Warzone dev admits concern that increasing TTK could hurt “low-skilled players”
ActivisionA Warzone developer has admitted that while there have been a lot of discussions around Time to Kill (TTK) in the Call of Duty battle royale, they are concerned that increasing the TTK will hurt low-skilled or “crappy” players more.
TTK and health has been a big point of contention in Warzone over the years. Top players welcomed some of the changes that arrived with Iron Trials, which saw a big increase in health and was meant to be a much more difficult task.
A faster TTK has typically been attributed to a way for the game can appease less capable players, lowering the skill ceiling to put everyone on a more level playing field.
While it’s not been quite that extreme, and the top Warzone players will rarely find themselves struggling against weaker opposition, a dev at Raven Software has confirmed that this really is the case.
Activision During a Q&A with streamer and former Call of Duty pro Tyler ‘TeeP’ Polchow, creative lead Josh Bridge spoke a bit about the TTK concerns and issues.
“The concern that we’ve always had, the more you increase the TTK, the concern is you’re raising the skill ceiling,” he explained. “Crappier players just can’t take out better players because it’s too much health to chip away.”
He added that “That’s where the fast TTK gives the hope that a low-skilled player may get a random spray,” essentially confirming that the low TTK is primarily as it is to help worse players still get some kills.
He went on to say that Iron Trials helped “inform them” of the best options going forward in regular BR. “We feel like that 50 health [increase] is the sweet spot for Warzone, although it deviates from multiplayer games.”
So, while the fast TTK might not ever change, there are clearly internal discussions over whether that should be changed, or health increased, going forward. Whether it happens though, only time will tell.