CoD Advanced Warfare Official Thread

[BasedPrime]

Coli Clan: http://www.thecoli.com/threads/mlg-...f-duty-aw-coli-clan-ps4.265456/#post-10808114

 

[duncanthetall]

Why am I gettin that feeling I had before Modern Warfare 1 came out? I think this bout to change the game, brehs. Again.

 

[Rekkapryde]

Them nikkaz jacked Larryfall kinda hard don't ya think?

 

[BasedPrime]

I know breh, this shyt next level

 

[Bathing Ape]

I might bite.

 

[Just like bruddas]

Jesus that was intense

 

[Stinky Diver]

Still more excited for Rainbow Six

 

[Rekkapryde]

After playing BF that no recoil is definitely interesting.....dunno if I'll bite though

 

[ikbm]

battlefield this battlefield that....this is CoD country
get these nikkas outta here

 

[El Gonzo]

For a few years now, new Call of Duty games have been met with cynical weariness. There's this feeling that, despite yearly iterations, the franchise hasn't actually changed much.

Whether or not this pessimistic outlook has always been warranted is debatable, but it's hard not to give it some credence when considering that last year, the lackluster Call of Duty: Ghosts absurdly boasted about things like "advanced" fish AI.

It's not like the game didn't have its merits, of course. Riley the dog was a fantastic addition to the campaign, and the multiplayer offered the signature fast-paced Call of Duty experience. But personally, even in moments when I was having fun with Ghosts, there was this fear that, with both Titanfall and Destiny looming, it was only a matter of time before Call of Duty was left behind.

And then Sledgehammer Games pulled the curtain on Advanced Warfare. Everyone saw soldiers wearing advanced mech-like suits that let them pull off superhuman stunts. They saw hover-bikes. They saw gadgets that could scan an entire room and highlight enemies. They saw soldiers who could turn themselves invisible. And they saw Kevin Spacey, rendered in CGI, giving a speech about democracy.

The franchise went full-on sci-fi, and people seemed open to the idea that this game could be different from the others. Who knows, maybe it'll even be good. Light-hearted trolling aside, I've never seen a new Call of Duty be met with such little snark!

Last week, I got a chance to sit down with the multiplayer segment of Advanced Warfare, and to chat with the game's multiplayer director. After playing a few matches, I got general sense of what Advanced Warfare has to offer. Here's what you need to know about it.

• First off, Sledgehammer Games, the developers behind Advanced Warfare, would neither confirm or deny that there is a new dog in the game. Bummer! I'm crossing my fingers, though.
• Okay, but more seriously: I can tell you right now, for the first time in a long while, it doesn't feel like Call of Duty's marketing is bullshytting us in an attempt to sell us a new game. Advanced Warfare doesn't feel like the same old Call of Duty, only with prettier graphics. I mean, yes: the core twitchy feel of the game is still there, so if you hated the way Call of Duty played before, you're still probably not going to be impressed by Advanced Warfare. But there are enough additions to what a player is capable of doing in multiplayer that the game manages to feel fresh in some ways.
• Nothing that I saw last week was new; chances are good that if you've played other big shooters, you're probably acquainted with some of what Advanced Warfare incorporates into Call of Duty—elements which are new to Call of Duty. While playing, the comparison that came to mind the most was Crysis, mixed with a design sensibility that seems similar to that of Mass Effect. I mean, look at this:

• Your exoskeleton suit lets you do many of the things that the nano suit in Crysis does. To be more specific, you can boost jump, boost dodge, boost slide, boost dash, as well as do things like grapple onto surfaces. There's even a ground-pound-like ability, which lets you slam down into the ground after boost jumping. These abilities can be chained together, assuming you have enough battery power for them.
• Your suit also grants you special "exo abilities" which you can activate during matches, provided you have them equipped. These include a special shield ability, a speed boost ability, a regenerative ability, a cloaking ability, a hover ability, a "trophy system" that destroys nearby grenades and rockets, and a "ping" ability that shows you where enemies are in your HUD. It's all very fancy and futuristic.
• Think of it as a souped-up, more intense version of Call of Duty: you have more mobility, you have more agility, and you can boost in and out of action. If the games made you feel like you were old before, it's only going to get worse.
• In order to accommodate your advanced scaling abilities, maps have become more vertical, multilayered and complex. This Call of Duty requires you to look up.

• So far, there are at least four multiplayer maps: a snowy secret base called "Biolab," a devastated prison called "Riot," a a futuristic Space Elevator terminal called "Ascend," and an abandoned bunker called "Defender."
• Of these maps, Defender stood out the most—it's near the Golden Gate Bridge, and every so often, a map-changing tsunami will hit. This tsunami can drown inattentive players, or be used strategically by sharp players. Not every map will have dynamic events like this, but some will. Aside from Defender, Biolab also stood out. Large canisters containing mysterious orange liquids can be detonated by players on Biolab, and anyone hit by this liquid will take serious damage. It's kind of annoying, actually, but I only say that because it kept being used against me. Less impressive was Riot, but that's only because I feel a little weird about making a playground out of a prison.

• Call of Duty now has a loot system, which come in the form of "Supply Drops." You'll still gain experience, rank up and unlock gear as you have in the past. But you'll also receive rewards through Supply Drops, which are awarded through time spent playing and completing in-game challenges. The more you play, the more you earn. Supply Drops come in three different levels of rarity, and will give players weapons/attachments, character gear, and reinforcements.
• Reinforcements are basically things like low-level scorestreaks, or special abilities you can use in-match. If you've ever used a burn card in Titanfall—it's basically like that, only more randomized. Once you receive a reinforcement, you'll have to use it in the next match—Sledgehammer didn't want people doing things like saving reinforcements up, only to unleash all of them in a single match, since that would make things kind of unbalanced. Either way, players shouldn't expect to unlock too many reinforcements—they'll be a tad rare.

• I happened to receive at least a couple supply drops during the matches I played, and I can already tell the game is going to be full of STUFF. Sledgehammer says there are at least 350 customizable weapons out of the box, and there are thousands of different unlockable rewards in the game. Opening a supply drop feels surprisingly gratifying, which is not good news if they decide to add microtransactions into the mix.
• Thanks to the new loot system, you can have a situation where levelling up nets you an OK-ish weapon—but then you'll receive a super rare attachment, which can take that weapon to the next level. I'm not sure how this will work out in terms of balance; the system, while potentially cool if it works in your favor, has the potential to make things unpleasant for other players who haven't had good luck.
• There's a new weapon-type called a "directed energy weapon." These weapons basically make it look like you're shooting lasers at other players—which sounds outlandish, but apparently they're based on actual research (as are other weapons!) These weapons don't have ammo and you don't have to reload, though they will overheat. I wasn't the biggest fan when I tried out these heavy weapons during matches, but that's entirely because of my play-style: the weapons require you to hold down the trigger and continuously land a ray of energy on an enemy. I'd much rather just use a weapon which lets me burst fire, especially given how mobile players can be now. You might feel differently.

• You can deck out your character with all sorts of stuff, like eyewear, gloves and knee-guards. There were a handful of stock soldiers to customize in the demo I tried, including three women. Speaking to other people who toyed with the cosmetic customization, we agreed that the game allows you to make your character look cool, or like a giant douche. You can, for example, equip a cool exo suit that's layered with scratch marks denoting your kills, as well as graffiti, and tags—making the gadget look like it belongs to a real human being. Or you can put on Oakley-like sunglasses and make your character look like a bro. I imagine things will only get worse should Advanced Warfare ever unleash special weed DLC, as Ghosts did. Either way, thanks to a virtual lobby that renders your character in full, players can admire your style during matchmaking.
• Remember the pick-ten system, which let players build a class with ten different custom elements? That's back, only now it's Pick 13. Like before, you can choose your scorestreaks, your attachments, and your perks in addition to your new exo abilities. Each of these elements is worth a certain amount of points, and you can stack on as many of them as you like so long as you don't go over thirteen points. Your character can be tailored to your playstyle.
• Scorestreaks are changing, too. Say you have a scorestreak which allows you to pull out a turret after getting six hundred points in a match. You can add a module to turn that machine gun turret into a rocket turret. It'll cost more to activate, but it'll be better. Other scorestreaks will feature different types of modules. In addition to that, there will be co-op scorestreaks. These will also cost more, but they'll allow you to have other players join your scorestreak. For example, a player might earn a warbird scorestreak. You'll get a notification, which asks you to press X to assist—and your character will pull out a tablet, a little bar will fill up, and hey, suddenly you're up in the warbird yourself. You won't have the main warbird ability, but you'll be able to offer some support to the person who actually earned the scorestreak (and, let's be real, get some kill-stealing).
• I'm not actually convinced the average player will splurge for these scorestreaks, considering how much Call of Duty encourages the lone-wolf mentality. But I can maybe see someone equipping it in order to be nice to their lesser-skilled buddy. Who knows, maybe the Call of Duty community will surprise me.
• Perks are back. You have classic ones, like low profile, fast hands, and cold blooded. There are also new perks based around the exo suit, like one that lets you to fire while sprinting and sliding, one that gives you extra battery time, and one allows you to move more sneakily around the map. All of these take up a slot on your pick 13, though.

 

[El Gonzo]

• There's a firing range now, which lets you shoot at digital targets. This way, you don't have to hop into an actual match to see how your loadouts come together—you can just try your build out in the firing range, in between matches. Not the most exciting feature or anything, but it'll be useful.
• There are twelve multiplayer modes, though they didn't show us all of them. So far, I can confirm that team deathmatch, domination, kill confirmed, capture the flag, search and destroy, and hardpoint make a return. There are new game modes, too. We were told about "Uplink," a mode where teams fight over control of a satellite drone. This satellite can be held, passed to teammates, and even given to enemies to render them temporarily weaponless. It reminds me of Halo's Grifball. Also "new" is Momentum, a mode with capture points. You'll need to control specific areas of the map, and the more control points and kills you have, the more your momentum meter fills up. It's a neat idea, though I didn't get to see it in action.

• Team Deathmatch didn't feel as exciting as the other game modes—maybe that's just personal preference, but it seemed like modes that didn't revolve solely around killing also saw more usage of the special exo abilities.
• Finally, I am actually somewhat impressed by the visuals in Advanced Warfare. They're not on the level of what Destiny offers, and there's bound to be some sacrifice given that the game is releasing both on last-gen and current-gen consoles, but still—compared to Ghosts, the game looks pretty good.

Okay, so, clearly the new Call of Duty has a lot of FEATURES. How's it feel? It's a little hard to say based on what I played—there's a stark difference between what you see in the exciting sizzle reels of the game and how people new to the game might actually actually handle it. If you saw some of what I played, you might think it's just the same 'ol run-and-gun Call of Duty, even though that's not actually the case.

Part of it, I suspect, is that everyone will need to rewire their Call of Duty programming to take the new abilities into account. The first few days of Advanced Warfare's online will likely be a learning experience even for the most seasoned players. Personally, I took to jumping high, scaling and hovering quickly—which made the game feel a bit more floaty and Halo-ish.

Abilities like these also make it so that encounters aren't completely dictated by who can pull the trigger first. The game is still ruled by reaction time, but there's a bit more of a strategic element to it thanks to new fancy gadgets, attachments, and exo abilities which you can use to change the course of a skirmish. I wasn't really able to pull off anything particularly impressive during my limited playtime, but I'm looking forward to learning how to play the game with style.

With Advanced Warfare, something curious is happening: it seems like Call of Duty is no longer resting on its laurels, like Sledgehammer games is hungry to remind people why Call of Duty is king. Where last generation was defined by other franchises trying to ape Call of Duty, it looks like the time has finally come for Call of Duty to learn from other games. You can see some Crysis in the exo suit. The floatiness is a bit Halo. The mechs—that's obviously a bit Titanfall. I'm sure some people will still be cynical about this, but I get the feeling that Sledgehammer games is eager to move Call of Duty forward—literally, given that this sequel is going to the future. I'll leave you with the most telling segment of my interview with the game's multiplayer director, Greg Reisdorf:

Kotaku: What's been the most surprising part about working on Advanced Warfare?

Reisdorf: "The response has been overwhelming positive with everybody that's played the game—"

Kotaku: "...were you not expecting a positive response?"

Reisdorf: "Well, it's Call of Duty. There is a stigma there, it has a long history, and it's easy for people to hate on it. And to be able to put in a lot of time into it, three years of my life...I could have gotten a law degree! But you know what, I chose to make a game. And, just to see people [reacting so positively to it] is awesome. I love that."

Advanced Warfare, as exciting as it is to play, did not blow my socks off. It's another shooter, and it's not like we have a shortage of shooters. All the same, I'm feeling hopeful and optimistic about where Call of Duty is headed, and it's been years since I've been able to say that.

A couple more screenshots for your enjoyment:

http://kotaku.com/this-year-call-of-duty-might-actually-be-different-1619268684

 

[duncanthetall]

Them nikkaz jacked Larryfall kinda hard don't ya think?

I said that before, but as someone told me, jetpacks aint exactly a new thing. This games been in development for a while too. Anyways, jetpacks are dope as fukk so I wont complain

I wish they would implement the wall running in titanfall also lol. That's the only reason why I still play that game. The maneuverability is fun as shyt and its nuts when you get out of a sticky situation just by shinobiing from wall to wall

 

[Champion]

COD stans.

 

[duncanthetall]

Hands on from a dude who supposedly hated the last few

http://www.technobuffalo.com/2014/08/11/call-of-duty-advanced-warfare-multiplayer-hands-on/

First, let’s talk about me. I’m the guy who hates Call of Duty. I’m the guy who literally wrote the series off a few years back and hasn’t played a game in it since. I’m the guy who “hung up” on the Call of Duty.

That article, by the way, drove angry Call of Duty fans out of the woodwork on Twitter. I was messaged for literally months after it ran about how I’m terrible at the game. That, folks, is the sign of a passionate fan base.

Why, then, was I the one TechnoBuffalo staff member sent out to a preview event? That answer comes two-fold, really. First, the invitation was of the non-transferable variety. That means it was only sent to me, and I couldn’t tag another writer in. That’s the logistical reason. The moral reason? I’m ready to give this series another shot. As crazy as it sounds, that comes because of Kevin Spacey’s involvement with the single player.

I wrote about that, too.

So, Activision flew me out to San Francisco for the event. They put me up in a hotel, served me a beer (Back in Black from 21st Amendment) and some hors d’oeuvres (the buffalo chicken thing was awesome). I sat in on a 30 minute presentation about what’s new in the game, and then I took a seat in front of a monitor and played Advanced Warfare‘s multiplayer for several hours.

Just so we’re clear here, Activision made a point to tell me to be honest about the game. I want to get that out of the way alongside our transparency about being sent to this event on their dime. The guideline they sent out with the directions to the event even has a line that reads that they “require…your reviews and posts to be truthful and accurate.”

As delicious as the beer was, it didn’t convince me to love Call of Duty. I’m a skeptic here. Perhaps more skeptical than most. The staff at the site knows it, too.

When the event finished and I called Sean (our Editor-in-Chief), he was shocked to hear my thoughts regarding the game’s multiplayer.

I told him I kinda loved it.

Power Changes Everything, My Opinion Included
The presentation that preceded our hands-on time with the game kicked off with a brand new trailer. That trailer is the same one that premiered for the world today. This is it.

After all the boost jumping, sliding and murder went down in the clip, the words “Power – Changes – Everything” flashed on the screen. That phrase, that marketing tagline, is a perfect frame for Advanced Warfare.

It applies to the story about guns for hire and their eventual control of society that makes up the main game’s plot, sure. But it also nails the premise of what Sledgehammer Games has done to the multiplayer side of the equation.

“With 100,000,000 players, what do we need to do to make this game better?” That question was asked during the presentation. The core answer to that question lies with the Exo.

The story of Advanced Warfare gives combatants in the game Exoskeletons. Those “Exos,” as they were called during the presentation, lend a brand new way to move to Call of Duty.

When the gameplay trailer for the title premiered a few months back, the collective hive mind of the Internet concluded that Activision took Call of Duty and made it more like Titanfall. The double-jumping jetpacks sort of make that conclusion an easy one to assume. Unfortunately, it’s off by a large margin.

Yes, you can double-jump in Advanced Warfare. They call it “boost jumping.” However, it’s a much faster double-jump that rockets rather than slowly boosts. You can’t run on walls, you can’t call in giant titans (though one scorestreak allows for a mech) and there’s no killing grunts for points.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is like Titanfall because you can double-jump. It’s also set in the future. And there are guns. Let’s leave the connections there.

The movement in Advanced Warfare is nothing like Titanfall. In fact, as the “Power Changes Everything” tagline indicates, the movement in this game is almost completely different than it’s been in any other Call of Duty.

You can boost jump, right. You can also boost slide, you can dash and boost away from gunfire, you can activate a directional boost and dash in mid-air, and you can boost towards the ground for a slam style melee attack.

I knew I was playing Call of Duty, but it felt more like an arena shooter mixed with Platinum Games’ Vanquish than the follow-up to Ghosts. Every encounter with enemies was faster and more frenetic, and that pacing made the entire round more exciting. I wasn’t lulled into sneaking or sitting in a corner in order to pick off opponents during Hardpoint (yes, Hardpoint is back, more on that in a bit). The pace pushed me to blast around each of the four maps we played, and that meant a whole lot of movement and a whole lot of gunplay.

I was actually having a lot of fun, in spite of my recent go with Ghosts in an attempt to research leading up to this trip.

Pick 13, Supply Drops and Virtual Lobbies
Remember Pick 10 from Black Ops 2? Advanced Warfare offers Pick 13. Scorestreaks come back with that, and you’ll even be able to modify your rewards. Instead of just having a remote turret that costs 600 points to use, you can make it a remote rocket turret for 700 points. That means that my UAV scorestreak reward might play differently than yours thanks to the way that I modified it.

There’s also something called Co-Op scorestreaks. This is a new offering that I actually didn’t physically have a chance to try during my time with Advanced Warfare, but they did show it off on stage. A player will call in a scorestreak reward that another player on their team can join in on. The example they gave here was two gunners on a Warbird rather than one. It’s a way for lesser skilled players to see high-end scorestreak rewards.

A whole lot can be changed and tweaked with your loadout. You’ve got your primary weapon and its slots for scopes and grips, of course. The same goes for your optional secondary weapon. Don’t want a secondary? Clear it, and you’ll get a combat knife. You’ll also have your scorestreaks and their add-ons. Then you have perks like faster movement or being invisible on radar.

Even further, you’ll have Exo Abilities that let you do something unique with the left bumper. That bit is very Halo: Reach, if you ask me. You can activate, basically, armor abilities. A battery powered riot shield might appear, or you’ll be faster for a limited time. Those Exo Abilities are temporary, too.

Which brings us to Supply Drops, or, as Sledgehammer dubbed them, “Call of Duty loot.”

Supply Drops are dished out for time played and completing in-game challenges. You might get a unique gun, character customization stuff or new equipment. Some are rare, some are not. Each drop is meant to randomly help all players, not just the amazing ones. That even goes for one-time use stuff. That crazy hard to reach scorestreak reward you’ve never been able to try because you simply aren’t good enough? You could land that in a Supply Drop and use it during a match without hitting the score.

Each weapon features 10 customization points. If you add up all of those points on each weapon that will be available at launch, as they told us, you’ll get 350 different weapon arrangements. Basic math tells us we can expect 35 weapons, then, when the game releases.

When you combine those supply drops with progression unlocks, you’ll be able to tweak and personalize your character from the ground up. You’ll be able to change gender, gloves, hair, the face, helmets, pants and a slew of other aesthetic bits on your character. As you wait for the next game to load up, you’ll be able to cycle through each player and see what they look like, complete with whatever crazy rare gun they have. That virtual lobby is a big change from the list of gamertags we see today.

They dropped a rather large stat on us, by the way. If you add up all the character customization, weapon types, unique perks, perk add-ons, Supply Drops and everything else, you get “literally billions of unique player combinations in Advanced Warfare.” That’s sort of nuts.

Wait, There’s A Game Mode That Sounds Like Quidditch?
Actually, yes, there is a game mode that sounds like quidditch. It’s called Uplink, and, according to Sledgehammer, it’s been one of the studio’s favorites during development. A single ball is dropped onto the map, and your job is to grab it and put it through a floating hoop. Each team has a hoop, and points are rewarded for scoring. The points double if you jump through the hoop with the ball.

Honestly, it was hilarious each time we played.

We also played the standard set of Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and, hooray, Hardpoint. Hardpoint is a capture and hold game that features a constantly changing capture position. It’s a good way to force the combat into completely different parts of each map at a strong pace, and that makes it a dynamic and welcome mode that went missing in recent entries.

The other new gametype we heard about was Momentum. This is a new take on the War mode from World at War. There are five capture points on the map, but only one of them is active. Once you have that point held, all your kills and future caps are worth a lot more points as the momentum bar grows. Should the enemy grab a new point, the bar will reset. This rewards streaky play, obviously.

The Maps I Traversed
I’m not sure I’ve genuinely liked a set of maps from Call of Duty since Black Ops. So far, Advanced Warfare is off to a good start.

Over the course of the evening, we played on four announced maps. I’ll give you a quick description of each here and now, but the screenshots that litter this post come from all four of them. They were each distinct in look and feel, so that’s a big positive.

My favorite of the bunch was easily Ascend. The map is the site of a space elevator. It’s clean, hard and futuristic. Honestly, it looks like a scene out of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, just without all the gold. Now, the awesome bit about this map beyond its verticality and three lane design? It has a specific scorestreak reward. Kill enough, and the map’s defense system turns on and a set of turrets targets your opponents.

Then there was Riot, a map I placed in first or second on every single time we played. Fans of Ghosts will tell you that the prison map has already been done, but here it is again. The prison has been bombed out in the center, and you’ll fight in the rubble there or along the building’s perimeter. I loved using the boost jump here, especially to gain a height advantage on groups duking it out below. I quickly piled enough points up to call in a scorestreak reward that played like Gears of War‘s Hammer of Dawn.

Then came Defender, the map that played host to rounds of Uplink (that’s the Quidditch-like game mode). This map sits below the Golden Gate Bridge, and it features the crumbling site of what seems to be a bomb shelter or defense position. Graffiti and urban decay settle in on the locale, and that sets it apart from the similarly color-schemed Riot. The twist here is that a tsunami rolls in during the match, forcing opponents to boost the heck out of the way. Once the water sets, you can actually swim in it.

Finally, my least favorite of the preview was Biolab. I liked the map’s futuristic snowy setting a lot, but there were way too many choke points for my liking. We were either hurling grenades into the tight yellow tunnel or fighting next to these weird cylindrical things the entire time, either way, the combat felt focused to such a small point on the map that it never really felt diverse. Another group of combatants, though, and that might change.

The Lingering Excitement
The most telling sign that I actually enjoyed my hands-on time with Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare has to be the lingering excitement that’s left. Here I am, putting the finishing touches on this story on Monday morning before publishing, and I’m still sort of bummed that I have Ghosts at home instead of Advanced Warfare.

At the potential expense of a good relationship with the makers of Call of Duty, I totally admit that this is a franchise I’d grown tired of and completely given up on. This is me saying I’m excited again. I will likely have a ton of fun with the competitive multiplayer when this game launches on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on Nov. 4 of this year.

It’s different. Isn’t that what we’ve been clamoring for ever since Modern Warfare 3?

I will be getting this on PS4 most likely.

 

[Point Blank]

It looks kinda fun actually.