Call of Duty: WWII Private BETA (A Noob’s Perspective)

CODWWII-Road-to-BetaThanks to someone on Twitter, I got access to the Call of Duty: WWII BETA over Labor Day Weekend. When I say a ‘Noob’s Perspective’ I mean in the sense of COD Multiplayer. I’ve played every COD since the jump, but I only pick the game up for the campaign portion — I always like to beat the entire game at the hardest difficulty and then I’m usually done with it. I’m a big Destiny & Halo Multiplayer guy, so I don’t play COD online at all.

Since Destiny 2 doesn’t come out till tomorrow night I had this entire weekend free to test it out… and, this may have been the longest I’ve played COD online in the history of the franchise.

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When it comes to any multiplayer shooter, I’ve always had a knack for FPS my entire life and I’m always, at least, respectable. In the Halo & Destiny world I’m definitely in the Top Tier of players out there– but not this weekend, not this, not at all.

I couldn’t seem to get a handle on anything the first couple hours. I was dead last on every team I was on with K/D sitting under .5 every single time. I started playing around with the different Divisions and the one I took to the quickest was Airborne — which I wish I would have started with because I could have leveled up the weapons faster.

What did I do to start? I immediately, out the gate, went with the Mountain Division because sniper is what I’m always the best at, but, I couldn’t land shots if my life depended on it.

So, here I am finishing every game a little better playing inside the Airborne Division. I’m leveling up my SMG’s (I like PPSH & Type 100 the best) to really do some damage with perks that increased my accuracy, range fire rate and damage — but something still wasn’t right because I was dying the same ways repeatedly.

Here are the ways you die:

  1. Shot in the back
  2. Shotgun to the face
  3. Shot in the back
  4. Shot in the back
  5. Shot in the back
  6. Shot in the back
  7. Shot in the back
  8. Head to Head Loss
  9. Grenade
  10. Shot in the back

I was getting frustrated because out of every 10 deaths, 1 of them was head to head, maybe two if I was lucky.

The rest of the time was essentially getting shot in the back, shotgun to the face or a random grenade. Every time the map was close courters I would finish dead last with a laughable K/D ratio, but — after putting some time in I would finish with stats like 17/18/19 kills & 8/9/10 deaths with the maps that were open — which meant I was getting more head to head encounters (which I thrive at). There is too much of a close combat focus on this game that doesn’t seem right, at least to me.

cod_ww2_beta_giveawayThe question really became, how do I “get gud?”

I’m absolute trash, frustrated, having little to no fun unless I landed on an open map, where I, at least did respectable. The hit-box is just awful, you can’t really lock on to people unless you tailer it a certain way. If you aimed down sights while someone was sprinting, you couldn’t move quick enough to engage, so you’d have to toggle out and zoom back in for a chance. I tried a couple games where I didn’t aim down the sights and I was way better than I was when aiming due to this problem.

Even more than that, the H2H encounters were met with jumping around and dropping down to the floor while shooting. Turn the corner, jump — shoot — hit the deck. Rinse, repeat. Players are amazing at this aspect. I’m assuming this is a COD Multiplayer standard to dodge shots? I’m that much of a noob not to know that if it is.

Still, 75% of the time I’d die, it was in the back — WTF!! I tried to play at a slower pace watching my corners, focusing on pings on the map — NOPE! same thing was happening. I tried staying in a pack, focusing on teamwork first, work as a unit — NOPE! same thing was happening. I tried so hard to neglect getting repeatedly shot in the back to no positive outcome. “My back is open. Find me. Kill me.”

To prove this point, every time the game ended you’d get some highlight of someone wrecking 3 or 4 people, usually FROM BEHIND. Am I right? How many times was the highlight someone killing 3 or 4 people where they had a chance to shoot back? Rarely.

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So to sum up the multiplayer in the COD: WWII BETA:

  • Run around and get shot the back.
  • Have little head to head encounters — which when the occurred, the hit-box didn’t work properly or the “jump — shoot — hit the deck” tactic ensued.
  • Throw grenades at random — you never know what can happen.
  • Play with SMG’s only.

You can think I’m just trash online with this game, which is probably true, but the core aspect isn’t there for me and I couldn’t adapt to the way this game was played.

Closer to the end of the BETA I even watched a couple streamers on Twitch play and the majority of their kills were from behind — the “jump — shoot — hit the deck” is a normal tactic and they were complaining about not being able to line up shots as well — as well as time to kill, balanced weapons and other things.

I’ll still be buying this game for the campaign, you just won’t see me online — especially if it’s still like this.

Cheers,

Matt.

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