The map design choices are welcomed by both hardcore and casual fans. The flow of the maps, at least design-wise, has been well received. However, a few other changes disrupt the overall flow of the game in favor of the more “laid back” or “casual” players. One of the highlights of the criticism is the absence of the classic mini-map. The Call of Duty franchise had a classic mini-map that was unchanged for over a decade until Modern Warfare (2019). The classic mini-map reveals your position for a couple of seconds whenever you shoot your weapon. This helps make the game more engaging and fun as the players can focus their attention on the “last known location” of the player to hunt them down. This also helps the game flow rather than resulting in a long boring match with limited gunfights. This also encourages camping!
This has always been the staple mini-map for all the previous Call of Duty games. Silencers were introduced in the game to counter this. Any player who wants to stay off the radar can opt for a silencer. The silencers may have their own pros and cons, such as reduced damage range or bullet velocity, but that is understandable. You are hiding from other players while shooting. Some balancing compromises are expected. Unfortunately, in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the mini-map does not function like before. All the players are now hidden on the mini-map by default. Even if they shoot, they won’t show up on the map. This also renders the introduction of silencers useless as you won’t show up on the map even when firing your weapon. The only way to see enemy players on the mini-map is by activating your UAV kill streak. The day following the first beta weekend, Infinity Ward received major backlash for this change, with players taking their frustration to Twitter. Infinity Ward acknowledged the community response and issued a blog post where they more or less said the team wouldn’t implement any of the requested changes. The response from the developers led to even more outrage, with even a former pro player such as TeeP letting his frustration out on Twitter.
— OpTic TeeP (@TylerTeeP) September 20, 2022 According to Infinity Ward, the mini-map design has been changed as “[they] do not want to punish players for firing their weapons.” They’ve ended the statement by saying they will continue gathering feedback on this topic. This means that the possibility of re-introducing the classic mini-map is still not out of the window. As TheGhostOfHope has Tweeted, there is still a possibility, “so keep annoying them about it.”
— Hope (@TheGhostOfHope) September 20, 2022 What’s interesting about the classic mini-map is that both CharlieIntel and ModernWarzone had stated that they experienced the classic mini-map back when they were invited to try out the Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer early in June. “The pacing of the game was wonderful. Everything was great about it. And then when we got done, me and CharlieIntel went and talked to somebody. We mentioned in our feedback that we enjoyed the classic mini-map. And we were told, ‘Oh, that’s a bug. We’re going to fix that immediately.’ You should have been in the room to see our faces.” says Doug from ModernWarzone as he recalls his early access multiplayer experience in a Twitter space session.
I think we touched on pretty much everything that needs to be looked at before full release in both #ModernWarfare2 multiplayer and Warzone 2. https://t.co/3Hh5SQYaO5 — ModernWarzone (@ModernWarzone) September 20, 2022 This makes us question whether they originally intended for it to function as the classic mini-map or not. The classic mini-map is not the only issue here, as most players request Dead Silence’s return as a perk instead of a Field Upgrade. And as expected, Infinity Ward shut it down by saying, “We believe it is important to game health that rushers are not able to move at high speeds without consequence. Dead Silence as a Field Upgrade creates a balance between freedom of movement and predictability of combat.” As you can imagine, the community was outraged and furious as the devs didn’t implement any of the changes or agree to the changes despite asking for community feedback. As of now, not many changes are expected, but we will have to wait and see as we wait for the second beta weekend scheduled to kick off on September 22, 2022, at 10 A.M PT.
