Originally Posted by Oracle

I'm not talking about map size, I'm talking about proportions. As an example, look at CoD4 and MW2. The room to maneuver dropped heavily during that game. Sure there were some open areas and the like, but overall the proportions between player size and playable area dropped. CoD4 was the pinnacle of map layout and proportions, with Blops coming close with proportions.

To explain why this is an issue, when room to maneuver goes down and distances shrink, smgs get a massive advantage. They have smaller hipfire and higher movement speed as a class, crippled by reduced range. Well if you reduce the maximum range anybody can expect to fight in, range becomes a non-factor, removing the counterbalance to smgs extreme close-mid range power.

The balance of weapons has always been short-mid smg, midshort-midlong rifles, mid-long scopes. The optimal distance you'd want to create then is a mid range, with some crucial long range areas and crucial short areas. In addition, while you want to give smgs room to rush, you don't want their rushing to be worry free. SMGs were supposed to be a gamble weapon. You risk running as deep into enemy territory as you can to get into optimal range. When that range is non-existant, it gets it's rewards for none of the risk. Weapon stats are only half the equation. Map layout dictates which stats are actually useful.


Probably the best designed map to have ever came from cod is backlot from CoD4, sans the mounted mgs. It would take me ages to explain everything, but the major reason for it is that every position favors a weapon, but they are inherently weak in that position because an adjacent position favors a different weapon. An smg playground in the construction area is kept in check by rifles from mid and scopes from apartments, while they themselves are kept in check by smg rush points adjacent to them, which in turn can be covered by rifles, which in turn are vulnerable to scopes, and so on. Every place has it's rewards and risks for each class, and they are all marvelously balanced by the flow and layout of the map. No one weapon is dominant across the map.