[360, PS3] Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

[Cheezdoodles]

I hate the spawn system in just about every other game including KZ3 and the CallofDutys. While we're on the topic of CoD, the spawn system in the last couple of games have ruined the gameplay so far, that I seriously considered giving up on it. There's just nothing worse than being spawned right in the middle of crossfire - or when the game is actually doing its job somehow out of danger, but usually more likely than not, there's always someone flanking you immediately and you have a 360° to cover off, not knowing where everyone is. At least if you spawn in a base, the only way is forward and you don't need to worry about someone coming up behind.
.

Tbh this is something that I never have a problem with in cod games unless u have a very small maps where everybody is rushing each other constantly. The spawn system is easy to figure out in tdm and other team modes.

In tdm u will spawn close to a team mate in an area that has limited enemies. U usually spawn near the edges of a map so there is limited angles to cover, and the enemy is usually spawning at an exact opposite of where the bulk of ur team is. All u have to do then is to think about what paths they are likely to take and go down those to get some kills!

As long as u know the maps first spawn points and constantly try to attack or flank the enemy u should have good enough knowledge for where the enemy is when u spawn, and u shouldn't have any problems with people shooting u in the back.

Ofcourse initially this can be difficult because u don't know the maps and ur not sure what routes the enemy is likely to take

 

[fearsomepirate]

Well, Cheezdoodles, if no one has ever spawned behind you, and you have never spawned with an enemy approaching you from the back, you are extremely lucky, because it's happened to all of us. In fact, I myself have spawned behind my killer many times in both Black Ops and W@W.

 

[Barbarian]

But I thought Treyarch weren't real programmers who didn't do anything with the engine. /sarcasm

It's refreshing to hear something nice about Treyarch once in a while

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Well, Cheezdoodles, if no one has ever spawned behind you, and you have never spawned with an enemy approaching you from the back, you are extremely lucky, because it's happened to all of us. In fact, I myself have spawned behind my killer many times in both Black Ops and W@W.

Nope. I have never experienced the enemy spawning behind me, and shooting me in the back in the mw games. I have ofc been shot in the back but not by enemy spawning behind me.

Cannot speak for waw and blops. Then again I use uav kill streak and I have it on more or less constantly through a match, so maybe this prevents that feeling.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

After 6000 kills, less than 3000 deaths, and 30 or so hours of playtime, I'm bored of this. Never happen to me before with a mw game!

I cannot put my finger on it, something with the maps I think!

Back to bf3 I guess

 

[Phil]

Tbh this is something that I never have a problem with in cod games unless u have a very small maps where everybody is rushing each other constantly. The spawn system is easy to figure out in tdm and other team modes.

I think I actually figured out the problem...

The spawn system works, when you are in a TDM game where either your team is more or less controling areas or together or if the opposition is together.

The spawn system doesn't work when the opposition is controlling the match and our team is scathered across the map, everyone doing his own thing.

The truth is, I have found myself more often than not in matches where there is a complete lack of team-work and everyone is running around like a headless chicken, trying to master the run-gun gameplay. This often leads to our team (or the team that I'm in) to be spread across the map. At that point, spawnin is dangerous everywhere and in games like these, I have been spawned often directly in enemy fire or just around of the corner of someone. The result being shot within 3 seconds without even having a chance to realize where I am and where they might be coming from.

The annoying thing is; Once you're in a game that's not working for you, the spawn system just adds one to that. It's not enough that the opposition is already milking their killstreaks... we have to die because of bad-spawns as well (which is something I figure is inherently difficult to solve).

The good news is - if you do play in groups of people and coordinate things in a way, the spawn system does seem to work better and spawn you nearby. Makes the whole gameplay a lot more fun too.

 

[Phil]

After 6000 kills, less than 3000 deaths, and 30 or so hours of playtime, I'm bored of this. Never happen to me before with a mw game!

I cannot put my finger on it, something with the maps I think!

Back to bf3 I guess

I have to say, I'm loving it. BlackOps was fun, but I'm enjoying this quite a lot more. The weapons feel nice and I'm really liking the maps as well. The killstreak can give you the feeling of "overkill" - but you have more than enough perks to disable that advantage. I have the perk "blind eye" - which makes you invisible to air-support. Problem solved.

 

[fearsomepirate]

I think I actually figured out the problem...

The spawn system works, when you are in a TDM game where either your team is more or less controling areas or together or if the opposition is together.

The spawn system doesn't work when the opposition is controlling the match and our team is scathered across the map, everyone doing his own thing.

Exactly. The CoD spawn system is written in such a way as to make it nearly impossible to lone-wolf. If you let your team get away from you, you can guarantee that enemies will be spawning around you in short order. And if your team moves consistently as a group, it's incredibly deadly, because it will always have the benefit of numbers. I've been playing W@W Domination with a consistent group recently, and we just move as a small horde from one flag to another, not really staying in one spot, and dropping artillery on whichever flag we're farthest from. This keeps the enemy spawning broken up, and us continually surrounding them, no matter where they spawn. They usually ragequit before the match is half over, and frankly, I can see why.

I simply don't like this and the kind of gameplay it forces.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Exactly. The CoD spawn system is written in such a way as to make it nearly impossible to lone-wolf. If you let your team get away from you, you can guarantee that enemies will be spawning around you in short order. .

Im sorry but this is pure bs. I only do run and gun lone wolf tactics and in most cases in tdm I do 25-60% of my teams total kills.

Ofc versus a coordinated group it's hard to get a decent kdr but lone wolfing in cod is easy. Aim is king, as long as u can aim on max sensitivity u can handle most situations.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Im sorry but this is pure bs.

You can accuse me of lying all you want. I know what I've seen. I've been on both ends of spawning behind people many times. You can claim it doesn't happen. You can say it's impossible. You can insist that anyone who says it's happened must either be terrible at the game or dishonest. Both Phil and I have seen it. And in particular, I have done it to other people literally hundreds of times. When I spawn, take three steps, and shoot someone in the back, what exactly would you call that? I call it "spawning behind someone," and it's something that only exists in COD games...which is why I don't like COD's spawn system and prefer defined bases for each team.

I'll give a concrete example of what you claim never happens:

I was playing CTF on Asylum in W@W with my usual group; we were the Nazis. Now, of course when the game starts, each team spawns by their own flag. This is where you usually spawn, because the way the dynamics work in CTF, you'll usually be killing each other in the middle areas, so you'll usually spawn back at your own flag. But one time, most of the enemy must have been at our flag, because I spawned right behind the Soviet flag, at the base of some stairs. So I ran up the stairs, shot the guy in the back who was guarding the flag (he, naturally, was expecting the us to be coming from the general direction of our flag , grabbed it, and sprinted back to our base.

Now, according to you, that can't happen. But it did...and it's why I consider CTF in COD to be pretty broken compared to games that have base spawns.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

I didnt say u where lying I simply said that claiming that lone wolfing doesn't work is pure bs. Thats why i only quoted that thing. In all the game modes where ur not relying on ur team to both defend and attack at the same time, cod is perfect for lone wolfing. A good player can easily carry a team alone.

But i see now that u say "nearly impossible", which i dont really agree to either but whatever.


Regarding getting spawned behind u, I said that If u figure out the spawn system it shouldn't happen, unless ur camping. I said I have no problems with it. Not that it never happen for you. It not happening for me is probably a result of me mote or less constantly having a uav and constantly trying to flank.

I also said that I cannot speak for waw. I never played it. I also said that in lots of the game modes the spawns aren't random. Which is true for the infinity ward games.

 

[Phil]

Aim is king, as long as u can aim on max sensitivity u can handle most situations.

I used to think that too. Then you watch killcams where with supposed 4 bars of connection among each player you should be experiencing a relative lag free experience and wonder why in his view, you never even fired a shot when accoarding to your own view, you had the headshot before he even got to pull the trigger. While I can't measure the exact lag, I'm going to put an educated guess that at times it's 200ms+ (despite being in games that are supposedly <50ms or <70ms as shown during match making).

At times, it even feels as if the game is off by nearly a second. As an experienced CoD veteran player you can figure out that this kind of lag suggests that there's no way you have a chance, even on max sensitivity and perfect "aim is king" reflexes and precision, you're dead before you get to pull the trigger... unless you keep playing against idiots.

The sad thing is, 4 bars of connection isn't even the norm. At times, you're lucky to get most people with 3 bars and above. Only God knows how much worse the connections are then.

In MW3 (I've seen this in many in other CoD as well) I'm also experiencing more and more what should be "1 shot kills" but don't even register as hits again. I snipe, so I have a pretty good asessment when I fire 3 shots into his upper back at point-blank and down my ACOG that he should be in heaven - yet somehow he manages to turn around and kill me with a rifle while firing from the hips. Is this a form of cheating? Or is the connection just off? This stuff makes me lose all faith in the game.

At least 2nd life is pretty much gone which has been the biggest annoyance. From run & gun, I have turned around my style of play and play with a sniper + ACOG usually strategic (not camping). This has taken out the connection lag issues out of the equation most of the time, as I usually kill from mid to long range or position myself that people coming around corners don't have me in their sights before I do. This works pretty well, especially in group play when the entire team is pulling their weight. It doesn't work, when we're getting destroyed and the entire teams turns into headless chickens running around and the spawn system starts spawning you right in the action.

 

[fearsomepirate]

My connection is usually pretty good, but I notice a huge drop in my performance when I've got 4 bars, and 2 bars is nearly unplayable. Of course, in W@W, there are a lot of cheaters these days*, so it takes me a bit to figure out whether someone's got an invincibility cheat, or I'm just getting hosed by the lag. It seems to me that the way COD's system resolves lag is that whichever client reports the kill/hit first wins. I much prefer Killzone 2's system, where if the client reports enough hits to kill, it gets resolved as a kill, period. It results in weird situations where you kill someone and then die because he was shooting you over on his end, but I much prefer shooting someone and having the kill reported 5 seconds later over shooting someone and not getting a kill at all.

I've also seen quite a bit of lag switching, too (you can tell because the switcher will teleport all over the place)...I suppose that since there are so few people playing W@W these days, it means there's a higher concentration of cheaters.

*Treyarch's code is, from what I've read, harder to hack than IW's, since they remove the debug tools before launch, and IW doesn't, or at least they didn't with MW1 and MW2. W@W hadn't been thoroughly hacked yet back when I was playing, but that clearly changed in the interval where I didn't touch it. However, the hacks are not nearly as extensive as the MW games...not much besides infinite ammo, noclip, invincibility, and starting with dogs. I suspect wallhacks, too, but you can never be sure with that one. Black Ops is still pretty clean.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Tbh both systems are flawed. Just give dedicated servers with server side detection.

The trick with cod lag is to continuously be running and gunning, as long as ur the one turning the corner and not the other guy, u will see them first on your screen, thus if u can aim, u win...

Regarding connections I usually have 4 bars so cannot share that with you

 

[Cheezdoodles]

*Treyarch's code is, from what I've read, harder to hack than IW's, since they remove the debug tools before launch, and IW doesn't, or at least they didn't with MW1 and MW2. W@W hadn't been thoroughly hacked yet back when I was playing, but that clearly changed in the interval where I didn't touch it. However, the hacks are not nearly as extensive as the MW games...not much besides infinite ammo, noclip, invincibility, and starting with dogs. I suspect wallhacks, too, but you can never be sure with that one. Black Ops is still pretty clean.

how do u hack a console game?

 

[Acert93]

*Treyarch's code is, from what I've read, harder to hack than IW's, since they remove the debug tools before launch, and IW doesn't, or at least they didn't with MW1 and MW2. W@W hadn't been thoroughly hacked yet back when I was playing, but that clearly changed in the interval where I didn't touch it. However, the hacks are not nearly as extensive as the MW games...not much besides infinite ammo, noclip, invincibility, and starting with dogs. I suspect wallhacks, too, but you can never be sure with that one. Black Ops is still pretty clean.

On the 360 I found W@W to be more hacked out of the gate than either MW1 or MW2 ever were. ::shruggs::

 

[fearsomepirate]

how do u hack a console game?

The hacks replace certain files that are installed on the hard drive. Some of these files are the same across PS3, X360, and PC versions of the game, apparently. I've never installed one, personally.

I just learned today that shotguns have a tighter spread if you aim down the sights; don't ask me how I didn't know that. How the **** does that make any sense?

 

[Phil]

The trick with cod lag is to continuously be running and gunning, as long as ur the one turning the corner and not the other guy, u will see them first on your screen, thus if u can aim, u win...

I'm mystified how you can have such a high K/D with the style of play you're using (run & gun). Okay, killstreaks inflate numbers, naturally - but as I have written above, run & gun usually tends to give me the frustrating kind of moments when I feel like throwing the gamepad at the wall or something. It's not that I'm not quick enough - quite the contrary - the problem with lag is that I'm sitting there yelling at screen that there was *nothing* I could have done better when running around the corner and already having him locked in while staring down the sights and firing away (short bursts). Imagine how utterly frustrating it is when the guy I was shooting at wasn't even looking in my direction (from my view) - yet killcam reveals that accoarding to his view, he turned to face the corner and sees me running around the corner without me even attempting to shoot or anything. If lag sometimes really results in being off by close to a second (possible even more), how could I ever have a chance if he sees me a full second in advance? In CoD - you're dead in less of a second against a skilled player - and there are many skilled players.

The only way I see run & gun having some benefit is that due to my quick and constant moving around, I'm a more difficult target to hit. This works well sometimes, but the moments when it doesn't just pulls the entire experience down for me.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Phil, are you one of the UK B3Ders? The UK guys I play with in W@W complain about exactly the sort of thing you describe. While I'll have that happen to me once in a while, it seems to happen to them all the time.

Here's my advice, take it for what you will: When you're in a high lag situation, don't run around corners. You will lose every face-to-face combat situation. Wait at the corner and listen to see if anyone is moving around. Focus more on trying to ambush other players, e.g., by hiding in some bushes, behind some barrels, near a door, etc, and used a silenced automatic weapon.

But when your lag is that bad, there's not a whole lot you can do...except switch back to Killzone, where at least there's true client-side hit detection.

 

[Phil]

Actually, I'm from Switzerland. These lag issues have been around from pretty much the first CoD I played online (W@W onwards) and because it's very hard to measure, it's hard to be sure where exactly they're coming from. I guess style of play, weapons and even the maps can influence how much lag comes across to be an issue: e.g. run & gun only enhances the problem for me.

Being in central Europe - it's also a wierd problem to have. They're lots of people, usually from France or Germany or Italy that we play against. Connection speeds are usually quite good too (everyone with few exceptions have 4 bars out of 4). Even then, it does still happen sometimes and even though lag is masked well most of the time, it's there and it is a factor. I also wonder if some players exploit this and cheat? (if yes, I wouldn't even know how, beyond the obvious slowing down the connection speed whch would only work if you're the host I guess?).

I fear of playing with Americans though. Most of them, it seems, have the voice changer activated (or are really little kids), but the connection speeds are just terrible...

Anyway, I've pretty much eliminated the problem for me in MW3 though: Since I've converted to sniping and dropped the run & gun style of play, I usually don't experience it that often. Sure, I still have the occasional WTF moments when I fire what is a definite one-shot-one-kill only to have no hits register and be dead the next instance. I usually put this down to lag and just think - heck, he was probably a bit quicker and had the connection on his side.

BTW: I saw that you were playing W@W the other day. You should really give MW3 a go. My main addiction to it may be because it's just newer and proposes a new good challenge, but I'm really liking the online play. Even the killstreaks are fun and I quite like the maps too. There's one area that I think is a lot better in MW3 than BlackOps: No 2nd life and you have some decent maps where sniping is a possibility again. It's worth a go!