Quickscoping: A Second Look

A hateful look at one of this opinion-haver's most hated fake-verbs: Quickscoping.

I hate being wrong. But you know what I hate more? Being wrong unintentionally, revealing fallibility contrary to what the puns and glaring spelling mistakes on PMI suggest. I fixed most of those mistakes in the Beyond: Two Souls review, by the way, so that's safe to read now.

I, Caleb Woods, confess to the wrongness present in my review of Advanced Warfare. Suggesting that quickscoping will not be as prevalent in Advanced Warfare as it has in previous Call of Duty titles, it turns out that I was wrong. So wrong. The following are the chilling lie-words straight from my lying whore mouth that continue to haunt me to this day.

Besides, after roughly 15 hours of online gameplay, I've yet to run into a single match where the winner has won solely by quick scoping. This is one of the better balanced COD titles since Call of Duty: World at War, no bullshit bro.

That last sentence is complete bullshit. In my defense, though, players haven't yet learned quickscoping in Advanced Warfare's style when I began playing the game, and as far as I'm concerned, the rest of the review is an honest truth. Quickscoping, by the way, is this neat thing you can do in every COD game since Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 where you quickly aim down your sniper rifle's sight and squeeze the trigger in hopes of achieving fast one hit kills at any range.

This shit, more or less.

That's fine and all, and I am glad that the developer, Sledgehammer Games, has allowed the tactic to continue. Its inclusion pleases more players than if the game had gone without it and that's a very good thing. However, the overwhelming proliferation of quickscoping Advanced Warfare is a wet dick slap to the face, especially after Sledgehammer Games's Michael Condry told 3 News "sniper classes are not going to be overpowered relative to their peers" in an interview.

In fairness, Michael stated that the sniper classes will be no more powerful than the other weapons, he never promised for quickscoping to go away. But the reality is that sniper rifles are more powerful than their peers only because of quickscoping. Sniper rifles easily claim kills in any range while weapons designed for a specific range struggle for consistent performance. In other words, I highly doubt Michael's words were intentionally misleading, but they sound disingenuous to anyone that plays Advanced Warfare for more than a couple of hours.

QUICKSCOPING: AN UNBALANCE THAT NEEDS TO MOO-VE OVER



Sorry if that joke pun-ishes you.

Here's my beef with quickscoping: the sniper rifle class of weapons can and will dominate any and every other weapon class set in Advanced Warfare. The concept of balance is only found in the few, blissful minutes before an entire clan of quickscopers joins your match and ruins everything. For example, if you practiced and grew into the best shotgun user you could be, you will lose each encounter against someone who's put equal effort into a sniper rifle. Every. Single. Time. As a long time fan of the series' shotgun class, knowing that I will overwhelmingly lose against a sniper rifle in close range is an extremely maddening PITA.

Think about that for a moment. Players that use weapons designed for one hit kills in close range are more times than not obliterated by quickscopers in the very same close ranges. What the flaming shit? By COD's own rules, the shotgun class is the most deadly weapon for such encounters, yet they are outgunned, most times, by sniper rifles. It is through quickscoping that one hit kills at any rage are easily gained, sweeping the entire map's area with one hit kills whilst simultaneously sweeping other weapon classes under an old rug of obsolescence.

There is no balance with quickscoping as popular as it is in Advanced Warfare. Like I said before, it's not inherently game breaking, but it's grown from a neat tactic into a terrible beast, twisted beyond all recognition, dominating the entirety of Advanced Warfare's online experience. It's that incredible popularity which makes it difficult for fans of other tactics to actually enjoy the game. Its an invasive species running wild, controlling a series that owes much of it's popularity from allowing the player a chance to win no matter what weapon class he or she plays with. There will always exist weapons that are better/stronger than others in gaming, but the margin of effectiveness between sniper rifles and the other weapon classes has ballooned to ridiculous levels. Honestly, after getting quickscoped seconds after spawning one or nine times in a row in a free-for-all match, why even play the game unless you really enjoy quickscoping?

HERE'S THE PERFECT SOLUTION

Other than key developers staying true to the things they say to online publications, I've come up with a splendid idea that Activsion and Friends can use to remedy this lack of balance in future Call of Duty titles. It is a solution so ridiculously simple that any asshole with a blog could have thought of it: Make quickscoping more difficult to do by increasing the idle sway of the sniper rifle's reticule when aiming down the scope.

Those of you in the know will notice this totally original idea of mine was actually used in 2010's Call of Duty: Black Ops. You will also remember how a lot of fans were upset because of that fact. I suppose I would be upset too if I was a quickscoper unable to easily emulate the YouTubers that make an entire living based off of ace quickscoping in COD. It's only after reading their insane subscriber numbers of around 335,000 that one realizes quickscoping isn't going to go anywhere any time soon, what with livelihoods at stake.

OKAY MAYBE YOU SHOULDN'T ENTIRELY HATE IT

"Hate" is a strong word that perfectly embodies my feelings towards quickscoping. But by now you know I am hard to please when it comes to video games. What this means for you, dearest gamer, is that you should either enjoy quickscoping or be okay with prolific quickscoping before you buy Advanced Warfare. Truthfully, Advanced Warfare caters to quickscopers simply because a lot of players enjoy it. And really, if you bought Advanced Warfare or any COD game since Black Ops, you probably do enjoy quickscoping.

For the rest of you guys that buy COD games expecting a revival of decent gunplay balance, give this handy dandy excerpt from my last review a read to learn how you can prevent spending lots of money on a game that you will end up hating as I have.

Personally, I can no longer play Advanced Warfare. Besides the persistent, nearly game breaking issues I've mentioned before, there no longer exists a method for me to play as I have before in previous COD games and still have fun. Jumping on the quickscoping bandwagon would remedy this, but how fair is it that one of my favorite franchises is seemingly forcing quickscoping tactics by making all other weapon classes extremely weak in comparison? The hell with that noise. Give me the COD that lets me play how I want and still gives me a good chance to win, without resting the fate of victory completely on weapon class choices. The older COD games have that purity, thankfully, and they are still playable. Should the novel idea of balance ever return to the franchise in future COD games, though, I'll be ready to play them. Until then, I am returning this COD to the depths of the sea where it belongs, by means of Viking burial. Stay tuned.