Black Ops Cold War devs discussing changes to “overpowered” Flak Jacket
ActivisionEver since launch, Black Ops Cold War fans have been complaining about how overpowered the Flak Jacket perk is. Now, after tons of fans have posted videos of them surviving things that they should not have, Treyarch appear to be discussing adjustments.
Flak Jacket, which provides resistance to explosive damage, has been in Call of Duty games for a while now. While the perk has been around since the World at War days, it always provided a marginal resistance to explosive damage, in order to make sure that the game is properly balanced. Now, with Black Ops Cold War, that seems to be very different as players are casually surviving serious explosive damage.
Gamers have been reporting for a while now that the Flak Jacket perk in the game is just too powerful and that it provides too much resistance. With the complaints mounting, it seems like the developers might finally do something about it, as evidenced by a comment on Reddit.
RedditIn a post detailing a change that someone would like made to Flak Jacket, Treyarch Community Manager Josh Torres said that “there was actually a discussion about this yesterday.” Although he didn’t elaborate further, it appears that the team is aware of the issue even if they don’t have a timeline for any changes yet.
This comes after a week of videos from fans detailing just how absurd the perk is. Some of the videos are tame enough, with some people spraying explosives to no avail, while others are more surprising, showing direct impacts on players with RPG’s with negligible impact.
Another video, which is appropriately titled “I think Flak Jacket might be a little too strong,” even shows a player with Flak Jacket getting hit by a Cruise Missile (yes, the scorestreak) and surviving, seemingly because of the perk.
Granted, it took out most of his health, but the fact that a scorestreak which is supposed to take out a few players at a time didn’t even take out one with a near-direct hit is borderline shocking.
Most fans agree that the perk is broken, with one person on Reddit flat out saying that it is “overpowered.” Another commenter in a different post called it “the most OP perk in COD history,” which is a bold claim to make considering the controversial One Man Army perk existed back in the day.
Regardless, it seems like the community is hoping for a major overhaul of the perk. It’s hard to defend being able to survive a direct impact from an RPG, so Treyarch appear to be looking for solutions.