Infinity Ward sticks to its guns amid Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 mini-map furore
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s first beta weekend has been completed and the dust has settled, developer Infinity Ward has renew Players can expect to see changes when it returns.
The highlight here is Infinity Ward’s interpretation of Modern Warfare 2’s divisive minimap, which has come under fire from some players for not providing enough information on enemy players.
Unlike some previous Call of Duty games, Modern Warfare 2’s minimap only shows enemy player points when the drone is active. This means it won’t show a red dot when an enemy player sprints or fires.
Infinity Ward explained the design decisions surrounding Modern Warfare 2’s minimap in its blog post:
“The reason for this is that we don’t want to punish the player who shoots the gun. We also want the player to actively search for the origin of the gunshot, rather than going directly to where the point on the minimap is. We continue to gather feedback on how the game plays on this topic. .”
Infinity Ward’s comments here certainly put the cat among the doves in the core Call of Duty community, with subreddits and social media giving their opinions on what was right and wrong with this approach.
Part of the downside of Modern Warfare 2’s minimap has to do with the feeling that it’s designed to help so-called casual Call of Duty players enjoy a better time in multiplayer. As Infinity Ward hinted in its review, players can no longer zero out the red dot on the minimap for a kill. This may give casual players more breathing room while shooting.
Here is a snippet of the reaction:
The classic minimap and ninja skills are like the DNA of Call of Duty.
I don’t understand why they were absent from the last two Modern Warfare games.
That’s part of what makes a CoD game.
— MW2 OG (@TheMW2Ghost) September 18, 2022
After 35% of beta feedback was to restore normal minimaps, Infinity Ward has officially declined to change the minimap.
They don’t listen anymore… 😅
— Modern Warfare II Informer (@CODMW2Informer) September 20, 2022
The traditional minimap for 12 years is now suddenly a problem.It’s inexplicable
— Sam (@xFleXy_) September 20, 2022
It’s really disappointing to see that they don’t do anything with the minimap.
“We don’t want to punish the player who shoots” doesn’t make sense.
— KARAGE Clan (@KARAGEclan) September 20, 2022
As with most features of Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer, the minimap should not be considered in isolation. A number of factors can affect a shooter’s rhythm and feel, such as loud footsteps, which Infinity Ward says will be slightly attenuated:
“The first week of MP Beta had very high footsteps, giving players long-range directional information about enemies. In week two we have some changes. We are reducing the range of footsteps for various player movement states (jogging, sprinting and tactical) Sprint). This will help reduce the cost of moving around the map. The second change is that the footsteps of enemies and allies are now different. This should help players better understand what’s going on on the battlefield. More details follow.”
Elsewhere, Infinity Ward discussed Modern Warfare 2’s controversial new perk system. Under the new system, more powerful perks can only be used in matches after a certain amount of time.
“We’ve seen all kinds of feedback about the Perk Package system,” said Infinity Ward.
“Some players liked it, while others felt it was an unnecessary departure from the original system. We thought it was a nice tweak to how perks worked and the overall progression of the game. We also balanced out the ultimate perk, make it stronger”
In conjunction with the new perk system is a major change in Dead Silence: perks popular in previous Call of Duty games are now live upgrades running on cooldown in Modern Warfare 2.
Once again, Infinity Ward stands by itself here:
“Dead Silence is another hot topic as many players say they want to see it as a Perk rather than a Field Upgrade. We believe that for game health, rushers can’t move at high speeds without consequence. Dead Silence as a Field Upgrade Creates a balance between freedom of movement and predictability in combat.”
While Infinity Ward won’t budge on certain aspects of Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer, it did confirm some welcome changes in response to player feedback.
The developers say it will improve target tracking by reducing muzzle smoke opacity and increasing the visibility of muzzle flashes, and it’s also looking at more ways to visually distinguish between enemies outside of the standard nameplate above an enemy player’s head and Allies (previously in Call of Duty games).
Infinity Ward says improvements are coming to the beta’s confusing UI.
Martin and I debated the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 beta, if you’re wondering what we think about it.
