Player counts are way up comparatively to my post a month ago, around 5000-ish, guess that super early sale down under $40 got more people to bite. An acquaintance sold me his PC copy for $10 and lunch after he decided to stick to console this year (one of those types who would get it on both) and didn't care too much for it.
I've only played a couple hours in MP, and I...actually kinda like it. More than Black Ops III for sure, though I underplayed that. Maybe more than AW. Maybe it's because I was able to get into Domination matches easy and even considered trying other modes due to this.
Maybe it's because in the one match I was running along the wall when this other guy comes around the corner running along the same wall and we had a firefight and jumped off and back on to finish it going the opposite way.
The movement in this is way closer to Titanfall, except, like AW and BOIII, there's barely anywhere to use it. Sure, you can take these long alternate paths with it in some maps, but that's it. In the maps that it's actually useful in they're too cramped and don't have any kind of vertical space other than the walls. And they run the same kind of looping pathways we've seen since MW3. (Yet oddly, only half the people use.)
You can iron sight or scope while wallrunning without needing the perk from BOIII.
I ran along the outside of this one map and came up flanking and unloaded from the wall and the entire team freaked out and got wiped out by me and my team (who were attacking normally).
The reworking of the nades and perks and scorestreaks I think has done a good job of balancing out things. The personal radar is amazingly useful.
Seems "polished" in terms of running well, connecting and stuff compared to well, Ghosts forward which have always seemed to be held together by duck tape and on the verge of randomly crashing out. Lots of useful options too. And I still think IW is their best studio for just plain texture density. MW3 and Ghosts retained it and so does this. Just lots of places where they could easily just repeat a texture but instead add distinct and detailed stuff to it. AW had a bit of it, but BO has stuck more to displaying similar textures over large areas. Titanfall (the first one) had a lot of it in the first game, where there was no real reason but they textured this other wall to be completely different and thus more density. Also, it's not like just for extra, BOIII throws a lot of random textures onto some parts of some maps but it stays within the same palette range which is kinda ugly.
It's still diminishing returns, at some point they did need to sit down and redecide what the focus of one leg of the series needs to be and this was the ideal time. And they didn't. It's a smaller scale Titanfall, without the titans. Which is fine and there's some fun to that, and I prefer this rig system to BOIII's heroes or whatever and the movement to AW's along with some of the other side stuff. The teams aren't distinctive anymore though, which has been an issue for some time, Titanfall and Battlefield do the slight color differences better.
But then, I paid like $15 for it again, like I wanted to with a "starter pack" like last year.
Also, I was tinkering with the bots to try out some things and I think they actually are not the worlds worst opponents for the first time in ages in a CoD game, though you do need to put more on the other team, they understand the objectives much better than before and try to take cover properly, they flank, they use their abilities, grenades and scorestreaks. Also, their understanding of the movement system is arguably funnier the way it is than if they knew how to use it. They wind up places and don't seem to know how to get back, including from outside the map. Or just up on a bus.
I know, weird thing to even talk about but I've been kinda amazed at how Bot AI in these shooters have degraded so much since like the DoD bots. Even Turtle Rock and Splash Damage who came into being because of their Bot AI tech (which in one case led to L4D) had some really amazingly bad AI in Evolve and Brink.
Maybe BOIII just has a higher unlock level to achieve. BOII kinda had a wall you hit and then it started up again. Or course, I could just play Titanfall 2. Or Overwatch. Or Doom. And cue up the level up music on my laptop when necessary.
Biggest crime? No Steam Trading Cards.
