Dr. DisRespect Warns Against Ridiculous ‘Warzone’ Changes

I don’t always agree with Guy Beahm—aka Dr. DisRespect—but when it comes to his latest criticisms of the Call Of Duty battle royale, Warzone, he’s right on the money.

Raven Software, the developer behind Warzone, is aiming to increase the game’s time-to-kill (TTK), the time it takes for players to eliminate one another in the game. A higher TTK typically means you need to pump more bullets into an opponent for them to bite the dust. Lower TTKs speed up play, but make it a lot easier to die and harder to get out of a scrape.

There is always a balance to strike. If TTK is too high, combat can feel like a slog. If TTK is too low, you’ll find yourself dying without any chance to respond. In a fast-paced game like Call Of Duty, you don’t want TTK too high because that slows the game down too much.

Right now in Warzone I think the time-to-kill is about right. It varies depending on how much armor a player is wearing, of course, but outside of well-placed headshots with powerful sniper-rifles, it generally requires a full clip to bring someone down.

Often, players will have time to slide and hop their way into cover before dying, but you’ll get the satisfying sound of broken armor, meaning they have to plate up before you push. TTK is definitely higher, in large part thanks to armor, than in traditional Call Of Duty multiplayer.

But Raven Software would like to increase TTK slightly and plans to do so by reducing aim-down-sight (ADS) speed.

This is the time it takes to bring your gun from a hip-fire position up to the sights for a more accurate shot. There are all sorts of ways to tinker with Call Of Duty’s arsenal, increasing ADS often by sacrificing some other stat or vice versa.

For close-quarters combat with SMGs and shotguns, quick ADS time can be the difference between life and death. For longer-range combat (outside of lunatic snipers who quick-scope like they were born for it) ADS is less important than recoil control and range—but it’s all about play-style.

The important thing here is that fast ADS, like a lower TTK, makes the game move quicker and play more smoothly. That speed is one big reason I prefer Black Ops Cold War to Warzone in terms of gunplay, and with an even further reduction in ADS and increase in TTK, my preference gap will only widen.

Many COD pros have spoken out against these changes, noting that decreasing ADS will only benefit campers:

Now, Dr. DisRespect has spoken up about Raven’s plans, warning that these changes will badly damage the “iconic” Call Of Duty gunplay in the game (via Dexerto).

“It goes against even the most basic design principles,” he said.

“Believe it or not, they actually want to increase the ADS time of the game! To increase time to kill? Not damage, because only like two or three bullets get through the 7hz servers we play on. No, they’re increasing ADS times. There’s no way I’d do something like that in a game I made.”

DisRespect noted that he won’t be making any similarly game-slowing changes in his own upcoming shooter, Midnight Society.

“Let me tell you, we won’t be doing that in Midnight Society,” he said. “I want that game feeling fun.”

The biggest problem with reducing ADS and upping TTK, DisRespect points out, is that it makes the game less athletic and less fun by taking away a player’s ability to react quickly in any given situation. Sure, players can use weapons with low ADS, but that’s a player’s choice. Reducing ADS on all guns impacts all players.

“You want to make the game less fun? Less athletic? You want to give less immediate control to the player? As an answer? That’s not the way to go, at all. It’s a huge mistake. You want to make the game, especially Call of Duty, and especially here in Warzone, as athletic as possible.

“Everyone wants TTK balanced, but this is not the way to do it Raven,” DisRespect said. “Everyone is saying it, and I agree. It’s not what we do around here!”

The popular streamer likened Warzone’s current state to the downfall of battle royale game H1Z1, one of the first in the genre, and now all but dead and gone. I’m not sure things are that grim yet. Yes, there are lots of problems with Warzone at the moment, and this will almost certainly make things worse, but the new map is still a nice change and—up until Raven bizarrely removed almost every Vanguard playlist—gave players some nice new content to play around with. I particularly enjoyed Vanguard Resurgence which is now no longer included in the game’s playlists.

What do you think about this ADS business? How is your experience with Warzone lately? I’m on PC so I know I’m not experiencing all the problems console players are, but it sounds kind of rough. Either way, let me know on Twitter or Facebook.

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Source: Forbes