How to fix Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer

Modern Warfare 2 has been out for a few months now, and while the game has been an undeniable critical and commercial success, the game is not without its problems. Fortuantely, not everyone that plays Modern Warfare 2 will experience these so-called "issues". Furthermore, not all people will actually classify any of the below as issues at all. It is totally dependent on your own skill and patience, and typically someone with patience and the skill needed to counter these problems don't normally make much noise about the game's supposed multiplayer downsides.

However, we think all of the noted issues below are worth considering, and that had they not been in the game, the overall experience would be exceptionally better (not to say it's not already a great experience).

1. N00b tUBE

The grenade launcher attachment turns battlefield noobs into superior warriors. They dictate practically no skill whatsoever, and have such a large blast radius that double and triple-kills are no stranger to the standard "N00b Tuber": all they have to do is shoot a grenade in the direction of enemies and let the overpowered blast do the rest. We can handle being killed once or twice in a match this way, but when you couple a skilled N00b Tuber with the Scavenger perk, you have an enemy with an endless supply of grenades.

For the love of god, how do you fix it!?

There are a number of ways. Firstly, reduce the blast radius and make it so grenades only within a foot of a player equals instant death. This will dictate more precision and more thought, as opposed to just randomly running into an area and blasting into the air, knowing anyone remotely close to the blast will die.

Secondly, balance its availability out a bit, and reduce the number of weapons it's available with. It's a long-shot, we know, but at least then it will detract some gamers from using it who don't want to be stuck with a weapon they don't like playing with.

2. Trash talkers/flamers and party chat

Infinity Ward's decision to remove party chat in some multiplayer modes on the XBOX 360 version has been the talk of the town for a while now. The developer puts their decision down to wanting to encourage more team-based tactics and talking, but all it's done is leave the door open for racial, sexist, ageist and homophobic slurs.

For the love of god, how do you fix it!?

Simple: Ban them. Zero tolerance. Add an in-house reporting system that allows for efficient and effective reporting of bigots. That way, if you have a player running his/her mouth, they could effectively be banned more easily, because gamers have a more accessible reporting method, as opposed to viewing the offending gamers gamertag.

3. Respawning

There's nothing worse than being shot in the back, quickly respawning, and then being killed again by the exact same player. More of an issue on the smaller maps, Modern Warfare 2's respawning system is incredibly broken. There are countless videos on the net highlighting how broken the system can be, and if you have the skills and know-how of the maps, you can take full advantage of it and work up plenty of kills with little effort.

For the love of god, how do you fix it!?

Make it so you don't respawn within a certain range of an enemy player. This might be difficult on smaller maps in modes like Free-For-All, but it might be the only solution. If you bundle the respawning together and keep good track of where each individual player is, it shouldn't be too difficult. This issue also comes down to the poor design of some maps that make a successful respawning system almost impossible.

4. Over-powered Shotguns

So shotguns might not be overly accurate or have the best range, but when a player bursts into an area wielding dual-shotguns and blasts away carelessly, killing bewildered players who hardly noticed them, it can cause some issues. The truth is, a shotgun should not and cannot be a more effective killing weapon than an assault rifle, especially at the distance of which some gamers can get a kill.

For the love of god, how do you fix it!?

Just like the grenade launcher, reduce the distance in which a shotgun can be effective, namely the dual wielding shotguns. Any shot outside the range of what would be considered close-range should cause some damage, but not be fatal.

5. Care package hijack

Waiting for a care package can be both an exciting and stressful time. While on larger maps you can hide in an area no one ever goes to and wait for your care package to arrive without hassle, smaller maps like Highrise make waiting for one a highly risky maneuver. The care package and emergency airdrop killstreak rewards are quite illogical, considering you have to wait for them to arrive and then activate them. It's very easy to lose concentration of your surroundings, and sometimes you can suddenly find yourself respawning and having lost your care package to the crappy player who managed to kill your unsuspecting self while you were waiting.

For the love of god, how do you fix it!?

Well, there isn't all that much you can do at the moment, and it's doubtful something like this would be changed in any way. They could remove it entirely from future games, or alter it so you become a spectator when you call for it. Alternatively, they could just remove the whole waiting aspect entirely, and randomly add them to your d-pad. If you were to get the emergency airdrop, whatever randomly dropped rewards were to come down, simply add them to the players d-pad.

6. Get to da chop-ar!!

Calling in an attack helicopter or the illustrious AC-130 can put a smile on any MW2 gamer. That is of course until it is shot down almost as quickly as it arrives. It's a terrible feeling to have racked up plenty of kills and to be rewarded with a seemingly all-powering attack chopper or bomber, only to have it shown down by one missile. Yeah, that might fall in line with realism, and it's doubtful any aircraft could handle being hit by a large missile, but it definitely takes away some of the fun. Anyway, you'd think aircraft in this day and age would be able to at least try to maneuver out of the path of an oncoming missile.

For the love of god, how do you fix it!?

It's not a major issue, but maybe make it so the more powerful aircraft need to be hit by 2+ missiles before they can be taken down. To counter this further, you can reduce the amount of time they can be in the air, so if no one in the match has a rocket launcher, they need not fear about being hunted down for too long. What it comes down to is that players should feel a sense of reward when they get a certain amount of kills. Getting 11 kills and calling in an AC-130, only to have it shot down almost immediately, kind of makes the effort and killstreak worthless.

7. Map repetition

So the maps in Modern Warfare 2 aren't great, but they aren't terrible, either. Some are perfectly suited to Team Deathmatch, others to Free-For-All, others for Domination. Every gamer has their favourite maps, as well as their most disliked. It's frustrating, then, when you're playing for hours on end and you play the same map you hate multiple times, while the more favoured maps are hardly used.

For the love of god, how do you fix it!?

It's quite obvious that things have been tweaked since launch. For one, one of the more hated maps in Estate is hardly ever used in the rotation, but that can depend on what mode you're playing. Infinity Ward should tweak it a little more and take a look at player statistics to see what maps you "vote to skip", and which maps you don't. It might be a bit difficult to compound all of the data together when you've got a full room of players, but at least then we'll be a step closer to a healthy circulation of the maps, as opposed to playing the same map five times in an hour.

8. Dedicated Servers

Everyone who has played Modern Warfare 2 has most likely experienced a drop-out. The lack of dedicated servers (mostly because of XBOX Live's peer-to-peer service which requires a game host) means anyone with a crappy connection can host a game, which can in-turn ruin a match completely. What also sucks is that gamers all around the world (including the US) will essentially be ranked by their peers based on their connection: if you have a crappy connection, be prepared to sometimes pump a full clip of ammunition into an enemy before a bullet even registers.

For the love of god, how do you fix it!?

Well, that's up to Infinity Ward. It's not that they've done a terrible job with the matchmaking and server system, but it could have been better. Lag can be an issue for some gamers, and the game host isn't chosen very effectively. A better system is needed for things to improve, and that won't be easy.

Tags: 2 3 360 call cod cod4 duty infinity live Microsoft modern multiplayer of playstation ps3 psn sony ward warfare xbox

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Gaetano 3 days

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