Poll: Why Killstreaks?

[Hugga_Bear]

Kinda. I like the fact that they're something to aim for and shooting for a high killstreak in a tight game can get pretty intense and I like the fact it keeps up the pace, aiding momentum.

On the flip side, they put the other team down. Badly. A blackbird is a game killer a lot of the time, a Huey or dogs are going to set you back at least a little time and normally a couple of deaths too.
When you're doing badly or your team is, the enemy can keep loading the killstreaks up and you can keep getting knocked on your ass, unless you have evenly matched teams when one gains an advantage it tends to hold it because the sheer power of killstreaks overwhelms lesser players and makes the better ones have to change their tack to either deal with the killstreak or avoid it. Either way, it's problematic.


I think CoD4 did it well (what a surprise!) the UAV was deathly powerful in hardcore but outside of that it was useful, hell sometimes it was a bane, I can't count the number of reckless players I took out as a result of my UAV jammer.
Airstrikes were strong (on Shipment, ridiculously so!) but not game killers and needed some skill, the variability of their direction perhaps made them a bit hit and miss, though maybe that was for the best.
Choppers were strong but a quick and concerted effort would bring them down, most good players can hit it in one, maybe two RPG's and then it's literally a few rounds from crashing and burning.

So yeah, on the plus side they add to momentum, they reward skilful play and they can add to the excitement.
On the negative they can lead to extremely one sided games and remove any opportunity of a comeback.
Done well, awesome. Done badly, jarring.

 

[wooty]

There are so many ways around campers. Blops is very anti-camper enough as it is. I have yet to meet a single good player that camps that can hang with me and my friends. (Average 15-20+ kills at least per game.) Campers can't do that because they are too predictable. You only have so much airspace, shoot it down. Spawn-kill isn't that common. Spawn, run around like a freakin retard, dead is way too common. I have sen people spawn in Havana with a chopper in the air I am hearing firing off round all over and will watch their dumb ass run right out into the street after spawning. I mean, come on, when a chopper is in the air firing off rounds, do you take cover or run out into an open area? Hell, I can shoot attack choppers down with my gun without dying from chopper fire if a teammate will watch my back. I don't even need a rocket launcher. And I ain't ranked for shit on the game.

Not played Black Ops fully, but I was refering to MW2 more. Irritating Killstreaks like the AC-130 or the apache gunner seats were irritating. They were the main spawnkill perpetrators, usually very little time to react.

 

[Tibs]

I prefer to not have killstreaks in games. I rather dislike being killed by them, and getting kills with them feels cheap.

 

[klasbo]

Any explanation on how they [killstreak bonuses] improve the game? I just don't seem to understand the reason for why they are there. I'm probably not the only one to feel like this, but I would like to hear the other side explaining why killstreaks are a good thing

I'm not going to explain why they are a good thing (because, well, they aren't), but I might be able to give you some insight into why they were added in the first place, as well as why so many people seem to enjoy them.

People are selfish.
Working towards a conceptually simple goal that requires little to no understanding of the underlying mechanics of the game gives a more immediate feedback from the game. Let me explain: Getting X number of kills is a very simple requirement on the "I understand what to do" level, compared to a much more complex set of objectives like "You need to capture outpost Y so player B can take the tank that spawns there, so that you can get extra support when capturing outpost W so that the enemy team doesn't try to move past the front line and capture outpost Q". If you kill 5 people in CoD, you get something back immediately, instead of some greater long-term objective that helps your team win the round.

Killstreak bonuses are easy to understand (both how to get and how to use), they give you something back immediately, and they make you fight against your own teammates. This is the essential part: the ego boost. Getting 11 kills and a flying aimbot that shoots 30mm rounds from the sky is rewarding not only because you get to utterly destroy the enemy team, but because you get to show the rest of your own team how much "better" you are than them.

This is also why Team DeathMatch is so popular. There is no objective, there is no need or incentive to work together, so you're always competing against your own teammates in getting the best Kill/Death ratio. People are selfish like that, and recent CoD games actively promote this kind of behaviour. Killstreaks are fun because you have a shot at being "that guy", even though that only happens rarely for your average joe.

Why do we see it in other games? This is just economics. CoD 4 sold a metric fuckton of copies, and people want that money. They copy the formula, but get the mechanics wrong or add layers of abstraction on it that don't have the same "easy to understand" concept Killstreaks have (most recent example: Homefront. The Battlepoints system was too "complicated" for a lot of people, and didn't provide the same kind of instantaneous feedback).

Killstreaks ruin balance. As soon as one person gets ahead, they suddenly have a tool to get a whole bunch more kills and cement their lead. I don't get why they are a good thing. I guess they are fun if you are in the lead, but if you are at the bottom, it makes it impossible to catch up and is only frustrating to get killed over and over by the killstreaks of the person in the lead.

This just shows that you're smart. You understand the concept of balance and how to make a game where players play against other players, and not against the game.
The only way to make killstreaks balanced is to make them specializations. Higher weapon damage but lower movement speed, that sort of thing. Or you could make them more team-based: Faster objective capture rate, ability to heal/revive a teammate, etc. The problem with both of those is that they don't boost your ego, and the reward isn't as tangible as a helicopter; they are abstract things that alter the metagame without introducing something physically new to the battlefield.

PS:
This post might capture some rage, so I'll put a little extra something here: I am a currently-inactive amateur esports person, I used to play Battlefield 2 on ESL and ClanBase for what was then the 5th best 5v5 infantry team in the world. I've also played a limited amount of CoD4 promod, but never liked the strategy poker at the beginning of a round. Basically: I know my way around competitive FPS games, and so does everyone else that gave up on FPS esports after the fail that was MW2 and BC2, ie everyone that played current-gen FPS esports (CS and UT etc not counted).

 

[The-Epicly-Named-Man]

Killstreaks ruin balance. As soon as one person gets ahead, they suddenly have a tool to get a whole bunch more kills and cement their lead.

Yeah, that's just not true. Oh, I agree that BlOps and MW2 were ruined because of 'em, but that's because of poor execution. Killstreaks in COD4 are often what people look to when searching for a good example, but I'm not gonna go into that because undoubtedly someone else will/ has. What I will say is that killstreaks work as an incentive to stay alive after you get a kill, other than the obvious prestige of it or the K/D ratio. You're out of ammo on your favorite gun, crouched behind the counter of a small middle-Eastern shop, blood-spattered all over your face, smoke and explosions fill the room. The simple thing to do would be to just die, respawn and sneak up on the guy holding you down, but that small chance of getting just one more kill and calling in that airstrike on his head keeps you going, makes you sprint straight for him, clicking that analog like a..... clicky thing. Anyway, I hope that makes sense.

 

[TornadoFive]

In my opinion, killstreaks should give a boost to the players score. Nothing more.

Granted I don't play FPS's, so I could be talking a load of crap, but thats how they work in ACB and it seems to do just fine.

 

[Dragon Zero]

I actually like them. Most of the support ones are extremely useful and easy to access. The lethal ones are fairly balanced with them having certain drawbacks and an easy counter in the AA missile. The only ones I've hated are the RCXD, the Black Ops dogs, and the Nuke.

The RCXD can be acquired WAY too soon, only 3 kills (or 2 if you have hardline equipped), meaning you can have scenarios where you'll hear about an enemy RCXD coming in every 30 seconds and while predators had a low kill count too, at least they had the limitation of having to come from overhead. So you could get definite cover against it and those using it would need good steering and luck to get to you. With RCXD's they can go quite fast and can get into all sorts of places, only vertical positions with only ladder access are safe.

While the dogs in World at War could be quite hazardous, they didn't spawn as many and they only did heavy damage, meaning you could kill one that was attacking you easily but they still could be lethal just as easily. Dogs in Black Ops are an insta kill so you only have one chance to get them and the spawning in Black Ops aids them more often than you in my experience.

I hate the Nuke not so much on principal but in that I preferred Free For All in MW2 and the infamous practice of Nuke-Boosting could ruin a game before it could really pick up steam.

Like I've said, I actually have little problem with them so long as there are implemented well and have effective counters. They add variety to a game and reward playing well.

 

[Zantos]

They're fun, but destroy the balance. Now if you had them, but the amount of kills you needed to get was proportional to your level, that would be a hand in for newer players.

The backwards killstreaks in screed bro were pretty good too, the more kills you have, the more people are hunting you. That was fun, you suddenly realise you're top of the board and everyone's out to kill you.

 

[Sir Boss]

Yes, but not in their MW2 incarnation. they were fine in MW1 it wasn't broken they had no need to fix it, but they did...

 

[Assassin Xaero]

In 4 the helicopter was a tad too accurate, especially on Overgrown, and in 5 the dogs were a bit overpowered, but still fine. After that, they ruined the game.

 

[Savagezion]

There are so many ways around campers. Blops is very anti-camper enough as it is. I have yet to meet a single good player that camps that can hang with me and my friends. (Average 15-20+ kills at least per game.) Campers can't do that because they are too predictable. You only have so much airspace, shoot it down. Spawn-kill isn't that common. Spawn, run around like a freakin retard, dead is way too common. I have sen people spawn in Havana with a chopper in the air I am hearing firing off round all over and will watch their dumb ass run right out into the street after spawning. I mean, come on, when a chopper is in the air firing off rounds, do you take cover or run out into an open area? Hell, I can shoot attack choppers down with my gun without dying from chopper fire if a teammate will watch my back. I don't even need a rocket launcher. And I ain't ranked for shit on the game.

Not played Black Ops fully, but I was refering to MW2 more. Irritating Killstreaks like the AC-130 or the apache gunner seats were irritating. They were the main spawnkill perpetrators, usually very little time to react.

Yeah, I will say MW2 was more camper friendly. My way around campers there (besides grenades) was to draw attention away from their camp. Sometimes this meant I had to set up a different camp near theirs and take their kills before they could get to them. This will always draw them out but isn't easy to pull off depending on where they are camping.

However, I ran sentry gun with [EDIT: Scanvenger] and claymores on MW 2 and I would take over huge portions of the map. It wouldn't be hard to soon have a attack helicopter in the air or better due to care package. Care package is a cheap but effective kill streak too. A 5 kill AC-130 or whatever? Cool. If it is something you don't want like ammo, use it to bait the other team and camp your care package while they come to try and steal it. Even if they succeed they just something retarded that you didn't want and you probably made off with 2-4 kills and probably now have a chopper in the air. Multiple claymores and map size is why Modern warfare 2 is so camper friendly I think. Which sucks because if you removed quick scoping, it might be interesting. Snipers got shafted in Blops. It isn't impossible to snipe but it is more work than it is worth in my opinion.

I will say your argument is more valid in regards to Modern Warfare 2.

 

[pakker]

Imo the way killstreaks works in CoD4+ is stupid. It gives good players an insane amount of cheap tricks to faceroll noobs after a certain amount of kills. I do not play alot of fps games, mainly because when you join a game the sky is full of auto-aim-see-thru-walls-instant-kill stuff...

I really like the way killstreaks work in MOBA games, like League of Legends (yes its called LoL) where basicly the longer your streak, the more you are worth to the enemy team, if you are on a "death streak" you are worth less and less.. Basicly a price on your head.