Like most highbrow gaming aficionados, I hate Call of Duty. Not because of the gaudiness of its big-budget corporate hype, that its formula hasn’t significantly changed in the last few years, the awkward militarization boner it induces in some people, and the questionable geopolitical stances of its single-player campaigns.
I hate Call of Duty because its multiplayer is so damned addicting.
It’s fast-food gaming, where the ingredients are all questionable, yet the combination is so potently addictive that I can’t put it down. I have to keep eating.
And for several days, I did eat, while getting absolutely nothing productive done as I played the PlayStation 4 Black Ops III beta test. I learned a few things during that time, that I’d like to share with you before the Xbox One version rolls out. Maybe it’ll help you survive a few extra seconds before dying in the game.
There’s just one thing I won’t be able to teach you: how to turn the gawd-damned thing off.
If I draw first, I win
Above: The only way I am losing this exchange is if my cat kicks the RJ45 out of my PS4
It’s crucial to keep in mind that Black Ops III is a “low combat” first-person shooter. It’s actually the least fight-intensive series in the genre that I’ve ever played. What do I mean by low combat, though?
In Black Ops III, the primary goal in a 1-on-1 gun battle is to see my opponent first, and then draw my weapon to fire before they do. If I am successful at beating them to it, I gain a ridiculous advantage over my opponent. This is often the case in most first-person shooters, but the actual fighting in Black Ops III is so quick and lethal that every other gaming-skill I may possess for that fight is tossed out the window.
This doesn’t mean that if I draw first, it’s an auto-win situation, but the advantage is so much in my favor that my opponent’s only hope is if I screw something up. Perhaps I get overzealous and botch the auto-aim, or one of their friends happens to flank and kill me before I can finish unloading. If I locate and fire on an enemy before they do, it’s completely my fight to lose.
Since gaining the jump on my opponent is 90 percent of the fight in Black Ops III, everything is designed with pros and cons surrounding this concept: the weapons, the equipment, the scorestreaks, the level design — everything. This is the most important factor to keep in mind while playing. Always consider what, how, and when to gain the advantages of speed and sight … and how to keep others from getting it.
You don’t need UAV to tell you where everyone is at
Above: This screen has tons of information.
Like other Call of Duty titles, Black Ops III’s UI contains a minimap in the upper corner. I’m afraid I’ve discovered a bug, however, that Treyarch may not be able to fix. You see, I can actually figure out where the enemy is located on the map without calling in a UAV.
The source of the exploit? The human brain.
Black Ops III gives its users a lot of information on when something is happening, where it is happening, and who it happened to. Someone has to be running around with all stealth based perks and a silencer on their gun to not pop up on the mini-map. Even then, those players still leave evidence that they’re in the area.
When a friend dies nearby, a skull icon marks where they went down for a brief moment. The minimap shows not just where teammates are but also which way they are looking. If one of those blue arrows that’s nearby happens to suddenly disappear, that’s a major clue that something bad went down in that area. A kill list on the bottom left even lists how someone died (was my teammate killed by some sort of equipment or a gun?).
Where my team is spawning is also a major chunk of vital information. If I spawned on the North side of the map just a few seconds ago, but team mates are spawning around me towards the West, that’s telling me that there are enemy combatants wandering around my last spawn point. If I wind up dying and respawning on the completely opposite side of the map in the South, that means two things: the North side is overrun and, even more important, that’s where my opponents are spawning in.
What works for me also works against me. If I gun someone down, I know damned well that I am spotted. Even running around with all stealth perks and knifing people in the back from the shadows, at least one person knows I am in that area (because I killed them). That doesn’t count anyone that suddenly noticed their friend missing on the mini-map (or their skull icon).
Flow-‘n’-Flank
Above: Be disruptive.
When I mention flow, I’m talking about the natural progression of all of the miniature conflicts moving throughout the map. The action from both teams is like two opposing sources of water, rushing into a stream with a bunch of rocks and channels as obstructions. It can sift through these pathways and eventually crash into each other.
Everyone playing is being manipulated by a combination of game design and level layout to take certain routes and engage in specific areas. In modes like Domination, capture points are great motivators, but even Team Deathmatch is heavily influenced by these factors.
This is where learning to use all of the small positional clues that I mentioned comes into play. I have two choices when I’ve determined where most of the action is taking place: I can flow down stream with my team, or I can gamble going solo and becoming a disruptive force.
Going solo means I am trying to move away from the main choke points where the gun fights are taking place, and trying to find a way to cut through the opposing team’s line of movement. I’m essentially trying to be a one-man flanking machine.
This isn’t exactly a secret tactic, but it can be an extraordinarily strong way of doing things in Black Ops III’s “no where is safe” level design. No matter where a player is, there’s always at least two directions that they can’t see, where an enemy player can kill them. A player that can tell where the action is moving, and intelligently knows which path to take to cut through that momentum, can terrorize large groups of players and gain some quick kills.
Flowing with your team
Above: I see a friend covering that hole, so there’s no need for me to go over there.
I’ve gotten to a point where I am using the minimap and know how to read all the cues Black Ops III is giving me. I can usually make a good guestimate about where people are and what direction they’re going. I can run off on my own and try to flank the enemy, but maybe it would be best if I try moving with my team instead. There are a couple of things I need to consider if I am going to go with my team’s flow.
Obviously, this is much easier to coordinate if I am playing with a bunch of friends in my own party chat. We can coordinate who is going to go where and inform each other on the things we see. Most of the time, however, I am stuck in a game with nothing but strangers. It’s still possible to coordinate with these other players, however, without saying a word.
The basic idea is that, if I am entering a small area with two other team mates, I need to make a mental note about where they are heading and then cover the one route that the other two are not. I try to stay just close enough to them on the map so that if one of them is in trouble, I can assist, but never so close that I’m right up their ass in a doorway.
This has a sacrificial bonus here in that if I die, my teammates are close enough (and hopefully aware enough) to know where my attacker came from.
The No. 1 thing to avoid is grouping up on top of each other. In fact, the vast majority of my multikills, and multideaths in the Black Ops III beta come from players insisting on running right on top of each other. These people think covering the other player means standing right behind their friend, while aiming down the same directions. That’s the dream set up for anyone looking to flank.
Play to your strengths
Above: The optimal shotgun range.
One of the earliest lessons I learned playing Quake deathmatch was learning when a fight was a lost cause. In Quake, I have a lot more room to engage an opponent in a fight and decide midway through to run away when things don’t look good. In Black Ops III, that decision often needs to be made when I’ve spotted a potential target, but haven’t fired yet (and they haven’t seen me). Once I’ve engaged, it’s often an all-or-nothing situation, so I try to make sure it’s a fight I can win.
I’ve noticed during the PlayStation 4 version of the Black Ops III beta, however, that people have a tendency to pull the trigger at every single thing they see. This can often be a short-sighted, if not straight up horrible, habit. Letting a difficult to shoot target go, at times, can yield some positive results. Sometimes an enemy that I’ve deemed not worth firing on is actually letting me know which direction the team is flowing. Other times, it will reveal two or three other threats that I didn’t see coming right behind them, which would’ve really screwed things up if I gave up my position.
And occasionally, it’s as simple as just knowing where that person is going and moving into a safer position to ambush them more effectively.
It’s smart to be realistic about the loadout and playstyle you choose. If I am running a close quarters friendly load out, I need to avoid long-range exchanges. If I’m trying to snipe people from far away, I obviously don’t want to pick fights in a stairwell (unless my quick scope is really good).
If you’re going to play a team mode, be a team player
Above: Working together to move this hunk of crap
One of my biggest pet peeves is playing a team mode full of people who just want to play Deathmatch. Guys, collect the tags, protect B, kill the flag runner, and protect the damned robot. Kills are good, but some of these modes are all about other objectives. Here are a few notes on some of these modes:
Domination
Two teams attempt to capture three positions on the map (A, B, and C). Capturing a position requires staying within the boundaries of a site for a certain amount of time.
On a public Domination game full of strangers, I can tell you which team is going to win within the first three minutes of the first round. It’s going to be the team that can capture and hold onto B site.
What about the team that keeps bouncing between capturing A and C, but never snags B? They’re playing a losing game of Pong.
The only time this isn’t true is when the winning team decides to take all three sites. Unless the lead is ridiculous, don’t do this. You’re randomizing the losing team’s spawn points, which means you no longer have a good grasp on where they are coming from.
Kill Confirmed
This is essentially Team Deathmatch, but when a player dies, they leave behind a set of dog tags for someone to pick up. Picking up an enemy dog tag is worth 50 points, recovering your own or a friend’s dog tag nets 25.
I’m amazed at how many people don’t collect their dog tags in this game. These things are the key to victory, not the kill/death ratio. If you’re near a tag, whether they’re from a fallen comrade or an enemy soldier, pick it up.
There are only two instances where I don’t pick up a tag: it’s somewhere way too dangerous, or I am setting up a trap. On the latter, it’s nothing especially involved or complicated. There have been times, however, where I killed someone and I knew they’d be back for their tags. So I resisted picking them up for a few seconds to see if they’d come back for them (your own tags show up on the minimap, if they’re not picked up right away). Sure enough, they did … and I wound up with two sets of dog tags.
Safeguard
This is an interesting mode where one team is trying to protect a robot walking to a specific location. The opposing team is trying to destroy it. The problem is that the robot requires someone standing right next to it to guide it to the finishing line … and no one wants to be that person.
First off, I’m dying for the riot shield in this mode. I didn’t see one in the weapons menu, but it wouldn’t be Call of Duty without one.
Secondly, this seems like a mode that could work out really well for scorestreaks and equipment that are all about poisoning chunks of the map. Stuff like the microwave emitters and heat sensing machine guns, coupled with land mines and electronic bug hives. Things that allow the defending team to make the robot’s path a really nasty environment.