Call of Duty: Vanguard developers opted not to include the popular ‘map voting’ feature in the most recent installment of the franchise and now players want it back. The franchise’s developers are notorious for removing features from their Call of Duty games and players are getting fed up with the practice.
In the case of Call of Duty: Vanguard, the changes seem to be because the game was built using the same engine as 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. This can be seen from features in the new game like tactical sprint and weapon mounting. Unfortunately, this also seems to mean that the two games share the downside of not having map voting. For those who don’t know, map voting occurs during multiplayer lobbies of Call of Duty games and allows players to vote for which map the next match will take place in. it’s a great feature, not only allowing players to play a map they enjoy but also giving them something to do while the match loads. The feature also means the less enjoyable maps are played less often and guarantees gamers can play in the best locations of the game.
Last year’s game, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War gave players back the option to vote on maps, and fans of the game were happy to see the feature’s return. Many have complained that not only does removing the feature feel like a step backward for the first-person shooter games, but it is equally a confusing removal.
A Reddit user by the name Willfan8 recently created a thread requesting the feature’s return. The post quickly topped the Vanguard subreddit, with several comments supporting the OP’s request while some offered up some explanations for its removal. Reddit user Bilowik mentioned that Call of Duty: Vanguard could have removed map voting because of its Combat Pacing feature. Combat Pacing allows maps with different player counts to play well regardless of how many participants there are. The idea is that players don’t need to wait for more people to join the lobby. So games have different amounts of players but there’s less waiting between games. This could make match voting more difficult.
The logic behind Bilowik’s explanation is sound. Meaning, map voting probably won’t be coming to Call of Duty: Vanguard any time soon no matter how many requests the players make for the feature. However, as Call of Duty games, these days seem to be removing features in one game and returning them in the next, perhaps we will see a return of match voting next year.
