Call of Duty Thread - Potential return to form? Or nothing but cope on the horizon? You decide!

[The Last Stand]

There really is something incredibly "off" about the graphics in BO6, and really, every nu-COD except MW 2019. I remember when those first screenshots of COD4 came out, I had to do a double-take because of how realistic they were. This was for a game designed for hardware that is now twenty years old. You will not convince me that BO6 looks more real than this:

\

When I see video or screenshots of CoD4, it reminds me of wartime footage from that era.

SOCOM from the PS2, Battlefield 2 (Modern Combat), CoD 4 have a distinct vibe with their visuals that vividly depict that modern warfare aesthetic.

 

[Fully Eshay Skits Bruh V4]

Being Australian and playing these games is hell, nonstop packet bursts and terrible lag thanks to SBMM. If you live in Australia and do to well, you get placed with either gooks, yanks or br*tish "People". So thank you MW2019.

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

Onto MWIII, I'm liking the camo grind for their weapons aside from the weapon level requirement TO get to the camo request. The completionist section of the camos are more varied than just kill streaks. 3 kills with one magazine, two kills without letting off the trigger, X kills with certain attachments. That's all I saw so far. The Small Map Moshpit and Shipment playlists help with completing various challenges.

I definitely found MWIII to be a decent amount of fun; the challenges were honestly pretty solid, and it was nice to have some variety. The problem is whether or not you'd actually get the opportunity to actually do anything when the SBMM decides to fuck you over.

Being Australian and playing these games is hell, nonstop packet bursts and terrible lag thanks to SBMM. If you live in Australia and do to well, you get placed with either gooks, yanks or br*tish "People". So thank you MW2019.

What's bad, is that there's people still trying to defend the games these days; apparently, Activision posted a poll that supposedly stated that SBMM "increased" player counts, while taking it out lowered the amount of players, and that SBMM made everything "more fair". Notably, the CoD kiddies refuse to link this supposed poll, while insisting that it's "irrefutable proof" the games are "better" and that anyone who complains is "just bad".

 

[Giant Troonade]

I definitely found MWIII to be a decent amount of fun; the challenges were honestly pretty solid, and it was nice to have some variety. The problem is whether or not you'd actually get the opportunity to actually do anything when the SBMM decides to fuck you over.



What's bad, is that there's people still trying to defend the games these days; apparently, Activision posted a poll that supposedly stated that SBMM "increased" player counts, while taking it out lowered the amount of players, and that SBMM made everything "more fair". Notably, the CoD kiddies refuse to link this supposed poll, while insisting that it's "irrefutable proof" the games are "better" and that anyone who complains is "just bad".

I know you shouldn't take anything Plebbitors say seriously but the Black Ops 6 subreddit is insufferable because it's this way, they act like the only criticism against SBMM is because people need to get better at the game, not because it just kills the vibe the old CoDs used to have. I was actually enjoying BO6 for a while and felt like the game got pretty close to that old school CoD vibe, minus shit like SBMM and the battle pass stuff, but then I hit prestige 5 and I just was unable to ever get into a fun lobby again. I'm waiting for the next event to hop back on because I'm not trying to sweat my ass off in every lobby when I just wanna grind out camos and prestige.

 

[The Last Stand]

I definitely found MWIII to be a decent amount of fun; the challenges were honestly pretty solid, and it was nice to have some variety. The problem is whether or not you'd actually get the opportunity to actually do anything when the SBMM decides to fuck you over.

With that, because I'm playing for challenges and grinding, I cannot tell if it's my weapon proficiency, overall skill, playlist selection or the SBMM. Example: one challenge requires me to kill X without letting up with the trigger. I use Shipment to help with that, which requires to run-and-gun and play a different way than normal. Ergo, my K/D suffers.

However, the challenges involving 3 kills with one magazine, I'm able to do well enough to double my K/D ratio for the match AND complete the prerequisites in a timely manner. That's not to say I don't die from bullshit; I cannot gauge if it IS SBMM affecting my performance or my class setup nerfing my weapon proficiency.

I should not be asking these questions when I want to enjoy a multiplayer match.

 

[Mike Matei's Penis]

How are these from the same franchise?

 

[The Ugly One]

Haha! Unicorn facts? That's so random! What's next, monkey tacos? Can't wait to see how CRAZY Call of Duty gets! Haters gonna hate, but COD has ALWAYS been about the random humor, remember the weed camo in MW2?

 

[The Last Stand]

Haha! Unicorn facts? That's so random! What's next, monkey tacos? Can't wait to see how CRAZY Call of Duty gets! Haters gonna hate, but COD has ALWAYS been about the random humor, remember the weed camo in MW2?

You know, I was researching on WHY CoD embraced marijuana cosmetics when I found an Escapist thread on people complaining about weed skins and unicorn banners in Call of Duty. Ghosts, from the year 2014. People then were complaining about CoD nickel and diming their playerbase with outlandish cosmetics. Something something slippery slope.

 

[Blackstar]

I finished replaying the WaW campaign today and while it was short and not perfect, it really made me miss old COD

 

[30+GameOvers]

View attachment 6785193

How are these from the same franchise?

They had a unicorn gun in BO4, this isn't anything new. Weird, gay shit is to Treyarch games what Weed camo and Snoop Dog is to Infinity Ward games.
Also, I hope all 5 people who actually appreciated the the visual 90s aesthetic are happy knowing it's forever ruined...like in every single COD game past Ghosts after a few months.

 

[iceteayo]

There really is something incredibly "off" about the graphics in BO6, and really, every nu-COD except MW 2019. I remember when those first screenshots of COD4 came out, I had to do a double-take because of how realistic they were. This was for a game designed for hardware that is now twenty years old. You will not convince me that BO6 looks more real than this:

View attachment 6783750\
View attachment 6783764

Sure, BO6 has gamma-correct lighting, HDR, material shaders, high res textures, ambient occlusion, and whatever else, but it still somehow manages to look less realistic and more like a cartoon, like it's The Incredibles With Guns. It also manages to look the exact same as every other game, it could just as well be the latest Overwatch clone.

It just goes to show that we are way past the point where rendering technology has become less important than to the skill of the artists. We were getting to that point already on the 360 IMO, but we're definitely there now.

Visibility basically, after all black skins were running Warzone the later games basically removed baked in lighting when the engine was designed around it they decided to neater the graphics because of it

 

[The Last Stand]

Another thread I found about weed cosmetics in MW2 from 2009. It's surreal seeing people shit on CoD at its heyday about cosmetics. Remember that MW2 was the first CoD to offer profile customization through calling calls and emblems.




I always thought somebody in IW liked weed culture or was aware that some people partake in that activity, so they threw them a bone for the lolz.

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

Oldie, but a goodie; sums up the CoD community fairly well: Possibly a troll in hindsight, but it's still funny and accurate all the same.

Another old one; here's a kid raging about being knifed in Black Ops:

And another old clip of a raging/crying kiddie in BO, probably the loudest of the three:

 

[The Last Stand]

Here's how my Christmas went:

So far, a few of these challenges for certain classes of weapons are annoying. Headshots with marksman rifles since the first bullet doesn't always register or "sways" aways from where you're aiming. And the "penetration" kills for LMGs. "Penetration" means to kill an enemy through material like wood or sheet metal. Not every map has cover you can shoot through and you'd need to be lucky to catch an unlucky person through cover and have it count.

The MW2 remade map, Scrapyard, has a chain link fence in one of its buildings that you could shoot through AND see the enemy to count as a "wall-bang." Setting up camp there is one thing, now it's another thing to see if players would "funnel" through that choke point and you register enough damage to get the kill. You could get killed from behind in either direction.

Situational challenges like that are the bane of any multiplayer strategy, more than merely camping or using meta weapons.

 

[Caddo Cobgang]

View attachment 6785193

How are these from the same franchise?

basically Activision doesn't give a fuck about their audience complaining and wants to appeal to retarded Gen Alphas with this crossover bullshit, blame Fortnite and a declining Capitalist culture

 

[30+GameOvers]

basically Activision doesn't give a fuck about their audience complaining and wants to appeal to retarded Gen Alphas with this crossover bullshit, blame Fortnite and a declining Capitalist culture

This has been the case for a while. Activision hires psychologists to determine who pays for microtransactions, why and how to pump these numbers. Turns out that actual fans of the franchise don't spend nearly as much money as literal retards, low impulse control buyers, casual gamers and little kids. They are now running the show because they are the only people who play the games. Same reason why they don't care if the old(or new) games get hacked, those people still spend money and killing off older games to force people to buy the new ones is preferable.
I have no clue which COD was the last "true" one and this new cancer started, MW2019 would be a good candidate but BO4 was also pretty cancerous with it's microtransactions, as was WW2. I will say that BO4 is the last true COD just because that's the game where the Aether Zombies story that has been ongoing since 2008 ended, one last game to buy if you cared about these characters and story. You can easily ignore everything else, especially since aside from Cold War(and BO6?) everything else is reboot slop nobody cares about or asked for.

 

[The Ugly One]

I have no clue which COD was the last "true" one and this new cancer started, MW2019 would be a good candidate but BO4 was also pretty cancerous with it's microtransactions, as was WW2.

The cancer has happened twice. It's been the exact same process; they just speed-ran it the second time. The first time around, it started with Black Ops II weapon cosmetics. IIRC, the Bacon Camo set sold very well. The silliness kept ratcheting up, and By Black Ops 4, the series was in full retard mode.

However, BO4, was the worst-selling modern COD, so Activision hired back much of the original team and let them do what they wanted. So we got a serious, by-the-numbers COD, and MW 2019 became I believe the best-selling COD ever. But near the end of the run, they tried just a little cancer. Cat Girl Mara sold like gangbusters, and so did that Jigsaw skin. They also threw in a few laser weapon effects that sold well, too. Thus, the fate of the game was sealed, and it was already full retard by MW2022.

The fact is, silly skins and laser effects just make too much money to ignore. IIRC, despite BO4 selling fewer units than WaW, it actually made more money than BO1 or MW3, the previous record-holders.

 

[30+GameOvers]

The cancer has happened twice. It's been the exact same process; they just speed-ran it the second time. The first time around, it started with Black Ops II weapon cosmetics. IIRC, the Bacon Camo set sold very well. The silliness kept ratcheting up, and By Black Ops 4, the series was in full retard mode.

At the very least BO2 took place in the future where anyone could easily get a custom painted gun, even with silly shit in it. Aside from animated camos or the bacon one I actually didn't mind them too much, especially since they were all optional micro DLC, but once they started making the base game camos you unlock via challenges stupid, it was game over(I think BO3 started this)
Until loot crates were introduced, COD didn't actually have an awful monetization system, it was mostly just cosmetics that weren't even whacky by today's standards, for the most part, that you could pay for if you wanted something other than generic military camos or outfits. They did add extra custom class and theater mode slots you could pay for, which is scummy, but aside from that, the real first downfall that I can remember would be the loot crates and weapon variants in AW(not to mention the wave of retarded silly costumes like the ones we would see today, in form of clown suits or luchador outfits ect.).

The fact is, silly skins and laser effects just make too much money to ignore. IIRC, despite BO4 selling fewer units than WaW, it actually made more money than BO1 or MW3, the previous record-holders.

Yup, I interacted with the paypigs who genuinely thought that spending 15$ on a new weapon skin or outfit made them better players than everybody else despite their awful K/D, so I can fully see why Activision went full ham on retarded cosmetics that cost an arm and a leg as well as SBMM algorithm that rewards paypigs even if they are bad at the game. Loot Crates were still a better system, in a way, since they would gatekeep people from spending retarded amounts of money for useless cosmetics and instead encouraged grinding to get actual better weapons that impacted gameplay(nobody actually spend 100s of dollars on lootcrates to "unlock everything" aside from youtubers who made these retarded loot crate opening videos, even paypigs have their limits).

 

[Tepes Thot]

I think if they gave you the option to turn the caner visuals off on your end, it would help.

The problem is, the cancer-lovers get upset because they bought it, and they want you to see it. So they’re probably scared they’ll quit buying if they don’t think other players are marveling at their bad purchasing decisions.

 

[The Ugly One]

At the very least BO2 took place in the future where anyone could easily get a custom painted gun, even with silly shit in it. Aside from animated camos or the bacon one I actually didn't mind them too much, especially since they were all optional micro DLC, but once they started making the base game camos you unlock via challenges stupid, it was game over(I think BO3 started this)

Right, but the point is, it started small, and even then, it was the silly stuff that brought in the big bucks. When a business sees what brings in money, they start putting more and more resources into it. Bacon camo kicked off the cycle that ends with clowns shooting hot pink lasers at each other in a dinosaur theme park.