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

[Jewthulhu]

In the spirit of the new years, this popped up on my feed

 

[iceteayo]

In the spirit of the new years, this popped up on my feed

Enemy Hunter Killer Drone Above

 

[The Last Stand]

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.

Not anymore. Black Ops 2 takes place in 2025, which is Current Year, no pun intended.



That is just too funny.

I firmly believe that MW2019 was the beginning of the end for CoD. It had a lot of good ideas, but Activision's greed from Warzone ruined such potential to revitalize consumer friendly practices.

I'd love to go back and forth between MW2019 and Cold War based on the differences in gameplay and direction. For some reason, MW2019 has a higher skill ceiling IMO compared to Black Ops Cold War. Maps encourage camping, movement is exploited and the game is too damn big to install.

 

[Snorky]

The last true Call of Duty in my opinion was Black Ops 2. After that, the series went downhill so fast and by the time Modern Warfare 2019 came out, the series was circling the drain. Now it's in the sewage treatment plant.

I'm slowly pushing myself to play some of Treyarch's side of Call of Duty games again since I mostly played the Modern Warfare series. Should I start with World at War and go from there?

 

[The Last Stand]

Black Ops 6 has a new limited time event sponsored by Netflix series, Squid Game 2. Comes with new game modes, new battle pass, new twists to the CoD formula.





I have never heard of Squid Game. Everybody is running around with this green jumpsuit guy, cannot tell friend from foe.

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

The last true Call of Duty in my opinion was Black Ops 2. After that, the series went downhill so fast and by the time Modern Warfare 2019 came out, the series was circling the drain. Now it's in the sewage treatment plant.

I'm slowly pushing myself to play some of Treyarch's side of Call of Duty games again since I mostly played the Modern Warfare series. Should I start with World at War and go from there?

Starting with WaW sounds good; it was one of my first games. I'd suggest Black Ops next if you haven't played it; follows directly on the story and such.

Spoiler: Autistic Rant about the current state of CoD

I will say that, at least for the Ghosts - BO4 games, they all tried something new. Ghosts had a solid post-apocalyptic setting (and still pisses off the woke crowd today), Advanced Warfare tried out the Exo movement, BO3 refined the movement and had a pretty solid Zombies mode, IW had a solid space setting, MWR gave us a remastered version of the original Modern Warfare, WW2 brought the series back to World War II for a run and had some solid modes, and BO4... had a decent BR with Blackout, I guess?

That said, the DLC crap was what REALLY screwed the franchise over; not that the games were perfect by any means, but the DLC and Supply Drops really damaged everything. Never had much of a problem with Ghosts - if anything, I found some skins to be pay-to-lose - but AW onward was where the games really began falling apart. I still had fun with them on occasion, and I'm even thinking about buying IW on PSN since it's on sale, but it wasn't until they got rid of the Supply Drop stuff that I felt the games started to really get better. AW was by far the worst of the lot given the whole "weapon variant" thing, but even BO3 had issues - I remember hearing the devs originally planned to put Blackjack in the Supply Drops, for instance. IW at least had some workarounds for it - there's a key glitch in Shaolin Shuffle that never got patched - but MWR was balanced around the DLC guns, and while WW2 and BO4's guns could be earned in some ways, it still became a serious uphill battle for newer players.

MW2019 did a few things right, at least at first; bringing the game back to classic form and such. Of course, Activision began shoving in the Fortnite skins, and while MW2019 and Cold War had a few stinkers - looking at you, Roze - Vanguard and onward was where things got unbearable. What also doesn't help is that the skins and such tend to seriously affect gameplay; too many particle effects make it impossible to see at points.

What makes it all the worse, is that people are still trying to defend this shit. Seriously, there are people - primarily on Preddit - that outright demand having more crazy shit in the game, because "it's not hurting anyone" or "it's my money" and "if you don't like the game then just uninstall LOL". It's not the only issues, either; BO6 has both a rampant cheater problem and AI banning people for random shit, and the community still defends it because "it's new". Hell, I remember reading this one post about some kiddie that insisted that the original MW2 was bad because it allowed people to say what they wanted in the chat; yes, people were agreeing because they "want to play the game and not have people screaming racial slurs".

This community is a bunch of fags and whores, I swear...

 

[The Last Stand]

Quick rant about this crossover event:

Activision is asking for 1100 CoD Points ($9.99 US equivalent) for its limited premium battle pass. All you get is ten Squid Game themed cosmetics/blueprints. $10 for ten horrible looking cosmetics. And they're selling some ugly doll operator. All the cosmetics involved in this crossover event are ugly as hell.

Red Light, Green Light is a horrible game mode. You're lined up to run to a finish line. This creepy voice would sing, then say "Red Light." You move, you die, you're eliminated. I think of stop and go when I play a shooter. I don't even think it registers properly.

Whose idea was this?

 

[LowlyPheasent]

Quick rant about this crossover event:

Activision is asking for 1100 CoD Points ($9.99 US equivalent) for its limited premium battle pass. All you get is ten Squid Game themed cosmetics/blueprints. $10 for ten horrible looking cosmetics. And they're selling some ugly doll operator. All the cosmetics involved in this crossover event are ugly as hell.

Red Light, Green Light is a horrible game mode. You're lined up to run to a finish line. This creepy voice would sing, then say "Red Light." You move, you die, you're eliminated. I think of stop and go when I play a shooter. I don't even think it registers properly.

Whose idea was this?

The media marketers at netflix shoehorning their gay korean show they bought and made gayer in the hopes more people watch it. The nu cods are all full of inane faggotry and designed for whaling or advertisements to the literal detriment of gameplay. There's no clear teams, it's all retard skins. Good fucking luck figuring out who is on what team.

 

[The Last Stand]

Did anybody at Activision think about how giving everybody green/white operators would be distracting to gameplay? If everybody looks the same on your team and the enemy team, how would you know who to engage at? Oh, and that Jingle Bells Squid Game theme that plays at the end of every match will get stuck in my head. May have to turn off music so it won't annoy you. (Or just stop playing until the event is over.) This event is disruptive.

Edit: okay, the Korean theme is not in every game mode, just the event specific game modes. Still annoying,

 

[30+GameOvers]

I firmly believe that MW2019 was the beginning of the end for CoD. It had a lot of good ideas, but Activision's greed from Warzone ruined such potential to revitalize consumer friendly practices.

Yup, I already said my piece but you could tell that MW2019 was going to be ruined just by early changes between patches alone.

Black Ops 6 has a new limited time event sponsored by Netflix series, Squid Game 2. Comes with new game modes, new battle pass, new twists to the CoD formula.

View attachment 6821202

View attachment 6821208

I have never heard of Squid Game. Everybody is running around with this green jumpsuit guy, cannot tell friend from foe.

Oh would you look at that, they're already adding in unrelated crossover shit that isn't even related to 90s or military in general. "COD is back!" my ass.
I have a feeling this will infect even the Zombies mode and completely ruin any hopes of me ever picking it up.

 

[The Last Stand]

You know, when Halo released in 2001, its multiplayer would have identical Spartans easily distinguishable with red and blue colors in team based modes to easily tell who's friendly and who's foe. In Call of Duty, you would have factions in distinct uniforms to tell who's your team and who's the enemy team.

That's just common sense.

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

You know, when Halo released in 2001, its multiplayer would have identical Spartans easily distinguishable with red and blue colors in team based modes to easily tell who's friendly and who's foe. In Call of Duty, you would have factions in distinct uniforms to tell who's your team and who's the enemy team.

That's just common sense.

Pretty sure common sense left around Advanced Warfare with it's random inane cosmetic system. And the pay-to-win guns.

Seriously, at least Ghosts handled the skins well; all skins changed colors depending on the map, goofier stuff like the Body Count, War Cry, and Spectrum outfits unique colorations were small/subtle enough not to be too disruptive, and the most outlandish outfits like the astronaut suit and hazmat gear were notable enough that you were basically gimping yourself. Seriously, it feels like camo makes a genuine difference in that game; even now, I still find it much easier to both identify targets and sneak around in certain maps. Not to mention that the skins actually felt like they fit the post-apocalyptic/military setting; you've got soldiers, civilian resistance fighters, PMCs, Extinction squads, the astronaut and hazmat guys from the campaign, and even the goofier gear still had a military look and kit.

Meanwhile, AW onward feels like a bunch of gunfights with Comic-Con cosplayers or Fortnite rejects. MW23 can have Nicki Minaj kill Alucard with Homelander's eye beams while Skeletor and Lilith get into gunfights with Spawn and Captain Price with guns that turn someone's head into a bong inside a South American quarry that's been dragged into literal Hell. And that's normal in that game.

I'd ask what happened, but we all know Activision is responsible.

 

[The Last Stand]

All this talk about the Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients (this won't be a political post,) I noticed something:



MW2's 9th prestige emblem is loosely based on the Presidential Medal of Freedom. (Side note, CoD4-MW2's prestiges are 250px so I couldn't find an actual high quality image of it. There is higher quality images for Black Ops onward on the CoD wiki, but still quite small.)

Even better: all of CoD4's prestige emblems are based on actual medals from the US Armed Forces. That's authenticity.

 

[iceteayo]

Not anymore. Black Ops 2 takes place in 2025, which is Current Year, no pun intended.

View attachment 6815002

That is just too funny.

I firmly believe that MW2019 was the beginning of the end for CoD. It had a lot of good ideas, but Activision's greed from Warzone ruined such potential to revitalize consumer friendly practices.

I'd love to go back and forth between MW2019 and Cold War based on the differences in gameplay and direction. For some reason, MW2019 has a higher skill ceiling IMO compared to Black Ops Cold War. Maps encourage camping, movement is exploited and the game is too damn big to install.

Whats wrong you never seen a Infinity Ward COD player before? (Holding a Power Position is not camping)

 

[The Last Stand]

Whats wrong you never seen a Infinity Ward COD player before? (Holding a Power Position is not camping)

I enjoy the base foundation of what Call of Duty provides, but the surrounding factors with Call of Duty ruin that base foundation. In fact, I feel that way with modern gaming in general.

 

[iceteayo]

Off topic but I have gotten deep into Delta Force Hawk Ops, it scratches an itch more of MW2019 than battlefield.

 

[Lammy]

If everybody looks the same on your team and the enemy team, how would you know who to engage at?

In CoD, friend/foe distinction has pretty much always been "allies have a blue nameplate at all times, and enemies don't have a nameplate until you aim at them (and it's red)." Entirely crutching on that (so that they can sell more 20$ skinpacks for your favorite celebrity druggie/human trafficker/rapist) has been the solution they've gone with.

You know, when Halo released in 2001, its multiplayer would have identical Spartans easily distinguishable with red and blue colors in team based modes to easily tell who's friendly and who's foe. In Call of Duty, you would have factions in distinct uniforms to tell who's your team and who's the enemy team.

And then Halo Infinite threw that away in favor of BRIGHT RED outlines so that they could sell 20$ armor colors (instead of having a color picker).

In any case, intentional and well-considered design can be haphazardly discarded in favor of BRIGHT FLASHY COLORS. It works for the casinos, too!

 

[The Last Stand]

In CoD, friend/foe distinction has pretty much always been "allies have a blue nameplate at all times, and enemies don't have a nameplate until you aim at them (and it's red)."

I knew somebody was going to say: "just look at the nameplate on TOP!" Try that in hardcore. Even so, it doesn't always appear all the time.

Seriously, at least Ghosts handled the skins well; all skins changed colors depending on the map, goofier stuff like the Body Count, War Cry, and Spectrum outfits unique colorations were small/subtle enough not to be too disruptive, and the most outlandish outfits like the astronaut suit and hazmat gear were notable enough that you were basically gimping yourself.

In hindsight, I thought Ghosts handled its post-launch content/cosmetics quite well without it being distracting. They sold Captain Price, Marakov and Soap as operators for $3 each. Even when Ghosts went off the rails with space cats, weed or unicorns, it was limited to a weapon camo, player card or in-game banner. It would've been nice to unlock it, but at least it blended with the environment.

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

I knew somebody was going to say: "just look at the nameplate on TOP!" Try that in hardcore. Even so, it doesn't always appear all the time.

Can confirm, there's been more than a few incidents where I and others have gotten confused because we can't tell who's who. The nametags just aren't cutting it.

In hindsight, I thought Ghosts handled its post-launch content/cosmetics quite well without it being distracting. They sold Captain Price, Marakov and Soap as operators for $3 each. Even when Ghosts went off the rails with space cats, weed or unicorns, it was limited to a weapon camo, player card or in-game banner. It would've been nice to unlock it, but at least it blended with the environment.

Like I said; camo changing with the map REALLY helped with visibility. Allowed everyone to have their cake and eat it, too; helped that the more outlandish colors could get you spotted easier, while more "realistic" gear like the ghillie were better at providing cover. It unironically showed the purpose of camo.

Also, to be fair; I could totally see someone decorating a gun with kitty patterns in a post-collapse situation. People are nuts.

 

[The Last Stand]

Also, to be fair; I could totally see someone decorating a gun with kitty patterns in a post-collapse situation. People are nuts.

If/when Ghosts hits Game Pass, I'm definitely buying the Snoop Dogg VO pack. Having Snoop Dogg narrate your gameplay sounds fun as hell.

Like I said; camo changing with the map REALLY helped with visibility. Allowed everyone to have their cake and eat it, too; helped that the more outlandish colors could get you spotted easier, while more "realistic" gear like the ghillie were better at providing cover. It unironically showed the purpose of camo.

I think Ghosts had muted colors so the light green would be more noticeable if you paid attention. In that, I cannot tell you how many encounters I've faced where I point blanked found somebody wearing some stupid ass cosmetic.