News - Are Streaks Too Weak Warzone 2
So today we're going to be taking a deep look at exactly why I feel these streaks are weaker than many previous Call of Duty games, as well as some feedback on how I feel things could be improved.
Should streaks be powerful in cod?
But before we get into that I think it's important to talk about the debate between whether or not streaks should be very powerful, because on one hand I do understand the arguments, that powerful streaks will often just snowball, and it can be really frustrating to play against when enemies are calling these higher streaks in especially because typically when you see the high streaks come in it's not coming in from the losing team it's coming in from the team that's already, got the lead and they're already sort of dominating you so in a sense when they gets called in against you it can feel like you're being kicked while you're already down and I also get that this can often lead people to just leave the match when you're getting stomped so hard that the streaks are just killing you over and over and over again for many people that's absolutely enough for them to just leave the match, and I'm sure for some of them they even turn the game off entirely.
Which we know the developers don't want to see, and this is likely the reason that they have felt really toned down in recent Call of Duty games compared to, like, back in the Golden Age of Cod when streaks were really, really powerful, so I totally understand the arguments on that side of things. But on the other hand, streaks are a huge part of what makes Mak Cod special in the FPS scene, and I do think streaks are a big reason that Call of Duty became so successful because we had that high that players can chase on an individual level on a game-to-game basis.
And I distinctly remember back in the day that was why I played Cod; the high I was chasing every time I hopped on was like I wanted to earn the highest streak in the game, and in some of the more recent Call of Duty games. Modern Warfare 3 included. I do feel it's much more of a flat feeling, where they've really toned down the lows, so it's less likely you'll just get killed over and over and over again and want to just back out of the game as a result of that, but in doing so you're also flattening out the highs, so there's less of an incentive to really chase that high streak when in many cases it's only going to get you like two or three kills.
And I don't think it's a coincidence that when you ask many longtime Call of Duty fans, like the ones that have been playing since the older days of COD, if you ask them what their favorite Call of Duty is. I would say the three that I see pop up the most, as people's favorite Call of Duty in franchise history tend to be Modern Warfare 2, the original, not last year's Black Ops 2, which is my favorite Call of Duty game, and Black Ops 3.
These three come up all the time, and I don't think it's a coincidence that these three also have some of the most powerful streaks in the entire franchise. Like when you earned a swarm in Black Ops 2, you knew that kill feed was going to belong to you for the next 45 seconds. And at least in my experience that feeling is gone with newer Call of Duties now when I call in a swarm my thought process is hm I wonder if this one will get more than four kills this time and unfortunately Ely it often doesn't and it's actually pretty crazy how easy it is to counter a swarm without using the cold blooded style perk but we're not quite there yet in the article, another thing I wanted to point out on the pro strong streak side of things is as a solo player if you're a really good solo player it's kind of nice to know that regardless of how bad your team is doing, if you can just manage to get that higher end streak cup there's a chance that can turn the tides on the game and that can make the difference between your team losing or winning that game so ideally for me I do understand the arguments on both sides so the way I see it I think higher end lethal streaks.
Should be very powerful and something to be feared when it's called in against your team in saying that I think there should also be very viable counterplay, so anybody that's smart enough or just not lazy enough to make a change over to a cold-blooded class, or these days we can even edit our classes so you can continue using your existing class but just pop cold-blooded on there for the time being.
I think that counterplay should always be there, and if you swap over to that, you should be pretty much completely protected from those higher-end streaks. Whereas if you're too lazy and you don't bother switching over to that counter perk, then that's completely on you when you keep respawning and getting killed over and over again. That just seems like the best approach to me; it really allows players to control that experience rather than just nerfing the streaks in general, making them not very powerful so you don't even feel the need to ever use hijacked if strobe, which is this game's cold blooded.
Streak duration
In either case, let's go over some of the points as to why I feel some of these higher-end streaks are so weak, and the first thing I wanted to look at was simply the duration of these streaks.
How long do some of these higher-end streaks last, and is it too short? So I looked at the Chopper Gunner AC130.
Too easy to shoot down with bullets?
And the Swarm and all of these last about 45 seconds and I think that's actually a very reasonable time for a higher end streak as long as it's really effective within those 45 seconds, but the problem is if you've ever used a chopper Gunner you've probably noticed they almost never actually last for 45 seconds because they get shot down so easily so that's the next variable we're going to look at and this is something I have covered in the past, at least in my opinion it is way too easy to take out some of these higher-end aerial streaks just with bullet damage alone in fact all you have to do is pop an lmg like the Bruin Mark 9 and incendiary rounds on and you can now take out a chopper gunner in less than 4 seconds.
That's one of the highest streaks in the game that takes quite a bit of effort and time generally to earn, and a single player with an LMG with incendiary rounds can completely eliminate that streak in less than 4 seconds. To me, that just doesn't seem like a fair balance at all, and honestly. I'd love to see a pretty noticeable reduction in the amount of bullet damage that you can deal with versus some of these high-end streaks.
