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[See You Next Wednesday]

He's right.

I was at like .60 and I'm edging ever closer to that 1.00 mark :lol

No kidding, the Ak74u is as overpowered as the MP40 from WAW.

 

[firehawk12]

It's really too bad you can't put a silencer on the G11. That'd make it the god weapon. :lol

 

[EleventhDoctor]

Just wanted to pop in and say I hate playing CTf to get Marathon Pro.

That is all.

 

[firehawk12]

Just wanted to pop in and say I hate playing CTf to get Marathon Pro.

That is all.

I'm still stuck on 8 first blood kills.

 

[mcrae]

Holy damn. Now that I've unlocked the AK, Commando, and G11, I'm finally doing well. G11 with low power scope and slight of hand pro is my current favorite.

yeah, i got my first 11 kill streaks back to back using the g11 wlow powered scope and slight of hand. i dont think im going to prestige cause i love this gun so much.

im about 1.6 kdr with the g11 with about 400 kills, but im 2.13 kdr with the galil with 400 kills... was sooo surprised when i saw that. makes me think i should just run with the galil isntead... but i dont remember it being nearly as much fun

 

[mcrae]

I'm still stuck on 8 first blood kills.

first blood kills are really easy to get imo... just sprint the closest path to the other spawn, and be fast on the ADS.... flag capping on the other hand i havent tried very hard till tonight, and only got 1 cap in about 6 games

 

[KJTB]

It's really too bad you can't put a silencer on the G11. That'd make it the god weapon. :lol

Oh god, I can already imagine everyone in a game using nothing but silenced G11's...

 

[Dresden]

No kidding, the Ak74u is as overpowered as the MP40 from WAW.

Not really. Only does 20 damage from afar and it's fire rate isn't any faster than most of the assault rifles. Only advantage it has is hipfire and the fact that it's easy to use.

 

[firehawk12]

first blood kills are really easy to get imo... just sprint the closest path to the other spawn, and be fast on the ADS.... flag capping on the other hand i havent tried very hard till tonight, and only got 1 cap in about 6 games

Oh, I try, just never happens. :lol

At best its my grenade spam that gets the first kill usually.

Oh god, I can already imagine everyone in a game using nothing but silenced G11's...

I like playing my stealth class... but god damn the G11 is just too good. :lol

 

[Stoney Mason]

Oh god please fix the snipers in this game.

Just for the hell of it I sniped for 2 or 3 hours tonight trying out all the sniper rifles.

It's just too punishing currently. You can maybe get away with it in objectives modes where its a bit easier to predict where the action is going to take place but in Team DM its really difficult. I had the occasional good game but it was generally sandwiched between some low scoring average games and some god awful games where i just got brutalized.

I sort of got use to the random action scope in and can control that pretty easily but really only about 3 or so of the maps are really designed for sniping as a good option.

I like alot about Blacks Ops but I think the map design was superior in MW 2. And playing as a sniper only reinforced that opinion. Superior probably really isn't the word. It's more that I think there was better variety in MW 2. I still believe not enough of the maps in black ops provide a lot of long line of sights. The biggest MW 2 maps also feel bigger than anything in Black Ops. I don't know if that is factually true but it feels that way even if it isn't because there is more stuff on the black ops maps taking up space. Neat maps for smg's and assault rifles (which is what the bulk of the population uses) but I do miss sniping more than I thought I would even though I'm really not a person who snipes a lot.

 

[aku:jiki]

I just hit third prestige...I think? Damn, I lose track of prestige levels in the CoD games so fast. :lol

I'm back to loving it now that it's behaving well for me lately, but I have to say that the prestiging is a little quick here. I'm already third and I've never even bought Scavenger, never unlocked and messed around with Hacker Pro, never ran with Ninja and most of the time I don't spend the time/money on getting the classified weapons.

It mostly feels like I'm just rushing through the prestiges so I can get to 15, where I can start evening out and really start to get a feel for the later unlocks... I think I prefer the old style, where you just kept playing without even thinking of it and you entertained yourself by messing around with whatever you unlocked last until prestige became available again.

Do you guys have any pro-tips for countering the RC-XD?

Currently I can generally only blow one up when I see it coming from a decent distance. Is there a specific weapon that deals with these things better than another? I'm running around with an AK-47 right now.

The way to deal with it is to equip Flak Jacket and just accept that you'll be dying more often in this than in previous CoD's, just because of the RC-XD.

At least you could hide inside from all the shit in MW2!

 

[Stoney Mason]

I'm back to loving it now that it's behaving well for me lately, but I have to say that the prestiging is a little quick here.

I much prefer this method even though I'm probably not going to prestige at all in the game. The higher levels in the other games just started to drag as you inched your way up. It was annoying.

It felt like I was able to hit 50 here really fast by comparison. So I prefer a faster leveling system in that regard especially if I was actually going to prestige.

 

[LeMaximilian]

Prestiging goes by really fast, especially if you casually work on objectives and shoot air support down.

Currently 39 on the 5th Prestige, the Talon/Lightning Bolt.

 

[Mr. Enigma]

Hello-

I'm just going to be honest with you.

I don't like talking about the Snipers rifles and what we are going to do or not do. You see, for every reasonable person wishing to engage in a civil dialog, I get an earful from dozens or hundreds more who are unbelievable rude.

However, by far, this is the most common question people ask me about. We said (and I promised) that we would work hard to maintain a dialog with you about the game. So, despite the many ugly replies sure to follow, here I am.

First off, no matter what we do, the hardest core members Quick Scoping community will likely never be completely satisfied. The most common request I get is "...nobody complained how it was in Call of Duty 4 or World at War... make it like that." The people who say that must continue to not believe me when I tell you that we had it like "4 and World at War" a similar number of players were not very happy about it. Why do you think we changed it in the first place?

This is the update you have been asking about. Yes. We will probably make small tweaks to sniper rifles.

(1) We are evaluating the damage and hit box multipliers. Especially, if the weapon is suppressed.
(2) We are moving what many of you refer to as the "sniper rifle patch" into tunables we can adjust easier so that we can do some real-time experimentation

Anything we do is going to be carefully deliberated. Personally, I'm eager to get onto the business of "live tuning" the game, but not if it pushes the pendulum too far in a direction we don't want the game to go.

It will come. But, it will come really slowly (for many of you).

Finally, the sniper tuning conversation starts and stops with you. Act responsible. Get updates and a conversation. Some self-policing will go a long way. Act immature, get nothing.

David 'Vahn' Vonderahaar

.

 

[Veins]

Loving :

Ak74U Dual Mag + Silencer With Claymores
Ghost
Warlord
Hacker

 

[-Winnie-]

Is it just me or do a lot of the later levels (35-50) not have any unlocks at all? Why even have those extra levels if they don't mean anything? >_>

 

[MarkMclovin]

Same thing happened to me : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95vXQoQ6q3U

Treyarch, please...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1NX1HSYboE

At least you were showing on his screen!

 

[snap0212]

Hello-

I'm just going to be honest with you.

I don't like talking about the Snipers rifles and what we are going to do or not do. You see, for every reasonable person wishing to engage in a civil dialog, I get an earful from dozens or hundreds more who are unbelievable rude.

However, by far, this is the most common question people ask me about. We said (and I promised) that we would work hard to maintain a dialog with you about the game. So, despite the many ugly replies sure to follow, here I am.

First off, no matter what we do, the hardest core members Quick Scoping community will likely never be completely satisfied. The most common request I get is "...nobody complained how it was in Call of Duty 4 or World at War... make it like that." The people who say that must continue to not believe me when I tell you that we had it like "4 and World at War" a similar number of players were not very happy about it. Why do you think we changed it in the first place?

This is the update you have been asking about. Yes. We will probably make small tweaks to sniper rifles.

(1) We are evaluating the damage and hit box multipliers. Especially, if the weapon is suppressed.
(2) We are moving what many of you refer to as the "sniper rifle patch" into tunables we can adjust easier so that we can do some real-time experimentation

Anything we do is going to be carefully deliberated. Personally, I'm eager to get onto the business of "live tuning" the game, but not if it pushes the pendulum too far in a direction we don't want the game to go.

It will come. But, it will come really slowly (for many of you).

Finally, the sniper tuning conversation starts and stops with you. Act responsible. Get updates and a conversation. Some self-policing will go a long way. Act immature, get nothing.

David 'Vahn' Vonderahaar

The bolded part: Just a few people actually got to try this out and it's impossible that you'll find a "similar number" if only 2% of those who played MW2 have even experienced how it could have been. Even if quickscoping in Modern Warfare 2 was annoying for about half a million people (which would be enough to consider it a problem, I guess), there were not even 500,000 people who have played the game pre-patch. That's bullshit.

But you know what? If they'd really care about things a "number of players [are] not very happy about[.]" they'd have fixed the frame rate and connection problems that a lot of people are having. Just take a look at the official forums if you think that GAF is just overreacting and that the frame rate and connection issues are made up things. Sure, not everyone has problems with the connection, but a huge number of players are not very happy about it, either.

 

[KaYotiX]

I'm glad snipers got nerfed, I hate them all :lol :lol :lol :lol

 

[EleventhDoctor]

I'm noticing a trend. I have bad games all night long-then I finally have one good game-and it quits out because it can't connect to host.

 

[Aurora]

AK74u isn't overpowered, it's just that most of the other SMGs are shit. AK74u gets owned by shotguns at close range and owned by ARs at long range. Doesn't need a nerf but the other SMGs need a buff.

G11 might be a little overpowered though, I haven't quite decided.

 

[TheOddOne]

Intresting blog post by Jesse Snyder (he was co-lead designer on World at War) on Infinite Spawners.

I recently finished Call of Duty: Black Ops on Veteran difficulty. Yep, the game I left during pre-production.

It’s interesting leaving a game two years ago and finally getting to play it. Overall I thought the game was a good experience. However, one thing that stood out was the use of infinite spawners in various places throughout the game.

It made me think back on a time I was being interviewed for a design position. Someone asked me what I thought of infinite spawners. I told them I didn’t care for them in general but that they can be used in the right context.

They thought I was wrong. I’m glad I didn’t end up working for them.


Now, I don’t think infinite spawners in COD:BO really added anything to the experience. In fact, I think they were misused.

Spoiler

The two clear examples are the indoor area soon after you shoot down the giant rocket from the sky. Immediately afterward you enter into a building and guy after guy floods into a hallway until you move up. The other was the defend Khe Sanh level, where you have to move down the hill and stab barrels with your knife.

The trick of course is that there’s a trigger that prevents more guys from spawning in, or at least some script condition that needs to be met. Once you hit that trigger or that condition is met, you’re good. But until then, enemies will spawn in and move to the cover point you just killed his predecessor on. Forever.

The problem is use of infinite spawners in the improper context will break immersion and frustrate the player. In the case of COD, the developers are trying to provide players with a hyper-realistic experience. Sure, there are arcadey elements to the game (the HUD, button prompts, zombie modes and so fourth) that always impose the risk of immersion breaking, but players by and large ignore these affordances and accept them as part of their regular experience. Once the player is immersed and is accepting your experience, the last thing you want is for them to start noticing that… gasp… they are in fact playing a video game! Please stay and enjoy this wonderful thing we made for you. Please continue to eat out of the palm of our hand.

So when are infinite spawners okay to use? When it won’t break immersion. For example, when we made Nazi Zombies, the intention was for the player to always die at the end. Hopelessness. Survival. Endless waves. In this case, infinite spawners add to the experience, even though there are breaks between round and so on. But there is no end until YOU die, so technically, infinite spawning is what defines the core experience. This isn’t to say Treyarch could add an end to the infinite rounds (like Horde mode in Gear of War) and the experience would be weakened, but it would definitely change it.

Another example? Borderlands. You can leave a zone, come back, and the zone will be repopulated with more AI to fight. This is of course to continue the main gameplay loop involving sweet loot. Taking out the respawning of AI would break this loop and make the game less fun. You’d just be running around an open environment with a bunch of corpses not getting rewarded. Immersion would be broken if infinite spawns were taken from Borderlands. To be fair, you still get a feeling of accomplishment when clearing an area. But you’re not mad when the AI come back… because you want treats.

One more? Bioshock. Again, another loot loop there, but this one is on the borderline of immersion breaking. I’ve been in numerous discussions where gamers thought re-spawning splicers have bothered them. They initially bothered me as well, until I got used to the game and accepted it. However, I’m with many others in that their spawn system violates my basic desire to have a feeling of “I cleared this place, it should be safe now.” Bioshock 2 wasn’t as bad since the backtracking was limited compared to the first. I think this bothers people in this series because the game has a heavier narrative influence, unlike Borderlands. Guys popping back into the world breaks the narrative flow a bit and reminds you it’s a game.

As a player, I know the frustration first hand of seeing guy after guy after guy go to the same cover node. The experience then becomes “try to beat the system” not “Assault the Vietcong!” or whatever universe I’m immersed in at the time. Now I’m only worried about “getting to the next part” so I can “advance the game” instead of “playing the game” and “enjoying the story.” It’s a mindset players get into, but it’s important to recognize. Sources of frustrations are typically not a good thing in games.

The easy fix? Do what was done in the rest of the game. Set the wave counters to like three or five instead of endless and forever. Admittedly, five is high probably too high for most COD encounters. Plus, it has high potential to feel just like an infinite spawner. In fact, the player will begin to think it’s an infinite spawner.

Which is another problem. On WaW, we consciously avoided using infinite spawners as a design directive, but gamers accused us of using them anyway. 99% of players can’t tell the difference between a infinite spawner and set of enemies with five spawn waves built in. By the time most players see the fourth guy go to the same spot to die like his three buddies before him, they’ll be trying to move forward anyway. The fun has been exhausted. Time to move one and see the next thing.

On Veteran difficulty in COD games, the problem of infinite spawners are compounded because players are forced to move slow and methodically. An infinite spawner sticks out like a sore thumb.

Where am I going with this? Really think about the experience you are trying to offer. Consider if putting infinitely spawning anything in your game is really worth it. Sometimes it is, usually it isn’t.

 

[snap0212]

I'm glad snipers got nerfed, I hate them all :lol :lol :lol :lol

Those who were/are really good at quickscoping are also very good players. The people who killed you over and over again with a sniper rifle are now killing you over and over again with other weapons. Every quickscoper I know also has a way better k/d with regular weapons than with sniper rifles.

 

[Seep]

there are 700,000 players online everyday, GAFers are being exaggerate

No it just means people don't notice or don't care. I have two mates who swear blind that BFBC2 has no screen tearing, I don't get how they can't see it.

 

[bathala]

FUCK YES YES

I got my 1st Pro. Marathon Pro.

Firing Range really helps since its a small map

 

[Dilly]

Any word from Treyarch about a new patch?

 

[molekiller]

AK74u isn't overpowered, it's just that most of the other SMGs are shit. AK74u gets owned by shotguns at close range and owned by ARs at long range. Doesn't need a nerf but the other SMGs need a buff.

G11 might be a little overpowered though, I haven't quite decided.

I do quite well with the PM63 and the MPL, the PM63 with grip has no recoil at all and rapes in close range. The MPL is one of the best looking guns also.

 

[Myomoto]

So I have recently been playing around with the spas12 a lot. That thing is a beast, I regularly get 2.5 K/D ratios in death match now :lol

 

[aku:jiki]

More videos!

Check out this lucky, bored noscope while I was protecting the bomb:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBCb6JD_stE

Flanking some fools on Villa, turns into a quad spray with a fifth guy tasting blade right after:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMIa5qZepj0

I don't even know what's going on in this clip, why are they failing so hard at killing me? :lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcuQVLnC7b8

Finally, the sniper tuning conversation starts and stops with you. Act responsible. Get updates and a conversation. Some self-policing will go a long way. Act immature, get nothing.

This guy is incredible, I've never seen someone in such a need to get over himself! How about fuck you, Mr. Wonderhair? We provided you with monetary compensation for your game, and quite a fucking lot of it. Enjoy your 18 new lamborghinis and stop crying over the fact that some 12-year-old kid on the internet swore at you.

Also, you failed at your job when you designed the sniper rifles. Man the fuck up and admit that, stop talking like you created perfection.

 

[Hanmik]

watch this for a good laugh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjCHW4sPI0I&feature=player_embedded

:lol

 

[_Alkaline_]

I do quite well with the PM63 and the MPL, the PM63 with grip has no recoil at all and rapes in close range. The MPL is one of the best looking guns also.

Definitely. PM63 seems to have a bit more power behind it than the MPL but you can't silence it.

 

[Lionheart1827]

Ok so I beat my 2nd playthrough of the campaign and it was pretty damn easy on Veteran except for the

Spoiler

khe san stabbing barrels part and the tunnels part after you destroy the rocket on the 3rd mission

. Other than those two parts the game was mostly a cakewalk on vet. WAW and cod4 I still think are the most frustrating out of them all.

 

[RickA238]

So I have recently been playing around with the spas12 a lot. That thing is a beast, I regularly get 2.5 K/D ratios in death match now

Yeah, it ain't too bad in this game, definitely better than the classified shotgun due to the recoil differences. But the SPAS is totally nerfed compared to MW2; I mained it most of the time.

You should give the Stakeout an honest try as well, it's pretty good if you don't mind pumping.

 

[todahawk]

BTW, WP grendades/stun/concussion grenades work great on taking out RC-XD's. Thanks to the gaffer that mentioned it earlier.

 

[electroshockwave]

Did anyone else beat the Khe san hill mission without having any idea about the barrels?

 

[AndresON777]

I just unlocked the ak74u but I still like the mp5k better. Maybe it's that I'm using the refliex sight? Should you attach something else to the ak74u? like rapid fire or something?

 

[zlatko]

I ran out of XBL about a week ago, so I haven't gotten to experience the patch first hand, but can anyone tell me if they sorted out the getting into games together issues? I basically refused to turn the game on anymore because I never got into games with friends and if I tried to wait it out it'd take 20 minutes or longer to finally get into something together.

 

[mandiller]

Did anyone else beat the Khe san hill mission without having any idea about the barrels?

Yep. That part annoyed the crap out of me. Men kept turning up no matter how many I killed. I ended up just racing down the hill to certain trigger points and hoping I wasn't killed in time for me to kill all the enemies around me.

What do the barrels do?

 

[Lionheart1827]

Did anyone else beat the Khe san hill mission without having any idea about the barrels?

On Normal yeah I didn't even know about it, at least I don't remember ever using it. But on Veteran? Jeez if anybody did they must be patient as hell.

What do the barrels do?

They blow up the VC in the bottom trench and allow you to proceed down the hill.

 

[sikkinixx]

I loves me the hatchet. If it's a face-to-face fight, hatchet it is. I guess you can bank them off walls too since I got extra points for doing so :lol

 

[_Alkaline_]

I loves me the hatchet. If it's a face-to-face fight, hatchet it is. I guess you can bank them off walls too since I got extra points for doing so :lol

Already got over 100 kills with the tomahawk.

I was a throwing knife fiend in MW2, so glad there's a replica in this game.

 

[ToyMachine228]

I noticed last night that one of the houses on Nuketown is FILLED with De Stijl paintings. De Stijl is a kind of art for those of you who don't know. My avatar is an example of it. As someone who's a fan of De Stijl it was a pretty cool little bonus when I noticed it. More reason to vote for Nuketown:lol

 

[Nizz]

Did anyone else beat the Khe san hill mission without having any idea about the barrels?

I did. I played it on normal but yeah, I never triggered the part where I had to do that. I basically kept popping off from a distance then I just said F it and ran down the hill. Only later after listening to some podcasts I realized this.

 

[zam]

OMG, just played my best game in any CoD, 112-6 on Demolition on Nuketown. Called in like 2 dogs, 3 chopper gunners, and then a gunship a teammate let me take from his care package cause he wanted to get hardline pro :lol

 

[Myomoto]

watch this for a good laugh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjCHW4sPI0I&feature=player_embedded

:lol

I love the CSI-style reconstruction of events :lol

 

[Raiden]

OMG, just played my best game in any CoD, 112-6 on Demolition on Nuketown. Called in like 2 dogs, 3 chopper gunners, and then a gunship a teammate let me take from his care package cause he wanted to get hardline pro :lol

Demolition gametype is a joke, i only play TDM and have a 2.23 ratio ... meaning nothing because you can campkill your ratio to something insane like that.

Not saying you camped and all, but people do

 

[divisionbyzorro]

This guy is incredible, I've never seen someone in such a need to get over himself! How about fuck you, Mr. Wonderhair? We provided you with monetary compensation for your game, and quite a fucking lot of it. Enjoy your 18 new lamborghinis and stop crying over the fact that some 12-year-old kid on the internet swore at you.

Also, you failed at your job when you designed the sniper rifles. Man the fuck up and admit that, stop talking like you created perfection.

Normally I enjoy listening to your rants, but the fact that you managed to post this without a hint of irony is hilarious. Why should he give a shit what you say when you're treating him like shit? If the sniping community stopped acting so butthurt and actually felt like engaging in reasonable dialogue, the entire debate would have gone completely differently.

Consider the difference in tone between zzirGrizz in his first "sniping response" video, and the video that Hutch and Woody put out almost immediately after. zzirGrizz is the face of the sniping community, and he acted like a spoiled little kid who had his favorite toy taken away by his parents. The video was embarrassing to watch, and no doubt reinforced the image of the sniping community in the developer's mind. But when Hutch and Woody talked about it, I felt like they articulated a number of very valid points, and did so in a way that wasn't insulting or juvenile. I just wish that zzirGrizz had been so reasonable.

When you make a game this popular and with this many consumers, there is always going to be a very, very vocal portion of that community that are complete assholes. If you want your opinion to matter, you have to rise above that level and stand out from the rest of the crowd. They simply can't listen to everybody, so they're going to listen to the people who act like reasonable people, which is a litmus test that I for one am perfectly okay with.

 

[Hanmik]

... wall of text...

you are back..? (I do not even know why you where gone)

What is your lowdown on Black Ops..? haven´t read any impressions from you since the game launched,,.,

 

[TheOMan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1NX1HSYboE

At least you were showing on his screen!

This happened to me in MW2 more than once, so I wouldn't say this is a Treyarch specific bug.

 

[zero margin]

What do most people use as their secondary weapon? I find it a bit annoying sometimes to figure out that I'm the only one on a team of 9 that has a launcher and sees the advantage of shooting down a chopper before it enters the map.

carrying a luncher around is way more effective than say, a pistol. At least for my play style. Rather get points for shooting things down.