News - Call Of Duty: Warzone 2i (2023) Beta Impressions: Uncharted Territory
The only notable new component is tax stance, which is kind of a confused feature. I think it's a middle ground between hip-fire and full-on ads. Though it's bound to right click or left trigger like ads so you have to toggle which one you want which kind of defeats the purpose of it I quickly came to the determination, that it had no value I basically only ever saw it during slides where it then transitions to full-on ads after the slide animation is complete, it's barely any more accurate than hipfire yet requires most of the time and effort of ads which is already quite fast here I don't know what its purpose is supposed to be in the sandbox and it feels like Sledgehammer just wanted to add something new for the sake of adding something new sort of like how they added blind fire and Vanguard, outside of that anomaly the prevailing theme Here With The Changes is a lack of penalty the complete opposite of last year's design philosophy that made players commit to their actions, it's also overall a very fast game as you can likely see in the footage in fact just about as fast as it could possibly be without resorting to True enhanced Mobility like Titanfall or Advanced Warfare.
I think it's too fast for a boots on the ground game, and the changes to Gunplay feel like a regression from MW19. But the real issue here is how all those changes interact with the ttk, which is long really long apparently like cold war long you have all these players running around at break neck speed with the ability to slide in Thruster likee bursts with a large Health pool which means long fights with highly erratic enemies it's punishing to keep up with aim wise especially on keyboard and mouse I continue to maintain that high ttk does not mix well with fast gameplay everything about this game is telling you to go fast and be aggressive but you're then punished by this High ttk, which severely limits your fighting potential in any engagement that's not 1 V one starting with full health it's also a distinctly.
Black Ops flavor within the Cod universe, and there's a strong dissonance to have it here in a Modern Warfare game where it's historically never been; it's by far the single element I disliked the most, and by simply adjusting it to be more in line with the last two MW games. I think my enjoyment level would go up exponentially.
Supporting systems
Last year's timed release tier perk system has been replaced with what they're now calling gear, basically an attempt to physically represent the attributes given by perks it's a cute idea and it does seem to have changed the flavor of the perks this time around for example faster weapon swap speed is granted by a pair of gloves while dead silence is granted by a pair of boots, most of the stuff you would expect is here like starting with more ammo or reducing killstreak cost by one, but there's also some stuff that further speeds up the game, either outright with stat buffs or by enabling more action, such as reloads while sprinting.
I wasn't expecting it, but this is probably the most competent and well-thought-out piece of design in MW3. All of the attributes are actually useful without being too over the top, and the simplicity of their implementation is a welcome change after MW2's very weird take on perks. The gunsmith will largely continue to work as it did in MW2, with five attachment slots and attachments that carry over between multiple weapons with the same interwoven unlock paths.
As I said last year also making a return really the biggest impact on weapon customization will not come from the gunsmith itself but from the significantly reduced ad time, which means you don't have to spend so many attachments building for speed, which has previously been the priority in 6v6 multiplayer.
Interestingly, this beta held back on kill streaks more than any other Cod beta I think I've ever played. The few featured were all very boring and surprisingly underpowered given the ramped-up pace of gameplay. I'd say the most notable new edition was the guardian, which is an area denial tool that naturally plays best in objective-based modes.
The highest streak available was the Juggernaut at 8 kills, and he's really weak this time around, coming equipped with a semi-auto shotgun and a riot shield. I managed to get it a few times, and it didn't feel special.
Maps
All the maps featured in this beta except for the big team ground war stuff, which I opted to skip this year, were remakes of maps from Modern Warfare 2. Even before this game was officially announced we knew these Maps would be an integral part of the package but what I didn't realize is that at launch they're the only part of the package the Acclaim for OG MW2, is basically Universal and while I didn't play it quite as much as Cod 4 or World At War its maps are undoubtedly iconic not just for COD but Shooters as a whole that being said it's hard to get excited for a new $70 game consisting only of them and I can't think of any precedent for something like this happening outside of literal remakes and remasters, which in some ways might have been preferable, even if you love it and it's exactly what you want you have to admit that it's a bad look and ripe for criticism how do I feel about playing on these maps in 2023.
They're fine, I guess, while this new game's movement and gunplay are both pretty different from what Cod was in 2009. I don't find the interaction between the two to be particularly toxic, but I don't find it to be particularly compelling either. There's definitely some minor changes to the maps; I haven't played MW2 since probably 2010.
But things like the addition of interactable doors and additional points for clambering are clearly new since they were not possible with 2009's; mechanics FLLA definitely benefits the most from that second part, and I'm happy to see the emphasis on verticality make a return after it was notably absent from MWW's maps at launch.
I must have forgotten about Skidrow at some point in the last decade, though, because every match I played on it was a bad time. There are tons of narrow lanes and choke points, and the flow isn't good at all, especially in objective-based modes. I will say that all these maps have been redone thoroughly from an artistic and graphical perspective.
Everything is extremely attractive, both in macro and micro detail. The high-rise definitely stands out. They've gone with a time of day where the sun kind of envelops the map with a warm glow. It's really nice, and I appreciate the effort on that front, but it's still hard to get excited about these map remakes when it's literally all there is, and their inclusion feels kind of random considering that this isn't a remake or remaster, or even all that spiritually similar to 2009.
Conclusion
The biggest concern I have about MW3 was not addressed by the beta, and that's the fact that all MW2 and War Zone 2.0 content is crossing over into this game on day one.
With the sheer number of weapons alone, it's a balancing nightmare for MWWs. Weapons were designed and balanced around a totally different style and pace. I can't even fathom how it's going to play out, and it makes it impossible to say how this game will actually play in practice on day one. Modern Cod games always have the tendency to devolve into madness as the year goes on with DLC content, but the launch period always has some semblance to Purity MW3.
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