Infinity Ward sticks to its guns amid Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 minimap fury

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s first beta weekend is over and dusted off, and developer Infinity Ward has let players know what changes they can expect to see when it returns.

The highlight here is Infinity Ward’s explanation of Modern Warfare 2’s Division minimap, which has been criticized by some players for not providing enough information on enemy players.

Unlike some previous Call of Duty games, Modern Warfare 2’s minimap only shows enemy player points when a UAV is active. This means it does not display red dots when enemy players sprint or fire their weapons.

In their blog post, Infinity Ward explained the design decision for Modern Warfare 2’s minimap:

“The design reason is that we don’t want to punish players for firing their guns. We also want players to actively search for where a shot is coming from instead of just going straight to where is the point on the minimap. We are continuing to gather feedback on how the game is going in regards to this topic.”

Infinity Ward’s comment here has certainly put the cat among the pigeons within the central Call of Duty community, with subreddits and social media lit with opinion on the rights and wrongs of this approach.

Some of the negativity around Modern Warfare 2’s minimap has to do with feelings that its design helps so-called casual Call of Duty players have a better time in multiplayer. As Infinity Ward alludes to in its commentary, players can no longer focus on a red dot on the minimap to kill. This potentially gives casual players more leeway when moving to shoot.

Here is an excerpt from the reaction:

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As with most features of Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer, the minimap shouldn’t be viewed in isolation. Many factors go into the pacing and feel of the shooter, including, for example, the loud sound of footsteps, which Infinity Ward says will be muted a bit:

“The first week of the MP beta’s footstep audio was very loud, giving players long-range directional information about enemies. For weekend two, we have a few changes coming. We’re reducing the range of footstep audio for different player movement states (jog, sprint, and tactical sprint). This will help mitigate the cost of moving around the map. The second change is that enemy and friend footsteps are now separate. This should help players better understand what happens as things move across the battlefield. More details to follow.”

Elsewhere, Infinity Ward discussed Modern Warfare 2’s controversial new perk system. Under the new system, the most powerful perks can only be used in a match after a set period of time.

“We’ve seen various comments about the Perk Package system,” Infinity Ward said.

“Some players love it and some think it’s an unnecessary departure from the original system. We think it’s a good overhaul of how perks work and general match progression. We’ve also balanced the ultimate perks to be more powerful as you earn them later in the game.We will continue to test throughout Beta Weekend Two, including greatly accelerating the earn rate of these to see how players are responding Our goal remains to improve the flow of all perks before launch.

Coupled with the new perk system comes a significant change to Dead Silence: what was a popular perk in previous Call of Duty games is now an in-field upgrade that works on a cooldown in Modern Warfare 2 .

Again, Infinity Ward is sticking to its guns here:

“Dead Silence is another hot topic as many players have expressed that they would like to see it as an advantage instead of an upgrade on the pitch. We believe it is important for the health of the game that rushers cannot move at high speed without consequence. Dead Silence as a terrain improvement balances freedom of movement and combat predictability.”

While Infinity Ward isn’t budging on some aspects of Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer, it’s confirmed some welcome changes in response to player feedback.

The developer said it will improve target tracking by reducing muzzle smoke opacity and increasing muzzle flash visibility, and it’s also looking at other ways to visually differentiate between enemies and friends outside. standard nameplates above the heads of opposing players (something old Call of Duty games had).

And on the beta’s confusing UI, Infinity Ward said improvements are coming ahead of launch.

Martin and I had a chinwag about the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 beta, if you’re wondering what we think.