The dispute over Call of Duty features that has been raging for years is boiling up – the developer’s reaction splits the community

The Open Beta for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is now over and many players are looking forward to the release. However, there are parts of the community that hope that the developers will improve some things. In a statement, Infinity Ward has responded to the testers’ feedback, but that doesn’t go far enough for some players.

What do the developers say? Infinity Ward, the studio behind Modern Warfare 2, thanks all testers who have played the beta for the new shooter in the past few weeks in a blog entry.

They discuss some points about which there is still disagreement in the community. The developers are happy about the positive feedback on the third-person mode, the ground war and invasion modes, and the weapon smith. With other features one wants to improve again.

Check out the new features of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 in the video here:

What is the community saying? Parts of the community are angry, some players feel ignored. They complain that the developers promise to act on feedback but then ignore it. They feel like the things that bother them the most are not being addressed by the developers.

A reddit post (via Reddit.com) by User u/DigitalVeil926 got 467 upvotes in a very short time and was commented on more than 300 times. The mood in the comments is mostly negative.

the user and/abkramer comments, for example, that unfortunately the developers are not interested in the gameplay feedback of the testers. With a beta you can save on paid tests and still get enough bug reports and input on the user interface.

the user u/akuakud complains that most people who participate in a beta just want to have fun. The majority are not interested in giving productive feedback.

the user u/Gizmo210688 complains that the developers should notice when people keep criticizing the same things. the user u/purrc agrees with him. He says it’s crazy that both Reddit and Twitter are criticizing the same things.

The conflict runs along the line between casual and hardcore gamers fighting over the overall direction of the Call of Duty series. the user u/BalizaDeCorsa1991 tries to mediate. He believes that hardcore gamers, while enthusiastic about providing feedback, are by and large a minority. Nevertheless, he hopes that the developers will deal intensively with the feedback, regardless of which direction it comes from.

Too loud, too quiet, too hard?

The dispute revolves around these features: Players criticize MW2’s audio design. Some sounds are too loud, others too quiet. The fans think there is an imbalance here. The steps of the opponents are too quiet, those of the team members too loud. Controversial streamer Dr. Disrespect, for example, likes to complain about Call of Duty’s bad sound.

There was also a lot of feedback on enemy visibility. Infinity Ward promises to make improvements here, but for many fans that doesn’t go far enough. In the past there were skins in Warzone that made you almost invisible.

Another stumbling block are the lobbies and the SBMM (skill-based match-making). Many players would like these features to be removed. It is currently the case that the lobbies dissolve after a game.

For the next round, you will then be packed into a lobby with new random players. Because the lobbies dissolve by themselves after each round, it would be almost impossible to find players you would like to play with for a longer period of time. Incidentally, our colleague Maik Schneider thinks so too: There is one thing that annoys me about Call of Duty matchmaking.

Parts of the community feel ignored

That’s why fans seem so dissatisfied right now: It’s quite normal for criticism to be given before a major release like CoD: Modern Warfare 2. However, it should give the developers food for thought that the fans have been expressing the same wishes over and over again for some time.

After all, that’s what many fans are currently complaining about: Infinity Ward would send out a lot of surveys and ask for feedback on Reddit or Twitter. However, they would simply ignore feedback from long-time players.

But many fans are also siding with the developers. They had a lot of fun in the beta and are rather bored with the constant discussion around this or that feature. Such discussions would happen with every release of Call of Duty and it would make it impossible to satisfy every single player.

What do you think? Do you miss a feature in Modern Warfare 2? Or can you hardly wait until the game is finally released? Feel free to share your opinion in the comments!

Casuals vs. hardcore players: Modern Warfare 2 alienates its biggest fans in order to be more successful