Many players of the Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Beta are complaining about an item equipped in the gear slot that gives extra health with seemingly no drawback.
The Multiplayer Beta for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is live, and players have been getting to grips with the game all weekend. The single biggest recurring piece of feedback is undoubtedly in response to Armor, a gear variant that effectively gives the user more health in gunfights with no drawbacks.
Black Ops 4, like previous Call of Duty games, sees players create customizable classes with plenty of different weapons, attachments, and perks to choose from. One of these choices is for Gear, which essentially work the same way as perks, offering players some kind of boost or ability which gives them an advantage in combat.
The reason Armor has been received so poorly by the community is because it increases “Time to Kill” by allowing the player to take 1-2 extra bullets to the body before dying. This extra TTK is perhaps made even more of an issue for players because player health in Black Ops 4 is already 150 (up from 100 in previous titles) which is, along with the new Battle Royale mode, among the many big changes made to the Call of Duty formula this year.
While 1-2 extra bullets may not sound like a lot, the difference it makes in a fast-twitch shooter like Call of Duty is enormous. While Armor Piercing rounds do exist as a counter, the concern is that, just like the Juggernaut and Stopping Power perks of older CoD titles, these will become necessities for all players and thus lessen the variety in class choice.
There are, however, some players who defend Armor. It can be argued that in order to use Armor in the beta, players have to give up the opportunity to use plenty of other useful gear in the same slot, such as one that increases healing abilities, or another that reduces the cooldown time for equipment.
Treyarch, it seems, have wisely decided to listen to the majority who think Armor is overpowered, and took to Reddit to reassure players that changes were coming. “We definitely hear the feedback and are monitoring this issue closely”, Treyarch said in one the many Reddit threads that complained about Armor. “We’re also working on some Armor-specific updates that you can expect for the update on weekend 2.”
Identifying and rectifying imbalances such as the one Armor presents is exactly what beta testing is for. Treyarch have responded quickly to concerns, but exactly how the gear will be nerfed is currently unclear. Aside from some minor complaints about underpowered scorestreaks, there haven’t been many other major issues with the beta so far, so it will be interesting to see how many more changes are brought about before the game’s release later this year.
