Treyarch Dev Talks CoD Gun Balance and Why It’s Broken

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David Vonderhaar, Lead Gameplay Designer at Treyarch, has recently been talking with fans about a rather touchy subject: gun balance. He also had some very bold things to say regarding the direction Call of Duty seems to be going. He recently asked this question on Twitter: “True or False. Perks/ Proficiencies (like Steady Aim/ Quickdraw/ Kick) interfere with gun balance; get in the way of making game competitive.”

Apparently, Vonderhaar “feels like we could see greater gun diversity & less ‘OP’ weapons, if [he] could reserve those ‘properties’ to be part of the base gun.” He believes that “of course you have OP weapons if you can take any of the guns and make them fire faster, reload faster, be more accurate, and have less kick.” We can assume that an example of this could be the case of recoil-less weapons made even sturdier by proficiencies like kick. Instead, he suggests that “if every gun had the 1 or 2 things it did well and the 1 or 2 things it did poorly, you’d have better gun balance.” One fan asked if he considered the fact that perks and proficiencies might bring diversity to the game, which could level the playing field. Vonderhaar responded, “the guns don’t need Perks to be diverse. They can be diverse. Perks ensure they all have to be similar, so that the Perks don’t OP any one of the properties of the gun.”


Now, considering that proficiencies were introduced by Infinity Ward in Modern Warfare 3, could this be a critique of IW’s way of doing things? Or, perhaps even a critique of the direction Call of Duty has been going in general? It seems to be the case as Vonderhaar later boldly stated, “it’s the wrong way to think about it that’s comes from years of us abusing and conditioning you, perhaps, with crap gun tuning.” This also suggests that Treyarch’s next entry could be something a little different than what we’ve come to expect of the Call of Duty franchise.


Vonderhaar’s (much appreciative) transparency with Call of Duty fans is undoubtedly in preparation for Treyarch’s next title, be it “Iron Wolf” or “Black Ops 2.”


Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. Do you feel perks and proficiencies can potentially ruin gun balance?

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Source: http://mp1st.com/2012/01/05/treyarch-dev-talks-cod-gun-balance-and-why-its-broken/

Comments

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shadow1Posted:

Xcel
RealLoso This is why i love Treyarch they always balance theyre games as much as possible, i like what they did with Black ops and WAW, best Unbalance games ever along with COD4 from IW..BUT IW had to fck things ups When they came out with MW2 with stupid high killstreaks..IW Trys to REWARD you by being shyt at their games, Like having support killstreaks, death streaks, pretty fcking stupid.


From what I gather from your post you are trying to say WaW was balanced?

It is the most unbalanced CoD game created. Mp40.. There is a reason everyone uses it.



So instead of waw not being balanced, your saying Cod4 was balanced? Try M16 stopping power. They were both balanced games, they just had one super op gun. The Mp-40 had its flaws with slow reloading and short range. You needed stopping power for it to rpe. These new cods have like 6 op guns like in mw3, the ump, pp90, type 95, mp7, fmg9, acr, and g36c.

shadow1Posted:

thePiManx it all boils down to where on the body you get shot.
i.e. femoral artery in the leg and you will bleed out slowly. but why should the code for that.

you don't want to spend all that time coding for detection. so they give your player a set health, and the gun has a set health that it removes from you when shot.

it's a tricky balance!!!!!!!!!



Are you saying something like If you get shot in the foot, the gun wont do the same amount of damage like it normally would. Instead it will have about -50% or -75% damage against that area. If that was the case, you sir perhaps made the best balance yet.

XcelPosted:

RealLoso This is why i love Treyarch they always balance theyre games as much as possible, i like what they did with Black ops and WAW, best Unbalance games ever along with COD4 from IW..BUT IW had to fck things ups When they came out with MW2 with stupid high killstreaks..IW Trys to REWARD you by being shyt at their games, Like having support killstreaks, death streaks, pretty fcking stupid.


From what I gather from your post you are trying to say WaW was balanced?

It is the most unbalanced CoD game created. Mp40.. There is a reason everyone uses it.

GrungePosted:

Mr_Pibb Well I see where he is coming from and I dislike how IW put perks on the guns themselves. Also they said stopping power was a no go for mw3 yet there is a deathstreak for extra bullet damage for 1 kill and there are gun perks for extra damage on the gun so we can all see the over powerness there.

Yeah but it is for like a 6 death streak and only counts towards one kill so I think that someone who is on a deathstreak like that will need it.

Joshua15Posted:

That is why mw2,cod4,w@w were the best games and i loved them i mean mw3 was just shit they are banning people left and right and ever thing like iw plz come back we need you to make a great game again.:)

DecyferGamingPosted:

-Spirit
Jacob8hockey
-xBeY-
JimmyBoy1478 this is why i like treyarch over inferior ward they talk with the community

You think infinity ward doesn't read everyone's comments on their game, are you cereal?

I see it as Treyarch is an experiment for IW. They do all the risk taking while IW just takes from them. Tryarch trys to do what the fans want but people always hate it. Treyarch is the better developer, just everyone hates what they wanted.
i loved what treyarch did with black ops and WaW


My favourite COD right now is still WAW, Treyarch is a definetly better Studio, In my opinion in so many ways. :)

RealLosoPosted:

This is why i love Treyarch they always balance theyre games as much as possible, i like what they did with Black ops and WAW, best Unbalance games ever along with COD4 from IW..BUT IW had to fck things ups When they came out with MW2 with stupid high killstreaks..IW Trys to REWARD you by being shyt at their games, Like having support killstreaks, death streaks, pretty fcking stupid.

thePiManxPosted:

it all boils down to where on the body you get shot.
i.e. femoral artery in the leg and you will bleed out slowly. but why should the code for that.

you don't want to spend all that time coding for detection. so they give your player a set health, and the gun has a set health that it removes from you when shot.

it's a tricky balance!!!!!!!!!

-SpiritPosted:

Jacob8hockey
-xBeY-
JimmyBoy1478 this is why i like treyarch over inferior ward they talk with the community

You think infinity ward doesn't read everyone's comments on their game, are you cereal?

I see it as Treyarch is an experiment for IW. They do all the risk taking while IW just takes from them. Tryarch trys to do what the fans want but people always hate it. Treyarch is the better developer, just everyone hates what they wanted.
i loved what treyarch did with black ops and WaW

-SpiritPosted:

he is trying to make a competitive skilled based game separate the good from the bad which mw3 fails to do so