News - The Warzone Meta Has A Big Problem
The warzone meta has a glaring issue␦
That has continued for some time now, and at this point within Modern Warfare 3 and within War Zone 3, it's reached a point where I feel like it's worth bringing up the meta.
How weapon changes in warzone are approached
It kind of has a problem; it kind of has an issue when it comes to how weapon adjustments and weapon balancing are approached, and the main reason that I wanted to talk about this in a article to begin with is that I want to be able to use this platform that you guys have given me to have a positive impact on the game, and I know several developers from Cod watch the articles they've mentioned to me before.
And two, this is a sentiment that I've seen arise a lot lately. I see a lot of you guys talking about this same sort of idea. Phase of the war zone for several years now, finding what the true best ttk is for the general community. You know, obviously, we've tested throughout war zone 1; they adjusted things with iron trials or having low health or whatever the case is, seeing what ttk worked well, then war zone 2 obviously launching with MW2, and having a very fast ttk that a lot of players didn't like, and then war zone 3 now sort of experimenting with that having the heavy armor event, which didn't seem to go over all that great, and adjusting various weapon values to come to these more average ttks and finally land in a spot where it's like okay, for example, the Clos range ttk.
It seems to be really well received when it's roughly between 600 and 700 750 milliseconds, and the long range ttk is generally accepted and generally well received when it's between 800 and maybe 1, 000 milliseconds right or a second long, and you get to that point where it's like, okay, we've got several weapons that fall into that area, and they seem very well balanced; they're popular, but you also have a couple of outliers.
Maybe the DG is just a little too fast in the long range, or it's a little bit too easy to use, or the HR-9 kills a little bit too quickly up close, and those weapons then get hit with hard Nerfs, and then they're worse than the other weapons that were sort of filling out the average of everything else right, but then when those do get nerfed, it's just kind of like, okay, well, what's next in line if it's not the DG58?
It's the hoger if it's not the hoger.
Hard nerfs to #1 metas works sometimes, but.
It's X if it's not X it's Y and this can go on and on and on and on and while this approach works for some weapons like if you have a crazy busted weapon where the SOA subverter ttk, is just way too fast or the MTZ, interceptors, killing in three bullets and it's just totally overpowered, those hard Nerfs work to balance it out when you do come to the point where now we're several meta updates into the year with you know many seasonal updates and mid-season updates and just random updates here and there adjusting things where it's a lot more balanced than it was on day one when you consistently just Nerf that Top Dog and wait for that next in line it leads to eventually all these guns even the ones that are next in line Just feeling kind of underwhelming, you get this sort of peashooter, meta where things just feel like they're not really hitting that hard; it's kind of a more bland, mediocre Gunplay system, whereas, on the inverse, instead of constantly nerfing the top dog and constantly going after the DG or the HMR 9 or whatever, instead, look towards, okay, what are those next-in-line options?
What is maybe the number two? the number three the number four SMG What is the number two long range? the number three long range All the way down the list, what if we just adjust these slightly while we still stay within this general median ttk, where it's like, you know, 600 to 700 750 milliseconds close range?
The ␜solution␝ to balancing the warzone meta
800 milliseconds to 900 milliseconds long range Instead of taking these weapons that are clearly the favorable options within the player base, they are the number one most used or the number two most used, and knocking those down so that yeah, we never end up using those again, they're down to, you know, the 20th best option in the game or the 25th best option in the game.
Instead, we take the ninth-best option in the 10th, the 11th, and the 12th and update these a little bit and bring them more in line with what players want to use now, and then you have this much more competitive ttk. That doesn't make it so that, hey, this weapon that just came out that's now super strong, and everyone's sort of deeming this and calling this the number one gun, it's got a cool bundle for it.
I've unlocked my Mastery camos for it, and then a week later it gets nerfed, and I'm never going to touch it again. Instead, it still stays active; it still stays as a part of the meta, but maybe you want to switch to the hogre because it has a slightly better ttk for a 10 m range, or you want to switch to the WASP 9 because it's got a slightly faster ad speed, or whatever the case is, you go from this position where your meta adjustments and your weapon changes are always attacking the best weapons to instead, keeping the best weapons good but also making things more competitive, while now no longer drastically speeding up that ttk.
You have this approach at launch, and it's like, yeah, we have all these broken weapons, but if we just try and match the broken weapons, then everything's going to melt and there's going to be an instakill ttk, and that just doesn't promote good gunplay. But now that we've gone through, we've adjusted so many weapons that we've landed on this relatively average tck throughout pretty much all gunfights.
You go and attack the weapons that are underperforming; a little bit brings them up to par with the weapons that players are enjoying, and you have this much more diverse, much more competitive meta across the board. So, long story short, like I said at the start. Why don't they just buff some of the less desirable weapons?
agree, if we truly want to go after a meta where you can use four or five different SMGs and it really comes down to preference, okay, you like the iron sites on one, you can get the most out of that gun, go for it, or you love the Sprint of Fire and the speed of this gun, go for it, and you're not going to have a huge swing or a huge disadvantage because you want to go one way versus the other, that's great.
now Not every single weapon should feel the same; certain weapons should be better in one area, that area, or this area, because if every gun felt the same, what's the point in having, you know, 90 different weapons in the game? To begin with, there needs to be a level of distinction between them all.
