Topic: MW3

[BranDonk Kong]

From my experience, Battlefield has pretty predictable spawn areas. Hell, there's a big flag or box that says "spawn area". Granted, it's an area and not an exact point. I've played Black Ops multiplayer and have seen footage of other Call of Duty multiplayer and it seems the game does a fair job in spawning you in places where there are no enemies.

I've spawned to an instant death where I would spawn right into burning Napalm or a random grenade is laying nearby or an enemy has a line of sight. You have a choice where you spawn in Battlefield, but you don't have that in COD. The game tries to put you in a spot that's clear of enemies, but this is not always the case, especially because its a common strategy for enemies to try to rape and raid the other team's spawn areas. So that's a likely spot to be targetted by Napalm or claymores or whatever, and unless you have Flak Jacket (Pro) you will spawn into an instant death through no fault of your own.

You can use the Tactical Insertion Perk to choose your spawning point.

[Chozo Ghost]

I didn't read the whole thread, but I did read Broodwars say that Shotguns in BLOPS are nerfed. And I guess in normal modes, yeah..they are. However, in Hardcore modes, they are devastating. My favorite kit is a Silenced SPAS and a Magnum with an ACOG scope. Silent footsteps, ghost, and Slieght of Hand as my perks.

It sounds ridiculous, but try and master it and you'll see how frustrated you can make your opponents.

Do you use a Jammer? I'm just wondering what your policy is for dealing with claymores, because if you aren't using Hacker you may not always see them.

I find Ninja to be a really weak perk, because the chief benefit of silent movement isn't really all that important, especially because the sounds of gunfire and explosions and so on often make listening for approaching enemies difficult anyway, and even if you do determining which direction they are coming from isn't always easy. Plus if you move while crouched you will move silently (albeit slowly), so why tie up a perk slot with Ninja when you can just move crouched to sneak up on an enemy?

And Hacker Pro is a more useful stealth perk anyway because it will keep you from showing up on the motion sensor. I think it would have made more sense if that stealth ability were given to Ninja instead, but that's not how they set it up (for whatever reason).

[Chozo Ghost]

From my experience, Battlefield has pretty predictable spawn areas. Hell, there's a big flag or box that says "spawn area". Granted, it's an area and not an exact point. I've played Black Ops multiplayer and have seen footage of other Call of Duty multiplayer and it seems the game does a fair job in spawning you in places where there are no enemies.

I've spawned to an instant death where I would spawn right into burning Napalm or a random grenade is laying nearby or an enemy has a line of sight. You have a choice where you spawn in Battlefield, but you don't have that in COD. The game tries to put you in a spot that's clear of enemies, but this is not always the case, especially because its a common strategy for enemies to try to rape and raid the other team's spawn areas. So that's a likely spot to be targetted by Napalm or claymores or whatever, and unless you have Flak Jacket (Pro) you will spawn into an instant death through no fault of your own.

You can use the Tactical Insertion Perk to choose your spawning point.

Well, yeah, but its a hassle to set it up, and you set yourself up for embarrassment if an enemy discovers your insertion and waits to kill you when you show up there. At least you do have the option of cancelling it now, which I don't think you had in MW2. But still, its surprising how many times I kill someone near their insertion and then kill them again a few seconds later when they pop up like again like a jack in the box.

That's another thing I have to give credit to Treyarch for, because even without Hacker the enemy's tactical insertions are easier to find now and they emit a soft noise which can alert you to one being nearby. This makes it much harder for players to boost now.

[BranDonk Kong]

Jesus Fucking Christ!
Should be no surprise, really, but damn, $400 million in a day...6.5 million sales in a day...not bad.

[broodwars]

Jesus Fucking Christ!
Should be no surprise, really, but damn, $400 million in a day...6.5 million sales in a day...not bad.

On the one hand, it's apparently a good game, and good games deserve to sell well.  On the other hand, that's 6.5 million sales and probably 10-12 million by the end of the holidays all going towards one game when there's so much good stuff out this year.  I wonder how many games in the coming months are going to have artificially bad sales because of all that money sucked out of the market.

On the upside, maybe this will lead to the latest Assassin's Creed game having bad sales, causing Ubisoft to finally give that franchise a much-needed creative break.

[Stogi]

I didn't read the whole thread, but I did read Broodwars say that Shotguns in BLOPS are nerfed. And I guess in normal modes, yeah..they are. However, in Hardcore modes, they are devastating. My favorite kit is a Silenced SPAS and a Magnum with an ACOG scope. Silent footsteps, ghost, and Slieght of Hand as my perks.

It sounds ridiculous, but try and master it and you'll see how frustrated you can make your opponents.

Do you use a Jammer? I'm just wondering what your policy is for dealing with claymores, because if you aren't using Hacker you may not always see them.

I find Ninja to be a really weak perk, because the chief benefit of silent movement isn't really all that important, especially because the sounds of gunfire and explosions and so on often make listening for approaching enemies difficult anyway, and even if you do determining which direction they are coming from isn't always easy. Plus if you move while crouched you will move silently (albeit slowly), so why tie up a perk slot with Ninja when you can just move crouched to sneak up on an enemy?

And Hacker Pro is a more useful stealth perk anyway because it will keep you from showing up on the motion sensor. I think it would have made more sense if that stealth ability were given to Ninja instead, but that's not how they set it up (for whatever reason).

I need to move quick. Lots of diving, sprinting, climbing...etc. And I don't like mine enemies hearing me. Claymores will get me from time to time if I don't check my corners correctly or move too quick, but overall they are not a big deal. I'm like the God Damn Ghost and The Darkness.

Anyway, I played a bit more of Survival with my brother and we love it. Again, not as quirky and as awesome as Zombie mode in Blops (especially with the new perk they added...I miss my ThunderGun, Ballistic Knife, RPK combo...), but still really fun. I do and don't like how if your teammate dies, you both lose. Sometimes we are spread far enough apart that I simply can't make it to him because of all the enemies between us. I also really really hate Juggernauts. How many explosives does it take? It always seems to change.

I've been playing HC modes and it reconfirmed to me that this game is exactly the same apart from me not being able to have my favorite kit (SCAR and SPAS combo).

[Morari]

On the upside, maybe this will lead to the latest Assassin's Creed game having bad sales, causing Ubisoft to finally give that franchise a much-needed creative break.

Do you really think Ubisoft should let Assassin's Creed rest while we continue to get a yearly installment of Call of Duty and Battlefield? I'd rather see the military shooters go away, personally.

[Chozo Ghost]

I'm like the God Damn Ghost and The Darkness.

Just like your avatar.

You should try the Jammer, though. If you are moving into a building where you know or strongly expect an enemy to be located placing a Jammer nearby will disable the enemy's claymores and motion sensors and everything. The best map to do this on is Array in that big building at the center of the map. If you place the Jammer in a good spot it will envelope the entire building and both floors of it. If you are using a Shotgun on Array there's no better place to patrol then that center building, because anywhere else will leave you vulnerable to snipers.

I also love using it on Jungle. There's that rocky cliff on one end of the map where snipers love to camp. If you put a Jammer near that you can sneak up behind and knife them in the back if you want to. Snipers tend to have tunnel vision because they spend a lot of time looking down their scope, so if you can just get past their claymores then there's nothing to stop you from killing them any way you want and even taking your time in doing it.

[Chozo Ghost]

On the one hand, it's apparently a good game, and good games deserve to sell well.

I'm sure its a good game. But does it deserve to set a record? I'm not sure about that. I've been seeing a lot of reviews and comments from people saying its just a glorified expansion pack for MW2.

The fact this game sold well is because of the COD brand name attached to it. Anything named "Call of Duty" will have strong sales (at least initially) because there are just so many people out there who will buy it just on the name alone. When all these people bought it on day one of release is it because they played it before or because their friends told them it was awesome? No, because that was the first day so how could they? They had no idea whether it was good or not, they just bought it. And if you go on Amazon and read customer reviews you can see many people are disappointed. They expected too much, and didn't get it. Black Ops set the bar way too high, and this overpriced MW2 expansion pack couldn't meet it.

[KDR_11k]

I really like the sound of all that customization for guns and stuff in MW3 MP but I don't like the core gameplay, the damage balance in MW2 was so that it hardly mattered what weapon you used (unless you used one of the crappy 20 damage ones) because it was all just point, click, dead in 3-4 bullets and winning a fight was more about being the first to spot the other guy (which promoted hiding in hard to see spots) than what you did once you saw the guy.

For comparison in something like Space Marine the combat has actual tactics to it, battles aren't over so fast that you can't change plans in mid-fight and a sufficiently skilled player can fight back even when surprised (which prompted whining from ASM players who got kicked around by devastators that simply played better). Duels in Section 8 were even tougher since everybody had options to alter the engagement range quickly and your weapon was only advantageous in certain ranges, if the enemy could get outside of that and counter with a different weapon you'd lose.

Launchers are nerfed? Well, they should be, otherwise everyone would use that for cheap kills and nothing else. I love that you only get two noobtubes in black ops and scavenger doesn't allow you to resupply more. There's been so many times where I see an enemy and I'm like, "alright this is going to be an epic gun battle like in the old west" but then the douchebag hits me with a rifle grenade and I get killed by the splash damage. Wow, that took some real skill and accuracy.

Fighting with explosives gets extremely tactical when everybody does it, there are a lot of tricks to the things that not everybody can perform such as well timed shots at doors when you know that an enemy is moving towards them even before you can see him. I pulled some crazy **** with the semtex and scavenger in MW2 (though my favourite was a throw over a building on Favella that landed right on a dude taking a capture point, sheer luck but hilarious all the same). Also unlike the hitscan bonanza that every weapon is these days it takes timing to hit a moving target with a grenade at long range, not just clicking on them. Nukes, on the other hand, are just lame. They might fit into Deathmatch but they're absolutely out of place in objective based game modes. Hell, the only good thing about kill streak rewards is that they give you something to use your Stinger on, everything else about them is just absolutely lame.

If you want to balance grenades make them smaller ammo, i.e. deal less damage per shot but let people shoot them a lot more. That's how the classic FPSes were balanced regarding explosives, it usually took two hits to kill a player and delivering those two could get quite tricky depending on range and environment. They could get away with that because rocket launchers came with 10 shots and you could pick up more so you weren't restricted to two shots per life or silly things like that. Of course the things get cheesed if you only get two per life, they have to be strong then and if they're that strong people will use them.

[Chozo Ghost]

I really like the sound of all that customization for guns and stuff in MW3 MP but I don't like the core gameplay, the damage balance in MW2 was so that it hardly mattered what weapon you used (unless you used one of the crappy 20 damage ones) because it was all just point, click, dead in 3-4 bullets and winning a fight was more about being the first to spot the other guy (which promoted hiding in hard to see spots) than what you did once you saw the guy.

Thankfully the Stopping Power perk was removed in Black Ops and has not returned in MW3. That was a perk which made that problem even worse, and it was something everyone felt obligated to use, because if they didn't they would be outgunned if they ran into an opponent who did have it.

[BranDonk Kong]

Of course it deserves to set a record. 6.5 million people bought the game on it's first day - mostly (if not wholly) based on their experience with the previous iterations.

[Chozo Ghost]

Of course it deserves to set a record. 6.5 million people bought the game on it's first day - mostly (if not wholly) based on their experience with the previous iterations.

But the others did the hard work. All MW3 did is reap the fruits of that just on its name alone. The franchise as a whole may have deserved to set that record, but MW3 as an individual game certainly did not.

[BranDonk Kong]

That is exactly why it deserves the record that it set. MW3 is no slouch - best game ever? Certainly not. Best Call of Duty game ever? Probably. It's just so hard to keep raising the bar when it comes to FPS games - especially "realistic" current-setting war-based FPS games.

[Mop it up]

If Call of Duty Black Ops were actually balanced, half of the people I run into wouldn't be using a FAMAS. An AK-47u with Rapid Fire is another common one. Anything with a fast rate of fire will win out every time, and the only way to stand a chance (assuming the players are competent) is to use the same thing.

[Chozo Ghost]

If Call of Duty Black Ops were actually balanced, half of the people I run into wouldn't be using a FAMAS. An AK-47u with Rapid Fire is another common one. Anything with a fast rate of fire will win out every time, and the only way to stand a chance (assuming the players are competent) is to use the same thing.

They patched the FAMAS to give it slow aiming time and poorer hip fire accuracy than other guns. Its also weaker and takes more bullets to kill, although with the high rate of fire that's not much of an issue. Alot of players consider it a Noobish weapon, but its not necessarily superior to other guns.

I think the AK74U is superior to all the other SMGs, though. So I do agree with you on that. It has the same damage and rate of fire as the MP5K but unlike the MP5K it has the Grip, dual mag, and even grenade launcher attachments. I also think it has a bit less recoil and better reload times also. The only thing the MP5K has going for it is its available immediately, but once you unlock the AK74U there's probably not much reason to use the MP5K ever again. So I agree its not very well balanced in that respect.

But when I said Black Ops is balanced I was mainly referring to the perks and stuff like that. Some guns might be a tiny bit better than others, but its not severely unbalanced. A player with an MP5K isn't at a huge disadvantage against a player with an AK74u, even though the latter gun has more attachment options available. Both guns do the same damage and similar in almost all respects.

And Rapid Fire is not necessarily the best attachment choice. It increases rate of fire, but it comes at the cost of increasing recoil and you will deplete your magazine much quicker and need to reload more often. It makes it more powerful at close range, but you will find at medium or long range it makes it harder to keep your shots on target. So you do get some advantage, but it comes at a cost. So I think it is fairly balanced. You can also put rapid fire on the MP5K and any other SMG if you want to, so its not exclusive to the AK74u.

Maybe you are playing the Wii version of the game and maybe that hasn't been patched... I dunno, but on the other systems Treyarch did nerf those guns somewhat, so they aren't as unbalanced as they once were.

[Mop it up]

Speaking of, Rapid Fire doesn't seem to work on some of the weapons for which is it available. Is the difference just not noticeable, or is there some glitch involved here?

[Chozo Ghost]

Speaking of, Rapid Fire doesn't seem to work on some of the weapons for which is it available. Is the difference just not noticeable, or is there some glitch involved here?

If you are playing the Wii version it might be a bug. Has Activision released any patches for the Wii version? I know they said they were going to release the map packs on the Wii, but they never actually did for whatever reason.

[Mop it up]

Yes it's the Wii version, and it has been patched several times. The only significant change I recall is the one where shooting a player who is in Last Stand mode counts as an assist instead of a kill. I didn't try the Rapid Fire after the first time with those specific weapons, so I don't know if that was fixed or not, plus it's been months since I've played it, period. I'm sure I can find a list of patches somewhere, though, if I really want to find out. Just thought you might know since you seem to follow these things.

As for the maps, if that still hasn't happened, my guess on that would be that they couldn't fit the maps into the file size limit. I haven't seen a Wii game that uses more than 128 blocks of memory, so that could be the limit to the space that one game is allowed to use. This is just a total guess though, I don't know if that's actually the case or what the real reason is.

[Chozo Ghost]

There are some SMGs like the MPL and Spectre and so on which already shoot extremely fast anyway. Are these the ones which don't work with rapid fire on the Wii? My guess would be that when their already fast rate of fire is combined with rapid fire it makes them shoot faster than the Wii is able to process, so maybe that's something they can't patch because the Wii just can't handle it.

But I wouldn't recommend rapid fire with those fast firing guns anyway, because they are already good in that respect. When you are looking for attachments my advice is to look for ones which address any weaknesses the gun may have. That said, something like extended mags is never a bad choice, especially when you have a gun with only 20 rounds and shoots at 937RPM.

[Mop it up]

If that were the case then the Rapid Fire wouldn't be an option, either initially or through an update.

I usually use Sleight of Hand since none of the other perks in that slot suit my style, so Extended Mag is a little unnecessary. So instead I opt for the Grip since I find using the aim button to be a little clunky, and only use it if I'm trying something long range. The MAC11 seems to work best with this setup, though if I don't use Scavenger I have to start picking up enemy weapon drops because those few starting clips don't last long.

[Chozo Ghost]

I like the MAC11. I think it has the fastest reload speed of any gun in the game. Its only 2 seconds, and with sleight of hand its only 1 second. You just can't beat it in that respect. The Skorpion is also cool. The Skorpion is actually a 2 hit kill at close range, but that damage drops off very fast so anything beyond close range goes to a 5 hit kill which sucks. But the Skorpion also has the lowest recoil of any gun in the game, and if you use the grip on it then it has no recoil at all. So you can hold the trigger button down, and as long as your aim is on target every bullet will stay on target (unless that target is moving, which makes it more difficult obviously).

[Chozo Ghost]

I was watching some gameplay videos of MW3 on youtube and there was someone with a sniper rifle killing 5 people in quick succession just as fast as they could aim down the scope at close range as if it was an SMG or something, and I sighed. People think its "cool" to do that, but its not realistic at all and it ruins the game. Treyarch fixed that in Black Ops, but apparently Infinity Ward doesn't give a **** and brought that quickscoping bullshit back.

Quickscopign actually doesn't take much skill either, because there is something called aim assist which causes the aim to snap onto targets automatically. It doesn't you are a pro or anything, its just something the computer assists you with automatically. But when you are doing that with a sniper rifle at close range and killing someone with an SMG then something is wrong with the game if it lets you do that. That's not how sniper rifles are used in real life, and any soldier who tried that probably wouldn't be alive very long. Sniper rifles are strictly long range weapons, and a true sniper tries to evade close range engagements at all costs, but if a close range engagement does happen the proper thing for a sniper to do is pull out their pistol or secondary weapon. They should not attempt to use a sniper rifle at close range.

That's one reason why I'm holding off on this game. Its not impossible that Infinity Ward will patch this eventually. I'm holding out hope...

[Enner]

Not sure if you should be crying out for realism here. There's ARMA and the Project Reality modification for Battlefield 2 for that. The apt thing to say is that it's stupid and looks dumb.

I would like to see the sniper rifle damage reduced to not kill in one body shot. Make their users work a bit more. Oh, and maybe add the option to take the scope off. Just for giggles, turn any aim assistance off and watch how much more frustrating playing the game is.

[KDR_11k]

Making the scoping instantly snap you to a target does sound like a fucking stupid idea that only console FPS designers could come up with, especially combined with the common demand that the first shot is always accurate. Previously I thought quickscoping was just for weapons that have seriously gimped accuracy when you aren't using the scope and you want to use your full FOV.

Before you argue realism keep in mind that the damage and accuracy balance in games is completely weird. Sniper rifles that couldn't hit a barn at ten paces until you click the right mouse button, SMGs that need half a clip to kill anything, etc. In real life a sniper stuck a scope on a fucking Browning machine gun and set a record for long range kills with that thing, no game would allow you to pull that off.

My guess would be that when their already fast rate of fire is combined with rapid fire it makes them shoot faster than the Wii is able to process, so maybe that's something they can't patch because the Wii just can't handle it.

More like stupid code then. If the code isn't set up for non-integral-frame fire intervals (or even worse, more than one shot per frame) you get inaccurate rates of fire. Maybe there's a rounding error or something (e.g. a weapon with 900 RPM fires every 4 frames, if you were to give that a 20% ROF increase that would still be one shot every 4 frames if you round it).

The Wii may not be cutting edge but I'm really sick of people acting like N64-level issues are acceptable because of that. Especially third parties.