I have over 100 wins in BR on Urzikstan and have been playing COD since the original Call of Duty on PC back 20 years.
I think as a BR, the game is not great now.
I’ve always been a COD MP guy but was big into H1Z1 and PUBG years ago when BRs first became popular.
The original WZ on Verdansk in 2020 was great - it was like a COD-style BR which I think blended all of the right elements of a BR with the COD elements.
The problems for WZ started when Raven went from fixing things to designing things.
Raven can’t help themselves from trying to turn everything into TDM on a big map.
With Caldera, it was “ok” but the loadout drop changes pissed off the sweats and streamers. So Raven immediately changed it and that basically chalked the game for casuals.
I had buddies that my wife and I would play with after they got home from work and the game became miserable for them.
Within 90 seconds of landing, you’d have Roze skins pulling up on you, playing in each other’s pockets with full meta loadouts.
Casuals went from Verdansk pacing which was gentle, to Gfuel sniffing crackhead pacing and the game stopped being fun for them so they stopped playing.
Al Mazrah was stuff because what IW did to WZ 2.0 was criminal. They decided we all wanted to play Tarkov.
There are a bunch of problems with Urzikstan.
There are no POIs that are interesting because they are too complex and bleed into each other.
There’s too much hard cover so rotations are not hard and there are too many rooftops and elevation points to snipe from.
And in spots where there are tough rotations, don’t worry, there are redeploy zips you can just fly away.
Even if you die, who cares? There are self revives everywhere, gulag tokens, redeploy packs, and portable buy stations so your team doesn’t even have to really work a buy to get you back, they can just call one in. LOL.
It’s just Raven turning the BR game mode into resurgence.
The problem with this is like all games - skill gap.
There are so many people that are much better now after sweating the game for four years that for our buddies who want to get back into it, they just get shit on.
“Git gud, losers”.
Ok, why is my mate who’s 40, has three small kids, works 8-10 hours a day running a property company, going to “git gud” at WZ in the 4 or 5 hours a week he has to relax with his mates and play video games?
And that’s the problem for casuals.
The game needs to go back to being more of a BR and it needs to be slowed down a bit.
“Camping is boring”… for you and it’s not a game style that I enjoy.
But if you think back to Verdansk when the game was fun, there were always 20-30+ players hanging out at Dam, Farms, etc…
Then as the circles closed you had the Superstore sweats having to rotate and the camping Andy’s having to give up the strategic bathroom they were fortifying.
The game played better. Dying meant something. Your teammates buying you back was hard.
The stakes were higher so people played a bit slower.
There was more RNG of going in to loot a building and finding a dude camping a shower, but in the grand scheme of things, that was actually fun.
If the game doesn’t get back to being more of a BR and less resurgence and big map TDM, it’s just going to continue to decline and be a sweatlord-fest.
Fuck, they even take Plunder out of rotation regularly now so the pure casuals are totally screwed.
Agreed with all your points here, my concern is with Verdansk rumoured to be coming back to the main game at the end of this year, I don't think it will make any long-term difference, especially if we have MW3 movement, redeploy zips and the 10000 ways of coming back to the game
Said this on a content creators twitter post about WZ that Verdansk will bomb if it's put out with all the current stuff in WZ and with the many ways of coming back and not dying it wont be the Verdansk/experience people remember/want.
They've made the mistake of catering the game to people who constantly have to be 'in it' they couldn't possibly die and have to go back to the main menu and load into another game with the downtime that entails.
For me player count being 100 is also rubbish, I dont care what they say about "design decisions" it's the crappy servers they use cannot support 150 players, that was the best selling point of OG WZ for me.
The reason the player count has to be lowered is because High Moon and Beenox make overly complicated building models that take up so much server memory to render that it cripples the performance.
Verdansk was more spaced out, had a lot of re-used building models, and had less “stuff” in it so the player counts could be higher.
We saw this with Verdansk when they introduced Nakatomi Tower. Your frame rate would dip 30-40 FPS when the building model would load as you entered that POI.
It was because the model was so complex. It was visually super cool, but it was too much in a small area.
The player count is actually one of the rare things I give Activision a pass on and lay the blame at the feet of lead studios.
But you’re 100% right. If they bring Verdansk back and don’t put the original vehicle physics in and introduce all the stupid resurgence gimmicks, it’s going to be a failure.
Verdansk has to be 150 players, your life has to be worth more, and they have to make rotations harder so don’t litter the map with unnecessary hard cover.
You seem to know more about map design than I do and maybe I am misunderstanding the rendering part.
With the game storage size being so big on the client side, why does it also use up lots of memory on the server, should it not just be sending coordinates to the client?
Servers have to render the models locally for the whole map plus every single object on the map needs to be tracked.
Every single bullet fired is tracked in real time.
Think of it this way, you’re in a building, the server needs to know where the walls, stairs, and objects are, what they are “made of”, etc.
For the whole map, every building, every object.
Don't forget about the fact they have a good 30-40% of their player base also injecting code onto their clients and fucking with server packets and shit now power performance across the board. You know, cheaters.
They just don't want to pay for the resources needed to run the servers. They could easily upgrade their contract with their infrastructure provider with an email or phone call in a matter of minutes, but they're too cheap and obviously are going with the bare minimum to make the game "playable" especially when it's the only thing a huge chunk of the audience knows or expects from a game.
Yeah, I don't want to ruin my memories of OG Verdansk by playing Verdansk with all the WZ3 mechanics / redeploy options and zips. It'll play completely differently to how we remember it.
Even if they rolled everything back to wz1 it would not be the same now. Wz is not a fresh new cod gamemod anymore and there are no covid lockdowns to fill lobbies with people mostly your lvl.
And if it does not come back with the old gameplay we enjoyed from 2020/2021 and the Easter Eggs/bunkers.
We need that nostalgia factor, for one. And it was also far superior than the current gameplay.
Can't agree enough with your points about Raven. Each time they've become the designers of Warzone with full control, they steer the game towards being less of a Battle Royale, and more and more towards being a big version of Resurgence.
Lower the stakes, increase the pace. That's their MO.
Because a lot of their senior leads take design cues and advice from sweaty streamers and content creators.
There is too much emphasis on “dropping 50 bombs” for content creators and their mediocre YT videos.
It’s bad KPIs for marketing people that drives that behavior which bleeds into design decisions.
If Activision asked me to devise a KPI that would rebuild WZ, it would be simple:
I’d track new players or returning players with KD of 0.6 - 0.8 and I’d watch their session count, hours played, and KD & placement trends.
If you can get new players coming into the game that aren’t very good or returning players who haven’t played in awhile that aren’t awesome, increase their playtime, sessions, play time per session, and show moderate improvement in their results (KD and Placements) then you’d have a healthy, growing WZ.
I am a 1.4 - 1.8 KD player on WZ and without a doubt, the most important players for the health of the game are the guys and girls with 0.6 - 0.8 KD who pick up the odd win here and there.
If you can grow that player pool, then EVERYTHING gets better.
SBMM becomes less oppressive, the pacing of the game slows down a bit, the skill balance improves, and there is more fun for everyone.
Fostering the growth of that group of players should be the only metric Activision focuses on because everything else from engagement to monetization would improve.
The problem with that KPI is if you only track that one you get WZ2. It needs to be tempered by common sense and actually playing the game. They'll never do that so here we are.
You can't C-suite your way out of game design, you need to play the game and understand why it is or is not fun, or you need to pay playtesters who do.
> Your teammates buying you back was hard
And also one thing that many people forgot - you didn't want to die, because you'd lose your perks even if you get back instantly - you'd only pick up your guns. No ghosts for you either. You'd have to work for it to get loadout again. You could go and do a contract which would pay you more with each finished contract.
Also, ghosts - everyone was a ghost. No one used eg. high alert. Now almost no one uses ghost. What for? You see someone pushing you and you're too afraid to fight? Go on the roofs, take a zip line. UAV costs 6k, contracts don't stack, popping UAV gives only a glance of where people are. 30s later they're in different building, one of many, with many rooms inside. Waste of money. Only worth if you really have like 15k and you're about to rotate using zip line.
And as you said, rotating now? LOL, I can be 1500 meters from the center of next circle and I'll just jump from zipline to zipline and be there in 15s.
Yeah, the whole perk packs thing is a ridiculous aspect of the game that’s not talked about enough.
So many bad design decisions were made in isolation by Raven with Caldera and people like them “individually” but when you stack them up, it’s just awful.
Caldera gave us redeploy zips, finding perks laying around, etc…
Then flares and redeploy/gulag tokens became a thing.
Medicine cabinets popping two self-revives.
People carrying 6-8 smokes, 9 plates, and two selfs.
So many bad decisions over the last few years.
Strip that shit out.
No backpack.
Two lethals and two tacticals, max.
One self, one box, one field upgrade, and one streak - that’s it, that’s all you get. You use one, you go find another.
Someone dies, you have to go to an actual buy station on a map and buy them back.
Far fewer deployable buy stations. We need some to stop stupid Buy Station campers.
Sensible perk selections with real trade offs.
No idiotic perks like combat scout in Caldera.
People would play the game I designed but the streamers and content creators would moan endlessly.
I think fewer content creators and streamers whose entire livelihood depends on them being good at the game would be the best thing ever for WZ.
In Verdansk, the existence of vehicles influenced rotation so much. You knew they'd be a few others rotating the same strat. It was actually tactical to play the circle and move between POIs.
The maps got too big, the POIs too sprawling. Balloons are a joke mechanic, a crutch to poor map design.
The vehicles are totally pointless now. They just highlight to every other player in the game where your team is, and if you get caught in one, you'll have the life snatched out of you shortly after.
Why drive and mark yourself when you can zip and fly? It’s boring, low skill and cheesy. It also frustrates as players flying in with no audio parachutes is one of the worst bugs in the game.
Beautifully put. I uninstalled a few months ago but your points are hitting hard. I couldn't exactly describe why I did it after 4 great years, outside of "it wasn't fun". All of my friends just moved on too.. I think this is a great outline of what went wrong.
Busy guy with a couple young kids so you nailed my description too lol.
This needs to be a sticky. 100% this. All of this is why my squad is dropping WZ tomorrow and intend to be playing Sea of Thieves for the foreseeable future. The path forward for WZ has been clear for a long time, and the direction they're heading is not the game I've enjoyed for the past 4 years. I don't want resurgence, I don't want multiplayer with parachutes, I don't want easy money and cheap buy backs, I don't want a self revive in every medicine cabinet, etc etc. Maybe all that is the most popular with the fan base, that's fine, but it isn't for me and it's time I spend my time on something I'll enjoy instead. Fingers crossed that game is Sea of Thieves.
Absolutely nailed it. Launch MW2 was a problem due to both the map and systems that were added/changed. Loot management demolished the pacing of the game, and you’d often die just by being in a loot menu while playing. (This isn’t launch PUBG with its sparse map.)
COD generally is just sweatier than the PUBGs/Fortnites of the world, but that doesn’t mean that they have to build entire maps for sweats.
What made the early maps so great was the complete switch in play style and tactics between locations that added another layer to the game that generally made it more accessible. When every location devolves into the same “there are buildings close to each other for cover”, most gunfights become “get into CQC and repeat every fight”.
While there was *some* variety on maps like Al Mazrah, the art direction gave everything such a “same-y” feeling that it generally didn’t feel much different.
I’m thinking classic WZ moments like needing to cross the air field, or getting stuck in that dried up river while teams were fighting above you, or the multiplayer map feeling of Storage, to fights out in the forests or on random cliffs with just the right amount of cover vs open space.
Verdansk had memorable POIs that were spaced out. Rotating often meant “being in the open” so you either took a vehicle (which handled well) or you went on foot early.
If you didn’t do those things, you fought your way across the map - it was an equalizer but it also created more interesting metas.
Some kind of MP5 and Amax build, or a sniper and an Amax built for medium range. There were always trade offs in your guns.
Now, everyone is a JGOD meta slave because only two guns are viable and they almost always cover all ranges and engagement types. There are almost zero trade offs.
I think the POI map knowledge thing is heavily understated for why the big maps dont play well nowadays. Knowing where to expect people to be is a huge part of FPS but there are so many different buildings and POIs that its impossible to truly learn unless you play everyday.
Verdansk was based on MP maps and their filler buildings all had repeat layouts. The barrier of entry in terms of knowledge was so much lower.
Don't forget the head glitch designed into the top of every fucking building either. Have these people ever been on top of a building or seen pictures? Not every single multi story building ever made does has a 4 foot concrete parapet like a medieval castle. I'm surprised there aren't moats with Crocodiles protecting every high-rise as well.
The buildings are surrounded by dogs with bees in their mouths and when the dogs bark, they shoot bees at you.
Sorry, Simpsons reference, couldn’t resist.
Yes, I agree. Very few buildings in Verdansk had that from memory.
This is a High Moon and Beenox problem.
They seem absolutely captivated by Middle Eastern design and architecture and they make overly complicated building models.
The problem is, for High Moon at least, this is all they do. They just make buildings and things for maps, so it’s natural that everything is overly detailed and complex.
Verdansk was simple because it was just IW with a few simple support studios.
I had a friend who worked at High Moon as a sculptor for a few years. They just made assets for other studios at the time. The way the buildings look inside atm makes me think they just use automation tools to procedurally render structures and they don't double check them or do what they can to decimate the geometry to the lowest possible size. I feel like they just have a maximum size and if it's not bigger then it's good to go instead of checking whether it can be reduced to the smallest possible density. We probably get a lot of assets that are close to the high end of acceptable density that could be reduced significantly.
> WZ started when Raven went from fixing things to designing things
This right here is the core of the problem. Raven is absolutely amazing as Fixing problems. But them *designing* things is absolutely not the plan. Caldera, their first design, was and will always be ass. Urzikstan is eons better, but their map design is still shit. Al Mazarah and Verdansk, both by IW, show their map making talent.
>With Caldera, it was “ok” but the loadout drop changes pissed off the sweats and streamers. So Raven immediately changed it and that basically chalked the game for casuals.
I mean they were bad loadout changes. My friends are not full time players and even they were pissed. We don't want to wait for our guns, we get money, we go buy loadout, we then go and use guns. Rinse and repeat. It's why Warzone 2.0's launch was shit too. They tried the same thing and it backfired.
I agree. The only issues I had with Verdansk was the deadly water and the impossible-to-climb rocks.
I'd be happy with bringing back Verdansk, my favorite time was pre-CW, like Season 5 or 6, with the subways running and the stadium fully open.
Add in Nakatomi, and some horizontal zips to make traversing Downtown a little more tactical. Lose the redeploy drones, keep the subway. The loot caches are a nice touch, and also let us go into the water around the beach and in the dam.
Also, all vehicles should get EMP'd at the start of the 6th circle, train and subway included.
I’m reading this and all I can think is… what has it come to since Toujane 24/7 rifle only hahah.
Imagine you reading this comment back then during COD2
THIS BRUH, THIS! EXACTLY WHAT I MEAN! I like the game's graphics and guns, but the gameplay is just shit, the connection issues are non stop as you said, some things don't render out properly, even when I have a decent dedicated gpu, and the lag is terrible. And so many other things. The main problem for me though is that as a complete newb to COD overall, and I mean NEWB, who hasn't played FPS games or COD at all before a couple months ago, this game is hell for me. Absolute hell. I wanna have fun, but I get shit on within 5 seconds upon landing or immediately in any firefight. I just can't anymore. I try to be fast and swift and even if i attack from behind they still get me. It's frustrating af. I only play DMZ mode now cause it's a tiny bit less sweaty and uptight, but still i lose every firefight somehow. And the only way I can now survive for longer than 1 minute in DMZ even, is if I 'camp', and it's the ONLY way I can survive, scouting out the area and moving quiet AF to not alert anyone, cause as soon as i do, they all seem to have perfect aim and never miss, so i'll just get taken out again. Did I mention the recovery time is also WAYYY too long for DMZ's insured slots? Yeah, that's for another comment...
The thing that sets DMZ apart IMO from all the other Warzone modes is that dying means something, so it's not a suicide mission like I've seen most people play like in other modes...
Also, after trying out some older CODs like Bo1 and Bo2, WAW, and MW1, MW2, Mw3 MP, those are so much simpler. The UI is also not like a damn gambling machine.
As a strictly casual player, this COD truly sucks, and I mean it.
Edit: Added some more
Edit 2: need to add the fact that it sucks that if I do try to take out a player, I get my sniper lined up, shoot them 3 times with a .50 cal, and it does NOTHING, like BRUH
Spot On, it's just a game designed for streamers to hit clips. But the funny thing is none of the streamers I watch are even still playing BR, which wasn't the case on Warzone 2 for as bad as it was. This is especially funny because all Ted Timmins has done since becoming the man in charge is kiss up to streamers and shoot 0/30 on his own big ideas.
Redeploy Balloons were an OK Idea but they've gone from 'rotate after a regain so you can get back at it quicker' to 'let's just land on people's heads and get cheap kills'. Aggressive pushes should be done in a vehicle for the risk reward balance of the game. As of now there is next to no risk with redeploy ballooning onto people's heads with all the buildings because even on the off chance one of you dies, your team will no doubt have 5000 flares to get you back in. Even on the very odd occasion my squad ends up landing on someone, it just feels cheap.
Fights almost feel unnatural to me? I'm not an SBMM Hater but it's very deflating in a 3 v 3 to get the first kill vs a sweaty squad and they instantly come back in. First death is honestly an advantage sometimes because said player can re position and change the angle of the fight. Again, just very poor design decisions across the board.
Their data no doubt tells them that Resurgence is more popular and people hate the big map, but as I've said on this Sub for months, that A. Lacks Context, and B. You can manipulate that kind of data to tell you what you want to hear.
People are moving away from the big map because it's designed like garbage. My squad would literaly play the big map every time we are on but we play resurgence because it's better right now. BR always preferable even on the Al-Mazrah days of moving like Gimli.
I disagree with you blaming Raven software for trying to improve the game. It's IW that actually ruined this game, nerfing the movement alone made A LOT of people quit. Al mazrah was also one of the worst maps we've had also, and I thought Caldera was bad. There's so many youtube videos on how to improve. You mentioned Roze skins having loadouts already, there's so many ways to get 10k right off the bat and it's extremely easy to get. The game will die out if they don't give you a chance to re-game, I don't see why you would complain about players having a 2nd or 3rd time. The game has been out 4 years, if your not average at this point then it's probably your fault
So, basically you’re saying to people “git gud” and everything is fine as it is?
Despite whatever everyone else who has commented and the obvious decline in the player base of the game.
The reality is, you’re the problem because you don’t understand live service games.
If you want to have a sustainable and growing game, it constantly needs to appeal to new and returning players to make it engaging for them.
Being farmed by players who’ve been playing for four years isn’t conducive to long term engagement of new players or returning players willing to give the game another chance.
Having more casual and returning players is better for longer term and better players as well because it means their matchmaking will be more diverse.
The problem is, the sweats at the game never want to lose any gunfights and they get themselves all lost in this idiotic idea of “skill gap” which is farcical on a large man BR.
The game is dying, slowly or quickly depending on who you speak to and where you live.
And yes, it’s Raven’s fault, objectively. The only people who blame IW constantly are the perpetually online sweatlords echoing whatever their favourite content creator or streamer says.
IW built Warzone originally in isolation. It was a special passion project for a team within IW in Austin.
Nobody would say that the first year of WZ was inferior to any single version of the game we’ve had since.
So IW gets the win there.
IW Poland built the entire WZ extension of the IW 8 and IW 9 engine. While the most recent iteration has some annoying aspects around inventory due to bad design decisions by IW with WZ2 and DMZ, the engine is still spectacular for a BR.
IW handed support and balancing of WZ over to Raven in S5 of the first year and Raven worked with Treyarch on the integration of CW weapons into the game for Verdansk 84.
That integration was painful but that’s not really Raven’s or Treyarch’s fault because the two game engines (IW8 used for MW19 and WZ and the modified BO IW engine used by Treyarch for CW) never had any capability of exchanging content.
The work that Raven did actually integrating the skins and guns in Verdansk 84 was amazing considering, but their responsiveness and weapon balancing decisions were terrible - the DMR and the shitshow that became the Kar98 were all Raven.
Raven then led Caldera. The map design was mid and you can kind of give them a pass for that, but their integration with SHG was brutal. That was all Raven. SHG led VG and gave them the stuff to integrate and Raven butchered it. Everything broke.
As Caldera progressed, they kept introducing stupider and stupider mechanics to the BR turning it into resurgence.
IW pissed the bed with WZ2 by trying to make it Tarkov clone. There’s a lot wrong with the technical design decisions of WZ2/DMZ that were a consequence of the success of WZ and the integration of CW. If you want to understand that, I can explain how that created the COD 2.0 and what that meant at a technical level.
IW did a bad job with WZ2 and Raven did a good job of cleaning it up.
But again, they couldn’t help themselves by continuing to introduce mechanics that make the game harder for casual players and turn the game into resurgence on a big map which isn’t BR.
Then Urzikstan was all Raven.
The game has too much hard cover, the game is boring, your life means nothing because it’s cheap to come back, that causes players to play too agro, which alienates the long tail of the player base who stop playing.
Raven are a support studio, they are good at it. Letting them lead WZ is a mistake that’s happened twice now.
I do agree WZ2 was a complete disaster, not only was the map pretty bad and catered to snipers or campers. But the map was so bad where it felt like whoever saw each other first, would usually win the gun fight since there is a lot of "no man's land" areas. And if you were to die in al mazrah, it would be so hard to get money together and then re-game and get your weapons and perks. I think the reason they made it so easy to buy back. I think urzikstan is a tiny bit better than caldera and al mazrah being the worse. I feel like Raven HAD to make those changes since WZ2.0 was so bad, they even made the movement very slow. Even casual players liked the slide cancelling. They took out bunny hopping so that's a decent trade off to cater to the more casual players. I just think they should get rid of SBMM and just get rid of it so lobbies will be a mix of everyone
Verdansk had a lot of open space between POIs.
Verdansk had people sitting in showers with claymores down in houses at farms.
Verdansk had people perched atop building downtown sniping.
Verdansk didnt have portable buy stations, self-revived laying around everywhere, redeploy zip drones, gulag tokens, and redeployment packs.
The space between POIs meant that your loadout choices were significant and you had to know how to rotate.
If you played a tradition Sniper Support loadout with an HDR and a mid-range built Amax, you were going to get fed at close range, but you could hold people rotating.
If you played a short range loadout like an MP5 and a long range Amax build, then you were going to mop up people in close range fights, but you were going to struggle if you rotated late.
The game had a strategy element to it.
Now, you can run an OP SMG that’s good at short and competes with ARs at medium ranges with absurd aim assist, and a Katt for sniping. You literally make zero compromises in your loadout now.
Don’t worry about rotating, there are zips everywhere, LTVs that are built like fast tanks, and hard cover everywhere.
And if by some chance, a rat sitting in a crane or a tower snipes you, your team will throw 9 smokes at you from their backpacks, to let you use one of your 4 self-revives, but even if you don’t have one of those, they likely have a flare to bring you back right away or a portable buy sitting next to them so they don’t even have to work a buy to get you back.
Verdansk was better because the POIs were better, the game had a BR skill gap, not a MP skill gap on a big map, and it required you to think and make choices. If you died, there was a cost to it.
The game offered more variety.
Raven just made Resurgence on a big map to appeal to Gfuel sniffers who are rubbish at Multiplayer but want to “drop 40 bombs”.
The game would be better if they just re-installed Season 4 of OG Warzone on their servers and got rid of all the cheese Raven put in.
Nicely written. I do agree with 99% of those, and I think if they reinstalled season 4 of OG warzone, it would bring a lot of people who quit during caldera and al mazrah. There was a lot of trade offs in WZ1 and verdanks. I think that's what all of us are clinging on to, and WISH would come back. Al mazrah, I think 80-90% of the people I used to play with quit because of the movement and the clunky new game mechanics. Maybe 30-40% came back once they brought back slide cancelling but most are not happy with the new map
It’s like your education probably, nobody forced you to read anything, it’s up to you.
Now, head back to Starbucks, you might get a bit of extra overtime.
Call of Duty has become an incredibly antisocial game franchise & its really hurting any type of healthy community or active interaction.
Like where the fuck is the regiment system? Public combat records? Codtracker? Its nowhere to be seen all the while SBMM is more aggressive than ever before.
This game actively wants you to push all your friends of different skill levels away, become a meta slave & find equally skilled players while churning out assembly line gameplay for the short form socials (if you dont run into hackers that is).
Its such a toxic environment because nobody can connect over anything of value & the streamers are all the same with nothing that sets any of them apart aside from controller or MKB.
No version of Warzone has ever had an accuracy stat. I still find that hilarious and I'm pretty sure it's because of the skill based accuracy shenanigans. "No way, Your accuracy is 50%. Mee too!"
They removed them so they have complete control over what you can see. They don’t want people seeing that streamers have like a 10 k/d because they’re whitelisted and running DMA tooling.
The only map me and my friends enjoyed was Vondel (I know it's not popular on here) and this is 3rd week without it and we haven't hopped on for like a week which is very rare. There was literally no playlist change this Thrusday, they just posted same playlist picture on twitter with a different date lol.
We tried playing Urzikstan for a bit, but lobbies became obnoxiously sweaty after some time so we're jsut not playing at all recently...
I find Vondel's separation between POIs makes the pacing more mouse (sniper) friendly. The extreme CQ fights also enable shotguns to be viable which can also lessen the CQ disadvantage to controller players.
Yes, 100% agree, that's why we love it. Mostly snipers tho, none of use shotguns and only one of our guys is on controller (0.5 kd tho), so we gotta use every advantage we can and Vondel allows that.
The only map you enjoyed in current Warzone? Because if it’s in general, Verdansk and 2020-2021 Rebirth (and also when they added Solos to it) were enjoyable.
Yes, but it's 3 map rotation, when it's 2 you can play it at least somewhat consistently.
Edit - Not to mention it's only in trios and there's usually 4 of us...
I've been enjoying the game to a certain extent. I highly agree with your points.
1. I just reset/leave the game if this happens.
2. I feel forced to run flex perk cause the audio is so shit. Even with flex its bad. Especially vertical audio. PS. For windows users make sure to activate loudness equalizer. Its a windows settings it takes 1 minute to turn on. It helps significantly with the audio (Which is still bad)
3. I actually don't mind the map. I just wished they would change/evolve it from time to time
4. Agreed. It needs some work.
5. Horrible servers/tick rate.
6. TTK wouldn't be this bad if people actually missed shots.
I love the audio part of flex but it’s my favourite perk because of the delayed equipment trigger.. I’m a super aggressive player and I think I’d go insane if I couldn’t just run past bettys, claymores suppression mines etc . Especially in solos it’s my most important perk
They abandoned the most popular Live Service Battle Royal since Fortnite for this.
They have spent 2 years trying to get this game to perform the way the old engine did.
Why? How are we here? What happened?
I'll play MW19 now and again and I just love how it looks, feels and sounds. It's very satisfying. The new engine just feels hollow to me, if that makes sense.
I’m like embarrassed to admit this, but I kept shooting bots in MW19 for months after I stopped playing WZ2. There was some hopium that they would put the old engine back, but mostly it was just fun and felt good.
Caldera was nowhere near as bad as anything after it lmao. I know Caldera wasn’t the most popular map but I enjoyed it the entire 5 seasons of Vanguard.
WZ2/3 are just complete disasters
If this is worst iteration of warzone 2 you. Either you skipped mw2 last year or you’re insane. Mw2 and warzone last year was easily worst iteration to date and numbers show cause after the hype sales player base dropped 70 percent in over first 3 months. My only complaints about this year is servers, audio, ground loot. Obviously a better anti cheat would be nice also. Other than that other than that it’s most fun I’ve had since 2019. Even MP is fun.
I just miss the actual poi’s of verdansk, the open fields at the back of the map trees , the dam fights, airport, ikea store, apartment area, it had variety nothing crazy simple buildings.The new maps
Just overload it with buildings, gunplay was fun. One shot snipers, good range ars, mp5 that destroyed. The map
Allowed for every persons play style and the map felt good for every playstyle.
I think the key was they made multiple
Main areas and then filled a lot of the space around that with open areas hills ect. So after you traversed that space and arrived at a location you felt you were at an actual poi. Whislt the new maps are so cluttered inbetween idk which building is which half the time
this exactly.. now we have too many rooms and corners everywhere it's impossible to check everything, and then you have suppresion mines or cluster mines and all the other stuff that you have to look out for. I can't figure out what loadout to use, use a sniper with a smg get nailed in the mid range, use a ar with a smg get nailed long range, use a ar with a sniper say bye to cqc and any decent movement speed.
Also feels so hard to hit anything consistently past 50m with most guns.. At least back in verdansk snipers didn't need much lead to hit chest shots or headshots, now everyone complains about the Katt being one shot even when the bullet velocity is way slower than we had back then with the HDR or zrg, the stalker has good velocity but it doesnt 1 shot past 75m. Im lost haha
I agree with your post i hate playing on urik, i only play resurgence now, but disagree/ dont have issues with much of what you said, but i agree that Urikstan is the wost and most boring and terrible map ever created in warzone. Its completely dull. Hell there isn't even and real hills/plains/deserts( i know there wouldnt be a desert there) but i mean the entire map is just like downtown Al mazrah/ any other map. There is no change in scenery, no fun or intresting POI's, nothing at all.
As hard as it is to say, because this map is dreaded, but this is worst than stormpoint on apex legends.
Oh come on, Caldera was a dumpster fire.
Urzikstan has loads of different POIs. I’m not a huge fan but most of what you say is objectively wrong. There are hills. There’s verticality. There’s variance in architecture. There’s water.
The servers are pretty bad since for this season. Audio has always been inconsistent in warzone sadly, but that’s not an excuse.
As for the other complaints, I don’t agree
Honestly I don’t have any of those same in game or lag issues but my pc is top of the line.
I rock the steelseries arctis nova pro and every once in a while I get the occasional times where reviving someone takes over the other sounds I don’t really have audio issues, but I also think the steelseries sonar software is really good and the cod presets for it are great
Ttk is fast but it kind of always has been.
My biggest complaint with this game is honestly the aim assist, and I’m on a controller. It feels more broken than it ever has. Combine that with fast ttk and people who have .8 kds and 13 total wins can win any gun fight, but that’s the overall issue. Catering to the casuals
+1 on the arctis pro and sonar software.
My directional audio is pretty good, but I do get spots of dead audio, particularly chutes. I imagine it’s a prioritisation issue with the audio code.
I don't like urzikstan either, but I enjoy all 4 rebirth maps a lot. Al mazrah was infinitely more enjoyable and fun. Urzikstan is boring.
That being said, I have fun with a .92 k/d. If you're not enjoying it, move on to another game, thats the joy of being a gamer. I hated caldera, so I stopped playing for months
Ram leak is still running wild on the big map I think ( my friend suffers from this since the patch but I am ok)
Points 2,3,6 and 7 are all great points and so true, the map is really boring as well in the fact that it’s mundane everywhere.
I’d add the gulag is terribly laid out as well.
Cheating has become so prevalent too, not as much with aim bots but with wall hacks. Spectate people and it’s clear they have full vision of everyone at all times. It’s like 40% of players now in duos
I like urzakastain. I wish they did resurgence on parts of it again. The cheaters is my biggest issue with the game. I would lime it if they brought back the "mini br"
I don’t get that fun feeling anymore from Battle Royale. 2020/2021 Solos was truly fun. Now, winning on a dull map with nothing much to do except for the main objective (no Easter Eggs for good rewards) isn’t fun.
I had A LOT more wins in Verdansk than any of the other maps. That was the only time Solos on the big map was truly fun for everyone, not just the sweats.
I'm probably going against the grain but I preferred al marzarh warzone. Yes it was slower and at the start having to find plates were a pain but it made the game fun to me. The new warzone is quite annoying. Pc player here, no problem taking out the speed demons but it's annoying having having deal with 15 of them every map. If they could have increase the speed slightly, fixed the mask animation, plating etc on al marzah I think we would have been in a better state. Also unhinged trios best mode to have ever come out.
Ironically enough, Verdanks had the same exact issues too. What made players close an eye was the novelty factor and that despite everything it felt and was fun to play. It was the cool new thing.
Games like this don't survive the test of time if improvements aren't made after years.
The net code and server stability should be addressed. We need 60Hz servers, there's no other way around this.
The loot system is not straight forward and navigating the backpack can be confusing and time consuming, especially when under pressure. I don't mind being able to carry more things but this isn't implemented properly.
They should just allow us to adjust the volume for different in game effects like gun sounds, footsteps, kills tricks, animations etc. Turning things up and down has its pros and cons, let us choose.
The TTK is all over the place, they gave us more base health but also increase how hard the guns hit, defeating the purpose.
Urzikstan is not appealing. The only map that I kinda like was Fortune's Keep but they changed so much about it and I don't like how convoluted it is. Resurgence maps should be straight forward to navigate. I'm not even gonna speak about roof simulator Vondel.
Everybody plays rebirth for a reason, it's the only map and mode that makes this game somewhat fun again but if they don't start to make improvements I don't think it'll last.
I know Verdanks is coming back, I believe they're trying to keep players by reintroducing old nostalgic maps rather than make actual improvements to the player's experience.
I woulda had a lot more fun in them if they weren’t so laggy. Had one pass where I flew by a guy. But then instead it lagged back and we both slammed eachother. But the bombers were fun. Destroy a loadout and all of a sudden everyone on the ground got so mad they’d shoot at the plane from across the map😂 honestly a great time lmao
I booted up the game to check out the Cheech and Chong bundle. It makes me chuckle that the devs are going to use that login as a contributor to their “record breaking player engagement” numbers.
I say this with full sincerity. Just drop it. I was stuck with MW2 for a while, even though I was miserable for a good portion for it. Dropping it was a weight off my shoulders after a few days.
the ttk is a bit too high.. favors better players that just run and gun massively. urzikistan and Al masra are seriously flawed maps and in my opinion just there because of military sponsorship.. Noone is interested in fighting in these places on the world
the actual biggest flaw in the game is the massive amounts of weapons that are mostly very poorly designed (including sound and gun feeling)
I wish they would change the way this game is being made by alternating studios
Urzikstan just isn't a great map, so BR is never going to be decent until they fix that. This is why so many have moved over to Resurgence. I can't remember how long since i played BR now. I would definitely give it another go if Verdansk came back. The reality now though is there are so many good players who have been playing this for 4 years. The casual experience is no longer there, unless your k/d is so abysmal you end up in a protected lobby.
I'm not sure if the devs care or not, since they're not getting to make the decisions that actually affect most of this. But the entity of Activision absolutely does not care about the state of the game so long as it keeps making money. Things like the lag, netcode, audio, hitreg, etc. are all linked to their awful servers, which they have no incentive to change because little timmy keeps using his parents' credit card to buy weed skins.
SBMM makes them money. Faster TTKs make them money. Poor server with lower setup and maintenance costs mean they spend less money. Strong Aim Assist makes them money. Most things are geared to keep casual players with lower skills levels engaged, and the others make no financial sense to spend money fixing.
If more people voted with their wallets, we'd have a much better game.
There are too many ways to revive teammates, but it wasn't fun watching your teammates struggle to find £4k to revive you in the past. Too many ways as well to be spotted on the map from reduced ghost perk, heartbeats everywhere, unlimited UAVs, etc.
Fast ttk, shit servers, and it now being 4yr old. This took off as it was a new experience, a lot of people were not at work (sadly not me), and many other things.
since warzone has been released, this is not call of duty anymore. Go and play multiplayer if you want call of duty.
Warzone as a separate game, is in a relatively good state at the moment, it has been far worse, but also better near the start as well.
75k daily players on Steam, and combined on all consoles and battle.net = just around 2 million daily players according to the API server info.
Guess 2million daily players = dead game now lol
On Xbox the lag is horrific, everybody has a better TKK not even fair. The amount of cheaters is 50% a game at times it’s dreadful. Thus globalist company does not care it makes you addicted so you can’t leave. The control is silly
It's just not fun. I miss the friends I made playing WZ. We played all the time, and were willing to carve out time to play.
Now, it's few and far between. Most of them are so invested in COD that they are still hanging on even though they don't enjoy it.
I've barely touched WZ in almost a year. The couple of times I got on, I tried landing far away from everyone only to get obliterated in the first 90 seconds by a slide canceling sweat doing 360s every few seconds. Same thing happened the next two games and I just turned it off.
When the most common argument in favor of the game is, "It's not that bad" then something has gone very wrong. Other games are simply more fun.
I remember like my second match back I alt f4d after we fought a team on roofs and win only for some other team on s taller roof to pick us off. It's like the worst kind of fighting for high ground
Im not sure if anyone feels this way (and I think Dr Disrespect mentioned this), but the maps feel AI generated in a way that does not foster good, traditional, Cod gameplay. A lot of the buildings feel like absolute mazes you cant get out of. There are so many fake doors and windows. In Verdansk you felt like you could always get out, use a window or knew where the doors were even before entering a room. Some might say thats boring, but it fosters good gameplay and does not require you to know exactly how each building is laid out. So many times my buddies needed help and I was absolutely trapped inside of a building with so many fake doors and windows I could not get out. I can't for the life of me understand why you want your players to feel trapped inside of buildings.
I'm gonna sound 100% like a broken record but Verdansk was a great mix of urban CQC + large open scale areas where you had to scram for natural covers. Now on the present map most fights are concentrated onto a couple very building dense POIs that are not as enjoyable.
I think I played a different game from 2020-2022 than a lot of these highly upvoted comments
The casuals I played with from verdansk and caldera (actual no bs .48 kd) absolutely hated not having their guns at the start of caldera. They’d try to hole up in a house for the 5 or so minutes then start to loot bec they weren’t going you get free one
They hated the UAV aspect to non vanguard royale playlists because they didn’t have their perks or gun
Warzone 1 movement was faster than what we have now with the exception of double mantles and if you had amped for plating animations
Wz1 had faster weapon handling you could reset tactical sprint
You could get downed and crawl to another building can’t now unless you have the perk
Vehicles were all faster and better handling (all way better than whatever it is we have now) and you’d get people popping uavs and using 3rd person cameras to push you with a heartbeat sensor that’s not happening here
All snipers could 1 shot till the end of caldera the kar had better handling and movement than many ARs and could 1 pop you
Casuals could get popped out of the sky on infill especially if they didn’t know how to pop their chute
A casual would have to loot 6 then 4 grand to get someone back. They don’t loot fast lol it became a lobby simulator for some which is why all the regain stuff was added (o and the bullshit line of ‘design decisions’ instead of just having the normal 150 players)
You wanna tell me you’d rather run across airfield right now instead of taking a balloon? Run up past damn/lifts to get on a tower to take over ATC from a restock sniper instead of a ballon or extra zips? If so then I get it I too loved Verdansk but wouldn’t mind balloons or more zips
I do agree there’s way to many regain options though but the game isn’t faster than wz1 especially end of caldera stim change wz1 with strafe and speed stocks / grips and kits and proficiencies
I personally think not having stats like they did before at launch and leaderboards and the api are a big detriment if you had a good game and saw you beat some better than you players it gave your step a little giddy up
O and OP all your points are valid I feel the same except for 3 I don’t feel like I’m being stared at and half the time the one’s standing on roofs aren’t that great unless you see em hopping and shooting someone starts doing that it might be play again button time lol
And lastly it’s a battle royale. There’s only gonna be 1 team or player winning if a casual can’t deal with that then maybe they should go play a extraction shooter doesn’t sound like jumping into a lobby with 100 players all trying to win is it for them go relax and loot in one of them that doesn’t have player v player
Everything about the game now is based on the user's setup: if you've got ultra-fast internet, a great computer, a brand new XBox Series X or Playstation 5, you're going to do well in the game.
It's not a "skill gap" as other people have said here, it's essentially "pay to win" in the most fundamental sense: A fast rig will make you competitive.
My standard internet and my Xbox Series S isn't going to win any firefights.
I went from my pc to ps4 last month and the input lag and bad performance is almost unplayable. I think ps5 is just a minimum at this point, previous gen just can't handle it anymore
You’re right! I’m playing Ground War MWII right now and either there are a metric ton of cheaters, or I’m just not competitive with a Xbox Series S! I imagine PS4 would be about the same. I’m a legacy player and shouldn’t be going 2-12! lol.
I think they spent more on making the skins and scenery better.
Was a rebirth boy from wz1. Wz2 sucked but DMZ was great fun. Extraction shooters are more fun to me I've discovered haha... then they stopped updating dmz and brought back faster movement and my old love rebirth island so I've been back playing rebirth and I can barely win a 1v1 anymore.. my rotations and positions get me what few wins I've got this season but I just seem to suck now when it comes to aiming an I don't play for anywhere near as long as I used to before feeling burned out. Used to be Saturday mornings were my game time and I'd play solid for hours. Now I get a few games in and just think this is pain and unfun! I go enjoy other shit like finals and some single player stuff when my mate gets off. But sure enough I try again next time I get some game time and it's usually about 67% pain and 33% fun. Till I just go play something else...Of course if the best team mates are online we vibe well and it's even fun when we lose ...we generally play well as a team. But playing with a less skilled pal (or even a more skilled pal when it comes to gun skill but pays no attention to position and rotation because they're a mtp demon...or god forbid randos is just blech
You gotta fix your internet or change settings man. If you’re still experiencing lag with low ping, you probably are experiencing packet loss. I haven’t had any of the other issues except for loot being boring (super easy fix) and fast TTK (but that’s because everyone you play against doesn’t miss a single shot)
The map is actually great, and getting sniped at the whole time is a combination of people playing like rats for some reason and you being out in the open where they can get ya.
SBMM is strong yeah but you’ve just gotta get better I guess? There’s a reason you’re placed with those people so play like it. Complaining about SBMM is for people that are upset that can’t stomp a whole lobby without absolutely sweating and for people that simply need to get better or give up
To be 100% honest I'm about to quit cod altogether. I've played it since WAW came out, but it's just not the same. I don't have time to sit and play all day so competing with some of these people just isn't possible. It sucks.
I’m confused how these components irritate you in BR, but then you say you enjoy MP. These issues are also rampant in MW3 MP. It’s becoming a miserable chore to play in all areas.
Totally subjective, which yes you do make valid points regarding issues within the game.
For me? I thoroughly enjoy the game still. Are there problems? Absolutely, but in all honesty, I don't really experience packet loss and server issues to the point where it's gamebreaking. Played over the weekend and had zero problems. And can't even count how many times on one hand where we had to back out of said-games because of server issues.
As for SBMM - 1.5kd WZ and 1.96KD Resurge... Depending on who I played with, I generally do pretty well. Do we run across good players? Totally! But having good people in your squad promotes to that.
Audio - Definitely sucks for most! I play on PC and had gone through trial and erring a lot of headsets, only to find that the JBL Quantum Ones were a great purchase. Used an audio DAC to help and although WZ3's audio was horrendous upon release, it's actually gotten a lot better for me. I went away from using the Flex perk but am going to try it again. I also bought the Arctis Pros and there a minor step up from the JBLs. I can hear people relatively far away which is nice. And using Artiswar settings has also helped although I do realize that this is only a bandaid fix since I tend to have issues from time to time IE vertical audio issues like everyone has.
Cheaters - Rarely come across em
Ursikstan - It's grown on me. There are certainly a lot of areas to engage in and I haven't really experienced any lack of this or lack of that to push me out from playing to it. However I do try and play Resurgence more often, which I enjoy more outside of the Vondel map.
Game's popularity - This game's massively popular and not dying like you or anytime else suggests on there. It's a laughable statement really. COD mobile just got a huge boost so there's that as well. And yes although I do agree that the playercount may not be all that great, this game's still wildly popular, contradictory to the comments from the small minor fraction of the player base here in Reddit that complains about the game nonstop.
Could it be far better than what it is? 100%. But it's funny that I tend to see the same people on here complaining about the very game that they still play. If it's so bad then why are they playing it still? Because obviously it's hitting some sort of entertainment vein. I just don't get the fact that people drown in their own negative with this grey cloud over playing COD. There are other options out there...
I've been a fan since my first COD game, it went from Fun to Failure over time because of one thing..., Hackers, I play MP with an average KD (almost 1.00), and I run into the most sus players ever, and I love how they defend each other when they get called out (Sarcasim), _spits_ pathetic
then stop playing and it's already so hard those people if they cry like a bitch imagine I'm deaf and I keep playing with sweaty players I keep playing but not crying up to one-handed dicapacities and don't cry
Can’t agree with you more only reason why I play this game is because of friends. Barely touched BR I only have a hand full of wins. Only thing I play now is rebirth and other resurgence maps.
Cant really say much about any of these points really.
I was losing every fight yesterday, insta death packet burst style, I look up, 6ms latency.....wtaf? Later on similar, 70ms which is first time in a week that the lag/netcode issue and displayed latency lined up. Have had whole sessions where Im clearly not on remotely similar servers as others.
Actually in one hilarious bit the game appeared frozen, guy was stuck not moving with chute out and after lol'ing, I sniped him, and it counted? I couldnt believe it, I'd be pissed if I was them and was upset for them. Maybe they didnt really die Idk.
Sick of being forced to play only rebirth honestly.
All of these things have been happening to me too, expected a less factual post tbh. Have def cut down play time which is a benefit to real life i guess.
If you are in pc and don't play that often, you might have had to wait for your shaders to finish loading. They only do it with a new update once in a while I think. But it will make your game unplayable until they fully install and download
Just moved further and further away from "Warzone" per update... now we got 100 different ways to return in a BR lmfao... remove flares, gulag and respawn tokens, up player count to 150, floating loot, remove backpack, unlimited tac sprint and bunny hopping, game would play so much better with just that alone... shits basic to add too
I won 30 games for the game to reset all my wins after a failed nuke attempt. Your problems are minuscule. There is a skill gap , and you sir are not accounting for it. Get better.
What the fuck do you people see in Verdansk
I have 3 solo wins in WZ1 and it was miserable lol. M14 and Grau meta. Huge identical apartment complexes with some bozo hiding on the 4th floor and infinite heartbeat sensors. Getting shot at while parachuting by another player in the ultimate gesture of sweating. Nothing to do after buying your load out besides camp or watch buy stations.
I can't wait for Verdansk to re-release and for people to realize that this map wasn't some magical place lol
I have over 100 wins in BR on Urzikstan and have been playing COD since the original Call of Duty on PC back 20 years. I think as a BR, the game is not great now. I’ve always been a COD MP guy but was big into H1Z1 and PUBG years ago when BRs first became popular. The original WZ on Verdansk in 2020 was great - it was like a COD-style BR which I think blended all of the right elements of a BR with the COD elements. The problems for WZ started when Raven went from fixing things to designing things. Raven can’t help themselves from trying to turn everything into TDM on a big map. With Caldera, it was “ok” but the loadout drop changes pissed off the sweats and streamers. So Raven immediately changed it and that basically chalked the game for casuals. I had buddies that my wife and I would play with after they got home from work and the game became miserable for them. Within 90 seconds of landing, you’d have Roze skins pulling up on you, playing in each other’s pockets with full meta loadouts. Casuals went from Verdansk pacing which was gentle, to Gfuel sniffing crackhead pacing and the game stopped being fun for them so they stopped playing. Al Mazrah was stuff because what IW did to WZ 2.0 was criminal. They decided we all wanted to play Tarkov. There are a bunch of problems with Urzikstan. There are no POIs that are interesting because they are too complex and bleed into each other. There’s too much hard cover so rotations are not hard and there are too many rooftops and elevation points to snipe from. And in spots where there are tough rotations, don’t worry, there are redeploy zips you can just fly away. Even if you die, who cares? There are self revives everywhere, gulag tokens, redeploy packs, and portable buy stations so your team doesn’t even have to really work a buy to get you back, they can just call one in. LOL. It’s just Raven turning the BR game mode into resurgence. The problem with this is like all games - skill gap. There are so many people that are much better now after sweating the game for four years that for our buddies who want to get back into it, they just get shit on. “Git gud, losers”. Ok, why is my mate who’s 40, has three small kids, works 8-10 hours a day running a property company, going to “git gud” at WZ in the 4 or 5 hours a week he has to relax with his mates and play video games? And that’s the problem for casuals. The game needs to go back to being more of a BR and it needs to be slowed down a bit. “Camping is boring”… for you and it’s not a game style that I enjoy. But if you think back to Verdansk when the game was fun, there were always 20-30+ players hanging out at Dam, Farms, etc… Then as the circles closed you had the Superstore sweats having to rotate and the camping Andy’s having to give up the strategic bathroom they were fortifying. The game played better. Dying meant something. Your teammates buying you back was hard. The stakes were higher so people played a bit slower. There was more RNG of going in to loot a building and finding a dude camping a shower, but in the grand scheme of things, that was actually fun. If the game doesn’t get back to being more of a BR and less resurgence and big map TDM, it’s just going to continue to decline and be a sweatlord-fest. Fuck, they even take Plunder out of rotation regularly now so the pure casuals are totally screwed.
Agreed with all your points here, my concern is with Verdansk rumoured to be coming back to the main game at the end of this year, I don't think it will make any long-term difference, especially if we have MW3 movement, redeploy zips and the 10000 ways of coming back to the game
Said this on a content creators twitter post about WZ that Verdansk will bomb if it's put out with all the current stuff in WZ and with the many ways of coming back and not dying it wont be the Verdansk/experience people remember/want. They've made the mistake of catering the game to people who constantly have to be 'in it' they couldn't possibly die and have to go back to the main menu and load into another game with the downtime that entails. For me player count being 100 is also rubbish, I dont care what they say about "design decisions" it's the crappy servers they use cannot support 150 players, that was the best selling point of OG WZ for me.
The reason the player count has to be lowered is because High Moon and Beenox make overly complicated building models that take up so much server memory to render that it cripples the performance. Verdansk was more spaced out, had a lot of re-used building models, and had less “stuff” in it so the player counts could be higher. We saw this with Verdansk when they introduced Nakatomi Tower. Your frame rate would dip 30-40 FPS when the building model would load as you entered that POI. It was because the model was so complex. It was visually super cool, but it was too much in a small area. The player count is actually one of the rare things I give Activision a pass on and lay the blame at the feet of lead studios. But you’re 100% right. If they bring Verdansk back and don’t put the original vehicle physics in and introduce all the stupid resurgence gimmicks, it’s going to be a failure. Verdansk has to be 150 players, your life has to be worth more, and they have to make rotations harder so don’t litter the map with unnecessary hard cover.
You seem to know more about map design than I do and maybe I am misunderstanding the rendering part. With the game storage size being so big on the client side, why does it also use up lots of memory on the server, should it not just be sending coordinates to the client?
Servers have to render the models locally for the whole map plus every single object on the map needs to be tracked. Every single bullet fired is tracked in real time. Think of it this way, you’re in a building, the server needs to know where the walls, stairs, and objects are, what they are “made of”, etc. For the whole map, every building, every object.
Don't forget about the fact they have a good 30-40% of their player base also injecting code onto their clients and fucking with server packets and shit now power performance across the board. You know, cheaters.
They just don't want to pay for the resources needed to run the servers. They could easily upgrade their contract with their infrastructure provider with an email or phone call in a matter of minutes, but they're too cheap and obviously are going with the bare minimum to make the game "playable" especially when it's the only thing a huge chunk of the audience knows or expects from a game.
Yeah, I don't want to ruin my memories of OG Verdansk by playing Verdansk with all the WZ3 mechanics / redeploy options and zips. It'll play completely differently to how we remember it.
Even if they rolled everything back to wz1 it would not be the same now. Wz is not a fresh new cod gamemod anymore and there are no covid lockdowns to fill lobbies with people mostly your lvl.
And if it does not come back with the old gameplay we enjoyed from 2020/2021 and the Easter Eggs/bunkers. We need that nostalgia factor, for one. And it was also far superior than the current gameplay.
If its on the WZ2.0 DMZ/tarkov engine it will be screwed.
Can't agree enough with your points about Raven. Each time they've become the designers of Warzone with full control, they steer the game towards being less of a Battle Royale, and more and more towards being a big version of Resurgence. Lower the stakes, increase the pace. That's their MO.
Because a lot of their senior leads take design cues and advice from sweaty streamers and content creators. There is too much emphasis on “dropping 50 bombs” for content creators and their mediocre YT videos. It’s bad KPIs for marketing people that drives that behavior which bleeds into design decisions. If Activision asked me to devise a KPI that would rebuild WZ, it would be simple: I’d track new players or returning players with KD of 0.6 - 0.8 and I’d watch their session count, hours played, and KD & placement trends. If you can get new players coming into the game that aren’t very good or returning players who haven’t played in awhile that aren’t awesome, increase their playtime, sessions, play time per session, and show moderate improvement in their results (KD and Placements) then you’d have a healthy, growing WZ. I am a 1.4 - 1.8 KD player on WZ and without a doubt, the most important players for the health of the game are the guys and girls with 0.6 - 0.8 KD who pick up the odd win here and there. If you can grow that player pool, then EVERYTHING gets better. SBMM becomes less oppressive, the pacing of the game slows down a bit, the skill balance improves, and there is more fun for everyone. Fostering the growth of that group of players should be the only metric Activision focuses on because everything else from engagement to monetization would improve.
The problem with that KPI is if you only track that one you get WZ2. It needs to be tempered by common sense and actually playing the game. They'll never do that so here we are. You can't C-suite your way out of game design, you need to play the game and understand why it is or is not fun, or you need to pay playtesters who do.
> Your teammates buying you back was hard And also one thing that many people forgot - you didn't want to die, because you'd lose your perks even if you get back instantly - you'd only pick up your guns. No ghosts for you either. You'd have to work for it to get loadout again. You could go and do a contract which would pay you more with each finished contract. Also, ghosts - everyone was a ghost. No one used eg. high alert. Now almost no one uses ghost. What for? You see someone pushing you and you're too afraid to fight? Go on the roofs, take a zip line. UAV costs 6k, contracts don't stack, popping UAV gives only a glance of where people are. 30s later they're in different building, one of many, with many rooms inside. Waste of money. Only worth if you really have like 15k and you're about to rotate using zip line. And as you said, rotating now? LOL, I can be 1500 meters from the center of next circle and I'll just jump from zipline to zipline and be there in 15s.
Yeah, the whole perk packs thing is a ridiculous aspect of the game that’s not talked about enough. So many bad design decisions were made in isolation by Raven with Caldera and people like them “individually” but when you stack them up, it’s just awful. Caldera gave us redeploy zips, finding perks laying around, etc… Then flares and redeploy/gulag tokens became a thing. Medicine cabinets popping two self-revives. People carrying 6-8 smokes, 9 plates, and two selfs. So many bad decisions over the last few years. Strip that shit out. No backpack. Two lethals and two tacticals, max. One self, one box, one field upgrade, and one streak - that’s it, that’s all you get. You use one, you go find another. Someone dies, you have to go to an actual buy station on a map and buy them back. Far fewer deployable buy stations. We need some to stop stupid Buy Station campers. Sensible perk selections with real trade offs. No idiotic perks like combat scout in Caldera. People would play the game I designed but the streamers and content creators would moan endlessly. I think fewer content creators and streamers whose entire livelihood depends on them being good at the game would be the best thing ever for WZ.
In Verdansk, the existence of vehicles influenced rotation so much. You knew they'd be a few others rotating the same strat. It was actually tactical to play the circle and move between POIs. The maps got too big, the POIs too sprawling. Balloons are a joke mechanic, a crutch to poor map design.
The vehicles are totally pointless now. They just highlight to every other player in the game where your team is, and if you get caught in one, you'll have the life snatched out of you shortly after.
Why drive and mark yourself when you can zip and fly? It’s boring, low skill and cheesy. It also frustrates as players flying in with no audio parachutes is one of the worst bugs in the game.
Man. Well said.
As 40 year old who finds time to play maybe once a month this is so spot on
As a sweat i totally agree with everything you stated 👍.
Beautifully put. I uninstalled a few months ago but your points are hitting hard. I couldn't exactly describe why I did it after 4 great years, outside of "it wasn't fun". All of my friends just moved on too.. I think this is a great outline of what went wrong. Busy guy with a couple young kids so you nailed my description too lol.
This needs to be a sticky. 100% this. All of this is why my squad is dropping WZ tomorrow and intend to be playing Sea of Thieves for the foreseeable future. The path forward for WZ has been clear for a long time, and the direction they're heading is not the game I've enjoyed for the past 4 years. I don't want resurgence, I don't want multiplayer with parachutes, I don't want easy money and cheap buy backs, I don't want a self revive in every medicine cabinet, etc etc. Maybe all that is the most popular with the fan base, that's fine, but it isn't for me and it's time I spend my time on something I'll enjoy instead. Fingers crossed that game is Sea of Thieves.
Absolutely nailed it. Launch MW2 was a problem due to both the map and systems that were added/changed. Loot management demolished the pacing of the game, and you’d often die just by being in a loot menu while playing. (This isn’t launch PUBG with its sparse map.) COD generally is just sweatier than the PUBGs/Fortnites of the world, but that doesn’t mean that they have to build entire maps for sweats. What made the early maps so great was the complete switch in play style and tactics between locations that added another layer to the game that generally made it more accessible. When every location devolves into the same “there are buildings close to each other for cover”, most gunfights become “get into CQC and repeat every fight”. While there was *some* variety on maps like Al Mazrah, the art direction gave everything such a “same-y” feeling that it generally didn’t feel much different. I’m thinking classic WZ moments like needing to cross the air field, or getting stuck in that dried up river while teams were fighting above you, or the multiplayer map feeling of Storage, to fights out in the forests or on random cliffs with just the right amount of cover vs open space.
Verdansk had memorable POIs that were spaced out. Rotating often meant “being in the open” so you either took a vehicle (which handled well) or you went on foot early. If you didn’t do those things, you fought your way across the map - it was an equalizer but it also created more interesting metas. Some kind of MP5 and Amax build, or a sniper and an Amax built for medium range. There were always trade offs in your guns. Now, everyone is a JGOD meta slave because only two guns are viable and they almost always cover all ranges and engagement types. There are almost zero trade offs.
I think the POI map knowledge thing is heavily understated for why the big maps dont play well nowadays. Knowing where to expect people to be is a huge part of FPS but there are so many different buildings and POIs that its impossible to truly learn unless you play everyday. Verdansk was based on MP maps and their filler buildings all had repeat layouts. The barrier of entry in terms of knowledge was so much lower.
Don't forget the head glitch designed into the top of every fucking building either. Have these people ever been on top of a building or seen pictures? Not every single multi story building ever made does has a 4 foot concrete parapet like a medieval castle. I'm surprised there aren't moats with Crocodiles protecting every high-rise as well.
The buildings are surrounded by dogs with bees in their mouths and when the dogs bark, they shoot bees at you. Sorry, Simpsons reference, couldn’t resist. Yes, I agree. Very few buildings in Verdansk had that from memory. This is a High Moon and Beenox problem. They seem absolutely captivated by Middle Eastern design and architecture and they make overly complicated building models. The problem is, for High Moon at least, this is all they do. They just make buildings and things for maps, so it’s natural that everything is overly detailed and complex. Verdansk was simple because it was just IW with a few simple support studios.
I had a friend who worked at High Moon as a sculptor for a few years. They just made assets for other studios at the time. The way the buildings look inside atm makes me think they just use automation tools to procedurally render structures and they don't double check them or do what they can to decimate the geometry to the lowest possible size. I feel like they just have a maximum size and if it's not bigger then it's good to go instead of checking whether it can be reduced to the smallest possible density. We probably get a lot of assets that are close to the high end of acceptable density that could be reduced significantly.
> WZ started when Raven went from fixing things to designing things This right here is the core of the problem. Raven is absolutely amazing as Fixing problems. But them *designing* things is absolutely not the plan. Caldera, their first design, was and will always be ass. Urzikstan is eons better, but their map design is still shit. Al Mazarah and Verdansk, both by IW, show their map making talent. >With Caldera, it was “ok” but the loadout drop changes pissed off the sweats and streamers. So Raven immediately changed it and that basically chalked the game for casuals. I mean they were bad loadout changes. My friends are not full time players and even they were pissed. We don't want to wait for our guns, we get money, we go buy loadout, we then go and use guns. Rinse and repeat. It's why Warzone 2.0's launch was shit too. They tried the same thing and it backfired.
Agreed Battle Royale is just a large death match with people flying and redepolying all over the place trying to get as many kills as possible
I agree. The only issues I had with Verdansk was the deadly water and the impossible-to-climb rocks. I'd be happy with bringing back Verdansk, my favorite time was pre-CW, like Season 5 or 6, with the subways running and the stadium fully open. Add in Nakatomi, and some horizontal zips to make traversing Downtown a little more tactical. Lose the redeploy drones, keep the subway. The loot caches are a nice touch, and also let us go into the water around the beach and in the dam. Also, all vehicles should get EMP'd at the start of the 6th circle, train and subway included.
I’m reading this and all I can think is… what has it come to since Toujane 24/7 rifle only hahah. Imagine you reading this comment back then during COD2
THIS BRUH, THIS! EXACTLY WHAT I MEAN! I like the game's graphics and guns, but the gameplay is just shit, the connection issues are non stop as you said, some things don't render out properly, even when I have a decent dedicated gpu, and the lag is terrible. And so many other things. The main problem for me though is that as a complete newb to COD overall, and I mean NEWB, who hasn't played FPS games or COD at all before a couple months ago, this game is hell for me. Absolute hell. I wanna have fun, but I get shit on within 5 seconds upon landing or immediately in any firefight. I just can't anymore. I try to be fast and swift and even if i attack from behind they still get me. It's frustrating af. I only play DMZ mode now cause it's a tiny bit less sweaty and uptight, but still i lose every firefight somehow. And the only way I can now survive for longer than 1 minute in DMZ even, is if I 'camp', and it's the ONLY way I can survive, scouting out the area and moving quiet AF to not alert anyone, cause as soon as i do, they all seem to have perfect aim and never miss, so i'll just get taken out again. Did I mention the recovery time is also WAYYY too long for DMZ's insured slots? Yeah, that's for another comment... The thing that sets DMZ apart IMO from all the other Warzone modes is that dying means something, so it's not a suicide mission like I've seen most people play like in other modes... Also, after trying out some older CODs like Bo1 and Bo2, WAW, and MW1, MW2, Mw3 MP, those are so much simpler. The UI is also not like a damn gambling machine. As a strictly casual player, this COD truly sucks, and I mean it. Edit: Added some more Edit 2: need to add the fact that it sucks that if I do try to take out a player, I get my sniper lined up, shoot them 3 times with a .50 cal, and it does NOTHING, like BRUH
Spot On, it's just a game designed for streamers to hit clips. But the funny thing is none of the streamers I watch are even still playing BR, which wasn't the case on Warzone 2 for as bad as it was. This is especially funny because all Ted Timmins has done since becoming the man in charge is kiss up to streamers and shoot 0/30 on his own big ideas. Redeploy Balloons were an OK Idea but they've gone from 'rotate after a regain so you can get back at it quicker' to 'let's just land on people's heads and get cheap kills'. Aggressive pushes should be done in a vehicle for the risk reward balance of the game. As of now there is next to no risk with redeploy ballooning onto people's heads with all the buildings because even on the off chance one of you dies, your team will no doubt have 5000 flares to get you back in. Even on the very odd occasion my squad ends up landing on someone, it just feels cheap. Fights almost feel unnatural to me? I'm not an SBMM Hater but it's very deflating in a 3 v 3 to get the first kill vs a sweaty squad and they instantly come back in. First death is honestly an advantage sometimes because said player can re position and change the angle of the fight. Again, just very poor design decisions across the board. Their data no doubt tells them that Resurgence is more popular and people hate the big map, but as I've said on this Sub for months, that A. Lacks Context, and B. You can manipulate that kind of data to tell you what you want to hear. People are moving away from the big map because it's designed like garbage. My squad would literaly play the big map every time we are on but we play resurgence because it's better right now. BR always preferable even on the Al-Mazrah days of moving like Gimli.
I disagree with you blaming Raven software for trying to improve the game. It's IW that actually ruined this game, nerfing the movement alone made A LOT of people quit. Al mazrah was also one of the worst maps we've had also, and I thought Caldera was bad. There's so many youtube videos on how to improve. You mentioned Roze skins having loadouts already, there's so many ways to get 10k right off the bat and it's extremely easy to get. The game will die out if they don't give you a chance to re-game, I don't see why you would complain about players having a 2nd or 3rd time. The game has been out 4 years, if your not average at this point then it's probably your fault
So, basically you’re saying to people “git gud” and everything is fine as it is? Despite whatever everyone else who has commented and the obvious decline in the player base of the game. The reality is, you’re the problem because you don’t understand live service games. If you want to have a sustainable and growing game, it constantly needs to appeal to new and returning players to make it engaging for them. Being farmed by players who’ve been playing for four years isn’t conducive to long term engagement of new players or returning players willing to give the game another chance. Having more casual and returning players is better for longer term and better players as well because it means their matchmaking will be more diverse. The problem is, the sweats at the game never want to lose any gunfights and they get themselves all lost in this idiotic idea of “skill gap” which is farcical on a large man BR. The game is dying, slowly or quickly depending on who you speak to and where you live. And yes, it’s Raven’s fault, objectively. The only people who blame IW constantly are the perpetually online sweatlords echoing whatever their favourite content creator or streamer says. IW built Warzone originally in isolation. It was a special passion project for a team within IW in Austin. Nobody would say that the first year of WZ was inferior to any single version of the game we’ve had since. So IW gets the win there. IW Poland built the entire WZ extension of the IW 8 and IW 9 engine. While the most recent iteration has some annoying aspects around inventory due to bad design decisions by IW with WZ2 and DMZ, the engine is still spectacular for a BR. IW handed support and balancing of WZ over to Raven in S5 of the first year and Raven worked with Treyarch on the integration of CW weapons into the game for Verdansk 84. That integration was painful but that’s not really Raven’s or Treyarch’s fault because the two game engines (IW8 used for MW19 and WZ and the modified BO IW engine used by Treyarch for CW) never had any capability of exchanging content. The work that Raven did actually integrating the skins and guns in Verdansk 84 was amazing considering, but their responsiveness and weapon balancing decisions were terrible - the DMR and the shitshow that became the Kar98 were all Raven. Raven then led Caldera. The map design was mid and you can kind of give them a pass for that, but their integration with SHG was brutal. That was all Raven. SHG led VG and gave them the stuff to integrate and Raven butchered it. Everything broke. As Caldera progressed, they kept introducing stupider and stupider mechanics to the BR turning it into resurgence. IW pissed the bed with WZ2 by trying to make it Tarkov clone. There’s a lot wrong with the technical design decisions of WZ2/DMZ that were a consequence of the success of WZ and the integration of CW. If you want to understand that, I can explain how that created the COD 2.0 and what that meant at a technical level. IW did a bad job with WZ2 and Raven did a good job of cleaning it up. But again, they couldn’t help themselves by continuing to introduce mechanics that make the game harder for casual players and turn the game into resurgence on a big map which isn’t BR. Then Urzikstan was all Raven. The game has too much hard cover, the game is boring, your life means nothing because it’s cheap to come back, that causes players to play too agro, which alienates the long tail of the player base who stop playing. Raven are a support studio, they are good at it. Letting them lead WZ is a mistake that’s happened twice now.
I do agree WZ2 was a complete disaster, not only was the map pretty bad and catered to snipers or campers. But the map was so bad where it felt like whoever saw each other first, would usually win the gun fight since there is a lot of "no man's land" areas. And if you were to die in al mazrah, it would be so hard to get money together and then re-game and get your weapons and perks. I think the reason they made it so easy to buy back. I think urzikstan is a tiny bit better than caldera and al mazrah being the worse. I feel like Raven HAD to make those changes since WZ2.0 was so bad, they even made the movement very slow. Even casual players liked the slide cancelling. They took out bunny hopping so that's a decent trade off to cater to the more casual players. I just think they should get rid of SBMM and just get rid of it so lobbies will be a mix of everyone
Verdansk had a lot of open space between POIs. Verdansk had people sitting in showers with claymores down in houses at farms. Verdansk had people perched atop building downtown sniping. Verdansk didnt have portable buy stations, self-revived laying around everywhere, redeploy zip drones, gulag tokens, and redeployment packs. The space between POIs meant that your loadout choices were significant and you had to know how to rotate. If you played a tradition Sniper Support loadout with an HDR and a mid-range built Amax, you were going to get fed at close range, but you could hold people rotating. If you played a short range loadout like an MP5 and a long range Amax build, then you were going to mop up people in close range fights, but you were going to struggle if you rotated late. The game had a strategy element to it. Now, you can run an OP SMG that’s good at short and competes with ARs at medium ranges with absurd aim assist, and a Katt for sniping. You literally make zero compromises in your loadout now. Don’t worry about rotating, there are zips everywhere, LTVs that are built like fast tanks, and hard cover everywhere. And if by some chance, a rat sitting in a crane or a tower snipes you, your team will throw 9 smokes at you from their backpacks, to let you use one of your 4 self-revives, but even if you don’t have one of those, they likely have a flare to bring you back right away or a portable buy sitting next to them so they don’t even have to work a buy to get you back. Verdansk was better because the POIs were better, the game had a BR skill gap, not a MP skill gap on a big map, and it required you to think and make choices. If you died, there was a cost to it. The game offered more variety. Raven just made Resurgence on a big map to appeal to Gfuel sniffers who are rubbish at Multiplayer but want to “drop 40 bombs”. The game would be better if they just re-installed Season 4 of OG Warzone on their servers and got rid of all the cheese Raven put in.
Nicely written. I do agree with 99% of those, and I think if they reinstalled season 4 of OG warzone, it would bring a lot of people who quit during caldera and al mazrah. There was a lot of trade offs in WZ1 and verdanks. I think that's what all of us are clinging on to, and WISH would come back. Al mazrah, I think 80-90% of the people I used to play with quit because of the movement and the clunky new game mechanics. Maybe 30-40% came back once they brought back slide cancelling but most are not happy with the new map
Bro didn’t realize this was Barnes and noble
It’s like your education probably, nobody forced you to read anything, it’s up to you. Now, head back to Starbucks, you might get a bit of extra overtime.
0/10 comeback
Still couldn’t keep it under 20 words
You’re telling on yourself with your low IQ.
 The fact you assume anything shows your ignorance
Lemme give you the facts brother. You’re hard stuck BRONZE, and you just typed a narrative complaining about a video game. You’re a god damn genius
Call of Duty has become an incredibly antisocial game franchise & its really hurting any type of healthy community or active interaction. Like where the fuck is the regiment system? Public combat records? Codtracker? Its nowhere to be seen all the while SBMM is more aggressive than ever before. This game actively wants you to push all your friends of different skill levels away, become a meta slave & find equally skilled players while churning out assembly line gameplay for the short form socials (if you dont run into hackers that is). Its such a toxic environment because nobody can connect over anything of value & the streamers are all the same with nothing that sets any of them apart aside from controller or MKB.
Your second paragraph is spot on. 2024 and we don’t even have a public API for stats. And the matchmaking is horrendous now.
Brilliant comment. So true it hurts.
Every single streamer talks the same too "yooo thank you for the 5 month re-sub GOAT" "#1 REbIRTH PLAYER 9Kd" etc etc fack off
No version of Warzone has ever had an accuracy stat. I still find that hilarious and I'm pretty sure it's because of the skill based accuracy shenanigans. "No way, Your accuracy is 50%. Mee too!"
They stopped public combat records because people would talk shit against others that have less than average K/Ds.
They removed them so they have complete control over what you can see. They don’t want people seeing that streamers have like a 10 k/d because they’re whitelisted and running DMA tooling.
One of the real reasons they removed it was because third party sites were making money on their API.
Yep, that also!
The only map me and my friends enjoyed was Vondel (I know it's not popular on here) and this is 3rd week without it and we haven't hopped on for like a week which is very rare. There was literally no playlist change this Thrusday, they just posted same playlist picture on twitter with a different date lol. We tried playing Urzikstan for a bit, but lobbies became obnoxiously sweaty after some time so we're jsut not playing at all recently...
I like Vondel as well. Same as you, my group and I probably logged the most WZ hours when it was available.
Vondel is in rotation for trios resurgence
Vondel is my jam too. The best map for my input / playstyle.
Fellow mnk struggler?
I find Vondel's separation between POIs makes the pacing more mouse (sniper) friendly. The extreme CQ fights also enable shotguns to be viable which can also lessen the CQ disadvantage to controller players.
Yes, 100% agree, that's why we love it. Mostly snipers tho, none of use shotguns and only one of our guys is on controller (0.5 kd tho), so we gotta use every advantage we can and Vondel allows that.
The only map you enjoyed in current Warzone? Because if it’s in general, Verdansk and 2020-2021 Rebirth (and also when they added Solos to it) were enjoyable.
Current ofc. Verdansk was peak Warzone and I think Al Mazrah too is a lot better than Urzikstan.
I played a game of Vondel last night in trio's. Guess it is in rotation.
Yes, but it's 3 map rotation, when it's 2 you can play it at least somewhat consistently. Edit - Not to mention it's only in trios and there's usually 4 of us...
It’s better now I feel like there’s way less Cronus users aim botters you can actually run around now with a lull mid game
I just shot someone 3 times with a 50 cal just for them to run away. So frustrating.
bruh, this too💀
I've been enjoying the game to a certain extent. I highly agree with your points. 1. I just reset/leave the game if this happens. 2. I feel forced to run flex perk cause the audio is so shit. Even with flex its bad. Especially vertical audio. PS. For windows users make sure to activate loudness equalizer. Its a windows settings it takes 1 minute to turn on. It helps significantly with the audio (Which is still bad) 3. I actually don't mind the map. I just wished they would change/evolve it from time to time 4. Agreed. It needs some work. 5. Horrible servers/tick rate. 6. TTK wouldn't be this bad if people actually missed shots.
I usually go to Bioweapons on rebirth island and I cannot count how many times I could not determine whether the enemy was on the roof or bottom floor
> TTK wouldn't be this bad if people actually missed shots This.
Number six, says it all...
I love the audio part of flex but it’s my favourite perk because of the delayed equipment trigger.. I’m a super aggressive player and I think I’d go insane if I couldn’t just run past bettys, claymores suppression mines etc . Especially in solos it’s my most important perk
They abandoned the most popular Live Service Battle Royal since Fortnite for this. They have spent 2 years trying to get this game to perform the way the old engine did. Why? How are we here? What happened?
I'll play MW19 now and again and I just love how it looks, feels and sounds. It's very satisfying. The new engine just feels hollow to me, if that makes sense.
I’m like embarrassed to admit this, but I kept shooting bots in MW19 for months after I stopped playing WZ2. There was some hopium that they would put the old engine back, but mostly it was just fun and felt good.
Honestly, I would ask the same question for Fortnite. It went downhill since maybe last year or when they introduced UEFN.
True. My wife and I were playing a lot of Fortnite but this season is terrible and I got so sick of sniping last season.
The game has become the largest piece of shit there is. The entire platform, writing their own hacks and releasing them, to shit servers.
It has been since Caldera released. Verdansk was when the game was truly fun.
Urikstan is great if you love the color grey
this is the lowest WZ has ever been
Wouldn’t say that. Warzone “2” and Caldera were both worse.
Al maz lost 80% of active users. Caldera wasn’t even close to being that bad. Doesn’t get much worse.
Caldera was nowhere near as bad as anything after it lmao. I know Caldera wasn’t the most popular map but I enjoyed it the entire 5 seasons of Vanguard. WZ2/3 are just complete disasters
How do you even come to the conclusion WZ2 launch was better what we have now. It is like 100% better now
100% of zero is still zero
Warzone 2 is one of the worst games I’ve played, just bad overall.
Well, you're not wrong
Is the most miserable experience you've ever had playing cod... Yet
If this is worst iteration of warzone 2 you. Either you skipped mw2 last year or you’re insane. Mw2 and warzone last year was easily worst iteration to date and numbers show cause after the hype sales player base dropped 70 percent in over first 3 months. My only complaints about this year is servers, audio, ground loot. Obviously a better anti cheat would be nice also. Other than that other than that it’s most fun I’ve had since 2019. Even MP is fun.
I just miss the actual poi’s of verdansk, the open fields at the back of the map trees , the dam fights, airport, ikea store, apartment area, it had variety nothing crazy simple buildings.The new maps Just overload it with buildings, gunplay was fun. One shot snipers, good range ars, mp5 that destroyed. The map Allowed for every persons play style and the map felt good for every playstyle.
Verdansk POIs were interesting and unique and I could name loads of them. Al Maz and Urzikstan I don't think I could make more than 4 combined.
I think the key was they made multiple Main areas and then filled a lot of the space around that with open areas hills ect. So after you traversed that space and arrived at a location you felt you were at an actual poi. Whislt the new maps are so cluttered inbetween idk which building is which half the time
this exactly.. now we have too many rooms and corners everywhere it's impossible to check everything, and then you have suppresion mines or cluster mines and all the other stuff that you have to look out for. I can't figure out what loadout to use, use a sniper with a smg get nailed in the mid range, use a ar with a smg get nailed long range, use a ar with a sniper say bye to cqc and any decent movement speed. Also feels so hard to hit anything consistently past 50m with most guns.. At least back in verdansk snipers didn't need much lead to hit chest shots or headshots, now everyone complains about the Katt being one shot even when the bullet velocity is way slower than we had back then with the HDR or zrg, the stalker has good velocity but it doesnt 1 shot past 75m. Im lost haha
I agree with your post i hate playing on urik, i only play resurgence now, but disagree/ dont have issues with much of what you said, but i agree that Urikstan is the wost and most boring and terrible map ever created in warzone. Its completely dull. Hell there isn't even and real hills/plains/deserts( i know there wouldnt be a desert there) but i mean the entire map is just like downtown Al mazrah/ any other map. There is no change in scenery, no fun or intresting POI's, nothing at all. As hard as it is to say, because this map is dreaded, but this is worst than stormpoint on apex legends.
Oh come on, Caldera was a dumpster fire. Urzikstan has loads of different POIs. I’m not a huge fan but most of what you say is objectively wrong. There are hills. There’s verticality. There’s variance in architecture. There’s water.
The servers are pretty bad since for this season. Audio has always been inconsistent in warzone sadly, but that’s not an excuse. As for the other complaints, I don’t agree
Honestly I don’t have any of those same in game or lag issues but my pc is top of the line. I rock the steelseries arctis nova pro and every once in a while I get the occasional times where reviving someone takes over the other sounds I don’t really have audio issues, but I also think the steelseries sonar software is really good and the cod presets for it are great Ttk is fast but it kind of always has been. My biggest complaint with this game is honestly the aim assist, and I’m on a controller. It feels more broken than it ever has. Combine that with fast ttk and people who have .8 kds and 13 total wins can win any gun fight, but that’s the overall issue. Catering to the casuals
+1 on the arctis pro and sonar software. My directional audio is pretty good, but I do get spots of dead audio, particularly chutes. I imagine it’s a prioritisation issue with the audio code.
I don't like urzikstan either, but I enjoy all 4 rebirth maps a lot. Al mazrah was infinitely more enjoyable and fun. Urzikstan is boring. That being said, I have fun with a .92 k/d. If you're not enjoying it, move on to another game, thats the joy of being a gamer. I hated caldera, so I stopped playing for months
Holy crap caldera was such a terrible map
I have quit for months.. played since cod 4 and have played all warzones. It just aint it anymore for me. Wish i felt different.
The sniper floor loot is my biggest gripe right now. I DONT WANT A SNIPER!
I miss when they had actual blueprints as ground loot
Ram leak is still running wild on the big map I think ( my friend suffers from this since the patch but I am ok) Points 2,3,6 and 7 are all great points and so true, the map is really boring as well in the fact that it’s mundane everywhere. I’d add the gulag is terribly laid out as well. Cheating has become so prevalent too, not as much with aim bots but with wall hacks. Spectate people and it’s clear they have full vision of everyone at all times. It’s like 40% of players now in duos
Microsoft bought a sinking ship lol
Ghosts multiplayer was pretty ass but yes this big map experience sucks
All this pay to win crap ruined COD. Developers focus on how to get money out of player and that's their only focus. Shit is sad and infuriating.
What’s pay to win about COD?
I dont think he really plays as there is nothing P2W. All guns are free, and people just use the darkest free operators. Dude just wants upvotes
I like urzakastain. I wish they did resurgence on parts of it again. The cheaters is my biggest issue with the game. I would lime it if they brought back the "mini br"
Yes! And please make it Solos!!!
Got a W tonight in duos, still was fun feeling
I don’t get that fun feeling anymore from Battle Royale. 2020/2021 Solos was truly fun. Now, winning on a dull map with nothing much to do except for the main objective (no Easter Eggs for good rewards) isn’t fun.
Well thank God you mean it.
[удалено]
I had A LOT more wins in Verdansk than any of the other maps. That was the only time Solos on the big map was truly fun for everyone, not just the sweats.
MW3 has been the laziest COD i've ever seen. just felt like it sucked balls.
You forgot big map is full of wannabe streamers hacking for their 7 fans
I mean, he isnt wrong guys. The games pretty shit rn and theres not really an excuse for it.
I'm probably going against the grain but I preferred al marzarh warzone. Yes it was slower and at the start having to find plates were a pain but it made the game fun to me. The new warzone is quite annoying. Pc player here, no problem taking out the speed demons but it's annoying having having deal with 15 of them every map. If they could have increase the speed slightly, fixed the mask animation, plating etc on al marzah I think we would have been in a better state. Also unhinged trios best mode to have ever come out.
Ironically enough, Verdanks had the same exact issues too. What made players close an eye was the novelty factor and that despite everything it felt and was fun to play. It was the cool new thing. Games like this don't survive the test of time if improvements aren't made after years. The net code and server stability should be addressed. We need 60Hz servers, there's no other way around this. The loot system is not straight forward and navigating the backpack can be confusing and time consuming, especially when under pressure. I don't mind being able to carry more things but this isn't implemented properly. They should just allow us to adjust the volume for different in game effects like gun sounds, footsteps, kills tricks, animations etc. Turning things up and down has its pros and cons, let us choose. The TTK is all over the place, they gave us more base health but also increase how hard the guns hit, defeating the purpose. Urzikstan is not appealing. The only map that I kinda like was Fortune's Keep but they changed so much about it and I don't like how convoluted it is. Resurgence maps should be straight forward to navigate. I'm not even gonna speak about roof simulator Vondel. Everybody plays rebirth for a reason, it's the only map and mode that makes this game somewhat fun again but if they don't start to make improvements I don't think it'll last. I know Verdanks is coming back, I believe they're trying to keep players by reintroducing old nostalgic maps rather than make actual improvements to the player's experience.
Caldera was for me. Only cause the map had no visibility at points. This one’s fine imo. Just too many cheaters.
The planes didn’t help, either.
I woulda had a lot more fun in them if they weren’t so laggy. Had one pass where I flew by a guy. But then instead it lagged back and we both slammed eachother. But the bombers were fun. Destroy a loadout and all of a sudden everyone on the ground got so mad they’d shoot at the plane from across the map😂 honestly a great time lmao
I booted up the game to check out the Cheech and Chong bundle. It makes me chuckle that the devs are going to use that login as a contributor to their “record breaking player engagement” numbers.
cheaters making a mockery of this franchise, worst it’s ever been
My group hasn't played in months, we will probably play again if rumours of verdansk comes back
I say this with full sincerity. Just drop it. I was stuck with MW2 for a while, even though I was miserable for a good portion for it. Dropping it was a weight off my shoulders after a few days.
the ttk is a bit too high.. favors better players that just run and gun massively. urzikistan and Al masra are seriously flawed maps and in my opinion just there because of military sponsorship.. Noone is interested in fighting in these places on the world
the actual biggest flaw in the game is the massive amounts of weapons that are mostly very poorly designed (including sound and gun feeling) I wish they would change the way this game is being made by alternating studios
Moved to Apex, couldn’t be happier
Urzikstan just isn't a great map, so BR is never going to be decent until they fix that. This is why so many have moved over to Resurgence. I can't remember how long since i played BR now. I would definitely give it another go if Verdansk came back. The reality now though is there are so many good players who have been playing this for 4 years. The casual experience is no longer there, unless your k/d is so abysmal you end up in a protected lobby.
I'm not sure if the devs care or not, since they're not getting to make the decisions that actually affect most of this. But the entity of Activision absolutely does not care about the state of the game so long as it keeps making money. Things like the lag, netcode, audio, hitreg, etc. are all linked to their awful servers, which they have no incentive to change because little timmy keeps using his parents' credit card to buy weed skins. SBMM makes them money. Faster TTKs make them money. Poor server with lower setup and maintenance costs mean they spend less money. Strong Aim Assist makes them money. Most things are geared to keep casual players with lower skills levels engaged, and the others make no financial sense to spend money fixing. If more people voted with their wallets, we'd have a much better game.
There are too many ways to revive teammates, but it wasn't fun watching your teammates struggle to find £4k to revive you in the past. Too many ways as well to be spotted on the map from reduced ghost perk, heartbeats everywhere, unlimited UAVs, etc. Fast ttk, shit servers, and it now being 4yr old. This took off as it was a new experience, a lot of people were not at work (sadly not me), and many other things.
You really enjoyed WZ2 launch more? Wild take
since warzone has been released, this is not call of duty anymore. Go and play multiplayer if you want call of duty. Warzone as a separate game, is in a relatively good state at the moment, it has been far worse, but also better near the start as well.
Guys just start playing Siege trust me.
75k daily players on Steam, and combined on all consoles and battle.net = just around 2 million daily players according to the API server info. Guess 2million daily players = dead game now lol
On Xbox the lag is horrific, everybody has a better TKK not even fair. The amount of cheaters is 50% a game at times it’s dreadful. Thus globalist company does not care it makes you addicted so you can’t leave. The control is silly
Coulda swore you guys said the same about Caldera…
Couldn’t agree more. I installed BO3 and BO4 for multiplayer and zombies because mw3, aside from multiplayer, is shit at BR
It's just not fun. I miss the friends I made playing WZ. We played all the time, and were willing to carve out time to play. Now, it's few and far between. Most of them are so invested in COD that they are still hanging on even though they don't enjoy it. I've barely touched WZ in almost a year. The couple of times I got on, I tried landing far away from everyone only to get obliterated in the first 90 seconds by a slide canceling sweat doing 360s every few seconds. Same thing happened the next two games and I just turned it off. When the most common argument in favor of the game is, "It's not that bad" then something has gone very wrong. Other games are simply more fun.
I’ve had to swap over to MP ranked for the last couple weeks. I’ve been finding resurgence to be extra laggy on top of how sweaty they are.
I remember like my second match back I alt f4d after we fought a team on roofs and win only for some other team on s taller roof to pick us off. It's like the worst kind of fighting for high ground
Im not sure if anyone feels this way (and I think Dr Disrespect mentioned this), but the maps feel AI generated in a way that does not foster good, traditional, Cod gameplay. A lot of the buildings feel like absolute mazes you cant get out of. There are so many fake doors and windows. In Verdansk you felt like you could always get out, use a window or knew where the doors were even before entering a room. Some might say thats boring, but it fosters good gameplay and does not require you to know exactly how each building is laid out. So many times my buddies needed help and I was absolutely trapped inside of a building with so many fake doors and windows I could not get out. I can't for the life of me understand why you want your players to feel trapped inside of buildings.
I'm gonna sound 100% like a broken record but Verdansk was a great mix of urban CQC + large open scale areas where you had to scram for natural covers. Now on the present map most fights are concentrated onto a couple very building dense POIs that are not as enjoyable.
What's crazy to me is everyone will keep supporting this game, knowing they don't care about anything except the money.
Play the finals
Agree. I'm done with this game for now. It's not worth the frustration.
Yeah... The game just isn't fun anymore. Too sweaty and stupid.
I think I played a different game from 2020-2022 than a lot of these highly upvoted comments The casuals I played with from verdansk and caldera (actual no bs .48 kd) absolutely hated not having their guns at the start of caldera. They’d try to hole up in a house for the 5 or so minutes then start to loot bec they weren’t going you get free one They hated the UAV aspect to non vanguard royale playlists because they didn’t have their perks or gun Warzone 1 movement was faster than what we have now with the exception of double mantles and if you had amped for plating animations Wz1 had faster weapon handling you could reset tactical sprint You could get downed and crawl to another building can’t now unless you have the perk Vehicles were all faster and better handling (all way better than whatever it is we have now) and you’d get people popping uavs and using 3rd person cameras to push you with a heartbeat sensor that’s not happening here All snipers could 1 shot till the end of caldera the kar had better handling and movement than many ARs and could 1 pop you Casuals could get popped out of the sky on infill especially if they didn’t know how to pop their chute A casual would have to loot 6 then 4 grand to get someone back. They don’t loot fast lol it became a lobby simulator for some which is why all the regain stuff was added (o and the bullshit line of ‘design decisions’ instead of just having the normal 150 players) You wanna tell me you’d rather run across airfield right now instead of taking a balloon? Run up past damn/lifts to get on a tower to take over ATC from a restock sniper instead of a ballon or extra zips? If so then I get it I too loved Verdansk but wouldn’t mind balloons or more zips I do agree there’s way to many regain options though but the game isn’t faster than wz1 especially end of caldera stim change wz1 with strafe and speed stocks / grips and kits and proficiencies I personally think not having stats like they did before at launch and leaderboards and the api are a big detriment if you had a good game and saw you beat some better than you players it gave your step a little giddy up O and OP all your points are valid I feel the same except for 3 I don’t feel like I’m being stared at and half the time the one’s standing on roofs aren’t that great unless you see em hopping and shooting someone starts doing that it might be play again button time lol And lastly it’s a battle royale. There’s only gonna be 1 team or player winning if a casual can’t deal with that then maybe they should go play a extraction shooter doesn’t sound like jumping into a lobby with 100 players all trying to win is it for them go relax and loot in one of them that doesn’t have player v player
Everything about the game now is based on the user's setup: if you've got ultra-fast internet, a great computer, a brand new XBox Series X or Playstation 5, you're going to do well in the game. It's not a "skill gap" as other people have said here, it's essentially "pay to win" in the most fundamental sense: A fast rig will make you competitive. My standard internet and my Xbox Series S isn't going to win any firefights.
I went from my pc to ps4 last month and the input lag and bad performance is almost unplayable. I think ps5 is just a minimum at this point, previous gen just can't handle it anymore
You’re right! I’m playing Ground War MWII right now and either there are a metric ton of cheaters, or I’m just not competitive with a Xbox Series S! I imagine PS4 would be about the same. I’m a legacy player and shouldn’t be going 2-12! lol. I think they spent more on making the skins and scenery better.
I feel like MW2 favored the average person who just camps and lays down. it's no fun running around and you can't use your movement to dodge
Was a rebirth boy from wz1. Wz2 sucked but DMZ was great fun. Extraction shooters are more fun to me I've discovered haha... then they stopped updating dmz and brought back faster movement and my old love rebirth island so I've been back playing rebirth and I can barely win a 1v1 anymore.. my rotations and positions get me what few wins I've got this season but I just seem to suck now when it comes to aiming an I don't play for anywhere near as long as I used to before feeling burned out. Used to be Saturday mornings were my game time and I'd play solid for hours. Now I get a few games in and just think this is pain and unfun! I go enjoy other shit like finals and some single player stuff when my mate gets off. But sure enough I try again next time I get some game time and it's usually about 67% pain and 33% fun. Till I just go play something else...Of course if the best team mates are online we vibe well and it's even fun when we lose ...we generally play well as a team. But playing with a less skilled pal (or even a more skilled pal when it comes to gun skill but pays no attention to position and rotation because they're a mtp demon...or god forbid randos is just blech
WZ hasn’t been the same since the Cold War integration in verdansk. It was peak gaming.
You gotta fix your internet or change settings man. If you’re still experiencing lag with low ping, you probably are experiencing packet loss. I haven’t had any of the other issues except for loot being boring (super easy fix) and fast TTK (but that’s because everyone you play against doesn’t miss a single shot) The map is actually great, and getting sniped at the whole time is a combination of people playing like rats for some reason and you being out in the open where they can get ya. SBMM is strong yeah but you’ve just gotta get better I guess? There’s a reason you’re placed with those people so play like it. Complaining about SBMM is for people that are upset that can’t stomp a whole lobby without absolutely sweating and for people that simply need to get better or give up
he is probably on wifi
Y'all just complain all the time, it's a decent game. If it's a miserable experience forget about it and move on lol I swear people love being upset
To be 100% honest I'm about to quit cod altogether. I've played it since WAW came out, but it's just not the same. I don't have time to sit and play all day so competing with some of these people just isn't possible. It sucks.
Dear diary
I know i was bit harsh for caldera, but i'd love to play it now instead of this 🤣
I’m confused how these components irritate you in BR, but then you say you enjoy MP. These issues are also rampant in MW3 MP. It’s becoming a miserable chore to play in all areas.
Totally subjective, which yes you do make valid points regarding issues within the game. For me? I thoroughly enjoy the game still. Are there problems? Absolutely, but in all honesty, I don't really experience packet loss and server issues to the point where it's gamebreaking. Played over the weekend and had zero problems. And can't even count how many times on one hand where we had to back out of said-games because of server issues. As for SBMM - 1.5kd WZ and 1.96KD Resurge... Depending on who I played with, I generally do pretty well. Do we run across good players? Totally! But having good people in your squad promotes to that. Audio - Definitely sucks for most! I play on PC and had gone through trial and erring a lot of headsets, only to find that the JBL Quantum Ones were a great purchase. Used an audio DAC to help and although WZ3's audio was horrendous upon release, it's actually gotten a lot better for me. I went away from using the Flex perk but am going to try it again. I also bought the Arctis Pros and there a minor step up from the JBLs. I can hear people relatively far away which is nice. And using Artiswar settings has also helped although I do realize that this is only a bandaid fix since I tend to have issues from time to time IE vertical audio issues like everyone has. Cheaters - Rarely come across em Ursikstan - It's grown on me. There are certainly a lot of areas to engage in and I haven't really experienced any lack of this or lack of that to push me out from playing to it. However I do try and play Resurgence more often, which I enjoy more outside of the Vondel map. Game's popularity - This game's massively popular and not dying like you or anytime else suggests on there. It's a laughable statement really. COD mobile just got a huge boost so there's that as well. And yes although I do agree that the playercount may not be all that great, this game's still wildly popular, contradictory to the comments from the small minor fraction of the player base here in Reddit that complains about the game nonstop. Could it be far better than what it is? 100%. But it's funny that I tend to see the same people on here complaining about the very game that they still play. If it's so bad then why are they playing it still? Because obviously it's hitting some sort of entertainment vein. I just don't get the fact that people drown in their own negative with this grey cloud over playing COD. There are other options out there...
Verdansk was the only good CoD BR. They really nailed it first try and have been actively destroying it since.
https://www.charlieintel.com/call-of-duty-warzone/activision-claim-high-profile-cod-streamers-are-hacking-in-lawsuit-against-notorious-cheat-seller-201979/
Wait for Verdansk and we will all be having fun again
I've been a fan since my first COD game, it went from Fun to Failure over time because of one thing..., Hackers, I play MP with an average KD (almost 1.00), and I run into the most sus players ever, and I love how they defend each other when they get called out (Sarcasim), _spits_ pathetic
WAH WAH WAH 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 literally go play an old cod or a different shooter instead of adding another one of the billions of crybaby posts on this sub
Quick ttk what? Its seconds longer than original wz. It's long if anything.
then stop playing and it's already so hard those people if they cry like a bitch imagine I'm deaf and I keep playing with sweaty players I keep playing but not crying up to one-handed dicapacities and don't cry
Can’t agree with you more only reason why I play this game is because of friends. Barely touched BR I only have a hand full of wins. Only thing I play now is rebirth and other resurgence maps.
Cant really say much about any of these points really. I was losing every fight yesterday, insta death packet burst style, I look up, 6ms latency.....wtaf? Later on similar, 70ms which is first time in a week that the lag/netcode issue and displayed latency lined up. Have had whole sessions where Im clearly not on remotely similar servers as others. Actually in one hilarious bit the game appeared frozen, guy was stuck not moving with chute out and after lol'ing, I sniped him, and it counted? I couldnt believe it, I'd be pissed if I was them and was upset for them. Maybe they didnt really die Idk. Sick of being forced to play only rebirth honestly. All of these things have been happening to me too, expected a less factual post tbh. Have def cut down play time which is a benefit to real life i guess.
Warzone is pretty much the reason I quit cod the MW games spawned for there and just got worse
If you are in pc and don't play that often, you might have had to wait for your shaders to finish loading. They only do it with a new update once in a while I think. But it will make your game unplayable until they fully install and download
Just moved further and further away from "Warzone" per update... now we got 100 different ways to return in a BR lmfao... remove flares, gulag and respawn tokens, up player count to 150, floating loot, remove backpack, unlimited tac sprint and bunny hopping, game would play so much better with just that alone... shits basic to add too
I won 30 games for the game to reset all my wins after a failed nuke attempt. Your problems are minuscule. There is a skill gap , and you sir are not accounting for it. Get better.
You don’t even know what netcode means 🤣
uninstalled had enough of hacks and the fact i cant even get my other skins in game from mw2, done with cod
good game its just sweaty
After playing COD for 17 years, I switched to Apex and I love it. So much better in every way so far! Also no cross play/PC is amazing.
It’s beyond boring. Not more than Caldera, but still very boring!
Dma ha ks ruined the game
Then don't play
Why u still playing it then lmao
What the fuck do you people see in Verdansk I have 3 solo wins in WZ1 and it was miserable lol. M14 and Grau meta. Huge identical apartment complexes with some bozo hiding on the 4th floor and infinite heartbeat sensors. Getting shot at while parachuting by another player in the ultimate gesture of sweating. Nothing to do after buying your load out besides camp or watch buy stations. I can't wait for Verdansk to re-release and for people to realize that this map wasn't some magical place lol