The long-awaited Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War League Play was released last night and is already facing a series of problems affecting players.
League Play is the ultra-competitive part of the Black Ops Cold War multiplayer mode that ranks players in a skill-based division and challenges them up a ranking ladder.
It reduces the game to 4v4 (the default multiplayer is at least 6v6) and places restrictions on loadouts in an attempt to recreate the set of rules used by professional players in the Call of Duty League.
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Only three game modes can be played (Control, Search and Destroy and Hardpoint), on a limited number of maps. Restricted items include all LMGs, tactical rifles, shotguns and launchers, with a beam of accessories, scorestreaks, equipment and advantages also prohibited.
I spent four hours on League Play last night and found the experience as brutal as you would expect in the most hardcore competitive mode of the Cold War Black Ops.
However, fans criticized League Play’s version of Black Ops Cold War, which is very similar to that seen in Treyarch’s previous game, Black Ops 4, for not going far enough.
One of the main criticisms revolves around the classification system. To level up, you need to earn gems by staying at least in the top 25 in your current division. This rating system is seen by some as one that rewards playing time, rather than skill. You can, over a long enough period of time, win enough jewels to reach the top of the leaderboard simply by finishing in the top 25 out of 50 in each League Play event. This means that the top 25 players in a bronze skill level, 50-person division, can have exactly the same 30 ratings as players in the top two percent of the top purple division.
But there are a number of other criticisms. League Play supports custom classes, including weapon designs, which means that players can use scorestreaks, equipment and perks that some expected to be banned.
The inclusion of the Smoke Grenade tactic, the Jammer field update, the Gearhead perk (which reduces the field update cooldown and allows you to store up to two field update loads), and the Lawbreaker wildcard, which allows you to equip any class of weapon in any slot and equip several advantages in an advantage category, it was criticized for creating smoke grenades and field update spam in matches.
League Play also carries the controversial Black Ops Cold War sequence system, which does not restart the score after death. The scorestreaks allowed in League Play include RC-XD, Armor and War Machine.
Treyarch said League Play would include standard classes made up of presets used by all teams in the 2021 season, but which are currently not live in the game. Some hope that these presets will become the only way to play League Play.
When you start League Play, the game asks you to complete five games before placing it in the appropriate division. Some players are reporting unexpected placements, although it is important to note that 50 percent of the players are placed in the Competitor division. Treyarch said it uses a skill rating to determine which of the five skill divisions you’re placed in, but hasn’t revealed what determines your skill rating (k / d maybe?), And the game also doesn’t reveal your skill rating . All players who currently need to continue are the color-coded skill divisions (bronze, green, white and purple).
There is confusion about the league’s skill divisions. As mentioned, the Competitor division is expected to house 50 percent of the players. The best 50 percent of players by skill are organized into three divisions: Advanced (top 20 percent to 16 percent); Specialist (top 15 percent to 11 percent); Elite (top 10 percent to three percent); and Master (two percent higher).
As you probably noticed, there is a gap between the top 50% (bottom?) For the beginning of the advanced skills division, which houses the 20% above 16%. Maybe Treyarch means of the top 50% players per skill. Either way, it is confusing and poorly formulated.
Moving on, League Play clearly has a problem with players leaving matches or matches starting with less than four players on each team. It’s not a big deal when players leave a standard multiplayer game, but it can be devastating in League Play, which has fewer players per team and ladder points on the line.
Treyarch said it takes the integrity of the game seriously, “and lack of sport is not tolerated”. To this end, players who withdraw from a League Play match receive a Ladder Point penalty and a loss of match, with increased penalties applied to players who withdraw before anyone else on their team. However, it seems that in the beginning, this penalty is not enough to prevent players from giving up on League Play.
There is a horrible bug currently affecting League Play that causes a player to sometimes start a game with empty loadouts – and therefore no weapons. Treyarch acknowledged this problem and said it was working on a fix.
Are we serious, rn Treyarch? r / CoDCompetitive
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And, of course, there are early reports of some players coming across League Play cheaters. It is not clear how prevalent this problem is, but I have seen some console players turn off the cross game in an attempt to avoid PC cheaters.
State of Legue Play, we can share this on r / CoDCompetitive
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David Vonderhaar of Treyarch responded to some negative comments on Twitter. Responding to a Twitter user who asked why the developer used the same format for Black Ops Cold War League Play and Black Ops 4 League Play, instead of the type of ELO system you see in other competitive shooting games, Vonderhaar said:
“I don’t have enough characters to do justice. Keywords: Scope. Accessibility. Deadlines. Franchise.
“We have some work to do IMO to evangelize how it works after cleaning some of the nasty insects.”
So: “I will not lie. It was a challenging year with COVID. For example, we lost our live broadcast studio, where we would normally present something like this, recognize what people are saying, say what we think about it (etc, everything). “
It looks like Treyarch would love to have released the Black Ops Cold War League Play with a video explaining its design philosophy and goals. This would have helped to manage expectations, I imagine.
In his introductory blog post on League Play, Treyarch said that Black Ops 4’s League Play game was by far our most played competitive mode in the history of the Black Ops series, setting new records for the number of games played and time invested by community”.
“Its accessible Ladder system has kept players coming back for more, and its main design has solved several fundamental problems with the Black Ops 2 model, introducing a progressive ranking system, running more frequent events in shorter sprints and ensuring a faster and more healthy for the participants.
“We are building on this foundation this year, implementing a total of 30 new Ranks to be achieved, returning to the classic 4v4 format of the Black Ops 2 days and providing players with more flexibility in the game rules, such as the selection of Scorestreak available, in comparison complete CDL 2021 official rule set. “
In this context, it may not be surprising to see it used as a model for the Black Ops Cold War League Game.
What can Treyarch change? Some players have asked for the introduction of “GAs”. These are “gentleman’s agreements” between professional Call of Duty players and would result in a more restricted set of rules. For example, GAs for Black Ops Cold War prohibit AK-47, sniper rifles, smoke grenades and jammers – all currently allowed in League Play.
On Twitter, Vonderhaar suggested that the Black Ops Cold War League Game is more likely to focus on fixed classes than GAs.
“This will be resolved”, Vonderhaar said. “I hate GAs. I want to take fixed classes, so it’s not about restrictions / prohibitions, but choosing a class that everyone can understand / learn that doesn’t have all the things that would be GAd. For League, many others think I’m crazy . “
And will Treyarch reveal the numbers behind the skill rating of the Black Ops Cold War League Play? This is another thing that Vonderhaar was asked about on Twitter, and he replied that it is a maybe.
“I will say that when we expose math, it creates tension in another way,” Vonderhaar said.
“People are ‘angry’ because the number has not gone up as much as they wanted or has dropped more than expected.”
So: “I think it’s worth exploring if we can expose a little bit of math. It’s clear that people are asking about it. I need to think about it and talk to some people about it.”
Regardless of how Treyarch reacts, it’s clear that the developer has some work to do to get them into the Black Ops Cold War League game.