" First, I'm really enjoying your take on the game.  I believe, in it's most basic state, gameplay IS forced adaptation. If you are not reacting to changing circumstances... then where's the game?  If you're in a building because they have killstreaks and a UAV in the air, then really the advantage is yours. There's now limited number of spots where they are going to come at you from. You ALREADY KNOW that they will either walk through the door and try to kill you, or they won't and they're killstreak will end and you will survive.  Aside from you knowing where you died regardless of the kill cam or not, IW did dumb down the game with the kill cam. But only a bit. What that does is force the player that killed you to get smarter. If you do exactly the same thing, in the same places all the time, you're not going to survive. It's a great anti-camping feature really. The game isn't over just because there's air support. Since it's so easy to get three kills, the losing team can change their fortune just as easily. Some of my most satisfying comebacks are a direct result of this. Heck, there can be opposing team's harrier in the skies at the same time.  It's really only a slippery slope if you let it. "

" @crunchUK said:

But that relies on the who knows factor of me having cold blooded equipped though, you can't adapt since the way to adapt is reliant on inherent gameplay characteristics.   What your'e saying is that a piss easy yet dominate all setup can be countered by camping... possibly. That isn't balance, at all. "

Relies on having cold blooded equipped? Change your class to one that does. At some point you just shouldn't play the game at all because you're completely unwilling to do anything different and adjust. You are basically just a lemming at this point.  As I said before... there is no "piss easy yet dominate all setup. This thread is the proof. People are complaining about tons of different setups and aspects to the game, meaning there is no one dominate setup. Seriously, not everyone uses the SCAR. Not everyone uses stopping power. Not everyone uses chopper gunner. Not everyone camps, or runs around in the open non stop. Not everyone duals the 1887s. Not everyone duals the glocks. Not everyone knifes. "

Balance, in my opinion:
 
Having diminishing returns on 'spammy' strategies. Especially ones that involve surprise or are obscurely creating advantage which the player doesn't know how to counter.
Having a very minimal amount (or none) of misleading strategies. Not mind games, those are fine. 'Misleading' in that the players aren't correctly realizing what's going on even though they have a firm grasp of the game (care package glitch).
Strategies which the players use are generally spread pretty evenly (although there's always a bell curve on the more well-rounded strategies/kits, that's normal).
Having little or no strategies that dominate at no cost. One strategy dominates another whenever it yields better results in every case whatsoever (therefore the first strategy may as well not exist). For example, Tactical Knife > Knife in every way, but it has a cost (weapon attachment slot).
 
So what does COD have in these respects?
It has diminishing returns in the form of killcams. Every kill you make while spamming a strategy becomes more difficult because people know where you are (at least locally). Killstreaks slow the diminish.
Misleading strategies are rampant, unfortunately. This is mainly because of the internet, it's not really IW's fault. Client-side hit detection creates strategies where taking cover is dominated by peek and shooting and lag enables this. Unfortunately, it can't be fixed by a better game (to some degree), so the misleading strategies that are problematic come in the form of glitches.
Even spread of strategies is really hard to gauge, but I think IW did okay here, I've seen every gun in battle except for a select few outliers, but personally I believe the Grenade-on-AR is a little much. Grenades and explosions are the most reliable increases of kill/deaths. People know this, and that's why everyone (I should say 'most' AR users) goes frags/launcher. The public isn't dumb when it comes to knowing what wins. If it's being used a lot more than other configs, then you -know- there is a balance problem. Popular usually begets imbalance.
Dominating strategies COD has a few of, but they don't break the game. Blast shields are one example, client-side detections beget lots of this, also.
 
So COD4 is alright in the grand scheme from my view. One less grenade in the launcher would do wonders for the game's explosion fetish (so would making the B. Shield better). One man army should just be 'Press Y and you get your ammo back to full after this loading bar'; much simpler, less exploitable (in terms of runaway imbalance).

Dude, IW won't give you a medal for fighting a losing battle. The game is unbalanced, lack of recoil on assault rifles is one example. Just chill and enjoy the game, surely people complaining doesn't detract from your enjoyment of the game. This thread is pointless and  inflammatory.

it's not balanced for lean. heh :E 
 
 
i think the game is just too "spammy" and therefore some kind of unbalanced... with grenade launchers, rocket launchers, normal grenades, stun grenades and dozens of pretty cheap killstreak rewards (partly from cargopackages)  that are utterly annoying and just hamper the flow of the game 
combined with the fact that there is now way to setup servers with own rulesets and weaponbans it just makes it a rather crappy MP game imho 
 
probably has been said a couple of times but i'm too lazy to read the whole thread

The game isn't unbalanced like a fighting game is unbalanced (which is what kenya24 is saying), its unbalanced as in "there is so much stupid shit in the game that they just threw in there without even testing out the cheep stupid shittyness of some of the perks and attachments". Also, another thing about mw2 that sucks is the level design. Some of the spawn points, especially in search and destroy, give one team a gigantic advantage. Also explain this, they took out two claymores because stupid people were complaining about snipers in the last game, but then in this game they 1.keep the noobtube just as annoying as in the first AND add the thumper, 2. make quick sniping easy as hell and complete bull shit, and 3. put in a thermal scope to make sniping even more annoying. Thats what people mean by unbalanced. There are so many different class combinations in mw2 that are extremely cheap, and that take absolutely no skill of any kind to use (quick sniping, noobtubes, thermal scope, ect). Not to mention it took them like three patches to fix the models, and there are still a billion glitches in there that they haven't addressed yet. 
 
Oh yeah, and I forgot the fact that its soooooooooooo easy to boost and there are like 3094582983475089372456738945896374985364 fake 10th prestiges because of it which basically destroys the whole point of prestiging in the first place. How dumb is it that they take out the ability to be in party chat in most game modes, but they still allow you to join your friends in free-for-all matches so you can boost. MW2 is the most jacked up glitchy and annoying online shooter yet. 
 
Edit: Also, I obviously know I dont have to play it, and I realize I'm whining. But as someone who loved the last two Call of Duty games, it really pisses me off when IW delivers such a crappy online experience compared to even World at War.

I didnt read every post in this thread but am i the only one that thinks the ACR needs to be nerfed? I think thats a prime example of gun inbalance, if its a face to face fight the acr wins every time cause it has no recoil and is quite fast. Really every assault rifle wins against anything that isnt (cept maybe the ump) an assault rifle, whats the point of using an rpd when it takes me twice as long to kill someone with it.?
 
Also nevermind the fact that the spawn system is awful, if i kill someone than the game will purposely spawn that guy is some advantageous position to get a revenge kill on me, or when someone gets an ac130 or chopper gunner the game just loves spawning you  directly under the damn thing. 
 
Really though the biggest flaw (and i hate to sound like an elitist but ive played the crap outta cod4 so im impartial) is the game just became too casual, it adheres to the shitty players that will play for a month or 2 and the people that play this nonstop kinda get screwed over. The single player shows this to, all realism is thrown out the window for jackie chan and swrharchenagger(id like to see you spell it right) moments.
 
Cod4 was all about twitch gameplay but the shitty players were shitty and the good players were good, now its just a bumfuck. Whats sad is i go on even more but i wont, i still play this game a lot but only with friends, the game is just gonna give me a heart attack if i play it alone lol.

" @crunchUK:  I'm not saying camping specifically, though it's one of many options. And you don't have to die first, but you have to live with your decisions. Sometimes you're just going to die. Sometimes you're going to lose bad. Doesn't mean there's no balance. "

I more curious as to why all these modern warfare complaint threads have appeared lately. I thought we were done with them.

" I didnt read every post in this thread but am i the only one that thinks the ACR needs to be nerfed? I think thats a prime example of gun inbalance, if its a face to face fight the acr wins every time cause it has no recoil and is quite fast. Really every assault rifle wins against anything that isnt (cept maybe the ump) an assault rifle, whats the point of using an rpd when it takes me twice as long to kill someone with it.?  Also nevermind the fact that the spawn system is awful, if i kill someone than the game will purposely spawn that guy is some advantageous position to get a revenge kill on me, or when someone gets an ac130 or chopper gunner the game just loves spawning you  directly under the damn thing.   Really though the biggest flaw (and i hate to sound like an elitist but ive played the crap outta cod4 so im impartial) is the game just became too casual, it adheres to the shitty players that will play for a month or 2 and the people that play this nonstop kinda get screwed over. The single player shows this to, all realism is thrown out the window for jackie chan and swrharchenagger(id like to see you spell it right) moments.  Cod4 was all about twitch gameplay but the shitty players were shitty and the good players were good, now its just a bumfuck. Whats sad is i go on even more but i wont, i still play this game a lot but only with friends, the game is just gonna give me a heart attack if i play it alone lol. "

"

I’ve noticed on the internet a lot of people claiming that the game is unbalanced, and basically crying about it. I don’t understand this argument at all.

Quite frankly, very very very good weapons are available to everyone very early in multiplayer. If I recall correctly, by the time you’ve unlocked “create a class”, you have access to the M4, UMP, RPD, intervention or barrett (I forget which). You get the SCAR a few levels later. You can create a knifing class right away. So the game isn’t unbalanced because only the high level players get good weapons/perks/attachments.

The levels are fair. Sure there’s some choke points and slight advantages to starting on one side or the other, but what faction you play for is random… so that doesn’t make sense.

The game doesn't favor campers as there are very easy ways to counter them. Noobtubes may end your killstreak, but those players are ripping up the leaderboards...    I just don't see the "unbalanced" argument. "

" @crunchUK:  I'm not saying camping specifically, though it's one of many options. And you don't have to die first, but you have to live with your decisions. Sometimes you're just going to die. Sometimes you're going to lose bad. Doesn't mean there's no balance. "

"Look at it this way, when a player becomes very, very good at what he does, say.. split-second snipe (quickly zoom through the scope and fire, must have painted crosshair on screen), knows the map well, knife stacking, etc. Their victims find it frustrating and start to complain; "omg this game is rigged/unbalanced". "

" @kenya24 said:

" @crunchUK:  I'm not saying camping specifically, though it's one of many options. And you don't have to die first, but you have to live with your decisions. Sometimes you're just going to die. Sometimes you're going to lose bad. Doesn't mean there's no balance. "

I've been refraining from this for a while, but here's a halo counter example.

Except of course i can do nothing at all about whether i live or die. I've been refraining from this for a while, but here's a halo counter example. The enemy has a banshee. I know this because i was either timing the spawn or someone called it out, i also know whether we have a laser or not, i therefore know whether to support the laser guy as best as i can until he sorts it, or to head to base and rustle up a missile pod/power drain/stickies to try and combat it.  Not only does this have strategic elements where a similar situation in MW2 doesn't, but i actually get to fight back, equals more fun, more depth, and therefore more lonegvity, quality, and everything else. "

" @crunchUK said:

Except of course i can do nothing at all about whether i live or die. I've been refraining from this for a while, but here's a halo counter example. The enemy has a banshee. I know this because i was either timing the spawn or someone called it out, i also know whether we have a laser or not, i therefore know whether to support the laser guy as best as i can until he sorts it, or to head to base and rustle up a missile pod/power drain/stickies to try and combat it.  Not only does this have strategic elements where a similar situation in MW2 doesn't, but i actually get to fight back, equals more fun, more depth, and therefore more lonegvity, quality, and everything else. "

Halo and MW2... apple and oranges. They're both fruit, that's about it.  It's funny too because what you just described is more thought than most people put into MW2. Doesn't mean though that you can't think to that level in MW2. "

mw2 or the first one have never been about balanced mp...

Assholes complaining about minor gripes in a game they play hundreds of hours of despite the fact that it's "terrible"

" Assholes complaining about minor gripes in a game they play hundreds of hours of despite the fact that it's "terrible" "

The complaint I have with this game is the shitty matchmaking system. The hit detection is fucking atrocious, and the host advantage is easily seen.

" @Shadow said:

" Assholes complaining about minor gripes in a game they play hundreds of hours of despite the fact that it's "terrible" "

"

You don't play a lot of other games do you?

" @Alphiehyr said:

"Look at it this way, when a player becomes very, very good at what he does, say.. split-second snipe (quickly zoom through the scope and fire, must have painted crosshair on screen), knows the map well, knife stacking, etc. Their victims find it frustrating and start to complain; "omg this game is rigged/unbalanced". "

That's pretty much what I'm saying. "

" Assholes complaining about minor gripes in a game they play hundreds of hours of despite the fact that it's "terrible" "

" @crunchUK: Success or failure is pure chance? What game are you even playing?  I'm not going to be brought into a Halo vs MW2 debate, cause there's so little common ground it's pointless anyway. "

I love me some cod.  A squeeze of lemon and a bit of tartar sauce, oh my!

Well I don't run into too many glitches in the PS3 version, so I have nothing to complain about besides the PS3's awkward controller.

MW2 is garbage.

"I'm sure MW2 is perfectly balanced when everyone is fooling around doing their own thing, when things are just as they are... because they are - it's when you start to go a little in depth and into a little tactics that success of failure, IS pretty much pure chance. I've already explained why continually, you choose to ignore it. "

unbalanced my ass, more like unplayable and unfun.

" @crunchUK said:

"I'm sure MW2 is perfectly balanced when everyone is fooling around doing their own thing, when things are just as they are... because they are - it's when you start to go a little in depth and into a little tactics that success of failure, IS pretty much pure chance. I've already explained why continually, you choose to ignore it. "

I ignored your example because it's obviously flawed. Replace "Spartan laser" with "stinger missile". Replace "support teammate" with "cover teammate". The tactics you described are inherit in EVERY FPS. Also, they really had no bearing on whether the game is balanced. "

I got tired of this game, came back a few weeks later and now I suck, which gives me even less incentive to play.
 
If you want your problems with balance, here it is.
 
The problem with CoD MW 2 is that it has options, lots of them.  Now, options aren't necessarily always a bad thing, the first CoD MW had a great selection of options to choose from, but it still maintained a certain amount of fairness amongst all of the choices.  MW2 opens up more doors, which screws over the inherent penalties that were involved in some combinations from the first game.
 
For instance, our friendly noob tube.  Where before the MOST, you could do with it was fire two grenades and then fair your luck playing the game like everyone else and wait for a respawn to get your tubes back.  The disadvantages were obvious.  One you were considered scum and villainy, much like now, only worse.  Two, you were forced to carry a weapon that had a useless attachment (as you could only have one attachment) after you fired your first two grenades, while other people would have sights, scopes and silencers.  This also hurt you because killstreaks started at three, so the best you could hope for was a UAV if you were lucky enough to nab one person per grenade AND kill another with your weapon.  Then, at the very worst, you just got your team a UAV, so you aren't benefiting from it solely.
 
It's almost as if the game developers saw this as a bad thing and wanted to fix it all.  Now you take Scavenger or One Man Army and you have infinite tubes.  This in turn allows you to grab greater killstreaks than before.  Where you was once lucky to get a UAV at 3, you can now get a chopper gunner or AC 130 at 4 (possibly).  If that doesn't float your boat, simply camp out 7 kills and get your Harrier+Choppa+Nuke and win.  Still can't pull that off in Deathmatch?  How's about we create objectives everyone has to run to, so you can just lob toobs that direction and get your 7 to win.
 
You tell me which sounds more balanced.
 
This is not in the least bit helped by the games now insane popularity (with an almost Halo-ish calling), so that if the gap between players who play all the time and players who play some of the isn't stretched out beyond support, the gap between players who won't stoop to using things EVERYONE uses and those who will.
 
You said it's about adaptation, but it's really just assimilation.  You either play the game with X setup over Y, or you lose to people who do.

I'd like to hear how people think the game's map design figures into its balance issues (or lack thereof, depending on your outlook).

my only unbalanced observation is that a gun thats almost 200 years old can be more accurate and powerful than any modern weapon.

I enjoy playing the game and I think its balanced out fairly well. The only thing that pisses me off are nubetubers, 

They weapons are not unbalanced per say, but unskillful.
 
This game is a clusterfuck of shit designing.

Danger close + NoobTube is the most crap ever 
Danger close + shotgun + steady aim + AC130  
Painkiller 
Commando, being an instance kill i.e not being able to shoot them while they are attacking you to counter. 
 
I think its just poor game design is the real problem after all. COD4 was so tight IMO.

Fuck. I want Juggernaut back. If they can have a perk that makes your gun more powerful, they should include something that upps your defense to such equally BS-tastic things. Painkiller is just silly. It uusualy takes you way more than a few seconds to run back to that guy who, by the time you reach them again, is hiding in another corner. Oh, I'm going on a rant...

Ahhh i remember the day of good and balanced mp 
 
sigh

I love the game but some of the maps (Terminal comes to mind) are VERY unbalanced in terms of spawn points and such.