Modern Warfare hasn’t gotten off to the best start. I think this might be the most controversial Call of Duty title we have had in many years; even more than WW2, and that’s saying something. The gun balance is not fun for public matches, and map design has strayed far away from previous titles. Modern Warfare is also one of the slowest Call of Duty titles I have ever experienced. The 1.07 patch was one that I — and many others — needed to keep playing; one we were relying on to make this game more fun. Unfortunately, Infinity Ward didn’t deliver.
I know that this is only one of many patches that will happen this year, but this one was essential. The community has shouted as loud as we can for Infinity Ward to please fix the state of public matches. We have offered immense amounts of feedback on what needs to be changed to keep us playing. But, our words seem to be falling on deaf ears. I won’t touch on every change in this patch, but I am going to focus on the ones I find most important to the state of the game. You can find the full list of patch notes here.
Weapons and Equipment
Easily, the most controversial thing in Modern Warfare is the 725 shotgun. This weapon is so broken you can kill people across ground war maps with one shot. Yes, I am being serious when I say that. The gun saw a nerf to damage range and increased ADS and hip spread. While the increase of spread prevents kills from long-range, it will actually increase kill potential at short ranges because less accuracy is required. This is in no shape or form what we wanted or asked for. I went into pubs hoping I was missing something and that it would just be worse. It’s not.
The M4 is arguably the best rifle and submachine gun in the game, and no that’s not a typo. The M4 wins fights it shouldn’t against the MP7 and MP5, and is the go-to weapon if you aren’t abusing the 725. In 1.07 it saw a minor nerf, one so small that I didn’t really notice it. It’s still the best machine gun in the game by a large margin.
Claymores were another item toward which the community showed its disdain. Thankfully, after patch 1.07 I found myself dying significantly fewer times. And because they are weaker I also saw them less often. Hopefully, the need to tip-toe everywhere you go is over. That is a change I believe everyone is happy with.
Battle Chatter
This was an extremely useless feature to begin with. It’s fine when only you or your teammates can hear the chatter, but the fact that your enemies could hear your character yell, “contact!” at the top of their lungs when they walked past you makes me question who came up with this idea. Thankfully, this has been fixed and you won’t lose a round 11 to it ever again. True story.
Footsteps
Footsteps are a hot topic among the competitive scene for Modern Warfare. Most want dead silence to become a perk, and I agree with them. The amount of times I have died to someone sitting in a corner with their Turtle Beach headsets on 6000 volume waiting to hear me is too many.
This also makes modes like Search and Destroy very stale and even more slow than usual. People are waiting around for their dead silence to return before moving. Reducing the noise steps make while ADS and crouching is a good start, but I think we still need more than that.
Shoot House (24/7 mode)
The Call of Duty series is known for maps with a three-lane design. Modern Warfare strayed away from that greatly, much to fans’ disappointment. When Shoot House was revealed, many were hopeful that it would reflect the style we are used to, but Shoot House isn’t the map we were expecting. It is extremely small, maybe even smaller than Hackney Yard.
The unfortunate meta of pubs are still shotguns even after this patch and this map only amplifies it. The 24/7 mode is one that the community was looking forward to, but the 725 and auto shotty are ruining it (just like the rest of the maps). Let’s put the shotguns aside for a moment though and focus on if this is actually a good map. Still, my answer is no. Its size is a massive problem for spawn trapping along with it being heavily one-sided. This picture will, hopefully, show just how one-sided this map really is.
The green line represents the true center of the map used during a match while red and blue mark the spawn areas. On the red side of the map exists high ground with no cover, as well as terrible sightlines to the other side of the map. Players also must jump over crates to change lanes. Blue side, however, has a high ground with wonderful sightlines and ample cover on the north side, they can get to any lane by sprinting and all their lanes have significantly more cover. Being on the red side against even a half-competent enemy is a nightmare.
Holding out hope
Like many other dedicated Call of Duty fans out there, I have hope that Infinity Ward will fix all the issues that remain in the game. They have fooled many of us times, but we always come back because we love this franchise. Modern Warfare has a ton of potential and I hope the developers will capitalize on it.
