Ignoring Necessary Changes: Good for Business

If you’ve been following stuff, you’ll already know that the next game in the CoD series is slated to come out November 11th. They’re calling it “Modern Warfare 2″ — apparently dropping the “Call of Duty” bit entirely — in order to distance themselves away from Treyarch and their inability to make a decent game that’s tainting the series’ name. Regardless, I’ll probably end up calling it CoD6 because that’s what I’ve been doing thus far. But then again “MW2″ does leave fewer things to type, so I might switch over on a laziness basis.

The announcement of a new game has drawn up a lot of thoughts about things I don’t like about CoD4 or elements that I feel could easily be better if Infinity Ward would put even the tiniest bit of effort into making sure bugs and balance are dealt with properly. The game is full of good ideas, but I don’t think they ever got around to fully fleshing them out. There are plenty of things that if adjusted just a tad could have a big positive effect on the game, yet CoD4 has generally always proven to be fun regardless. Thus, it makes me wonder just how good the next one could be if they approach it thinking that CoD4 could be better — not that it was perfectly fine because of its popularity (see: Halo).

I have a bit of a propensity for lists (and wordiness), so I’m about to write one about several items I think need serious reconsideration for the next CoD. I realize that the odds of Infinity Ward doing any of these are pretty slim as what they provided in CoD4 was “good enough” to net millions of sales across all platforms. Because of the following issues I have, I wouldn’t call CoD4 “great” — it has too much that could change for the better for this to be true. I’d like to see the next CoD be a great (multiplayer) game by including the following:

Better and bigger maps. It’s painfully obvious that CoD4’s maps were built with a maximum of 16 players in mind (i.e. the maximum number that can play together via the consoles). The maps are simply too small and in many cases too linear. Since the PC version can theoretically run four times that many players, it’s extremely common for pubs to be far too overcrowded. About 20 players maximum is all these maps can handle even somewhat gracefully (they’re usually best with about 12), yet many servers run upward of 32 slots. This is ridiculous and in no way how the game was intended to be played. Matches with this many players devolve immediately into spawn camping festivals of failure and grenade spam. We need more f**king space to move around (at least on PC).

Better weapon balance. Ignore the nuances between the weapons themselves for a minute (though there are tons of problems there) and consider the macro differences between the weapon types. What’s the point of using a shotgun when you can go with a much more versatile submachine gun? Why go for a machine gun and take the movement penalty and the long sight and reload times when an assault rifle is more than sufficient and much easier to handle? Why pick up a sniper rifle when they’re far too picky, boast the lowest effective damage per second ratings, and are easily countered by just about anything given their slowness, requirement for precision, and the small maps? And let’s not forget that no weapon has a range limit; they can all instantly shoot an “infinite” distance. So many of the guns gimp you needlessly!

These are somewhat large existential problems that Infinity Ward has probably never considered; their goal was likely to hit some imaginary quota of guns that would keep the average player satisfied for awhile and leave it at that. But to everyone else all we’re left with is a handful of weapons that don’t suck in comparison to others because they actually offer something uniquely useful to the player. This keeps the overall experience from being as varied as it should be, not only in that you use the same few weapons all the time, but also that you get killed by those same few most of the time. For those who know better, the game is basically AK-47 vs. AK-74u vs. Desert Eagle with the M40A3 thrown in from time to time. Not cool, man. Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s tone down that grenade chucking distance, eh?

Better uniforms. Though I’m used to it by now, it’s still fairly annoying how well the Marines blend in on most maps compared to the dark “OMG, here I am!” uniforms of the OpFor. It’s honestly not fair at all when the ability to visually acquire a camping enemy player is determined simply by whether or not he was lucky enough to land on the Marine side. The SAS and Spetsnaz are pretty even, I guess, though the SAS has the advantage on darker maps, and it’s always annoying how ghillie suits are handed out at random on grassy maps. Either make everyone blend in or stick out to the same degree; it’s not that difficult. I’d prefer the “sticking out” option, of course, because I’m a run-and-gunner who despises campers who can’t do anything else. If anything CoD certainly doesn’t need more talentless campers; it’s got plenty already.

Better spawn system. You know, the dynamic spawn system was a good idea. The theory behind it is mainly to keep people from randomly spawning behind enemy lines fully armed. It does this successfully for the most part, but it’s certainly not perfect, and what sometimes keeps teams on the opposite sides of the maps often sticks them right next to one another. The end result, thanks in part to the small maps, is rampant spawn camping, and if you overcrowd such small maps, it’s almost guaranteed to “break” the spawn system and cause one team to get spawn camped indefinitely.

But why does spawn camping happen at all, especially with lower player counts? Well, it’s mostly a problem with bad players. You see, bad players don’t move. They spawn, they park their asses in a corner in or very near their spawn point, and they wait for someone to waltz into their sights. This wouldn’t be a problem except that CoD4’s spawn system judges team spawn points based on the “safest” player on your team — the one furthest away from an enemy and/or least likely to get shot by one in the next few moments. A lone worthless camper can literally have 100% control over your team’s spawn because he is “safe,” and this is where the problem arises. If your team gets surrounded and the bad players camp in your crappy now-surrounded spawn instead of trying to get out, you will all keep spawning there. Brilliant, eh?

Better air support system. I don’t feel like harping on this issue anymore, but I will say that it’s patently retarded how Infinity Ward handled this. Bonuses for players doing better never goes well in terms of gameplay. It’s called a positive feedback loop and only serves to let the good players dominate when they would usually just win. Why make it unnecessarily difficult for the players who are already losing? This only makes comebacks fucking impossible and it ruins the experience for everyone on the wrong end of the assault. There are many ways the developers could fix this, but at the very least, don’t let kills the player doesn’t even earn himself count as if he did. That is, air strikes and chopper kills should count solely as points as opposed to actual kills. The player didn’t do anything; don’t give him credit. And certainly don’t give him more air support when the air support did all the work!

A real hardcore mode. Currently, CoD4’s two modes are misnamed — while one should be called normal mode, the other is better suited as “I suck and need it to be easier to kill people” mode. If they want to keep such a low-health mode, that’s fine, but they should name it honestly. “Sudden death by random camper I didn’t see” mode would also fit. What I’d like to see is a mode that is actually hardcore — by definition it’d be one that is either more difficult than normal mode or more pure (or both). What I’m picturing is something along the lines of no HUD, no perks, no air support, and normal health (maybe slightly adjusted for Stopping Power-esque damage). This would make hardcore mode exemplify the very essence of the core gameplay without all the frills and silliness, and that would kick ass.

Better first/third-person syncing. I don’t know about you guys, but I am severely tired of being killed by people’s foreheads. By that I mean when the enemy can see and aim at me perfectly but all I can see of him is the top third of his head. I can’t even see his gun — it’s shooting into a wall from my perspective! — yet he can kill me just fine. It’s a simple issue, really — in first person you’re “taller” than you are in third person. That is, the player models do not accurately match up to the size and perspective of everyone’s first-person view. Not only is this super annoying but it adds more benefit to camping since my target (his camping forehead) is much smaller than his (my entire body), and given that CoD was never meant to be a camper game, it fucks up the gameplay to a noticeable degree. Could we at least see the dude’s entire head or something? Even though in reality we’d be able to see a good portion of his head, shoulders, gun, and possibly some upper torso. Sheesh. Everyone gives praises to Infinity Ward for their overall abilities but they sure do miss a lot of the “small” things.