How Can Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Fix Camping? | Game Rant
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is one of the best multiplayer games of 2019, with shooting mechanics carefully honed over many games and an extremely satisfying progression system for customizing weapons. The attention to detail in sound design and recreation of weapons is top notch, while a well-received story campaign brings Modern Warfare back to its roots. In going back to basics, Modern Warfare also created a multiplayer experience that pushes for more tactical realism and careful gameplay than its immediate predecessors.
This push for more deliberate gameplay may have had an unintended side effect, however. Most Call of Duty: Modern Warfare players have almost certainly had a run-in with a camper by now, or at the very least heard vociferous complaints about camping over the in-game voice chat. The community seems unanimous in their understanding that camping is one of the biggest issues currently facing Modern Warfare. However, the issue of camping is more complicated than it may seem at first. There are several aspects core to the game's design that make camping an issue, but the term is also often misused to describe a wide variety of strategies that do not actually abuse the game's systems.
Camping is the bothersome practice of hiding in a single safe spot in order to get easy shots onto anyone who passes within view of the camper. For example, someone who hides with an overpowered sniper rifle in the upper floor of the building overlooking Piccadilly is a camper. They might place a claymore or proximity mine behind themselves for good measure, and if killed will simply return to the same position as soon as possible.
This is typically a low-skill strategy, and is frustrating to deal with while playing a game in which most people want to run around the map getting into quick, snap-decision firefights. Camping is often seen as antithetical to the way that CoD is meant to be played. Campers are choosing to play the game in a boring way only to get a slight advantage, at the expense of the enjoyment of everyone else in the match. The fact that camping is so looked down upon makes it all the more annoying to die to a camper.
Unfortunately, "camping" has become something of a catch-all term for a variety of strategies that are not necessarily unfair or low-skill. The long sightlines in Modern Warfare maps, the loud movement, and the quick time to kill all mean that moving carefully, watching angles, and checking corners will give players a significant advantage. Being ready for someone to leap around the next corner is not camping. Likewise, someone who clears out that top floor on Piccadilly, takes a few shots, and then moves on to another area is not a camper.
Other tactical shooters that Modern Warfare took some inspiration from encourage this type of gameplay, building their maps around narrow sightlines and defensible positions. Moving slowly and aiming around a corner isn't camping in this case, but a sound tactical strategy in a game that requires stealth and caution.
Camping is at its most egregious when someone occupies a single position for most of the game because it is advantageous to stay there, even when their position is known. This type of gameplay is an abuse of the map's design in order to gain an advantage through a low skill strategy that causes the entire match to stagnate.
Camping is detrimental to Modern Warfare for exactly that reason. It encourages boring, low-skill gameplay, but most importantly is exceedingly frustrating to go up against in multiplayer, sapping fun out of what should be a great time. Still, campers who are bad at the game will still usually lose against higher-skill opponents, but campers who communicate closely, work as a team, and watch multiple angles at once can be almost impossible to win against, especially in Ground War's huge maps and high buildings.
Camping is, to some extent, inevitable. There will always be new players or less skilled players for whom this sort of safe yet annoying strategy is the way they learn to play the game. However, there are a lot of design choices in Modern Warfare that make camping worse than it has to be. The core features that encourage camping are map design, lighting and visibility, and time to kill.
Huge maps with long sightlines mean that players can easily watch a large portion of the map from a safe distance. Likewise, many of the larger maps are filled with easy safe spots to hide in that can only be attacked from a couple of angles. Many of these safe spots are dark or poorly lit, making it very difficult to locate players hiding in the shadows before they fire. With the very quick time to kill in Modern Warfare, it is nearly impossible to locate a source of fire in a large map and retaliate before dying.
The most effective fixes for the camping issue in Modern Warfare would be to improve lighting and visibility, introduce smaller maps with fewer hiding spots, and improve the spawning system and skill based matchmaking. Another good option would be to punish players who stay still for too long with a significant nerf to claymores and proximity mines. While time to kill is a factor in the prevalence of camping, it is also integral to the fast-paced nature of the game.
Luckily, several smaller maps with few hiding spots have already been added, although players have their complaints about the new maps too. Even the larger maps would not suffer as much if small tweaks were made to make hiding spots less safe. Skill based matchmaking and abysmal spawning systems have been issues since the start of the game. An overhaul to matchmaking, or the wholesale removal of skill based matchmaking from casual playlists could do wonders for the many players currently suffering.
Fortunately, Modern Warfare's developers are not shy about changing the game significantly over time. If they continue to support the game long-term, fixes for camping are almost certain to occur.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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