Modern Warfare 2

[Edward Yee]

The only reason I'd ever prestige is to avoid being accused of cheating, were I to suddenly shoot up from 25 to 70 for playing on a glitched/hacked match. According to the Call of Duty wiki, it's very difficult for the few who actually prestiged 10 times legitimately in COD4 Reflex Edition to prove that they're legit due to how many simply hacked their way there.

Finally ran into my first pure knifer, and my first "twelve year old boys calling each other fags and the n-word" match... have to wonder though, how the hell does matchmaking put the better players on one team and the worse players on the other team three times in a row?

[Artemas]

Yeah, that's fucked.

"Well, we'll put the best 4 players on this team, and the rest of the players will be randomly placed." IWnet for the motherfucking win.

I really wish there was a hardcore groundwar, or some HC mode with the full 18 players. I also wish they would put in a lobby or matchmaking service for spec ops.

IW are retarded, reactionary shits, that are afraid of admitting any errors, even if they are obvious.

[Edward Yee]

On the other hand, while I strongly suspected a hack in the case of a team, three members whose name included Panda, I ended up being matched alongside them in their next match... only for that to be a close loss. LOL

My last match for tonight was quite satisfying though -- a bit of seesaw and close calls, but my SEALs defeated the OPFOR at HQ Pro, unlocking for me both the FAL's M203 and the Stinger, despite the lag.

EDIT: It is annoying, but since the thing is "pick up game," World of Warcraft-style, I have no shame in letting my win/loss and kill/death ratios go to hell by leaving matches where the lopsidedness in lag, score (relative to time) for my side, or skill is obvious.

[Phantasee]

Everytime I've tried to get into one of those groundwar games, I got booted by the other players.

[Edward Yee]

Not sure why; tried playing the smaller/separate version of those matches?

P.S. Apparently the corpse that CPL Dunn points out as "not your average trooper" because his tats near the dead HVI at the end of Exodus is supposed to be Viktor from "No Russian."

[The Grim Squeaker]

So, having finished the game, can someone maybe explain why:
Spoiler

Shephard wanted to kill the teams retrieving the data? They didn't have any way to know he was working with Mukharov until he shot them.

What was the deal with the nuke launch from the sub? It didn't detonate in Washington? Who launched it and why? Why did it destroy the ISS? What did Price do there exactly and what was the point?

I'd like to second the points on the Russian invasion of the US being very fucking stupid and contrived.
Also it's a pretty big SOD for the US army ranger to kill waves of heavily armed Russian cops but still can't plug Mukharov in the back of the head, despite being right next to him with a fucking grenade launcher. (And what does "No Russian" mean? Kill no Russians? Leave no Russians? Googling it just brings up controversy over the game).
The ending sequence was a fucking nailbiter.

[Artemas]

Price launched the nuke. For some reason.

I think the idea was the ranger-guy was supposed to follow makharov to his employer. In fact, he went through with the express purpose of getting killed, so that Shepherd would get his little war. No Russian refers to the fact that they are not supposed to speak russian (American Ranger privates with the surname of Allen normally speak russian?). False flag operation and whatnot.

Listen, it's better if you don't think too much on it.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Price launched the nuke. For some reason.

He did? But, but

I think the idea was the ranger-guy was supposed to follow makharov to his employer.

That would have made sense, but it kept being stated that the goal was to kill Makharov. (Who was pretty independent since Zakhaev's death).

No Russian refers to the fact that they are not supposed to speak russian (American Ranger privates with the surname of Allen normally speak russian?). False flag operation and whatnot.

So, they went in pretending to be Americans and the only american there didn't see anything odd about that?

Listen, it's better if you don't think too much on it.

Yeah... A-team hoo ha?

[weemadando]

Price launched the nuke to explode in Low Earth Orbit to cause the EMP which gave the US the breathing space it needed to beat back the Russians on the East Coast.

Plus, it's pretty heavily implied from the minute that you free Price that he knows that Shepperd is dirty as all hell which is why he's going after TF141 like a junkyard dog from then on.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Finally ran into my first pure knifer, and my first "twelve year old boys calling each other fags and the n-word" match... have to wonder though, how the hell does matchmaking put the better players on one team and the worse players on the other team three times in a row?

Really? Wait until you get into your first match where a White-Supremacist Aussie rants about immigrants outbreeding whites and how so few Americans can trace their lineage back more than 50 years and are all race-traitors.

[Questor]

Really? Wait until you get into your first match where a White-Supremacist Aussie rants about immigrants outbreeding whites and how so few Americans can trace their lineage back more than 50 years and are all race-traitors.

Why does an Austrailian care?

[Ritterin Sophia]

Really? Wait until you get into your first match where a White-Supremacist Aussie rants about immigrants outbreeding whites and how so few Americans can trace their lineage back more than 50 years and are all race-traitors.

Why does an Austrailian care?

It is a mystery.

[aieeegrunt]

This is why all my xbox lives matches are private and friend's list only.

[Darth Wong]

I finally played a Live match of this game (my kids play this game far more than I do), and an obvious question springs to mind: since I've never run into anyone who actually likes the supremacy of knives as a combat weapon, why don't the developers nerf the knife? Why is it that you can knife a guy once in the foot and it's a guaranteed one-hit insta-kill, whereas you can pump 10 bullets into that same asshole with a machine gun and he doesn't drop?

I thought this game was supposed to be "Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2", not "Call of Duty: Modern Ninja". Since when do you have to feel stupid for bringing a gun to a knife fight?

[Stark]

Attitudes towards broken things like this in competitive games can be very strange. 'Hardcore' players may have cooked up strategies to deal with it (or use it themselves) and scorn anyone who can't do it. IW aren't the most cutting-edge developer FPS-wise, and if they pay attention to the 'elite clanner' players this might not seem like a big deal.

Which is pretty absurd because it essentially ruins the game. And I say that knowing that many people will brand me a 'noob' just for saying it.

[CaptHawkeye]

I thought this game was supposed to be "Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2", not "Call of Duty: Modern Ninja". Since when do you have to feel stupid for bringing a gun to a knife fight?

A lot of this stems from how underpowered guns are portrayed in video games. Most gamers however would never settle for a game that actually had things like realistically lethal bullets. Even if you could balance the effects of this greater killing power with more realistic and ergo challenging ballistic physics. It would break the typical fanboy preconception of every game needing to be Counter Strike AGAIN.

Note that i'm not necessarily calling for a sim here. I just want weapons to be more powerful than they are usually portrayed in games, to be balanced by simply increasing the real world challenges of operating them. This wouldn't be well received by the ultra conservative nerds trolling the IW/Bungie/EA forums though. Especially when you consider that many video game developers are also fanboys. I've said it before that i'm never into playing an FPS for the nerd cred of racking up kills. I want to be challenged and have fun. Most gamers however, really do play for the pure power trip. Hence the industry fascination with "stats" and "K/D".

[Kingmaker]

A lot of this stems from how underpowered guns are portrayed in video games. Most gamers however would never settle for a game that actually had things like realistically lethal bullets.

They'd start whining about how all the skill had been removed from the game because you didn't have to aim anymore, and how any corner camping noob could sneak up on you and kill you. Because tactics are t3h h4xx.

Hence the industry fascination with "stats" and "K/D".

I don't think this is that unreasonable. A lot of people want to know how well they're doing when they play a competitive game, and in absence of a better mechanism K/D ratios end up becoming the way that you measure your performance. It's not a very good way of measuring performance, and the lack of any real sort of teamwork bonus in most FPS is probably detrimental to the use of teamwork and tactics online. Also, the fact that most FPS' dominant game mode is "find something and kill it" probably isn't helping either.

[Stark]

It's a TERRIBLE way of measuring performance ANYWHERE but in free-for-all deathmatch. Any team-based game is going to be fucked up by people wanting to manage K/D stats, because sometimes helping the team means you die without getting a pile of kills.

Amusingly in games like World in Conflict people are often more interested in K/D stats than win/loss stats, because it's very hard for one player to make a team win. But hoarding your units and only goign for easy kills is a great way to pad your K/D while not actually playing the game or acheiving anything.

What people want to achieve in a game shapes how they play, and if people focus on K/D then -all- they want to do is kill people without dying. Any other method of progression or success is devalued.

[KhyronTheBackstabber]

Attitudes towards broken things like this in competitive games can be very strange. 'Hardcore' players may have cooked up strategies to deal with it (or use it themselves) and scorn anyone who can't do it.

There isn't really any strategy to dealing with them other then catching them far enough away so they can't get to you before your bullets kill them... or you can shoot them in the face.
I find it funny that knifers complain and say snipers, campers, and tubers are pussies with no "skillz". I made a knife class and went 27-4 the first time I used it. No skill needed.

A lot of this stems from how underpowered guns are portrayed in video games. Most gamers however would never settle for a game that actually had things like realistically lethal bullets. Even if you could balance the effects of this greater killing power with more realistic and ergo challenging ballistic physics. It would break the typical fanboy preconception of every game needing to be Counter Strike AGAIN.

That's why I've always liked hardcore. 1-2 shots = dead.
It also makes life more difficult for knifers because they need to sneak up behind you to be effective.
MW2 needs more hardcore matches.

I've said it before that i'm never into playing an FPS for the nerd cred of racking up kills. I want to be challenged and have fun. Most gamers however, really do play for the pure power trip. Hence the industry fascination with "stats" and "K/D".

Those people annoy the fuck out of me in team games that have an objective to capture or defend. They're so concerned with their K/d they end up letting the other team steam roll them.

[CaptHawkeye]

CoD's hardcore mode makes me fucking laugh. I'm a fan of reduced HUD, but not being able to tell how many grenades or mags you have left is fucking retarded. Since the game also doesn't give a shit about things like drop or windage, the only useful weapons in hardcore are the guns with the highest RoF anyway.

It's not like the industry fascination with K/D will ever change though. Developers have shown no interest in that shit and they directly market the "leet statz trackin!" bullshit to their fanboys in every game. The fact that Team Deathmatch games even END with a nice big, "fuck you" shot of the score board is a testament to this fact. The people playing the game can't be satisfied just playing the game. They need to fucking pwn nubs or some shit. It absolutely sickens me that FPS games are all about supplying some asshole's power trip needs. At least the RPG genre understands people play them for the sake of playing them. Most of the time anyway.

[Minischoles]

I finally played a Live match of this game (my kids play this game far more than I do), and an obvious question springs to mind: since I've never run into anyone who actually likes the supremacy of knives as a combat weapon, why don't the developers nerf the knife? Why is it that you can knife a guy once in the foot and it's a guaranteed one-hit insta-kill, whereas you can pump 10 bullets into that same asshole with a machine gun and he doesn't drop?

I thought this game was supposed to be "Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2", not "Call of Duty: Modern Ninja". Since when do you have to feel stupid for bringing a gun to a knife fight?

This game is pretty stupidly inconsistent when it comes to what kills fast and what doesn't, and its in part because they listened to the 'elite' whining from the previous games. It's why you've got such stupid inconsistencies like snipers not being one hit kills unless you hit in the neck or above, while most Assault Rifles are 2-3 round kills even without the Stopping Power perk. Most of the guns are the results of World at War, and all the whining that surrounded that game.

The problem with the knife is a) they imported the shitty fucking mechanic from Halo, where you can lunge like 8 feet to stab someone, b) most of the time, even with 4 bar connections, you're dealing with a good deal of latency and c) fucking commando/lightweight/marathon. It's great they have a laggy game, then put 3 perks in that all make a player absurdly fast or have even greater melee distance, so by the time you've actually shot, you're already dead.

And I agree with Stark, K/D as a measure of how good you are is fucking awful. Take a game type like Demolition, or Domination. You might absolutely suck, get something like 5-20. But if those 5 kills were all defence kills, with you saving a point, or stopping a bomb being planted, you've done just as much if not more than the guy camping his ass off with a 35-1.

[Edward Yee]

Re: Price and the nukes, a hilarious answer I saw at the "Just Bugs Me" page (TVTropes) for the "how" question: When an angry screaming British man points his weapon at you and orders you to do what you've been trained and prepared for, at a relatively plausible target, are you gonna question it that much?

Especially when you consider that many video game developers are also fanboys.

This... yep, definitely a problem at times. Comics and TV have already seen what happens when you give writing influence to the wrong fans, or rather, people who're fans of the wrong elements/see something in it that you never intended. And then when those fans end up being the ones most devoted enough to get into the driver's seat...

Re: the whole power trip thing... it's amusing to read on the Call of Duty wiki that the Youtube "no scope" videos tend to be picked out from scores of failures. It's not enough to feel that you're "pwning n00bs," there's also the need to "show everyone"...

And I agree with Stark, K/D as a measure of how good you are is fucking awful. Take a game type like Demolition, or Domination. You might absolutely suck, get something like 5-20. But if those 5 kills were all defence kills, with you saving a point, or stopping a bomb being planted, you've done just as much if not more than the guy camping his ass off with a 35-1.

See, this should be true, but the ability to have a high kill/death ratio does correlate somewhat with your ability to be successful at objective matches, at least while in service to those objectives. It's frustrating as hell being on a team that just can't find its way around the shield-wielder crouching in the corner next to a Headquarters... maybe I just have no luck with which teams matchmaking forces me into?

I admit, I didn't follow MW1 multiplayer or WaW's, so I wasn't clued in to all the supposed drama regarding "game balance" (yeah right) and IW picking/choosing which to listen to.

They'd start whining about how all the skill had been removed from the game because you didn't have to aim anymore, and how any corner camping noob could sneak up on you and kill you. Because tactics are t3h h4xx.

I confess that I may be guilty re: "tactics are t3h h4xx". Ironic, as when I thought this of a team I was playing 3rd Person Tactical against (all three "offenders," had Panda in their name), I ended up being teamed with them in the subsequent match, only for us to lose that by a hair. They claimed they're just a team who use tactics; in retrospect I don't know.

An interesting solution that MAG had to the whole k/d thing is that while the Suppression match mode is team deathmatch, it doesn't count towards the Shadow War (in-universe it's combat training within the faction), whereas the "true" matches (that do count towards the Shadow War) are all objective-based matches. That doesn't explain the other balance issues with the game, though I'm hearing that that's starting to even out.

I find it funny that knifers complain and say snipers, campers, and tubers are pussies with no "skillz". I made a knife class and went 27-4 the first time I used it. No skill needed.

Ironic for them to call snipers, campers, and tubers "pussies with no 'skillz'". I've read (on TVTropes) that the M203 is actually more devastating in real-life than in-game, and in real-life you get to aim down the sight! (I'm pretty sure that the Thumper iron sight's range markings don't actually correlate to actual point of impact, so I just use it as a backup "tube" while I'm farming kills for Danger Close.) The acceptable target for me among them is camping, and just because it can drag a game out longer than players are willing/able to stay connected. But otherwise? I like this quote (not mine, wish I had a source), for both sides of "knifers vs. snipers, campers, and tubers":

The only real fighting is the style and distance I'm good at. Anyone who takes me out of my comfort zone is not really fighting and is also a pussy. Strategy is for wimps.

The quote's regarding MMA, but...

[weemadando]

And I agree with Stark, K/D as a measure of how good you are is fucking awful. Take a game type like Demolition, or Domination. You might absolutely suck, get something like 5-20. But if those 5 kills were all defence kills, with you saving a point, or stopping a bomb being planted, you've done just as much if not more than the guy camping his ass off with a 35-1.

This is so fucking true. Most of my builds in fact revolve around either a) being able to hold down a point as long as possible to milk the time based points for HQ/Domination or b) being able to take a point as quickly as possible, even if it means I'm dead as soon as it's taken.

As such my stats for these modes are fucking awful (K:D in the 1:10+ category), but I generally take 2/3s or more of the "awards" at the end of each round for taking the most points, defending the most points, and so on and so forth.

[Ritterin Sophia]

I've always found the cries about campers not playing the game hilarious, especially since I play Ground War Domination primarily.

So when I'm a sniper I'm supposed to run about willy-nilly when my rifle sucks at close range or I'm not supposed to protect my objective when given predictable avenues of approach? I wish I'd have known that in BCT, then I could tell my Drill Sergeants to not worry about defensive positions when defending an objective (like a downed battlebuddy whom you're calling a Medevac for), just run around and kill them.

AS for knives, when I brought up the issue that a 7.62x51mm M240B does the same damage as an MG4 (5.56x45) and less than an L86 LSW (Another 5.56 NATO) I was told it's 'Modern Warfare' not 'Realistic Warfare', it's supposed to be cinematic and ignore verisimilitude when that conflicts with what's cool.

[Edward Yee]

So when I'm a sniper I'm supposed to run about willy-nilly when my rifle sucks at close range or I'm not supposed to protect my objective when given predictable avenues of approach?

The rebuttal to you would probably involve them trying to link you to no scope videos as proof re: your close-quarters viability... just ask how many failures the links were cherry picked from.

AS for knives, when I brought up the issue that a 7.62x51mm M240B does the same damage as an MG4 (5.56x45) and less than an L86 LSW (Another 5.56 NATO) I was told it's 'Modern Warfare' not 'Realistic Warfare', it's supposed to be cinematic and ignore verisimilitude when that conflicts with what's cool.

See, this is one thing that would be an acceptable break from reality (weapon caliber and damage per shot), but the whole knife thing pushed it way past that threshold. It's one thing when firearms are, for "game balance," given unrealistic stats relative to each other, it's another when run-and-knifing has become a viable individual technique that doesn't require a horrendous mismatch in average skill of the teams.

Then again, back as early as the June 2009 GameInformer you had Infinity Ward calling MW2 "authentic, not realistic."