The Depressing Decline of Call of Duty

[@dthendrick1]

If COD was on a 2 year cycle or longer, I would entertain playing again. If COD would decide whether it wants to be Fortnite or a military shooter in regards to cosmetics, I might play again. If COD brought back traditional Zombies, I might play again. If COD wasn't $80 with a $20 battlepass fee, and $20-$30 skins, I might play again. If COD wasn't built around Warzone to the detriment of campaign, multiplayer, and zombies, I might play again. Edit - fixed a few spelling errors.

[@gun_toucher_LLC]

i really want COD to be actually fixed in a way thats player oriented yeah. i ultimately am less upset about how they iterate on mechanics but the way that the game has to serve everybody that steps into Disneyland I don't think we will see a distinct choice about series identity soon

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

All fair points

[@7eddiii]

so many dumb takes and only two good ones the more cosmetics the better being all one way or the other would suck sometimes i wanna play as ghost others its homelander time more customization is never a bad thing also games cant be $60 anymore and youre lucky its only $80 because if they went up with inflation like every other industry it would be over $100 by now and complaining about cosmetic prices that dont affect gameplay just shows youre broke and like to whine instead of getting your money up so you have disposable income if you think the battlepass or cosmetics are too much dont buy them this isnt an actual issue youre just pretending it is

[@gun_toucher_LLC]

to me ultimately i dont have a choice but to deal with call of duty, like the guy lays out in the video COD is dying from its own success toward its own players. you can see it happen in other parts of A/B with Diablo IV, etc. AAA live service in bad shape everywhere@@7eddiii

[@LajuaneDavis]

Facts

[@davidmontes2525]

All games are getting to complicated. They’re forgetting that we just want to have fun after a long day. Simple games with good stories

[@karanvarma4843]

Massive load times and complicated menus have ruined games. Also elaborate cut scenes with useless dialogue

[@kill3rbyysight]

old modern warfare series had best lobby feel.. that sound effect wen some one used to enter lobby or exit... even names very very clearly visible and u felt their and ur presence in lobby but these days it's all messed up... though I liked mw3 2023 lobby bit better but not as exciting as old series

[@zynet_eseled]

We just want to have fun. That's all.

[@afcansf5996]

@ David Ever gaming went mainstreams gamea have been dumbed down into oblivion.

[@davidmontes2525]

@@afcansf5996 where are you from ?

[@zynet_eseled]

This series needs to return to what matters. Unrestrained grit. No flashy trailers or anything. If they made a title, that played like the old F.E.A.R games, and stood it's ground with a theme, and refused to give in to player demands, focusing solely on a core vision, then they could have something.

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

Imagine a game with a central artistic direction

[@zynet_eseled]

​@@TheCouch-Co-Op I think one that dives into how war can severely fuck people up, along with how dictatorships and corrupt regimes abuse their own military forces, which leads to players genuinely sickened by the killing they are doing. Especially if they commit to the idea of literal child soldiers. Having a God game that slowly degrades into becoming a horror game in its feel, movement and gameplay, that would be one hell of a ballsy move. And one that I think could pay off

[@mastoner20]

I don't legitimately think the issue is so much player demands, as much as publisher demands, honestly. But a Call of Duty: FEAR would be amazing.

[@azizyahaya2174]

I like how the *first* Call of Duty game took place during World War 2 and was made to keep the memory of the soldiers who fought in it alive but now the entire franchise had become an utter abhorrence 😂😂😂

[@bartosznapiorkowski7375]

It wasn't obviously made to honour some memory xd it was made to make money

[@azizyahaya2174]

@@bartosznapiorkowski7375 Every company on the planet sets out to make money. That's a given. But if you want to make money off a product that centres around a topic like the most horrific armed conflict of the 20th century, you'd do so with tact to avoid offending sensibilities and potentially jeopardising the sale of said product. Although, Activision seemed to have forgone this measure completely and are now facing public ire because of it.

[@azizyahaya2174]

@@bartosznapiorkowski7375 Every company on the planet sets out to make money. That's a given. But if you want to make money off a product that centres around a topic like the most horrific armed conflict of the 20th century, you'd do so with tact to avoid offending sensibilities and potentially jeopardising the sale of said product. Although, Activision seemed to have forgone this measure completely and are now facing public ire because of it.

[@azizyahaya2174]

@@bartosznapiorkowski7375 Every company on the planet sets out to make money. That's a given. But if you want to make money off a product that centres around a topic like the most horrific armed conflict of the 20th century, you'd do so with tact to avoid offending sensibilities and potentially jeopardising the sale of said product. Although, Activision seemed to have forgone this measure completely and are now facing public ire because of it.

[@elharvey5032]

Yeah the original WW2 games were some of the best I have ever played, World at War was the best one

[@cusernament]

Movement is where cod lost me. Sprint slide, slide cancel, into jump, into sprint slide shoot, jump, hop, hop, slide shoot. I just hate it.

[@0uttaS1TE]

It just becomes too hard to jump into when there's a learning curve. You can't just play, you gotta warm up like you're doing an exercise

[@Sfcfan120]

Same, it's not even that difficult is the thing. It's just so obnoxiously in your face.

[@levimaynard2237]

It's cheesy crap.

[@asrr62]

It's cool u know u like sprinting and sliding!

[@malcontender6319]

@@asrr62 Nobody with functional testicles likes zoomer movement mechanics.

[@berdfragz8354]

"too many cooks in the kitchen". Its starting to become a theme among everything. I for a long time would claim the bigger something grows in popularity the more it loses its identity.

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

Seems to be a recurring pattern, eh?

[@fourierbird]

I like the way Arrowhead (Helldivers 2) has approached this in the short term. Look at how they have zero tolerance for people who beg for LGBTQ representation in the game. It’s not that they’re being anti-LGBTQ, it means they know the customer is not always right-and they have a steadfast commitment to seeing their game maintain its own, apolitical identity. I’d go so far as to say Helldivers 2 will buck this trend.

[@Snowmaninadesert]

i wouldn't say its them trying to make it apolitical, more like trying to keep the talk away from the extreme culture war around people existing.@@fourierbird

[@vingasoline5068]

@@fourierbirdI hope so, because Helldivers 2 is also just a great fun game in its own way. Hopefully more publishers learn that if you just let the devs cook and don’t plague your game with micro-transactions, they’ll come up with something great and more people will buy it due to that positive experience

[@thatone4G]

Well not enough agree with you because it’s still one of the most played games 💀

[@pallavsingh8932]

For warzone, I used to love it earlier. Now, it just feels like they are trying to copy Fortnite so bad. They have to understand that Fortnite is a cartoonish themed Battle Royale. COD has military themed designs. Adding Nikki Minaj and Homelander in a game of Military designs does not seem "Cool"

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

Sadly more people don't seem to feel the same way.

[@blackwarrior1897]

You're right. Now if they added something like a John Wick, Terminator, Punisher skin of some sort it wouldn't be bad due to these people actually using weapons and being trained in using them. Having a rapper or some random character like Skeletor had made absolutely no sense. Activision is just trying to appeal to children to keep buying skins. I honestly don't mind the TWD characters. But Jesus the prices for them are fuckin ridiculous.

[@pallavsingh8932]

@@blackwarrior1897 same with the MW series. The plot that they are writing is ridiculous. I won't say it's down in the gutters, but it's bad, compared to the OG. They've forgot the essense of the characters. And now, there are no stakes here. Earlier, we used to get different perspectives on different people. How they're just trying to survive in the middle of a freaking world was. We saw our most important players die while playing and that hit us hard. Now they're just focussed on the three or four that we have. I DON'T BLAME THE ACTORS. They've done a phenomenal job. But yeah getting a good game every three or four years is okay. Take your time, build it up. And you want money, make warzone into different modes. One where there's just military designs and the others where there are kids.

[@timothymoore2966]

Those KD finishers are literally the best they ever came up with

[@jkakaqw]

Wrong, but I understand how you feel. Casuals buy these $20 bundles, the skins are the selling point now. Honestly, think of how a casual thinks. Do they want a generic soldier, who they can use for free by unlocking the base character? Or are they gonna buy a John Wick skin for $20?

[@zartan8984]

They have a New York pigeon skin for a soldier. What a shit show.

[@shaec9397]

😂

[@housecat8226]

And I wear it proudly 😂

[@Ghostshadow112]

Would be really cool if you could unlock wacky things like that by just playing the game. With everything locked away in the store and the terrible match making, there's just no reason to play CoD anymore.

[@ephxiaa]

bro the celebrity character are fun tf yall yalking about. its the one thing about it at least modern day cods have going for it

[@nobIeseis]

pigeon is fine they got fk nicky minaj

[@akeelyaqub2538]

Gaming in general is in a major decline. In the early 2010s, games had their own identities, were made with passion, had creativity and were endlessly fun even today. Games now all have the same bs looks, live service battle passes, seasons, microtransactions and other factory made bs. Stand out games today like elden ring, god of war and helldivers were the industry standard a decade ago.

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

There was slop back then too

[@akeelyaqub2538]

@@TheCouch-Co-Op obviously, but less so than today.

[@asrr62]

yep the games were better then. games died when the 360 came out. it was a good console too!

[@BobbyMain-cm7us]

same goes for music... today's society is just copy and paste bullshit

[@PatsFanGermany]

And even those games were a major letdown compared to what came before. With progressively improving graphics (reaching almost photo realism these days), story telling (which used to be key with limited CPU and GPU power) is increasingly getting eliminated from game design. Sometimes I miss the days of Monkey Island, Space Quest... The late 1980s / early 1990s games from Sierra, LucasArts etc,where the GPU basically resided between your ears...

[@DaMainCookie]

this dude really took the "never use I in formal writing" to heart

[@erikjalefors9377]

As some dev recently said “ a game for everyone is a game for no one “

[@greenamogus]

And when everyone's super No one will be

[@spacelion4763]

It's this philosophy exactly that killed it for me. The SBMM essentially narrowed down the player pool and they really started aiming for everyone to have a 1.00 k/d or as close to it as possible. That's not fun. It was fun when you had mixed lobbies and could get to your killstreaks and feel like there was a real flow to it all.

[@esense9602]

It's more of the quote of Frederick the Great "he who defends everything, defends nothing." you can't stretch your line. it's the same with business, you can't please everyone.

[@BobbyMain-cm7us]

thats why the gaming community is trash... the developers are trying to please everyone. Customers aren't always right...

[@seeker6755]

Huh? Can you explain that in a more meaningful way?

[@corndoge3992]

the portion of the video that talks about factions and design reminded me about how I used to play OG MW2. The factions were so "cool" and they committed so hard thematically, I used different loadouts based on factions. (Rangers M4 + M9 larp; Spetznaz AK + rpg; SEALs UMP45 and USP .45) Playing in that way helped me get fully immersed in the game itself. Immersion and commitment to a theme is both underrated by devs and very important to gamers who aren't committed to a single IP/franchise

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

The LARP was real (not in a bad way)

[@user-ne9sd4ow1o]

One immersion/balance thing I'd like to see come to modern games. Is bullets impacts/cracks blocking view on riot shields. It's such a simple yet effective balancing/ immersion technique!! Last I've seen was in OG MW2 and 3

[@katamarankatamaranovich9986]

@@user-ne9sd4ow1o i'm pretty sure ready or not has it

[@nashtheneet]

Oh with World and War and later World War 2 i larped too.

[@Blakezilla594]

I do the same to this day on BF4. Thankfully, it's still going strong.

[@TheFuri0uswc]

The one boom has been saying this for years that cod community no longer exists because it's far to broad.

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

Too many cooks in the kitchen

[@karma9007]

@@TheCouch-Co-OpCook of Cheese and Jack Sparrow Chests.

[@Austin_Bourque_]

The one boom also usually has shit takes from videos I’ve seen

[@SmoovyNovaFan]

@@TheCouch-Co-Opboth the cooks and the customers destroyed the restaurant in this situation

[@trae3290]

@@TheCouch-Co-Optoo many things on the menu *****

[@CombativeLlama]

Unfortunately we’re highly unlikely to get the COD we want back. The most recent announcement was met with the highest preorders on Steam ever. The game is still wildly popular despite all the BS we dislike. People won’t stop feeding into the monster that’s been created and as a result it has no incentive to change. People want their gun and character skins, people buy the battle passes, people feed into it and reward COD’s decisions so they’ll keep adding more monetization and more custom options for players. It’s only going to get worse. What might change things is a competitor to COD, but the best days are behind us.

[@danielculp1046]

What's sad is look up the percentage of those pre-orders that aren't ever installed it's sad it came to a social status

[@exchangAscribe]

youre spot on yes

[@omgwat]

Let's be clear: Activision killed Call of Duty. No one else.

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

you sure?

[@HingalshDealer]

Yes

[@KenSG-jz2zn]

You fed activision, shit was tragic

[@philippczeskleba3988]

but people keep buying this crap every fockin time. its like FIFA, everyone is complaining but they keep buying this. there is no need to change

[@Lurch-Bot]

When you let cheaters run roughshod over your online gaming environment and your whole business model centers around exploiting children with lootbox gambling, you are no longer a game developer, just another scammer.

[@Shdgy]

As a call of Duty player from 2007-2013, the whole menu UI is almost unrecognisable now. Unnecessarily complex and riddled with loot boxes, puts me off playing almost instantly. That along with boring map design, lack of voice chat/community that used to be and far fetched gun/character customisation. Activision are blind to it all, and it's embarrassing to see their marketing team promote this shit, as those teams are so detached from what the brand once was.

[@SpeedyKhaledGD]

Loot boxes disappeared from cod since 2017

[@Shdgy]

@@SpeedyKhaledGD loot boxes/micro transactions are one in the same, no?

[@Geetbhandar78]

@@Shdgy both ass but different

[@m.ostrowski2031]

@@ShdgyNo, a loot box is a pay to win slot machine. COD got rid of loot boxes/supply drops in 2019; current micro transactions, while still an infuriating sight, are cosmetics in bundles that people pay for specifically rather than gambling in a slot machine hoping to obtain those items or some kind of better weapon to make them stronger.

[@Shdgy]

@@m.ostrowski2031 thanks for clarifying, I think my point is still the same regarding the UI being spammed. Remember when COD 4 got a single DLC release throughout it's whole lifespan?

[@guntherbiggums]

You can’t bring up that DOOM bundle with out mentioning the fact they broke the GUN for the sake of the GAME and MONEY! That Lockwood shotgun was absolutely nothing until they came out with the Double Trigger SPECIFICALLY FOR THIS BUNDLE, THEN LET IT RUN RAMPANT FOR A FEW MONTHS THEN COMPLETELY REMOVED THE ATTACHMENT AFTER THEY SOLD ENOUGH BUNDLES TO NERF THE GUN BACK INTO THE GROUND!

[@jasonquinlan1733]

I think it’s so ironic that Warzone and Modern Warfare were initially seen as the games to save cod, but have eventually became the main reason of downfall. The game has no identity and with that no clear player base

[@Chiefsfan12]

Caldera completely ruined Warzone for me as i haven’t even played a match of warzone since caldera.

[@Thegbrownman]

fortnite ruined all these other games because fortnite was so successful other games tried to adopt their system and it ruined so many other games and cod is just one of those examples

[@MrAweeze]

Fortnite is to blame for a lot of the horrors of the world.

[@AquaticMammalOnBicycle]

Fortnite only explains part of the extreme decline. It explains why there’s so much goofy cartoonish “colorful” nonsense in COD now, and the absurd fetish for masks, it explains the aesthetic thematic ruin. It doesn’t explain the basic QUALITY drop in programming and game design.

[@jacobroberts1928]

Yeah cod turned into battle royal with in games purchases. Turned into a big money grab.

[@xx-bj9of]

Greed probably killed it, like many other games. Back in the day we where rewarded for playing (unlocking stuff), now must pay to unlock.

[@sheepywolfanimations]

Dude, the old MW2 HUD (and everything basically) was so clean and unique and special and just fucking outstanding! Now every mode looks like Warzone.... boring as hell and full of sweats who congratulate themselves after getting 40 kills everyday. Esports should have their own dumb game where all these dumbos go and play for their dumbo money. Leave us casuals the fun we want!

[@gingeralebean5375]

Man, I thought that COD was at an all-time low during 2016-2018. But ever since MW19, COD has been the most dry, corporate, and emotionless it’s ever been. Having tried MWII and MWIII, I’ve never thought COD would ever feel this dehumanized and corporate. Even if I can still have some fun every now and then- with BOCW especially -there’s no real sense of excitement with it.

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

It's a shame.

[@Ouroboross-]

MW19 was a fantastic game. After that though? Completely downhill.

[@lukasor9936]

​@@Ouroboross-MW2019 was the last push to make it back to CoD being talked about... And then Cold War arrived... With crazy and dumb cosmetics, dragon and rocket skins for guns, lack of any balance, promoting camping at all times... Only the campaign was good, great even but then again I'm yet to see Raven do a bad job with any game.

[@nastykash9557]

@@lukasor9936load of bs, there was only a few maps that promoted camping on Cold War, the vast majority of MW2019 was large and promoted camping. Infact shipment free for all was BS since I saw everyone sat in a corner of each containers. If anything camping began in mw2019 heavy.

[@lukasor9936]

@@nastykash9557 okay, which ones didn't in Cold War. I'll wait. And yeah shipment and to some degree shoothouse sucked since they were too small for the pacing of the game. But that's it. Just ask someone who ain't a treyarch fanboy, or better yet someone who isn't into CoD that much about which one was better.

[@puffiolus4591]

Personally, I think another reason why their games have been failing is due to the inexcusably MASSIVE game sizes. I would love to play a newer cod but with a game package of 300+ gb with consistent, also giant updates, I’m not installing that. I believe that unnecessary game sizes push people away, especially when other games on the market that are similar, are much smaller

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

It's getting a little silly.

[@badger_laser6206]

Part of the reason why COD's game files are so huge is due to a mixture of the exploitation of rookie gamers and incredible laziness from the devs. To explain the first point, if you are downloading a game, and see it has a HUGE file type, you would generally think it has to be absolutely jam packed with content, which is why games ensure they have a decent file size, a near comparison being how the vast majority of goods are sold at like 4.99 instead of being sold at 5, because it tricks the human mind into thinking its cheaper than it is. Regarding developer laziness, the reason for the massive file size is due to the devs basically never going back to either reduce to poly count of the model (I don't mean lower the details on the models, when modelling in 3D, one of the final steps in the process is cleaning up the model by removing unnecessary bits of it, which can ensure that the model doesn't take up as much storage) and they almost never compress the audio in the games, which can be very easily done while sacrificing basically 0 quality due to how advanced modern tech designed to compress audio is, yet they just don't bother doing it

[@badger_laser6206]

My source for this information regarding modelling is 6th form and university level teachings from professional lecturers

[@timothymoore2966]

The long explanation is nice but here’s the major issue. They are still developing for last gen. That simple

[@gabrielsantosbastos5257]

Short answer: skin bundles

[@diegoch9385]

Besides the souless game with no identity, when the store is the only thing that works fine at launch it leaves so much to desire... I bought HELLDIVERS2 for the price of a macrotransaction in COD.

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

You're so real for that

[@blackwarrior1897]

That really puts things into perspective......

[@TamaraWarden-k8r]

Democracy's brilliant, ain't it?

[@joshanator7825]

We didn’t kill CoD, the developers kept forgetting the content we’d been begging for and chose to increase the prices while giving less content. Plus warzone THATS is what killed duty the developers lack of care when making these games.

[@Thedudemannn]

Yeah “WE” didn’t do anything. It was the devs and people in control who decided to turn everything upside down and ruin the franchise. Clickbait ass title.

[@chrisupton6190]

11:48 infinite warfare was absolutely unfair and unwarranted, it was the 2nd best game in the exo suit era.

[@ZioMcCall]

The sad thing about the cod players that play cod for the movement is that they refuse to play games actually designed around movement like Team Fortress 2 or Arena shooters.

[@TheDerpyMuffin]

They basically refuse to broaden their horizons, they just wanna play that one game and one game only

[@YomMama]

Personally it's because the mixture of the movement + gunplay is what keeps me coming back to COD. I'm not really a fan of Apex, Quake Arena, The Finals, etc

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

Imagine if Titanfall 3 had happened

[@Breakaway-ic5gj]

@@YomMama Titanfall has similar gunplay

[@Breakaway-ic5gj]

@@YomMama Gunplay in arena shooters or TF2 is actually superior because it doesn't slow you down and most of the guns are single fire, so it's a dance of balancing dodging and shooting and a lot of mind games and juking occur due to the free movement, and you don't die instantly, so it's a lot more intense and skillful, but obviously takes more getting used to

[@Noxis07]

So I'm not crazy. I've been arguing with so many esports wannabes regarding the movement, I've lost count a while ago. No matter how much I argue that COD games shouldn't be speedy, these nerds swear up and down that the cracked out speedy Gonzales movement is somehow good. I was genuinely starting to believe I was in the minority, misremembering COD during my earlier years. So I'm not alone in this then? Because I cannot STAND that movement crap.

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

Movement's cool. Wonder if they could have done it in a different way.

[@blackwarrior1897]

It's too much in MWIII. It's ridiculous. You don't even move that fast in BO3 or IW. By the time you're chasing someone, half the time you're blitzing around a building in circles in Warzone trying to find one person. Sometimes you might even blitz past someone before you even realize.

[@jacketbox4573]

Come to battlefield no goofy fast past movement

[@blackwarrior1897]

@@jacketbox4573 I may just do that if I get tired of the bs. All I play is warzone tbh

[@ximmolation]

I agree, I got really sweaty with all the movements, but then I realised.. this isn't even cod anymore and quit.. I won't touch the new mw3. Haha eff that noise, nothing fun about jumping around, slide cancels ect.

[@KamustaJohn]

Victor Reznov is one of the best written and voiced CoD character off all time. Anything he said had so much weight in the entire series.

[@ESStar-xk7sd]

I absolutely agree, his personality and character overall is really really good writing. The VA also made the words stick

[@marcuscook5145]

WaW and Black Ops 1 are GOATed. MW1-3 are GOATed as well.

[@TheOnlyFalcon17]

@@marcuscook5145from the original MW trilogy, WaW, Black Ops 1 and 2 is in the title of goated. Loads of great moments in that stretch.

[@thegreenberretwearingbrony9678]

​@@TheOnlyFalcon17for me, cod stopped being fun after bo2. And damn bo2 was a blast

[@444BMWM4]

insane how you never mentioned sbmm like that isn’t what really plagued the game

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

SBMM is like level one of the iceberg.

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

Or the scummy patents surrounding this that are designed to psyop the player into spending money as it rewards bot matched for spending money oh micro transactions

[@seaweeb2258]

​@@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778 That's the EOMM patent. It's actually a CCP level of manipulative algorithms not only to try and get players to spend money, but also to keep them hooked, while changing bits here and there to change the outcome of the games. Not only does it add literal bots to either: A: act like cannon fodder to give the enemy team more points because you did better. Or B: be the sweatiest aimboting npc to give you the win because you haven't been playing that well lately. It also manipulates your bullet spread, bullet damage, and bullet distance before they disappear. This + SBMM makes it literally impossible for you to have accurate statistics. That means those K/D and W/L ratios are BS, and in no way reflect how good or bad of a player you actually are. It's also essentially a P2W mechanic too because of bot lobbies, and punishes the "poors" for not giving them more money for the bundles. The bundles also are P2W if you haven't unlocked any attachments yet for a given weapon, and they give them to you for a cosmetic for the money. The fact that some skins/bundles cost $30+ is insane, given there's zero ways to unlock them by playing the game. That's actually really sad because there are uses to having skins, but that's for the people who have friends who also play the game so you can identify them over a bot or another player. Hands down would prefer the Fortnite or even CS2s/TF2s system of cosmetics. It's kinda weird he didn't at least mention EOMM or SBMM. At least with SBMM you can have competant games if they system isn't designed to skrew you over, which this one very much does. Check out that patent. For real they spent mega money for this with studies as well, but they could have at least had the option to turn it off. We know they don't want to do that either. They care way more for their shareholders, and the shareholders are relying on the FOMO mentality from their pay pigs. WaW was the last true GOOD COD. MW2019 is still really fun, but wait for a sale, and don't bother with the rest of them. BO1 and BO2 are the exceptions only because of the zombies gamemode. They still want too much for those games so acting like Captain Jack Sparrow isn't a bad option given how they treat their customers and consumers. Lord Gaben was right about that topic and it shows because of how easy it is to do.

[@nater3717]

It's not just sbmm the maps and weapons sacrifice so much to try to balance everything that they all come off as bland

[@chriskrahn]

Cod 2-black ops 2 was a great era, while there have been some gems that era can never be replicated again.

[@RutheKing5858]

Does anyone remember the broken SBMM where if you did decent in like 2 or 3 games then you’d be put in lobbies with absolute sweats and try hard for 5 games that was crazy fr

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

"I'm fighting the guys who got Bin Laden rn"

[@paulseblano2761]

It still has it

[@RutheKing5858]

@@paulseblano2761 thought so it’s a shame what happened to COD

[@captainkush8423]

I swear people like this must want chopper gunners in every game they play in, go play against 5 year olds then stop blaming sbmm!! idk how you'd expect people to not have any game sense. Cod has been online for a very long time, I'm 25 and I'm sure people were online when I was in kindergarten playing

[@RutheKing5858]

@@captainkush8423 so you took me saying if you wanna just play the game and do good in a couple matches then get sent to matches with people trying to go pro n shi Fr dude I did not say that yes there are obviously people trying to go crazy with KD and all that shi and even go pro but most people like to just play the game and chill nobody wants to do decent in a match then go in lobbies with FaZe members n shi go be goofy somewhere else bc I clearly did not say what you implied

[@jrr7031]

Nope. I didnt kill it. Not me. I didn't ask nor support these damn furry skins, celebrity skins, or any other popular media on on's. This is a self-inflicted wound, and I'll be damned if you try to hold me accountable.

[@slidersides]

Same here

[@NemoCasper]

Both sides are the problem

[@zandy9984]

Facts. Keep that goofy shit in Fortnite

[@KenSG-jz2zn]

​@@NemoCasperthis is facts

[@TitanBolt99]

​@@NemoCasper Nah, it's the casual gamers fault and ESPECIALLY Activisions fault!

[@tristin1916]

It's SBMM/EOMM which has ruined it. But also great point about the factions and music etc, I miss that aspect in OG MW2 especially

[@jacoblopez2995]

Selling players operator skins from pop culture is the most sellout thing COD has ever done. I don’t what more goofy, the skins or the people who buy those skins. I miss the days when there wasn’t any of that and the focus was on the immersion of the historical era of the game it was focused on.

[@Nolove-uu2xh]

Activision became greedy and simply didn’t care about the game.

[@logger22]

If Cod remastered the OG MW2 multiplayer as well as the Black Ops Duology, they would make more money than they would for the next 3 games, and they could use that time to make a new game.

[@darkasnight86]

Right but they're too stùpid to do that. That would much rather appeal to children. It's ok I still play the original mw2

[@disbauxa]

@@darkasnight86IW4X or xbox. Multiplayer is DEAD. Need a remaster, DO IT ACTIVISION/INFINITY WARD.

[@theescapeplan3876]

@@darkasnight86more like not desperate enough. The only reason I see a game studio remaster an older game is purely out of desperation, like how MWR was released earlier than it should have because of Infinite Warfare not selling well enough. Plus people would complain about the balancing, movement, maps, the fact that it’s a remaster and not a new game, etc… It’s literally the only thing COD fans do nowadays anyway, it’s like the hate Olympics.

[@silfrido1768]

They need to just quit at this point. My faith is gone for the franchise

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

It’s actually the black ops trilogy. World at war is a prequel to black ops

[@sammyjay5027]

I'm praying that this channel will take off G. The content you've been putting out here definitely deserves more attention. Keep up the great work 🙌

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

[@fidgetywidgety]

​@@TheCouch-Co-Op wasn't 100% sure it was you until I saw the killfeed at 20:16

[@NecrotekLabs]

@@TheCouch-Co-Op I KNEW IT

[@stoneraptor6219]

I thought I recognized the voice

[@ANHR1]

@@TheCouch-Co-OpI heard your voice and it messed with me so bad lol

[@ten-dimension9390]

Personally I was always drawn to the Campaign with Multiplayer being secondary as you said. All those older Call of duties with their stories and the Tone left a lasting impression on me. I remember I used to get to terrified by the sound of the Sirens as a kid because In Call of Duty 1, Sirens were used when and I quote my younger self "Large planes with scary bombs" come.

[@stephenford6132]

The game has become one big camping pile of trash filled with lame microtransactions.

[@skarpantre]

Man, I remember when "whatever a new cod is like, the campaign will reliably always be a masterpiece of 5-8 hours"

[@greenrifleman2969]

Ah, yes. The constant conflict between the casuals and the sweats. Sweats always complain when something doesn't "require skill" to do. Casuals on the other hand bitch when something's too hard/complicated. Personally, I am pro-casual. I shouldn't have to slide-cancel just to keep up with everyone else. I shouldn't have to keep so many goddamn things in the back of my mind. I shouldn't have to watch guides and gunsmith videos just to play the fucking game. Just let people write their own stories and make their own loadouts.

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

There should be a fun middle ground.

[@shaec9397]

You should have to build your own Loadout like Pubg that would be fun

[@neti_neti_]

​@@TheCouch-Co-Op Yes , The middle way , The divine way .

[@jamesp1289]

I feel like we had “competitive casuals” in BO2. Everyone was fucking around until in the lobby someone started talking shit or after a kill. That was my peak CoD

[@thatone4G]

Only 100k or lil more feel very butthurt over call of duty or similar to you guys. Not enough so sadly the game you hate will continue to be at the top 💀🤡

[@StrikeShulgin]

Here is a thought. Make playlists for each type of player. Crazy movement in one playlist and a classic slower tactical playlist where you can pick what you have the most fun doing. It could be done

[@of7551]

Or have 2 specialists that have different play styles. Slower with slightly more health. Slightly faster with less health.

[@Nurse_Xochitl]

@@of7551 Separate playlists is better. Of course those specialist can still apply to those playlists as well. (Insurgency for example lets you chose between no armor, light armor, and heavy armor - all of which affect your mobility and how much damage you can take before dying.)

[@bone3756]

The reception to the advanced movement games was the most important event to CoD ever.

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

Agreed

[@amiasquinn7766]

CoD always been sweaty. The popularity and casual voices on social media ruined it for others. Great vid!

[@rattlehead999]

Call of duty suffers when it's not in the style of CoD4 or BO1, as in the moment they go all out on e-sports or/and goofy pop culture crap it start to waver both campaign, multiplayer and co-op modes. CoD MW2019 was such a refreshing return to form and it's the best CoD to date(and I've played since the original CoD in 2003), they should have just polished it over time and kept going in that direction. Black Ops: Cold War was also a great return to form for Treyarch.

[@sjfs231]

cold war's story was so poorly written it's actually amazing.

[@apc9681]

You nailed it. Call of Duty’s biggest problem since the jet pack era is MW19, it had a good campaign but its multiplayer split the fanbase. It kept arcadey element with fast movement but tried to incorporate more realistic elements that made the game slower. It created a game that had maps and equipment that wasn’t designed around its fast movement. That split the fanbase again between ‘campers’ and ‘ADHD kids’ and the realistic aspect disappeared. It was worsened by Warzone and the microtransactons. Cold War went back to arcade, Vanguard a MW19 clone, MW22 didn’t know what it was and MW3 is probably the best modern game since but gets deserved hate as it should’ve been a DLC… Hot take: BO3 was the last truly good CoD game and Infinite Warfare was the last CoD game that knew what it wanted to be. The direction and polished product has disappeared since 2017.

[@carlopanella5855]

This comment is perfect, i agree with everything you said, especially with the arcadey thing, i think mw 2019 killed call of duty, not its souls mind you, that dissapeared with advanced warfare and the introduction of loot boxes, it killed its essence, the arcadey feel, if i wanted realistic i would have played and am playing battlefield, i like both games, but the arcadey feel is what i want back for cod, true cold war TRIED to do it, but u could still feel traces of mw 2019 in it, and that is not to say that 2019 was bad, but like you said, it split the fanbase, the last cod i had actual enjoyment with was ironically cod ww2, it wasnt perfect, but it didnt go crazy with skins like vanguard, it felt classic like classic cod, had the most guns of any cod, even to this day, no crazy skins, the maps were kinda shit and the campaign was a cinematic slop but it was fun for a couple of months. also infinite warfare was overhated, i wouldnt mind a futuristic cod without jetpacks, it can be done, just look at battlefield 2142.

[@Skrenja]

MW19 was a great game, provided you stuck to Search or FFA. It had the best S&D of _any_ COD and feels like it was built around that mode.

[@2357-l9p]

Mw 2019 was the last cod game that knew what it wanted to be. And a bit of cold war

[@m.ostrowski2031]

I disagree, Call of Duty is not and has never been about fast movement. The maps in MW 2019 and MWII 2022 are fairly decent, as they brought back more complex layouts than three cardinal directions, genuine height elevation and power positions, and in doing so actual map variety. MW 2019’s maps in part saught to overcompensate for the terrible map design from BO3, IW, COD WWII and BO4, and in doing so took things in part to the opposite extreme making some maps feel formless, which wasn’t helped by the fact they generally lacked identity. MWII’s maps were largely an improvement with many great maps like the Museum, Hotel, Raceway, Las Almas, etc which all had their own unique identity and flow, however some maps such as the border crossing or taraq were simply terrible, however all CODs have had some bad maps in the past. I vehemently disagree and oppose the notion that Black Ops III was a good game in general, let alone “the last good COD game”. The game had a terrible campaign, predatory microtransactions, advanced movement and braindead three lane maps. Other than MW 2019 and MWII 2022 which I’d consider to be pretty solid games, or Cold War which had a good campaign, the last “great COD game” was Black Ops 2. Every single game since Ghosts has been polarising in some way, tried to reinvent the formula, and failed to recapture what made prior entries great. BO3 was a futuristic jetpack game with wall running and specialists, which is so antithetical to the original COD formula that it shouldn’t even be grouped together. The advanced movement, which also includes the sliding and unlimited sprint which continues to plague COD games even in a post-jetpack era, completely destroyed the fine tuning of class customisation, perks and attachments. In older games, movement was slow, and if you wanted to have unlimited sprint you had to run the marathon perk which would come with the drawback of being unable to equip many other perks such as, for example, scavenger which is another perk that was useful for a run and gun style of play. The game deliberately slowed down the player and catered to many different playstyles; you had to actually think about your class, your perks, etc and how they would affect your playstyle. Nowadays you can sprint infinitely for free, have enough ammo to empty a full mag into two to four different players depending on the TTK, and can not only slide but exploit that mechanic to become a faster and more difficult target to hit. The new MW games have map designs which seek to be an evolution of COD4/MW2’s design philosophy, however the de facto advanced movement is what interferes with this. COD should not be about fast movement. The idea that COD is about “fast movement” is a very mistaken idea stemming from a fundamental misunderstanding of the original COD formula, and precisely an appeal to the exploits such as slide cancelling found in current games and to the advanced movement of the exo games. BO3’s terrible map design was created specifically to accommodate its advanced movement by forcing players into one of three cardinal directions, removing any height elevation, any power positions, any complexity to the map design, so that the formula would be streamlined and players wouldn’t have to learn the maps. It is fundamentally antithetical to the design philosophy of COD4-MW3, and an extreme simplification of the three lane maps from BO2. The purpose was quite simply to make the gameplay more RNG; having new players be far more likely to run into a different player any direction they take, and quickly find them all over again as soon as they respawn. Even without the terrible gunplay, pay to win supply drops, or even the awful jetpacks, the map design of BO3 alone was a scourge. It rewarded players for nothing, just to give them a quick dopamine rush and make the gameplay addictive so they’d be incentivised to pay for supply drop weapons and perform better, as there’s nothing in the maps to get better at. That is a major reason as to why bad players will camp in COD games that lack jetpacks or small and extremely simple three lane maps, and why “better” players will exploit movement mechanics and play like they’re still in AW/BO3. Modern COD players do not know nor understand the purpose of the map design in their own games pre-AW/BO3, yet paradoxically say that it’s the best period of COD. It was the best period, indeed, however the movement was slow, the maps complex, and that was a good thing.

[@seaweeb2258]

​@@m.ostrowski2031The only 2 COD multiplayers I have really played that I liked were WaW and MW2019. Despite liking 2019, WaW was really the last good COD. Everything in that game was actually good. Everything after that has been a wash of a similar, but disoriented version of the formula that made COD popular in the first place. Zombies mode gets a pass in waw, bo1, bo2, and bo3. With bo3 being the weakest in the main series imo...but I would add it because of the mod support, and I cannot call that a disadvantage, while not having it is a disadvantage like bo1/2. Still possible to mod them, but not very fun/easy to do either. The jetpacks were always stupid. No way to slice the cake other than that. It just sucked for it to be in COD, when other games did it better. At least in TF2 you have to work and practice for that kind of movement, not just push a damn button and it does all that crap for you instead of giving you the satisfaction of doing it yourself. They really shouldn't dumb down the tech in the game, nor make it so much a feature. Even L4D in versus mode had some crazy Hunter tech that was super rewarding under a basic premise that did require some practice to use. If they gave it out for free with a button push, no one would play versus.

[@JanVP1]

In Team Fortress 2 we also have people playing like it's a platformer; constantly jumping ("bunny hopping"), exploiting weird game engine quirks and gear loadouts.

[@seaweeb2258]

Rocket jumping and Bhoping aren't really exploits. Rocket jumping was in the first trailer, and was a staple in the now TFClassic and games that came before like Quake. Bhoping is kind of an exploit only because Valve has made steps to limit the tech. Goldsource engine was really fun, but with source engine, for the most part across the many different instances of it, has a much smaller, as small as a single frame, window to get a good Bhop. Still possible, just insanely hard. There's an addon for L4D2 that adds a script to make the Tank Bhop at the survivors, and if you have played that, you know why they nerf the hell out of it. A very funny addon I might add.

[@GGClips]

This is called PVP and has nothing to do with the game itself.

[@KenSG-jz2zn]

Bunnyhoppin doesnt work in tf2 tho, its only damage boosts, bunnyhops are only in cs and hl1

[@chimera1767]

They honestly just need to cut down the bloat on everything. cut warzone, cut listening to investors, cut the 3000dev plan they have. It's all ass. Mw2023 was actually pretty fun for the first couple of months but life got in the way and I couldn't play it anymore. I just miss how like older cods felt- perks meant way more, create a class was more grounded instead of over building to appease fudds and shit, kill streaks felt rewarding, and just overall the time to kill was great, but that's wishful thinking

[@mudbutt5951]

Mw2023 is ass and there is a 0% chance that cod will stop listening to investors because people like you will buy the game every year and play it regardless.

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

MWIII was fun for a bit agreed

[@DDxRaptor]

Gonna throw my hat in the ring here. I think the main issue the franchise has nowadays is not the identity crisis, and it's not multiplayer technicalities like SBMM and other stuff. Imho, the biggest problem is that Activision tries to cater to and cash in on kids and not adults. Remember that the CoD franchise has always been 17+ because of its' content and sometimes raw depiction of violence and war. Then Fortnite came out and most people fled to that while CoD was on a decline and lost a good amount of casual players, leaving mostly people behind that are veeery dedicated to it and the sweaty part of the community. So to attract more people again, they've basically copy-pasted what Fortnite did, but forgot that Fortnite's main audience have always been kids. So how do you effectively kill your franchise? You alienate your core audience and only focus your efforts on small player groups instead of the average. Hence why games like R6:S and Battlefield are slowly dying as well, while Ready or Not, Escape from Tarkov and other brands with an actual identity are (still) performing good enough or even great. Plus building a UI that's basically a phone UI in an FPS screams "we target Generation Tablet".

[@theescapeplan3876]

I doubt the franchise will be restored to its former glory, any attempt in doing anything at this point will just get backlash. The community is too divided and it being a triple A game isn’t really helping neither the franchise nor the development team themselves which leads to much higher expectations for the end product. I bet if COD were to try and make a new COD game with similar mechanics to the CODs around the 2010s, everyone would get on a hate train because a triple A studio basically made an indie game.

[@JakvsMetalheads999]

Basically, for me, CoD can be divided into multiple “eras” *The Classic Era* 2003 - 2006, CoD 1-3, classic single player focused WW2 shooters, definitely dated by modern standards but amazing for the time and they still hold up well today, especially CoD 2 imo *The Golden Age* 2007 - 2012, CoD 4 - Black Ops 2, the absolute height of the series’ popularity. Back when everyone played these games. A time when everyone was excited to see what would come next. CoD 4 revolutionized the series, WaW gave us zombies and a gritty WW2 campaign, MW2 gave us one of the craziest campaigns of all time and heavily refined and expanded the multiplayer, as well as Spec Ops, the only viable “third mode” competitor to zombies we’ve had so far. Black Ops gave us an incredible campaign that solidified Treyarch’s story telling style, zombies was greatly expanded and the multiplayer was a fun evolution of MW2’s. MW3 was probably the first time in the series’ where things started to slip up a bit. This game came out after all the drama at Infinity Ward and Activision resulted in most of the team leaving, and it shows. Patched together by a lot of back up studios and IW’s remnants, it’s an iterative, uninspired MW2 clone. Especially with Battlefield 3 coming out that year, it was a low point for the series, one where reception was largely negative for the first time and a time when many fans jumped ship for Battlefield. It *was* fun though for what it was and really not nearly as bad as it could be. I would have considered this game the end of the Golden Age and the start of the next era, if not for the Golden Age’s send off - Black Ops II in 2012, one of the finest games in the series. This game was everything MW3 was not - innovative, inspired, amazing changes to multiplayer and zombies, packed with new content, and one of the best campaigns to date. It’s only a shame this was it for the Golden Age… *The Dark Age* 2013 - 2018, CoD Ghosts - Black Ops IIII, people have mixed opinions about all these games so these are my personal views - this was a long era of derivative sequel mill CoD games that made MW3 look not so bad in comparison. A time when both IW and Treyarch were lost with the conclusions of the MW trilogy and the OG mainline Black Ops trilogy. Ghosts was one of the worst games in the series, a bland MW clone with a laughable campaign. Extinction was a desperate failed attempt to have a zombies alternative. 2014 saw Advanced Warfare, Sledgehammer’s first game. This game tried to change things up and innovate, and I guess they definitely did, but AW was so aggressively mediocre and bland in all of its modes that to me, it almost doesn’t matter. This game started the boots off the ground jet pack warfare era of the series, something me and many others disliked heavily. It also marks the first time a non Treyarch studio, attempted zombies, with the other studios giving up on unique co op modes. To date, no one has done zombies well but Treyarch, so I don’t see any good having come from this. AW was followed up by Black Ops III, a game who’s only saving grace was zombies. It was too convoluted for me to really enjoy, but I can’t deny it’s the most expansive and content rich zombies has ever been and people did like it. Beyond that though, the multiplayer was mid and more of the AW exosuit stuff, and the campaign was terrible, barely canon or connected to Black Ops and just an awful story. This was followed by Infinite Warfare in 2016 - this game actually had a very solid campaign I’ll say, but it was overshadowed by terrible multiplayer, meh zombies and one of the worst fan receptions in franchise history - people were just sick of the futuristic setting and exo suits, especially with Battlefield 1 coming out and bringing back a World War setting that year. No surprise then that next year, 2017, saw CoD WW2 released. I do remember the campaign of this game fondly, if only bc it’s a time I’m personally nostalgic for, and because I’m really into World War II. If neither of those things apply, the campaign was mediocre at best, and it’s only downhill from there. Multiplayer was once again garbage, and zombies was serviceable at best. By this point in the series, neck deep into the dark age and sequel fatigue deeply set in, mediocre and serviceable did not cut it. The finally game of the Dark Age came in 2018, with Black Ops 4, the point where they gave up on the campaign, tried to clone Fortnite and Overwatch with multiplayer characters and battle royale. This was one of the worst games in the series in my opinion, the absolute epitome of zero creativity, let’s just poorly copy what the other popular games are doing. *The New Age* 2019 - present, MW2019 onwards - A lot of people might disagree with me, but to me, MW2019 was not only the first time since 2012 CoD noticeably tried, it was also the first time since 2012 they released a game I’d consider a classic. MW2019 was a game I’d had more fun with than any CoD since the Golden Age. The spec ops wasn’t that great, sure, but both the campaign and multiplayer were absolutely incredible. This game was a breath of fresh air that ended the Dark Age and started an era where I could actually be excited about the series. It was followed by Treyarch’s own MW2019, Black Ops Cold War, the first classic style Blops game since 2012. While the multiplayer was not as good as MW2019, it was still a lot of fun, while zombies and the campaign were both great. With these two games, it seemed to me like we were in a new Golden Age. Then Vanguard came out… one of the worst games in the series. Awful campaign, terrible multiplayer, just no redeeming qualities at all. But then we got MW2 2022, which in my opinion, was about on the same level of quality and fun as MW2019 and Black Ops Cold War - only for it to be followed by MW3 2023, one of the most blatant cash grabs in franchise history and an obvious DLC of MW2. Also made by Sledgehammer. So idk, it almost seems like we are in a new Golden Age right now, with a bad game by Sledgehammer every few years. I think the solution is probably to just make Sledge a support studio and have a two year gap between CoDs. Either way, I’m excited for Gulf War. I think if it’s good, it’ll solidify this era of CoD into a new Golden Age. If it’s bad, that’s two fails in a row, one from a mainline studio, at which point I’d call this era a little more of a mess. Time will tell.

[@SpeedyKhaledGD]

Fully Agree but even the dark age cod were kinda fun

[@TheLastArcadeSamurai]

MW2019 a classic? what a way to disrespect the entire franchise that game changed everything for the worse it looks feels and plays nothing like a Call Of Duty it's more like a new IP tacking the name Call Of Duty on it has nothing to do with Call Of duty what so ever Even the bad game's from 2013-2018 aleast somewhat aligned with the franchise it was still Call Of Duty.

[@ElTigre12024]

@@TheLastArcadeSamuraiTo each his own. I don’t think MW19 is as good as the original Modern Warfare games but as someone who’s interest in CoD had been declining for a while, for me it felt like a return to form for the series. Of course, I say this as someone who’s always gravitated towards single player gaming.

[@TheLastArcadeSamurai]

@@ElTigre12024 If MW2019 can be classed as a return to form the bar has never been so low. even in single player it's inferior to previous titles the reboots heavily rely on the legacy of the original trilogy there's no originality there it's just a poor attempt to rehash the past. there's no standard it's just consumed and loved without question.

[@Spunkie89]

I fully agree with the statement of MW2019 returning to the classics! 💪

[@_AintNoWay_]

I absolutely love how you said “You came for the campaign, and stayed for the multiplayer” which was absolutely true. The elements of multiplayer was built around the games campaign. Now, the game is built around multiplayer/Warzone. I guess I cannot blame activision, those modes are their money makers and the gaming landscape has changed tremendously since.

[@hbshadow8981]

The timing of this video Legit i got a speech on why i believe call of duty went down hill in a few minutes for a class and seeing a video posted a day before reflecting the points i aim to answer in my speech is a God send You get my sub man

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

ty!

[@AC-hj9tv]

What cool class is this

[@crystalsnekk1022]

Why is no one talking about the hundred shots it takes you to kill a enemy? In mw2 its a solid few shots not like now

[@cheeseisgood17]

These have my exact thoughts since 2019 but you perfectly put it into words. CoD is just too big now to have a modest dev team. Milked. Dry.

[@dschabrijel]

great vid. so much nostalgia. i miss the oldschool days so much

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

Glad you could take a trip down Memory Lane

[@GamingLovesJohn]

I miss pro perks… they done away with them in favor of balance and split them up. They also made guns way too uniform in the game, or uninteresting to shoot. I also loved the simplicity of the old attachment system vs the new one, where you lose ADS speed for some type of bullshit, in favor of movement or more horizontal recoil control. Like holy fuck… Their map designs are mainly forgettable too. Have you noticed that most maps are JUST remixes nowadays? Not a shred of an original map; even when they make new maps, it doesn’t have the replayability. I think the mantra that Bungie said when making maps for Halo 3 was along the lines of, “You gotta make sure the game is playable the hundredth, thousandth or millionth time.” The matchmaking is also a much stricter issue, trying to match players within your skill bracket & K/D instead of searching for the closest and best connection in a CASUAL game.

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

Progression just doesn't hit the same.

[@PsychoRavager]

To those folks that defend modern CoD by stating "Call of Duty never had a soul anyway. So, it's alright that it doesn't have one now." (yes, I've met individuals that have stated this in various paraphrased forms), you're only gaslighting yourselves and so many others from remembering what Call of Duty used to mean to many gamers. "The campaign was always a side dish." is such an invalid point to those of us that grew up with older, legendary Call of Duty campaigns like World at War's, and it just baffles my brain how they keep using that argument to deflect from the fact that this corporate obsession with monetizing multiplayer has definitely been one of the key factors in killing off what was left of Call of Duty's soul. Ever since CoD turned into an even more bastardized version of Fortnite, I just can't take any of it anymore... either seriously for a singleplayer experience or for the fun of immersing myself into the multiplayer component.

[@Gruntilda-Winkybunion]

Hey Older gamer here, I will never forget the Lan Parties playing CoD United offensive! It was so much fun, and for years i played cod2! It was a really good shooter. The hype with cod4 was real and it was a good game.. the last cod i bought was black ops 2. And then warzone.. but havent touched it since

[@thesenate1844]

And when you complain that the ridiculous comic book skins make no sense, you'll hear cries of "CoD isn't supposed to be realistic. If you want realism, play a Mil-Sim"

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

No unified art theme is a bummer

[@Drummist]

I was sick and tired of buying map packs every game where those maps were ones I previously bought in past games. How many times have we had to pay for Nuketown????

[@theescapeplan3876]

I don’t think you had to pay for Nuketown in the majority of the titles it came out on. As far as I am aware only BO2 had a nuketown DLC for zombies.

[@Drummist]

Every single COD has a map pack that contains Nuketown. Every single one. @@theescapeplan3876

[@AngryyBeaverr]

The best way to put it is that Activision sold Call of Duty’s soul.

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

Unfortunate

[@_Bangs_]

I actually had motivation to play cod again, I bought mw2 when it came out.. and then I realized it’s already outdated like wtf

[@F34R_]

We did? No no no… YOU did. The KZbinrs who were promoting micro transactions to kids who came from playing Fortnite and knew nothing about what cod is really about. If none of this was ever promoted then it would’ve never ruined this franchise.

[@PapaJoJ]

many say EOMM and SBMM is what ruined it.

[@FroschBube]

I played CoD as a kid, but ever since I played Battlefield 3 and later Battlefield 4, BF has stayed my FPS game of choice. I have good memories of playing the original MW-series and Black Ops 1, though. The modern CoD movement looks like a squirrel with ADHD, definitely not something I would like to get into after over a decade of playing BF. BF has big maps, air / land / sea vehicles, big teams and strategy, CoD looks like it's just sweaty and stressful. Their old games rarely go on sale and are still too expensive on Steam and the new ones are not just expensive, but have mixed reviews and take up lots of storage.

[@stfu7203]

A squirrel with ADHD LMAOO

[@ririnatheghost2154]

Another thing to mention is censorship of lobbies. Not saying slurs and such is good, but compared to the wild west early cods came in, everything now has a much more cooperate feel instead of a passionate feel.

[@BlazingDonkeyTrash]

Things I’d be okay with. -$5 Battle pass -$15 seasonal DLC’s: maps only, guns are for everybody -cosmetics, emblems, calling card: earned through completing challenges -remove SBMM from public matches -$60 game: stop making warzone free, impossible to deter hackers -2 year releases -COD WORLD: UPDATE 2 games- BO & MW

[@danielhowe3516]

Harvard called 👌👌

[@stacyfearlicia]

with those prices small indie publisher activision will go bankrupt

[@theescapeplan3876]

I prefer the battlepass to stay as it is if that means I don’t have to pay a quarter of the game’s price for 4 maps.

[@BlazingDonkeyTrash]

@@theescapeplan3876 I’m tired of all the focus on cosmetic items. The rest of the game mechanics and DLC releases suffered due to their own greed. Activision is in limbo. Who knows what’s gonna be around in the coming years

[@theescapeplan3876]

@@BlazingDonkeyTrash Ok, and how would making seasonal maps require you to pay 15 bucks to play them fix the issue of greed? If anything, it would make them more greedy and you would essentially be getting less content for a somewhat similar price.

[@Sp3e3CterLight]

Beautiful video, explained it perfectly. As an old cod player, world at war, it’s wild and ridiculous to see the game become more focused on being a “movement king” than gunplay. Keep it up ❤

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

[@mikesmith1-t1n]

I’m a veteran and I like the realistic characters not the superhero ones or fantasy ones or celebrity ones I don’t like getting shot by Cheech and Chong and turned into a big joint

[@mrmaison4924]

I just want to see all my stats like we had them in OG COD4 MW again. Like how many kills I got with a certain gun, headshots, streaks etc. I completely ignore BattlePass

[@bandarsalh1338]

When i was young i didn't like cod and even when I play it I'd choose the zombies mod Now i wish I could go back to experience the golden days of multiplayer

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

It was a fantastic time.

[@bandarsalh1338]

@@TheCouch-Co-Op My biggest issue with cod is how the games became connected via warzone It feels like warzone is the game and the rest us DLC being sold to you as a game. The first thing you see when starting any game is warzone and an ad for the latest entry rather than the minu of the game that you started I mean, if i wanted to play warzone I'd buy warzone I could go on and on about the UI alone

[@high_higgy]

COD started going downhill when they started to get rid of aggressive sniping

[@isaacellis8849]

This gotta be the realest shit ever bruh

[@high_higgy]

@@isaacellis8849 just remember what trickshotting was like before Black Ops 3, that game fundamentally changed everything and not in a very good way lol, new at the time for sure but not good.

[@enzogarcia6675]

I'll never get why they ever neutered sniping on Warzone. I remember outclassing dudes with the Kar98 on Rebirth, until they snipped it's nuts off.

[@theescapeplan3876]

@@enzogarcia6675It may had something to do with the fact that most weapons took like 15 bullets to down a player meanwhile every single sniper could one tap from anywhere on the map. It gets frustrating when you mag dump some dude and die to a single bullet or when you get killed from a rooftop sniper because the maps are usually 85% open space.

[@tdestroyer4780]

I don't miss it tbh. Black ops 2 was ruined for me when 1\2 of games were just quick scope battles.

[@Eomtuori]

i’m calling it this will be a great vid

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

They were right

[@jacobroberts1928]

Yeah it sucks when you can’t even get on a play for a few hours and have fun. I feel like I have to really get into it for a week to get accustomed to all the nerds /sweats.

[@vitobalboa]

idk why they not just make a modern cod with all the old good ingredients from other cod's that were good af

[@alexlucas4804]

shout out to gregor using that soothing voice for gaming essays

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

Who is that?

[@dodgeshadow099]

The thing I dislike the most about cod is the community. You guys really had a good thing going on with mw2 and you guys didn’t appreciate it.

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

It was the best of times.

[@givenchie462]

No we didn’t

[@cameronwhite6173]

Lmao which mw2? The fact I have to ask that is a problem

[@panzershreck8077]

​@cameronwhite6173 pray to god it isnt the new one lmao. Nothing to be grateful bout there.

[@odg1190]

The OG? Oh yeah. I remember listening to Brysi's goodbye songs when BO1 MW3 and BO2 came out each time. Absolutely addicted to the gunplay

[@NOTHiNG2CBRA]

A COD video without mentioning zombies at all. How dare you…

[@deadpoollopez3810]

World at war the best

[@dannymccrea9642]

I’m not even annoyed he didn’t, multiplayer might’ve gone down hill a bit but the fall off zombies had had since BO3 is tragic

[@niuxv]

@@dannymccrea9642 BO4*

[@AnthonyDoesYouTube]

"We" did not kill Call of Duty, the devs did. They killed couch co-op, zombies, DLC expansions, single player campaigns, even multiplayer after it became convoluted past Black Ops 2, they just became Titanfall clones minus the big cool mechs and robots. Eventually they stopped caring entirely about Multiplayer once they saw Warzone take off. Now CoD = Warzone. Everything we used to love is a thing of the past, and that has nothing to do with the playerbase. I see a ton of people blaming the player because of what the devs did, it just makes zero sense to me. Like have these people not played ANY of the old Call of Duty games at all? I mean, when they were literally AT their peak, with huge playerbases, Mw2 Black Ops 1 and Mw3

[@nappingstars3241]

Honestly after a while I didn’t care much for the story after black ops 2. I mostly play by myself but after a while playing multiplayer wasn’t as fun anymore. More and more skilled players were in the game I’m not against any of them but it just wasn’t as fun like in the beginning.

[@ItsCreaidan]

No, you're absolutely right. I couldn't agree more. This is such a great video. I've been saying this for a while, but people would always says "gEt GuD aNd LeArN tO aDaPt". It's sad because the same sweats that ruined Fortnite came over to this game. And guess what? That community transformed COD into a sweat fest with "skill gaps" (idk how using a meta gun = Skill gap). Well done further explaining this terrible status in Call of Duty and I can't wait to see more! 😎

[@ximmolation]

I adapted, got sweaty as and then realised it wasn't cod anymore and quit.

[@ItsCreaidan]

@@ximmolation You know, I really like these smart comments. I did the same for a bit. It’s just not fun. I’m telling you: If you want to have fun, don’t use “PrO mLg nIcK mErCs tRyHaRrD SwEaT” Loadouts. They’re boring, they take no form of skill and they should only be used (imo) to piss off the sweats (although there are more trolly classes that can combat this too). Use guns that no one really uses and just have a blast that way. Thank you for your comment! 😄

[@ItsCreaidan]

@@ximmolation And there you go: That's how you know it's not fun.

[@ximmolation]

@@ItsCreaidan it's not fun, it's boring. I think the people that like it only like it because it gives them a chance at being "good at the game" by exploiting the movement by saying it's smooth.. like no mofo, sliding while shooting and jumping shouldn't be a thing all together in a cod game. Why is there even a jump mechanic? It's not necessary, you only need to vault, sliding is meant for taking cover. So they should nerf it all together and make it so you can't shoot while sliding, they need to bring back peaking corners and blind fire, because at least they're more realistic, I get it's meant to be arcadish, but even shooting underwater is pretty much impossible, bullets have like no velocity, iunno I just don't like that it's kinda like apex legends. It's whack.

[@ItsCreaidan]

@@ximmolation You know what? You have a lot of good takes here. I’ll subscribe to right now 😊

[@takagimorisato9021]

For me, it was sliding. At this point the way to sell me an fos is just tell me there is no sliding. I'd take the air dashing exosuits over sliding at this point

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

Real!

[@pokvirus5705]

Call of duty now feels like that guy who peeked in high school trying to chases his old days.

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

Great analogy

[@Xxx-hk6mk]

I think esports games and skill based matchmaking killed call of duty

[@BOOMBAPXL]

I stopped givin a sht when Activision stopped givin a sht.. To me that was after Black Ops 2

[@liamwilliams6651]

The fanbase don't know what they want. They talk about the golden age but when MWII released with faster movement than those old cods, people bitched and moaned that it was too slow and that they couldn't bunny hop and slide cancel. Do these people even remember what movement in old cod was like? I miss the old school factions but the fans seem to love the goofy skins for some reason. I miss the old cod formula but the fans of today will never let us go back to that. They hate the MWIII maps despite them basically being the MW2 maps they claimed that they adored so much. They're so excited for the rumoured Black Ops 2 remaster but the irony is they'll probably end up hating it.

[@johnbradley2879]

You are so out of touch it isnt even funny, you are talking about 2 completely different groups of people as if they are all the same people. Us that talk about the golden age would litterally prefer to play og mw2 as is if they would clean up the servers and put in an anticheat. CoD has such a widespread player base, of course people are going to complain about it either way.. but instead of going straight back to grounded slow paced movement that the only way to be faster was based on the mobility of your primary weapon and a perk with some games. They keep way too fast of movement plus sliding in the game. That's the kinda stuff the Golden years players don't want and the reason I have not bought a cod since Bo2 except for infinite warfare because they lied to us saying CoD 4 remastered would not be a solo game

[@ByeBaybe]

zoomer brain

[@Thedudemannn]

The people complaining about that type of stuff are just the loud minority… and tbh they probably weren’t very big fans in the first place if they let something as small as that “ruin” the game for them.

[@985joe]

I usually don't comment stuff like this but, felt like I wanted to chime in: - The small details, as you pointed out with different music for different factions, along with different uniforms and ESPECIALLY different and unique announcers with their own quirks, made you feel more immersed in the older CODs world. A game doesn't have to be "realistic," it just has to make you feel like everything makes sense for it to be in that particular fictional world. Look, if you played the old COD games, you very clearly remember your announcer screaming at you with the voice line: "ENEMY AC130 ABOVE!!!" Hell, HE sounds scared for HIS life, and he's just observing the "battlefield," that is your multiplayer match. And when you see Nicki Minaj or 21 Savage or Kevin Durant running around alongside your soldier in this fictional version of a Special Operations unit, it just breaks that immersion. I get it, the bundles and collabs make money, but from a design standpoint, it doesn't do you any favors when you want to have a certain atmosphere and tone. I don't think people would mind if this was available as like, some kind of "Meme Mode," where it's COD but just cranked to 11 with nonsensical shit, and in that mode the nonsensical shit is encouraged. I imagine that would be pretty hilarious. But having it all thrown together just feels, admittedly, like they copied Fortnite. Again, I get it, if the money is there, they will take that opportunity but, for the tone and atmosphere they're going for, alot of these choices for skins and bundles feels off. - To go along with the previous point, while I'm not invested in the advanced movement part of COD, I could take it or leave it, I do find it to be a good point where things went from "Jetpack COD," to "modern warfare, boots on the ground, realistic operator COD," and the latter is running around with cracked movement. Personally, I can adapt to pretty much any gameplay mechanics, but again with the point of immersion within the game's setting, it's certainly not immersive to see Price slide cancelling around the map. I don't hate it nor love it, but I can see where that mechanic feels immersion breaking given that these are supposed to be more grounded, "realistic," Special Operations units. At least more "realistic," versus jetpack COD, all things considered. - Warzone definitely changed how COD was developed, handled, and viewed throughout the entire process of creating a new COD game. Personally, I'm not a fan of it. It's just not my style of game mode. But I don't hate it. However I can see how say, level designs for example can be affected because of Warzone. It's simply another change versus what we had during that "Golden Age," of COD which was simply: Campaign, Multiplayer, and Zombies or Spec-Ops type of a mode. - The difference in the companies and gaming's popularity versus 15 years ago. The people working at these studios are not the same people that worked on World at War, the OG Modern Warfare Trilogy, and the Black Ops games of that Golden Era. Most of, if not all of those people that were once at those studios I'd imagine, have moved on and are no longer handling things. Similar issue with Battlefield. Most of the OG developers and people with knowledge for the Frostbite engine for example, have gone. Now you have a new group of developers that didn't come up having a hand or even insight into how these games were made and what made them great. I also would wager alot of newer decision makers at all of these game studios don't play their games actively like they once did. If I developed an FPS game for FPS gamers, and even after release I'm playing it with y'all regularly, interacting with the community, and getting feedback to go along with the vision of what the game is supposed to be, I'm more grounded with the decisions I'm making. And back then there was at least more of that than there is now. Unfortunately now decisions are usually made by those who aren't invested in seeing a game be successful, it's driven by money. And I completely understand wanting to make money, but there comes a point where it's less beneficial to make a decision to try and make more money, at the expense of your community and consumers. But, good luck getting that message across to corporate board members and share holders that only care about, "stock prices go up." - I think the trend of trying to make as many games a "competitive e-sport," is hurting games moreso than it being beneficial. COD is, at it's heart, a fast paced, arcade shooter. That means there's going to be bits of randomness thrown in. Somebody is going to jump around a corner and dropshot you at point blank range with an RPG and you'll both get blown up. It's happened to me. Somebody is going to launch a throwing knife or an axe across the map because, "fuck it," and one of those times it's going to clip your pinkie toe and register as a death for you that match. It's happened to me. I understand that in e-sports you try to set things up to avoid that, but admittedly the fun comes from the randomness of watching the kill cam and seeing some jank set up that this random shitter just got you with. It makes for hilarious and random, "what the FUCK IS THAT?!," moments. - SBMM/EOMM. This is a divisive topic, so let me get my stance on it out of the way first. I do not like it. Now before someone claims I just want an easy lobby against noobs, let me be honest about my experience with the Golden Age of COD games. Out of all my friends, I was typically the worst player and at my peak of playing COD I might, strong MIGHT, have had something like a 1.15 or 1.20 or even 1.10 KD average. I've never gotten a nuke, nor do I think I ever got a chopper gunner. Maybe once. But even with me being a more casual, less skilled player that didn't dump an insane amount of time into COD, do y'all know why I'd rather have my lobbies be like the old lobbies? Because even when I was getting curb stomped and my face kicked in, I learned. I would watch the kill cams and look for what happened. Did I give away my position? Was I in a bad position? Did I simply lose a gunfight because my aim was bad? Was my opponent doing something movement wise that I don't do or wasn't expecting? What route did they take to get to me, and was it different than what I normally do? It was learning the game and picking up bits and pieces of play styles and tactics and ideas from better players. Some of that worked for me, some of it didn't. And eventually I took that, plus the experience of learning the maps, spawn points, and the feel of when and where spawns would happen (I did not have spawn timing and location down to a science like some people did. I had a vague awareness of it that I could generally feel out from experience,) and managed to get pretty decent and serviceable at it. It also made it feel like a real accomplishment when I did win that encounter as a fresh, level 15 versus the guy who prestiged 10 times already. Sure, I won 1 encounter out of say, 15 of them. But it FELT like such an accomplishment. Add into that the fact that lobbies didn't disband and you stayed together with your group until you, or a good chunk of the group left and it was how rivalries developed, people made friends, and it made it feel more like a community. I'm not saying every encounter was great, there were obviously some really wild lobbies with voice chat, but I'd rather have ping based matchmaking with the teams divided up by skill based matchmaking and lobbies that don't disband, versus what we currently have. I'd rather get curb stomped and see what the community on a wider scale is doing; how they play the game, what they run, how they navigate the map, than to basically see people play the game extremely similar to myself in a narrow view of the player pool. I'm sure there's more I can think of but, it's late and this was just stream of consciousness from my tired brain. I think at this point we would need a new developer to develop something akin to an old school COD approach, within the modern age. Throw in an absolutely bat shit ridiculous "Meme Mode," where you have wacky skins and stuff like a banana as an option for a secondary pistol, etc, and I think you'd have a basis for a fun time. Casual multiplayer, Competitive multiplayer, and "Meme Mode," Multiplayer aka the most casual, anything goes, type of mode, and I think that has enough variety to keep people engaged, provided the gameplay is up to par where it needs to be. I would like to be involved in the development of something like this, however I don't have the necessary skillset to undertake such a challenge, and unfortunately my time is usually spent between my job, and drifting. Really though, I should go to bed and stop rambling over a comment no one's gonna read much anyways.

[@RussO_1-x6d]

No one's reading allat

[@kinghearts4497]

I read it it all homie, dw. You're spot on.

[@TheBsheep]

Great commentary bro...I agree with your philosophy totally!

[@StevaunIPerez]

👍

[@sgtvanini]

Incrível.... acho que estamos ficando velhos , igual os nossos pais que falavam que no tempo deles eram melhores as coisas. Porém a geração de jovens atual não sabe ter paciência nem educação em nenhum lugar do mundo . Sendo assim naturalmente esses jovens viram adultos e por fim entram nas empresas e colocam suas manias e jeitos nos seus trabalhos . E assim está tudo no mundo tal. Famílias destruídas, sem identidade , homens achando serem mulheres e visse e versa. A palavra certa é a humanidade perdeu sua identidade e assim todo o resto que faz parte do nosso dia a dia . Espero que você traduza e leia . Language: Portuguese Brazil . Translate with Google. 😊

[@truetrax2]

As a lifelong Call of Duty® play, I can tell you MW three is trash

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

Unfortunate

[@enzogarcia6675]

It's enjoyable

[@snoopdogace007]

For real

[@derekm30]

All that animation crap ruins it. Nobody wants to see Cody Rhodes running around the map.

[@PhoenixGuitars]

1. Rampant unabated cheating 2. Spending time and resources on chat bans, even in private lobbies. Spend time and resources on #1 3. Woke Activision bullshit. This is entertainment that we PAY for. We want escape from bullshit like “our community is hurting”. 4. Furry fortnight bullshit. 5. Pay to win guns etc. I’ve been a loyalist from day 1 and for the first time ever, I’m not planning on buying the next game. Activision has ruined the game beyond recognition snd turned it into a failed social statement. Great job!

[@Krooked16]

I honestly thought cod MW 2019 was the perfect middle ground but that’s just me…my first cod was call of duty 2 red one btw

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

an OG

[@usuhbi]

The movement was too fast. Go play cod4 then go play mw 2019. Its like ur on roller skates and everyone is jumping around in mw 2019. Its so unrealistic. The other games are just as bad

[@Krooked16]

@@usuhbi I mean I totally agree it moves way faster than OG cod games but I don’t think they’ll ever go back to WaW movement or even BO1 movement. All that would do in this era of gaming is encourage camping. Only way I see old cod style working is if they make QUALITY maps… and they just don’t bother with that. Hence why I say 2019 was the perfect balance. And lemme preface that I’m not talking about warzone. Maps were okay on average and good but not great at best, movement was quick (still slower than the jet pack era), gunsmith wasn’t over complicated yet (still not perfect but was a good innovation on create a class). Time to kill wasn’t unbearable. Search and destroy was competitive and fun. Skin grind wasn’t MW2 2022. Whatever version of SBMM or whatever they were using was slightly less broken. Campaign was solid. It was better than CoD WWII and BO4. In my opinion (probably the minority here) MW2019 was better than MW2 2022 and for sure better than whatever tf MW3 is. So yeah based on what we got before and after -in my opinion 2019 was the best middle ground, or at least the “peak” of modern COD (all games post BO2).

[@tacoloco6080]

​@usuhbi mw2019 movement was a balance between MWII (and it's classic 2007-2013 cod movement) and MWIII (and it's jetpack Era movement)

[@aml2548]

For me it's the cheating. I'm not wasting my time to lose to cheaters. Dma cheats, new tvs coming with cheats, cheating glasses even. I thought $300 controllers and headsets were bad.

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

Some people have too much time on their hands.

[@EatLeadTalibanLosers]

Cheating is so bad I deleted it. People never missing one shot and still don't get banned. Forget it, I'm out.

[@journeytaylor832]

Skill based matchmaking is what killed COD

[@ReeceHendrix]

This is what made once a casual shooter a no longer a casual shooter and causes casual players to eventually leave for something else more casual friendly.

[@tdestroyer4780]

Intentionally putting trash players on my team is what I don't like. I don't mind going up against try hards, but I wont want brain deads "every single time" on my team when doing it.

[@kleeb5742]

@@tdestroyer4780 My friends and I will destroy for 5 straight games then the game will start putting us against really good teams and throw 3 randoms on our team that go 4 kills 27 deaths while we top frag the lobby by far and still lose for the next 5 games. There might be an evenly matched game 1 out of 20 times which completely destroys the point of their "sbmm"

[@DA7274]

Omg there is no such thing as non skilled based matchmaking. All matchmaking is based off Halo 2’s match making which yes ranked you based on skill. The problem with matchmaking now is that the range of skill levels you’ll be team with/against has been tighten so much everyone has a 1.0 K/D.

[@lFunGuyl]

Crappy take. Skill based matchmaking simply means you play with people at your level.

[@innerarts4091]

Dude i remember playing COD4 back in the day with my friends... That cybercafé, with over 10 guys screaming at eachother, laughing, disturbing everyone else who wasn't playing.... What keep us playing that shit qll out highschool years?? Like you said, the vibe, that immersion... Miss those days...

[@monztunes6850]

Cod4 was the shit. Cod4 and mw2 were the absolute peak of COD. They'll never touch that peak again

[@seinfan9]

Call of Duty 4 MW was the last one I played on the 360. Still waiting on one that meets that standard.

[@hurricane7727]

The Radio Chatter was Better than The remastered Version

[@alopeztywonek2401]

You said it, the problem with CoD is that they started to listen to the community too much and tried to please everyone. The problem is that the community don’t know what they want. I mean, is good to listen to the community to a certain point, so they can take note and improve or fix what needs to be improve or fixed, but activition should have like a goal, a vision on mind for what they want the game to be or feel. I don’t know if I’m making any sense. I have the idea I just don’t know how to explain it

[@TheConquerer24]

PC players killed it

[@Nahzzttv]

How

[@edited1325]

🤡 comment

[@pollutedwaters8126]

COD is dead and we have killed him. - Nietzsche

[@jacksmith4460]

Console market killed COD, although ironically many will think of it as its birth...when it wasn't. I was better when it was a PC focused game. COD2 & 4 were easily the best games in the series...and that was a very long time ago

[@mikeknowsbest4]

Call of duty problem was having multiple studios releasing games.

[@PowerfulRift]

My thoughts exactly

[@TheCouch-Co-Op]

Too many cooks