Everyone always claims that Activision just keeps releasing the same game every year with no real changes, but COD detractors can be somewhat vague on ideas to improve the series. With Black Ops II just about a week from release, if given the chance, what would you change about COD to make it a better game?

Would you improve the graphics--or build a brand new game engine--even if it meant losing the 60 FPS gameplay? Would you add vehicles, even though that was tried once and most people hated their implementation? Would dedicated servers be worth a small monthly fee? Would you remove or tweak core gameplay elements? What would you do to improve the series?

Go back in time, and stop them making anything past 4.

Build a better netcode. Other then that the gameplay itself is fine.

It's not my job to improve it, and to be honest, don't fix what ain't broken.

I enjoy the Call of Duty games and I think that Treyarch is doing good on advancing the franchise so it doesn't become to much of the same. Black Ops 2 looks like the biggest advancement in the franchise since Call of Duty 4 - while it doesn't seem to reinvent the game, it looks like it has improved on what is already there while adding some new flavor.

I haven't played the game yet, but Custom Loadouts and Challenges for the campaign, an open-world (more or less at least?) Zombies campaign, and a more customizable multiplayer than ever with the Pick-10 system and Scorestreaks (and more weapon attachments than ever). It looks like a really good game.

@Oscar__Explosion said:

Build a better netcode. Other then that the gameplay itself is fine.

Oh yeah, this and hit detection could use some work.

Personality. The recent bombcast mentioned Bad Company and how great the characters were(very true). That's what's missing from COD for me.

Any tactical or skill based gameplay additions would benefit it greatly, removal of most of the kill streaks for a start. This would alienate a massive portion of their users that play it casually though (it is a casual game, after all). I guess it depends on what you mean by 'improve the series', i.e. make the game objectively better or change it so that it will sell more copies.

End it.

In terms of single player, the game doesn't play radically different from CoD:2 or 3 or World at War, and when those games came out everyone was complaining about the WW2 shooter like they are complaining about the MW shooter now. What changed all that was the look of CoD:MW, and the multi-player. That is what revitalized the franchise, and shooters shifted aesthetically from WW2 to "Modern Warfare".

If CoD want's to freshen things up it needs to do what it did before again - and Black Ops ain't it. Black Ops will probably sell well, so if it ain't broke don't fix it, but when it gets broke they'll need another leap. A few years off could give everyone a reprieve and would perhaps do the franchise a favor in the long run, but that ain't happening. Short of abandoning the franchises Call of Duty-ness in favor of a radically different style, future CoDs could change the aesthetic away from the MW thing (without going back to WW2) while introducing something substantial into the multi-player. I have no idea what the new setting could be though. The past is pretty well mined, and so is the future, but a really imaginative original world not based on history or the "modern warfare" shtick is probably the best bet. Easier said than done, but unless something happens I think things are going to start to stagnate commercially. The Modern Warfare shooter can't keep smashing sales records forever, can it? Unless Infinity Ward releases games with the regularity of Valve or Blizzard I don't see that happening. Somethings gotta give.

Maybe they are stuck in a hopeless cycle. Now that I think about it, BioShock and BioShock: Infinite embody a lot of the changes I was thinking of w/r/t shooters, but Call of Duty they are not. Maybe there won't be any genre trends like the Modern Warfare shooter and the WW2 shooter before that, and the commercial focus will instead shift to more unique games that have a different development style like TF2 or Bioshock.

Uninstall it! Hahaha!

Or. Not buy it! Haha!

Make it not military and war glorification propaganda tripe!

@Morrow said:

End it.

You would be a terrible business person

Make an actual game instead of a log flume amusement park ride with explosions. Make the multiplayer about something other than getting the drop on the someone, camping in corners, or "dolphin diving" to make yourself harder to hit.

For CoD? There is only one thing you can do to fix it: end the damn series and move on to creating something original again! This franchise is getting dumb and dumber with every game it got released.

@Inquisitor_Sif said:

For CoD? There is only one thing you can do to fix it: end the damn series and move on to creating something original again! This franchise is getting dumb and dumber with every game it got released.

but what about all those millions of people that love the game. wouldn't they be annoyed that they stopped making them.

Stop regenerating enemies and kill a specific amount of people. Change the pace and size of the game in single player in order to give people a breather. Add vehicles in campaign and multiplayer. Add a forge mode. Set the game in the future or the past. Don't set the game in the current day.

Don't make it a modern military game. You can set it in the present though.

Call of Duty : Pirates

Make it a sidescroller with chickens!

Have it trigger a mini nuke when played. 

Just continue to do what they've been doing, which is make small gameplay tweaks.....until the games stop selling like hotcakes that's what I would continue to do.

I if IW stayed the way it was it would have been great. All their games were amazing, and each was different enough from the las to feel fresh. I know it's unpopular to say this but MW2 was the best, and after the two guys left IW didn't seem to know what to do with MW3 and Treyarch had no one to copy and paste from anymore.

@Guided_By_Tigers said:

Just continue to do what they've been doing, which is make small gameplay tweaks.....until the games stop selling like hotcakes that's what I would continue to do.

Sounds like something a SUIT would say, man

I hear they revamped and improved the emblem creation tools so they have improved it as much as needs be as far as I'm concerned. I am very excited for the creation of the BLOPS II Emblem thread, can't wait to see what the distorted minds of the Giantbomb community come up with.

Shit, I appear to be int minority but I like the game as is, apart from the yearly iteration. The single player kind of sucks but I like the MP. I do very well in MP and I have a lot of fun pissing off all the twats on Live that take the game entirely too serious. It's because of the COD series that my Xbox Live rep is awful, 85% of people I've played against supposedly avoid me.

I have never played any of these games but I would still suggest that they center the plot on dragon-riding wizards invading from another dimension.

Also Dinosaurs.

give United Offensive a graphical update and be happy. actually, i don't even need the graphical update, i'd have been happy if they didn't make anything after UO.

I'd put out the call to put in more duties.

start with putting it on hold for a few years

Reboot. The Call of Duty.

Anime cutscenes.

Keep the tone from Modern Warfare, expand and polish the game around that. It's weird how the games went from "War is fucking bad" to dumb flagwaving Tom Clancy-bullshit so fast.

Less explosions more "action"

@JackSukeru said:

I have never played any of these games but I would still suggest that they center the plot on dragon-riding wizards invading from another dimension.

Also Dinosaurs.

@GunstarRed said:

Anime cutscenes.

@Hizang said:

Less explosions more "action"

The next Call of Duty shall take place in anime fantasy land and its plot shall deal with dragon-riding wizards and porn.

(...by "action", you meant "porn", didn't you, Hizang? Or am I just that bored and/or fucked up?)

@believer258: Not porn, but a little man on man wouldn't go amiss.

What i mean is, in Modern Warfare 3, it felt like every time you went round a corner there was a huge explosion or a building collapses or something really big happens. That sounds cool, but the problem is when its 100% all of that, there is no downtime. There needs to be way more down time in the next one for the big explosions to mean anything at all.

Make it a military simulation game like Arma, but with CoD controls.

There's nothing wrong with it. It's a game tons of people still enjoy and look forward to playing every year. Sequels rarely make drastic changes after the second game and if they keep selling they'll keep getting made. I find it funny how people continue to complain every year yet still keep buying them. It's on you to get over the fact that you don't have to buy a game just because it's popular. You probably know by now if you like CoD by now so buy something else and stop flooding the Internet with meaningless rants about how CoD is garbage.

I agree with what others here have been saying in that it is what it is. If you want it to be something different, just don't buy it and go find that different thing you're looking for.

I don't think the game has done much innovating since the first Modern Warfare but it always provides a few hours of mindless entertainment and a solid multiplayer offering. It does what it aims to do perfectly. Asking for change is just asking for a different game than what CoD just is now. I'd give the series in general a 6/10, just above average, in gameplay but a 10/10 in production values and ridiculous set pieces which is the only reason why I play the games anyway.

A new engine and some more color.

A more deliberate, slow pace (at least for a mission or 2) could really help to accentuate the big-ass,crazy set pieces that COD is known for.

I think Treyarch should handle the series now (a tad ironic).

But the biggest thing that would improve the multiplayer is non peer-to-peer handling of servers, it would help with the hit detection so much.

@TheSlothKing said:

A new engine and some more color.

Looks pretty colorful to me:

And thank goodness for that. I'm sick of seeing games being de-colorized. The change from Overstrike to Fuse has completely turned me off that game.

@SpaceInsomniac said:

@TheSlothKing said:

A new engine and some more color.

Looks pretty colorful to me:

And thank goodness for that. I'm sick of seeing games being de-colorized. The change from Overstrike to Fuse has completely turned me off that game.

That looks a lot better than Blops1 and MW3. I may get blops2 after all or at least rent it.

More strategic gameplay.

@brett990 said:

More strategic gameplay.

But HOW would you implement that strategic gameplay? The point of all of this is to be specific.

Nothing doing what they are doing. They are making crazy money, you wouldnt want to change much.

Personally I'd start by slowing it down a little, the pace seems to have accelerated by a fair amount over the last few years. Would help it to feel a little more strategic and less frantic.

I'd also go in a different direction with the map design, they're often too small and built in such a way that you're almost always open to attack from multiple angles. I'm no fan of campers

but when you tie this map design philosophy with the mess of a spawn system you create a lot of uneccessary frustration for players.

I'd also like to see a multiplayer game type with a series of objectives ala RTCW and Enemy Territory.

Last but not least I'd dump the minimap entirely, let the players rely on their own senses to determine enemy position instead of being told, never really understood the need for that feature.

Probably wouldn't please most but I'd be happier with it!

I don't think it can be fixed at this point short of an entire conceptual, design, theme, tone and stylistic overhaul. Basically if Call of Duty were Unreal Tournament I would care.

Put more guns in it! People like guns, amirite?!

New Engine.

Honestly, I don't hold any animosity towards the series like so many others seem to. I just stopped playing because it got old for me personally. I still think it's a fun series, however, it's not for me anymore. A new engine alone would get me to sign on for another game or 2. Sue me.

Realistically, everything they've done with Black Ops II is what I would want out of an improved COD game. League play, better customization, a fictional setting, completely revamped class creator, etc.

I guess the only thing I'd want is like... a Facing Worlds equivalent.

Or just make it like Unreal 2004. Either or.

@brett990 said:

More strategic gameplay.

That's basically what the scorestreak system is there for, now. It pretty much forces to the player to play the objective. Being a lonewolf will net you the same results, only five times slower because you're not being an asset to your team.

Give everyone mustaches.