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[Squill]

Bad Maps
Games like Call of Duty just feel bland. The maps tend to be dull, unimaginative, ugly, and amorphous. There's no order to the map, it tries to give an "organic" feel to the map and it ends up feeling like walking in circles. In real life, unless you're in a man made setting, there's no convenient paths lined by cliffs or natural alleys. I'm sorry, but most "modern" FPS's don't have enough variety to be fun, but they're not realistic enough to be interesting, like ARMA 2. Unfortunately, ARMA 2 failed at realism with the whole near-broken movement thing. Either try to be realistic or don't say you are.

[generalpie]

On the topic of Ammo, I felt Deus Ex HR did it right
As for maps, to be fair, a lot of maps are made to be repetitive in nature, so the game itself can have set tactics so the map developers can be lazy and use the same kind map design ideals.

[nenjin]

Bad Maps
Games like Call of Duty just feel bland. The maps tend to be dull, unimaginative, ugly, and amorphous. There's no order to the map, it tries to give an "organic" feel to the map and it ends up feeling like walking in circles. In real life, unless you're in a man made setting, there's no convenient paths lined by cliffs or natural alleys. I'm sorry, but most "modern" FPS's don't have enough variety to be fun, but they're not realistic enough to be interesting, like ARMA 2. Unfortunately, ARMA 2 failed at realism with the whole near-broken movement thing. Either try to be realistic or don't say you are.

In truth, CoD designs maps specifically because they're giant circles. That's the kind of gameplay they want to encourage: dudes running forward, shooting anyone who is in front of them, eventually getting shot in the back by another player doing exactly the same thing.

It's why I stopped playing CoD after 4, and while I have trouble with BF3 now. So much of the modern FPS market is about "kill 2 dudes, get shot from an angle you can't see." Rinse, repeat. CoD is the biggest offender to me because they build maps with this specifically in mind. I get bored even sitting around watching someone play CoD, because they "1) Run out 2) Turn a corner 3) Frag a dude or two and 4) get shot in the back. I've watched him roll 5 or 6 guys doing this because he's simply the last guy to step into the FPS circle jerk and so is looking at everyone's back.

[Mullet Master]

CoD series is bad for a lot of reasons, but the multiplayer map design isn't one of them.

I guess nobody remembers how bad first person shooters were back in the early 2000s... every game was basically predestined to be won by the team with the better side. There's a reason that almost half the counterstrike servers were de_dust2... because it was the only semi balanced map at the time. Not to mention game mechanics which rewarded camping, which is considered boring by almost everyone.

Don't get me started on the catastrophes that were Soldier of Fortune, Return to Castle Wolfenstein , and Day of Defeat.

CoD series has done a great job making balanced maps and rewarding people who are genuinely decent players rather than mechanic exploiters. To me, the latest versions have been remarkably balanced. Yes, the revolving spawns mean you sometimes get killed in a bullshit way, but it also means the sniper with a 30ms less ping than you is also going to be less overpowered and definitely is not going to dominate a single position.

[Ozyton]

Bad Maps
Games like Call of Duty just feel bland. The maps tend to be dull, unimaginative, ugly, and amorphous. There's no order to the map, it tries to give an "organic" feel to the map and it ends up feeling like walking in circles. In real life, unless you're in a man made setting, there's no convenient paths lined by cliffs or natural alleys. I'm sorry, but most "modern" FPS's don't have enough variety to be fun, but they're not realistic enough to be interesting, like ARMA 2. Unfortunately, ARMA 2 failed at realism with the whole near-broken movement thing. Either try to be realistic or don't say you are.

In my opinion, ARMA 2 kinda goes the opposite direction. The maps are so open that there aren't really that many interesting features other than maybe a farm house, a rock wall, or the towns. A mission creator would have to do a great deal to make a mission interesting, and even then it might make the map seem 'unrealistic'. For what the game is trying to do it works fairly decent, however.

As for CoD, I never really played multiplayer, and when I did it was CoD4. Can't remember much about it, other than the laser weapons and the ridiculously close engagement ranges. ARMA infantry engagements can take place up to 300 meters, and I've been in tank battles that took place at over a kilometer of space.

Alright, small pet peeve of mine but not a major one. Contemporary Combat. Yes, all the modern gadgets are cool and all, but I feel that the WWII era is almost a perfect setting for a shooter game. Technology has not reached the point where you can push a button to launch a missile that goes down some guy's chimney, and it's not far back enough to be the slow and gruesome trench warfare from the previous world war. Many of the weapons and vehicles seem... somewhat asymetrically balanced (Americans get, by default, a semi-auto rifle while Germans get an amazing machinegun, just as an example). I'm starting to miss World War 2 shooters, hell, do something different with it if you must... I WANT HIDDEN & DANGEROUS 3 AAAWWWRHRHHGGG =(

I mentioned World War 1. While I don't really know that much about it, perhaps it would be interesting if a game were made where the tactics were completely different than what was historically accurate (no trench warfare), but the same technology and such were in place. Maaaybe?

[Gamerlord]

I would love to play a game that included the Gallipoli campaign and other WWI battlegrounds. With permadeath.

[WealthyRadish]

WWI in the middle east would be fun, on horseback a la Lawrence of Arabia. Riding around with your band of Arab raiders similarly to M&B, robbing trains and pillaging Turkish settlements... it's damn criminal it hasn't been done yet. _{^{(as far as I know)}}

[nenjin]

CoD series has done a great job making balanced maps and rewarding people who are genuinely decent players rather than mechanic exploiters. To me, the latest versions have been remarkably balanced. Yes, the revolving spawns mean you sometimes get killed in a bullshit way, but it also means the sniper with a 30ms less ping than you is also going to be less overpowered and definitely is not going to dominate a single position.

Personally, I had way, way, WAY more fun in BF2 than in any CoD game multiplayer. Sure, they've achieved map balance today, by virtue of having it be a big donut of revolving kills. I'd also take issue with rewarding genuinely decent players when kill streaks have become the watchword of the series. I honestly prefer the 2000s map design, because at least I felt like I was playing an actual map. There was internal logic to the way things were designed, and yes, while too many games were overly concerned with attack/defense scenarios, those maps also yielded some of the best games of my life because you got actual breathing room. To plan, to maneuver, to organize. CoD to me is just a giant shoe box full of dudes shooting each other, with mere seconds between spawning and getting shot at. Organized MP in it is damn near impossible IMO, unless it's on the clan level and your side is dominating a server. Generally, the trend I see in CoD is it's about glorifying the individual player, not the team. And I feel like the maps are built to support that philosophy.

[Gamerlord]

I like any game with colossal MP maps so that you can work together, set ambushes and more-or-less play strategically/tactically.

[EnigmaticHat]

CoD IS my pet peeve.  My friends have gotten me to play it and I just... can't stand it.

I think I what I really despise about it is that it presents itself as all military and throws around "authentic" military jargon and plays on the whole "I wanna be a soldier boy" mentality, yet is completely unrealistic down to its very bones.  Technology is essentially magic that does whatever the game designers want it to (why does an anti-bomb suit block bullets?  why do claymores detonate via visible lasers?  Why can't allies trigger mines?), guns have BOTH a range and accuracy stat despite the fact that a SHOTGUN would be effective at all but the longest ranges CoD offers, recoil is bizarre (you can fire an enormous semiautomatic sniper rifle repeatedly and accurately while standing up, but if you try to spray and pray a machinegun at someone who is within spitting distance the bullets will jump away at 45 degree angles from the barrel).  The spawning mechanics and arena level design define the game more than any actual tactics.

It just feels so pretentious.  I think the reason it bothers me is because there are a lot of people who take the game dead serious and don't acknowledge how silly it is.

(most of the above was based on Modern Warfare 2 BTW)

[Ozyton]

One of the main problems with a lot of'realistic' games is that they confuse realism and authenticity. The game features many authentic weapons, and probably features authentic combat uniforms (I don't remember) and vehicle etc. However, they don't really operate the way they do in reality, so they mostly just look like authentic pieces while behaving like something else entirely. A helicopter, for example, has inertia in reality. Just saying.

I did just think of something regarding Battlefield 3, a game I have not played but have seen a video or two of
Ignoring sound when creating your game
Half-assing your sound design is just as bad as half-assing your visual fidelity. BF3 sounds pretty damn amazing, and it seems they put a lot of effort into the sound and HDR for the sound (At least I think it's called HDR). Somebody mentioned in posts a while back about how dumb the Doom 3 weapons sounded, and I agree. The weapons felt so weak simply because of how they sound. Going back to my Red orchestra point: I remember playing the original Call of Duty at a friend's house after having played RO and holy crap the guns feel and sound like BB guns in comparison to RO. At the time CoD was released I was really impressed with it too. We've come a long way, but please don't neglect sound design. I'm including annoying sounds too: I just started trying to play Avernum and my god the walking around sound is so grating on my ears it hurts.

[Krevsin]

CoD players I know are, on the other hand, obnoxious people who will spend hours and hours playing CoD, developing skills that many would call hardcore

Look... It doesn't matter how terrible they are. If devils walked the earth and ate babies but had the same buying tendencies as this living saint of holy and goodness, they are part of the same market.

Just because I say someone is "obnoxious" does not mean I think them terrible. It's just that they get over the top in praising their favourite pastime. 

Bad Maps
Games like Call of Duty just feel bland. The maps tend to be dull, unimaginative, ugly, and amorphous. There's no order to the map, it tries to give an "organic" feel to the map and it ends up feeling like walking in circles. In real life, unless you're in a man made setting, there's no convenient paths lined by cliffs or natural alleys. I'm sorry, but most "modern" FPS's don't have enough variety to be fun, but they're not realistic enough to be interesting, like ARMA 2. Unfortunately, ARMA 2 failed at realism with the whole near-broken movement thing. Either try to be realistic or don't say you are.

Ah, yes, linear design, the bane of our existance.

I liked the way Metro 2033 did it, with its semi-open, but still linear levels.

[itisnotlogical]

Maybe I'm just boring, but I find symmetrical map design (in multiplayer) to be the most fun. Both sides have exactly the same resources, and all the really powerful goodies in the middle draw the players out of their bases to fight. The original Halo was especially good at this I feel; any map can be played in any mode and it's pretty fair, as long as nobody gets a banshee or a tank in a free-for-all game type. The bases still have some advantages/disadvantages (I think it was Blue base in Blood Gulch that had the fuel rod gun, while Red Base had that shady sniper position looking over it), but they're symmetrical enough that it's even.

A to B waypoint objectives

If you took the objectives out of Halo 2 and just pointed the player towards the end of the level, it'd essentially be the same game in every respect. You aren't actually accomplishing anything by completing an objective in that game; you're just moving from A to B. I don't think this is a problem with linear map design (some of Doom's maps are fucking ridiculous and could stand to be trimmed down IMO), but with player interaction. In Halo, completing an objective usually means going somewhere and maybe pressing a button, but nothing more than that.

In Goldeneye or Perfect Dark, objectives are a lot more complicated. In the second mission of Goldeneye, you have to blow up a bunch of chemical tanks and escape the facility. Instead of pressing a button and watching a cutscene, you have to actually blow up the tanks with explosives and run away from soldiers to get out of the level. In one level of Perfect Dark, you have to create a distraction so that you can sneak into a building; to complete this objective, you have to reprogram an automated taxi so that it crashes into a security robot. Already, there's two pre-2000 games with gameplay more complicated than the most technologically advanced shooters of our era.

[Glloyd]

Ah Hidden and Dangerous. Number one had its issues, but was still good. Number two... One of the best games I have ever played. And permadeath in a shooter? Gotta love it. The inventory management was perfect too. The only issue was the bad AI. Hidden and Dangerous 3 should really go to the GYWI thread, because it probably won't happen sadly.

[MadMalkavian]

My two gaming pet peeves are not being able to find a way past DRM and not being able to install or run the game because of it either being too old or in a locale that I can't get to work with Applocale. I'm looking at you Thief and The Guild. I wanted to play the two of you so very bad but no matter what you just won't install on my machine unless I either downgrade my system to Windows 95 or make my machine somehow understand German without having to use Applocale.