Anyone here still play Call of Duty 4?

[Ford Prefect]

Ryan, are you a professional at missing the point entirely? Frankly, I can't make it any more clear than it already is and I would just be repeating myself. How exactly is it 'unsportsmanlike' to reduce your effective range and rate of fire down to a fraction of that of basically any other weapon in the game? The 'killbox' on the knife is quite large, but I am fairly sure that any rifle in the game can instantly kill a person at a hundred times the range of the knife with only the briefest time spent doing it.

[Ryan Thunder]

Fine. Whatever. That doesn't make them piss me off any less, though.

[Medic]

Fine. Whatever. That doesn't make them piss me off any less, though.

Dude, no, you gave up too early.

The knife, in conjunction, at least WRT to CoD4's nearly uniformally small map set, with UAV and SMG / Shotgun for max running speed, means the game is TERRIBLY biased towards the SMG weapon set above all else. There are players with very little actual marksmanship (they may HAPPEN to boast a great degree of skill) but because of 1) the knife's huge "kill box" 2) the SMG's high damage, small "x-hair's," and fully-automatic fire 3) small map size 4) UAV-guided pseudo-wallhack (back in my day, CoD players had a bloody compass which showed teammates -- that's it) 5) the fastest sprinting speed and finally 6) one hit kill knife (back in my day, a bash's damage was commensurate with the weapon damage and not 'one hit kill' -- so bolt-action rifle bash's were the most powerful bashing weapons but they were full-sized rifles with wood stocks, so it made enough sense, anyway), the game is, in fact, biased towards the knife.

So fuck off Ford, I have days playing this game -- I'm not on my WidowPC laptop at the moment but I have IIRC more than 50 hours playing CoD4 -- I've gotten good with everything, and almost every conceivable playstyle. SMG / Knife is the easiest way to play the game, full stop, the map size and game mechanics bias it greatly, at least in CoD4 (can't speak for 5 / WaW yet). You have to be BETTER and not just by a little, to compensate for this fact. I happen to be and can tolerate the game, because as a veteran PC and CoD franchise gamer, I have a quick hand with a good mouse.

That doesn't mean Ryan's complaint's are foundless though.

[Ford Prefect]

Oh my, you have over fifty hours of playing Call of Duty 4. I best completely defer to your personal experience with the game, as well as your hilarious 'back in my day' veterancy. I literally cannot take you seriously after reading your post. Why would you even bother bringing up the high damage and automatic fire of an SMG? All your arguments simply suggest the game is actually biased towards the SMG, given that it has a number of advantages over the knife which cannot possibly be ignored. I am not suggesting that the knife isn't silly, because it is, but it is certainly not 'unsportsmanlike' to use only the knife to the exclusion of all other weapons.

[Medic]

Oh my, you have over fifty hours of playing Call of Duty 4. I best completely defer to your personal experience with the game, as well as your hilarious 'back in my day' veterancy. I literally cannot take you seriously after reading your post. Why would you even bother bringing up the high damage and automatic fire of an SMG? All your arguments simply suggest the game is actually biased towards the SMG, given that it has a number of advantages over the knife which cannot possibly be ignored. I am not suggesting that the knife isn't silly, because it is, but it is certainly not 'unsportsmanlike' to use only the knife to the exclusion of all other weapons.

Correction: 468 hours. (I have not played CoD4 but once since I got to San Antonio due to no landline connection and possessing a monster laptop with a battery which literally doesn't stay on more than 5 minutes after the plug is pulled; I forgot I had played 17 days in the game)

So seriously Ford: shut the fuck up. I've played long enough to say as much, and I've ranted at length more than once about the LOLercaustic nature of the knife, so allow me to restate this for what must be the 4th time. (I usually bitch about it in every CoD4 related thread)

1) UAV allows one to sprint blind around corners and ambush people point blank

2) SMG / shotgun means they get the fastest running speed

*the 2 preceding combined with UAV jammer makes knife rushing MORE THAN VIABLE
3) on the games NEARLY UNIFORMLY SMALL MAPS

4) the knife has a huge kill box, as I noted earlier, you don't have to physically put a cross hair on someone nor does your scripted animation even have to physically TOUCH what you allegedly kill

5) it is a one hit kill. That I mention "back in my day" is an allusion to CoD:UO / 2 all preceding CoD's melee system which was dubbed "bashing" by the community. It worked like this: the speed of the bash (it wasn't instant like the knife -- THIS MEANS YOU HAVE TO TIME THE BASH TOO!) was derived from the speed of the weapon. So SMG's bashed very quickly, whereas the BAR and Bren LMG were practically slow-motion. However, the DAMAGE of the bash was derived from the weapon's stopping power. This meant a pistol whip might kill with 3-5 hits, depending on where it hits, whereas bolt-action rifle bashes were very lethal, THEY WERE NOT ONE HIT KILLS. If knifing was at least commensurate with the former bashing system then knife kills would fall through the floor -- when you successfully bashed someone in the previous CoD games but did not kill them, it meant you almost immediately were killed by a return salvo of bullets. With the knife you only have to get it right, once.

6) more detail on the kill box of the knife -- it connotes both a more-than-subtle auto-aim and a more-than-subtle SPEED boost. This can be seen clearly when, stunned by a stun grenade and your speed is reduced to a crawl, if someone gets within knife-range of you and you hit melee, you instantly recover from your stunned status AND LUNGE AT FULL-KNIFE SPEED to the target, often getting a cheap kill. It's scripted like this, but the ultimate effect is some physics-defying shit which make Madden 2001 look well-thought-out.

[Pulp Hero]

I agree that the knife is fucking ridiculous. If COD4 revamped its mechanics to make the knife a separate weapon that has to be drawn and made your top running speed that of whatever weapon you carried (rather than just whatever weapon you have drawn), the knife kills would completely evaporate.

Also slightly bigger maps would be appreciated.

I'm not looking for COD4 to be an OFP or ARMA style super realistic game (totally different styles, and I can totally respect that), but COD4 should focus on vicious close range firefights- not "lol knife attack. HELICOPTER ATTACK GO!"

[Ryan Thunder]

I seem to recall one occasion on which the other team had a helicopter in the air within fifteen seconds of the game start. Same guy calling them in, every time.

'course, the server XP bonus was set up into the stratosphere, so it didn't piss me off enough to whine about it. I just sent messages of incredulity to him whenever the chopper killed me.

That was a good game, actually, in spite of whatever he was doing to rack up so many freaking kills...

[Medic]

I seem to recall one occasion on which the other team had a helicopter in the air within fifteen seconds of the game start. Same guy calling them in, every time.

'course, the server XP bonus was set up into the stratosphere, so it didn't piss me off enough to whine about it. I just sent messages of incredulity to him whenever the chopper killed me.

That was a good game, actually, in spite of whatever he was doing to rack up so many freaking kills...

One last thing on the knife then:

7) it kills by experience. By this I mean a sufficiently good knifer tends to rack up huge streaks (although this is true too for SMG bumrushers in general) on the strength of a 5:1 noob / decent player kill ratio. This is obviously a somewhat arbitrary number but the point is that the less skilled players tend to be the ones most susceptible to the game engines weaknesses and die in great disproportion to knife-only / knife-savvy / SMG rusher versus any other weapon set. That the best players in almost any given game use knife / SMG says a LOT about the map size and design and game mechanics.

Someone racking up consistently highest scores in a server using a rifle or LMG is to me the most impressive thing, since they have to work harder for it and have to be extremely consistent and sharp with their down the sights aiming. Snipers... less so, they kill by duration and opportunity and an unclaustrophobic and zoomed in sight picture. Someone who really knows good sniping spots and sits there long enough always gets a 5-7 kill streak per long game and might get a few lucky huge airstrike- / chopper-powered streaks.

edit:
last qualifier: CoD2 IIRC got rid of omnidirectional sprinting and it's been gone since the UO days. This GREATLY extended melee battle times because there was a huge amount of very fast maneuvering going on in a confined space. Also, this meant long range bolt / sniper duels turned into sidestepping / snap shot affairs and meant simple camping had a viable counter. CoD4 only allows you to sprint in generally-forward directions, which is obviously more realistic, but game mechanically speaking, it means targets are too predictable -- if you get aimed at 1st, you die 1st most of the time, sort of like tank duels historically. In UO, if you got hit and didn't die instantly, and you could ascertain where you got shot from, it was on and you had a viable shot at prevailing.

That's somewhat tangential but WRT the knife aspect, if you had a sideways or backwards sprint again, knifing, even if it REMAINED one hit kill would not be as nerfed, as I guaran-damn-too you there would be a LOT more misses, auto-aim, speed-boost and large-kill-box notwithstanding.

[Stark]

I agree that the knife is fucking ridiculous. If COD4 revamped its mechanics to make the knife a separate weapon that has to be drawn and made your top running speed that of whatever weapon you carried (rather than just whatever weapon you have drawn), the knife kills would completely evaporate.

The concept of your movement speed being based on what weapon you have out, and not stance/total weight/etc has been fucking retarded since the 90s, but it's a huge part of the 'game' for many FPS players.

[Pulp Hero]

I agree that the knife is fucking ridiculous. If COD4 revamped its mechanics to make the knife a separate weapon that has to be drawn and made your top running speed that of whatever weapon you carried (rather than just whatever weapon you have drawn), the knife kills would completely evaporate.

The concept of your movement speed being based on what weapon you have out, and not stance/total weight/etc has been fucking retarded since the 90s, but it's a huge part of the 'game' for many FPS players.

I bothers me that many people IRL consider COD4 a "tactical" shooter, when it uses mechanics from motherfucking 'Counter-Strike', that were broken even then. Some of us want shooters where you have to shoot stuff.

[Medic]

I agree that the knife is fucking ridiculous. If COD4 revamped its mechanics to make the knife a separate weapon that has to be drawn and made your top running speed that of whatever weapon you carried (rather than just whatever weapon you have drawn), the knife kills would completely evaporate.

The concept of your movement speed being based on what weapon you have out, and not stance/total weight/etc has been fucking retarded since the 90s, but it's a huge part of the 'game' for many FPS players.

I bothers me that many people IRL consider COD4 a "tactical" shooter, when it uses mechanics from motherfucking 'Counter-Strike', that were broken even then. Some of us want shooters where you have to shoot stuff.

That is what it is. It's modern so your average idiot is simply wooed by the superficiality of it all. M16 = tactical... and I don't think that's embellishing the point too much.

I care less for that since I realize CoD is and has always been a very arcade-like shooter. It's got historical skins and weapon sets and to a degree, physics (you don't run at 30 miles an hour like in UT or anything) but I simply prefer non-fiction weapon sets over more fanciful stuff.


Actually the funny thing with CoD4 and weapon's determining your speed is that with OVERKILL, your speed with any weapon combination is the 1st weapon equipped. In other words, if you have an SMG or shotgun in the 1st weapon slot, and an LMG in the 2nd, then you can haul-ass with an M60 like it's featherweight. Broke as all hell but I don't judge weapons by their realism nearly as much as if it simply works as a game mechanic. The knife just pisses me off because it is cheap and as a replacement to weapon bashing system, greatly diminished the fun factor, in exchange for cheap-and-easy-automatic melee killing to bolster the killstreak system. The holistic effect of CoD4's map size and game mechanic weaknesses exacerbate differences in team skill level to far greater degree than previous CoD shooters -- a good team just utterly skullfucks a bad one, pinning them down with airstrikes, choppers, greande spam and clogging the spawn points with SMG / knife bumrushers.