Call of Duty therapy: Treyarch designer tells us how to get better in Black Ops III multiplayer

Over a few weeks of intermittent play, I’m slowly working my way up the multiplayer levels in Call of Duty: Black Ops III. I’m at level 14 [Update: Now at level 28], and my kill-to-death ratio is a frustratingly low 0.42. For every four kills I get, I’m killed 10 times. That is no doubt familiar to other aging gamers like myself, who suffer the daily ignominy of getting our heads handed to us in the fast-action first-person shooter game.

My troubles are not miniscule in the grand scheme of things. Call of Duty games have pushed the technological edge and generated $10 billion over more than a decade because developers like Activision’s Treyarch studio have found the right balance in multiplayer combat, enabling hardcore gamers to show off their skills and onboarding “noobs,” or new players, in a way that is not entirely intimidating.

I have played Call of Duty for more than a decade, and I still hold out hope of getting better. We caught up with David Vonderhaar, game design director at Treyarch, the developer of Black Ops III, for our periodic therapy session on how to do better at multiplayer. His tips are broadly useful for everyone from novices to professionals.

Here’s an edited transcript of our talk.

GamesBeat: To hell with our readers. This is all about me. It’s my annual therapy session on Call of Duty multiplayer.

David Vonderhaar: I’m here to serve you, Dean.

GamesBeat: Using myself as the example, I play Domination mostly. I use an assault rifle or a light machinegun. I carry a couple of grenades — a couple of the concussion grenades these days. I play as the Battery with the grenade launcher. I didn’t really change the perks or do much with the score streaks, except I added the RC drone when I hit level 10. I’m very slow on the draw. Given that description of the old guy trying to stay competitive, do you have any general suggestions that you’d point out?

Vonderhaar: When you talk about progression, I want to make sure I understand you’re talking about as a player, your skill level, being able to feel competitive, as opposed to leveling up and unlocking additional things so you can try other stuff besides that very specific list you just gave me. Or both?

GamesBeat: The former first, how to get better, how to improve. And then more about which path I might pursue.

Vonderhaar: Let’s talk about very high level, what does it take to become proficient and how you define proficiency? This is different for every player. If you look at it holistically, I am very average. If you look at my stats and skills and compare that across the spectrum of players in the Call of Duty community, they would give me a hard time, because they expect better from me. But I get my fun from being a team player, from contributing to the win. I don’t stress about my KD. I don’t even stress about my score per minute anymore.

This is a game with a lot of stuff going on that gives you something to be good at. In my case it’s OBJ or objective-based placements, trapping down on dom flags with trip mines and that kind of thing. Taking a launcher and shooting a UAV out of the sky. You get there by warming up. I always have to warm up. You can’t get frustrated by an initial first game.

It’s also helpful to play with people you know, if you have somebody to play with. I always try to roll as a group. Call of Duty is a lot of fun when played with other people. The party system and other social systems try to encourage that participation. Even if you’re not performing so well, the acknowledgement of your role in the larger group and contributing to the win is very satisfying. That’s how I get satisfaction and not just frustration at getting outgunned by younger players.

On a practice level, don’t forget about free run. If you’re trying to get familiar with the game and understand how to use the combat movement, there are four training courses called free run that are available for you to practice just core movement. They get progressively more difficult. They start introducing new types of puzzles and weapons, how to use weapons with core movement. Free run was built to help players onboard the new core movement mechanics and get used to them.

That’s not the only thing, though. There are also bots. I don’t apologize for going into custom games and adding bots to warm up. I’ll practice with the new things. There’s this overwhelming desire to start customizing your class right away, and I don’t recommend that. If you’re new, use a default class. Level up and use different default classes. Practice with them. Find which one works for you.

There’s always this rush to figure out the perfect class for you, and the one you’re stuck with right now, with your AR or LMG and stun grenades, that’s one way, but you need to be willing to experiment and not do so well with certain combinations for a while to be sure they don’t work. With 100 pieces of gameplay content in create-a-class, plus specials and score streaks, there’s a lot of stuff there. You can find some way to be successful.

GamesBeat: Was there a reason not to do a straight tutorial for multiplayer? Did you consider that option?

Vonderhaar: We’ve had that conversation with every Call of Duty game. We’ve even built prototypes. The thing is, the prototypes weren’t very successful. If they were successful they’d be in the game. The trouble with tutorializing multiplayer is you can only script for specific situations. You can only say, “The guys have to be in this combination when they approach the room.”

The truth is, with the very sandbox nature of multiplayer, anybody could be in any place at any time in any combination. We tried that approach, to randomize it, and then it just felt too random to learn from. So the more controlled situation is the free run tutorial. The first map is as tutorial as you can get, when you’re not with actual other players. And then the bots themselves, where the difficulty is quite adjustable. It feels like the better approach.

I understand where you’re coming from. I’m 43. I’ve been at this a long time. Imagine you’re the design director at Treyarch and you’re not very good when you go online and everyone knows it. I understand your point of view.

The approach here to onboarding, it’s a really deep, meaningful problem and challenge with a game with such rich history and such an experienced player base, the sheer volume of people. We know that there’s a better way and we have an idea about a better way to onboard players that isn’t, say, combat training from Black Ops II. Something that can be executed in a more meaningful way. But we’re not going to make any announcements about that, and I don’t want to do it until we’re comfortable that it’s the right thing and we have some time for testing against players like you.