GHOSTS: First Thoughts Thread

Southpaw -- The MUTE button is there, but it's no longer on the main lobby screen. If you hit the Start button in the lobby or in the game there is a MUTE function that lets you mute all or all but friends. I took me awhile to discover this, but once I found it I like it a better than BO2. If you got thrown into a quick game in BO2, you no longer had the option to mute all, but now you still can.

SouthPawDraw wrote:

\Here's looking forward to Bungie's DESTINY and hopefully Treyarch's BLACK OPS 3.

Destiny will be the next huge game... hopefully surpassing COD. I mean what's NOT to like!? HUGE worlds to co-op explore, shoot and gain rare loot... AND traditional, competitive map based multiplayer. Can't wait.

Howerver... if 3Arc makes BO3 instead of something new... i'm going to shun the series forever... we really need a change after 10 years of the same shit.

indyratpack wrote:

Southpaw --  The MUTE button is there, but it's no longer on the main lobby screen.

Thanks for the info Indy (+1). Does resolve one of my issues with the game.

You win this round IW! (shakes fist in IW's general direction).

gun fer hire wrote:

SouthPawDraw wrote:

\Here's looking forward to Bungie's DESTINY and hopefully Treyarch's BLACK OPS 3.

Destiny will be the next huge game... hopefully surpassing COD.  I mean what's NOT to like!?

Umm.....it takes more than a blink of an eye and 3 shots to the shin for your enemy to die?  

So I took two days off so I could binge on this game and I can say I'm enjoying it immensely.
Large maps, thank god.
No Tac Insert.
TTK is fast, no more dumping entire mags into OpFor to get a single kill.
Hit detection seems to be good for me.
Rushing and clumping around like mad bovine will get you noticed and killed, tactics > rushing

Squad points are at a premium, when scoping a new weapon don't forget to drop into local Squads set it up and try it out "first"

NukeLaCoog wrote:

gun fer hire wrote:

SouthPawDraw wrote:

\Here's looking forward to Bungie's DESTINY and hopefully Treyarch's BLACK OPS 3.

Destiny will be the next huge game... hopefully surpassing COD.  I mean what's NOT to like!?

Umm.....it takes more than a blink of an eye and 3 shots to the shin for your enemy to die?   

Wait... that's good... you're being sarcastic... right? lol

Activision kind of announced that Sledgehammer will be doing the next game.

Not sure how Treyarch fits into this.

After playing a few dom games. The tdm drop outs are still in dom. The high kilstreaks are not very powerful and very easy to avoid.

The hidden care package on Octane is a nice touch.

Halo jumping is worthless.

For all the complaints about the game, they did do some things that I like, and have been completely overlooked.  gotta give them credit for something right?  Its easy to focus on what is wrong but they did make some positive changes.

I absolutely love no Tac inserts, they were for boosters and snipers, other than JK hardly anybody else used them(sorry JK).  And on BIG maps the snipers have to run a long distance, which takes them out of combat for a while(which is why they will be camping now so they don't die which is the normal role of a sniper).  

Also, they copied 3arc in giving you faster and longer sprint speed if you switch to pistol, but if you don't have a pistol equipped you can't just switch to a knife like you could in BO2.  So you either have to deal with slow movement, or use a point to equip a pistol.  I don't know if I like this or not yet.  It basically means that if you want fast/long sprint speed you're going to need to burn a perk point on a pistol.  

Hardly any killstreaks that are game changers like Lodestar, VTOL, K9, swarm.  What choppers there are are easy to take down with bullets, I even shot the sniper out of one, which ended that one real quick.  Probably one of the most powerful killstreaks is that quad-rotor thingy, it takes a ton of bullets to take down.  So most of the game is gunplay.  Most of the matches end up with the top players getting 15-20 kills.

In dom its easy to tell if someone is capping a flag without putting eyes one(no ninja capping).  Which goes both ways, but you don't have to leave a good position to check your flag.  Instead of relying on the announcer guy who is doesn't always alert you, or is late.

No deathstreaks, no last stand

And I've been QS'ed but not by someone right in front of me, it was always by a sniper who had flanked my anyways, so no matter what gun they had I'd have been killed. Now I kill the sniper before he shoots...due to the faster TTK.  When I was learning how to QS I'd almost always take damage in a head2head confrontation.  This was always the most frustrating part of QSing in BO2, if both players, one had an SMG, and the other a sniper rifle, they sniper could raise their weapon and fire before the SMG fired enough bullets to drop the sniper(a lower ping would help too).  It was unfair that in a close range confrontation the sniper could beat an SMG.  Given this change(faster TTK) I don't think sniper rifles will be as prevalent as BO2 in close range run-and-gun maps.  BUT they will be all over the big maps where they and the marksman rifles will have a great advantage.  I suggest you learn how to use one.

I'm starting to get a better feel for the game, so I'm having more success.  We are also getting a better feel for player movement and tactics, so you know where you do/don't want to be.  I know I'll be behind cover more in this game than I ever was in BO2 in which I was pretty much a Skorpion IYF SMG player Halo jumping all over the place.  That isn't going to work in this game.

You mean I get points from getting killed??? I'm fucked!

Well I just played my first hour+ and i've got to say... Thank god i rented first!

You guys were NOT joking about the TTK... it makes gunfights impossible!  This game is really now "press right trigger to play slot machine" when you see someone.  It is all reflex/connection based.  I feel that what little skill was left in COD is now gone... completely.  

The weapons sound ridiculous, everything is the same damn color, maps are WAY TOO BIG for even 9v9.  Its a mess in my opinion.  

I'll finish out this weekend with my rental and put COD to rest.  Time to move on to other shooters offering more exciting and rewarding experiences. 

BF4/Killzone:SF/Blacklight:Retribution ...here i come

Sound is the worst. I was really really really looking forward to a GREAT sound experience.

gun fer hire wrote:

You guys were NOT joking about the TTK... it makes gunfights impossible!  This game is really now "press right trigger to play slot machine" when you see someone.  It is all reflex/connection based.  I feel that what little skill was left in COD is now gone... completely.

It's playing a LOT like HC, very campy. You need to be extremely cautious about moving around in open spaces.

I have to say I don't know what people want, if I was a game developer I'd be pulling my hair out by now. People complain that it takes "half a magazine to kill someone" then others complain when they get killed to fast. HC players will probably like the game in core mode. Core players aren't digging not being able to move freely around the big maps. IMO there is already a HC game mode, I don't know why they went this way with gun power and health.

bluehound000 wrote:

gun fer hire wrote:

You guys were NOT joking about the TTK... it makes gunfights impossible!  This game is really now "press right trigger to play slot machine" when you see someone.  It is all reflex/connection based.  I feel that what little skill was left in COD is now gone... completely.

It's playing a LOT like HC, very campy.  You need to be extremely cautious about moving around in open spaces.  

I have to say I don't know what people want, if I was a game developer I'd be pulling my hair out by now.  People complain that it takes "half a magazine to kill someone"  then others complain when they get killed to fast.  HC players will probably like the game in core mode.  Core players aren't digging not being able to move freely around the big maps.  IMO there is already a HC game mode, I don't know why they went this way with gun power and health.

Lot of truth here. Core in this game is like hardcore in Blops 2.

bluehound000 wrote:

gun fer hire wrote:

You guys were NOT joking about the TTK... it makes gunfights impossible!  This game is really now "press right trigger to play slot machine" when you see someone.  It is all reflex/connection based.  I feel that what little skill was left in COD is now gone... completely.

It's playing a LOT like HC, very campy.  You need to be extremely cautious about moving around in open spaces.  

I have to say I don't know what people want, if I was a game developer I'd be pulling my hair out by now.  People complain that it takes "half a magazine to kill someone"  then others complain when they get killed to fast.  HC players will probably like the game in core mode.  Core players aren't digging not being able to move freely around the big maps.  IMO there is already a HC game mode, I don't know why they went this way with gun power and health.

The problem with the "half a magazine to kill someone" in previous CoD's is that you knew how many bullets it took to kill someone and you would have to mag dump to knock them down because those bullets weren't registering. You take a Halo or Battlefield or Crysis and it takes more time to kill someone based on where you hit them with a big premium on headshots. What I have experienced in Ghosts is that I can 3 burst someone from 30 feet and they drop.

I like the perk system and the movement is smooth albeit a little slow. The mantle and slide is a very welcomed addition.

I loathe the spawn system. Spawning in on a freaking German Shepherd is always nice so is getting shot in the ass 2 steps out of the spawn. I dislike a lot of the maps. They feel like big set pieces that they just dropped in some combat. A lot lack flow and logical control points. I didn't think it was possible to make a map that was worse than Downturn but this game made a few of them that make Downturn feel fun.

I can't remember an IW game where you didn't die fast. The all mighty instakill has been a part of their games since the first COD on the P. There's always an adjustment between IW and Treyarch games. This time next year people will be mad that they can't kill someone once BO3 comes out.

NukeLaCoog wrote:

bluehound000 wrote:

gun fer hire wrote:

You guys were NOT joking about the TTK... it makes gunfights impossible!  This game is really now "press right trigger to play slot machine" when you see someone.  It is all reflex/connection based.  I feel that what little skill was left in COD is now gone... completely.

It's playing a LOT like HC, very campy.  You need to be extremely cautious about moving around in open spaces.  

I have to say I don't know what people want, if I was a game developer I'd be pulling my hair out by now.  People complain that it takes "half a magazine to kill someone"  then others complain when they get killed to fast.  HC players will probably like the game in core mode.  Core players aren't digging not being able to move freely around the big maps.  IMO there is already a HC game mode, I don't know why they went this way with gun power and health.

The problem with the "half a magazine to kill someone" in previous CoD's is that you knew how many bullets it took to kill someone and you would have to mag dump to knock them down because those bullets weren't registering.  You take a Halo or Battlefield or Crysis and it takes more time to kill someone based on where you hit them with a big premium on headshots.  What I have experienced in Ghosts is that I can 3 burst someone from 30 feet and they drop.

I just always figured that too many shots to kill someone was more about latency than anything. You wouldn't get "credit" for the kill until the signal got from your console...to the host console...and back again. That could take 100-200ms on a bad connection. You would typically just keep firing until you got the signal back...getting hit markers the whole time...thus "takes half a mag to kill someone" You would really notice it with one shot kill weapons like shotguns and sniper rifles. I'd shoot...and a period of time would pass and then the kill would register...that's latency.

I do know that the FAL was supposed to be a 2-3 shot kill, but I typically would end up firing more than 5 before I ever would get a kill with it.

I've played maybe an hour so far. I'm at about a .5 KDR. The things I don't like so far like map size, serious camping, and some lag issues in a few of the games I've played, should change. Also, my KDR should change if I stick with it.
TBH I'm thinking map size may be something I'll like, because I'm pretty tired of Nuketown and Hijacked right now...we will see.

I don't really like the sound. But I didn't like the sound in MW3 either, but ended up liking the game

Anyways, for 60 bucks I'll get more action from this game than I would from 3 crack whores. And like the crack whores, I'll bitch about the performance, when actually, most of the problem will probably be me.

Like the game played a few games maps seem bigger then in BO2 gonna finish the campaign 1st then ill play more online

bluehound000 wrote:

I just always figured that too many shots to kill someone was more about latency than anything.  You wouldn't get "credit" for the kill until the signal got from your console...to the host console...and back again.  That could take 100-200ms on a bad connection.  You would typically just keep firing until you got the signal back...getting hit markers the whole time...thus "takes half a mag to kill someone"  You would really notice it with one shot kill weapons like shotguns and sniper rifles.  I'd shoot...and a period of time would pass and then the kill would register...that's latency.

I do know that the FAL was supposed to be a 2-3 shot kill, but I typically would end up firing more than 5 before I ever would get a kill with it.

This is exactly what they have been doing... and it's probably what's going on here in Ghosts. It's the easiest way to cover up shit hit detection and connectivity issues... make deaths basically instant so each "gunfight" (cant call them that any more i guess) is a roll of the dice. This also makes even the crappiest COD player like he can play sometimes as it's inevitable he/she will get a few kills because of chance.

I played a bit more last night and here's what I can't figure out:

I consider myself fairly DECENT at the game (not Ghosts specifically, just CoD in general) - but I feel like i'm only being put in matches with absolute beast players that have dead-eye accuracy at any range.

I play the game smartly, I know how & when to flank.  When to rush and when to lay-back, but I have always had a pretty crappy shot (think I'm in the 15% accuracy range) - that just doesn't work in this game.  This game, if you miss ONE shot on target, you're dead.  At least I have been against the players I'm facing...a guy hits a headshot from literally a quarter mile away across the map - I watch the kill-cam and he's using a standard AR (in that case an AK12).

The problem with still playing a game that is in it's 10th installment (or whatever number this is) is that the only people still playing are very good players.  I'm just an average player...which puts me squarely in the bottom of almost every scoreboard in this game.

Am I on crack with this theory, or have you guys noticed it as well?  I just feel like most of the guys I'm playing against have bot-like accuracy with super-fast reaction time.

I can't blame the game for that, but I can say that it makes me look forward to a brand new title that will have everyone on a level playing field again (i.e. Titanfall...?).

DeathByAK wrote:

I played a bit more last night and here's what I can't figure out:

I consider myself fairly DECENT at the game (not Ghosts specifically, just CoD in general) - but I feel like i'm only being put in matches with absolute beast players that have dead-eye accuracy at any range.

I don't know how much you have played, but I think there are a few things going on here:

1) The game has been out less than a week, so it's still pretty new.  I think mostly the hardcore gamers have it and are on multiplayer.  Wait for Christmas noobs for the easier lobbies probably.  Also, wait for the next-gen consoles to come out.  I wonder if the level of play on the current gen will go down?

2) It does seem like we keep getting put into lobbies with full parties.  As a general rule, we maybe go 50/50 in these kinds of lobbies.  We beast against randoms.  Maybe matchmaking is putting us up against bigger groups?

3) Call outs are IMPOSSIBLE in this game.  Maps are confusing and have multiple routes and multiple levels to flank no only on the side, but above as well.  Since we generally aren't the campy, spawn trapping type players, we are getting rocked by more organized parties.  Our strength was making call outs and flowing to where the other team was going.  Now, I have no idea where anyone is and get killed from all directions.

4) Slight changes in the game have changed Dom.  The flag changing color for example is a dead give away to your position.  Used to be you could sometimes stealth cap a flag if they weren't paying attention.  Now it's all but impossible.

5) The lack of halves makes it hard to change momentum in a game.

DeathByAK wrote:

I can't blame the game for that, but I can say that it makes me look forward to a brand new title that will have everyone on a level playing field again (i.e. Titanfall...?).

I don't necessarily think a brand new game is a guarantee that it will level the playing field.  Lag, total play time and familiarity with maps, guns, etc. will always be paramount to these kinds of games.  One can hope though.

As for me, I've vowed to not play multiplayer again until I've played every map on Squads.  I'm still running into maps I've never been on.

DeathByAK wrote:

Am I on crack with this theory, or have you guys noticed it as well?  I just feel like most of the guys I'm playing against have bot-like accuracy with super-fast reaction time.

I can't blame the game for that, but I can say that it makes me look forward to a brand new title that will have everyone on a level playing field again (i.e. Titanfall...?).

I honestly think it's just the game. When TTK is so crazy quick... everything comes down to minute connection advantages and reaction times/whoever saw whoever first. Aiming... eh, you can get a burst of 6 rounds downrange at someone 100m away relatively accurate and 2-3 rounds are likely to hit him and kill him. It's horrid.

As far as new games taking COD's place... i'm thinking BF4/Titanfall/Killzone will pull many away... or provide a new addiction this year/next. I'm over it.

[Now come join us on the PS4 AK... we got dat Killzone and Blacklight that are crazy awesome!  ]

Pretty much agree. F1st nails it here.

I guess I will be the first one to come out and straight up say I FUCKING LOVE THIS GAME!

Yeah there are some things that aren't perfect but out of the gate I'm having a hell of a good time.

One thing that I keep in mind and I hope you all do too is remember that when you start off, you are already behind the 8 ball behind everyone else. There will always be people in your lobby with better load outs than what you have available. You might get dropped super quick but that guy might have had that deadeye perk on.

The TTK is no more than what it was in MW3 or MW2 in my opinion. Some maps are large and there are some bozo spawns but I will gladly take that over getting rubberband killed behind a wall and cross map pistol kills.

My girls have safely made it back to Iowa so Slamapalooza will start promptly at 3pm EST.  

I stopped watching and he lost all merit once he said BF2 was the best Battlefield game.  

Spoiler:

Sr Slampiece wrote:

I guess I will be the first one to come out and straight up say I FUCKING LOVE THIS GAME!

When you only play one game I guess you have little to compare it to

p.s.
Are you actually going to join a party @ 3 or pull your solo FFA bullshit?