How to Fix Killstreaks in CoD

[JustABitAgroed]

Now, it's no secret the the killstreak system in CoD has been broken since it's inception. It doesn't reward skill, playing the objective, teamwork, or anything of the like. It simply disincentivizes playing the game like you should, meaning doing all the things listed above.

Titanfall tried to get around this system by saying, "Here you go BKs! Everyone gets a killstreak! Well, at least one. If you want to get more then you need to get points so that you can call in your Titan faster." BO3 is starting to use a similar system with the specialist 'Cores' that charge over time and give you access to a super power or really good gun once they're fully charged. They can also be charged faster by scoring points. Although, this system is separate from the killstreaks system. Killstreaks are still in BO3 just like they've been in every other modern CoD. The Titanfall system is decent but it definitely doesn't fix the vast majority of problems that the original system had and even has some new problems that come with it. If you give everyone killstreaks then it simply takes no skill to get them thereby making them feel unrewarding, you can't make them too overpowered because them the game would be no fun, and the killstreak spam is going to be a lot worse. Nobody wants at least 3 killstreaks in the air at any given time like we had back in MW2 (I'm sorry fanboys, I didn't mean to offend you ).

Originally, killstreaks were just that. Killstreaks. After a while people realized that system made playing the objective completely pointless because winning the game doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things and by not playing the objective, you were more likely to not die and thus more likely to get a bunch of killstreaks and kill a bunch of people. So after they recognized that system was a s****y idea, they decided to incentivize playing the objective a little bit more. So they changed killstreaks to scorestreaks. Now people who actually played the objective would be rewarded for doing so, but it didn't really fix anything else. In AW they decided to go even further, by decreasing the amount of points that you would get for a kill and increasing the amount of points you would get for playing the objective, so much so that it was almost impossible to get even low level scorestreaks reliably in games without playing the objective. This however got a huge backlash from the community because obviously, no one could get any killstreaks.

Killstreaks are a very central part of CoD because CoD is one of the only games that has them. They've been so successful in fact that Halo 4 decided to copy the broken system without even thinking about it. This is somewhat irrelevant to the conversation but I think it's important to say in case someone's decides to ask why don't we just take out killstreaks altogether? Because they're a central part of the series and everyone loves them in theory, that's why. So instead of taking them out, we need to find a way to make the system better.

The biggest problems with the current killstreak system is that it doesn't incentivize playing the objective, but it does promote tactical loitering. If you camp, it's going to be much easier to get your streaks then if you play the objective because even if you're getting more points for playing the objective, there's also a much higher risk of dying.

So, here is my proposal: turn all scorestreaks into support streaks. Bear with me, I'll elaborate in a minute. If you don't know what support streaks are, it means that you can die and still keep your streak going. So basically, as far as getting your streaks goes, dying is not detrimental in any way besides the fact that you didn't kill the person who killed you. So how this system is going to work, is the streaks are going to take different point value to receive depending on the gamemode you're playing. For example, if we take the system that AW has in place right now, a Warbird in TDM would take a lot fewer points to get than a Warbird in Hardpoint. We would have to make scorestreaks take more points to get then they currently do. For example, it currently takes 850 points to get a stock Warbird. With this system, that would be turned up to about 4,000 in Hardpoint or 2,500 in TDM. For the most part, only good players are going to get that many points in a Hardpoint game and only the best players are going to be able to get two or three times that many in a game, and they would have to heavily play the objective to do so. So, bad players will still be able to get their low level streaks, but only the really good players will be able to get the higher level streaks. For TDM, it would require 25 kills or some combination of however many kills and however many assists to get a Warbird. But, most people aren't going to get 25 kills in TDM and the vast majority of people aren't going to get 50 kills in TDM (streaks are a lot more valuable in a kill central game mode so that's why streaks need to be harder to get). The point is, this system makes tactical loitering the worst possible thing that you could do to get streaks and it makes playing the objective the best possible thing you can do to get streaks.

Now, I know some of you are thinking that this would be incredibly hard to implement, but no, it really wouldn't. Somewhere in their pile of statistics, Activision has the numbers for how many points people are getting in different game modes on average. So simply take these numbers and make the score system around them. Let's say that the top Hardpoint player in the lobby tends to get about 8,000 points in every game. So, that player could be able to get about 8 UAVs or 6 Care Packages, or 3 Goliaths, or 2 Warbirds, and on and on. Then the worst player would only be able to get about 1 or 2 UAVs a game. The average players who are usually at about 3,000 points a game are just out of reach of the best streaks in the game, or if they have a good game they might get one in the last minute or so. In the end, what this system does is make it so that the only way you're going to get streaks is by scoring a lot of points/having a big impact on the game, and the best way to have a big impact on the game/score a lot of points is to play to objective. Playing the objective once again becomes the most important aspect of the game and tactical loitering becomes the absolute least effective strategy. Plus, you don't embrace socialism like BO3 and Titanfall because that takes away the entire point of having killstreaks in the first place.

Anyway, I'm sure you guys get the point by now and I've rambled on long enough. What do you think? Personally, I believe this is a great way that CoD could be made far more interesting and better overall.



Here's a TL;DR for you guys:

They can't just take killstreaks out of the game because that's part of the appeal, so we have to find a way to improve the killstreak system itself. So I propose we make all scorestreaks support streaks. It disincentivizes tactical loitering because you won't get your streaks and incentivizes playing the objective because that's the best way to get points and thereby get your streaks. Sure you would have to drastically increase the cost of the killstreaks and make them cost different amounts depending on the game mode that you're playing or change the amount of points that you get for kills and playing the objective so that they would aline with the average points received in other game modes, but that's not very hard to implement if it's done right. If the point values are done correctly then it also keeps the killstreaks in their current hard-to-get state instead of implementing a system like Titanfall where everybody gets killstreaks. Overall, I think it's a great system and a vast improvement on what we have now. Thoughts?

I've been tossing this idea around in my head since Ghosts and I can't think of any problems with it that can't be easily overcome. I posted this on the GameFAQs forums as well but I wanted to see what (generally) more educated people think about it. So have at it. What do you guys think?

[Megaqwerty]

[JustABitAgroed]

May 8, 2015 11:34:20 GMT -5 Megaqwerty said:

Lol, I know. There wasn't a whole lot of opportunity for me to split it up. Probably should have tried a little harder though. The top paragraph is more of a rant than a structured argument tbh.

[Megaqwerty]

There are tons of places to split your paragraphs. This isn't a dissertation: you can have paragraph splits despite similar ideas and themes in the component paragraphs.

Here's a summary of what you wrote: make all streaks carry over death, but dramatically raise their costs to reduce how common they are.

On-topic, I don't think there's anything wrong with streaks and their overall implementation per se in Call of Duty.

Your contention that streaks do not incentivize playing the objective has been false since MW3, where playing the objective does add to streaks. The decision to increase flag capture score to 200 points in Advanced Warfare was ridiculous and breaks the game, but further damages your argument.

However, I do believe that streaks should be easier to counter. Your suggestion is to deemphasize streaks by making them less common. My suggestion is keep the rate of streaks appearing the same, or comparable, but make it substantially easier for players to destroy them.

This ties into my suggestions for fixing the Stinger, but there are other possible solutions, too. Make the hit boxes for streaks absurdly large. Make the AC130 or its equivalent not only possible to hit, but simple to hit. Make the System Hack an object that does a pylon turn around the map a la the UAV (and give it a module that makes it orbital). Make bombing runs hover just outside the map for a few seconds before they proceed to drop over the map so that players have a greater opportunity to destroy them. Make the Stinger's missile(s) travel faster if it is fired on vehicles.

Another issue is the loss of support streak progress upon switching classes. This was an issue in MW3. It was an issue in Ghosts and it's an issue in Advanced Warfare. Why is this an issue? Because if streaks are called in, the class cannot be changed upon death without losing streak progress, which is a large detriment with the more expensive streaks. If the support streak set ups are exactly the same, progress should be kept (AW introduces the ability to have both support and traditional streaks at the same time, but this is a moot point since traditional streaks obviously reset regardless of class change).

Why is this so important? If a powerful streak is called in, players with expensive support streaks are actively encouraged to not change classes so as to counter or otherwise neutralize the streak. You can argue that this is part of the metagame of Call of Duty in that the benefit of support streaks is countered by not taking a Stinger or Blind Eye in the initial class. However, I would argue that this is simply bad design as this was never an issue until MW3. In MW2 and BO1, you could never run Stinger until a streak was called in and then immediately change classes to destroy it. You can still do this, but at the expense of sacrificing support streak progress.

This is particularly problematic since these same players are more likely to attempt to destroy streaks: players running high traditional streaks will not attempt to engage streaks lest they themselves die in the process.

TL;DR: I think your idea is the wrong solution to a real problem.

[JustABitAgroed]

May 8, 2015 11:45:52 GMT -5 Megaqwerty said:

There are tons of places to split your paragraphs. This isn't a dissertation: you can have paragraph splits despite similar ideas and themes in the component paragraphs.

Here's a summary of what you wrote: make all streaks carry over death, but dramatically raise their costs to reduce how common they are.

On-topic, I don't think there's anything wrong with streaks and their overall implementation per se in Call of Duty.

Your contention that streaks do not incentivize playing the objective has been false since MW3, where playing the objective does add to streaks. The decision to increase flag capture score to 200 points in Advanced Warfare was ridiculous and breaks the game, but further damages your argument.

However, I do believe that streaks should be easier to counter. Your suggestion is to deemphasize streaks by making them less common. My suggestion is keep the rate of streaks appearing the same, or comparable, but make it substantially easier for players to destroy them.

This ties into my suggestions for fixing the Stinger, but there are other possible solutions, too. Make the hit boxes for streaks absurdly large. Make the AC130 or its equivalent not only possible to hit, but simple to hit. Make the System Hack an object that does a pylon turn around the map a la the UAV (and give it a module that makes it orbital). Make bombing runs hover just outside the map for a few seconds before they proceed to drop over the map so that players have a greater opportunity to destroy them. Make the Stinger's missile(s) travel faster if it is fired on vehicles.

Another issue is the loss of support streak progress upon switching classes. This was an issue in MW3. It was an issue in Ghosts and it's an issue in Advanced Warfare. Why is this an issue? Because if streaks are called in, the class cannot be changed upon death without losing streak progress, which is a large detriment with the more expensive streaks. If the support streak set ups are exactly the same, progress should be kept (AW introduces the ability to have both support and traditional streaks at the same time, but this is a moot point since traditional streaks obviously reset regardless of class change).

Why is this so important? If a powerful streak is called in, players with expensive support streaks are actively encouraged to not change classes so as to counter or otherwise neutralize the streak. You can argue that this is part of the metagame of Call of Duty in that the benefit of support streaks is countered by not taking a Stinger or Blind Eye in the initial class. However, I would argue that this is simply bad design as this was never an issue until MW3. In MW2 and BO1, you could never run Stinger until a streak was called in and then immediately change classes to destroy it. You can still do this, but at the expense of sacrificing support streak progress.

This is particularly problematic since these same players are more likely to attempt to destroy streaks: players running high traditional streaks will not attempt to engage streaks lest they themselves die in the process.

TL;DR: I think your idea is the wrong solution to a real problem.

Ugh. I fixed it. Happy?

"Your contention that streaks do not incentivize playing the objective has been false since MW3, where playing the objective does add to streaks. The decision to increase flag capture score to 200 points in Advanced Warfare was ridiculous and breaks the game, but further damages your argument."

Yes, but they clearly don't incentivize it enough if no one's playing the objective as is currently the case in every game that I've played in since the (score raising) patch (anecdotal at best, I know, but still). How does it break the game? People still aren't willing to hop on flags by themselves because they know it's basically suicide and there's very little reward for doing so in the first place. 200 points is no incentive at all, especially when people are looking to try and get their streaks in the quickest way that they can. The possibility of death is elevated too high when playing the objective, and that's why people don't do it.

"However, I do believe that streaks should be easier to counter. Your suggestion is to deemphasize streaks by making them less common. My suggestion is keep the rate of streaks appearing the same, or comparable, but make it substantially easier for players to destroy them."

Incorrect, I'm not saying that streaks should be less common, I'm just proposing a different yet equally challenging way of acquiring them. If you make it substantially easy for people to destroy killstreaks as was the case in say Ghosts, then that reduces the overall effectiveness of streaks which makes them lose their appeal and makes people feel like they're working towards nothing. Killstreaks are a central part of the game, nerfing them to the point of near irrelevancy is not the way to go.

"Another issue is the loss of support streak progress upon switching classes. This was an issue in MW3. It was an issue in Ghosts and it's an issue in Advanced Warfare. Why is this an issue? Because if streaks are called in, the class cannot be changed upon death without losing streak progress, which is a large detriment with the more expensive streaks. If the support streak set ups are exactly the same, progress should be kept (AW introduces the ability to have both support and traditional streaks at the same time, but this is a moot point since traditional streaks obviously reset regardless of class change)."

I honestly didn't even know that was a mechanic. It's a clear mistake and should be taken out. Why's it even in the game? So people don't change classes and get their streaks automatically? Who cares? Why does it matter?

I read about that issue further and all I heard were arguments for why it shouldn't be in the game. Idk, maybe I just don't understand what you're getting at.

Overall I didn't see too many valid arguments but I appreciate any and all criticism nonetheless, so thank you. I want to see this problem fixed as much as anyone else and until people start talking about it, it's never going to improve.

[Megaqwerty]

May 8, 2015 12:33:00 GMT -5 JustABitAgroed said:

Ugh. I fixed it. Happy?

No. You need to fix your quotes in your last post. Attempt to quote this post and look at the BB code. Also, clean your room. Also, also, read the forum rules.

Overall I didn't see too many valid arguments

Well, I mostly went on a tangent, albeit one that is much easier to implement than your suggestion.

Incorrect, I'm not saying that streaks should be less common, I'm just proposing a different yet equally challenging way of acquiring them.

May 8, 2015 9:57:05 GMT -5 JustABitAgroed said:

We would have to make scorestreaks take more points to get then they currently do. For example, it currently takes 850 points to get a stock Warbird. With this system, that would be turned up to about 4,000 in Hardpoint or 2,500 in TDM. For the most part, only good players are going to get that many points in a Hardpoint game and only the best players are going to be able to get two or three times that many in a game, and they would have to heavily play the objective to do so.

Nah, man, you said that you would make streaks less common. As is, those 4000 points in Hardpoint would translate into almost five warbirds (and surely would with the kills they earn).

If you make it substantially easy for people to destroy killstreaks as was the case in say Ghosts, then that reduces the overall effectiveness of streaks which makes them lose their appeal and makes people feel like they're working towards nothing. Killstreaks are a central part of the game, nerfing them to the point of near irrelevancy is not the way to go.

I disagree. First off, streaks were overall no easier to destroy in Ghosts than other games. The chopper gunner equivalent in particular was much smaller and thus much more difficult to target. The primary difference in Ghosts was that FMJ was encouraged on LMGs for reasons other than countering streaks, thus making such builds more equipped to deal with them as they appeared.

And what I suggested did not reduce the efficacy of streaks per se, but rather makes them easier to counter. Why is this an important distinction? Because the power of a streak would only be reduced if opposing players attempted to engage it. In the event that prevailing play styles persisted where players simply ignore enemy streaks, literally nothing would happen. Many players chose to not engage streaks, and wisely so, because it is frequently a fool's errand: even with Blind Eye, attempting to destroy a Paladin is painful at best. (And it takes an idiot operator to not kill someone attempting to lock onto your Paladin.)

I read about [support streaks reseting upon class change] further and all I heard were arguments for why [support streaks] shouldn't be in the game. Idk, maybe I just don't understand what you're getting at.

This is important in this context as it prevents players from switching to anti-streak classes and then neutralize streaks as they appear. If the inertia to do so was reduced, more players would counter more streaks, making the streak spam less of an issue.

[PSIII]

Tangent City, incoming.

In the case of MW2 and MW3, I think streaks are too easy to shoot down. All it takes is a few seconds to switch classes and use a Stinger to eliminate them. In MW2, if you have Sleight of Hand, half the time you don't even need Colded Blooded. This means you can easily continue to run Stopping Power and your primary of choice, basically running a stinger simply for backup to eliminate air support. I'm totally fine with the power of the killstreaks in MW2, they're fun and crazy. As long as you have a way to shoot them down, they don't need much changing. I do find it annoying that whatever you get can be shot down in a flash, regardless of whether parties are involved or not.

MW3 fixed that issue by letting you choose your killstreak set for each class. Some asshole running around with a stinger on his back all the time (I always had those guys against me, never on my side, go figure)? Try a different set of streaks, or go Specialist (my favorite).

In fact, MW3 did a lot to improve the killstreak system. It was the first game to use points instead of just kills, it included different pools (Assault, Support, Specialist), rewards being earned after death (Support) allowed you to choose a set for each class, allowed the cycle to reset after attaining the last reward, and allowed you to choose what and when to call them in. Say what you want, it was balanced as a whole. It's only real problem was a couple specific rewards in Support. The Stealth Bomber was definitely bad, as was the EMP. Both should have been in Assault.

A lot of people complained that the Assault rewards sucked. Makes no sense to me. Previously they said that the stuff in MW2 was too much. I personally think they weren't super amazing because of the maps (maps were bad and there was far too much cover on most of them), but what happens if you leave a Pave Low in the air? It'll go to town.

Honestly, there's not much you can do to to get people to play the objective more without doing some sort of drastic action. BO2 proved that with Scorestreaks. That didn't do anything to encourage more objective play. It just made it harder for those to be lazy bastards and still get streaks. It's not a bad system at all of course, but it annoys me when people say it made people play the objective more. I saw the same amount of tactical loitering and corner sitting in that game as all the rest. It's a problem you can't really take control of. It's been that way since CoD4. The thing to focus on are the killstreaks themselves, and they always seem to fuck it up each release.

May 8, 2015 11:45:52 GMT -5 Megaqwerty said:

This ties into my suggestions for fixing the Stinger, but there are other possible solutions, too. Make the hit boxes for streaks absurdly large. Make the AC130 or its equivalent not only possible to hit, but simple to hit. Make the System Hack an object that does a pylon turn around the map a la the UAV (and give it a module that makes it orbital). Make bombing runs hover just outside the map for a few seconds before they proceed to drop over the map so that players have a greater opportunity to destroy them. Make the Stinger's missile(s) travel faster if it is fired on vehicles.

I read your suggestion, but I don't think that the discreet nature of the stinger is an issue at all. If the players bungle, then that's on them. You should know whether to use bullets or launchers.

Another issue is the loss of support streak progress upon switching classes. This was an issue in MW3. It was an issue in Ghosts and it's an issue in Advanced Warfare. Why is this an issue? Because if streaks are called in, the class cannot be changed upon death without losing streak progress, which is a large detriment with the more expensive streaks. If the support streak set ups are exactly the same, progress should be kept (AW introduces the ability to have both support and traditional streaks at the same time, but this is a moot point since traditional streaks obviously reset regardless of class change).

Why is this so important? If a powerful streak is called in, players with expensive support streaks are actively encouraged to not change classes so as to counter or otherwise neutralize the streak. You can argue that this is part of the metagame of Call of Duty in that the benefit of support streaks is countered by not taking a Stinger or Blind Eye in the initial class. However, I would argue that this is simply bad design as this was never an issue until MW3. In MW2 and BO1, you could never run Stinger until a streak was called in and then immediately change classes to destroy it. You can still do this, but at the expense of sacrificing support streak progress.[

This is particularly problematic since these same players are more likely to attempt to destroy streaks: players running high traditional streaks will not attempt to engage streaks lest they themselves die in the process.

The basic thing is that if you switch classes with a different Support set, it would clear for obvious reasons. Either they said fuck it, clear them all regardless of the sets (intentionally or by oversight), or they did it for balance reasons. Don't see much of a point for balance reasons though. Maybe they didn't want you to get points and kill yourself to get a new stinger and keep the total.

It obviously wasn't an issue in previous games because MW3 was the first with the Support system. That said, they still haven't figured out how to even it out.

You know what would help? The return of One Man Army. Have it keep your current killstreak set and points.


I definitely don't think making them easier to shoot is a step in the right direction. To me, it's as bad as making killstreaks to powerful. The easy way out for bad players instead of preventing support taking over the air in the first place.

[Megaqwerty]

May 8, 2015 15:12:00 GMT -5 PSIII said:

I definitely don't think making them easier to shoot is a step in the right direction. To me, it's as bad as making killstreaks to powerful. The easy way out for bad players instead of preventing support taking over the air in the first place.

Well, I fully admit that it's a matter of opinion. Streaks are conceptually balanced by the fact that they must be earned and both teams can earn them. That said, I think the game would be better off if streaks simply didn't exist. Making them easier to counter allows players the fun of still having streaks and also allowing streaks to be used strategically to push objectives while obviously making them also less of a nuisance.

May 8, 2015 16:29:48 GMT -5 lordofthenoobs said:

Killstreaks give players who are good another advantage. That fact allone is dumb.

I agree. Doing well should be its own reward. Instead, the game rewards kills with free kills. But, wait, you already were doing well so why do you need even more kills? This is a positive feedback loop.

Conceptually, this isn't a bad thing: it pushes the game to equilibrium faster. That is, if one team was obviously going to win anyway, they will now win faster since their advantage will lead to streaks and further increase their advantage.

Speeding the game up is good from a gameplay and an engagement perspective.

[PSIII]

May 8, 2015 16:29:48 GMT -5 lordofthenoobs said:

Killstreaks give players who are good another advantage. That fact allone is dumb. There are games without killstreaks... AND THEY ARE FUN.
Also it slows the game down as people often camp or even boost for them. And nobody can tell me that dieing two sec after spawning is in any form fair.
If somebody gets something like a loadstar it ruins the game for 11 players. 6 players get pwned and 5 others cant get kills as their team member destroys everything.

In the contrary, they speed up games when they're out, getting kills and clearing objective zones.

As said by the OP, they are the fundamental difference between CoD and other games. I probably wouldn't play the series if it wasn't for that, because other games are better built without them in my opinion. It's all part of the speed and action that clicks in CoD. And WaW showed it's awkward for vehicles to spawn and be ready for use on the map. The maps are too small for that. Kill streak rewards are a way to include vehicles and extras, but because they can be game changers, you have to earn them.

That's why I think MW3 did killstreaks the best (so far...). They weren't too broken (to satisfy those unpleased with MW2) and there were a huge number of different rewards to choose between of one setup failed. And you could counter most rewards fine (just not the bomber and EMP, which were problems). And of course, Specialist was fantastic (which Ghosts messed up).

BO2 is important to mention. The VSAT broke the game for sure. Because of the class system, I didn't like using points for anti-air equipment (plus, air support wasn't common enough to justify it). Many others felt the same it seemed. When the big stuff like lodestars did come out, it snowballed worse than any other CoD. At least in MW2 and BO, the cycle didn't reset. In BO2, get one good thing and it results in an endless string of rewards for you and your team. That's why so many rage quitted. I have never seen so many rage quits in any CoD game as I saw in BO2. And then the matchmaking didn't help, sometimes leaving a team bare for the rest of the match.

[Megaqwerty]

First off, and this is very important, because streaks are fun.

Second, to push the game to equilibrium faster.

[illram]

May 8, 2015 15:12:00 GMT -5 PSIII said:

Tangent City, incoming.

In the case of MW2 and MW3, I think streaks are too easy to shoot down. All it takes is a few seconds to switch classes and use a Stinger to eliminate them.

As the asshole who is on the other team always shooting down killstreaks, I have a bit of a different perspective.

Frequently I am the only asshole doing that. I very very very rarely ever see anyone else diligently taking out that chopper gunner or harrier as soon as it hits the map. People don't want to switch classes, people don't want to risk death sitting there like a giant target, people don't even have a class setup for it, whatever. I find it's the "someone else will take care of it" problem. "Someone else will cap B. Someone else will shoot down that harrier." Story of my sad, lonely soloplayer CoD life--if you want something done right, gotta do it yourself.

So even if it is MW2/MW3 levels of easy from my experience 95% of players still just won't do it. (But honestly I think every iteration of COD makes a similar trade off where if you set up a killstreak killing class it becomes easy to take care of them. People still just don't do it.)

[kylet357]

I don't even bother with taking down streaks in AW. It's just not worth your time to be honest. You're much better off waiting for it to go away, inside the safety of a building or something. Any sort of "good scorestreak" is rare enough for me to not even bother with putting on Blind Eye or a stinger (though sometimes I might put it on my 'heavy' class).

[asasa]

I remember the days where it was actually rewarding to SHOOT them down... now you can never even find the stupid things.

[kylet357]

Then there's a few maps (e.g. Bio-Lab) where random scenery shit just blocks the ability to shoot UAV's down.

[Deleted]

A game that would accurately and fairly reward skill would be nothing like Call of Duty. It wouldn't sell very well. It would look something like 6v6 TF2, yet somehow more boring.

The inherent problem with killstreaks, scorestreaks, and Titan cooldown rate is that it doesn't translate well into good gameplay for the competitive scene. In a game with a proper ranking system and players of similar skill grade in the same lobby having a massive killstreak is already a reward within itself. (That, and dead players tend to yield map control.) By throwing on a free flying armchair with 40mm cannons you're just making the rich richer; it doesn't even make the gameplay any more thought-provoking. Granted, it looks pretty cool, but all it is is a gimmick that loses its luster very quickly.

Meanwhile the problem is even worse in random lobbies where there's a more vast set of skill levels abroad. All killstreaks do is make the rich even more richer and the feeders into feeders that get picked off a lot. Momentum swings are too rare, and from a spectator's standpoint this is basically why eSports fanatics outside of Call of Duty snicker at Call of Duty. If the game is 90% over and there's an almost-certain probability that one team will dominate the other, your players and audience will want the game to end before it actually ends. That is a massive no it comes to game design. We've emphasized rewarding skill so much we forgot about the people on the backfoot. These are the people most likely to ragequit. Giving a loss won't help; they've already lost the match. Simply barring them from joining the match doesn't do anything.


If I had to revamp CoD, there would be one thing I'd focus on. I would emphasize momentum swings; if someone manages to shoot down a killstreak that person gets a bonus to their own scorestreak proportional to the score needed to attain it. This value can be 80%, it can be 100%, it can even be slightly over 100%. A bigger value just means a higher likelihood of escalating killstreak dominance. What matters is that this idea is guaranteed to swing momentum and escalate the match as it goes on. It'll make the game volatile enough to force the better players down, but it'll be fair enough so that better players can struggle back into the lead faster.

[ChloeB42 (Alexcalibur42)]

Jun 5, 2015 20:30:19 GMT -5 @sweetwater said:

If I had to revamp CoD, there would be one thing I'd focus on. I would emphasize momentum swings; if someone manages to shoot down a killstreak that person gets a bonus to their own scorestreak proportional to the score needed to attain it. This value can be 80%, it can be 100%, it can even be slightly over 100%. A bigger value just means a higher likelihood of escalating killstreak dominance. What matters is that this idea is guaranteed to swing momentum and escalate the match as it goes on. It'll make the game volatile enough to force the better players down, but it'll be fair enough so that better players can struggle back into the lead faster.

This is why I like MW3 in regards to killstreaks. It had the best reward to risk ratio in regards to shooting down streaks. Especially Strafe Run, 2 rockets destroyed all 5 and got you 5 points in your streak. Sleight of Hand Pro gave you fast swap and fast reload, leaving you less vulnerable. Blind Eye Pro made LMGs great at shooting things down. There was also that scrambler equipment that gave you Blind Eye AoE.

[Pegasus Actual]

Jun 5, 2015 20:30:19 GMT -5 @sweetwater said:

The inherent problem with killstreaks, scorestreaks, and Titan cooldown rate is that it doesn't translate well into good gameplay for the competitive scene. In a game with a proper ranking system and players of similar skill grade in the same lobby having a massive killstreak is already a reward within itself. (That, and dead players tend to yield map control.) By throwing on a free flying armchair with 40mm cannons you're just making the rich richer; it doesn't even make the gameplay any more thought-provoking. Granted, it looks pretty cool, but all it is is a gimmick that loses its luster very quickly.


<snip>


If I had to revamp CoD, there would be one thing I'd focus on. I would emphasize momentum swings; if someone manages to shoot down a killstreak that person gets a bonus to their own scorestreak proportional to the score needed to attain it. This value can be 80%, it can be 100%, it can even be slightly over 100%. A bigger value just means a higher likelihood of escalating killstreak dominance. What matters is that this idea is guaranteed to swing momentum and escalate the match as it goes on. It'll make the game volatile enough to force the better players down, but it'll be fair enough so that better players can struggle back into the lead faster.

Have you played Titanfall for more than 20 minutes? Calling the Titans a gimmick is pretty unfair.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by them not being 'thought-provoking' but they definitely emphasize different skills from Pilot combat, and they definitely add an element of strategy. And while kicking ass in the beginning Pilots-only phase of the game will get you your Titans early and give you a sizable advantage, there is a major opportunity for a momentum swing when the opposing team gets their Titans in.

And as for your killstreak swapping idea for COD, that's pretty much how Titan build time works. The best way to earn your next Titan is to damage an enemy Titan as a Pilot.

[wings]

May 8, 2015 17:04:25 GMT -5 PSIII said:

And you could counter most rewards fine (just not the bomber and EMP, which were problems). And of course, Specialist was fantastic (which Ghosts messed up).

Am I the only one here who didn't think much to those streaks? 'Stealth' Bomber could be heard quite far in advance for you to dodge it if this was possible and EMP Systems can shut out opponents' streaks so just swap to Specialist or wait it out. I always thought the Predator Missile was good value for five kills. Enemy players won't dodge it unless they have Quickdraw Pro and deploy their Trophy System in time, and that is assuming the controller doesn't know the blast radius of the Predator Missile exceeds the protective radius of the Trophy System. That, and you will never have a true counter to player controlled streaks unless you are completely invisible to targeting systems, since players like me know enemy players are just players who do not have a green box over their character models.

[r00stad00ks]

I'm personally tired of kill streak spam and if I were going to try and balance out kill streaks I think I would have a "Elite" perk set in the kill streaks category to go along with your pick whatever number they decide and have you choose between streaks and having juggernaut, stopping power, and your super stealth perk like ghost or what have you.

At least that way people have to decide between a really good perk and having kill streak. Also they shouldn't be eligible for whatever the 30killstreak is while using one of those perks. Same deal as not being able to get one with kill streaks.

Alternatively just have specialist be your kill streaks and have the team score net UAV's instead of having 6 people shooting off support UAV's the whole match. Hopefully a tactic like that might net a better flowing online experience but who knows I've been surprised by how much people want to sit in the same 10 square feet.

[wings]

Jun 7, 2015 9:10:29 GMT -5 Mousey said:

Jun 6, 2015 15:20:47 GMT -5 wings said:

Am I the only one here who didn't think much to those streaks? 'Stealth' Bomber could be heard quite far in advance for you to dodge it if this was possible and EMP Systems can shut out opponents' streaks so just swap to Specialist or wait it out. I always thought the Predator Missile was good value for five kills. Enemy players won't dodge it unless they have Quickdraw Pro and deploy their Trophy System in time, and that is assuming the controller doesn't know the blast radius of the Predator Missile exceeds the protective radius of the Trophy System. That, and you will never have a true counter to player controlled streaks unless you are completely invisible to targeting systems, since players like me know enemy players are just players who do not have a green box over their character models.

Uh well first off the stealth part has nothing to do with sound. And yeah SB wasnt a big problem. People liked to complain about there being a lethal support streak for totally arbitrary reasons. Admittedly there were some maps where there was a serious lack of good protection from the SB though.

Where I think it really shined was in OBJ games, namely demolition. If you dropped it over a bomp point it wouldnt matter if you got kills since you suck up 20 seconds of the timer; not to mention you could get a free defuse with some bombs.

I was taking the mick out of the killstreak having stealth in its name. I mean it's not very stealthy if I can detect it from pretty far away but suppose that is a question of semantics. However, the complaints about the Carpet Bombing streak are usually self-inflicted. A lot of the small maps get voted and many game modes have far easier predictable spawns, such as Demolition, so streaks become more powerful anyway. Yes, you can get three people to call it in each to cover the whole of the map, Mission, but then when Dome is the most popular map then I don't really have any sympathy. Even when people moan about lethal streaks being in Support, they usually forget that the UAV is in the Assault package anyway. My main issue with the Stealth Bomber was the free earthquake it had as the screen shaking applied to your teammates and not just your opposition, so calling it in can lead to your teammates losing an engagement as a result. And if Demolition players thought the Stealth Bomber was unfair in MW3, they should see how strong the Lodestar is in Demolition in Black Ops 2.

[ChloeB42 (Alexcalibur42)]

The only problem with stealth bomber was the maps and consequently the spawns. You didn't need 3 carpet bombs on Mission, one could easily cover spawns in any objective mode.
Besides the best support streaks in MW3 weren't even EMP and SB. Ballistic Vests was the best. You could easily have 2-3 people just throwing down something that essentially made you partially invulnerable and with several vests being thrown continuously you could keep up protection indefinitely.

[ChloeB42 (Alexcalibur42)]

The advantage if having more than one running BV is you can resupply from other caches, but not the same one. At least in one life.

And I meant in terms of just apples to apples BV is slightly better because it has no counter and much quicker to unlock Assassin Pro eliminated the minimap blocking part and specialist countered it all together. I'm not saying EMP was bad, it definitely was top 3, but being immune to a headshot from a sniper and being more effective than Juggernaut in a game with no SP makes it just the best streak IMO.

[Megaqwerty]

Ballistic vests and EMP were totally overpowered. At least, there wasn't a support streak that gave you, like, wall hacks.

Vests were legitimately overpowered in HC as they would heal your character. In Core, you just needed to be aware of them and be prepared to fire more than three bullets. Also, also, always call out vests. Seriously.

(Resupplying vests was also a good way to cheese MOABs, if you care about that sort of thing. Which you do.)

EMPs, in coordination, were also legitimately overpowered. In an objective mode, a competent player could earn two EMPs in a game, and a skilled player three or even more. With two players doing this, your team could chain four plus EMPs in a row and there was no counter, except acquire your own EMP first (and most pubs don't run EMP because they're Foxtroting scrubs).

[kylet357]

Hidden Masters (think it was them) did this thing once where they all saved up EMPs and then set them all off at one time. Completely blinded the other team and made a shit ton of them leave.

[PSIII]

Jun 5, 2015 11:00:37 GMT -5 illram said:

As the asshole who is on the other team always shooting down killstreaks, I have a bit of a different perspective.

Frequently I am the only asshole doing that. I very very very rarely ever see anyone else diligently taking out that chopper gunner or harrier as soon as it hits the map. People don't want to switch classes, people don't want to risk death sitting there like a giant target, people don't even have a class setup for it, whatever. I find it's the "someone else will take care of it" problem. "Someone else will cap B. Someone else will shoot down that harrier." Story of my sad, lonely soloplayer CoD life--if you want something done right, gotta do it yourself.

So even if it is MW2/MW3 levels of easy from my experience 95% of players still just won't do it. (But honestly I think every iteration of COD makes a similar trade off where if you set up a killstreak killing class it becomes easy to take care of them. People still just don't do it.)

I play solo 80%-90% of the time, so I know exactly what you're talking about with this. Unfortunately, it seems to be a luck-based thing all these years. For example, in MW3, the Attack Helicopter. Every time I call it in, it gets shot down, regardless of parties or how the lobby's set up. If it doesn't get shot down, then it fails to kill people a lot of times (guns blazing but enemies always seem to escape, yet that piece of shit targets me in a flash and never fails to kill me). However, when the enemy gets one, the fucknuts on my team do nothing. Just run around the same and get killed, no one brings out the Stinger.

Or in GW (where I only almost always play solo), the insta-stinger dudes are usually on the opposite team.

As for me, the amount of times I switch to the class to take them out has dropped considerably over the years. I still always have the classes set in MW2/3, but only take action if I feel it's necessary.

Jun 5, 2015 23:41:01 GMT -5 Mousey said:

Strafe Run was the stupidest shit. 99% of the time it does more for your opponent than it does for your own team. I'm pretty sure its only purpose was to be shitty care package roll.

It's actually decent in the current meta now. I often opt to use it over the Reaper on the more open maps (especially on GW). Better way to chain to the AC130. It's still bad when it comes down to it (so easy to avoid being detected even without Blind Eye, a monkey can do it) but still a far cry from how bad it was during MW3's run.

Jun 6, 2015 15:20:47 GMT -5 wings said:

Am I the only one here who didn't think much to those streaks? 'Stealth' Bomber could be heard quite far in advance for you to dodge it if this was possible and EMP Systems can shut out opponents' streaks so just swap to Specialist or wait it out. I always thought the Predator Missile was good value for five kills. Enemy players won't dodge it unless they have Quickdraw Pro and deploy their Trophy System in time, and that is assuming the controller doesn't know the blast radius of the Predator Missile exceeds the protective radius of the Trophy System. That, and you will never have a true counter to player controlled streaks unless you are completely invisible to targeting systems, since players like me know enemy players are just players who do not have a green box over their character models.

The problem with the SB was that it was up to a handful of free instant kills ending your own streak. You could hear it coming in, but there was not much time to run. Plus, there's no telling where it was placed, so you had to be lucky. And even if you could get cover, it had the be the most safe spot you could get because of the direction/radius (for instance, on Village, the cave was the only 100% safe location).

Strategically, it obviously locked down or cleared out objectives better than anything else. And it bought some crucial time.

EMPs are negated by Specialist (which I ran moat of the time), but it's a team game. It only helps you out, not your teammates, and you can't force them to change their classes.

They last so long and lower the overall performance of your team, all while the opponents maintain the same momentum (or build it up) and still get to use their rewards.

A good player can get at least two each match on GW. You don't even need a whole team to run them. Just two is good enough. To me, it's clearly an assault streak (they don't need to get kills if you go off the definition of punishing the enemy team, as it certainly does that more than supporting yours).

About the vests, they weren't overpowered. It was annoying at times, but I liked it. They nearly killed it off in Ghosts with the Armor Piercing rounds. Maybe a point or two extra in MW3. Also, yeah, you don't really need multiple people using it (two is nice for convenience though). I permanently have the Hardline+UAV> BV setup and you get vests with that fast enough to where you often overlap them.