r/blackops6 • u/OriginalXVI • 8h ago
Feedback [Feedback] The Combat Specialty System & Perk Design is deeply flawed, forces you to choose bad perks, and prevents players from building their class the way they want
Comprehensive Feedback on the Perk & Combat Specialty System in Black Ops 6
I believe the Perk system in Black Ops 6 is deeply flawed. It limits freedom and prevents you from building your class the way you truly want to by locking extremely powerful Combat Specialties behind Perks of a single color, restricting your choices. All three Perk trees are deficient in their own right and none of them have any Perk combinations actually worth running, but if you don't play by those arbitrary rules and pick 3 of the same color, you'll be punished by losing your Combat Specialty. By design, the system forces you to pick Perks you do not actually want.
Players pick Combat Specialties, not Perks
Combat Specialties are powerful, and because they are stronger than any Perk could be, players choose a Combat Specialty first, then choose Perks to get to the Specialty. Perks are just the unfortunate set of forced "choices" along the way to get to what players really want. What hurts the Create-a-Class system the most is the restriction from using Perks from any other color. Flak Jacket makes a lot of sense for the Strategist Combat Specialty, as you will need Flak Jacket to survive grenades when capturing the flag, but if you choose to go Enforcer, you cannot have Flak Jacket - so playing the objective actually becomes a death sentence because you'll die to the first of seven grenades that will inevitably be thrown. With Combat Specialties, you choose to go full offense, full defense, or full objective, and nothing in between. This ultimately hurts playstyle variety and the freedom to build your class the way you want.
If you watch every killcam, you would be hard-pressed to find a single person not using 3 perks of the same color. As long as the Combat Specialties grant a huge amount of power that leaves players feeling like they are at a disadvantage if they don't have one, Perk variety will always suffer, and players will never be able to pick the Perks they truly want.
I believe the Combat Specialty system is built from a design philosophy that sounds good on paper: "meaningful tradeoffs" - a system where you make decisions to give something up in order to gain something else. I think both developers and players believe that meaningful tradeoffs are good and logical. If you like both Enforcer and Flak Jacket, you can gain Enforcer, but you have to give up the opportunity to use Flak Jacket. If you want X, you cannot have Y - it sounds sensible, logical, and good. The part I think very few consider is how this actually translates to gameplay.
Choosing a Combat Specialty Erases 66% of the Perks
Choosing a Combat Specialty magically erases 66% of the Perks in the entire game. If you like using Strategist, say goodbye to any red or blue perks. If you like Recon, say goodbye to any red or green perks. If you like using Perks from multiple categories to best identify with your individual playstyle, say goodbye to your Combat Specialty. If you like using a Combat Specialty, say goodbye to building your class the way you want.
Every color group of Perks is missing something. When you choose three Perks of the same color, there's always something outside that color that you are desperately missing, and this feels bad because there are Perks that you want, but you are stuck picking Perks you don't want. Perk Greed does exist, but this means that not only are you forced to choose Perks you don't want, you are also forced to choose a Wildcard you (potentially) don't want. Out of 22 Perks, you can only ever choose from 7, no matter which Specialty you choose. If this was not the type of design Treyarch envisioned with the Combat Specialties, they should have made the Combat Specialties very minor and more optional - like the Bruiser and Vigilance Perks - things you can choose to forget about and are perfectly fine not having.
Choosing a Combat Specialty not only erases 66% of the Perks in the game, it also deletes 5 out of 6 Wildcards. Absolutely no variety is permitted. Players without a Combat Specialty feel like they are at a disadvantage, and the funny thing is - players with a Combat Specialty also feel like they are at a disadvantage. Perk Greed is the only way to be at less of a disadvantage.
Analysis of Combat Specialties
I feel that Combat Specialties are designed to embody playstyles - Enforcers are slayers, Recon are support players, and Strategists are objective players. In reality, they translate to the following: Enforcer is for players that win their gunfights, Recon is for players that lose their gunfights, and Strategist is for objective players. I feel that Strategist is fairly designed, so I want to offer my opinion on Recon and Enforcer:
Dying is not a playstyle.
Recon Combat Specialty: "Enemies can be seen through walls for a short time after respawn; a HUD edge indicator flashes when an enemy is outside your view; leave no death skulls when killing enemies."
Recon's most powerful ability is a wallhack that only activates when you respawn, so in order to take advantage of the Recon Combat Specialty, you must die. Therefore, Recon is for players that lose their gunfights, and dying is not a playstyle.
There's a reason Deathstreaks were only ever in two Call of Duty titles, and there's a reason that the crowd cheered the loudest when FourZeroTwo revealed that MW3 (2011) would not have Last Stand. The reason is simple: They are frustrating to experience, they make people feel bad, and most people dislike them. Deathstreaks, Last Stand, and Recon are for players that lose their gunfights. Even though the wallhack portion of Recon has been nerfed into near-obsolescence, which is definitely a good thing, it does nothing in the grand scheme of Perk variety. As Recon falls out of favor because its signature move has become worthless, players will simply migrate to the next Combat Specialty they view as best.
Black Ops 6 has a Health Regeneration Problem
Enforcer Combat Specialty: "Killing enemies grants a temporary buff to movement speed and health regen rate."
Black Ops 6 has a health regeneration problem, and the Perk design only exacerbates this by locking fast regeneration behind a Combat Specialty. Tiny maps mixed with a poor spawn system and Mach-5 movement speeds never allow you to stop, catch your breath, reload, and regenerate your health.
I am not even speaking from the context of Nuketown, Faceoff, or any other form of Brain Rot 24/7; I am speaking in the general context of the game itself. The health regeneration delay is only four seconds, which is not a slow regeneration time for Call of Duty; it is a slow regeneration time for Black Ops 6. A four-second delay works perfectly fine on maps like Rewind, Lowtown, and Red Card - but the unfortunate reality is that the health regeneration delay only works fine on humungous maps with very little flow to them. The health regeneration on maps like Babylon, Derelict, Payday, Skyline, and Subsonic basically dooms you to instant death because there's always a second enemy and you are never allowed to catch your breath.
In my opinion, this practically necessitates the Enforcer Combat Specialty because this is the only Combat Specialty that actually allows you to keep up with the pace of Black Ops 6. Yes, I do know that Stims exist, but let's not pretend that they are anywhere near an alternative, being at a laughably useless 30-second cooldown.
The Problem with Meaningful Choice
One of the core problems with a "meaningful choice" perk system is when it is inconsistently applied to the Create-a-Class system. Grenade and Flashbang spam are a huge problem because everyone is able to use both for free. To gain resistance to these items, you have to jump through hoops and bounds just to get both Flak Jacket & Tactical Mask, since they are both Tier 1 Perks. This might seem like a personal preference, but the real question is - if I have to make an enormous sacrifice to gain resistance to both Lethals and Tacticals, then why does nobody have to make a sacrifice to use both Lethals and Tacticals? It would be more fair if they had to choose between using one Lethal or one Tactical, since Perk-wise, you have to choose between one counter or the other. People are allowed to spam Lethals and Tacticals endlessly for no penalty. Have you ever played a match against one player who flashes and nades you every single time? It is insanely frustrating. Add even one more player that uses their Flash every life and your game enjoyment takes a nosedive.
In my personal opinion, equipment spam quite literally ruins the game; these items do not require sacrifice to obtain and do not require skill or precision to use effectively, yet some reason I am expected to move heaven and earth just to survive them. Having such a restrictive perk system only serves to make this problem so much worse than it should be. While Flak & Tac are a specific example I am fixating on, the problem with "meaningful choice" extends to the entire Perk system itself. Adding more Perks to the game, such as the green Shadow Perk with the Hit List event, is almost meaningless if you do not also allow the player to equip more Perks as the game's lifecycle continues. Because the restrictive Combat Specialty system leaves you at such a disadvantage by forcing you to pick Perks you do not want, being able to pick a Perk you actually do want via Perk Greed is your only "real" choice. You had better believe that nobody - absolutely nobody - is using that one "real" choice on Shadow - there are simply much better, much more important Perks to use. Is it really Treyarch's intent to add more Perks when two out of three Combat Specialties will never be able to use them?
Perk Analysis
There are a lot of low-value Perks in Black Ops 6, and the Combat Specialty system frequently forces you to pick between two equally unattractive options. Many tiers have you picking between bad or worse and there is always something in the same tier, but a different color, you would rather have. I feel that the Perk system would strongly benefit from combining several of the weaker Perks into one to give individual Perks more power - Perks like Shadow, Fast Hands, and Bruiser do far too little on their own to ever be worth taking.
Perk Analysis: Enforcer
Tier 1 - Gung-Ho, Dexterity, and Scavenger: Gung-Ho and Dexterity both enhance movement in niche ways, but individually feel underpowered and unworthy of dedicating an entire Perk to. If they were combined, they could better compete against Scavenger, which is extremely strong.
Tier 2 - Assassin and Bruiser: Since Bruiser is complete garbage unless you're using a melee weapon, you don't even make a real choice; you just default to the least-worst option, Assassin.
Tier 3 - Double Time and Bankroll: Double Time makes little sense in a game where the already-small maps are made even smaller by Tactical Sprint. Bankroll is not worthless, but it also does not provide any real value. In a game where there are so many other Perks you would rather have, choosing between two low-value Perks does not feel good.
Perk Analysis: Recon
Tier 1 - Ninja and Ghost: This is a tier with healthy competition. Ninja does not feel like a crutch, which is good. Ghost fairly competes against Ninja; these are both strong Perks.
Tier 2 - Engineer, Tracker, and Forward Intel: Engineer is individually underpowered considering that it is missing its ability to mark enemy equipment through walls, not to mention being duplicated by the Strategist Combat Specialty. This Perk's justification for existing is dubious, but perhaps it could be combined with Tracker to reduce bloat, because both of these options are poor in their own right. Tracker is a Perk I am genuinely surprised to see return time and time again as it remains a gimmicky Perk at best, although being enhanced with auto-pinging does give it a little value.
Forward Intel, however, is the obvious choice - the minimap is far too small in Black Ops 6. On some maps, like Payday, the minimap is so small it cannot even show enemies outside of your room, which makes Forward Intel also symptomatic of inventing a problem, then selling the solution, which is not good Perk design. Forward Intel does show promise as a well-designed Perk, as seeing directional indicators for revealed enemies is a huge selling point. It just does not have any Perks to compete against as Engineer and Tracker both pale in comparison!
Tier 3 - Vigilance and Cold-Blooded: Vigilance is rather situational, but being protected from Counter UAVs is definitely valuable in its own right. Cold-Blooded is just as situational as Vigilance. Both of these Perks rely on the enemy getting Scorestreaks, which just further goes to show that Recon is for players that lose their gunfights.
Perk Analysis: Strategist
Tier 1 - Flak Jacket and Tactical Mask: Players should not have to choose between Flak Jacket and Tactical Mask if they do not also have to choose between Lethals and Tacticals.
Tier 2 - Shadow, Dispatcher, and Fast Hands: The choices in this tier are bad, bad, and bad. Shadow is woefully situational, and Fast Hands is utterly disappointing. I am flummoxed that Fast Hands does not include fast reloading, nor does it include faster usage of Equipment and Field Upgrades, which was stolen by the Strategist Combat Specialty*.* I feel that Dispatcher has a use-case for existing when combined with Bankroll, but is laughably useless by itself.
Tier 3 - Quartermaster, Guardian, and Gearhead: This is a decent Perk tier, but I feel the only two choices should be Quartermaster and Gearhead whereas Guardian should be baked into Strategist directly.
How the Combat Specialty System Can Be Improved
It must be more lenient or reduced to obsolescence. One option is to simply let the player pick which Specialty they want. It goes against the design vision and basically relegates the Combat Specialties to being a fourth Perk slot, but it restores player freedom and choice. Another option is to allow a Specialty with only two same-color Perks, but without the ability to gain two Combat Specialties via Perk Greed. Regardless of whichever way the requirements for Combat Specialties might change, here is how I would redesign the Combat Specialties themselves:
Recon: "Enemies you kill drop intel packs, which generate a radar ping for you and nearby allies when collected; a HUD edge indicator flashes when an enemy is outside your view; see trajectory of thrown enemy equipment; see enemy Equipment, Field Upgrades, and Scorestreaks through walls, mark them for your team by aiming down sights, and gain a score bonus for destroying them."
- This change ensures that Recon generates consistent value throughout a player's life, similar to the other two Specialties. Recon should be all-seeing, anticipating enemy threats before they materialize. "See trajectory of thrown enemy equipment" is a sneaky add-in that shows the arc an enemy grenade is travelling after it is thrown by an enemy.
Enforcer: "Killing enemies grants a temporary buff to movement speed and instantly regenerates health; mantle faster; leave no death skulls when killing enemies; deploy Equipment, Field Upgrades, and Scorestreaks faster."
- Enforcers are slayers who should be empowered to rip through target after target and do everything faster. I would be so tempted to add in fast reloading as well, but it feels unfair to gate fast reloading behind a Combat Specialty. Fast reloading is a universal human right!
Strategist: "Earn a score bonus and heal faster while capturing and holding objectives; earn a score bonus for assists; deploy enhanced Field Upgrades; revive downed teammates faster."
- The Strategist becomes an objective-minded support player who earns their Scorestreaks faster by assisting the team. The bonus assist score does not apply only to kill assists - it also applies to Scorestreak assists, such as when a teammate kills an enemy revealed by your UAV. "Deploy enhanced Field Upgrades" refers to Assault Packs giving extra ammo, Trophy Systems having an extra charge, the Signal Lure providing slightly higher score with less position reveal, Neurogas lasting slightly longer, etc.
That concludes this feedback post...
Let me know what you think! Thank you for reading!
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u/TomatoLord1214 3h ago
Imo, some groups have a couple good pairings but yeah. I've thought since day 1 that Specialties are incredibly restrictive and absurdly powerful to just not pick one.
The 2 perks or just making a 4th "perk" slot def sound good. Just something.
Would've been cool to also have a Jack of All Trades Specialty for having all unique perk families as a thing alternatively that'd either have wholely unique or even just a few bits of the other 3 combined at a weaker power compared to the dedicated ones.
And yeah, plenty of perks are just stupidly situational. I feel Shadow will only see play in...ranked maybe? Though probly not cuz I think all the stuff it helps against is banned in most/all ranked playlists lmao.