Evaluation of Cold War

[kylet357]

So far, quite frankly, this is probably one of the worst Call of Duty games I've played and it seems to be the game that does everything in its power to make me not want to play it. The game mechanics are stale, the visuals are amazingly awful compared to MW19, the gunplay is simple and bland, and the matchmaking has gotten even worse than it was in MW. It is the personification of all of the most frustrating aspects of the franchise rolled up into one of the shittiest packages ever.

Honestly, Treyarch shouldn't have been allowed to touch another CoD game after BO4 but this game just cements that position within myself further. They shouldn't even be allowed to be side-support devs like Raven, honestly, just on the basis of how they decided to handle gun balance in this game (shotguns, LMGs, and snipers in particular amongst other things), alongside their decision to go back to the god-awful 150 health system. Even my worst experiences with previous games (like release WW2) were better than my best ones with Cold War, and after going back and playing Modern Warfare this week, that difference in how awful the game is has become more apparent.

[Den]

So business as usual for Treyarch.

[Usagi]

I bought it a long time ago when it was $30 but hadn't gotten around to playing it til about a week ago. I've been playing an hour or two a day and I've been surprised at how okay it is. It's just good enough to be playable and scratch that Call of Duty itch for me. The maps, the netcode, the gun balance, the soundwhoring, it's all just fine and doesn't excel in any area. The challenges to unlock previous battlepass weapons are extremely obnoxious tho. 20 matches to unlock a pistol? Come on. Battlepass progress is a lot faster than I remember but I doubt they buffed it.

[illram]

The game feels awful after getting used to MW which is using an obviously superior feeling and looking engine. It's super apparent switching back and forth between WZ and CW for example.

I don't blame 3arch for this though as they were forced into damage control mode after Sledgehammer basically failed to do their job, and all of these studios are basically dancing to Activision's sometimes chaotic tune. Forcing everyone to basically bend the knee to Warzone looked like kind of a "new" decision that they had to adapt to on the fly with CW for example. Which is why I suspect the integration has gone so chaotically and seems nonsensical. (Like if someone had actually planned this in advance would we really need to have 2 RPG's? 2 magnums? 2 Bizon's? Lol.)

3arch basically seems to be Activision's cleanup crew for the last few COD cycles that IW was not the lead, and it shows in their rushed games. They have said they will use the updated IW engine for their next 3arch game and hopefully they get the full dev cycle time to do what they want this time; when 3arch actually gets the full amount of time and freedom to do what they want, they can do good things. E.g. Black Ops 1 and 2. (I also liked 3 but that's more controversial I guess.)

[scubasteven]

Jul 2, 2021 15:51:36 GMT -5 illram said:

The game feels awful after getting used to MW which is using an obviously superior feeling and looking engine. It's super apparent switching back and forth between WZ and CW for example.

I don't blame 3arch for this though as they were forced into damage control mode after Sledgehammer basically failed to do their job, and all of these studios are basically dancing to Activision's sometimes chaotic tune. Forcing everyone to basically bend the knee to Warzone looked like kind of a "new" decision that they had to adapt to on the fly with CW for example. Which is why I suspect the integration has gone so chaotically and seems nonsensical. (Like if someone had actually planned this in advance would we really need to have 2 RPG's? 2 magnums? 2 Bizon's? Lol.)

3arch basically seems to be Activision's cleanup crew for the last few COD cycles that IW was not the lead, and it shows in their rushed games. They have said they will use the updated IW engine for their next 3arch game and hopefully they get the full dev cycle time to do what they want this time; when 3arch actually gets the full amount of time and freedom to do what they want, they can do good things. E.g. Black Ops 1 and 2. (I also liked 3 but that's more controversial I guess.)

Raven has been supporting/cleaning up since the first Black Ops.  There's plenty to fault Treyarch for (BO4's overly convoluted campaign that had to be scrapped) but you're right that more of the blame falls on Sledgehammer and Activision.  Old Sledge, screws up the launch of WW2.  Condrey acts like a dick and pisses off the fanbase.  Condrey and Schofield eventually leave a form new studios, both taking talent with them.  New Sledge updates WW2, plays nice with the community and wins over most the players that stuck with WW2.  In the background of this Raven makes Modern Warfare Remastered and Call of Duty Online.  Activision puts them in the in charge of the next Call of Duty, bumping Sledgehammer to a support role.  Considering that a good amount of the employees that left from Sledgehammer were most likely senior/veteran developers, putting Raven in charge while Sledgehammer rebuilds it's studio sees like the best option given the situation. 

What Activision didn't foresee is that New Sledgehammer seems to think too highly of itself, probably from the sycophants at r/WW2.  Not content with their support role, they butt heads with Raven, Activision pulls in Treyarch to finish and here we are today.  There's also rumors that Vanguard's development has been "rocky."  If that's true, then Sledgehammer has caused trouble on 3 games, maybe more.  WW2, Cold War, Vangaurd are obvious.  It's possible that some devs that would have been on Black Ops 4's end of life were pulled from that to work on Cold War.  Who knows how the time spent on Cold War will affect Treyarch's next game.

I thought 3 years was supposed to bring in the best CoDs we've ever seen.  I wish Activision would allow skip a year or two, but that won't happen.

[Gamma]

Jul 2, 2021 15:51:36 GMT -5 illram said:

The game feels awful after getting used to MW which is using an obviously superior feeling and looking engine. It's super apparent switching back and forth between WZ and CW for example.

I don't blame 3arch for this though as they were forced into damage control mode after Sledgehammer basically failed to do their job, and all of these studios are basically dancing to Activision's sometimes chaotic tune. Forcing everyone to basically bend the knee to Warzone looked like kind of a "new" decision that they had to adapt to on the fly with CW for example. Which is why I suspect the integration has gone so chaotically and seems nonsensical. (Like if someone had actually planned this in advance would we really need to have 2 RPG's? 2 magnums? 2 Bizon's? Lol.)

3arch basically seems to be Activision's cleanup crew for the last few COD cycles that IW was not the lead, and it shows in their rushed games. They have said they will use the updated IW engine for their next 3arch game and hopefully they get the full dev cycle time to do what they want this time; when 3arch actually gets the full amount of time and freedom to do what they want, they can do good things. E.g. Black Ops 1 and 2. (I also liked 3 but that's more controversial I guess.)

I don't know, I still think that's a bit generous to 3arch as Raven developed the campaign, which is typically the most resource-intensive aspect of the game. They had (just under 2 years?) to develop the multiplayer component alone. I think it's reasonable to have expected something better than what Cold War ended up being, considering they've been doing this for 15 years and they hardly had to make the game from scratch

[illram]

Jul 18, 2021 12:53:57 GMT -5 Gamma said:

Jul 2, 2021 15:51:36 GMT -5 illram said:

The game feels awful after getting used to MW which is using an obviously superior feeling and looking engine. It's super apparent switching back and forth between WZ and CW for example.

I don't blame 3arch for this though as they were forced into damage control mode after Sledgehammer basically failed to do their job, and all of these studios are basically dancing to Activision's sometimes chaotic tune. Forcing everyone to basically bend the knee to Warzone looked like kind of a "new" decision that they had to adapt to on the fly with CW for example. Which is why I suspect the integration has gone so chaotically and seems nonsensical. (Like if someone had actually planned this in advance would we really need to have 2 RPG's? 2 magnums? 2 Bizon's? Lol.)

3arch basically seems to be Activision's cleanup crew for the last few COD cycles that IW was not the lead, and it shows in their rushed games. They have said they will use the updated IW engine for their next 3arch game and hopefully they get the full dev cycle time to do what they want this time; when 3arch actually gets the full amount of time and freedom to do what they want, they can do good things. E.g. Black Ops 1 and 2. (I also liked 3 but that's more controversial I guess.)

I don't know, I still think that's a bit generous to 3arch as Raven developed the campaign, which is typically the most resource-intensive aspect of the game. They had (just under 2 years?) to develop the multiplayer component alone. I think it's reasonable to have expected something better than what Cold War ended up being, considering they've been doing this for 15 years and they hardly had to make the game from scratch

Hmm was it 2 years? Maybe I am being too generous then. That should be plenty of time. I thought it was like half that or something.

[Pegasus Actual]

My evaluation is the game sucks because they gave me a permaban! Why? Who knows. The appeals process is a joke (it straight up tells you unless your account was stolen you will lose your appeal.) So really my only option is to sit around and hope that they made enough false bans in the same way that they have to overturn a nice huge batch. Didn't eat a ban in Warzone/MW despite playing that a whole lot more.

As a more serious evaluation it's a pretty mediocre COD game. You can't look at it next to MW and say with a straight face that it's not a step backwards. Had some gun in Gun Game, FFA is okay when I run a decent weapon but most of the time I'm just trying to level up guns for use in Warzone. Playing CW with the C58 for example was pure torture.

Gunfight is okay, it grew on me a bit. MW Gunfight + MW Launch Maps was just way better. Later MW maps and pretty much all of the CW Gunfight maps lost the opening peek dynamic and just became more of a sad 2v2 hide and seek S&D mode.

Grinding the Gunfight tournaments for blueprint rewards was pretty fun though.

I've literally purchased every main COD entry starting with the original. Many of them double/triple-dipped on Xbox/PS/PC. Even gifted copies of various COD games. But I won't be able to in good conscience purchase the another one if I don't get my CW account back in good standing and soon.