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Post by thestrategist on Nov 15, 2014 2:06:09 GMT -5
Going back to Titanfall. I remember how hyped I was about that game. I played it until literally the game was "dead". What I mean is every time I logged in it would take 3-4 minutes just to find a match and then when it finally did find a game I'd be placed with the exact same opponents every time. Ofc, lag was terrible since the player pool wasn't large enough to find people close to me and because of this it was unplayable. I wanted to continue playing it (on xbox one), but there was no way to find a functioning lobby at that point so I had to stop.
It seems like although Call of Duty hasn't reached that stage yet, it seems to be getting closer and closer to that point every passing day, especially since skill based matchmaking was put into AW. Year over year player counts are dwindling. This has been happening since BO1, but it wasn't really pronounced until COD Ghosts came out. Now SH isn't even showing us the online player counts anymore, which isn't a good sign of confidence imo.
I'm wondering what you guy's opinion is on this because I really like AW, but I'm also really worried that low player count, sbmm, and the inevitable lag associated with these things are going to kill the game for me and a whole lot of other people later on even if we honestly like the game and want to continue playing it.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2014 2:21:00 GMT -5
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Will
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Post by Will on Nov 15, 2014 2:24:48 GMT -5
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Post by ChloeB42 (Alexcalibur42) on Nov 15, 2014 2:26:19 GMT -5
"Is CoD dying?"
"We are all dying." - Cleverbot.
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pachiderm
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Post by pachiderm on Nov 15, 2014 2:34:48 GMT -5
Yes, it's dead. Skill based matchmaking ruined it. There are literally so few people as good as I am that this game can't even find me a match. Don't believe those people who said the game sold 3 million copies, and the player counts are low because the game is stretched across 4 console platforms. They're liars and they probably work for activision. Lag compensation totally ruined this franchise. There's literally nothing I can do when I'm up against a lag compensated player. It's totes infuriating.
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Post by thestrategist on Nov 15, 2014 3:27:06 GMT -5
1. Ghosts sold 40% less than BO2 so doesn't that support my argument? 2. Just because people initially buy the game doesn't mean they will keep logging on to play the multiplayer (see: Titanflop)
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Post by thestrategist on Nov 15, 2014 3:32:30 GMT -5
Yes, it's dead. Skill based matchmaking ruined it. There are literally so few people as good as I am that this game can't even find me a match. Don't believe those people who said the game sold 3 million copies, and the player counts are low because the game is stretched across 4 console platforms. They're liars and they probably work for activision. Lag compensation totally ruined this franchise. There's literally nothing I can do when I'm up against a lag compensated player. It's totes infuriating. Ok so I'm such a bad person because I noticed less people are playing the game than before and connections are getting worse? Again, Titanfall sold a shitton. Virtually nobody is playing it now. Just because how ever many people bought it makes nothing about how many people will stay online to keep playing it.
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Post by thestrategist on Nov 15, 2014 3:44:35 GMT -5
Maybe that's the truth, but my personal enjoyment has went up with AW or at least went back up over AW. It's just nobody on here seems to accept that COD is not destined to maintain it's popularity into infinity (see: Guitar Hero, see: Tony Hawk, see: Halo). EVENTUALLY kids are going to move on. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when. And personally, I think that "when" is going to be sooner than a lot of people expect.
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pachiderm
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Post by pachiderm on Nov 15, 2014 4:26:24 GMT -5
Yes, it's dead. Skill based matchmaking ruined it. There are literally so few people as good as I am that this game can't even find me a match. Don't believe those people who said the game sold 3 million copies, and the player counts are low because the game is stretched across 4 console platforms. They're liars and they probably work for activision. Lag compensation totally ruined this franchise. There's literally nothing I can do when I'm up against a lag compensated player. It's totes infuriating. Ok so I'm such a bad person because I noticed less people are playing the game than before and connections are getting worse? Again, Titanfall sold a shitton. Virtually nobody is playing it now. Just because how ever many people bought it makes jack shit about how many people will stay online to keep playing it. I didn't mock you because you noticed a drop in players. You're not the first person to notice that. I mocked you because you obviously don't know what you're talking about. This game sold enough copies to have a large multiplayer population. Hell, if one out of every ten people who bought Advanced Warfare played the multiplayer there would be enough people to find games with good connections in every playlist. Skill based matchmaking has been in every CoD game, and in every shooter I know of that doesn't allow you to select your own servers. This doesn't mean you only get matched up with players as good as you are it just tries to keep the average player from playing with people who obviously lack thumbs or who obviously play the game professionally and it doesn't even do a very good job of that. You are most likely right to conclude that matchmaking is the reason why you're getting put into laggy games, but it's definitely not because of the skill-matching unless sledgehammer decided to do something completely ridiculous like match people based purely on skill level. Maybe that's the truth, but my personal enjoyment has went up with AW or at least went back up over AW. It's just nobody on here seems to accept that COD is not destined to maintain it's popularity into infinity (see: Guitar Hero, see: Tony Hawk, see: Halo). EVENTUALLY kids are going to move on. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when. And personally, I think that "when" is going to be sooner than a lot of people expect. Again, you aren't the first one to notice this. Pretty much everyone on here understands that CoD will not last forever. With that said, Advanced Warfare selling marginally fewer launch copies than Ghosts is not something to get super concerned over. Yet every year we get 3 or 4 of these "OMG guise CoD is dead" threads, usually made by people who only last a few weeks on these forums.
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Will
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Post by Will on Nov 15, 2014 5:46:45 GMT -5
Again, Titanfall sold a shitton. Virtually nobody is playing it now. Just because how ever many people bought it makes nothing about how many people will stay online to keep playing it. I have no problem whatsoever finding matches in any gametype in Titanfall. What platform is it dead on? Not the XB1.
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Post by iw5000 on Nov 15, 2014 8:17:03 GMT -5
Yes, it's dead. Skill based matchmaking ruined it. There are literally so few people as good as I am that this game can't even find me a match. Don't believe those people who said the game sold 3 million copies, and the player counts are low because the game is stretched across 4 console platforms. They're liars and they probably work for activision. Lag compensation totally ruined this franchise. There's literally nothing I can do when I'm up against a lag compensated player. It's totes infuriating.
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Post by thestrategist on Nov 15, 2014 9:45:19 GMT -5
Again, Titanfall sold a shitton. Virtually nobody is playing it now. Just because how ever many people bought it makes nothing about how many people will stay online to keep playing it. I have no problem whatsoever finding matches in any gametype in Titanfall. What platform is it dead on? Not the XB1. Dude, Titanfall is COMPLETELY dead. I'm on the xb1 too, btw. I could load up that game right now and I'd have to wait at least 3 or 4 minutes just to connect to a game then I'd be thrown into a match where the lobby isn't even full so we are playing like a 5v4. If I back out of that game and keep trying to find a new (full) lobby (with playable connections) I get tossed into the exact same game over and over again even if I make 5 or 6 attempts at connecting to a new one. My kdr is only 2.1 so it isn't like I'm so high up there that sbmm can't find anybody on my server. There just isn't anybody in that server to search for.
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Post by GodMars on Nov 15, 2014 9:54:05 GMT -5
I dunno if it's dead (or even what that really means when the game sells like it does), but last night there were only 2 people on my friend's list playing. This time last year probably 3/4 of it was in Ghosts, and the year before even more in BO2.
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Post by thestrategist on Nov 15, 2014 10:01:51 GMT -5
Pach pretty much covered it. Yeah, there are fewer sales each year and its slowly falling, but for the time being it still blows most every console franchise out of the water as far as sales go. SHG fu cking up matchmaking is their own fault and theres no reason to blame it on the population. I can load up cod4 and find a game in ten seconds and theres one hell of a gap between the size of those playerbases. Also titanfall was anything but a flop. It was a brand new IP from a company who's name meant nothing to anyone but diehard cod fans. They did a fantastic job given the circumstances. Eh, 40% yoy decline imho isn't a "slow" decline, but sales aren't what we are talking about. I'm talking about multiplayer and online population. Yes, if we are talking strictly about sales (which ofc is all the game studios care about) Titanfall was a success. For me; however, trying to search for a lobby and then getting thrown into a 5v4 with terrible connections and nobody new filling in the entire game to make it a 6v6 (in attrition on the xb1, btw), then backing out 5 or 6 times only to get put in the exact same lobby pretty much defines "dead" for online multiplayer, imho. My point is although we haven't reached that stage with COD yet realistically if they don't remove sbmm and numbers decline lower than 25k in peak hours like they did for Ghosts a scenario like this might very well be possible this spring especially considering how dlc divides player population. The disturbing thing is for whatever reason SH took out player population so we can not longer see the player count and I think it's because they are very aware of what I'm talking about. Personally, I'm planning on playing AW until the "end", but I am already seeing very shaky connections in this game signifying low player count. I don't expect this game to have stable connections beyond March, but I'm hoping for the best and preparing for the worst if you know what I'm saying.
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Post by thestrategist on Nov 15, 2014 10:13:45 GMT -5
I dunno if it's dead (or even what that really means when the game sells like it does), but last night there were only 2 people on my friend's list playing. This time last year probably 3/4 of it was in Ghosts, and the year before even more in BO2. I'm having the same experience. And don't get me wrong, I'm not here to hate on COD or anything. AW is a great game, but I think many people left for good over Ghosts and simply weren't coming back no matter how good AW was. My list has about 30-40 people I all met playing MW3 and BO2 and some were pretty hardcore players who played league play and stuff like that. Out of those guys only about 10 or so still play COD at all and out of those guys only 4 got the xb1 version. Reasons stated: "I don't do all that gay futuristic stuff", "it's not Call of Duty", "it looks too much like Titanfall/Crysis" or some shit like this. Most ridiculous reasons are ones referring to "realism" in Call of Duty, which make me laugh, but people have their reasons for not giving AW a chance. Generally, people are scared of change and that's what the whole exo suit deal is doing to people.
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Post by thestrategist on Nov 15, 2014 10:29:25 GMT -5
well again "removing SBMM" is not necessary with these numbers. Pretty much every game has a sort of skill ranking factored into their matchmaking system and virtually none of them have numbers close to what CoD does. SHG having a shitty matchmaking is almost certainly a more complex issue than just "removing SBMM." and for titanfall I was counting the multiplayer population as well. It's incredibly rare for a new IP from a new company to garner the playerbase it had whatsoever (especially on console). You having unrealistic expectations doesn't make their multiplayer a flop. Removing skill based matchmaking is not going to magically fix all the lag problems, but theoretically at least toning down the priority for matching players up based on skill alone would remove restrictions on the number of possible people you could connect to, thus improving your chances you would get matched up to players who at least have a decent connection to the server everyone is connecting to. BO2 for instance factors in skill a little bit in matchmaking making games more fair, but prioritizes location over everything else. This isn't perfect since technically a location right across the street from you can require going through multiple hops and travel a couple hundred miles around just to get to you, but it's better than nothing. Keep in mind, BO2 started out with strict sbmm and quickly reverted back to the system I'm talking about in a couple months. Trying to get fair games for people is good and all, but if you are rolling with say a 1.25 k/d and it refuses to match you up with a guy who's rolling with say a 1.1 k/d living right across the street just so it can match you up with that perfect 1.25 k/d mirror living three states away there's a serious problem there.
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Post by mrbone2u on Nov 15, 2014 10:43:58 GMT -5
There will always be a fanbase for call of duty but i think for the most part people are tired of the same ol. SBMM really is just a good idea with bad execution. If you want to go full try hard mode every game that should be a separate playlist or game mode, not something thats by default. Pubstomping players that were not as good as you was the main reason most people play this game. Now you are paired against people at your skill level which isnt a terrible thing but its people who are nowhere even close to your region which is a recipe for a terrible connection. You can be the best player on the planet but you will never beat lag and thats the part about cod i hate.
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Post by thestrategist on Nov 15, 2014 10:50:09 GMT -5
Keep in mind, BO2 started out with strict sbmm and quickly reverted back to the system I'm talking about in a couple months. Wait what? I dont recall that happening at all. And my point is that yourr attributing far more connection problems to sbmm than there has any reason to be. If it was seriously so significant that its tacking on several minutes to the game search, then you'd literally never have an unbalanced game in your life. Theres almost certainly more to the problem. Edit: also its been a while but I explicitly remember vonderhaar tweeting about how sbmm had been present since well before bo2. Early in BO2's lifespan many youtubers resorted to "reverse boosting" or trashing their in game statistics so they could be placed in easier lobbies. OFC, they'd get placed in games with the worst players on Earth. Then they would run around trashing a bunch of Timmy-no-thumbs for a nuclear emblem or whatever. This is happening right now in AW. Because sbmm is so strict pub stompers are simply trashing their stats so they can 100% assure they'll get put in there with the worst players. That's why sbmm is a failed system. Fact is, you cannot hide all the noobs from pub stompers. If the developers intend to cut down on pub stomping the best deterrent is actually to (gasp!) remove sbmm entirely. Then at the very minimum it'll be more work for them to find those lobbies full of Timmy-no-thumbs. By putting sbmm in the game you are just making those guy's job a hell of a lot easier.
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Post by thestrategist on Nov 15, 2014 11:08:11 GMT -5
There will always be a fanbase for call of duty but i think for the most part people are tired of the same ol. SBMM really is just a good idea with bad execution. If you want to go full try hard mode every game that should be a separate playlist or game mode, not something thats by default. Pubstomping players that were not as good as you was the main reason most people play this game. Now you are paired against people at your skill level which isnt a terrible thing but its people who are nowhere even close to your region which is a recipe for a terrible connection. You can be the best player on the planet but you will never beat lag and thats the part about cod i hate. You can beat lag, but you cannot beat extreme lag. In fact, nobody in the lobby you are in can. I assure you if you are in one of those really laggy games most of the people in there probably are raging about it just like you are and nobody is having much fun. This is the scenario we seem to be in right now with AW. As I was saying, pubstompers are going to find a way. With sbmm it's trivially easy to just trash your stats and make the game easier. Shit, you might as well just throw a difficulty slider in for Youtubers going for DNA bombs. And the players who are susceptible to this btw, aren't the .8 or .9 kdr players who are kind of below average or whatever. The players suffering over sbmm are little 8 year old kids, late cod adopters in early learning stages, and rank 1 players who have just downloaded the game and are playing their first game using default weapons. What I don't get is they already have a ranked playlist for the purpose of finding players at your own skill level if you choose to do so. Why then do they have to add this redundancy to public matches where yeah, maybe if I've ponied up to learn how to play this game better I actually want to be rewarded by doing better at it, not by being penalized FF8 style just for upping my game with continually harder enemies.
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Post by thestrategist on Nov 15, 2014 11:17:36 GMT -5
That's a ridiculous notion. The scale by which that would need to happen to seriously overcome the matchmaking algorithm is astronomical. You wouldn't even be playing cod anymore because nearly half the people in every single game would be suiciding constantly. It allows the group of players that are both mediocre enough to need to drop their MMR to do well and are desperate enough for stats to dedicate a shitload of time in doing so to seek out players. It's still far better chances for the noobs than if it was just randomly distributed. It doesn't take long for a reverse booster to enter a bunch of games, drop a c4 or grenade on spawn and go about 60-70 negative. I don't know how much grind it takes personally to do this, but all it takes really is a stat reset here and there to put everything back to zero then grind a bunch of -70 games killing yourself so you can go back to slaughtering split screeners and rank 1 players. Jnasty720, Greengoblinhd, and all kinds of youtubers are doing this right now and it's pretty sick considering they are going on 100+ killstreaks and all kinds of ridiculous shit. Actually you don't even have to grind at all really. In COD's sbmm all you have to do is get a friend you know with a horrible k/d to host every game. Sbmm will pick the lobby based on the skill level of those party's host and viola! Now an entire team of guys can just run in there slaughtering rank 1 split screeners.
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wings
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Post by wings on Nov 15, 2014 11:27:27 GMT -5
Heh. This is why I have a variety of shooters including the more sci-fi ones like Gears of War, Destiny, Halo and Crysis to play when I feel I've had enough of the more 'realistic' setting. And if I do fancy the modern setting I have other titles than COD and BF to play anyway (e.g. Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon and Medal of Honor). I could not imagine myself clocking up 250 hours of playing time on another COD title again.
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Post by mrbone2u on Nov 15, 2014 11:37:02 GMT -5
That's a ridiculous notion. The scale by which that would need to happen to seriously overcome the matchmaking algorithm is astronomical. You wouldn't even be playing cod anymore because nearly half the people in every single game would be suiciding constantly. It allows the group of players that are both mediocre enough to need to drop their MMR to do well and are desperate enough for stats to dedicate a shitload of time in doing so to seek out players. It's still far better chances for the noobs than if it was just randomly distributed. It doesn't take long for a reverse booster to enter a bunch of games, drop a c4 or grenade on spawn and go about 60-70 negative. I don't know how much grind it takes personally to do this, but all it takes really is a stat reset here and there to put everything back to zero then grind a bunch of -70 games killing yourself so you can go back to slaughtering split screeners and rank 1 players. Jnasty720, Greengoblinhd, and all kinds of youtubers are doing this right now and it's pretty sick considering they are going on 100+ killstreaks and all kinds of ridiculous shit. Actually you don't even have to grind at all really. In COD's sbmm all you have to do is get a friend you know with a horrible k/d to host every game. Sbmm will pick the lobby based on the skill level of those party's host and viola! Now an entire team of guys can just run in there slaughtering rank 1 split screeners. The problem is people shouldnt have to go around the sbmm to have fun. Another problem with this cod is the variants. It creates a playing field that is not level when someone has a +3 damage gun with improved performance over your default weapon. I dont see how SHG really didnt see this as an issue. I have a hole puncher arx that will demolish most people at crazy ranges and yet somehow this is all supposed to work itself out? Unless eveyone has elite versions of weapons then someone with a lucky supply drop can run a lobby. I was in a game with a guy that had the polar vortex variant of the em1 and he ran the lobby. Elite variants are going to be the game changers in my opinion.
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wwaa
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Post by wwaa on Nov 15, 2014 11:41:00 GMT -5
- Is COD dying? (honest opinion)
- Yes it is.
My fingers are injured, joints pain, hundreds of micro-injuries every day (too much cod online since COD4 2008). I cannot play AW at level I am used to, I cannot compete vs players with "fresh hands". Exo mvmnts, sliding, dbl taps everywhere, anything new added that I SHOULD use ingame or die makes this game more interesting but a lot harder to play.
My fingers say pls stop and if I disagree - my doctor will tell me to stop soon ...
/= Civlization you can play for years or decades, CoD:MP: not/
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Post by LeGitBeeSting on Nov 15, 2014 11:48:00 GMT -5
We're all slowly dying technically.
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Post by Disgruntled Jigglypuff on Nov 15, 2014 11:55:44 GMT -5
Stop bitching about sbmm and get good. Iirc I had a 2.4 kd in BLOPS 2 and I constantly got thrown into games with Jimmy-nothumbs. I had no issues pub stomping.
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Post by mrbone2u on Nov 15, 2014 11:58:18 GMT -5
Stop bitching about sbmm and get good. Iirc I had a 2.4 kd in BLOPS 2 and I constantly got thrown into games with Jimmy-nothumbs. I had no issues pub stomping. Translation: "My personal experience and opinion are greater than yours". yawn
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Post by thestrategist on Nov 15, 2014 12:11:16 GMT -5
Yes, I do see the variants potentially being a problem, but every COD has it's problems. Thing is it's not AW that's doing itself in. This time around I really believe it was Ghosts that did AW in from the get-go pretty much.
Basically, because of Ghosts many people instead of preordering the game like they do every year waited on the sidelines this time to see if it's good or not before jumping in. Just to quantify all this preorder numbers were half what they were yoy.
AW is a good game it just seems like it was just too little, too late for a lot of people. The consequence for this is from now on the connections are going to be shittier no matter how they tweak everything. Right now, everything is still playable. It's laggy as hell, but you can sort of play around the lag and still do well. I think removing sbmm would improve this, but without player population like we used to have connections are just not going to be as good as they could be with half a million players online like when BO2 launched for instance.
So is this a downward spiral of sorts where low players count leads to laggier lobbies, leading to even lower player count, and even laggier lobbies? It's really hard to tell, but trends aren't good atm. I'm kind of hoping all the people riding the fence about whether or not to get AW over how shitty Ghosts was will give in and get the game just so connections will improve a bit.
Over everything else I'm really concerned about connections. During BO2's lifespan complaining about connection reached crazy heights and population dropped off pretty severely that summer into the 40k range. Then next summer I guess over Ghosts or whatever player population was even higher than last summer. I never saw under 80k during peak hours so at least in tdm, s&d and some of the more popular gamemodes matchmaking was pretty decent.
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Post by thestrategist on Nov 15, 2014 12:24:26 GMT -5
Stop bitching about sbmm and get good. Iirc I had a 2.4 kd in BLOPS 2 and I constantly got thrown into games with Jimmy-nothumbs. I had no issues pub stomping. As I said, sbmm is not the only reason connections are bad right now. If they removed it, it would help, but it would not fix the fact that there are simply less players in the player pool for you to be matched up with to begin with. With Titanfall it wasn't a matter of "git gud kid". I honestly could not find a lobby with a stable connection or even one that could maintain a full 6v6 player count. I would bounce from the lobby 5 or 6 times and get put into the exact same lobby. I didn't have this issue until (gasp!) skill based matchmaking was implemented into the game.
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Post by kylet357 on Nov 15, 2014 12:32:35 GMT -5
Stop bitching about sbmm and get good. Iirc I had a 2.4 kd in BLOPS 2 and I constantly got thrown into games with Jimmy-nothumbs. I had no issues pub stomping. Translation: "My personal experience and opinion are greater than yours". yawn You just replied back to him with basically the same thing
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pachiderm
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Post by pachiderm on Nov 15, 2014 12:44:17 GMT -5
Stop bitching about sbmm and get good. Iirc I had a 2.4 kd in BLOPS 2 and I constantly got thrown into games with Jimmy-nothumbs. I had no issues pub stomping. As I said, sbmm is not the only reason connections are bad right now. If they removed it, it would help, but it would not fix the fact that there are simply less players in the player pool for you to be matched up with to begin with. With Titanfall it wasn't a matter of "git gud kid". I honestly could not find a lobby with a stable connection or even one that could maintain a full 6v6 player count. I would bounce from the lobby 5 or 6 times and get put into the exact same lobby. I didn't have this issue until (gasp!) skill based matchmaking was implemented into the game. I'm honestly starting to believe you're a troll.
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