Red Orchestra Dev: CoD Has Ruined A Generation Of Gamers

[Andy of Comix Inc]

I'm no CoD supporter/fanboy etc., but their map design is reeeeeeally good. And the actions is not so much flinch trigger based, as say CS:GO...CoD games just have really good gameplay.

I hate to be that guy, but... wait, no. I don't.


Call of Duty is the most flinch-based, skill-less shooter I've ever played. The original Unreal Tournament had more depth than CoD ever has - save perhaps for CoD2. The maps are too small to provide any real tactical opportunity and it usually boils down to whoever is seen first gets killed first. Games with larger health bars provide a degree of tactical gunfighting... games like CS:GO where perma-death is switched on every round encourage more careful, meditative play...

Call of Duty is a popcorn shooter, a game where you can switch it on and get points and unlock weapons and level up. Which is fine! That's cool! Nothing against that! But to say CoD has depth is blatantly untrue.

 

[deathbydeath]

It's because it does well what 'most' fps players clamour for; fast paced and responsive gunplay that makes you feel like a badass. It's done what Doom and Quake did back in the day.

No, Doom and Quake were about 'dogfighting', really fast movement, and positioning on the map. Cawadooty is about centering your targeting reticle around a person with red text over their heads and then pushing a button. Maybe grenades and killstreaks if you're really good at that.

Take this Q3 video for instance:


And compare it to this BLOPS 2 video:


(To be fair, I haven't watched all of the BLOPS 2 one because my audio is dead right now, so I just picked it out at semi-random)

My point: Call of Duty, as a trend/phenomenon/whatever, has both done miracles and fuck over the multiplayer FPS market (at least on consoles). I admit, it is a wonderful introduction to that genre of gaming, but because of dog piling and annual releases it has stunted the expectations of MPFPS players, as they haven't been given a chance to "grow out" of it and move in to other games requiring more skill and dedication on the player's part.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Oh what a load of pretentious wank. I'm used to the CoD players are all morons nonsense from forum goers but its just sad to hear it from an actual dev.

Dude, read the whole article!

He's not saying the CoD players are idiots at all, but that CoD's constant spoon feeding gives a lot of players a false sense of security, one which puts them off when they go to other games and find that actually, they don't get that constant drip-feed from other games.

He's completely right too, outside of CoD it's pretty much wrote that you spend the first few hours of play in an FPS online dieing horribly, then you learn. I know some people who play nothing but CoD online, year after year they jump from the same mechanics and maps to the next game with the same mechanics and maps. There's no progression and on the rare occasions they get persuaded to try something else they often assume their getting twanked is because of a problem with the game, not because they need to learn new skills.

 

[teebeeohh]

did he just call fallout a shooter? because of he did he really should turn in his hardcore member card.

the new ones became more of a shooter than an rpg....

they really are not
just because of the perspective and the option to use guns is there does not make it a shooter(in the fps kinda sense)

 

[Vault101]

did he just call fallout a shooter? because of he did he really should turn in his hardcore member card.

I noticed that too.....kind of made me wince

 

[anian]

Call of Duty is a popcorn shooter, a game where you can switch it on and get points and unlock weapons and level up. Which is fine! That's cool! Nothing against that! But to say CoD has depth is blatantly untrue.

I didn't say it was "deep", but gameplay is interesting for what it is and it's fun and it is polished. I do hate how it has taken over and I do hate the whole annual releases though.

But I agree on the rest, it's basically what I meant, for what it is, CoD is good. It's not supposed to be a realistic battlefield tactics game, but more of a close combat skirmish. That is also what makes room for games which have other kind of battle tactics and gameplay included.

As a really bad twitch shooter, that had really bad fps on Black ops 2 for example, it really is not based on who has better reflexes (not that it doesn't help, but it's not crucial to get kills if you just don't run around).
And I really didn't get the part about "skills", if you play this game you'll get better, you'll see different stuff works better. I really don't see which FPS requires skills so much more that CoD is worthless.

 

[Chessrook44]

Welcome to the MMO Genre, dude, where everyone wants to be like WoW, and everyone wants it to be like WoW.

At least people are starting to get tired of it and want more. Wait another 5, 10 years and the COD lovers will start to fade away a bit.

 

[VanQ]

I think if you offer the CoD players something worth their time that they'll be willing to turn in their instant gratification card and attempt to get better at shooters. My younger brother was the most dedicated CoD player you'd ever meet but after a few games of TF2 with me pocketing him as a Medic so he could get the hang of things, he never went back.

He's one of the best Demoman players I've ever seen to date. A better Demoman than myself (though I can play every class well and he can only play Demoman! I've still got pride as the big brother!) and he's really a credit to team!

 

[Daverson]

Well maybe if he offered them hats...
But then he would have to remember that Team Fortress 2 exists, which would undermine his whole point.

Well, this is awkward... [http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Promotional_items#Red_Orchestra_2_-_Heroes_Of_Stalingrad]

 

[TheComfyChair]

He's right (not the escapist extract, the whole article) to a degree. CoD is an 'easy' FPS, but a dangerous one. It tells players they could swim in the ocean in a hurricane whilst in reality they're paddling in a inflatable pool wearing water wings. So when players go to a 'real' FPS, they suddently feel like they've been dropped into the deep end without ever learning to swim, so they cling to CoD.

In the past, if you played a game, it could lead you onto other games within the genre. With CoD, you simply don't learn the skills to ever be competant elsewhere. No-one likes to feel like they've gone from being good to abysmal, even if the 'good' was only smoke, mirrors, and killstreaks.

 

[Kargathia]

Red orchestra isn't a common multiplayer FPS.

More often than it not its a full blown realistic bolt action rifle sniping competition. Except no one uses scopes because scopes are restricted.

I'll have to disagree here - scopes are very much in demand, mostly because they give a significant advantage spotting things at longer ranges.

And that's the problem.

Its 99% sniper competition, no actual movement or incentive to move. Just like real skirmish warfare is. You plop yourself down and make extreme range shots in the middle of fog and snow storms. You don't even get to see where the bullet came from or who killed you.

Generally speaking you don't see where the bullet came from, you have to -know- where the bullet came from, as exposing yourself to an overly wide arc of potential incoming fire is suicide.
The major problem here isn't that it fails at what it's trying to do, the problem is that its goal is incredibly niche.

And on top of that its trying to be brutally cynical. The dialogue tries to personify the soldiers to try to make you feel like an asshole, the dialogue tries to convey the death of a real person opposed to a silent robot. Just like WWII movies do.

"Congrats! You got a kill! Except it was a drafted husband and loving father, His last moments were of extreme pain, and now his children and wife will starve and grieve their loss. Hope you feel good about yourself you ass."

Correct, minus the guilt-tripping. Your character is pretty damn stoked about it.
A good portion of the voice-acting seems to be intended to convey a sense of threat - you're not meant to idly shrug off an artillery bombardment, or an MG opening fire on your position. Again, this is an incredibly niche effect - especially as it goes against the normal narrative of the protagonist being a superhuman badass with nerves of diamond-encrusted wolfram.

So its trying to be a hyper realistic skirmish simulator, complete with guilt tripping mechanism that may or may not work depending on the person.

And honestly when I say it out loud, did they expect this to be a huge hit?

Aye, it really does boil down to this, doesn't it? They've picked themselves a very narrow niche, and made a game for that. Given the resources they've had available I'd say they've accomplished their goal quite well, but at the end of the day, it's still a niche - and for many the largest turnoffs will be exactly what the game set out to do: a hyper-realistic WWII combat simulator, where the protagonist mostly is trying to live to see another day.

Which incidentally also was the reason I loved it.

They should never expect CoD-like success when they go on with this, but I for one would be a very happy bunny if they'd release a Red Orchestra 3 that iterated and improved upon the whole formula of squad-based hyper-realistic action.
Needs not be Stalingrad, needs not even be WWII.

 

[Albino Boo]

Well what did they expect?

COD is people running around. No thought. There was even a video of a pro Counter Strike player owning an entire server on his first try.

Red Orchestra 2 is a calmer part of the warzone, skirmishes where you can be taken out by a rifle man 600+ meters away. If you aren't an assault class (90% of the server on the bigger maps) its a game of "who's the best sniper?"

Camo yourself into the surroundings, and start sniping with nothing but ironsights. Most of the time you are shooting at nothing but tiny specs on the bigger maps with nothing but ironsight, pure skill, and VERY GOOD EYES. Often you are sniping in fog, or some sort of snow storm. With custom maps being some of the worst offenders.

My cousin plays COD religiously, he saw me getting kills in Red Orchestra 2 and asked if he can try. I said he won't like it, and he will die repeatedly if he tried COD tactics here. He said he was ready for it.

7 matches later and he has yet to manage to get a single kill, or manage to get out of the starting trenches without getting head shotted by a rifleman or gunned down by a machine gunner. He doesn't want to try anymore, and he respects it for how hardcore it is.

Did they expect an iron sight bolt action sniper competition to sell well? Making 600 meter/yard shots at tiny specs that may or may not be on your team?

Not knowing where the bullet came from at all and crawling around like a survivor would in Day Z trying not to be sniped? Yeah, that's a level of hardcore not many people will put up with.

I'm not trying to be dismissive of you but that is why the RO1 and RO2 have not done very well. At no point does the game emphasise the fact that a moving target is harder to hit or that its easier, and less likely to get you killed, to shoot someone from 20 meters in the back or the side than sit in static position and try to out twitch someone. Its not your fault because you are doing what the games mechanics award you for. There is no penalty for sitting in the church on Spartanovka and shooting at the Russians in the town hall with your Kar. However if the rifleman sitting in the Church moved up into the flanks of C and shoot the Russians from the direction they are not looking your team is more likely to cap the point and you are less likely to get killed. Before you say its realistic, its not, because ignoring an orderer to attack or defend an area would earn you a one way trip to a punishment battalion at best. The problem is that Tripwire have built a team based multiplayer FPS without incentivising team play or penalising camping. They should have considered ways to create the team play with game mechanics.

 

[Colt47]

Spoiler

It's because it does well what 'most' fps players clamour for; fast paced and responsive gunplay that makes you feel like a badass. It's done what Doom and Quake did back in the day.

No, Doom and Quake were about 'dogfighting', really fast movement, and positioning on the map. Cawadooty is about centering your targeting reticle around a person with red text over their heads and then pushing a button. Maybe grenades and killstreaks if you're really good at that.

Take this Q3 video for instance:


And compare it to this BLOPS 2 video:


(To be fair, I haven't watched all of the BLOPS 2 one because my audio is dead right now, so I just picked it out at semi-random)

My point: Call of Duty, as a trend/phenomenon/whatever, has both done miracles and fuck over the multiplayer FPS market (at least on consoles). I admit, it is a wonderful introduction to that genre of gaming, but because of dog piling and annual releases it has stunted the expectations of MPFPS players, as they haven't been given a chance to "grow out" of it and move in to other games requiring more skill and dedication on the player's part.

Yeah I agree on the way multiplayer competition is handled these days on consoles. Even the games with the unrealistic space technology have started going a bit too much toward the whole "you round the corner and you die" mentality. Striving towards realism in gameplay is another version of striving towards realism in the visual arts: it gets boring really fast.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

He's right (not the escapist extract, the whole article) to a degree. CoD is an 'easy' FPS, but a dangerous one. It tells players they could swim in the ocean in a hurricane whilst in reality they're paddling in a inflatable pool wearing water wings. So when players go to a 'real' FPS, they suddently feel like they've been dropped into the deep end without ever learning to swim, so they cling to CoD.

In the past, if you played a game, it could lead you onto other games within the genre. With CoD, you simply don't learn the skills to ever be competant elsewhere. No-one likes to feel like they've gone from being good to abysmal, even if the 'good' was only smoke, mirrors, and killstreaks.

Rather appropriate metaphor.

Add in the instant gratification and you've got CoD in a nutshell.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

It's because it does well what 'most' fps players clamour for; fast paced and responsive gunplay that makes you feel like a badass. It's done what Doom and Quake did back in the day.

No, Doom and Quake were about 'dogfighting', really fast movement, and positioning on the map. Cawadooty is about centering your targeting reticle around a person with red text over their heads and then pushing a button. Maybe grenades and killstreaks if you're really good at that.

Take this Q3 video for instance:


And compare it to this BLOPS 2 video:


(To be fair, I haven't watched all of the BLOPS 2 one because my audio is dead right now, so I just picked it out at semi-random)

My point: Call of Duty, as a trend/phenomenon/whatever, has both done miracles and fuck over the multiplayer FPS market (at least on consoles). I admit, it is a wonderful introduction to that genre of gaming, but because of dog piling and annual releases it has stunted the expectations of MPFPS players, as they haven't been given a chance to "grow out" of it and move in to other games requiring more skill and dedication on the player's part.

Very bias examples you picked there.

"Woody the unexceptional gamer"?

Also wanted to add that deathmatch and S&D are VASTLY different in terms of pacing. Again, very bias examples.

Granted, the average Quake player is probably miles ahead in terms of pure skill than the average Call of Duty player, and yes Call of Duty stifles skill growth. But it's popular for a reason.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

Some of you guys really ought to learn to read the source link before commenting.

Think of the Escapist News Room as a great place to find links to sites that have actual news.

 

[rofltehcat]

I'm someone who doesn't play sniper in BF:BC2 or BF3 but I don't like COD either. Moreover, I also don't like Red Orchestra.
I just dislike game styles based around lying somewhere, waiting for someone to move their toe out of cover. But I also dislike games based around running around like a headless chicken shooting at stuff.

Because of that I liked the idea of someone further up to get rid of K/D and focus on W/L as well as objectives.
Map design should be so there are both open portions that can be defended by snipers as well as ample paths for flanking around them.
Just look at tactic games like Company of Heroes: It is at its best when people are covering vital areas with mgs or whatever and the attacker is flanking around. This is what -in my opinion- a ww2 shooter should be like, not about sitting in holes waiting for someone's toe to peek out of cover... that would be a ww1 shooter instead.

Compare it to BF3 for example, which is a lot more CoD-ish than BF2/other BF games but still has (depending on map and game mode) spots where snipers can be useful (though often are not because of sniper-player attitude). Because that is the biggest problem about snipers: Often they aren't useful, they are just holding the team back (see BF:BC2 or some modi/maps in BF3, also partially applies to other games).
And RO is simply mainly about sniping. Not much wrong with that if this is your inteded gameplay but don't be surprised if many people don't like it.
On the other hand, CoD took flanking etc. so far that tactic is largely pointless and people are indeed just running around like chicken.

But those are just my experiences with those games. I think some people might greatly enjoy things from the games I don't like and this is actually a great thing. Everyone should be able to play the way they want and if there are several games out there offering different playstyles and experiences for everyone, this is a good thing.

One thing related, though is the absolutely toxic attitude in some of those game communities.
Killed someone with a grenade launcher? Noob.
Killed someone with an automatic weapon (got forbid a shotgun)? Noob!
Killed someone with anything else than a headshot from 300+ m? Obviously a noob!
And it isn't limited to that. People are constantly bashing each other for playing (or enjoying) other games as well.
Go back to CoD, noob. Go back to BF, noob. Go back to RO, noob...
People should just stop this, as imo this hazardous atmosphere can be an even larger factor preventing people from checking out (and enjoying) other games.
I've experienced kinds of this hazardous attitude in all of those games and all it does is walling off one player base from another and sometimes even alienating parts of the player base that actually wanted to be a part of the community.