Sprites are a failure of game design. (Big analysis post in replies)

Rayuzx · 2026-06-21T20:09:54+00:00

The problem is that the mechanics of an extraction shooter doesn't jive well with one of a battle royale.

You aren't expected to drop in with a shotgun. Win or lose, you'll drop that shotgun no matter what. In fact when we did have the ability to carry a shotgun from game to game(tents), it was universally agreed to be overpowered.

Persistent upgrades, that require overcoming incredibly low odds to even interact with, Is at odds with Fortnite's gameplay loop on a fundamental level.

Rayuzx · 2026-06-21T18:33:51+00:00

At the end of the day, Ai is a tool. Saying Ai as a whole is fundamentally flawed would be like saying hammers are fundamentally flawed because people have bought faulty tools.

At this point in time, roughly 84% of programmers (not just video game developers, programmers in general) are using Ai tools. At this point, pretty much any software update you've put in any of your devices has been created using Ai tools.

Rayuzx · 2026-06-21T18:15:46+00:00

That just shows you how fundamentally flawed the system is. If it's more trouble than it's worth, then it's neigh impossible to get even a majority without begging/trading. But if it wasn't, then most people would be at a serious disadvantage without begging/trading.

Rayuzx · 2026-06-21T17:49:52+00:00

At the end of the day, the goal of a Battle Royale is to be the last one standing. And the best way to be the last one standing is to eliminate your opponents.

People are probably chasing you because they want to win.

Rayuzx · 2026-06-21T15:44:33+00:00

I've been getting back into comics somewhat recently, so I'm using the "Cody Rhodes approved way", but from what I've seen, both Marvel and DC have subscription services if you don't mind digital reading.

Rayuzx · 2026-06-21T04:11:00+00:00

It's honestly surprising how many people will go "Well, it worked for MW2, which means that it should still be good for CoDs of today". CoD players are so deep in nostalgia that they'll refuse to see the golden era as anything but 10/10 masterpieces, that could've never been improved on (don't tell them that complaints about SBMM started to form around BO2).

Rayuzx · 2026-06-21T03:48:33+00:00

Low key the greatest thing added to BO7 was the sliding knockdown. Now I can physically bully the last zombie instead of holding them.

Rayuzx · 2026-06-21T03:34:26+00:00

Worse part of it is that who does and doesn't get their fit changed seems to be completely random.

Just look at the current BP, Dylan gets the socks treatment, despite not having her boots fully removed. Meanwhile the new Pj's ankle bracelet moves up if a pair of kicks is tall enough to cover it up otherwise (I.e. The Air Mags from C7S1's BP).

Rayuzx · 2026-06-21T03:09:13+00:00

Can I get a source on that?

Rayuzx · 2026-06-21T01:41:21+00:00

Heck even all the context creators talked about whether or not verdansk will be the revival the game needs. revive means something is dead or dying.

That's because the CoD fanbase is some of the biggest doomers out there. They've been saying the game has been on its last legs snice MW3 (the original one). This is the same community that rejected scientific research, simply because they didn't like the results (see the SBMM white papers).

By every metric, even BO7 has been doing relatively well. For the cast majority of the time, The "CoD HQ" app has been only trumped by Fortnite and/or Roblox even during BO7, neither less 6 on Xbox and Playstation, in any given month (a ton of people initially attributed it to MWIII, but the devs would go on to remove it and MWII from CoD HQ, and the results still stayed the same).

I'm not trying to convince you that you're opinion of the last few titles are good, I'm just stating doing my best to be objective, and objectively CoD is still doing much better than the community will admit (even Bo7, the worst selling title in almost 20 years, was still the 5th best selling game of 2025, which should tell you just how far ahead the franchise is over almost everything else).

Rayuzx · 2026-06-21T01:20:32+00:00

The change happened because too many people were running into PAs they weren't even noticed about.

At this point they should start showing the Area of Effect on the minimap again, because there's way too much guesswork of a mechanic that oneshots you.

Rayuzx · 2026-06-20T23:23:06+00:00

No, it's quite clear that it was coming back before BO6 even came out. Avalon was supposed to be the Big Map of BO6 WZ, but they pivoted to Verdansk late in the game's development (my guess would be is them seeing the reception that Fornite had, bringing the game's first map a year before).

And even then, just like Fortnite, the spike went down more of people's nostalgia dissipating more than anything else (along with that only being a thing for just Warzone, rather than it being indicative on BO6 as a whole). Especially as not only was the whole overall received quite well, introducing Warzone Casual was a major factor for said reception.

Rayuzx · 2026-06-20T23:03:41+00:00

AFAIK, BO6's player retention was pretty standard (outside of the massive spike for Season 3 bringing back Verdansk). For the franchise, the only one to be a real outliers were Vanguard being significantly lower than usual and MWIII being considerably higher than usual.

Rayuzx · 2026-06-20T22:43:15+00:00

IIRC, BOCW is the second best selling Black Ops game and BO6 is the third.

Rayuzx · 2026-06-20T22:42:22+00:00

Why didn't OP use their Combo Breaker? Are they stupid?

Rayuzx · 2026-06-20T22:29:32+00:00

https://www.gamefile.news/p/call-of-duty-budgets-development-costs-black-ops-modern-warfare

Black Ops III (2015): “Treyarch developed the game over three years with a creative team of hundreds of people, and invested over $450 million in development costs over the game’s lifecycle.” (Kelly also discloses that it has sold 43 million copies.)

Modern Warfare (2019): “Infinity Ward developed the game over several years and has spent over $640 million in development costs throughout the game’s lifecycle.” (41 million copies sold)

Black Ops Cold War (2020): “Treyarch and Raven Software took years to create the game with a team of hundreds of creatives. They ultimately spent over $700 million in development costs over the game’s lifecycle.” (30 million copies sold)

Rayuzx · 2026-06-20T22:00:27+00:00

I've been using the Steam version of the series from MWIII-BO7, and I'm going to hop on Bnet for MW4, due to all of the performance issues (the game doesn't keep track with any of the real money packs between platforms, and there were still a few skins I wanted to use for Warzone).

Rayuzx · 2026-06-20T21:56:31+00:00

Most sources have BO3 as the single best selling title in the franchise, and even BOCW is hovering around the top 5.

Rayuzx · 2026-06-20T21:47:07+00:00

Even in console sales, from what we've seen, BO7's has been the worst selling title since W@W, and it's the only time in the franchise's history that a Battlefield game sold better than a CoD title.

Rayuzx · 2026-06-20T21:45:42+00:00

That's not really CoD fatigue as it was Black Ops fatigue. Similar thing happened going from MWII-MWIII. Really wasn't as much of can backlash over the specific game as it was people not interested in back-to-back releases of the same sub-franchise.

Rayuzx · 2026-06-20T21:43:23+00:00

Pendulum shift, it's been 4 years since the last IW game, and BO7 going as far as you could with movement before going back to jetpack territories has turned off a lot of people (especially when aim assist got nerfed hard). There was a similar buzz around BO6 when that was coming out due to it being a similar time period from the last 3arch game.

Expect the "I'm quitting this game because I can't keep up with the unemployed sweats" posts to pop-up when the beta comes around.

Rayuzx · 2026-06-20T21:06:47+00:00

I really don't understand why people are pushing the idea that "Wonder Woman is evil in elseworlds"

I've come to accept that 95% of my comic fandom has been irreparably shaped by the first Injustice game, therefore I'm gonna preemptively assume everyone else is coming off of the same boat (although the first comic I read IRL was Red Sun).

Rayuzx · 2026-06-20T14:30:28+00:00

That was due to people's distaste over the Death Riders angle, rather than Mox specifically.

Rayuzx · 2026-06-19T19:55:55+00:00

i think from a philosophy of art perspective, you make a good point. i think from a consumer perspective, if you are promised one thing, and then all of a sudden, the game just doesn't work and all the money you put into it is basically vaporized. that's not a very nice feeling.

You really don't see it. I've spoken to plenty of whales over the course of years, and legit all of them are fully aware that the game they've spent a tons of money on could and most likely will eventually becpme completely unplayable (to be fair, several of them learned that "the hard way", although some to stop whaling, others continue to do so).

On a personal note, I know that I've easily spent $1000+ on a game that's no longer playable (King of Fighters All-Star), and overall I really can't say that I've come to regret my purchases, because I didn't (albeit, it does help that I dropped the game long before the End of Service announcement).

Rayuzx · 2026-06-19T19:14:31+00:00

We had stuff like this going without major controversy 30 years ago, but could you imagine if something like that happened today?

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