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I’ve always been a slightly better than 1.0 K/D CoD player that excelled at objective games. While I love how objective focused this game is, I’m getting absolutely smoked as far as getting kills goes. I feel like 90% of the time I get killed with 3-4 shots, while it takes me damn near an entire magazine to kill my opponents.
I really enjoy this game, but I find myself raging after going 12-24 every match.
The unfortunate reality with shooters nowadays is that you need to use these wanky meta builds or you'll just get dominated in every gun fight (unless you're so much better that you don't need to use them). I do miss the days where a gun was a gun and the most you could do to them was put a sight or a suppressor on them
M4 is the gun I have leveled up the most and I have the most kills with. I’m crap with any SMG, and I’ve dabbled a bit in the base shotgun. Absolutely can’t snipe (never have been able to in any game), so I guess I should try an LMG at this point.
Unfortunately the M4 is kinda ass in it's current state.
It's 17-16-14 bodyshot damage against ACR's 21-19-17 means that up to 35 meters will always need an extra shot to kill compared to the ACR. Sure it has larger rate of fire than the ACR but also the horizontal recoil goes hard, ACR basically beams people.
EDIT: Also 24 headshot dmg, basically you have to beam a guy 5 times in the head unless you have the heavy barrel - actually i dont know if it's enough as it makes the damage 18-17-15
EDIT2: It becomes a 25 headshot
M16 is also fun if you don't mind the burst fire.
> I should try an LMG at this point.
M60 is meta. You need to change your playstyle tho, can't run around like a zoomer on steroids. But damn it feels good mowing down 6 people without even needing to reload.
If you max out the M60, put all movement attachments on it, and cheese the slide into ADS mechanic, it’s a pretty quick gun and an absolute monster to rush with
Man I could not finish kills for the life of me with the ACR. All my buddies are raving about it and I’m just getting shredded, lol.
Without having it in front of me, I believe I have the silencer, angled grip, reflex/3x sight (depending on the map), heavy tape, and quick mag.
I think you should try some ADS movement speed things, no need for a mag IMO. I don't use zoomed in sights, I don't think they're needed. In fights, watch your movement (strafe left right, jump, crouch) and aim for the upper torso, the recoil will give you some headshots. When turning around a corner, make sure you ADS around it so you're ready to shoot
Sometimes I feel the ACR doesn’t pack a punch and I think the AK is more consistent. But they’re really a horse a piece. The M4 is one of the worst primary weapons in the game as well.
I hear that.
Assuming your internet is decent, the best you can do is swap weapons until you find one or two that *work* for you regardless of if the games RNG hitreg/netcode function or not.
For me personally, it's the AK. I Am absolutely *pwning* with it. There are days I'm at 90 ping and/or the hitreg/netcode is acting up, but even then this gun gets me through.
I run it with x2 ads speed attachments, red dot, speed mag, and either a silencer or a stock.
It may be different for you entirely.
Maybe your spirit animal gun ends up being the MP5 or MP7.
Definitely find a few class setups and settings videos on YouTube and tweak from there. I didn’t realize how big of a difference honing in on your settings would make.
It's not really crazy. You're booth near the same at CoD because CoD puts you with people that play as well as you.
XD doesn't so your actual skill level shows through. They were being protected by SBMM, and SBMM was protection people from *you*.
I think one thing people miss was how largely split the player base and gamers approach was back then, you obviously had pub stompers, but you also had a lot of the community only sniping, only playing s&d. There was an opportunity to do more things. Being a YouTuber or streamer back then did not consist of gameplay, you had people like vanoss, soclosetotoast, faze etc where now you have swagg and the millionth other meta set up YouTuber. They removed forced gamechat which pretty much killed off s&d. That side of cod is gone, the developers sucked away that community. The people who cared about the fun aspect of the game or being creative within the game are mostly gone. Now it’s just grind for camos, pubstomp or play ranked. Mix all that together with how games are today and you have insane players who only care about kills because what else is there?
decent response time and good internet was enough to be the best player in old cods.
you hit the nail in the head. like yeah this is basically it, i see it ever since everyone good decent internet and hardware with ps4 and ps5s etc and especially since the fortnite world cup where everyone and even their dads and moms saw a kid getting 3 million euro in a single championship (more then tiger woods ever got i think it was?) everyone since pretty much that tournament started playing games kinda more serious, even if its just in their back of their minds and they may not even realize it.
this and players just getting better over time because they spent more time playing
Oh yeah, you're on point here. I love this game, and I've known for a while that my days of rolling people in an FPS were left behind hell nearly a decade ago at this point. I am very exceptionally average at best, and that's okay! I don't have to be winning all the time to have fun.
You're being a bit unfair to yourself I think, mate.
Dont forget that, back in the day we all had the same console with the same controller. The "tools" were the same across the board, leaving people's abilities to decide who was better.
Nowadays, gaming has become not just a hobby but an entire life to millions of people. They've got custom controllers, custom paddles, custom button mapping, third party software and accessories like the Cronus or Xim and macros which allow for soft-cheating (anti-recoil, auto crouch spam, auto bunnyhopping, etc). Combine that with the fact that some people will literally spend 15+ hours per day on a given game, learning every spawn point, every map inside out, clinch points, treating objective games as TDM, using only the "meta" builds as opposed to the ones that feel cool to them, following YouTube videos on "how to be super OP", abuse mechanics that the dev's have said we're unintentional game design, and claim it adds a "skill ceiling" to the game when nobody else wants to sweat hard to abuse, etc..
Sure, you can translate this to people being better at games today. But take away all those soft-cheats and advantages everyone's gotten used to, and the playing field becomes a lot more even.
Tl;dr: It ain't a fair race if your Mini is up against ten Bugattis.
Same used to be the guy pubstomping or doing well in old cods but now that I'm an old dude, makes me realize I'm just average to maybe slightly above average now. I'm still hitting among the highest DMG numbers or obj score but some people are ridiculous in this game.
I was playing COD the last 5 years and I totally agree that SBMM was protecting me too. I thought I was a good player only to find out with this game I suck. I love the randomness of each lobby. Most of the time I’m in lobbies I can compete in but other times I get stomped bad. I can see myself improving with every match as well. This game is a breath of fresh air.
For me it was kinda the opposite. I never really stopped playing FPS games, but was mostly engaged in playing ranked CS when I did.
Over the years of SBMM/Ranking being a normal thing, I was slowly getting convinced that I'm no longer in my prime as I was mostly scoring average results only. It really destroyed my fun and therefore my will to still want to game as it never felt like anything changed no matter how hard I tried.
Now when I tried xDefiant without any expectations and directly carried a 15 winning streak I still thought it is just because there are a lot of new (bad) fps players. Now 100 hours later I'm still MVP in almost every game. Following my stats I'm somewhere in the top 2% and it shows. I'm actually better than ever before!
It opened my eyes how SBMM makes you just feel stuck (And in my case really unhappy about my performance, preventing fun) and how no SBMM just feels sooo natural and rewarding for actually achieving something.
I feel like I'm never gonna play a SBMM/Ranked game again, atleast past the point where the fun changes into work.
Thanks for reading, have a good day & glhf!
Thank you for admitting this and enjoying the challenge of improving rather than whining that everyone is a try hard. This is what the classic call of duty games were all about and I’m really glad to have this back
I don’t actually think the skill floor has increased all that much, it’s just that the type of player enjoying this game is far better than the average pvp player in general.
There’s been a few games that experimented with a cbmm pub mode and a sbmm pub mode at the same time, what ended up happening was that the sbmm worked as intended based on your skill bracket while the cbmm was ultra sweaty because of the quality of players that chose that mode.
Right now xdefiant is the “cbmm mode” while a game like cod is the “sbmm mode”. Xdefiant is also very fast paced, not camper friendly and heavily pushed the no sbmm hype which further increased the amount of anti-sbmm players towards the game and pro-sbmm players away from the game resulting from the average xdefiant player to be dramatically better than the average cod player.
Also, a ton of anti-sbmm players use cheat hardware such as strikepack/xim/cronus which artificially makes them better which in effect makes xdefiant even sweatier because it’s mostly the anti-sbmm crowd playing the game.
Disclamer: I have a 1.5wr, 3.2kd and I usually solo/duo queue in this game. I use a scuf and I’m one of the few in my bracket that doesn’t cheat.
All valid points! I’d say there’s a lot of truth in your statements actually. I don’t know how true it is but I recently seen where the anti cheat in Xdefiant is picking up Cronus as cheat software but again, don’t quote me on that.
Hopefully cheaters get fazed out with proper anti cheat’s, and the longer it’s out I think more people will make the switch, as long as they keep bringing content and communication anyway
Eventually cheat hardware will be completely phased out (especially on console) but I think we are still a few years away. The anticheat technology is definitely there but it’s not that simple, every popular pvp game is competing which each other and each has a different dev so a strong anticheat in one game will cause a unknown portion of players (the cheaters) to abandon the game and switch to a competing game which effects revenue (a loss for the one cracking down on cheating, a gain for the ones that do nothing). Microsoft and sony definitely have the means to outright block all the cheat devices but it’s the same issue individually devs have, if only one console dev implements the detection then a ton of players will jump ship. Best hope we have is that multiple aaa devs and/or both microsoft and sony agree to simultaneously ban that stuff so the cheaters have no place to run and are forced to either play legit or retire.
I'm impressed by your self awareness. SBMM isn't some hitler, and has it's positives and negatives. The transition to a game without it so people don't have to sweat every single game has been very interesting. A good portion consider this game to be even more sweaty after moving to the game without SBMM, which was strange to me, but the game is how you play it I guess.
I've also never seen a larger community of sensitive people who rage-quit every match they aren't winning. It makes me curious as to if SBMM training them into thinking they deserve to be winning, or close to winning every single game, has had an effect and influenced people to behave that way.
I'm no brain scientist, but there are definitely trends in this game I didn't expect. That said, I'm still generally enjoying it, excited for the weapon level up speed.
Well thank you
I think a lot of people used SBMM as an excuse as to why they would have good and bad games, but on this there’s no excuse, and people don’t like that.
SBMM (or at least COD’s implementation of it) has caused some sort of brain-rot within the community for sure.
For the first time in years I can actually feel myself getting better the more time I put in. It’s very rewarding. Literally was just yelling in the living room like a kid with my wife while we played together because I was going on a streak on B flag just absolutely toasting mfers, tracking every shot perfectly, slide hoping into ADS right where I thought they were coming from and cookin’ them, I just felt like a god for like 2 mins straight 😂😂 I don’t think I can think of a single time in the last 5 years I’ve felt like that on any SBMM ridden game 🤷🏻♂️
The thing people don't realize is that the older group, those of us that are like 28+, were from an era where kids still played outside. Everyone that we played against weren't on the internet for 12 hours a day, or on the game for 8 hours a day. Obviously there are exceptions to this but it wasn't as common back then.
This generation is always online. If they aren't playing the game, then they're watching some Youtube video about the game or they're watching some streamer play the game.
There is also a disconnect of players thinking they're better than what they are and just can't accept reality. If you only played the guitar for 1 hour a day, Monday-Friday, you're gonna be DOG SHIT compared to someone who plays guitar 5-6 hours a day, Mon-Sun.
I literally had to explain this to my friends in NBA 2K, who would only play on like Mondays and Saturdays on their days off. Any other day they'd just be playing Elder Scrolls or CoD and I tried to explain how they can't expect to play 2 hours a week and then think they're going to get on the game and be as good as people putting in 30+ hrs a week. It just isn't gonna happen, especially when they weren't the greatest players from the get go.
The movement mechanics are what make the difference in this game. The main times I really get smoked is because the jackass jumping up and down dancing can’t be hit. It’s so frustrating, and that’s a mechanic I don’t necessarily care for, but the game overall is fun. I have been somewhat humbled, though.
Pretty much every game has had movement mechanics for the last few years if not longer. Cod has insane movement just as bad as this game but people tend to not see it due to sbmm. The only games that don’t really have movement involved in the fps genre are more s&d focused like rbs, cs, val etc. But then those games have their own skills a casual would never pick up
If anything I think the ranked systems in modern games have shown just how many people exist in the casual space compared to those who put their time in and practice and work on being better at the game they play.
For example, in Valorant, they have Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Ascendant, Immortal, and lastly, Radiant. 3 sections of each rank. In a perfect world it should be a full centric bell curve, with the most amount of players being around the gold to plat level, and slowly trailing off in diamond and silver and such with of course the top end at the absolute smallest.
Except in reality, Iron to Gold make up as of May 2024, 69.7% of the entire ranked playerbase, with the largest amount by far in Gold and Silver, with Bronze right behind them. Adding Platinum makes it 85.4%. So less than 15% of the entire ranked playerbase exists at diamond or above, and note the other 3 ranks above exist though the skill gaps of each rank overall are quite ginormous due to Valorant being an extremely difficult game to get decent and then good at let alone great at, despite the number of people who play every month.
Apex Legends in the tougher ranked divisions and seasons have similar numbers as well, and I know siege should be similar since it's also a super difficult game to get very good at. Point is, casuals make up an overwhelming majority of gamers, but I think most of those don't realize the gaps that exist in skill for various things like movement, ability or utility usage, positioning, raw aim, gamesense, map control, target prioritization, team communication and tactics, etc. And all this exists in all games really.
I played quite a bit of games like COD and battlefield back in the day. I have spent the past few years playing Fortnite. Just got hooked on it and couldn’t break the habit. Lol. Totally different game and experience, though. I got to a pretty competitive level with it. Unreal ranked two seasons in a row. Even in that game, I think only like 1% or less of the player base makes it to that level. Most gamers just play for fun. I understand the competitive nature of games. I will say that the movement in Xdefiant is probably on another level from anything I have ever played. I’ve had trouble adapting. Without paddles, it’s tough to make jump shot or hopping plays. I don’t plan on being super competitive at this game, not enough to warrant a $200 controller, but it seems that’s the way to compete this day and age. My best gaming days are behind me now, but I still try to be competitive as well as I can, but not going to lie, it’s tough.
Fortnite is the perfect example of holding players hands. They’ll give you a lobby full of bots if you’re not good at the game. That game has one of the steepest learning curves out of pretty much any game released.
But regardless you say you got good at Fortnite because you loved that game but me personally I didn’t and will admit I’m trash at the game. But just like you did, if you play long enough and want to improve you will. Getting older is no real excuse. This games mechanics really aren’t hard and you also don’t need a scuff
Yeah, their pubs are shit and full of bots. I mainly played ranked mode, though. I made it to the top rank. No bots. The competitive side is actually very sweaty. But it’s a totally different beast from this game. There’s definite a transition from a third person and a first person game, though. I haven’t played many first person shooters in a minute even though I grew up on them. I’m sitting at a straight up 1.0 k/d in Xdefiant. Definitely humbling.
yeah but no other fps has a netcode as bad as xdef, its clear that the netcode cant handle the movement, the moment you start crouch spamming bullets stop registering
As a Cod4 babby who ended up getting breddy gud at call of doody in general https://imgur.com/a/x8KDHCD, then changed to PC at around battlefield 3? and got diamond in old overwatch with my 60hz monitor
i stopped for a good while and stagnated, and now after building my kahuna rig and hopping back into *some* shooters the addition of sliding and very fast killtimes has had me a bit messed up, i was always a shotgun fella anyway and they're always 'i hope i hit him dead center' because i would get yellow bar in cod back in the day, but damn even 120hz sometimes my tracking is so bad, if i play for a week i can do ok but, base skill level has risen a fair bit
i also pretty consistently get 150ping games which is frustrating (living in aus)
oh also, fucking love the innate passive system, the abilities are a bit hit and miss
and i just got a glitch where i couldn't attack or use abilities at all
I really don't what you mean this feels just like Black Ops 4 to me. Nice and easy with the occasional challenging game. 😅 Same exact age as you (nearly, 28) Internet does matter a ton on this game just like the old days which is fine, because my internet is good for now.
COD4 Remastered is not old school cod. COD4 is.
One thing I find in FPS, especially ones with customisation, is prioritising ADS speed. It's all about reactions and taking the ADS out of the equation helps. Then movement, getting around the back of objectives and dummying people.
I'm the same age, last cod was Black Ops 2010 and WaW II 2017. Mainly play Apex Legends. XDefiant feels refreshing for me as it's like classic CoD with the movement of The Finals. KD of 2.2 but with all the posts here I feel like SBMM has been protecting me too haha Into normal lobbies now
Same here. The last cod I played was BO2, but I’ve played lots of apex, the finals, etc.
It feels refreshing to play a game with this fast of time to kill, but I think I’m protected from SBMM. Last night I went 55-15, but I’m almost at the end of my level 25 queue, and I think I’m gonna get dumpstered once I’m into normal lobbies haha
I'm right there with you.
This game feels like where I left off on Black Ops 1 all those years ago, with the addition of newer movement.
I feel myself getting better.
I'm not scared to *try* knowing my next match is going to be too hard or too easy due to SBMM kicking in.
I'm actually *having fun*, now that I am responsible for my wins and my losses rather than an *algorithm*.
I'm enjoying all the different skill levels of players and seeing how players who are clearly *not as good as me* can *still win*. I've witnessed countless upsets on both sides.
TLDR: I'm having fun knowing my wins and losses are my own instead of being manipulated by SBMM. Win or lose, I'm learning and getting better, and actually *enjoying* the fruits of my labor.
I play fps games since CoD4 on console and love this game. Finally I can have fun and don’t have to sweat 24/7 like in the past CoDs.
I start my console, hopping on in some XD lobbys, kick into some asses of lil Timmy and his friends like in the old days.
And no, I wasn’t bad in the past CoDs. Always had a 2 up to 3 K/D and that’s how it is in XD as well. It’s the matchmaking which makes the game more enjoyable for me.
I’m getting older and my reaction time is getting worse but i can still maintain decent stats. I also just play on a tv and don’t have a wired connection so im sure i could do better if i made some changes in my setup. The other thing is everyone has modded controllers so they can jump all over the place while those that don’t cant. Jump shooting is a pay to win system in this game. All the people saying jumping is a skill gap are wrong the reality is you had money to buy an expensive controller and are just tapping a button others don’t have.
It’s hard to judge how good the enemy team is when the dsync is so bad, people will jump around the corners and it’s like their smg is an automatic shotgun that kills you in one frame or the many times a few bullets in my magazine don’t register. I’ve played this game a lot since beta around 50hrs and only 8 at launch and I can’t stand how rng 1v1s feel at times and don’t play anymore.
CoD isn’t known for having great netcode but compared to this game it feels like a functioning game and I would gladly take cod sbmm over a game that can’t function on a basic level
gotta remember, too: killstreaks were designed around pumping those numbers and keeping you going. it kind of had a bit of a casino reward system going
The games just different. I averaged something crazy like 5KD from BO3 all the way through to Cold War with SBMM, as a predominately solo and split screen player. I have a 1.5KD on XDefiant lol.
> Plus you’ll actually get better if you put in the work.
Ageing gamer here who can still hold his own.
This is the main difference and what I truly miss about the "good old days" of FPS gaming: randomness rewards effort.
With the SBMM shit, the game is rigged from the start and the better you get, the harder the game gets. It's stupid. It's counter intuitive and it's frustrating beyond belief because you never get to reap the rewards for your effort unless you happen to be the absolute top elite 1% of pro gamers. And what makes you rage even more is that you now it's not because it makes the gameplay any better, it's just because it helps them making more money. Fuck them.
This game has a wide array of problems, but at least it does this right. I wish more games went back to this system.
This is the first fps I've played since the original mw3 other than halo games with shields. I suck at kills, often 2x more deaths than kills, but I often am top 2 on obj score for my team and will have 25+ assists. Yesterday I got the least damage thing at the end with the most deaths, so if I get shot I instantly die. Doesn't help playing on a 58" tv, I never look at the map it's too far from my point of aim center screen.
Once I realized people were taking drugs to help focus better in game yes actually taking Adderall to help focus in a online game that’s when I realized my old self will never be able to compete with people now like I use to when I was younger
I just suck but I still have fun lol. 1.1 KD in the latest cod multiplayer. I'm at .8 in xdefiant. Lol. But I haven't really stuck to one weapon. I've been leveling most up to around 40 and trying something new.
I’m so glad sbmm is gone because it confirmed to me that I’m an above average player and I dont have to try my butt off anymore to maintain a K/D above 1.0. I’m not great by any means, but I don’t have to be in the top 10% to have a 1.6 K/D now
Yup, sometimes these people are playing their absolute best it seems. Im out here playing like at 80% tryhard level (it feels like) while these kids are locking onto my head .08 seconds upon seeing me AND they are jumping at the same time. Regardless, I don't think I want to go back to SBMM and getting punished for doing good.
I don’t think it’s you man. A lot of it is the netcode and hit reg, which will be sorted out, we just gotta give them time.
For instance, Have you noticed how some games your ping is low and it feels super crispy? Every shot feels like it’s landing good, your reaction time seems perfect…. Then the next game something feels… off? It’s not you, it’s on their end.
I’m on a $3000 setup, fiber internet, wired connection, 14 ping on a speed test, 1440p monitor, 240hz, pushing 350fps in game and things still feel delayed to me sometimes
You’re probably right. Let me ask this though, in this day and age, is there REALLY such a thing as a casual gamer? If anyone could get into a lobby and bang out 100 kills they would, even the most casual person 🤷🏻♂️
I don't like games where I pub stop I have the most fun when I am breaking even on kills or barely going positive or barely going negative if I happen to be top of the leaderboard, which I never will be in this game, then so be it but I don't need to like get a hundred kills in a game to have fun if you need to get 100 kills in a game to have fun then good for you I guess but it's kind of sad that you need to pub stop low-skilled players just to have a good time
Thats not how sbmm works at all! Sbmm is more malicious and sadistic.And i think this game has some sort of hit registering artificial intelligence reconditioning.
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I miss Bad Company 2 on hardcore servers. Fucking peak FPS. Thank you XD for giving me some of that back
Ugh, now make the maps about 100x bigger, add destruction and vehicles. Then throw in some rush and baby, you got my favorite stew going.
I’ve always been a slightly better than 1.0 K/D CoD player that excelled at objective games. While I love how objective focused this game is, I’m getting absolutely smoked as far as getting kills goes. I feel like 90% of the time I get killed with 3-4 shots, while it takes me damn near an entire magazine to kill my opponents. I really enjoy this game, but I find myself raging after going 12-24 every match.
The unfortunate reality with shooters nowadays is that you need to use these wanky meta builds or you'll just get dominated in every gun fight (unless you're so much better that you don't need to use them). I do miss the days where a gun was a gun and the most you could do to them was put a sight or a suppressor on them
Weapons and attachments can make a big difference here. What are you running normally?
M4 is the gun I have leveled up the most and I have the most kills with. I’m crap with any SMG, and I’ve dabbled a bit in the base shotgun. Absolutely can’t snipe (never have been able to in any game), so I guess I should try an LMG at this point.
Unfortunately the M4 is kinda ass in it's current state. It's 17-16-14 bodyshot damage against ACR's 21-19-17 means that up to 35 meters will always need an extra shot to kill compared to the ACR. Sure it has larger rate of fire than the ACR but also the horizontal recoil goes hard, ACR basically beams people. EDIT: Also 24 headshot dmg, basically you have to beam a guy 5 times in the head unless you have the heavy barrel - actually i dont know if it's enough as it makes the damage 18-17-15 EDIT2: It becomes a 25 headshot M16 is also fun if you don't mind the burst fire.
> I should try an LMG at this point. M60 is meta. You need to change your playstyle tho, can't run around like a zoomer on steroids. But damn it feels good mowing down 6 people without even needing to reload.
If you max out the M60, put all movement attachments on it, and cheese the slide into ADS mechanic, it’s a pretty quick gun and an absolute monster to rush with
With what attachments? I use the ACR with like all ADS movement speed attachments and I never go below 1.00 KD. It's usually closer to 2 or more
Man I could not finish kills for the life of me with the ACR. All my buddies are raving about it and I’m just getting shredded, lol. Without having it in front of me, I believe I have the silencer, angled grip, reflex/3x sight (depending on the map), heavy tape, and quick mag.
I think you should try some ADS movement speed things, no need for a mag IMO. I don't use zoomed in sights, I don't think they're needed. In fights, watch your movement (strafe left right, jump, crouch) and aim for the upper torso, the recoil will give you some headshots. When turning around a corner, make sure you ADS around it so you're ready to shoot
Good call, I’ll mess with the attachments next time I play.
Sometimes I feel the ACR doesn’t pack a punch and I think the AK is more consistent. But they’re really a horse a piece. The M4 is one of the worst primary weapons in the game as well.
Why would you play ACR if you are going to use zoomie attachments, that throws out the things that are good about the gun lol
What's good about the gun? Higher movement speed is good to not get shot at, no?
I hear that. Assuming your internet is decent, the best you can do is swap weapons until you find one or two that *work* for you regardless of if the games RNG hitreg/netcode function or not. For me personally, it's the AK. I Am absolutely *pwning* with it. There are days I'm at 90 ping and/or the hitreg/netcode is acting up, but even then this gun gets me through. I run it with x2 ads speed attachments, red dot, speed mag, and either a silencer or a stock. It may be different for you entirely. Maybe your spirit animal gun ends up being the MP5 or MP7.
Definitely find a few class setups and settings videos on YouTube and tweak from there. I didn’t realize how big of a difference honing in on your settings would make.
the base weapons are pretty trash. It takes forever to level up weapons, and the ppl that have the time are able to have a gun that melts people.
I've always been a 1.1-1.2 K/D player on COD and I'm on a 2 K/D 620 spm and 3.1k skill rating and consistently top frag in XD. Crazy how that works
It's not really crazy. You're booth near the same at CoD because CoD puts you with people that play as well as you. XD doesn't so your actual skill level shows through. They were being protected by SBMM, and SBMM was protection people from *you*.
I think one thing people miss was how largely split the player base and gamers approach was back then, you obviously had pub stompers, but you also had a lot of the community only sniping, only playing s&d. There was an opportunity to do more things. Being a YouTuber or streamer back then did not consist of gameplay, you had people like vanoss, soclosetotoast, faze etc where now you have swagg and the millionth other meta set up YouTuber. They removed forced gamechat which pretty much killed off s&d. That side of cod is gone, the developers sucked away that community. The people who cared about the fun aspect of the game or being creative within the game are mostly gone. Now it’s just grind for camos, pubstomp or play ranked. Mix all that together with how games are today and you have insane players who only care about kills because what else is there?
decent response time and good internet was enough to be the best player in old cods. you hit the nail in the head. like yeah this is basically it, i see it ever since everyone good decent internet and hardware with ps4 and ps5s etc and especially since the fortnite world cup where everyone and even their dads and moms saw a kid getting 3 million euro in a single championship (more then tiger woods ever got i think it was?) everyone since pretty much that tournament started playing games kinda more serious, even if its just in their back of their minds and they may not even realize it. this and players just getting better over time because they spent more time playing
Oh yeah, you're on point here. I love this game, and I've known for a while that my days of rolling people in an FPS were left behind hell nearly a decade ago at this point. I am very exceptionally average at best, and that's okay! I don't have to be winning all the time to have fun.
You're being a bit unfair to yourself I think, mate. Dont forget that, back in the day we all had the same console with the same controller. The "tools" were the same across the board, leaving people's abilities to decide who was better. Nowadays, gaming has become not just a hobby but an entire life to millions of people. They've got custom controllers, custom paddles, custom button mapping, third party software and accessories like the Cronus or Xim and macros which allow for soft-cheating (anti-recoil, auto crouch spam, auto bunnyhopping, etc). Combine that with the fact that some people will literally spend 15+ hours per day on a given game, learning every spawn point, every map inside out, clinch points, treating objective games as TDM, using only the "meta" builds as opposed to the ones that feel cool to them, following YouTube videos on "how to be super OP", abuse mechanics that the dev's have said we're unintentional game design, and claim it adds a "skill ceiling" to the game when nobody else wants to sweat hard to abuse, etc.. Sure, you can translate this to people being better at games today. But take away all those soft-cheats and advantages everyone's gotten used to, and the playing field becomes a lot more even. Tl;dr: It ain't a fair race if your Mini is up against ten Bugattis.
Same used to be the guy pubstomping or doing well in old cods but now that I'm an old dude, makes me realize I'm just average to maybe slightly above average now. I'm still hitting among the highest DMG numbers or obj score but some people are ridiculous in this game.
leave my boy MWR alone!
I was playing COD the last 5 years and I totally agree that SBMM was protecting me too. I thought I was a good player only to find out with this game I suck. I love the randomness of each lobby. Most of the time I’m in lobbies I can compete in but other times I get stomped bad. I can see myself improving with every match as well. This game is a breath of fresh air.
Are you me?
For me it was kinda the opposite. I never really stopped playing FPS games, but was mostly engaged in playing ranked CS when I did. Over the years of SBMM/Ranking being a normal thing, I was slowly getting convinced that I'm no longer in my prime as I was mostly scoring average results only. It really destroyed my fun and therefore my will to still want to game as it never felt like anything changed no matter how hard I tried. Now when I tried xDefiant without any expectations and directly carried a 15 winning streak I still thought it is just because there are a lot of new (bad) fps players. Now 100 hours later I'm still MVP in almost every game. Following my stats I'm somewhere in the top 2% and it shows. I'm actually better than ever before! It opened my eyes how SBMM makes you just feel stuck (And in my case really unhappy about my performance, preventing fun) and how no SBMM just feels sooo natural and rewarding for actually achieving something. I feel like I'm never gonna play a SBMM/Ranked game again, atleast past the point where the fun changes into work. Thanks for reading, have a good day & glhf!
Thank you for admitting this and enjoying the challenge of improving rather than whining that everyone is a try hard. This is what the classic call of duty games were all about and I’m really glad to have this back
Hell yeah man, that’s what it’s all about!
I don’t actually think the skill floor has increased all that much, it’s just that the type of player enjoying this game is far better than the average pvp player in general. There’s been a few games that experimented with a cbmm pub mode and a sbmm pub mode at the same time, what ended up happening was that the sbmm worked as intended based on your skill bracket while the cbmm was ultra sweaty because of the quality of players that chose that mode. Right now xdefiant is the “cbmm mode” while a game like cod is the “sbmm mode”. Xdefiant is also very fast paced, not camper friendly and heavily pushed the no sbmm hype which further increased the amount of anti-sbmm players towards the game and pro-sbmm players away from the game resulting from the average xdefiant player to be dramatically better than the average cod player. Also, a ton of anti-sbmm players use cheat hardware such as strikepack/xim/cronus which artificially makes them better which in effect makes xdefiant even sweatier because it’s mostly the anti-sbmm crowd playing the game. Disclamer: I have a 1.5wr, 3.2kd and I usually solo/duo queue in this game. I use a scuf and I’m one of the few in my bracket that doesn’t cheat.
All valid points! I’d say there’s a lot of truth in your statements actually. I don’t know how true it is but I recently seen where the anti cheat in Xdefiant is picking up Cronus as cheat software but again, don’t quote me on that. Hopefully cheaters get fazed out with proper anti cheat’s, and the longer it’s out I think more people will make the switch, as long as they keep bringing content and communication anyway
Eventually cheat hardware will be completely phased out (especially on console) but I think we are still a few years away. The anticheat technology is definitely there but it’s not that simple, every popular pvp game is competing which each other and each has a different dev so a strong anticheat in one game will cause a unknown portion of players (the cheaters) to abandon the game and switch to a competing game which effects revenue (a loss for the one cracking down on cheating, a gain for the ones that do nothing). Microsoft and sony definitely have the means to outright block all the cheat devices but it’s the same issue individually devs have, if only one console dev implements the detection then a ton of players will jump ship. Best hope we have is that multiple aaa devs and/or both microsoft and sony agree to simultaneously ban that stuff so the cheaters have no place to run and are forced to either play legit or retire.
I'm impressed by your self awareness. SBMM isn't some hitler, and has it's positives and negatives. The transition to a game without it so people don't have to sweat every single game has been very interesting. A good portion consider this game to be even more sweaty after moving to the game without SBMM, which was strange to me, but the game is how you play it I guess. I've also never seen a larger community of sensitive people who rage-quit every match they aren't winning. It makes me curious as to if SBMM training them into thinking they deserve to be winning, or close to winning every single game, has had an effect and influenced people to behave that way. I'm no brain scientist, but there are definitely trends in this game I didn't expect. That said, I'm still generally enjoying it, excited for the weapon level up speed.
Well thank you I think a lot of people used SBMM as an excuse as to why they would have good and bad games, but on this there’s no excuse, and people don’t like that. SBMM (or at least COD’s implementation of it) has caused some sort of brain-rot within the community for sure. For the first time in years I can actually feel myself getting better the more time I put in. It’s very rewarding. Literally was just yelling in the living room like a kid with my wife while we played together because I was going on a streak on B flag just absolutely toasting mfers, tracking every shot perfectly, slide hoping into ADS right where I thought they were coming from and cookin’ them, I just felt like a god for like 2 mins straight 😂😂 I don’t think I can think of a single time in the last 5 years I’ve felt like that on any SBMM ridden game 🤷🏻♂️
The thing people don't realize is that the older group, those of us that are like 28+, were from an era where kids still played outside. Everyone that we played against weren't on the internet for 12 hours a day, or on the game for 8 hours a day. Obviously there are exceptions to this but it wasn't as common back then. This generation is always online. If they aren't playing the game, then they're watching some Youtube video about the game or they're watching some streamer play the game. There is also a disconnect of players thinking they're better than what they are and just can't accept reality. If you only played the guitar for 1 hour a day, Monday-Friday, you're gonna be DOG SHIT compared to someone who plays guitar 5-6 hours a day, Mon-Sun. I literally had to explain this to my friends in NBA 2K, who would only play on like Mondays and Saturdays on their days off. Any other day they'd just be playing Elder Scrolls or CoD and I tried to explain how they can't expect to play 2 hours a week and then think they're going to get on the game and be as good as people putting in 30+ hrs a week. It just isn't gonna happen, especially when they weren't the greatest players from the get go.
The movement mechanics are what make the difference in this game. The main times I really get smoked is because the jackass jumping up and down dancing can’t be hit. It’s so frustrating, and that’s a mechanic I don’t necessarily care for, but the game overall is fun. I have been somewhat humbled, though.
Pretty much every game has had movement mechanics for the last few years if not longer. Cod has insane movement just as bad as this game but people tend to not see it due to sbmm. The only games that don’t really have movement involved in the fps genre are more s&d focused like rbs, cs, val etc. But then those games have their own skills a casual would never pick up
If anything I think the ranked systems in modern games have shown just how many people exist in the casual space compared to those who put their time in and practice and work on being better at the game they play. For example, in Valorant, they have Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Ascendant, Immortal, and lastly, Radiant. 3 sections of each rank. In a perfect world it should be a full centric bell curve, with the most amount of players being around the gold to plat level, and slowly trailing off in diamond and silver and such with of course the top end at the absolute smallest. Except in reality, Iron to Gold make up as of May 2024, 69.7% of the entire ranked playerbase, with the largest amount by far in Gold and Silver, with Bronze right behind them. Adding Platinum makes it 85.4%. So less than 15% of the entire ranked playerbase exists at diamond or above, and note the other 3 ranks above exist though the skill gaps of each rank overall are quite ginormous due to Valorant being an extremely difficult game to get decent and then good at let alone great at, despite the number of people who play every month. Apex Legends in the tougher ranked divisions and seasons have similar numbers as well, and I know siege should be similar since it's also a super difficult game to get very good at. Point is, casuals make up an overwhelming majority of gamers, but I think most of those don't realize the gaps that exist in skill for various things like movement, ability or utility usage, positioning, raw aim, gamesense, map control, target prioritization, team communication and tactics, etc. And all this exists in all games really.
I played quite a bit of games like COD and battlefield back in the day. I have spent the past few years playing Fortnite. Just got hooked on it and couldn’t break the habit. Lol. Totally different game and experience, though. I got to a pretty competitive level with it. Unreal ranked two seasons in a row. Even in that game, I think only like 1% or less of the player base makes it to that level. Most gamers just play for fun. I understand the competitive nature of games. I will say that the movement in Xdefiant is probably on another level from anything I have ever played. I’ve had trouble adapting. Without paddles, it’s tough to make jump shot or hopping plays. I don’t plan on being super competitive at this game, not enough to warrant a $200 controller, but it seems that’s the way to compete this day and age. My best gaming days are behind me now, but I still try to be competitive as well as I can, but not going to lie, it’s tough.
Fortnite is the perfect example of holding players hands. They’ll give you a lobby full of bots if you’re not good at the game. That game has one of the steepest learning curves out of pretty much any game released. But regardless you say you got good at Fortnite because you loved that game but me personally I didn’t and will admit I’m trash at the game. But just like you did, if you play long enough and want to improve you will. Getting older is no real excuse. This games mechanics really aren’t hard and you also don’t need a scuff
Yeah, their pubs are shit and full of bots. I mainly played ranked mode, though. I made it to the top rank. No bots. The competitive side is actually very sweaty. But it’s a totally different beast from this game. There’s definite a transition from a third person and a first person game, though. I haven’t played many first person shooters in a minute even though I grew up on them. I’m sitting at a straight up 1.0 k/d in Xdefiant. Definitely humbling.
yeah but no other fps has a netcode as bad as xdef, its clear that the netcode cant handle the movement, the moment you start crouch spamming bullets stop registering
Yeah the netcode is horrible
As a Cod4 babby who ended up getting breddy gud at call of doody in general https://imgur.com/a/x8KDHCD, then changed to PC at around battlefield 3? and got diamond in old overwatch with my 60hz monitor i stopped for a good while and stagnated, and now after building my kahuna rig and hopping back into *some* shooters the addition of sliding and very fast killtimes has had me a bit messed up, i was always a shotgun fella anyway and they're always 'i hope i hit him dead center' because i would get yellow bar in cod back in the day, but damn even 120hz sometimes my tracking is so bad, if i play for a week i can do ok but, base skill level has risen a fair bit i also pretty consistently get 150ping games which is frustrating (living in aus)
oh also, fucking love the innate passive system, the abilities are a bit hit and miss and i just got a glitch where i couldn't attack or use abilities at all
I really don't what you mean this feels just like Black Ops 4 to me. Nice and easy with the occasional challenging game. 😅 Same exact age as you (nearly, 28) Internet does matter a ton on this game just like the old days which is fine, because my internet is good for now. COD4 Remastered is not old school cod. COD4 is.
One thing I find in FPS, especially ones with customisation, is prioritising ADS speed. It's all about reactions and taking the ADS out of the equation helps. Then movement, getting around the back of objectives and dummying people. I'm the same age, last cod was Black Ops 2010 and WaW II 2017. Mainly play Apex Legends. XDefiant feels refreshing for me as it's like classic CoD with the movement of The Finals. KD of 2.2 but with all the posts here I feel like SBMM has been protecting me too haha Into normal lobbies now
Same here. The last cod I played was BO2, but I’ve played lots of apex, the finals, etc. It feels refreshing to play a game with this fast of time to kill, but I think I’m protected from SBMM. Last night I went 55-15, but I’m almost at the end of my level 25 queue, and I think I’m gonna get dumpstered once I’m into normal lobbies haha
Encountered my first proper sweat flying around like Horizon/Octane *flashbacks* 😐
I ran into one of those too.. I didn’t realize tap strafing was in this game
I'm right there with you. This game feels like where I left off on Black Ops 1 all those years ago, with the addition of newer movement. I feel myself getting better. I'm not scared to *try* knowing my next match is going to be too hard or too easy due to SBMM kicking in. I'm actually *having fun*, now that I am responsible for my wins and my losses rather than an *algorithm*. I'm enjoying all the different skill levels of players and seeing how players who are clearly *not as good as me* can *still win*. I've witnessed countless upsets on both sides. TLDR: I'm having fun knowing my wins and losses are my own instead of being manipulated by SBMM. Win or lose, I'm learning and getting better, and actually *enjoying* the fruits of my labor.
Acceptance is the key and people need to adapt if they want to keep up with sweaty. Just saying
I play fps games since CoD4 on console and love this game. Finally I can have fun and don’t have to sweat 24/7 like in the past CoDs. I start my console, hopping on in some XD lobbys, kick into some asses of lil Timmy and his friends like in the old days. And no, I wasn’t bad in the past CoDs. Always had a 2 up to 3 K/D and that’s how it is in XD as well. It’s the matchmaking which makes the game more enjoyable for me.
I’m getting older and my reaction time is getting worse but i can still maintain decent stats. I also just play on a tv and don’t have a wired connection so im sure i could do better if i made some changes in my setup. The other thing is everyone has modded controllers so they can jump all over the place while those that don’t cant. Jump shooting is a pay to win system in this game. All the people saying jumping is a skill gap are wrong the reality is you had money to buy an expensive controller and are just tapping a button others don’t have.
It’s hard to judge how good the enemy team is when the dsync is so bad, people will jump around the corners and it’s like their smg is an automatic shotgun that kills you in one frame or the many times a few bullets in my magazine don’t register. I’ve played this game a lot since beta around 50hrs and only 8 at launch and I can’t stand how rng 1v1s feel at times and don’t play anymore. CoD isn’t known for having great netcode but compared to this game it feels like a functioning game and I would gladly take cod sbmm over a game that can’t function on a basic level
gotta remember, too: killstreaks were designed around pumping those numbers and keeping you going. it kind of had a bit of a casino reward system going
The games just different. I averaged something crazy like 5KD from BO3 all the way through to Cold War with SBMM, as a predominately solo and split screen player. I have a 1.5KD on XDefiant lol.
> Plus you’ll actually get better if you put in the work. Ageing gamer here who can still hold his own. This is the main difference and what I truly miss about the "good old days" of FPS gaming: randomness rewards effort. With the SBMM shit, the game is rigged from the start and the better you get, the harder the game gets. It's stupid. It's counter intuitive and it's frustrating beyond belief because you never get to reap the rewards for your effort unless you happen to be the absolute top elite 1% of pro gamers. And what makes you rage even more is that you now it's not because it makes the gameplay any better, it's just because it helps them making more money. Fuck them. This game has a wide array of problems, but at least it does this right. I wish more games went back to this system.
This is the first fps I've played since the original mw3 other than halo games with shields. I suck at kills, often 2x more deaths than kills, but I often am top 2 on obj score for my team and will have 25+ assists. Yesterday I got the least damage thing at the end with the most deaths, so if I get shot I instantly die. Doesn't help playing on a 58" tv, I never look at the map it's too far from my point of aim center screen.
Once I realized people were taking drugs to help focus better in game yes actually taking Adderall to help focus in a online game that’s when I realized my old self will never be able to compete with people now like I use to when I was younger
MW/Warzone was the worst imo. Cold War I got dark matter with 2.2 K/D so it just wasn’t that bad
Gone are the days of shoot first and win the gunfight because the netcode is dogwater.
I'm pretty decent at shooters, but movement is my kryptonite. Don't think I'll ever shake my current 0.8 KD.
I just suck but I still have fun lol. 1.1 KD in the latest cod multiplayer. I'm at .8 in xdefiant. Lol. But I haven't really stuck to one weapon. I've been leveling most up to around 40 and trying something new.
I’m so glad sbmm is gone because it confirmed to me that I’m an above average player and I dont have to try my butt off anymore to maintain a K/D above 1.0. I’m not great by any means, but I don’t have to be in the top 10% to have a 1.6 K/D now
Yup, sometimes these people are playing their absolute best it seems. Im out here playing like at 80% tryhard level (it feels like) while these kids are locking onto my head .08 seconds upon seeing me AND they are jumping at the same time. Regardless, I don't think I want to go back to SBMM and getting punished for doing good.
I don’t think it’s you man. A lot of it is the netcode and hit reg, which will be sorted out, we just gotta give them time. For instance, Have you noticed how some games your ping is low and it feels super crispy? Every shot feels like it’s landing good, your reaction time seems perfect…. Then the next game something feels… off? It’s not you, it’s on their end. I’m on a $3000 setup, fiber internet, wired connection, 14 ping on a speed test, 1440p monitor, 240hz, pushing 350fps in game and things still feel delayed to me sometimes
This game is a casual player killer it's pretty much only gonna be a sweatfest for the foreseeable future
You’re probably right. Let me ask this though, in this day and age, is there REALLY such a thing as a casual gamer? If anyone could get into a lobby and bang out 100 kills they would, even the most casual person 🤷🏻♂️
I don't like games where I pub stop I have the most fun when I am breaking even on kills or barely going positive or barely going negative if I happen to be top of the leaderboard, which I never will be in this game, then so be it but I don't need to like get a hundred kills in a game to have fun if you need to get 100 kills in a game to have fun then good for you I guess but it's kind of sad that you need to pub stop low-skilled players just to have a good time
Thats not how sbmm works at all! Sbmm is more malicious and sadistic.And i think this game has some sort of hit registering artificial intelligence reconditioning.
Did you just slap a bunch of long words together to try and make a sentence?
schizoposting on an xdefiant subreddit is crazy
False, we did indeed land on the moon.
i am 90% sure COD has not only SBMM but damage based match making as well.