Call of Duty: Dying to Prestige

Call of Duty games are a bit of a Catch 22.  FPS games tend to lend themselves to gamers like me who have limited time to play games because they are like bite-sized chunks of game play.  If I have just 30 minutes to play I could jump into a campaign and play through a level or two and have a very enjoyable and complete experience.  Many other games (Skyrim, Kingdoms of Amalur, Mass Effect) require dedicated sessions of at least 2 hours to really feel like you are connecting with the game and accomplishing anything.  It’s difficult to become invested in the story and game when you have to remind yourself what the back story of the quests were when you last left off.  Call of Duty, however, lends itself to quick game play.  Point your gun at the other moving things on the screen and pull the trigger.  That’s all you need to know.

And then you go online.

Online Call of Duty is a different beast – deceptively so.  On first glance, it’s the same point and shoot, run and gun experience you have in the single player campaign.  But as you dig in, you quickly realize that surviving online play will take a lot more of your time than you anticipated.  Trying to compete with 12 year olds who do nothing but play online from when they get out of school till they go to bed (or in the summer pretty much non-stop), can quickly become a challenge in frustration.  Let’s face it, dying over and over within 10 seconds of spawning is simply no fun.  Additionally, as someone who likes playing many genres of game, as a generalist it becomes very difficult to compete at all with a specialist who only plays Black Ops or Modern Warfare 3.

Some people would recommend only playing with your friends to make for a more even and enjoyable experience.  I do agree this is the best scenario, but as a gamer whose primary focus is family and experiences that are less virtual, it can be difficult to schedule the time to get enough people together to make the experience fulfilling.

Instead, I choose to focus on how to make the general online gaming experience with the Call of Duty franchise not only survivable but enjoyable.

Fortunately, Infinity Ward is thinking of us limited time gamers of limited skill.  WIth Modern Warfare 3 they have introduced the Strike Package concept.  Strike Packages basically take the place of the traditional Killstreak rewards.  In previous games, as you racked up kills, you could receive bonuses in the form of air strikes, radar, predator missiles, etc.  The catch was, when you died, your kill count was reset.  This led to many games where you played against a particularly good player (or even team of players) who could rack up killstreak after killstreak and literally have a flood of missiles, bombs, etc. annihilating you over and over again, leaving no chance to even move from the spawn point.

My skill level is such that I could typically get no more than 1 or 2 kills in before I died and my count toward the killstreak was reset.  Since most killstreaks required a minimum of 3 kills, I very rarely ever got to experience the fun others had with the various killstreak options.

Modern Warfare 3 introduces three Strike Packages:

Assault:

This works the same as the old killstreaks.  Your count is reset upon death and the options available are oriented around offensive capabilities (Predator Missiles, Attack Copters, etc.)

Support:

A nice new option, the kill count does not reset on death, meaning that you can build up toward the killstreak item throughout the entire round.  Additionally, when playing in objective based games (Domination, Demolition, etc.) actually doing the objective (capturing the Domination point, etc.) will earn you a point toward the killstreak.  So you can earn points by both killing enemy players and completing objectives.

The killstreaks available tend to be more defensive in nature, but also lend themselves nicely to the limited gamer play style.  Things like Ballistic Vests to give more armor to you and your teammates, as well as a Recon Drone helicopter that you can use to tag  enemy players so that they show up on the radar for you and your team.  The nice thing is, experience points can be attained through the use of these just like the Assault killstreaks lead to points from kills.  Any time a friendly player picks up your Ballistic Vest you receive experience points.  Whenever a friendly player kills an enemy who was tagged with your Recon Drone you receive experience points as well as credit for an Assist.

My assist count has gotten HUGE with the Recon Drone – one of my favorite items!

Specialist:

The Specialist option is interesting and one that I haven’t quite used yet.  Instead of a killstreak in the form of an external attack or defense item, it awards you additional perks.  As you may know, in each loadout (class build), you can select up to 3 perks to assign to the class.  Specialist allows you to be awarded additional perks to give you more advantage on the battlefield.  Similar to Assault, any death will reset the count toward receiving the killstreak reward

Playstyle and Loadouts:

The above new Strike Packages definitely gives a benefit to the limited player to still be able to get enjoyment out of the online experience.  But it still comes down to the player to play in a way that maximizes the enjoyment.  To that end, there are a few tips that I’ve found really work for me to be able to enjoy my online session:

1. Create a class that works to your strengths.  The Classes, or Loadouts, are very important.  I’ve found that for me, I work the best with Assault Rifles and SMGs.  I have not perfected the ability to work with Shotguns, or Large Machine Guns.  And I’m lucky to get even 1 kill with a Sniper Rifle (I tend to not be patient enough to wait for the kills and move slowly around the field).  I also focus on perks that give benefits toward aiming (Marksman, Quick Draw) as well as hiding from the UAV and Advanced UAV (Blind Eye, Assassin).  Getting these maxed out into Pro are a MUST to really survive because otherwise you are a big target for those who can rack up the Predator Missiles and Sentry Guns
2. Select a Game Type that works for you.  I have found that I am simply not that good at Team Deathmatch.  When the focus of the game is simply killing the other player my performance drops.  Objective based games, however, are ones that I can actually attain respectable scores in and are very enjoyable.  When the focus of both teams ends up being on a specific area, it makes it easier to get around the map because you know where the hotspots are going to be.  It also makes it easier to rack up the points as mentioned in the coverage on the Strike Packages above
3. Review the player list.  I have noticed that looking at who is on the list in the game can be very telling.  If you see a lot of Prestiges or high-level players and you’re new, you know that your experience might be one of dying a lot.  Also, and I cannot stress this enough, if you see a lot of gamers on the list who share the same Clan Tag (the portion in brackets before their name) exit the board immediately and try again to get a different match.  The Clan Tag means they are part of the same group or party and are playing together.  They are most likely coordinating their movements and talking with each other and will also have most likely planned out attacks for each game board and play style.  Typically there are enough that they make up the entire opposing team.  Any team made up of randomly matched players who aren’t talking will stand no chance in this situation.  Better to avoid it at all costs
4. Don’t use headset.  Do use Mute.  Let’s face it, most people you encounter online are annoying in the best case and abusive as a typical case.  For the most part, you won’t hear other players during the round unless you are wearing a headset.  The best thing to do, don’t bother with the headset unless you are playing with your friends and know the people who are also online.  Playing with the headset leads to 12 year olds throwing racial slurs at you or just making noise because they think it’s funny.  Or it coul lead to adult players calling you a Noob (despite your level 75) and telling you that you suck because a unified clan killed you 3 times in a row.  better to just avoid that. Keep in mind that you can also mute any player.  So if you do decide to use a headset, don’t be afraid to just mute anyone who is annoying you to silence the morons.  To mute, just press Back to bring up the score list, cursor down to the player who is annoying you and press A to activate mute
5. Play Drop Zone.  Found under the Community Playlist, Drop Zone is a great game mode that has two teams trying to take control of an area that moves around the board every minute.  You take control similar to Domination – just have a player in the area with no enemy players and you take control.  The hook is, as you stay in the drop zone, you accumulate care packages that are randomly generated.  So as a player who is in the drop zone you can rack up the killstreak rewards.  Incidentally, there are no normal killstreak rewards, so the only way to get them is to take over the drop zone.  If you are on the team that doesn’t currently have the drop zone, it becomes a fun game of launching grenades and missiles into the drop zone to take out the players who have to remain there to hold onto it, or are distracted by trying to pick up the care packages that they have earned.   They also added in the ability to pick up care packages you have earned faster than care packages earned by others on your team or by the opposing force.  So it can be very interesting trying to pick up the care package when there are bullets and grenades raining down on you.  Even more so when the drop zone has moved and there are still care packages littered about.  A word of warning – wait until the care package has stopped moving because it will kill you if it touches you and is still bouncing around

I hope that this give you some good assistance on how to enjoy the Call of Duty experience.  In the end, it’s best to just approach it like any other game.  If you are enjoying yourself, then the results and numbers are meaningless.  Don’t focus on Kill to Death ratio or leaderboards.  Focus on just enjoying your time with the game.  After all, isn’t that why we are gaming in the first place?