Warzone QoL changes

[exaltedvanguard]

Activision seems to be going all-in on warzone, throwing almost every dev studio they have at the game. Seems like a risky move given it's already rocky history with the playerbase in the absence of any FPS competition. But it seems like Warzone's the current plan for CoD's future. So let's talk about some ways we could improve the gameplay experience.

There's plenty of different balance changes to suggest and cheaters are WILDLY out of control. I counted 45 BLATANT hackers in a month of casual rebirth island matches. Lord knows how many more were using soft-locks or discretely using wall-hacks... or how many I just never encountered because I was killed by a legit team before they reached me.

But aside from the complete and utter infestation of cheaters, here's some mostly non-balance related changes that I think would improve the game:

• If you attempt to sprint into a window, even from a stop, the window should break. This would solve a lot of awkward "stuck on the window" moments.
• Windows shouldn't count toward bullet penetration. Hitting a headshot with a sniper through a window should down someone. And my TTK shouldn't get tanked because I was firing my SMG through glass. Etc. The visual obfuscation of the glass is enough, it doesn't need to give defensive properties too.
• If I can shoot through a teammate and deal full damage to an enemy, their bullets should penetrate my teammate and do full damage to me as well. There's some weird meat-shield situations that can occur and feel really unfair when it happens.
• The gas mask should either be controlled by the player or not have an animation. An uncontrollable animation is incredibly frustrating.
• While falling, there should be client-side prediction of acceleration. This is why the visuals can seem quite jittery when free-falling. You are essentially warping forward a small amount every 50ms (20hz server) because the server is telling you you're slightly ahead of where the client put you. The client didn't know you sped up. In addition, the lack of client side prediction makes precise timing a parachuting very difficult and even a little bit of lag results in the player warping around/into the ground. Gravity is a constant so this is a fairly simple change.
• Faster tickrate would be super nice obviously
• More on the parachute, you pulling the chute should be prioritized over ALL other animations. Sliding off a roof to your death sucks.
• You should either be able to ALWAYS cut the parachute or NEVER cut the parachute (under an altitude of let's say 100m). The inconsistency of sometimes being able to cut the chute to make a play and other times floating helplessly while getting shot is infuriating. Inconsistency feels bad.
• When plating after taking some damage, there's a small bit of forgiveness where if you took, for example, 51 damage, that 1 damage won't consume the plate to fix. It would be nice if plate forgiveness allowed for very slightly more damage.
• If I press a button to cancel plating, it will complete the current plating animation anyway but not give me an extra plate. If the animation's not cancelled, it would make sense that I should be given that plate. Alternatively, me pressing a button to interrupt plating should interrupt the animation.
• After the visuals rework, it's much harder to see into a dark window, and much harder to see out of a room into the daytime. Lots of "eye adjustment" shenangians. That's how movie cameras work. That's not how eyeballs work. Simulate eyeballs, not cameras. Also gameplay is the priority, not visuals. Get rid of this.
• Let me turn off depth of field (console). I hate this almost as much as motion blur.
• Crossplay should not be forced on. Currently only Playstation players can turn it off. It would be extra nice if you could select which systems are allowed. I'm an xbox player and would prefer not to run into PC players due to them having so many advantages (FoV slider, visual filters, framerate/draw distance, mouse/keyboard macros). I have no issue with PS players because they do not have all these system advantages. I'm also totally burned out on cheaters. From a purely business perspective, I can't help but think that protecting the largest playerbase (console players) from rampant cheating on the smallest playerbase (PC) would be a financially sensible thing to do. When social media is blowing up about cheaters and you could flip a switch to make 80% of players never have to deal with cheaters, I'd flip that switch.
• Some objects should be made transparent to aim assist. Prison bars and chainlink fences.
• Connection should have a significantly greater priority on matchmaking (I documented my experiences with this in another thread). Packet loss should also be accounted for during the connection testing. Simulating 75% packet loss to some servers did not prevent matchmaking from throwing me on that server.
• When downed, you should move forward and backward slightly faster, but strafe and turn slower.

What do you think of these changes? Do you agree? Disagree? What non-balance/QoL changes would you like to see?

[illram]

Faster tickrate and prioritizing connection in matchmaking would solve a lot of problems.

I'd like to see helis back in solos. I don't see them as problematic as Berthas, which are still in the game despite the recent nerf to their count. Helis are weaker and easier to shoot down, the hitbox is larger for the pilot, and the main issue was hovering in final circles which can be fixed by making them all have a max life span that ends in a late circle. Blackout did this.

As a PC player I am obviously biased to crossplay. MW was the first COD that I could play on PC in years, and I hated the fact that I basically just kept an Xbox around solely to play COD, as all my other games are on PC. I never want them to take it away. I think making anti-cheat more robust--including catching console Cronus cheaters--would obviously help here along with providing console players more gfx options for the upgraded console generation to keep pace with PC customization. For example I use Nvidia filters which has immensely helped with visibility issues, console players should have similar options.

[Pegasus Actual]

May 31, 2021 18:27:39 GMT -5 exaltedvanguard said:

If you attempt to sprint into a window, even from a stop, the window should break. This would solve a lot of awkward "stuck on the window" moments.

I think PUBG works like that... I don't know if I have a strong opinion either way. I think it'd be fine if meleeing a window was more consistent.

Windows shouldn't count toward bullet penetration. Hitting a headshot with a sniper through a window should down someone. And my TTK shouldn't get tanked because I was firing my SMG through glass. Etc. The visual obfuscation of the glass is enough, it doesn't need to give defensive properties too.

Non-issue for me.

If I can shoot through a teammate and deal full damage to an enemy, their bullets should penetrate my teammate and do full damage to me as well. There's some weird meat-shield situations that can occur and feel really unfair when it happens.

Natural consequence of not having team damage. Having rounds penetrate both ways is a bad solution. Just make shooting through your teammate act like a brick wall.

The gas mask should either be controlled by the player or not have an animation. An uncontrollable animation is incredibly frustrating.

In a game where you literally teleport out of a moving vehicle when pressing the exit button rather than have an animation for it, and damage if you move at excess speed, the animation seems out of place. I'd rather they fix the former than the latter but the gas mask could use some tweaks. I think automatic equip is fine. At which point it should just stay on. No clue how 'out of buttons' control players are in this game, but there could be something to take it off in the inventory screen, and dedicated keybind for kb+m. No need to have a full toggle where you can take it off, take damage, put it back on and heal to buy more time in the zone. Or I guess you could do a full toggle option, but make it so you can't toggle off while still in the gas. That way you could milk your health once before putting on the mask.

Not sure if this was gas mask animation related, since it never actually equipped, but this shit was pretty rage inducing...
streamable.com/7mh3gf

Died to the guy in the SUV immediately after since I was low health, had to reload, all that good stuff... Which is why I went for the stealth kill in the first place, he was just driving around third-partying... of course that goober with the RPG didn't bother to explode him because why bother, just hide until you can't hide any more. But yeah... animation starts... the guy makes a death sound... drops his gun like a dead guy... next thing I know he's coughing behind me and shooting a rocket. Really stupid way to lose a game.

While falling, there should be client-side prediction of acceleration. This is why the visuals can seem quite jittery when free-falling. You are essentially warping forward a small amount every 50ms (20hz server) because the server is telling you you're slightly ahead of where the client put you. The client didn't know you sped up. In addition, the lack of client side prediction makes precise timing a parachuting very difficult and even a little bit of lag results in the player warping around/into the ground. Gravity is a constant so this is a fairly simple change.

Can't say I've really noticed this. Well I have noticed that you need to open parachute earlier than you might think to not splat, but I can cut chute, track and shoot people pretty effectively in free fall, *shrug*.

Faster tickrate would be super nice obviously

1 million ticks per microsecond or bust

More on the parachute, you pulling the chute should be prioritized over ALL other animations. Sliding off a roof to your death sucks.

Meh, only time it messes with me is when there's some jagged terrain and you're not really high enough for it to give you the option to parachute, then you fall farther out but since you've fallen some you still aren't quite high enough, but you've now reached your terminal (in the punny sense) velocity and splat. Those situations are easy enough to avoid.

You should either be able to ALWAYS cut the parachute or NEVER cut the parachute (under an altitude of let's say 100m). The inconsistency of sometimes being able to cut the chute to make a play and other times floating helplessly while getting shot is infuriating. Inconsistency feels bad.

Cutting and redeploying a chute is a nonsense mechanic anyway. The less stupid compromise is just have one chute deployment per jump. One cut.

When plating after taking some damage, there's a small bit of forgiveness where if you took, for example, 51 damage, that 1 damage won't consume the plate to fix. It would be nice if plate forgiveness allowed for very slightly more damage.

A weird silly thing that wouldn't be needed if they just made the plates give you a full 50 at all times. Current system is needlessly complex.

If I press a button to cancel plating, it will complete the current plating animation anyway but not give me an extra plate. If the animation's not cancelled, it would make sense that I should be given that plate. Alternatively, me pressing a button to interrupt plating should interrupt the animation.

Agreed, should just give you the plate. I don't think an instant cancel should be available. Heal times are so comically short in this game already, you deserve to take a risk of getting caught off guard while trying to sneak in a heal during a fight.

After the visuals rework, it's much harder to see into a dark window, and much harder to see out of a room into the daytime. Lots of "eye adjustment" shenangians. That's how movie cameras work. That's not how eyeballs work. Simulate eyeballs, not cameras. Also gameplay is the priority, not visuals. Get rid of this.

Do you not have pupils or something? Anyway, as illram said, on PC we just work around it with graphics filters. I'd have just let it be but invisible Roze sweats were the final straw. Hey, where the hell is black Roze skin on your QoL list? I guess I know what operator you're running.

Let me turn off depth of field (console). I hate this almost as much as motion blur.

PC is the place to be, even for controller players, in COD now.

Crossplay should not be forced on. Currently only Playstation players can turn it off. It would be extra nice if you could select which systems are allowed. I'm an xbox player and would prefer not to run into PC players due to them having so many advantages (FoV slider, visual filters, framerate/draw distance, mouse/keyboard macros). I have no issue with PS players because they do not have all these system advantages. I'm also totally burned out on cheaters. From a purely business perspective, I can't help but think that protecting the largest playerbase (console players) from rampant cheating on the smallest playerbase (PC) would be a financially sensible thing to do. When social media is blowing up about cheaters and you could flip a switch to make 80% of players never have to deal with cheaters, I'd flip that switch.

I'd rather run into the occasional cheater than have to play on console to get games. But yeah, the cheating thing is something the industry as a whole needs to figure out.

Some objects should be made transparent to aim assist. Prison bars and chainlink fences.

So fences break aim assist? And you want it to work through fences? I will always vote for less aim assist.

Connection should have a significantly greater priority on matchmaking (I documented my experiences with this in another thread). Packet loss should also be accounted for during the connection testing. Simulating 75% packet loss to some servers did not prevent matchmaking from throwing me on that server.

No strong opinion here, I get stuck playing on east coast most of the time when squadding up. 80ms is still playable. In BOCW I'd say you need to keep it to 50ms max before you're screwed. I haven't gotten any major packet loss.

When downed, you should move forward and backward slightly faster, but strafe and turn slower.

Uhh, no opinion on that specifically. For DBNO mechanics I'd just remove self-revive. I have absolutely nothing positive to say about it.

[exaltedvanguard]

Jun 7, 2021 18:49:36 GMT -5 Pegasus Actual said:

Natural consequence of not having team damage. Having rounds penetrate both ways is a bad solution. Just make shooting through your teammate act like a brick wall.

I'm also okay with this solution. The reason I opted for the other way is that, in my opinion, teammates blocking your shots isn't fun. And getting collaterals is fun. So I went the route that gives those. I'm okay with either end result, however.

In a game where you literally teleport out of a moving vehicle when pressing the exit button rather than have an animation for it, and damage if you move at excess speed, the animation seems out of place. I'd rather they fix the former than the latter but the gas mask could use some tweaks. I think automatic equip is fine. At which point it should just stay on. No clue how 'out of buttons' control players are in this game, but there could be something to take it off in the inventory screen, and dedicated keybind for kb+m. No need to have a full toggle where you can take it off, take damage, put it back on and heal to buy more time in the zone. Or I guess you could do a full toggle option, but make it so you can't toggle off while still in the gas. That way you could milk your health once before putting on the mask.

I'd also add that exiting vehicles should have an animation. I think dying due to speed tends to feel really awkward and occasionally unpredictable in the games that have it. I like the Halo approach. Animation for getting in and out but no speed-damage.

Controllers are somewhat button restricted, but it should be workable. I think auto-equip with a low-priority (interruptible) animation is the best solution.

If it were manual equip, you can nerf milking the gas mask by equipping it on and off to share health/gas damage by making the gasmask take damage regardless of equip state. Ground loot masks tick down. Your unequipped mask could too.

Can't say I've really noticed this. Well I have noticed that you need to open parachute earlier than you might think to not splat, but I can cut chute, track and shoot people pretty effectively in free fall, *shrug*.

The parachute in this game just feels so terrible compared to every other game out there. Improving client-side prediction would go a LONG way. Or if you want to avoid the problem entirely you could just nerf last-second opens.

Meh, only time it messes with me is when there's some jagged terrain and you're not really high enough for it to give you the option to parachute, then you fall farther out but since you've fallen some you still aren't quite high enough, but you've now reached your terminal (in the punny sense) velocity and splat. Those situations are easy enough to avoid.

Yup, this is super annoying too. I shouldn't be restricted from opening the chute. The animation I'm referring to is if you slide off of a roof or something and the roof is just the right height, you'll be stuck in the sliding animation and unable to pull the chute before splatting on the ground.

Cutting and redeploying a chute is a nonsense mechanic anyway. The less stupid compromise is just have one chute deployment per jump. One cut.

It is, but I recognize the gameplay reasons for it. Having to float for 45 seconds because you pulled it early and don't want to splat would be quite boring. I just want consistency. Inconsistent mechanics feel like RNG, and RNG feels bad. Either let me always cut the chute or never. I hate the sometimes you can/sometimes you can't crap.

A weird silly thing that wouldn't be needed if they just made the plates give you a full 50 at all times. Current system is needlessly complex.

There's balance implications to this choice, so I purposefully didn't include that option.

Do you not have pupils or something?

I do, in-fact! And when I'm inside and look out a window, I don't see brilliant white. I see the outside. I'm not blinded like a camera with a slow auto-exposure. Nor do my eyes experience lens flare. My eyeballs apparently work like eyeballs. And when I look into a dark room, I see a dark room. Not a black void.

It's a silly "cinematic" effect that interferes with gameplay and destroys immersion.

Anyway, as illram said, on PC we just work around it with graphics filters.

More PC advantages. I just want to play on a level playing field.

I'd have just let it be but invisible Roze sweats were the final straw. Hey, where the hell is black Roze skin on your QoL list? I guess I know what operator you're running.

Player contrast needs to be addressed 100%. Black skins are a massive problem. (And yes, I do follow the meta and use a black skin. I'd probably be running around as a much cooler/fun skin if there wasn't a massive gameplay penalty to using them.)

I'd rather run into the occasional cheater than have to play on console to get games. But yeah, the cheating thing is something the industry as a whole needs to figure out.

Warzone is one of the most, if not the most, popular games in the world right now. There's plenty of PC players to match against. And I'm not saying remove crossplay, just give me the option to disable it. I want to play on a level playing field, not against someone with significant advantages via FoV and nvidia filters. Plus a F2P with no meaningful anticheat is just... ugh. I'd be lying to claim cheaters wouldn't be a factor in me turning off crossplay (given the option). But then again cheaters are also going to push me away from the game entirely this fall when I have alternate shooters to go play (Halo, BF).

It would make business sense for Activision to remove PC crossplay entirely for player retention purposes, but they're the ones who stand to make money by doing that, not me. I just want an option.

So fences break aim assist? And you want it to work through fences? I will always vote for less aim assist.

Aim assist effectively reduces sensitivity, so the mouse translation of this would go something like this:
Imagine you're tracking someone who's running behind prison bars. You can easily see the vast majority of their body. As you track that player running behind the bars, every time your aim on them is interrupted by a skinny prison bar, your DPI jumps from 800 to 2400, then back down to 800 a frame later when your aim has passed over the prison bar. This incredibly jerky aim can quickly become wildly uncontrollable, as there's not really much any human can do to compensate for those sudden spikes

All you can do when this happens is try to average it as best you can, pray the enemy doesn't change direction at all, and spray'n'pray. Feels bad man. The hollow space being opaque to aim assist would also be acceptable to me, as no aim assist at all is at least consistent. If it's consistent, I can deal with it. A total lack of aim assist would make it impossible for the average player though. So the most elegant solution is just to make that 1inch bar transparent to aim assist.

[scubasteven]

Bots/A.I. Recruit, Normal, Hardened, Veteran, mixed, the kind that camped like in Ghosts' Squad mode. Something you can play if there's too many sweats, noobs or cheaters. It can't replace multiplayer, but at least you don't have to worry about lag.
As character models go it should always be based on the threat they pose and not cosmetics. Started with Ghosts' Create-A-Soldier, so many people choosing the Ghillie suit. I'm not against stealth based skins. I think the best way to balance it s they give up to have the ability for armor or another strong perk.