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

[The Last Stand]

I might give the game a shot IF, and only if, I can get it for cheap/free; I'm not making the same mistake I did with MWIII.

Have you tried any of the free trials for Black Ops 6? That would be a great point to start without investing anything but Internet and time.

Still had fun with it, but I'm not dropping $70 on another CoD.

I had the first Battle Pass for Black Ops 6. I found myself not playing enough to invest in the second Battle Pass. I think the Squid Game event turned me off for a bit.

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

Have you tried any of the free trials for Black Ops 6? That would be a great point to start without investing anything but Internet and time.

Can't find the Free Trial on PS5; I think it ended a couple of weeks ago.

I had the first Battle Pass for Black Ops 6. I found myself not playing enough to invest in the second Battle Pass. I think the Squid Game event turned me off for a bit.

The Squid Game event screwed a LOT of stuff up; people were getting forced to use the skins, and apparently the update broke a lot of stuff in the code. Can't blame you for quitting.

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

Double-post, but I found some videos for you guys:

Seriously, the more I look at this game, the more I'm reminded of WolfTeam; anyone remember just how bad that game got? Overpowered skins that cost over $1,000 in IRL money for one day of usage... and retards apparently paid for them. Seems like Activision is becoming the new Aeria Games...

 

[The Ugly One]

Let me explain; in previous CoDs, the map all tended to feel like actual parts of the world, you know? Ghosts's maps all felt like actual post-apocalyptic areas that people lived in, WWII's maps felt like WW2 battles, BO3's maps all fit well with the "simulation" story they were going with, BO4's maps all had distinct designs and themes to them, etc.

I mostly agree, except BO4's map felt like 3-lane paintball arenas that sometimes had a facade of sort of looking like a place.

 

[Anti Snigger]

I see people occasionally bring up the Brutus and Klaus skins in a negative light regarding the realism, but honestly, at the very least those are skins related to black ops. Zombies is part of black ops, so I don’t mind those skins too much

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

I mostly agree, except BO4's map felt like 3-lane paintball arenas that sometimes had a facade of sort of looking like a place.

Oh, I agree with that; BO4 really started to phone it in with the map design. At the very least, though, we had some variety in how each area actually looked; off the top of my head, we got a casino, a volcanic island base, Madagascar, Iceland, a WW2-era town with a crashed giant robot and zombies, a zombie museum, a beached Arctic submarine, a police station in Los Angeles, the desert town of Morocco, a terror attack in India, and even a map set in a remote mountain village in the Himalayas.

What I'm say is, the maps actually looked and felt creative and unique, even if they didn't really play all that much different in the grand scheme of things. In comparison, most of MW23's maps all feel generic, just with a slightly different skin slapped on; it really feels like the devs just don't care anymore about making anything look/feel unique or different, judging from the multitude of Shipment and similar maps. Doesn't help that BO6 seems to be heading the same way, what with the majority of maps taking place in Avalon that all look like they have the same general aesthetic.

I see people occasionally bring up the Brutus and Klaus skins in a negative light regarding the realism, but honestly, at the very least those are skins related to black ops. Zombies is part of black ops, so I don’t mind those skins too much

Yeah, I don't think they make much sense in terms of story - Klaus got blown up at the end of Mauer, while Brutus was part of the original Aether story on Alcatraz - but at the very least they fit the universe. I'd rather have them than Nicki Minaj.

 

[30+GameOvers]

Double-post, but I found some videos for you guys:

Seriously, the more I look at this game, the more I'm reminded of WolfTeam; anyone remember just how bad that game got? Overpowered skins that cost over $1,000 in IRL money for one day of usage... and retards apparently paid for them. Seems like Activision is becoming the new Aeria Games...

First reviewer is an annoying twigger, had to shut down the video in a couple minutes time. Sheesh, and people complain about BT!
Not surprised by any of this, COD is dead and has been for years. I guess we can at least pinpoint time when the dark ages started: Infinite Warfare, both because it was the first game since Ghost that was overwhelmingly hated by the fanbase and public at large(it's trailer is still one of the most downvoted videos in Youtube history) and because that's when the modern SBMM/EOMM as we know it was given life. Arguably, BO4 was when many of the modern trends like live service elements and ridiculous penny pinching started(remember the 2$ Red Dot Sight that was a level 5 or whatever unlock for BO2?).

Oh, I agree with that; BO4 really started to phone it in with the map design. At the very least, though, we had some variety in how each area actually looked; off the top of my head, we got a casino, a volcanic island base, Madagascar, Iceland, a WW2-era town with a crashed giant robot and zombies, a zombie museum, a beached Arctic submarine, a police station in Los Angeles, the desert town of Morocco, a terror attack in India, and even a map set in a remote mountain village in the Himalayas.

BO4 had many flaws, but it's visual design and maps was not one of them. Fantastic game, shame everything surrounding it killed it off prematurely. Many of the maps were part of the cut single player campaign, I can only wonder what that would look like. The Spanish maps confirm that a large portion of the campaign would take place, for example, and that a crime lord would be part of the story, same with an attack on a major city(by Mercs, probably).

 

[The Last Stand]

I get that Call of Duty is hauled as a mindless twitch shooter, but the map design doesn't help to refute that claim. Again, they're not "bad," they're just forgettable. I guess that's the cardinal sin. Ghosts' maps had artistic integrity relative its setting, but they were a pain to play through because they were TOO BIG.

BO4 had many flaws, but it's visual design and maps was not one of them. Fantastic game, shame everything surrounding it killed it off prematurely.

Something burned me out of Black Ops 6. I can't put my finger on it.

 

[iceteayo]

I get that Call of Duty is hauled as a mindless twitch shooter, but the map design doesn't help to refute that claim. Again, they're not "bad," they're just forgettable. I guess that's the cardinal sin. Ghosts' maps had artistic integrity relative its setting, but they were a pain to play through because they were TOO BIG.


Something burned me out of Black Ops 6. I can't put my finger on it.

Modern Warfare 2019 went back to how older map design was but a lot of brainless cod fags didnt like it, BO6s issue is all the maps were designed small to promote dopamine rushes the usual CODfag wants. BO6 maps barely have power positions to hold since almost every map has constant flanking routes.

 

[30+GameOvers]

Modern Warfare 2019 went back to how older map design was but a lot of brainless cod fags didnt like it, BO6s issue is all the maps were designed small to promote dopamine rushes the usual CODfag wants. BO6 maps barely have power positions to hold since almost every map has constant flanking routes.

Precisely, there was ethos and purpose behind MW4/2019's map design. Retards and Treyarch fanboys only saw doors standing in their way and death anytime they tried mindlessly rushing a map not designed for it, so they cried until they get their yearly Shipment and now small sized AI generated maps where you can barely fart without hitting another player by accident, let alone Max Payne shoot-dodge like the game wants you to think you're able to. Whenever I hear about people complaining that MW4 had bad map design, I know someone got filtered, big time. Piccadilly was one of my favorite maps in that game for objectives, don't even @ me if you got filtered out by it. You're a bad player that doesn't know how the map works, simple as that.

 

[The Last Stand]

I'm tempted to pick up MWII since some online merchants have it for around $20-30.

The One Boom says that MWII tried to be a "mil-sim" from its glaring design choices from the offset such as weapon tuning, perk progression and lack of minimap awareness from missing red dots. If the heavier movement helped with minimizing MW2019's exploited movement, then it's a trade-off.

That would explain the simpler UI elements during gameplay. However, there's no excusing the shoddy, clunky tile-based menu system because Activision decided to hire a Hulu UI designer for MWII onward.

 

[iceteayo]

I'm tempted to pick up MWII since some online merchants have it for around $20-30.

The One Boom says that MWII tried to be a "mil-sim" from its glaring design choices from the offset such as weapon tuning, perk progression and lack of minimap awareness from missing red dots. If the heavier movement helped with minimizing MW2019's exploited movement, then it's a trade-off.

That would explain the simpler UI elements during gameplay. However, there's no excusing the shoddy, clunky tile-based menu system because Activision decided to hire a Hulu UI designer for MWII onward.

I don’t like one boom a lot but this video sums up why 2019 and 2022 were to an extent breaths of fresh air. When he mentions cod retention it hits the nail on the head bo6 is only declining like it is because they offered the usual midwit cod gameplay. Minimal attachment care and just use ninja to flank. 2019/2022 are far from milsim but do extra things to spice gameplay up. Even the timed perk explanation makes sense one of the biggest sins of MW2022 the whole "okay I have ghost now I can be more aggressive" its the little things I like what IW does.

In fact I saw this on 4chan but dont have the post but I even saw some guy show the difference of how IW does art design even on shitty bundles compared to the other studios. Sledgehammer/Treyarch contract out artists its why so much of their bundles just end up being random scifi slop. While IW has a few artists under them somewhat care.

The example the poster used is when they introduced the Soccer player skins like Messi

Is it retarded? Yes, however I noticed this with the MW22 celeb crossover skins they are typically given body armor and tactical gear even the most glaring shitty bundles (The Nikki Minaji incident) still has her carrying magazines and a plate carrier

Compare to a MW3 Sledgehammer skin for a baskerball player

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

I guess we can at least pinpoint time when the dark ages started: Infinite Warfare, both because it was the first game since Ghost that was overwhelmingly hated by the fanbase and public at large(it's trailer is still one of the most downvoted videos in Youtube history) and because that's when the modern SBMM/EOMM as we know it was given life.

For what I remember, I think the SBMM stuff started back in Advanced Warfare, as that's where I remember the game really yo-yoing between "fun" and "frustrating" between matches. I will say, as someone how played IW during its life cycle, I genuinely enjoyed it in comparison to the current CoDs; most of the hate came from CoD kiddies and big-money YouTubers that wanted "boots on the ground" and Shipment-style maps, in comparison to what we got. Also, the gameplay was genuinely enjoyable in comparison to current year CoD; aside from some issues with a certain shotgun that later got nerfed, the game was legitimately enjoyable throughout its lifecycle, with the Synaptic/Titan meta only popping up later.

I'd say AW was where the dark ages started, personally; the Exo combat was fun, but the real issue was the devs putting overpowered gun variants in the Supply Drops, with matches getting dominated by ASM1 - Speakeasy and Bal-27 - Obsidian Steed guns. Not to mention the cosmetics, like the samurai armor or the clown costume, also only available from Supply Drops. Seriously, there were tons of videos of YouTubers like M3rk spending a fortune on Rare Supply Drops back in the day.

 

[The Ugly One]

Modern Warfare 2019 went back to how older map design was but a lot of brainless cod fags didnt like it, BO6s issue is all the maps were designed small to promote dopamine rushes the usual CODfag wants. BO6 maps barely have power positions to hold since almost every map has constant flanking routes.

The key thing that the old CODs did right that MW2019 brought back was hitting a sweet spot of "something for everyone" gameplay that is very difficult to do well. You can find any loadout to suit your preferred playstyle and do reasonably well, despite some loadouts being more "meta."

The problem is the CODfag YTers (notable exception being XboxAhoy) delegitimized everything except running around like a spastic with an MP5 as "playing the game wrong," and excoriated any facet of design that allowed you to play differently than they did as "bad design."

For example, the 3-lane map design of the Black Ops series is designed to prevent sniping. Oh, I'm sorry, "camping." True sniping is a game of cat and mouse, where until you know where the sniper is, you gotta keep your head down or die, and the gameplay revolves around finding the snipers. Overgrown and Wasteland were great sniper maps. Well, the CODfags said this is "bad map design," so Treyarch responded with maps with one dedicated sniper spot for each side that you could prefire.

Another example is BOII's Ghost. Ghost + Suppressor kept you off the minimap and enabled ambush play. Well, the CODfags cried that this is "camping," and "camping" is "playing wrong" and therefore if I'm using the minimap as a crutch and get rekt over and over by a guy being smarter than me, boo hoo that's bad design boo hoo fix it. So Treyarch requires you to move to stay off the minimap. No more ambushing, I mean, "camping."

It goes on and on like this. MW2019 wasn't perfect, movement was a bit fast, but I still felt like map & gun design facilitated more than just playing like a spaz.

 

[The Last Stand]

I couldn't even tell that was Messi. Looks like a cameo. Now that is fine because it's not distracting.

For example, the 3-lane map design of the Black Ops series is designed to prevent sniping. Oh, I'm sorry, "camping."

Nuketown is a good sniping map. Literally just post up by either garage, prone/crouch up and line them up before they could counter snipe or flank. Speaking of sniping, the various attachments MWIII provides ruins the concept of sniping. There are no sightlines to properly snipe. People just equip short sights with quick mobility/ADS speed and just one shot you through "quickscoping."

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

The key thing that the old CODs did right that MW2019 brought back was hitting a sweet spot of "something for everyone" gameplay that is very difficult to do well. You can find any loadout to suit your preferred playstyle and do reasonably well, despite some loadouts being more "meta."

That's exactly why I enjoyed the older CoDs more than the current ones; there wasn't really a "best gun", but rather "what gun works for you/the situation at hand". Back in MW2019, I found myself using all ten loadout slots for different weapons and playstyles, and I tended to switch between them depending on what was needed.

The problem is the CODfag YTers (notable exception being XboxAhoy) delegitimized everything except running around like a spastic with an MP5 as "playing the game wrong," and excoriated any facet of design that allowed you to play differently than they did as "bad design."

Exactly this. The big-money YTers and their CoD kiddie fanbrats all kept parroting the idea of "small map and faster gameplay GOOD", and Activision being the corporation that it is, listened to the whiners. It's why MW23 has so many small and boring maps and gear all designed to cater to speed, and BO6 introduced omnimovement; it's all to cater to the retards with too much disposable income.

 

[30+GameOvers]

Exactly this. The big-money YTers and their CoD kiddie fanbrats all kept parroting the idea of "small map and faster gameplay GOOD", and Activision being the corporation that it is, listened to the whiners. It's why MW23 has so many small and boring maps and gear all designed to cater to speed, and BO6 introduced omnimovement; it's all to cater to the retards with too much disposable income.

Good, let them. At this point all the actual COD fans left, even most of the OG content creators who would play this game yearly as a job. The new crop of retards are just going to sink the franchise faster, which is what it deserves. I hope Nikki Minaj twerks over the corpse of COD when it dies.

 

[The Last Stand]

Good, let them. At this point all the actual COD fans left, even most of the OG content creators who would play this game yearly as a job.

Basically, Black Ops 6 is at a peak low for Call of Duty if SteamDB is anything to go by. 55K concurrent players from a launch peak of around 313K players, not even a YEAR into its lifecycle, is abysmal. GTA V, a ten year old title, had a 24-hour peak of around 153,000 (as of this post.)



I'm sure having limited time events with weapons locked behind time sensitive paywalls isn't helping matters.

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

Good, let them. At this point all the actual COD fans left, even most of the OG content creators who would play this game yearly as a job. The new crop of retards are just going to sink the franchise faster, which is what it deserves. I hope Nikki Minaj twerks over the corpse of COD when it dies.

Oh, I fully agree! Pretty sure a lot of people have been wanting CoD to die for a long time now; the games have all lost their fun, and it's difficult to really justify grabbing a new game every year thanks to Activision's greed.

I will say, though... I do hate how far this series has fallen. Even MW23 had some fun moments and ideas, and I genuinely enjoy some of the weapons in the game, but the extreme focus on catering to the CoD kiddies and monetization killed it early. Meanwhile, BO6...

View attachment 7051654

Basically, Black Ops 6 is at a peak low for Call of Duty if SteamDB is anything to go by. 55K concurrent players from a launch peak of around 313K players, not even a YEAR into its lifecycle, is abysmal. GTA V, a ten year old title, had a 24-hour peak of around 153,000 (as of this post.)

View attachment 7051711

I'm sure having limited time events with weapons locked behind time sensitive paywalls isn't helping matters.

Need I saw more?

Seriously, why can't we have more actual fun with the series, with trailers and maps like this?

 

[The Last Stand]

That's exactly why I enjoyed the older CoDs more than the current ones; there wasn't really a "best gun", but rather "what gun works for you/the situation at hand". Back in MW2019, I found myself using all ten loadout slots for different weapons and playstyles, and I tended to switch between them depending on what was needed.

The decline from Black Ops 6 has me to the point where I'd rather push myself to play World at War on Veteran, flag boost for leaderboard points on CoD3, fool around in Zombies on Black Ops 1/2, grind for camos on MWIII than play Black Ops 6 (the latest Call of Duty now.)

Does Black Ops 6 share problems with modern Call of Duties since MW2019? Yes. Are older Call of Duties less populated and prone to hackers? Yes. Are the Zombies easter eggs too complex for the average player? Yes. Do older Call of Duties have less desirable netcode compared to its contemporaries? Yes.

Why do I subject myself to Call of Duty in spite of its many internal and external problems? Because I do not have any other options for fast paced, military shooters in various locales that offer the same diversification that Call of Duty provides.