Quote (ericswanson_19 @ May 5 2016 03:47pm)
I think I have 8-10 days played and was one of the few who really liked the game.
First, the majority of CoD players play respawn game modes, whereas I only play Search and Destroy, so I perceive how the maps play a lot differently, because I don't have to deal with spawn points. Even though I didn't play respawn, I can tell you that the maps don't play well for it, however I think they play great for SnD, minus the obvious shitty ones, which I try to avoid. Voting and backing out of games helps to avoid the shitty maps. The size of some maps, small or big, have lots of long lines of sight, plus some maps were pretty basic when you broke down the lanes of traffic, so overall respawn played very campy. The game had a huge problem with the ghillie suit, so all dark spots of the map, especially maps with plants, were just awful to deal with..even without the ghillie suit.
For SnD players it was also shit at first. The game mode itself wasn't in the game for the first month. We had to endure Search and Rescue, which is terrible..just terrible. Also, like AW, kills only gave 250 points in SnD, rather than the regular 500 points, but this was later patched. BO2 introduced 2 minute round lengths, which people enjoyed, but Ghosts reverted back to 2.5 minutes, so sometimes games would drag on. Ghosts also had a 20 second countdown between rounds, which was eventually patched to 5 iirc.
The game had tons of patches as well that didn't get fixed until 3 months into the game's life cycle. There was an animation glitch with the riot shield, which made them essentially invincible. IEDs were OP as fuck until they were nerfed. They are hard to see on dark maps, especially Flooded where they were completely under water. Dead silence was eventually patched so the slide was silent and so I couldn't hear my own footsteps. There was a ton of weapon balancing as well. I love the SMG variety in Ghosts..I have a 2.3+ KDR with every SMG.
People also weren't fans of the scorestreaks. They seemed underwhelming for people who just want to mow people down with a chopper gunner. I thought they were just fine.
Ghosts did introduce a 'mute all but party' feature, which was amazing, but they also added a shitty feature that didn't let you switch classes during a killcam, which is annoying as hell when it comes to class swapping for rounds of SnD.
The hive mind played a role in the distaste for the game, plus a lot of people quit before the major patches drastically improved the game. Also, something people don't think about is the game dropped around the time Youtube was forcing you to make a G+ account, which everyone hated. Anyone who created or watched CoD videos on YT had to endure that bullshit, so that hatred kind of latched onto Ghosts. Also, this was the first CoD on the next gen console, so a lot of people lost friends to console switching, plus the xbox one interface at first was just garbage..complete garbage. It still isn't as good as the 360, but it's better. Both PS4 and xbone had issues with chat adapters iirc, especially xbone, so people weren't able to talk to their friends, which is a huge part of the experience. Most people had to use skype, which sucks if your headset doesn't allow it.
Competitive CoD took a huge hit with Ghosts. Domination is the worst game mode to watch and is campy as fuck. The removal of hardpoint, which is amazing to watch was a really dumb move. The oracle in caster mode, which outlines everyone on the map was a really awesome addition though. They also had a shitty version of league play called clan v clan, which doesn't isn't as good as LP.
Lastly, I don't think people enjoyed the fast time to kill (TTK), because they think that helps campers. I think it works the opposite. If I have better reactions, then I can easily turn on a camper or jumpshot/dropshot before the camper is able to compensate.
The reasons I liked Ghosts is because it had infinite sprint, which could also be used with dead silence. This was the first time in 4 years (MW2) since this was possible. BO1 had infinite sprint, but couldn't be used with ninja. The hit detection was also the best in 4 years (MW2). BO1 had terrible hit detection and MW3/BO2 had sub par hit detection as well. I virtually never died to lag in Ghosts. If I died, it was because I fucked up. Ghosts has shitty secondary weapons, unlike the OP-as-fuck pistols from BO2. Ghosts didn't have shock charges, sensor grenades, target finders, or mms. Ghosts had proper class balance in regards to perks, such as blast shield, tac mask, quickdraw, and especially stalker. In order for someone to any of these perks, they would have to give up something major. Stalker is a camper perk, which provides an incentive to ADS a route. A lot of people didn't have quickdraw in their class, so a level of decision-making would need to be used to determine if you should aim in, hip fire, strafe, dropshot, jumpshot, knife, or run away. Also, not every person had blast shield and stuns, so explosives and tactical grenades actually worked most of the time, so they actually had a point to be in the game, unlike BO2 where everyone had flak and tac mask to counter shock charges, stuns, claymores, and C4. There wasn't an RC or hunter killer..fuck those gimmicky scorestreaks. The bomb locations for SnD were placed really well for the most part. I enjoyed the slide animation. I loooved the first map pack. Those maps played amazing for SnD..friggin' one of them was a remake of MW2's Scrapyard.
I never used amplify once..never equipped to even test it out. I only achieved it once or twice from gambler early on. I never used the ghillie suit. I only had 100ish kills with the remington. Never used thermal LMGs. Despite gimping myself hugely with these decisions, I still have a 2.5X KDR, because the game rewards the better player more often than not.
I will say that the 360 version of Ghosts does play better than the xbone version. I feel like the 360 had better connection. I saw some lag on the xbone.
TL;DR - Doesn't play well for respawn due to the maps, plus some maps were shitty for any game mode. People didn't like the fast TTK. People didn't like the scorestreaks. People stopped playing before major patches. Game came out when YT forced G+ account, so YT creators/watchers weren't happy. People lost friends to console switching, plus the interface for the xbone was terrible. People weren't able to get chat adapters to actually talk with friends.
Thank you very much for taking the time out to write that review. It was thorough and hit all major points. Now I see why there was mixed reviews. I ask because after MW2 I kind of stopped playing and I'm just now getting back into COD. So thank you very much again.