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Hello everyone! Since we're potentially hours away from the long-anticipated Blackout Beta, I thought I'd take this opportunity to give the community a few of my suggestions for how to be the best beta tester you can be. This beta is the chance for this community to give Treyarch the vital feedback they need to make this controversial game mode the absolute best experience possible, so let's not squander it.
A few of these suggestions are common sense, a few are my opinion, and a few are probably unnecessary. You may have more to add to the discussion. You may not agree with all of them or any of them, and that's okay. I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do or how to enjoy their beta experience. My goal is to foster a healthy discussion on how to ensure that our feedback as a community is genuine, effective, and constructive. So let's just jump into it.
Avoid comparing Blackout to other BR games when forming criticisms.
Blackout is shaping up to be a distinct version of Battle Royale that attempts to set itself apart from other games. When playing, keep this in mind. The mechanics of the game aren't going to always be similar, or in your opinion, as good as other games. When assessing how viable certain aspects of gameplay are, evaluate them within the context of Blackout. For example, you find yourself disliking how fast the storm closes in because "It's not as fast as it is in Fortnite". This most likely isn't a criticism that Treyarch can do much with. Fortnite and Blackout have different map sizes, different player counts, and different mechanics. You can't balance a game mode by trying to make specific mechanics more like vastly different games. Instead, perhaps you can say "The storm is too slow. It makes games last too long and encourages camping in distant parts of the map". This kind of feedback is constructive. It's something Treyarch can evaluate effectively.
Be specific and clear with your critique.
There's no doubt that mere minutes after the servers are switched on, the sub will be flooded with posts like these:
"This game feels like a worse PUBG"
"Blackout sucks, cancelling my preorder"
"The guns feel bad"
None of this feedback is useful. In order for your feedback to be useful to the developers, they need to know why you feel the way you do. If you believe a certain aspect of the game mode is lacking, you should be able to tell Treyarch exactly why you feel that way. That gives them a means to evaluating the problem and determining a solution. So, instead of making a post saying "The vehicles feel bad", perhaps you should say: "The vehicle mechanics feel too rough. The controls feel unresponsive and I don't have the level of control over them that I would like".
For the love of god, please don't say "This isn't CoD"
Just a warning, this is a much more opinionated suggestion, so take it with a grain of salt. This is something that I have no doubt every single person who's visited this subreddit in the last year has seen. In my opinion, it is by far the most useless, reactionary, invalid form of criticism possible. This is because every single person who plays Call of Duty has a different idea what "real CoD" is. It's not possible for Treyarch to make the game mode fit every single person's definition. If you find yourself beginning to feel like this, just remember: At the time of its introduction, Zombies mode was a pretty huge departure from the standard CoD formula. Give Blackout a chance. Let it breathe as its own distinct version of the franchise. It's not going to feel like the "good old days of MW2" because it's not supposed to.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's a bad game mode
Let me be perfectly clear: It's completely okay if Blackout isn't for you. You don't have to like it. However, just because it's not your personal cup of tea doesn't mean that it's bad. There's a lot of debate regarding what makes a game good, so each person will have a different opinion. Just remember, a game can be a quality, balanced, well made experience even if you absolutely hate to play it.
Be careful about claiming things are OP
This is a bit more specific, but I believe it's an important point to make. I'm almost certain that a good amount of feedback immediately after release will be how certain guns or abilities are overpowered or underpowered. In fact, I believe that balancing in general is a concept a huge amount of the community doesn't really understand. In a perfect game, every gun and ability would be viable in a certain situation and almost useless in others. Now of course, this is almost impossible to achieve. However, if you find yourself feeling like X is overpowered, ask yourself a few important questions:
"Are there situations that X would be bad in?"
"Is there an effective counter to X?"
"Does X take a significant amount of skill to use effectively?"
If the answer to all of these is no, then X might very well be overpowered. Keep in mind, these are my criteria for what makes something OP. Yours could be totally different. As long as you think it through past a simple "X is OP pls nerf", I trust you.
So, that's what I've got right now. I'd like to reiterate: I'm not telling you how to enjoy your beta experience. I'm not trying to tell you what to do, how to play, or how to feel. You are obviously free to play and enjoy/hate the beta however you want. This is my way of hopefully opening up a dialogue on how we, as a community of people who care about this game, can best help it become what it has the potential to be.
If you have a suggestion not listed here, post it! Do you disagree with anything or everything I said? I'd love to know. All I want is a fun and constructive beta, and I hope you do too.
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