Red Orchestra Dev: CoD Has Ruined A Generation Of Gamers

[zumbledum]

Red Orchestra Dev: CoD Has Ruined A Generation Of Gamers

"It's frustrating for me as a designer to see players come in and they're literally like 'In Call of Duty it takes 0.15 seconds to go into ironsights. In Red Orchestra 2 it takes 0.17 seconds to go into ironsights. I hate this.'"

Source: PC Gamer [http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/03/13/call-of-duty-red-orchestra-2-interview/]

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OMG cats are living with dogs and the sky is falling , i am actually feeling compelled to defend COD!

Iron sighting is a crux designed to help around the fact a console control is a shite way to play a fps , its about as valid to real PC FPS multiplayer as auto aim!

Its ironic that red orchestra a game i view as being the same cancerous family as cod should come out and ***** on this subject. there both "realistic " modern shooters , cod is a no skill frag fest for sure but at least it can be fun , red orchestra is all about being camped by someone you never see , about as much fun as ramming a wire brush up your urethra.

Doom , quake, sam , painkiller,UT, TF , this is the glorious heritage of PC shooters , not crap like red orchestra

 

[deathbydeath]

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.

I told you I picked out the video at random from a google search of "blops 2 gameplay". All I did was click halfway through the video for five seconds to make sure it was an fps; there was no bias. Here's the result of a search titled "professional blops 2":


Better?

Also, I know it's popular for a reason. I stated (some of) those reasons in my post: (fantastic introduction to multiplayer fps', yearly releases to prevent "growing out" of it, mirror polish,
hitting the right notes for the target audience, everybody plays it). I'm saying that the Red Orchestra Dev has a point, because gamers have "grown into" a rudimentary, simple, and very skill-less game for 6 installments over 6 years.

 

[Slayer_2]

Red Orchestra is a game where you can be dying a shit ton and still do good for your team, even with a "bad K/D ratio, brah". It's really intense and well crafted. I played a lot of Call of Duty until I realized like he said, it usually breaks down to luck. It's not really immersive, the gameplay is stale now, and the engine is dated.

 

[Doug]

Yet... Games like Natural Selection 2, CS:GO, Arma 2 (without DayZ and probably Arma 3), and various others have been popular despite not being anything like CoD. Sure they don't have the same finanical success but still...

Hell their own Killing Floor is massively popular and that's very multiplayer centric. I mean I know it's a "zombie" shooter but still...

Quite so - I do think Red Orchestra is a very acquired taste to be honest as its very realistic, to the point where I didn't find it very fun - BUT if your into that sort of game, I'd imagine it'd be great.

Never really took to the killing floor myself either, but hey, if we were all the same the world would be inbred and quickly die off.

 

[Treblaine]

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. As someone who enjoys CoD at times (not that much mind you, I traded in BLOPS2 for some credit to buy Dead Space 3) what turned me away from buying RO2 wasn't that "its not CoD" or some nonsense abut iron sights, it was that it seemed a bit too much like real WW2 city fighting: Slow, and likely to end suddenly with a instantly fatal bullet from someone you never saw.

It would be nice if people could both respect what a dev says and also actually listen to what they say.

He isn't calling COD players "morons". If anything he is calling them spoiled or like people addicted to slot-machines, they are conditioned to have easy victories that don't value skill, just the illusion of skill.

And I totally agree with him. COD doesn't have anything like the skill set, it's a frustratingly shallow game to spite all the surface complexity like so many different guns.

 

[DSK-]

He's right. COD multiplayer is basically a fisherprice my first FPS game. When I played Modern Warfare 2 a great deal, the community were bitching over how 'overpowered' the air killstreaks were - yet you could select a series of perks that would completely nullify all of them with the exception of bombing runs and the initial harrier airstrike. I found it most amusing that they lambasted the game instead of looking into the mechanics of the game they were playing and work the problem.


Fuck instant gratification.

 

[Tyran107]

Maybe it's been too long since I last played RO2 and perhaps they've changed it, but the reason I never got into it was because it felt too much LIKE CoD. Everything from the faster pacing, weapon unlocks, smaller maps, and all that junk made me feel like they were trying to be CoD rather than sticking to the forumla that made the original RO good.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

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. As someone who enjoys CoD at times (not that much mind you, I traded in BLOPS2 for some credit to buy Dead Space 3) what turned me away from buying RO2 wasn't that "its not CoD" or some nonsense abut iron sights, it was that it seemed a bit too much like real WW2 city fighting: Slow, and likely to end suddenly with a instantly fatal bullet from someone you never saw.

From what I can gather his actual problem with COD is how random it is and how much it closes the skill gap - which, as a COD player for many years now, I can completely agree with.

 

[Treblaine]

I'm no CoD supporter/fanboy etc., but their map design is reeeeeeally good. And the action is not so much flinch trigger based, as say CS:GO...CoD games just have really good gameplay.
And playtesting with people who's comment in the end is "It's not like CoD", is idiotic and may indicate what your problem is.

Yeah... COD is not about "flinch" as in needing to have good aim, it's not about skill, it's about random encounters, whoever sees the other first, with all likelihood gets the kill. It's slot machine taking turns killing each other, you only have the illusion of control offer your destiny, like maybe if you pull on the One-armed-bandit just right you can get the result you want. You can camp, you can rush, but really it hardly matters what weapon or perks you have, it's ultimately just a huge hide and seek contest.

Games like TF2 or Quake have in depth strategy of engagement of counters and manoeuvres, there are pages and pages of strategy. But COD all that's irrelevant to who sees the other first, the weapons are so accurate and powerful, it's little more than a game of hide and seek. COD has to be the most terminally boring spectator game.

People can play COD drunk, high or while watching a TV show. It's faux-hardcore, it's casual dressed up in the clothing and pretences of modern soldiers and military equipment.

Now I'll admit, Red Orchestra is kind of throwing the typical COD player way in at the deep end... but the problem is a serious disconnect between what COD players claim to want and what they actually want. There is this huge problem with a generation engineered to play multiplayer without any kind of deep strategy... they fall for BS distinctions between the weapons that are near identical.

Where do you go from there? People get their "kills" without trying.

 

[Savryc]

Well, tough titties. I'd rather have games where newbies can actually stand a chance instead of them being fodder to feed the "hardcore" gamers ego's. But as soon as you level the playing field somewhat it's all "whaaa casuals!"

Tools.

 

[Treblaine]

He's right. COD multiplayer is basically a fisherprice my first FPS game. When I played Modern Warfare 2 a great deal, the community were bitching over how 'overpowered' the air killstreaks were - yet you could select a series of perks that would completely nullify all of them with the exception of bombing runs and the initial harrier airstrike. I found it most amusing that they lambasted the game instead of looking into the mechanics of the game they were playing and work the problem.

But everyone... EVERYONE, went for Stopping power.

Because they didn't trust their own damn aim, even though stock weapons fired really REALLY fast (15 rounds per second) with a 4 hit kill, 4 hits with a hitscan-minigun wasn't easy enough. It had to be 3 shot kill, 2 hit kill if either of the rounds hits the head.

And of course with Stopping power removed in the next game, everyone used the very perk you described that makes immune from both kill-streaks and makes you hard to see on account of player models usually wearing camouflage... this makes the nametags a practical necessity.

This is the problem, COD wants it both ways. It want the superficiality of real war, but even that runs things as simple camouflage is so effective that is favours the camper incredibly. This is why wars sucks, war is getting killed by someone you never even saw nor had a chance to react to. The nametag that has no real community purpose, there is no way people stop to read the name of the person they are shooting, it's just a big giant red bullseye.

Most shooters before this if they didn't want "The suck" of war, didn't try to copy real war, they make their shooters sci-fi/fantasy based like Quake, Unreal or TF2.

But COD gives the pretence of being a serious hardcore game. It sure seems hardcore with the super-serial voice acting, dramatic 24-style music score, and all the military surplus you could shake a stick at.

Yet youtube commentators will complain bitterly that the enemy uses a perk where they are not displayed on a minimap nor highlighted with a bullseye... it's considered unfair. Well, that's war. That's what all these fancy Tactical gear is about, in the end some insurgent can squat in a corner and blast you as you walk by. If you don't like that, then you shouldn't like all this tactical modern-war crap.

Does that make you a pacifist? No. That makes you a realist to know war is hideously unfair.

 

[grigjd3]

If your playtesters are noticing the difference between .15 and .17 seconds, I'd say we're talking about a pretty hardcore crowd.

 

[Norix596]

Well of course an inaccessible game that defines itself as "hardcore" has a limited audience while the big bucks production that is specifically designed to be blockbuster makes the money. Call of Duty is the best selling game for a reason - the Activision execs know how to make sales. This guy is trying to blame the fact that his niche product isn't a best seller on the fact that another game is.

I'm not CoD fanboy - I've played one installment and didn't feel the mostly identical annual updates were worth $60 a pop; but those guys know what they're doing; they're making money and they're good at it.

 

[ThatDarnCoyote]

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.

CoD has perma-death in its Search & Destroy game mode.

I generally play CoD in the Hardcore lobbies, where bullet damage is increased and there's no on-screen UI, killcams or minimap unless you have a UAV up. The gameplay style is a lot slower and more methodical, because run-n-gun kiddies tend to get weeded out pretty fast. Search & Destroy, even more so. I'm decent in Hardcore TDM and Kill Confirmed, but tend to get my stuff wrecked when I venture into Demolition or Domination, because the style is different, and the people in those lobbies are a lot more practiced at it than I am.

And that's my point: depth in CoD - which you fairly identify as a popcorn game - comes from this variety in game types and play styles. To the point that Battlefield, CoD's primary competitor, whose players like to think of it as the anti-CoD, put out their Close Quarters expansion which copies a lot of CoD's game types. People think CoD is all about Core TDM kiddies because that's what's on YouTube, but the actual game is more than that.

I will agree with you on the tiny map sizes, though, especially in BO2. I don't know why they even put sniper rifles in that game.

 

[ImmortalDrifter]

I see a lot of people here claiming that CoD takes no skill. Wrong. CoD has a low barrier for entry, that's why it's popular. When you have to devote a huge amount of your time to learning how to game's conventions actually relates to player action (I.E. the way things are intended to work in compared to what people actually do) then people get turned off. CoD is a good introduction because when you shoot someone, they die. You don't need to memorize camping locations, what weapons to spam, or sigh with irritation because 99% of the game is fucking redundant because one particular thing absolutly dominates the entire game. As a side note get off your fucking high-horses. Just because people don't share your taste in games doesn't make them inferior. No one here is an arbiter of games with the power to say what is "better" or (god preserve us) "real".

So in conclusion; when you ***** because people don't take the time to wade through miles of frustrating bullshit to become even mildly proficient at your game, they aren't spoiled. You design games that require an investment of time that most people aren't willing to put forward.

EDIT: After reading the actual article I must say, this guy's tears are fucking delectable. Like a diamond goblet of the finest ambrosia imbuing each of my taste buds with the fiery grace of aphrodite herself. His entire argument amounts to this "I made a game based on what I consider fun. When I showed this to other people they didn't think it was as fun as a game they had fun with. They are stupid." Delicious.

 

[teebeeohh]

no but the concept how you aproach and solve a mission has changed (mostly into shoot other living things in the part of their bodies that resemble a face) and you can shoot other people in real time with no particular skill or tactic.
you just have to have the bigger gun and the reflexes to shoot a NPC before he shoots you and reload faster than the other one can.

it goes pretty damn much beyond just the change of perspective.

and, really? the option to use guns? are you fucking with me? you could and sometimes had to use guns in the first fallouts so why would i try to bash on the fact that you use guns in fallout 3 and new vegas?
that would make no damn sense.

my point was that just because you shoot guns in the first person perspective the game is not a shooter. The weapon handling in fallout is also dependent on not just your ability to click at the right spot on the enemy but also on your characters ability to shoot. Reflexes are really not that important in fallout since the AI usually walk straight towards you and if they don't you can stop time in order to spot them. having the better gun and perks is much more important than being able to shoot better.
I also find the fact that you use the word "mission" in fallout weird since it doesn't really fit, a mission is when you are a soldier and your CO gives you order, when you are just wandering around and people dump all their problem onto you to solve it's called a quest because you clearly are the protagonist in an RPG.

also yes, every change from the old fallout to the new can be traced directly to the change of perspective.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I find CoD boring as hell, but honestly, Red Orchestra isn't any better either. I like my FPS both fast paced and skill based. RO is too damn slow and way too realistic to be fun. Which is why I still play Counter-Strike 1.6 and Quake 3 to this day. Hands down best skill based FPS games ever made.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Um...how is it different from Call of Duty's multiplayer? I'm serious because he didn't list anything that's different, save for that small time difference at the end there. I ask because everything seems like Call of Duty multiplayer to me. Okay, granted, I've only played Modern Warfare 2, Halo 4, a bit of MW3, World At War, and barely any Black Ops. Tried both Medal of Honor games too. But from what I've seen, all multiplayer shooters boil down to running around killing each other and they all felt exactly the same.
Now I get extremely bored with multiplayer--except MW2 because I could be an actual sniper--rather quickly, so I don't know the differences between games except that Halo 4 lets you jump really high. So how is Red Orchestra 2 different?