u/RuggedTheDragon

Aside from the reviews stating that the game was sluggish and not very good, the main reason I don't want it is because it relies on generative ai. Yes, there is a full confirmation of this on the steam page.

When I first saw the game and played the demo, I thought it was pretty decent. I was looking forward to it being released fully. As soon as I heard about the generative AI, my heart sank.

That mistake was increasing the base health from 100 to 150.

Some of the smaller discrepancies with an increased health pool involve weapons being less reliable, especially at range. This goes double for shotguns since they cannot function reliably. Another example is that snipers end up being untouched, thus increases the lethality of quickscopers since other weapons won't be as effective.

That being said, the biggest mistake produced from a higher health pool was the unnecessary amount of patchwork that developers had to perform. All of the mwii weapons were already tuned based on careful feedback with 100 HP. Without thinking, the developers realized (often too late) that 150 health meant those weapons were almost useless compared to newer weapons that were tuned for the higher health pool.

It's no surprise that certain MWII weapons like the crossbow couldn't kill in one shot anymore, the pistols were pea shooters, and the lever action mk2 is still by far one of the worst weapons you can use. If the health pool had remained at 100, all of the extra work could have been avoided so that the newer arsenal could be properly tuned.

That's just my opinion personally.

So imagine if the original director came back for the sequel instead of Leonetti. All of the original cast returned and more budget was available so the quality can be better than the original. What would you do?

Personally, I would have had the same concept of the tournament, but it takes place in a much more vibrant setting deeper into Outworld. The areas would range from the night time wastelands, horrific living forests with lightning and thunder, and I also can't forget about arenas like the dead pool and pit.

The new characters I would introduce would be the second sub-zero, who would fight Liu Kang for killing his brother. Other appearances would be Jax, Kintaro, Baraka, Noob Saibot, Jade, Kung Lao, and more.

The story within the tournament isn't just about the emperor asking for a rematch. I would have proposed the conclusion be more of a darker ending to indicate that the good guys may have won the battle, but the actual war was going to begin with the invasion of Earth regardless of the tournament (since it was just a distraction). This cliffhanger would have been the basis for the third movie taking place during the invasion of Earth, which would introduce even more characters from the third game (and fourth).

It was such a disappointment that the sequel didn't hold up compared to the original, but at least we got the newer movies that did pretty well.

It's a sniper rifle within the category, so it's not like I'm doing anything against the rules. It's a really good burst fire that is only capable of 4 bursts before reloading, so it's a risk and reward factor. I've had some people tell me it's not right to use it, but I insisted it is a sniper rifle and I'm playing by the rules.

The game mode is supposed to be fun anyway. Why are people getting mad at me?

For those who are unaware, these are bosses that you can fight on the side (one of which only after you completed the game once). I am aware I am late by 4 years since I waited long enough for a discount on Steam.

Valkyrie Queen Gná - I think it took me about maybe 20+ tries to defeat her. The main reason for her difficulty being so high is due to her spammy unblockables, such as the wing strike, death from above (For Valhalla!), and her grab attack (Kneel!).

I kept focusing on opening her defenses by enabling time shifts via the relic and from my weapons (with additional damage during those moments). At the same time, I had to upgrade my vitality enough so I can take a few more hits. I shifted from valor to rage mode since timing the valor activation wasn't that beneficial.

The Berserker King aka King Hrolf Kraki - Not as difficult compared to Gná, but still annoying. The biggest hurdle at first was his bifrost wave, which I found out you can stop it entirely with a spear/axe throw. Pretty much used the same strategy I as before, although Hrolf felt tankier in terms of overall health.

What experiences have you acquired while fighting these baddies?

I know the mode has been out for a while, but I decided to give it a try. Let me just say that solo was my first mistake.

Even though we did win, the amount of leg work I had to do was unreasonably annoying. There was a moment where the objective was to grab a minigun and score points with it. Nobody knew how to pick it up.

Oh, and the person in last place on our team decided to go 4-21. And I have to remember that deadweight teammates will sometimes go on Reddit and think their opinion matters.

For those who are unaware, the new M34 Garand conversion was recently made available. It allows for the M34 to become an 8-round clip-fed semi-auto with increased damage. Essentially, converting it into the classic WWII rifle.

However, on a few occasions while reloading the weapon, you will incorrectly insert the clip by not holding the charging handle back, thus allowing the bolt to smash your thumb. This was a common mistake that military members made during the second world war (see the image above).

I find it funny that developers left this detail in the game, but that's just me.

It's a simple post, but honestly an interesting one.

In my opinion, if you select a different reticle and swap among the modes, the reticle color for the standard dot should change as well.

I don't know what it is, but ever since the update, there have been extremely wild lobbies. I understand loosening the matchmaking had some of those effects during the early life cycle of BO7, but it has never been this extreme before.

Some examples include the entire lobby ranging from E/D ratios of 20-6 or 12-9. 11 of the 12 players will roughly have these statistics and the game seems even. However, there's one player who's level 1000 with an E/D of 63-5 that completely carries the team. Even as a decent squad of my own, there have been enemy squads with max sensitivity moving at blinding speed, yet retaining 110% of their accuracy. Some of them were top 250s displayed on their calling cards.

Something to add is playing solo. I've also experienced moments where I have an enemy team that is completely dominant In terms of score. They may not be as good and I can definitely hold my own with 25 tags in kill confirmed. The rest of my teammates are going extremely negative with less than 5 tags collected. I've seen people not play that many objectives, but there's an extreme amount of disparity with the balancing of teams.

I understand losing games and I'm all for it. I don't ask for easier opponents because I believe fair competition is healthy. That being said, there have been extreme cases of enemy squads being so out of our leagues, there's literally nothing that can be done. Being stalled to the point of giving up hasn't been experienced this badly in the near 20 years of playing COD, even during the "golden age". If someone like me complains about the matchmaking being this bad, you know I'm not the only one.

It's getting to the point where taking an extended break is being considered.

Is this some type of new gen alpha logic that I'm too smart to understand? Why is it that playing a public game automatically excuses people of playing objectives? That question has yet to be answered.

Nevertheless, whenever I try to delve in the reasons, nobody ever can give me one. It's always about "because kills" and "camos". I generate ideas for solutions, but nobody listens. Is the COD community that cooked? I guess it's the reason devs listen to pro players more often.

As the title says, I hate any kind of claymores, bouncing betties, and more being in the lethal slot.

The reason is because they often get spammed and they don't require any amount of skill. They are just cheesy pieces of equipment that can earn easy kills while reinforcing their slow camping playstyle (which can permeate to other players doing the same). This hampers the gameplay by making everything slower, which I don't want to see repeated like an MW19/MWII.

I understand certain options in Call of Duty have counters, but it doesn't always justify their existence. I can understand them being field upgrades because they're not as spammable, but I would rather not see them scattered around as if people are creating mine fields.

I know you're all going to say. Yes, these are MLP emblems back when the series was popular.

The main reason was because my niece was only 4-6 years old and she was really into the show. I had to watch it with her because I often had to babysit her. The result was creating emblems like these throughout the time I was playing Black Ops. Oh yeah, that's not forget Blue from "Dick Figures".

It's probably not as much considering there are people who play 10x more often than I do. That being said, I try to do my part.

I used to destroy UAVs with a launcher, but I drifted away from that in favor of hunter bots and SAM turrets.

Some of these might be hot takes, so bear with me. While I did play multiplayer for the original Call of Duty games prior to Modern Warfare, it wasn't enough to establish a good opinion.

• Call of Duty 4: Custom classes were amazing and the modern setting really refined the aesthetics. However, map design was lacking overall and a bunch of perks were rather useless, especially eavesdrop with the Xbox live party system.

• World at War: It took notes from Call of Duty 4 with the custom classes, along with some dark and heavy aesthetics. The tank maps were the worst arenas and there were still some perks and equipment items that were not useful whatsoever. The guns also sounded like crap.

• Modern Warfare 2: further refined custom classes with better perk placements and new streaks. The rest of the game was an unbalanced mess with deathstreaks, some bad maps, and horrible post launch support. Killstreaks were especially way too overpowered when they chained together, which basically made the game less gun on gun and more AI versus player.

• Black Ops: Greatly balanced game for the most part and good maps. Second Chance was annoying and my personal gripe involved the dumb noises made while reloading.

• Modern Warfare 3: The gun sounds were amazing, there were lots of streaks to choose from, and face off was incredible. Death streaks were even worse and the support strike package was abused with constant stealth bombers. Limited sprint was a terrible idea.

• Black Ops 2: Amazing scorestreak system and pick 10 was revolutionary at the time. Some of the streaks were too overpowered. Limited sprint still killed my thumbs

• Ghosts: Custom operators were pretty cool and maps having their own streaks/events were unique. The huge selection of perks were interesting as well. I didn't like the desaturated tone and the base maps were too big. Dual rendering scopes reduced the frame rate. Oh, and the IED spam with people abusing the amplify perk to listen in on footsteps was outrageous.

• Advanced Warfare: The game looked great, it played very fast, and the customization for operators and streaks were amazing. Supply drops restricted the armory and some weapon variants were too powerful.

• Black Ops 3: The game had a unique hero shooter vibe with some decent maps. Advanced movement was really slow overall and some of the operators had annoying abilities. Most of the armory was locked behind drops.

• Infinite Warfare: All of the maps were very good to play on and the advanced movement was fast and smooth. Supply drops still ruined the full armory, even with base weapons being unlocked by challenges. MKII weapon variants were a waste of time and were only implemented to make supply drops harder to acquire new gear.

• WWII: Restored the classic vibe of the series, along with the cool HQ area to hang out in with an amazing war mode on top of it. The game was really rough with custom classes, even after the April update. Also, pistol grip skins were a bad idea.

• Black Ops 4: Really solid multiplayer with some iconic maps. I didn't like certain weapons not having all attachments. 5v5 was awful and I felt the time to kill was a little too long.

• Modern Warfare: Pushed a heavier emphasis on realistic military aesthetics and introduced very good online features like cross play and no supply drops. However, a bunch of maps were horribly designed and reverting to the default killstreak system was terrible. No dead silence perk was also abysmal.

• Black Ops Cold War: Multiplayer was very fast-paced and the maps were pretty good. I also loved the faceoff playlists. The streak system wasn't good because they mainly rewarded gunstreaks over objective play, which is the antithesis of the original scorestreak model from bo2.

• Vanguard: I honestly liked the chaotic gameplay and Champion Hill was the best. Weapon customization was cursed and the game jumped the shark with the ridiculous sci-fi cosmetics. I wasn't a fan of combat pacings either because it basically gave an excuse for developers to make bad maps by filling them with more people to compensate. The game had terrible camos and people camping with LMGs with the piercing vision perk ruined everything.

• Modern Warfare II: The time to kill being fast was a benefit and toggling between kill streaks and score streaks was decent (but not perfect). I really like the camo system with every weapon having their own unique unlocks based on a variety of challenges. The maps were still terrible, timed perks were bad, and there was still no dead silence perk.

• Modern Warfare III: Much better movement and the carry forward system was pretty cool. Finally having dead silence aka covert sneakers was a godsend. I wasn't a fan of the higher health pool and it made balancing weapons more tedious than It had to be. Additionally, the remastered MW2 maps were mostly horrible.

• Black Ops 6: Omni movement was amazing and the game played really well overall. Some maps were not too great and the skins got a little too wacky (mainly the cell shaded Beavis and Butthead). Also, I hate camos being rewarded for only headshots. It was a regression from what MWII/MWIII did better.

• Black Ops 7: Even better Omni movement with some content being carried over via scorestreaks. Not a fan of persistent lobbies because you'll end up rejoining the same lobbies repeatedly. Open matchmaking is not very good because squads can dominate more often due to the weaker skill component not being able to be a proper counter.

For myself, my favorite optic of all time would have to be the Cronen Mini Pro (MWII). It's a simple, yet elegant sight with a thin frame and rounded top. This was also the same optic that was used in the original MW2 and it still holds up to this day. In fact, the Cronen optics generally are really good, especially the mini-reflex in MW19.

There's also the optics with the floating dots, like the ELO from BO3 and variations of it later. I really like those ones because of the clearer sight picture they produce.

Oh yeah, the simple blue dot is my preferred reticle choice.

I get it. People can't hit their target if they're sprinting infinitely while being able to slide/dive while wall-jumping rapidly. There's gotta be a safe space for those without the ability to move more than a few square meters per minute, I suppose. Maybe some people love to experience nostalgia but--why wouldn't you just play certain older games since they didn't have omni-movement?

I won quite a few of my games (while angering some) within classic. Even so, the mode is still aggravating due to the restrictions to movement and the unwillingness to perform that same mechanic. The majority of the action is more about hide and seek gameplay rather than a non-stop thrill ride and it bores me to tears. It's worse when trying to rush because of limited sprint, which I recall was hated back in 2017's WWII. What convinced people to change their opinion, aside from the inability to adapt?

It's worse considering someone wrote an article about why they prefer classic and it shows the very reasoning I've described.

In other words, skill issue.

I understand *"*if you don't like it, don't play it". I just hope people don't try to suggest slower movement should be the norm for future games. The goal of COD is to develop and advance itself in terms of mechanics, not regress based on the weakness of the handful. It's no wonder why developers seek the advice of professional players and I'm glad they continue doing so.

The outfit you're seeing is my operator from 2015-2016 and still looks like that today, minus the helmet if I don't re-earn it

In Advanced Warfare, operators could be customized with much more detail because of the freedom given. You can adjust your character's face (admittedly from few choices) along with eyewear, headgear, tops, exosuit, gloves, knee pads, and shoes.

Years after, we were limited to customization involving a face paint, headgear, and body gear. MW19 introduced operators with skins that you can swap, but nothing can be individually personalized. Either developers got lazy or everything was based on profit margins. Maybe both?

I wish there was a day where you can still purchase bundles, but you can mix and match what you own in order to create your own unique identity.

When it comes to cosmetics, the devs had always eventually lost track of their word. In the recent events regarding BO7, I feel that Treyarch lost the plot. We went from skins representing the identity of the series to eventually receiving anime bundles, ridiculous crossovers, and other packs that are well within clown territory (zombies themed included).

This is just a theory of mine, but my guess as to the change in cosmetics late in the cycle is because of a lack of profits earned. The devs need extra money to spend on their games, so they decided to open their doors to the community that unironically enjoys the clown skins.

MAYBE future COD games will stick to their promise. MAYBE the entirety of the life cycle will have realistic skins going forward. We're just not holding our breaths considering the cycle hasn't fully stopped for 13 years now (partially from Ghosts and onward).

I have to say that I was surprised how effective it was with the right attachments. For my shotguns, I used the following:

• Extended Barrel (Extra Range)
• Monolithic suppressor
• Stable Range Laser
• Highest Mobility Stock or Akimbo (Akita)
• Underbarrel that increases mobility (or extended mag for the SG12)

For my perks, I use:

• Gung-Ho

• Scavenger

• Bankroll or Dexterity

• Ninja

  What do you think?