Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Developer Reveals How Treyarch Decides Which Guns to Nerf and Buff

When it comes to which guns to nerf and buff in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, developer Treyarch puts a lot of thought into the process. In a post on Twitter, Treyarch's lead game designer Tony Flame discussed how these decisions are made, and the biggest influence on that process comes down to TTK, or Time-to-Kill. According to Flame, when a weapon in the game goes past the baseline that Treyarch has established, the developer will nerf the weapon. If a gun is falling short of that baseline, the company will buff it to get it up to where it needs to be.

The Tweet from Flame can be found embedded below.

A little insight into the core of "Buff" or "Nerf" decisions. Time-To-Kill (TTK) is king, it's paramount to preserve the best TTK experience across weapons over time. When a weapon far exceeds that baseline, we must nerf it to respect the TTK, and likewise buff to get it there.

— Tony Flame (@Tony_Flame) November 21, 2020

Presumably, a bit more goes into the decision-making process than just TTK, but it's interesting to get a glimpse at how Treyarch makes these kinds of decisions. With any online game, it's extremely important for a developer to keep things balanced and enjoyable, in order to maintain interest. Not every nerf or buff will be met with open arms by the Call of Duty community, but there's clearly a lot of thought and care that goes into the overall process.

So far, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War has only been available for a little over a week. As players spend more time with the game, Flame and the rest of the developers at Treyarch will get a better idea of which weapons need to be buffed or nerfed, and changes will be made accordingly. The team won't get it right every time, but that won't be for lack of trying.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is now available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC. You can check out all of our previous coverage of the game right here.

What do you think about Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War thus far? What do you think of Treyarch's approach to nerfs and buffs? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk all things gaming!