CoD 4 patch analysed
The ever-brilliant Community Manager “fourzerotwo” has been blogging away about the recent patch for Call of Duty 4, responding to questions regarding the patch, such as host migration issues as well as host selection issues.
Firstly, everyone loves the new Kill Cams, and rightly so. They add a new level of fun if you don’t solely play Hardcore, and often provides a hilarious insight into your death. The adjustment to the ACOG scope and the sniper rifles have been well received too.
Host selection has not though. Many gamers have complained that the system in place favours US gamers, meaning for those across the world, like Australians, more lag appears to be present:
Right now the host migration and optimized server selection is designed to choose the host with the best connection determined by a robust QOS (Quality of Service) check (regardless of region). That doesn’t mean it will always choose a US player, but I understand that the odds are typically stacked against some of our more remote players to be selected as host. We’re currently looking at options available that might help out with those odds and I’ll keep you updated on it.
Host Migration is the biggest thing. Apparently it was never meant to be in-game as we had all hoped and we mis-read the text. Mis-lead would be a better call, but it’s suggested that this won’t be altered; you will always just drop back into the lobby with the same people as before, but with a different host. How disappointing.
Clan Tags have lost all symbol possibilities now. Previously people were able to put “Right Stick” or “Left Stick” into their clan tag (it looked rather cool actually), but IW removed all symbol abilities to counter the exploit. This upset many who used legitimate symbols such as letters with accents, however this is apparently by design and probably won’t be fixed. A few other “wonky” issues have arisen which are being looked into though.
Quick Mute is a delightful addition, although gamers have questioned why this is not available in the lobby, or why it isn’t carried over into the lobby. Sadly there was no way to integrate Quick Mute with the Xbox Live mute options in time for the patch. However given that you have more time to mute in a lobby, it’s not a huge issue. Despite this, the in-house DLC build of the game has this feature, so a future update will likely rectify the situation.
It’s also been made known that no weapon statistics were adjusted, so if a weapon seems more powerful it’s only a figment of your imagination sadly. So no more spreading rumours about that one.
The replies given may not be the ones many had hoped for; the Host Migration issue will be the most maddening issue, since Treyarch managed to get at least one thing right with CoD 3 with excellent in-game host migration. It’s still great to see developers keeping in touch with the community though, and “fourzerotwo” encourages readers to continue to send feedback on anything, so hit up his blog now if you have a burning issue.
My second xbox just broke whilst playing call of duty online.
OMG TOLD YOU HALO WAS BETTER LOL
No but srsly, sorry to my team, they just lost a key player.
I wish there was a way to see me when I throw crazy granade threw a window down some stairs and get a TrIple KILL! I have seen some pretty amazing tosses, but that means I died
I wish CoD 4 had the replay option like Halo 3. Twould be tizight.
that it would
that would be wicked, ya got to give it to bungie for including some killer match making features
I don’t know how the patch is.
Right when I downloaded it and started to play, I got RROD.
Appairently it wasn’t very good for you then…
Same here. Hold me
what kind of “symbol exploit” do they mean?
As I said in the article, people were able to put an image of the thumbstick into their clan tag, and in big letters it said either “LS” or “RS”. It actually looked pretty cool.
It looked annoying as hell and took up too much space.
werd … it was funny at first, but it literally took up like half the screen.
everyone who plays cod4 knows how uncool that shit looked ross. if you had a teammate standing in front of you with left stick right stick graphic, YOU COULD NOT SEE WHAT WAS PAST HIM. having even a single player on your team like that was annoying as hell.
Thats a bit of an exaggeration.
Hmm I never played when the person doing it was a team mate so it didn’t bother me as it may have done some of you.
LOL at COD…All I have to say is 11 days til Vegas 2!
http://xbox360.ign.com/la.../rainbow-six-vegas-2.html
zing! oh my god, you are on fire.
11 days? i better start hustlin..
LOL at COD…All I have to say is haddock!
LOL at Vegas 2. This one gonna last more than a week?
I’m glad the symbols are gone. Some of the smaller ones were creative and kinda cool, but the stick thing was just dumb and annoying, IMO.
The host migration is a joke. I had to go out of town just as the patch was released, so I had several days of anticipation for somewhat uninterrupted play, only to face the familiar pains of a dead game due to a hosting quitter, still.
This is not host migration. Host migration would stop the game only long enough to select a new host and then continue, filling the empty slot as needed. Returning to the lobby is bullshit. I don’t care about remaining connected to random people AFTER THE GAME…I want to game to continue.
Yes, the new kill cams are cool, but I honestly don’t care about the fluff. The gameplay is what’s important, and this patch did nothing to fix the core problem.
Failure.
You got everything you wanted as a kid didn’t you?
Personally I think once you get past the connection issues and actually get into the game, COD3 has the best network code quite possibly EVER! I love how they do client side hit detection which takes away from any host advantage.
Totally agree, this patch really did not fix anything at all. Like many of the above, i thought host migration was also going to be in-game. Like “FF” i have no interest in going back to a lobby of random people. Its especially annoying when your winning a game and then the host suddenly leaves. I mean, why is IW being stubborn about this or why did they even think going back to lobby was a better solution.
As for the quick mute, honestly, it was a good addition but it needed to be added in the lobby as well and i was extremely disappointed this wasn’t the case.
I hope this won’t be the last patch for CoD4.
Yes dummy there will be another patch coming out for COD4 by 3/18 its gonna be called Rainbow Six : Vegas 2
That patch is gonna suck.
what is up in this post patch world. i have fat bandwidth, and i am close to LA, where they likely do centralized ping analysis, so i get chosen as a host about 90% of the time after the host quits. so why the fuck does it lag like a dead goat even when i am the fucking host now? the lag is both visible, through enemy skating and position jumping, and noticeable in the kill cam. so you guys in earope complaining about how this game is now fucked for you, don’t worry, it sucks here now too.
and what is up with the spawn positions? is it possible that they added nine new spawn positions per map, and i am still constantly getting spawned into airstrike deaths, and looking down the barrels of all sorts of pain. i personally find that very hard to believe. yes, i believe nothing has improved, as far as i can tell, except POSSIBLY the barret hit detection.
and yes, my bandwidth is good, my connection is well maintained, and there is never anything else online when i am playing. the net code we are being subjected to is sub par, and that is too bad, because when the game works, it is extremely fun.
CoD3 and excellent in-game host migration?? lol…
at least it migrated the game to a new host, and didn’t just start it over on a new map. with a new host. the same as if it had ended.