Treyarch MP Developer On CoD7

We all know that Treyarch NEVER reads the boards and NEVER listens to the community suggestions, so why bother MaTtKs?

Wait a minute... TRICKERY!

I like to make Josh write me a report on trending board topics just for fun.

But, seriously, the stats in the Barracks isn't good enough anymore. We should try to do way better.

Personally, I know that when I am sitting in my giant castle on the beach in the summers playing on my 90000 inch HDTV, the last thing I want to do is be bothered to order my maid to wheel my MBP over to me to look at my stats on the web site.

Vahn

So what I am hearing so far is that you want a Perk that doubles the number of killstreaks that you can call at once, while allowing you to warp across the map and knife anyone and giving you a 100x score bonus for camping.

Got it!

Lot of good ideas here! My new favorite thread.

I am seeing a lot of what I would call the "echo plex." As fans of the previous games, we have drawn a lot of the same conclusions that many of you are drawing. Solutions to those problems may be different than any specific proposal in any specific post, but I'm glad we (generally speaking) want to go the same direction you want us to go.

Vahn

GoldonArRow wrote:1) This is my big idea for the killstreaks, make it to where for different classes there is a different kill streak setup. Like for your rushing class you have low kill streaks set up, and your Rifle classes the big ones set up. That way you don't have to constantly change them, kinda like perks.



GoldonArRow,

We tried this and didn't like it. That doesn't mean we won't try it again. At least one of my co-workers LOVED IT and he cried a little when I removed it.

It complicates the purity and speed of Create a Class, which by itself has to evolve and thus gets more complicated.

More directly, I'm listening to all the feedback about not having as many / complex / deadly killstreaks.

That feedback means that most classes, most of the time, have the same Killstreaks available in each of them by nature of not having as many killstreaks available at each of the key levels.

Vahn

We love the stacking as well as the fact that it can carry between lives. What I don't love is the fact that kills from killstreaks count towards your next killstreak.

That's how you get the guys who rack up insane K:D ratios. If those guys had to go out into the field and shoot people, you wouldn't see as much killstreak spam.

A great topic worthy of it's own thread, really. We talk about those 3 things a lot.

Should kills from killstreaks count towards your next killstreak?

Should killstreaks continue to stack?

Should killstreaks you earned survive your death?

Our current implementation is: No, Yes, Yes. But anything can change during development.


Vahn

duckmen wrote:no commando, please.
bayonets are infinitely better



Thank you for saying so.

I have this theory that an extended melee range perk is poor design.

It's fun to knife people. It's very satisfying.

However, I think if you making something so awesome that the other player doesn't have equal opportunity or awareness of your tactical advantage and thus it becomes un-fun for them ... it's not very good design.

When facing down a guy with a Bayonet, you could at least see the guy had a knife on the end of his gun. You were aware that he could try to attack you from range. The tuning was also different. The range was less than Commando Pro, and the recovery a lot slower.

If I could go back in time, I'd tune the Bayonet differently. But, having it burn a weapon attachment slot was a pretty big trade-off versus the Perk implementation in MW2.

Good design would force you to make those trade-offs. Although it's outside the scope of this post to get poetic about that, I've never been happy with the risk/reward or penalty/bonus dynamic so it is a big deal for us on the MP design team to work on that for the next project.

Vahn

ScotchMouth wrote:Kill streak 5: Turret Operator. Think of the Sentry Gun. It operated itself while you were running and gunning or holding down a point. Now picture that gun with an NPC behind it. The principal is the same but the operator of that gun can be knifed or shot. Once the operator (NPC) is killed. The players can use it for a short time until the ammo runs out.




We prototyped this idea, actually. It has a few problems.

1. The AI operate was too easy to kill. Making him harder to kill with more health was irritated for players because it was not easily understood why killing him was harder than killing a player. Even if I dressed him in body armor.

2. Nobody wanted to man the turrets for the same reason they rarely mount turrets we have in the world. You are generally too exposed and a "sitting duck." It's the same problem we had with deployed bi-pods.

I'm not giving up on this idea just yet, but I wanted to let you know that we have been considering how to make this work.

Vahn

Not to change the subject or hijack the thread, but I've been thinking about this a lot lately and thought I'd ask you guys to weigh in.

I'm not a huge fan of having Shotguns, Machine Pistols, and Handguns all as secondary weapons. I think this has:

-eliminated the role of the pistol as the "Oh Crap!" out of ammo quick switch weapon for the most part and generally lets you carry a lot of firepower.
-minimized the importance of finding a gun to pick-up (Scavenger Pro also a culprit)

I do like Launchers as secondaries instead of as Perk weapon.

Am I going to beat up by angry MP fans the world over if I go back to our roots a bit? What if only Handguns and Launchers were secondaries? Interally, most people think you shouldn't be able to have a Shotgun or a Machine Pistol as a secondary. Opinion is split if they believe if it is: NONE OF THE ABOVE, Just Shotguns, or Just Machine Pistols [as secondaries].

What do you think?

Vahn

3vilRob wrote:I don't know if anyone has suggested this, but anyway: What about having a knife as your secondary?



I have something cooking about this just for you, 3vilRob. I can neither confirm or deny what it is. It's Classified.

That's a fun way of saying I'm not allowed to talk specifics about anything.

8feet wrote: NO game ending killstreak



You won't get an argument from any of us on this one.

Vahn

Gosu71 wrote:Interesting stuff.

I myself have removed my *IW Fanboy T-Shirt* and am looking forward to CoD 7.

Gosu71 wrote:Interesting stuff.

I myself have removed my *IW Fanboy T-Shirt* and am looking forward to CoD 7.

Put your shirt back on pasty man!

On topic though, it does indeed look like the team at Treyarch is not only paying attention to the suggestions being given, but it also seems like they've been paying attention to what the community does and does not like in regards to MW2.

Very smart move imo.