. I come off like I hate COD but I really don't. I had a ton of fun with COD4, which was my first FPS online experience. It's just that I see COD as a pretty casual, arcade FPS and there's nothing wrong with that. COD delivers a fun action-packed, movie-like single player (which it does very well) with a decent multiplayer. What I do hate is the gaming media (who give these games 9s) and COD players who think the COD games are the gold standard for FPSs and online shooters and think these games are sooooo HARDCORE. The online multiplayer has so many flaws, it's ridiculous and there's usually balance issues as well. How can COD be the gold standard for online multiplayer when it can't even get something as basic as a spawn system right?

Well, there ar a few reasons I thought of why we keep going back to it, I made a thread on it before but can't find it. Anyway the reasons were because of the fluid controls and how good it feels to play on a very basic level, the 60FPS smoothness, the pretty graphics and the fact that it uses cool looking real life guns that you can customise the way you like. All of these things for me outweight a game like BC2 which was far more balanced and fair but felt clunky and stuttery to control in comparison.

edit: here it is:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.227087-Call-Of-Duty-and-why-we-keep-going-back-to-it?page=1

 

[Octorok]

Snup

Well, it's not in the official Scavenger or Scavenger Pro description, but they could be wrong.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Well, there ar a few reasons I thought of why we keep going back to it, I made a thread on it before but can't find it. Anyway the reasons were because of the fluid controls and how good it feels to play on a very basic level, the 60FPS smoothness, the pretty graphics and the fact that it uses cool looking real life guns that you can customise the way you like. All of these things for me outweight a game like BC2 which was far more balanced and fair but felt clunky and stuttery to control in comparison.

edit: here it is:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.227087-Call-Of-Duty-and-why-we-keep-going-back-to-it?page=1

Yeah, I agree that COD has those qualities. I guess, I was on that COD high in COD4 as I'm not a PC gamer nor did I play online in the PS2/Xbox gen so it was a brand new experience to me. I didn't care about WaW because I don't like WWII shooters and I played MW2 online at a cousin's for an hour or so and I think I said "really?" like a thousand times; "there's thermal now, really?", "You're camping THERE in demolition, really?", "There's rewards for sucking, really?", etc. I was done with MW2 after that. COD really needs PUBLIC lobbies, which by default allows for private lobbies by just password protecting the room. Now, the only thing that really interests my in COD is the single player as the multiplayer no longer holds my attention because it's no longer new and gameplay is not deep nor hard-to-master. I'm not paying $60 for a 5 hour experience. Lastly, I don't really like the 1st-person perspective in games as I feel like I have tunnel vision when playing since I can see only straight ahead of me, I have no peripheral vision whatsoever to see things off to the side.