Modern Warfare 3

The Game Room
21

Well, on MW and MW2, the holographic sight didn’t lag behind when aiming and turning, and it made some guns more accurate (M-16 especially). Haven’t opened it yet in MW3, so no idea if it’s the same.

I picked it up at launch, I’ve been slowly playing through. I think I liked the maps on Black Ops better, especially the stuff going on while playing (train on WMD, missile launch on Launch), but this could also just be that I don’t know the new maps well enough. I like the gun proficiency levels, nice being able to have two attachments on my gun without it taking a perk slot. I hate how the advanced UAV can’t see through assassin, I assumed it worked like the SR-71 on Black Ops.

I love the new killstreak system. I also love that it loops, so if you get on a giant run it keeps adding on kills. Also, in the objective modes, capturing an objective counts to your killstreak, again, that’s great. I’m a terrible shot, so I like to help out with captures and UAV kills, which also contribute to killstreaks.

One thing I can’t find, and I may just be missing it…I can’t find anywhere that tells me my level progression during a match. On MW2 you got the bars if you hit start during a game, on Black Ops you got a counter. Am I just not seeing it anywhere?

22

I’ve been digging the game so far, playing online only. I’ll echo what some folks are saying and say that it seems to be more of a mix with Blops and MW2, than going off in its own direction. Blops’ gameplay was a step up over MW2, because Treyarch actually went through the pains of trying to balance out the gameplay. Too bad their netcode sucked and what you’d see wasn’t what was actually happening. The netcode in MW3 is improved, but it still seems to be lacking to me just a little bit

Quickscoping really never annoyed me. Very rarely, if ever, you see someone that’s quickscoping take over an entire game. Blops stopped the quickscoping by every time you’d zoom in with a sniper rifle, it would jerk the sight up and to the right. It was still possible, but you’d have to compensate for the inherent movement. That’s also one of the reasons that sniping was so nerfed in Blops and relatively few people tried it. Well, that and the assault rifles are so accurate at range.
For a while, there was obviously a rivalry going with Treyarch and Infinity Ward. Infinity Ward raised the bar with MW1, with the new engine and all, and Treyarch pretty much just reskinned it with W@W, but they at least put in a very rudimentary lobby feature and balanced some of the guns out. For MW2, Infinity Ward went out of their way to take Treyarch’s improvements out. It appears that Sledgehammer, the remnants of Infinity Ward and new designers after Infinity Ward’s implosion, is much more open minded. MW3 has a lot of things going for it and it’s a very solid game, although I can’t get over something not being quite right connection-wise. Maybe that’ll even out after Christmas.

23

Regarding quickscoping:

Try this: next time you get quickscoped, go back and watch that game in the theater. Nine times out of ten, the quickscoper won’t be good enough to be really effective. He’ll be getting guys on this third or fourth shot. He’ll be dying as much as he’s killing. It’ll be obvious he’d be more effective using an assault rifle.

One has a tendency to assume that when the killcam shows one being quickscoped, the quickscoper must be running around on an unstoppable rampage. But final K-D scores rarely bear this out. Yes, BLOPS nerfed quickscoping, but I think it was largely to appease this unwarranted assumption that quickscopers have an advantage.

And you can’t nerf quickscoping without nerfing sniping in general: when I’m up in my nest surveying the battlefield, a lot of the enemies I see will be scampering across open areas and I have only a split second to scope in on them. If they add a pause or some wobble to my scope-in in order to prevent quickscoping, then that’s often enough to prevent me from getting the legitimate sniper kill.

24

I hate getting quickscoped. I have no idea how hard it is to actually do since I’ve never tried it myself. But in my opinion it’s no different than getting shot in the face with a shotgun at close range, or getting knifed upon turning a corner. It’s the instant death that ticks me off, it feels cheap somehow, but it’s just a part of the game. Let’s say you want to be “realistic” with sniping, you’ll have snipers hiding in a nest somewhere scoped in, watching a door or some other high traffic area? There are enough campers already without forcing an entire class of players to be campers. At least if they can quickscope they run around.

25

I typically die so often I don’t get upset about getting quick scoped. I can’t do it, and if that’s the way you want to play, knock yourself out. I think you’d have more fun with an assault rifle, but we all play differently.

For example, the guy that decided to camp in basically one spot all game during Headquarters. I can see that in Team Deathmatch, but not in HQ. You’re really helping your team with captures by sitting there all game.

26

I really don’t understand camping in objective games. The other day I played a match of Conquest where I had more captures than probably the rest of my team put together, and yet they would never manage to hold any of the flags even when they spent a lot of time sitting there watching them. Obviously, we lost by a wide margin.

27

What does everybody think of the new killstreaks?

I generally like them except for one thing: all three of the nine-kill assault streaks stink. I’d like to run 5 > 7 > 9 except that none of the nines are worthwhile. The Reaper is a ton of fun, but I rarely get more than one kill with it even if it doesn’t get shot down. The AH-6 Overwatch doesn’t seem to be any better than the attack helicopter. And the Strafe Run has also gotten me poor results. So I’m kind of forced to run 5 > 7 > 12 and try for the AC-130, which is exactly as awesome as it was back in MW2.

Why have they moved the Pave Low from a 9 streak to a 12 streak? Anyone figured out how/whether it’s been buffed?

The airdrop trap has made things really interesting with care packages. In all previous games, even BLOPS, there would be absolutely no hesitation before trying to steal a crate. In BLOPS, boobytrapping was rare enough that you really didn’t need to hesitate before trying a steal. Now however, more than half of the enemy crates you encounter will be traps. So nobody wants to steal them. Which makes normal care packages and sentry guns more of an attractive option: they’re much less likely to get stolen.

Assault drone = lame. They’re so slow, I had a game the other night where an enemy drone found me. I got a small obstacle between it and me and was able to run it in circles around the obstacle for 30 seconds until it expired.

I.M.S. is pretty good. Seems to be good for about two kills, which is great for a 5 killstreak. I never use them however, since they’re a lot slower than predators.

The juggernauts are interesting. I’ve used them (from care packages) a couple of times and have had mixed results. I used the assault one and got about a dozen kills with it, but didn’t really enjoy it because I was trying to run-and-gun, and you can barely move when you’re in that suit. With the support version, you can move a little faster, but you have to use a pistol. On the other hand, I’ve run up against a few juggernauts and have yet to take one down.

I think my favorite new killstreak is the recon drone. I have it in my “defensive class” for use when I’m getting my ass kicked. I can usually “tag” 5-8 players while it’s running (though once I got almost 20), and each tag gets you the full points you would get for a kill, plus assist points when that enemy eventually gets killed. Awesome way to get tons of XP, and basically acts as a blackbird for the rest of your team (you can even tag assassin users).

28

The Pavelow is beefy as hell. It takes a ton of damage before it comes down. The Hind or Cobra, comparably, go down with one Stinger missile.

I’m not sure why the Recon Drone is a 9-kill killstreak. I do like that it can spot Assassin Pro users, but it just doesn’t seem to be super helpful. I think I should just try it a few more times and find out.

29

It’s barely helpful at all for you when you call it in, because anybody you tag will be killed by your teammates before you can get to them. But before they get killed, their dot on the radar updates constantly, like SR-71 except not directional. So it’s extremely helpful for the rest of your team. And extremely helpful for getting mountains of XP.

But wasn’t it the same way in MW2? Why did they move it from a nine to a twelve?

30

It should have probably been a twelve in MW2, too. Pavelow was super powerful then, as well. I don’t remember it taking as much punishment, but I could be forgetting it.

I’m fine with being helpful for the team and spotting things. I’m all about calling things out. How durable is that drone? I’ve put a few bullets into it and it kept on going.

31

Last night a guy on my team got a MOAB - interesting. It’s like a half-assed nuke. The rest of the game, the screen was tinged red.

32

It’s not that durable to be honest. About one full clip from an assault rifle will take it down, I believe. However, barely anyone ever shoots at it for some reason. It helps that when you tag someone they get concussed briefly, so might be too disoriented to find it.

Ooh, I read about those. Apparently your whole team gets 2x XP for the rest of the match too.

33

Hm. I must have stopped shooting just before it came down, then.

34

Where do MOABs come from, random supply drops? I was in a game where I got hit by one, you get the Toxic title when it happens.

ETA, it seems it is a reward for a 25 kill streak, not including other kill streak rewards.

35

The MOAB comes after you get 25 kills in a row with your weapon only. It’s a killstreak that doesn’t take up a spot in your killstreak list. Everyone has it.

36

Okay, I’ve got a gripe. I’m not happy there’s no Marathon Pro equivalent.

Traditionally, my most successful tactical role is as a flanker. From my spawn, I run flanking routes around the sides of the map to behind their spawn and get a bunch of kills from behind with a silenced SMG. Then I run another flanking route to behind their new spawn on the other side of the map and repeat. I had over 2.25 K:D in BLOPS TDM doing that. But it’s pretty much impossible without being able to sprint constantly. Even with “Extreme Conditioning,” you don’t have enough speed to make it behind their new spawn before they’ve spread out to the middle of the map. For me, this removes a major strategic aspect of the game.

I guess that on the plus side, it makes sniping a little more viable, since snipers are less likely to get backstabbed when the enemy has so much trouble flanking them. And I do love me some sniping.

37

My brother plays the game. He thought the single player was meh–but then, he’s a regular multiplayer guy and the fact that his AI buddies were useless, plus getting killed meant he had to do a part over were frustrating.

He thinks that the game is less cartoonish compared to Black Ops–he found himself dying a lot more using his older, riskier tactics.

And as far as I can see from him he sucks at quickscoping and any hits he lands seem to be more of a matter of luck than anything else.

38

I played a few rounds of one of the new game modes last night: team defender. I’ve got to say, it was a ton of fun.

The idea is that it’s just TDM, except that each kill counts for 50. There’s a single flag you can carry and if someone on your team is carrying it, then all kills by your team count for 100 instead. The flag carrier is always visible on the minimap, and drops the flag upon being killed. First team to 7500 wins.

The games are way more fast-paced than normal TDM, since everyone always knows where to head (i.e. towards the flag carrier). There was surprisingly little camping: it’s hard to camp when everyone knows exactly where you are. And anyway, just holding the flag won’t make you win – you’ve got to get kills too. If the flag carrier just sits in a corner with a riot shield, that team will be down one man.

I’m sure a lot of advanced strategy is possible for the game mode, but I had fun even not really knowing the strategies. I highly recommend it.

In other news, the game’s been out for a few weeks now. Anyone have any thoughts about it they haven’t already shared?

39

I’m just not enjoying it as much as BLOPS. There.

40

I agree. In Black Ops I was much better at multiplayer, admittedly with a lot of practice, but I am getting utterly destroyed at MW3. I don’t like the guns as much, the graphics, anything. The only thing better (in my opinion) is the Special Ops, and aside from the must-play-co-op ones (which I hate the very concept of) I’ve beaten all of them on Veteran. So now I get to try to beat those two with someone who probably sucks and will get me endlessly, repeatedly killed or give up on them. Great.

I’m trying to get all the achievements, and after that who knows what I’ll do with it. I’ll probably end up back on Black Ops until Treyarch puts out the next game, which will almost certainly be better than MW3.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a great game, but it’s not capturing me the way Black Ops did.