A discussion on Call of Duty 'MAPS'

[mw2baller]

I'm gonna say cod4 had the best maps. WAW and MW3 are tied for 2nd and MW3 is the worst. I haven't played black ops.

Here are the things I don't like about MW3 maps (in no particular order):

1. Spawns. They're bad.
2. Too many exploding objects.
3. No long sightlines except for a select few that only give a view of like 5% of the map
4. Wayyy too much clutter. Every sightline that's longer than 10 meters has random junk in it that inhibits shooting.
5. Every single tactical loitering spot that gives a good view of the map is exposed to the point of ridiculousness. No one uses them, so instead of people tactical loitering in predictable locations like a "sniper building" or something like that we have people tactical loitering in random corners.
6. And the biggest: the maps are effectively copy pasted. There are no unique tactical positions (like that cliff on afghan or buildings in rundown or derail). Almost every single map consists of a 2-10 meter stretch of land before an X, L, or T intersection with another stretch of land. The small maps are not tighter and the big maps are not more open, they just consist of a smaller or greater total of 2-10 meter stretches of land spliced together. If there is an open area or long hallway, it is artificially broken up into these 2-10 meter stretches of land through the liberal use of obstacles.

[iw5000]

Aug 13, 2012 13:42:17 GMT -5 mw2baller said:

I'm gonna say cod4 had the best maps. WAW and MW3 are tied for 2nd and MW3 is the worst. I haven't played black ops.

Here are the things I don't like about MW3 maps (in no particular order):

1. Spawns. They're bad.
2. Too many exploding objects.
3. No long sightlines except for a select few that only give a view of like 5% of the map
4. Wayyy too much clutter. Every sightline that's longer than 10 meters has random junk in it that inhibits shooting.
5. Every single tactical loitering spot that gives a good view of the map is exposed to the point of ridiculousness. No one uses them, so instead of people tactical loitering in predictable locations like a "sniper building" or something like that we have people tactical loitering in random corners.
6. And the biggest: the maps are effectively copy pasted. There are no unique tactical positions (like that cliff on afghan or buildings in rundown or derail). Almost every single map consists of a 2-10 meter stretch of land before an X, L, or T intersection with another stretch of land. The small maps are not tighter and the big maps are not more open, they just consist of a smaller or greater total of 2-10 meter stretches of land spliced together. If there is an open area or long hallway, it is artificially broken up into these 2-10 meter stretches of land through the liberal use of obstacles.

Is the above bad? Maybe the designers just got sick of railgunners hiding all the time. Wanted a more fluid, fast paced game.

I personally feel there's not THAT much of a difference between any of the various game's maps. We are all kind of splitting hairs, and most of these maps all run on the same principles.

[wwaa]

Aug 13, 2012 13:42:17 GMT -5 mw2baller said:

. There are no unique tactical positions (like that cliff on afghan or buildings in rundown or derail).

Those tactical "points" sucked. Cliff on Afghan = suicide.
Roofs - a suicide.
Dat roof on Crash = suicide.
Windows on Rundown = suicide.
IW removed useless points.
No wonder so many players complain, so many EASY kills not available this time.

In MW3 any map is good for sniping. Dome? Perfect map for a sniper. Hardhat? Perfect. Downturn? Just great ...

[asasa]

Useless points? Uhh... no. Its just that MW3 maps are so cramped that you cant not go thru the few available routes.

[TheHawkNY]

The spawn logic is no worse in MW3 than in MW2. My recent games of MW2 have given me some unfathomably bad spawns. I spawned and immediately was in a Painkiller vs. Painkiller gunfight a couple nights ago. There are more maps that would be considered smaller, leading to more frequent bad spawns, but complaints about spawn logic are one of those arguments made by cranky old-timers that can't be quantified and therefore can't effectively be argued against.

The biggest factor for me regarding maps is how quickly I will encounter enemies. Like the overwhelming majority of people playing the game, I want to spend my time shooting people, not running for 20 seconds to try to find someone and then getting sniped by a guy I never saw. That's why Nuketown was the most popular map in Black Ops, and why the most popular maps in MW3 are Dome, Hardhat, Mission, Arkaden, and Lockdown. On those maps, if you want to find and kill people, you can.

I did switch from playing Domination primarily in Black Ops to Kill Confirmed in MW3. When I played Black Ops, it was always solo, now I generally run with a party. I simply can't play Domination solo in MW3, because the flags are usually arranged in a triangle, as opposed to a line. Black Ops Domination was about pushing forward to control 2/3 of the map, whereas MW3 Domination seems to just be a rotating flag capture garbagefest where whichever team has more players that want to win and not just killwhore comes out on top.

I'm also probably in the minority here, but I'm tired of hearing complaints about the lack of verticality in MW3's maps. I'm glad they got rid of it. That verticality favored campers. Sorry you don't have multiple levels from which to snipe the people running around trying to have fun.

[cmck]

I didn't like the roofs so much, it was more the tunnels and underground stuff that caught my attention. They didn't have that much of that though. I like to have complicated paths with a ton of routes to go. With at least a few of those routes totally immune to killstreaks finding you.

[TheHawkNY]

Aug 13, 2012 14:30:16 GMT -5 Mousey said:

Aug 13, 2012 14:11:43 GMT -5 wwaa said:

In MW3 any map is good for sniping. Dome? Perfect map for a sniper. Hardhat? Perfect. Downturn? Just great ...

Alright, let's see here.

SEATOWN: One major building. Probably one of the best for it really.
DOME: Nowhere. At all. Do you mean on the dome itself? Might as well raise a big flag over your head that says "shoot me!"
ARKADEN: Uhh.....the windows of the mall and that upper pathway in the back
BAKAARA: Eh, yeah this is a sniping map
RESISTANCE: Also give you this one as well, since the map is just three long roads anyway.
DOWNTURN: You can cover the least traveled areas of the entire map with a sniper here! Really though, the stores on the side I guess, and half the street on one side, watchout for cars though.
BOOTLEG: You can cover one side of the street at the edge of the map
CARBON: You know, that raised shipping container. And....um...that building in the lower corner of the map that covers that big open area with the tires in it.
HARDHAT: The forklift. Though lets not forget the stack of wood, you can kill the guy by the forklift from here!
LOCKDOWN: Very good one, definitely.
VILLAGE: You'd think so wouldn't you? But every long sight line has a truck or a rock or a cliff in the way, so no. You can cover the bridge from that little shack in some game modes I guess.
FALLEN: Uh, two of the buildings, and that one spot that snipers go to for killing other snipers. You know, the brick wall with the wee fence on it.
OUTPOST: Bunker and the small buidling near domination A. They both cover the same exact part of the map.
INTERCHANGE: I think someone in development noticed they were making a sniping map so they started sticking cars and trash mountains everywhere.
UNDERGROUND: Well....you can cover your initial spawn at least.
MISSION: This one's good, but again it only covers a small, lesser traveled area of the map. Most kills you'd get here are on other snipers

Edit: I didn't do the DLC maps but those are all done well if you ask me.

I'll add to this:
SEATOWN: Underneath the building looking at C Dom, the two story facing the windowed walkway from the lighthouse, that walkway, the building in the corner of the map, etc.
DOME: Looking into the Dome from the bunker, behind the generator, bunker stairs, the middle of the bunker "L", warehouse windows, behind any of the jeeps.
ARKADEN: Escalator, anywhere inside the mall facing the main entrance, behind the bar, by the statue, behind the overturned vending machine
BOOTLEG: The middle stairwell (from inside and from facing it), C Dom, from the street facing A Dom, by the shipping container
CARBON: Facing the shipping container, from inside the big building towards the high spawn, from the high spawn towards the big building, from between the big building and the shipping container, from on the catwalk.
HARDHAT: The corner looking towards the A Dom porta-potty, the entire middle area.
FALLEN: Umm, pretty much anywhere?
OUTPOST: B Dom snipefest.
UNDERGROUND: Walkway, all of the windows, overlooking B Dom.

Sniper Rifles account for less than 1% of my kills and I easily came up with these additions to your list.

[TheHawkNY]

Well, yeah. You want to use one of the annoying weapon classes (Sniper, Shotgun), you get penalized.

[wwaa]

Aug 13, 2012 14:30:16 GMT -5 Mousey said:

Aug 13, 2012 14:11:43 GMT -5 wwaa said:

In MW3 any map is good for sniping. Dome? Perfect map for a sniper. Hardhat? Perfect. Downturn? Just great ...

Alright, let's see here.

SEATOWN: One major building. Probably one of the best for it really.
DOME: Nowhere. At all. Do you mean on the dome itself? Might as well raise a big flag over your head that says "shoot me!"
ARKADEN: Uhh.....the windows of the mall and that upper pathway in the back
BAKAARA: Eh, yeah this is a sniping map
RESISTANCE: Also give you this one as well, since the map is just three long roads anyway.
DOWNTURN: You can cover the least traveled areas of the entire map with a sniper here! Really though, the stores on the side I guess, and half the street on one side, watchout for cars though.
BOOTLEG: You can cover one side of the street at the edge of the map
CARBON: You know, that raised shipping container. And....um...that building in the lower corner of the map that covers that big open area with the tires in it.
HARDHAT: The forklift. Though lets not forget the stack of wood, you can kill the guy by the forklift from here!
LOCKDOWN: Very good one, definitely.
VILLAGE: You'd think so wouldn't you? But every long sight line has a truck or a rock or a cliff in the way, so no. You can cover the bridge from that little shack in some game modes I guess.
FALLEN: Uh, two of the buildings, and that one spot that snipers go to for killing other snipers. You know, the brick wall with the wee fence on it.
OUTPOST: Bunker and the small buidling near domination A. They both cover the same exact part of the map.
INTERCHANGE: I think someone in development noticed they were making a sniping map so they started sticking cars and trash mountains everywhere.
UNDERGROUND: Well....you can cover your initial spawn at least.
MISSION: This one's good, but again it only covers a small, lesser traveled area of the map. Most kills you'd get here are on other snipers

Edit: I didn't do the DLC maps but those are all done well if you ask me.

> DOME: Nowhere. At all.

You must be joking or never used a SR .... Any Dome location is okay for a sniper.
btw: MW2:Terminal was a nice sniper map as well ...

Sniper rifle:

Move. QD needed. If you see a target, ADS/QS and kill. Nothing more needed.
I do not get your problems bro
ADS and kill. Dome is okay.

I use Barrett the same way I use ACR or PP90M1 or Magnum. Slower TTK but more fun sometimes.
Rarely kdr negative.

Use the scope to kill, not to observe the map. ADS and kill. They usually die

[wwaa]

Sniper does not need a "PLACE".

He is everywhere.

> there is not a single place in Dome where a sniper is a better weapon than an AR.

sorry, but in DOM:
Sniper at B->C, the line of sight is a 100% kill for a sniper and no AR can compete.
Sniper at C->B, the line of sight is a 100% kill for a sniper and no AR can compete.
Sniper at C->A, well, noone survives if I am with Barrett at C and they run from A ... a 100% kill if I am not drunk.
Sniper at A->B ... same story ...
Sniper at A->C? ... they run from the bunker to A? against Barrett? they need a lot of stuns.

etc etc

[mw2baller]

The whole point of snipers is to use long sightlines to kill people before they can see you. MW3 got rid of most of these long sightlines making snipers useless. I practically never die to snipers now. Even in black box and liberation, the maps you people call "sniper maps", snipers cause less than 10% of my deaths. And over half of these were caused by snipers killing me while I was sniping and standing still.

Seriously how is dome a good sniper map? Are you seriously going to say that the cliff on afghan was suicide while the catwalk on dome is a snipers paradise? All the sniper spots I mentioned are great because they're actually usable to get a lot of kills. Yes I can get countersniped, but I can rely on my skill to shoot them before they shoot me. While I appreciate my free kills given to me by the numbskulls who stand without moving on the cliff on afghan, saying that it's a suicidal tactic just because some idiots haven't found the prone button is kinda stupid.

Also railgunners are not a problem. They do not snipe in the traditional way and have no use for long sightlines or good vantage points.

Hawkeyeny, go try and snipe from your "sniper points". Tell me how many kills you get. Now do the exact same thing with an ACR or MP7. Notice any difference?

Lastly, you can tell sniping is ruined when people who use snipers (including me) get more kills with their secondary than with their sniper rifle. I've died to countless people in ghillie suits spraying with fmg9s who never once shot me with their sniper rifle. Speaking for myself, even though I religiously stick to the long sightlines like the C flag in mission when using a sniper, I still end up with more MP9 kills than sniper kills.

[Amirror]

Dome is only a good map for "Cheap Scopers". Sniping the real way? Not so much...

[Broadband]

MW2's maps are WAY overrated. Derail, Estate, Karachi, Favela, Scrapyard, Underpass, Rust, Sub Base, and Rundown are among the worst maps ever created in any CoD game. The rest are OKAY, but not stellar. Can't speak for the DLC maps.

[Morshu]

Aug 13, 2012 18:22:36 GMT -5 Broadband said:

MW2's maps are WAY overrated. Derail, Estate, Karachi, Favela, Scrapyard, Underpass, Rust, Sub Base, and Rundown are among the worst maps ever created in any CoD game. The rest are OKAY, but not stellar. Can't speak for the DLC maps.

What? Thats not the mw2 I remember. I might give you derail, hated that one, but all the other ones were pleasent memories indeed.

If you think downturn and outpost were better then scrapyard and favela then check again.

[UrbaneVirtuoso]

Favela being called a bad map? That's news to me.

[cmck]

And I'll be pissing waterless if subbase and karachi are bad maps. (+1 if you know where thats from.)

[cmck]

The hint is its from a book and water is a very important commodity in it.

[danoski666]

Aug 13, 2012 19:31:25 GMT -5 Mousey said:

Aug 13, 2012 18:57:00 GMT -5 cmck said:

And I'll be pissing waterless if subbase and karachi are bad maps. (+1 if you know where thats from.)

Den IRC because I'm a lonely faggot

FAAAAYG!

On topic: Summit 4 lyfe. All i wanted to say. If BO2 has similiar maps as the previous one ill be relatively happy. Nuketown and Array kinda stank though imo. One was a clusterfuck with people spawning in front of you and the other hit the milestone of one of the most boring maps in CoD, for me at least. It was good for going only knifing though.

[wwaa]

@ mw2baller

> The whole point of snipers is to use long sightlines to kill people before they can see you. MW3 got rid of most of these long sightlines making snipers useless.

We have different definitions. In MW2 people can see you regardless the distance and snipe with handguns, UMP45 etc, so one could say: in MW2 snipers were useless.

“The whole point of snipers”:
1) Move cautiously, look for enemies
2) Detect them with naked eye, do not ADS.
3) If enemy spotted: ADS and kill; holding breath should last 0.5-1.0 sec max.; QS if necessary.
4) You do not need any “sniping point”.

Main problems: a) aiming b) flinch c) slow TTK in CQC vs hipfired smgs/shotguns d) no silencer e) Assassin or Quickdraw?

> Seriously how is Dome a good sniper map?

Well ... Points 1) 2) 3) 4) in practice on Dome (that is not my clip ofc):



> Are you seriously going to say that the cliff on Afghan was suicide while the catwalk on Dome is a snipers paradise?

Catwalk on Dome? I did not mention that, sometimes to get 1-2 kills one might get there for 5 sec. but it is possible to stay there much longer if opponents suck:



I suppose that any location good for ACR in mid-range is good for Barrett.
Some exceptions appear because you can risk hipfire with ACR vs SMGs while doing so with a sniper rifle is tricky: QS or secondary might be too slow.

I can have a 5-10 killstreak with Barret on Dome and I am rather an average sniper …. 2.0 kdr overall I suppose.
If 6 enemies rush aggressively hipfiring PP90M1 or P90 there is not enough room for a sniper, adapt, use Striker+Damage+EM.

> … go try and snipe from your "sniper points". Tell me how many kills you get. Now do the exact same thing with an ACR or MP7. Notice any difference?

On Dome: in DOM, if I go 30-5 with ACR => I could go 30-5 with Barrett.
If balanced teams and not overusing any weapon class I see no difference in kdr using Barrett, L86LSW, MK14, UMP45 or G36C.

> Speaking for myself, even though I religiously stick to the long sightlines like the C flag in mission when using a sniper, I still end up with more MP9 kills than sniper kills.

The whole Mission is playable with Barrett, C flag is nice but you can kill from almost every position.

[arcanine2009]

Apr 10, 2012 13:57:38 GMT -5 Marvel4 said:

Big and open maps are good, small and cramped maps are bad.

I love maps like Array, Villa, Rundown, Underpass, Bloc and Overgrown.
I hate maps like Carbon, Dome, Trailer Park and Shipment. Those maps are only good with very few players.

IMO, MW2 and Black Ops had the best maps.

I own the Wii version, so it's 10 players max for us. Carbon and Dome I really like (again, less players than HD versions). I really hate downturn, fallen, village, and interchange though.
Downturn and interchange don't have much wide field of views, and are cluttered with crap to hide over. Fallen is a camp fest on the wii version, and it's hard to see people sometimes, which doesn't make it better. Village just.. doesn't seem to work out too well for a large map. Really weird.

I also love large spacious maps like cliffside, overgrown, and array, which MW3 lacked, but had more cluttered ass cqc maps instead.

[Broadband]

Aug 13, 2012 18:43:04 GMT -5 Morshu said:

Aug 13, 2012 18:22:36 GMT -5 Broadband said:

MW2's maps are WAY overrated. Derail, Estate, Karachi, Favela, Scrapyard, Underpass, Rust, Sub Base, and Rundown are among the worst maps ever created in any CoD game. The rest are OKAY, but not stellar. Can't speak for the DLC maps.

What? Thats not the mw2 I remember. I might give you derail, hated that one, but all the other ones were pleasent memories indeed.

If you think downturn and outpost were better then scrapyard and favela then check again.

Not better, but not that much worse.

[Morshu]

Aug 14, 2012 5:41:20 GMT -5 Broadband said:

Aug 13, 2012 18:43:04 GMT -5 Morshu said:

If you think downturn and outpost were better then scrapyard and favela then check again.

Not better, but not that much worse.

Sometimes I wonder where some ideas come from, but there is only one answer.

[iw5000]

Aug 13, 2012 14:30:16 GMT -5 Mousey said:

Aug 13, 2012 14:11:43 GMT -5 wwaa said:

In MW3 any map is good for sniping. Dome? Perfect map for a sniper. Hardhat? Perfect. Downturn? Just great ...

Alright, let's see here.

FALLEN: Uh, two of the buildings, and that one spot that snipers go to for killing other snipers. You know, the brick wall with the wee fence on it.

Edit: I didn't do the DLC maps but those are all done well if you ask me.

I'm going to use this as an example

You...trying to say that Fallen has only three good sniping spots, ...that pretty much summarizes 'why' people complain about MW3. Fallen has tons of good sniping spots. Plenty more than three, that's for sure. And by just throwing posts like the one above up, making it seem like the map now 'sucks', because of your claim of three, is just ridiculous.

[iw5000]

Aug 13, 2012 18:22:36 GMT -5 Broadband said:

MW2's maps are WAY overrated. Derail, Estate, Karachi, Favela, Scrapyard, Underpass, Rust, Sub Base, and Rundown are among the worst maps ever created in any CoD game. The rest are OKAY, but not stellar. Can't speak for the DLC maps.

Agree. Decent maps, but overrated.

[wwaa]

^ A "Sniping Spot" is a place where the sniper rifle is actually the best weapon for the job.

If you can aim with a sniper rifle 90% of Fallen is a “sniping spot” …. only areas where hipfiring smgs is very effective are not "sniping spots".

But if you cannot aim fast, you cannot change position fast, you cannot chose the best location around, you cannot predict enemy moves, you need headgl!tch, you are generally slow and need to hold breath for 3 sec. to shoot then agreed: not enough sniping spots on Fallen …

[wwaa]

^

[wwaa]

Yes, it is possible to perform well with SPAS12, I level it up now, level 10-12 or so, gold: Striker, KSG and USAS so far,
I cannot say I’d love to see any SPAS buff and more shotties in-game ….

Red dots: his MSR kills
Red arrows: lines of sight, not all, some directions marked, most of them he observed running around with MSR.
If you draw all lines map will be red.

[wwaa]

^ Alright, still the majority of his kill were railguns.

ok, I counted:

h4rdscope: 12 kills
qs: 4 kills (2 of them were close to h-scope, not typical qs)

most important: he was not rushin trying to qs everyone, he tried to keep the distance and "actually use the sniper scope" and lines of sight.

> BUT WHATEVER. You can have fallen.

thank you.

[mw2baller]

Quickscoping isn't really sniping. The same way that barrett spamming isn't sniping. I'll add to mouseys definition"

A sniper spot is one where a sniper is the most effective weapon and gives the a large enough view to get a sizeable amount of kills and make an impact on the game.

The maps in MW3 do not allow this. Every single sniper spot gives a very small amount of kills. It's effectively long range corner tactical loitering. So to actually get more than 5 kills a match, you need to move out to adjust to the spawn flow. However while moving out you're no longer in a situation where your sniper is useful, so you switch to your secondary. By doing this, you end up getting more kills with your secondary than your sniper rifle, since you spend the majority of your time moving around with your secondary out.

WWA, if you can aim fast, change position fast, and etc, then you shouldn't be using the sniper rifle in the first place. The distinct feature of the sniper rifle is that it has a scope. The scope is used for spotting long range targets. It's not a bulky and expensive iron sight replacement. If you can spot people without the scope, then you might as well use an AR or MP7 which will allow you to kill them even easier.

[wwaa]

^ if you can aim fast, change position fast, and etc, then you shouldn't be using the sniper rifle in the first place.

1. In mid range a sniper rifle might kill faster than spraying with ACR or using weapons with tons of gunkick.
2. If map offers longer LOS I cannot use them with AR.
3. It happens I am 1-10 using SMG, flanked and raped by 3-4 rushers, then swap to Barrett, I move back a bit, and 20-11 in the end.

^ The distinct feature of the sniper rifle is that it has a scope. The scope is used for spotting long range targets.

I see, that’s the difference in definitions we use.
The scope for me is not for spotting targets but for the final aiming, that requires accuracy and must be done fast, the enemy is close to the middle of my crosshairs before I ADS anyway.

> If you can spot people without the scope, then you might as well use an AR or MP7 which will allow you to kill them even easier.

not in long range.

> A sniper spot is one where a sniper rifle is the most effective weapon and gives the sniper a large enough view to get a sizeable amount of kills and make an impact on the game.

If that is your definition I am happy that sniper spots are so rare in MW3….

The last thing I need is headgl!tching Barrett camp!ng in the same place the whole game every game outside assault rifles effective range.