Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s first beta weekend is done and dusted and developer Infinity Ward has been updated Players can expect changes when it returns.
The highlight here is Infinity Ward’s interpretation of Modern Warfare 2’s divisive mini-map, which has been criticized by some players for failing to provide enough information about enemy players.
Unlike some previous Call of Duty games, Modern Warfare 2’s mini-map only shows enemy player dots when a UAV is active. This means it doesn’t display a red dot when enemy players sprint or fire their weapons.
In his blog post, Infinity Ward explained the design decisions around Modern Warfare 2’s mini-maps:
“The reason for its design is that we don’t want to penalize players for firing their weapons. We want players to actively find the source of the gunfire versus traveling directly to where the dot is on the mini-map. We’re continuing. How the game plays in this regard. to collect his response.”
Infinity Ward’s comment here certainly set the cat among the pigeons in the Call of Duty community, with subreddits and social media alight with opinions about the rights and wrongs of this approach.
Part of the negativity surrounding Modern Warfare 2’s mini-maps has to do with the feeling that its design helps so-called casual Call of Duty players have a better time in multiplayer. As Infinity Ward points out in his comments, players can no longer zero in on the red dot on the mini-map for a kill. This potentially gives casual players more breathing room as they move around shooting.
Here is a snippet of the response:
A classic mini-map and a ninja perk feel just like Call of Duty’s DNA
I don’t understand why they were absent in the two latest modern warfare games.
This is part of the making of CoD gameplay.
— MW2 OG (@TheMW2Ghost) September 18, 2022
Infinity Ward officially refused to change the mini-map to bring back the normal mini-map after 35% of beta feedback.
Aren’t they listening already… 😅
— Modern Warfare II Informer (@CODMW2Informer) September 20, 2022
12 years of traditional mini-maps and now it’s suddenly a problem. Really amazing
— Sam (@xFleXy_) September 20, 2022
It’s really disappointing that they won’t do anything about the mini-map.
“We don’t want to penalize players for firing their weapons” doesn’t make sense.
— KARNAGE Clan (@KARNAGEclan) September 20, 2022
Like most features of Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer, the mini-map shouldn’t be considered in isolation. There are a number of factors that factor into the speed and feel of the shooter, including, for example, loud footsteps audio, which Infinity Ward says will be a bit less:
“Footstep audio was very high during week one of the MP Beat, giving players long-range directional information about enemies. We have some changes coming for weekend two. We’re reducing the range of footstep audio for different player movement states (jog, sprint, and tactical sprint). . This will help reduce the cost of moving around the map. The second change is that enemy and friendly moves are now separate. This will help players better understand what’s going on as things move around the battlefield. To follow.”
Elsewhere, Infinity Ward discusses Modern Warfare 2’s controversial new perk system. Under the new system, more powerful perks can only be used in a match after a certain period of time.
“We’ve seen mixed reactions to the Perk Package system,” Infinity Ward said.
“Some players like it and others think it’s an unnecessary departure from the original system. We think it’s a nice shake-up to how perks work and the general progression of a match. You’ll earn them after the match. We will continue to test throughout, including sharply accelerating its earning rate to see how players respond. Our goal is to improve all benefit flows before launch.”
Coupled with the new perk system is a significant change to Dead Silence: a popular perk from previous Call of Duty games that was now a field upgrade that works on cooldown in Modern Warfare 2.
Again, Infinity Ward sticks to its guns here:
“Dead Silence is another hot topic as many players have expressed that they want to see it as a perk rather than a field upgrade. We believe it is important to the health of the game that racers are not able to move at high speeds without consequence. Silence as a Dead Field upgrade is freedom of movement. and strikes a balance between the anticipation of war.”
While Infinity Ward won’t be taking on some aspects of Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer, it has confirmed some welcome changes in response to player feedback.
The developer says it will improve target tracking by reducing the opacity of face smoke and increasing the visibility of face flashes, and that it’s looking for more ways to visually distinguish enemies and friends beyond the standard nameplates above opposing players’ heads (some previous Call of Duty games have).
And on the beta’s confusing user interface, Infinity Ward says improvements are coming ahead of launch.
Martin and I had a chinwag about the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 beta, in case you were wondering what we thought about it.
