Well in all honesty, there was a period last month where we hadn't played the game for like, 2 weeks straight, maybe a little longer. The matchmaking is a big part of the problem, and namely there's a lot of dumb shit with the connections like randomly dropping out of games, constantly getting put into games where you have virtually NO chance at winning unless Nukes returned, having the game drop people off your team and NOT fill it back up while the other team is full, and end up losing the match when you had a huge lead on them. That's the kind of stuff that makes the game unfun. The matchmaking is garbage right now because of all that, and I don't like the "skill-based" matchmaking they have implemented so far. It seems that all the players who are supposed to be around my "skill level" all get put on the other team while I get stuck with all the noobs. When you're constantly losing matches and you're the best player on the team after like 5 straight games, all of them losses, something is wrong. 6 players of equal skill level going up against 1 of me, who's likely to win that matchup? Because if you're the top scoring player on your team and the rest of the team does jack shit, it might as well have been 1v6. Bleh.
Here's an example of some stuff that has happened to people (not us) that had to be addressed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOPqW1gMhPYBut the game is absolutely brilliant when it works and it's truly amazing. The game has had its first major patch merely a month after release. This is the fastest that any COD game has received a major patch afaik. The game isn't perfect or anywhere close because the matchmaking still sucks, but weapon balancing has been tweaked a bit, and other weapons feel more relevant. Treyarch is doing much better post-support launch than IW did with any of the MW games. The noobtube problem never got addressed in MW2 and it took them over 6 months to address weapon balancing issues in MW3. When IW started running into those legal issues or whatever with Activision, it's clear that the quality of the MW series was on the decline, while Treyarch's titles have gotten better with each iteration. I have more faith in Treyarch than IW at this point.
But back on topic, the game does feel better now that the patch has been released and it's a step in the right direction. Recently, we've been getting back into the game a bit and we've been having short gameplay sessions every so often with some good results. Either we've gotten better at the game, or we're getting more competant teammates, or something but for me I've been having more success recently than my time pre-patch. That or we're just using much better setups. I've been wondering when you'd hop into our sessions as well because it's better to have more people you know on the team because it's easier to communicate than with a bunch of randoms.
Overall, I like this COD more than MW3 by a longshot. The spawn system, while not perfect, is nowhere NEAR as bad as MW3's (probably due in part to Orbital VSAT). One perk doesn't shit all over everything like Assassin did, the 10 point system and how they split up perks feels like a much better balancing mechanic than what they've been using up until then. Weapon balancing has been addressed within the first month, which shows they are paying attention to the usage statistics. Score streaks are a much better implementation of killstreaks because there's no Support streaks where the worst player in the lobby will shit all over your hard work because he went 18-40 and got an EMP. Also, NO last stand or death streaks of any kind. The series FINALLY got this right. Enough of this rewarding someone for playing like shit.
lol oops I've gone on for too long here. tldr; my only issues with the game are the horrible matchmaking and the lag compensation. Everything else is fine and I can say that with confidence. At this point during MW3's lifespan I was really skeptical. I do intend to hit master prestige in this game (10th prestige, max level) so long as they continue to support the game and don't lazily add in more prestiges.
I'll be getting out early on Friday, so if you're ok with doing a stream then, let me know. I suggest Tempered get on the stream setup since we both put up big numbers and he puts out a lot of streaks more consistently than I do.
