“Our north star is Weapon diversity,” Raven Software wrote recently as they touched on their approach to balancing weapons across three Call of Duty games within Warzone.
While Raven tends to approach weapons on a case-by-case basis, a small but broad change is coming. In a tweet on Saturday, Raven reiterated their plans to decrease base ADS speeds across all titles.
No specific details were given, but the devs do say it will increase Time to Kill “slightly.” They also mention how it would give them room to emphasize the differences between Weapon classes.
Folks brought up a good point about why Raven doesn’t adopt the health stats from the limited-time Iron Trials mode. If the devs are looking for more wiggle room for weapon balancing, an increase to base health makes more sense than trying to do a bunch of minor tweaks.
And if weapon diversity is the “north star,” the current approach doesn’t appear to be working. WZRanked gives us a good idea of what the current weapon meta is. Below is the top 10 along with the pick ratio for each:
- MP-40 (15.64%)
- Bren (11.79%)
- Kar98k (7.16%)
- STG44 (6.21%)
- Swiss K31 (5.96%)
- Cooper Carbine (5.16%)
- Kilo 141 (2.82%)
- Grau 5.56 (2.62%)
- AK-47 (2.25%)
- M4A1 (2.09%)
It’s clear which weapons are the meta right now. Still, it will be tough to get folks to try out different weapons with YouTube and TikTok folks quickly figuring out which ones are the best and blasting it across the internet.
ADS speed changes and small tweaks aren’t enough. And with more guns inevitably coming, Raven should look at a bump in base health to give them the room they need to promote more options in weapon selections.
Plus, depending on the extent of the ADS tweaks – it could promote a more cautious playstyle as folks pre-aim corners or wait for enemy squads to push them.
We’ll have to wait and see how these changes shake out. I’ll update this post once we hear a release date for these ADS changes.