(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); I gave this thread an initial crack about... a month ago. It was a good, and long thread and it addressed a large number of issues in Call of Duty 4 which are, not necessarily headline controversial issues like martyrdom and the M16 - but things which are seriously problematic in the game once you really look at what is going on.

The reason I created the thread was because of World at War, funnily enough. World at War was a coat of paint. Little more. They didn't even fill in the cracks. I'd have bought W@W if it had fixed these issues - but they didn't. I therefore believe there is a huge danger that a large number of these issues will also not be solved.

Initially I added a few things into this which perhaps where more controversial than I hoped - and they have been removed. Some of the issues brought up in this thread WILL be controversial - but most people should at least be able to agree that the issues necessitate fixes, whether they agree with my solutions. Remember, that there are THOUSANDS of solutions to these problems. I have in each case chosen the easiest/best, in my opinion.

Finally, I want to just state that this is not a 'repeat topic' in the normal sense. I left the original topic to die as it had had the life sucked out of it by certain users who will not be named. It had become to messy for purpose, too convoluted for any use - but this thread does have a use - a simple list of the issues which Infinity Ward should dare not to solve. This is not something being dealt with in any remotely active topics - nor to the same degree of detail.

1. Kill streak exploit:

This blatant exploit is one of the things which, although fairly unnoticeable, can seriously effect the outcome of a game. The exploit works like this: You gain an airstrike or a helicopter, and then die. You then use the airstrike, or helicopter, and those kills will add towards your next kill streak reward. This tactic is often behind the larger scores which are posted. The benefits can be extraordinarily large.

Suggested fix: See fix for #2

2. Further problems with kill streaks:

The first flaw is a simple one. Even if this exploit didn't exist - it's advantageous to die. Once, on Creek I racked up a 30+ killstreak. (this is not a bragging contest). Constantly, however, after my 7th kill, I considered dying. It would have been advantageous to die. Even without using the exploit, death is an advantage. I'd have lost my life, and been out of action for about 20 seconds (I was sniping). From there, I could then get another helicopter. Even without using the exploit of kill-streak cycling - death is useful in this situation.

In fact, I'd go as far to say that to die on purpose for this reason is just a baby brother of the exploit explained in #1.

This is flawed in the extreme. It should not be advantageous to die - and this needs to change. If MW2 has a similar killstreak reward system, then Infinity Ward must allow you to continue to get killstreak rewards. UAV at 3, airstrike at 5, helicopter at 7, UAV at 10, and so on.

However, this would have to be balanced, and the way I'd do this is simply to remove the appliance of kills by chopper or airstrike to the killstreak you are on. This would simply lower the number of people who ever got above 5 kills. I'd say the majority of helicopters in CoD4 are got with the help of an airstrike. Often, a player with 5 kills will instantly be gifted two kills, and have his helicopter - for free.

Suggested fix: Kill streak rewards cycle. UAV at 3, Airstrike at 5, Heli at 7, UAV at 10, and so on. However, NO kill from an airstrike/helicopter should apply towards a killstreak reward.

3. Airstrike flaws:
The airstrikes in CoD4 are extremely random. This amount of total randomness often has a huge effect on the game. The difference that a random airstrike can make can be the difference between getting a chopper, and another 5 kills, and not. That will often decide the outcome of the game.

The solution to this is fairly simple, the direction of the air strike should be chosen. The way this is done can be done in so many ways, but, I'd suggest a simple, one press for start point, one press for direction. So, the first press would lock the start position, and then, the analog stick held in a direction would act as the orientation. Another press calls the airstrike.

This is a highly necessary fix from a competitive standpoint. Some users have stated that this 'randomness' is a balancing act for airstrikes. Something to stop airstrikes being too overbearing. This is, I'm afraid, totally wrong. You CANNOT make something like this utterly random, to balance it. There are a few airstrikes in a game - a good airstrike will instantly push the game well in your favor. It is likely to gift you a helicopter and so on.

A lucky airstrike can, on its own, mean a win. An unlucky one can lose a game for a team. That isn't balanced. Not at all. If there is a feeling that less random airstrikes would be overbearing, then, make the airstrike itself weaker. Make ALL airstrikes worse.

Suggested fix:
One press locks start point, then, analog stick can swivel the airstrikes orientation around, shown by an arrow, and anther press will call the airstrike. IF this causes a problem with airstrikes being too good - then lower the power of all airstrikes.

4. Experience Flaws [1] Conflict of interest:
In this game, the experience is extremely biased towards kills. This means that someone who goes 7, for 0, is going to get considerably less experience than someone going 14, for 10. The problem here is that it creates a conflict of interests. Call of Duty 4 is a team game. As far as possible, all incentives should be built around the team.

With the experience system how it is, it often means that someone is better off running out like a lunatic, and getting a few more kills at the sacrifice of a lot more deaths. A huge problem for your team, but arguably a bonus for you?

It's difficult to say how this ought to be dealt with - after all, we cannot have negative experience. Everyone needs to be able to rank up. Each gametype probably needs a different method. If we look at team deathmatch, there needs to be a way of rewarding killing, whilst punishing death, whilst not prohibiting bad players from gaining experience. A possibility would be:

Kills*10 + (Kills-deaths)*10 (IF, kills-deaths is positive). So, a player going 20-17 would get 200 + 30 = 230. A player going 16 for 5 would get 160 + 110 = 270.

There are plenty of possibilities for the solution - it's important to consider the problem in full. We need to not hinder the progression of bad players. There are plenty of players who often, or even always, go negative. They cannot find themselves up against an impossible climb, or, even a ridiculously slow one. The solution above is a balance. It advantages those with good kill-death SPREAD excellently, so it will incentivise trying to get a good kill death spread, but, at the same time, if you're awful and go... 14 for 18, you'll get 140 points.

Different game modes need different solutions however. This system wouldn't be particularly helpful in say, Sabotage, where, I'd say someone going for 20-17 is at least as useful as someone going 15-5. In game modes like sabotage, death is just a barrier to everything else. Your death doesn't hurt your team per see. It just hurts your ability to help your team. If you lay the bomb and kill 50 people, and die 70 times, the deaths are more or less irrelevant (though you could argue there is a risk factor there).

In sabotage in fact, if the EXP points were allocated more fairly (rewarding kills less, and objective maneuvers more) then there wouldn't be a problem. This is discussed in #6.

Suggested Fix (see #6)

5. Experience Flaws [3]: Choppers

As we all know, helicopters are rarely taken down. This is once again because of the conflict of interest between: what is best for my experience, and, what is best for my team. Simply put, the chopper needs to die. At LEAST 30exp should be the reward, and assists should be given out too. I think it is a CLEAR proof of the fact that there is a serious issue with people playing for their own points rather than their team, where you see no-one attempting to kill a helicopter. For those who doubt the influence which intelligently allocated incentives can bring - just think of the problem of helicopters.

Suggested Fix: A reward must be given for those who kill (or assist in the killing of) helicopters

6. Experience Flaws [3]: Specific gametype conflicts
I'm going to use one example. It's the only objective based game type I really play, and that is Sabotage. Sabotage, as anyone who's played it will tell you is literally infested by people who play purely for the experience - rather than to win.

The simple factor is that in sabotage, you can get more EXP than you can in TDM. Therefore a lot of people play sabotage like TDM - but, because of the 20 minute gametype, and the fact that more players are not JUST worrying about kills - they in fact get a lot MORE points than they do in TDM.

Effectively, it half ruins the mode. The chance of your whole team actually wanting to win is extremely low. The most immediate change here is to simply make kills less worth it than winning, or attempting to win. More than anything, to make sabotage kills less worth it than TDM kills.

TDM is the game type for killing - killing should be rewarded. In the objective game types, whatever leads to that objective should be rewarded. Killing is part of this, but it MUST be a smaller part than it is in TDM. By definition, kills in TDM should be worth more than they are in sabotage (S& is a special case because of the spawning system).

I'm sure that probably all the other game types are fraught with exactly the same problems. I can't recommend exact fixes for them, I don't play them much, but, again, the aim is simple, the player should be aiming to get his team the win. Therefore the experience mechanism should reward that above all else - without punishing players who are below average.

If this doesn't happen, thanks to the experience mechanism, people will play objective game types for experience, and if that doesn't require them to be good team players - you will effectively ruin objective game modes for everybody - and sabotage currently is ruined.

Lastly - it is possible that some of the issues in 4, 5, and 6, are dealt with in the 'Match Bonus' the problem is that these incentives need to be understandable. Electronic Arts recently announced that they were going to explain to everyone in the game how their ranking system works - this is important. If people don't understand how a ranking system works, it won't effect their play. So, if IW do solve these problems by for instance, rewarding Kill-Death spread, this needs to be made obvious somewhere.

Suggested Fix: Each gametype requires a different solution - the experience rewards must be aimed at influencing and rewarding players who are most assisting the team towards a win. In Team Deathmatch, this means rewarding kill-death spread. In other gametypes, it means something else entirely

7. Score Flaws:
I've just talked a lot about experience - score is another issue. The main difference is that with score, it doesn't effect progression. Score is simply a word which should describe your true effect on the game.

In Team Deathmatch, this should be, purely, (Kills-Deaths)*10. If this is problematic because it implies a negative effect by the worst players, then, ((Kills-Deaths)*10) - ((WKills-WDeaths)*10). (WKills-WDeaths) is the killdeath spread of the worst player. Therefore, the worst player would get 0, and everyone would be ranked according to this. In this way, a proper score system which is sensible can be implemented, without upsetting the lesser skilled players.

I hope (I know many don't) that a good skill ranking system will be implemented in MW2, if it is, a good score system may be crucial (unless they go for a direct Halo style system).

Suggested Fix: Score system should ONLY aim to detail how useful a player was to the team. In Team Deathmatch, for instance, it should be purely kill death spread. Once again, it is different for all game types.

8. The inaccuracy of the player model:
The fact that the player model and the view in first person seem to have a totally inaccurate relation here to eachother is a major prolem, especially when it comes to sniping. There are quite a lot of elaborate fixes to this, but, realistically the easiest one would be to move the center of the view down to the eyes. It would also be nice to see that animations were more realistically interpreted, so, when looking down the sight, you could see this when looking at that player.

It would be nice, of course, to have a system where players moulded into cover, rested guns automatically on windows, et cetera but this would be a minefield of developmental awkwardness, so I expect none of this. I do however expect myself to be able to see someone who is shooting me. I should be able to see his eyes, and all of his gun.

Suggested Fix: What I see of another player should match what the player sees through his own eyes to as much of an extent as possible. So, if he looks down the sights, this change is visible. This should mean that, if a player is sniping over a balcony, his head and gun are visible.

9. Bullet damage
This is I think, a major flaw in the workings of CoD4. As most know, bullet damage works like this. X damage up to distance A. Damage drops linearly til distance B. Damage stops dropping.

This means, although say, a skorpion bullet has dropped over THIRTY damage in a few meters (going from the need of TWO bullets to kill to FIVE - which actually means it will take FOUR bullets to kill) it then, at another kilometer will take exactly the same amount of bullets!

This is not only exceedingly unrealistic, it's also really dumb from a gameplay point of view, because it's one of the two factors which really allows sniping from across the map with pistols and SMGs. I don't see any gameplay reason why the bullets couldn't be considered similarly to a real life bullet. It wouldn't be particularly difficult to model an original speed, and a deceleration (hereby being able to calculate kinetic energy at each distance). As CoD4 is generally shortened for everything, the deceleration should be considerable for most guns.

The effect at short and medium range could be considerably similar to CoD4, but, the difference would be that you wouldn't be able to snipe across the map. If this is music to my ears, as a TDM player, I'm sure it's music to hardcore players ears.

Suggested Fix: Simply don't stop the decrease in bullet strength. Perhaps model kinetic energy and the like. If not, just don't stop the bullet's damage deceasing. For instance, if the bullet does X damage up to range Y, it should then start decreasing until 0.

10. Bullet accuracy
The second factor in this equation is the fact that bullets will hit exactly where you are aiming at. So, you can with guns with no idle (a lot of them) hit bullets into exactly the same place shot, after shot, after shot.

There are lots of ways of solving this, but, the easiest is probably to add idle to every gun. This will also assist in dealing with a certain problematic gun. The effect? It will make sure that you can't pump bullet after bullet into exactly the same spot from a kilometer away. That solves the problem very quickly. It is possible that idle on every gun will over-weaken guns like the G3 and M14 - so perhaps they should be excluded - but the other guns should not.

Suggested Fix: Idle on every gun - just perhaps not the semi-autos

11. The ACOG Scope - making it worth it
Firstly, the accuracy on the scope needs to be worked on. It should go where you are shooting it. At the moment it just doesn't. Secondly, a hold breathe function should be added. This is to counter for the suggestions in #8. It also makes a hell of a lot more sense. Breath should only be holdable for a few seconds, not as much time as with snipers. 2 seconds without iron lungs, and maybe 3 with.

This will make the ACOG scope the scope it should have been. Actually useful for something other than it's glitch-friend, the M40A3.

The ACOG scope MUST NOT allow one shot kills from the M40A3, or any other gun. The ACOG scope should NOT change the power of ANY gun in ANY way. To all those little girls who enjoy using the M40-ACOG, you are an embarrassment.

Suggested Fix: A radical change to the ACOG scope - allow breath to be held. Also, M40-ACOG glitch should be eradicated

12. The occasional uselessness of UAV's, airstrikes, and helicopters
Sometimes - in fact fairly often, UAV's will be canceled by airstrikes, and airstrikes canceled by helicopters. Often there is nothing you can do. You get an airstrike, someone else is using one, you get a helicopter - and you've lost the airstrike you earned.

Given feedback on this one, I think the best solution would be if it stored the rewards you had. If you have an airstrike, but can't use it, and then get a helicopter, then the airstrike is still held. From here you could allow the player to choose which one to use with some system (Radial menu?), or alternatively, make UAV over-ride airstrike, and airstrike over-ride helicopter.

For instance, if I have all three, I'll have to use the UAV first, then the airstrike, then the helicopter. The reason for this is the order which they are most likely useable. You can ALWAYS use UAV's, and you can use an airstrike a few seconds after one has been used.

To stop a possibility of immense hoarding of rewards, you could make it so that you could only have 1 UAV, 1 airstrike and 1 helicopter stored at any one time.

Suggested Fix: Kill streak rewards are stored if another kill streak reward is gained. 1 maximum of each. You must use UAVs before airstrikes, and airstrikes before helicopters

13. Potential problems with grenades
Generally, with grenades, I find that they seem.. stacked in the favour of the thrower. They are easy to throw, they can be thrown a long way, and it goes on. My main problem is with the cooking. It is far too easy to cook the grenade so that, it will blow up as it lands. That effectively means the player has no chance.

The most crucial change here is that throwing back of grenades needs to be sped up hugely. I'd suggest this. Currently when you pick up a grenade, you pick it up, kiss it, *** your arm, and throw. Anyone who has played cricket or baseball will now that the fastest throw is simply a pick up and flick. That is what should happen with throwing back a grenade if you don't hold it down. If you simply tap RB, it should be a throw which takes around half a second.

Suggested Fix: A massively faster throw-back for grenades, like a flick-throw, or even a kick

14. Hardcore woes
I don't play hardcore. There are a lot of reasons for that. I don't actually understand why people like hardcore. It's unbalanced, camp based, lots of people using those really leet jump locations, and so on.

The balance for hardcore must be done SEPARATELY to the balance for core. That is for perks AND for the guns. This is a MUST if both games are going to be balanced. This along with the changes I'm suggesting should solve most of the problems I perceive in hardcore.

Suggested Fix: Balance hardcore and core separately

15. Last Stand
This one is often complained about, but I'm going to go at it again. I'm not even discussing whether it's broken - it is. The invincibility MUST go.. but in doing that, I fear that the perk will become useless. More useless than it already is.

Without the invincibility, the chance of going into LS is almost none. With it, it's utterly unfair and broken... There are two choices: One, to radically change LS, and the other, to totally remove it. I'd condone either.

Suggested Fix: Either radically change Last Stand, including the utter removal of the invincibility, or, remove it altogether


16. Reload glitching, exploiting, and flaws
There are two major problems with the reloading in CoD4. The first, is that when you start reloading, the bullets are in the clip (allowing reload cancelling), and the second, is that when you reload, the bullets are added to the clip before the reloading is finished. The use of either of these is actually exploitative. It's hard to not do often, especially with reload cancelling, but, it is seriously dodgy when you consider it. It essentially, for those who will cancel/glitch removes the danger of reloading.

Suggested Fix:
1. Bullets are removed from clip as soon as reload button is pressed, or alternatively, as soon as magazine is removed. Any form of reload cancelling will leave you with an empty gun until it is reloaded.
2. Bullets are not put into the clip until the reloading animation is over

18. Last Stand Team Kill Exploit

In hardcore, there was a popular exploit where, a player would teamkill anyone he saw in last stand. In this situation, the enemy team would NOT get any points for the kill. This is DEFINITIVE cheating, and MUST be solved.

Suggested Fix: If a player in last stand dies, for whatever reason, the other team gets a kill, as does the player who caused the death


17. Death dropping whilst injured

Similarly to the above problem, injured players could fall to their death, (or suicide) and the kill wouldn't be awarded to anyone. It also MUST, MUST be stopped. This is rarely complained about but on some maps (eg, Creek), it's actually quite a common problem.

Suggested Fix: If a player A gets hurt by player B, and then player A dies for reasons other than Player B's team, then Player B's team gets the points, and player B gets the points.


19. The flaws behind penetration

This is little known - though it has been on Den Kirson's Xanga for a while now. There are essentially the three possibilities for penetration on each gun. Small, medium, and large - however, there is NO difference between medium, and large.

This means, quite literally, that the Barrett .50 cal has NO more penetration than.. an AK74u. That's ludicrous - but it's just as ludicrous that it has no more penetration than an M4, or an M16, actually. Again, it simply must be fixed. The Barrett, and the other big penetration guns should be able to do considerably more through walls. This is one thing which could probably deal with the fact that LMG's are highly underused.

As a Barrett user, it's quite amazing to know that a user with an SMG can penetrate better than me, as I don't use deep impact.

Suggested Fix: 'Large' penetration guns should have better penetration than 'Medium'. Perhaps the Barrett should have more penetration still - it would certainly shut up the ones who are upset that it isn't all that special (assuming Barrett is in MW2)
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i give credit to a IW member +rep/thank

nice thx for posting

Great post slap + rep 4 u.

great post took 30 mins to read lol but you did forget that some time suiceds are done on perpose and not on perpos like i was in cage match and every time i shoot this guy or got close he blow him sefl up with RPG but some times i jump off bulding to get down get shoot in the air but dont die then fall hit groun and die by suiced which isnt my fault

i also think that you should be able to drop your gun for a quick swap liek in real life i have ti reload so drop gun and quick pull out pistol instead of have to pu away gun then get oout pistol

you also forgot about more grenade veraity like with the specail grenades what point of flash when stun do same thing and more so we carnt move and why was there only frag where other types of grenades i liked the veraity on COD5

good post, got distracted half way through but ill finish it later

awesome post and the major one/s (in my mind) is where

1. when you are crouched and move slight amount you are just abit shorter than if you were standing up i could understand abit more height when you are moving qucikly but a tiny amount and if you are sniping they can see you, you might as well jump up with a flare and shout

2.when people are hidden behind a wall they have got a perfect view of you but when you look you can just about see their head.......WHY????

obviously if they can see me from behind a wall i should be able to see them but NOOOOOO

sorry about the ranting but it gets on my nerves but anyways good post and +repped

Good post man.

yea this is nice