4 Things Activision Needs to Fix Before The Release of Infinite Warfare
There’s no question that Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare has a big hill to climb. Fans have come out by the thousands to express how unhappy they are with the direction the franchise is taking. Over the past weekend, we’ve spent a fair amount of time with the Infinite Warfare beta and came up with four things that Activision needs to address before release if they want the game to succeed. That is if they can get past the wall of haters blocking the way first!
1 – Spawns
As we all know spawns have been an issue for years, issues that have only become more prevalent in Advanced Warfare and Black Ops 3. Unfortunately, even with high hopes that these would be fixed, they are still just as much a problem as they have always been. For example, while playing domination the enemy team is able to spawn trap you and it takes so long before the spawn is switched. While domination is known for this, there are other spawning issues in the other game modes, such as spawning beside the enemy or out in the open in sight of the camping snipers. Some of the spawns are so obviously bad that they fail to make sense. It would be nice to have spawns that didn’t end in death half of the time upon the full game release.
2 – Server Issues/Lag
When the beta first started there were obvious server issues such as getting kicked out of games or random system errors that would completely close the application. These server issues happened without notice and could occur during a game, or while matchmaking. While there was no noticeable server crash, it seemed like the servers just could not keep up with the game traffic. There were also a lot of problems with the lag. Even when using a strong hardwired connection there were times when the game would stutter or freeze altogether. As you ran around the map you would often pass teammates running on the spot. The worst part about the lag was that even if your internet connection was great, the Call of Duty servers chose to make someone with a poor connection the host of the game. In turn, this meant that many of those players had absolutely no problem picking you off from across the map at their sniper perches.
3 – MatchmakingÂ
Building on the previous point, the servers often seemed unable to find a lobby in the game. There were times where the matchmaking took way too long to start after finding a lobby with enough players, or you would be moved into a completely different lobby to start a different game. On top of this, in typical COD fashion, you would also be thrown into matches without any time to change classes or view your adversaries. On that note, another problem with the matchmaking was the skill and level pairing between your team and the enemy team. For example, your team is made up of players below level 5, while the other team is made up of players who are level 15 and above. As this causes team inequality from the start, the games were often very one-sided and frustrating.
4 – Slow animation
As far as the graphics of Infinite Warfare go, it is the same as what we have come to know and love about the Call of Duty franchise, however, the animation is slower in this game than ever before. Although a main focus of Infinite Warfare seems to be the fast paced gameplay, the animations slowed this down completely. From throwing a grenade to pulling up weapons, and even using combat rig payloads, they all seem to be in slow motion. While the controls seem normal, this slow motion animation takes away from the controls and gives them a sluggish feel. A prime example is the use of the payloads, which are the specialist abilities, where your regular weapon would change to the payload weapon slowly, leaving you at a disadvantage against someone using a regular weapon. While there is no reason the payload weapons should be overpowered against all other weapons, the slow animation takes away the slight advantage to using the payload weapon. You should not have to use a perk, such as dexterity, to speed up the actual controls and animation to a normal speed.