With Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War weapons like the MP5 already being nerfed, Flame took to Twitter to justify major weapon adjustments so early in the new Call of Duty’s life cycle. Flame’s “insight into the core of ‘buff’ or ‘nerf’ decisions” ultimately came down to one thing: time-to-kill. With Black Ops Cold War featuring a longer TTK than games like Modern Warfare, weapons should take a certain amount of time to kill so that they fit the system.

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While Black Ops Cold War’s TTK has caused controversy, Flame’s logic regarding weapon balancing holds up in any system, regardless of whether enemies die quickly or take a few extra bullets. Per flame, “it’s paramount to preserve the best TTK experience across weapons over time,” and if a weapon exceeds or falls below a certain baseline by too much, nerds and buffs will follow. With a few weapons already meeting that criteria, Treyarch has started to make adjustments.

Black Ops Cold War’s version of the FAMAS, the FFAR, recently saw a nerf because of this belief regarding TTK. Due to the weapon having too fast of a killing speed at range, the FFAR saw its recoil raised dramatically, making the weapon far less reliable in long-distance gunfights. While some comments on Flame’s post pleaded with the developer to adjust the weapons stats and make it “usable” once again, Treyarch’s data may show that the weapon is now behaving properly.

While Tony Flame’s logic being the idea that “TTK is king” certainly makes sense, it does not solve every issue regarding weapon balance in a Call of Duty game. After all, one example regarding damage not being an issue is seen in the community’s demands regarding sniper rifles. With many Black Ops Cold War players requesting a sniper buff so that the weapons can be aimed faster, allowing for easier quickscoping and aim speeds that resemble Modern Warfare, there are aspects of weapon balancing to address that is not directly tied to TTK.

Still, with Black Ops Cold War getting a balance pass ahead of Season 1’s launch, hopefully, player issues regarding many of the game’s weapons are solved. If a fan favorite weapon gets changed, though, players now know that it is likely due to the gun’s time-to-kill.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is now available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

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