CoD players highlight major flaw with Black Ops Cold War scorestreaks

Jacob Hale

It may have only just come out of alpha testing, but Call of Duty players are already calling for a major change to how scorestreaks work in Black Ops Cold War.

So far, PlayStation players are the only ones to have given the game a trial run, with the alpha phase from September 18-20 giving thousands of players a first look at the next iteration of the CoD franchise.

Naturally, with a new Call of Duty game comes a number of major changes, but for the first time in years it looks as though scorestreaks are getting a huge overhaul.

The new system has confused a number of players, with streaks retaining through death, but to some players this isn’t even the biggest issue: they want a big change to scorestreaks for other reasons.

As you’ll know if you played the alpha or checked out some gameplay, while streaks retain through death, you get score multipliers for staying alive. For example, a straight 5-killstreak is worth more than getting 5 kills with a death in the middle.

While the new change is intended to place heavier emphasis on longer streaks, while still giving everyone the opportunity to earn them, players have found a fatal flaw in the system: they believe it struggles to reward objective players, such as those capturing domination flags or collecting dog tags.

Here’s what JDFive suggested could be implemented to better incentivize objective play:

  • In Domination, every flag captured adds a x1 multiplier (excluding neutral flags)
  • So capping an enemy flag = 100 pts x1, and a 2nd flag after that would be 100 pts x2 = 200 pts
  • In Kill Confirmed, every 3rd dog tag adds a x2 multiplier
  • Capping 3 tags = 50 pts x 2 = 100 pts.
  • 6 tags would earn you 50 pts x 4 = 200 pts
  • In Hardpoint, every 5 seconds on the objective would earn you a x1 multiplier
  • So 10 seconds on the OBJ = 15 pts x2 = 30 pts, 15 seconds would earn you 45 pts, etc

Objective play has long been an issue under different killstreak and scorestreak systems, where often chasing kills can be more beneficial than helping your team secure the points to win the game more directly, but JDFive thinks this new system exacerbates the issue even further.

Obviously, as the game was only in alpha, we may see some big changes ahead of the beta on October 9 and the game’s full launch in November. We’ll have to just wait and see.