Since the conclusion of the Rainbow Six Invitational, the Call of Duty community has been rife with ideas to improve the esports scene as a whole and how to assist in the promotion of the CWL, which has had disappointing viewing figures throughout the World War Two season.

The Current State

Since the inception of the CWL at the beginning of the Black Ops 3 season, MLG has played an integral role when it comes to the promotion and organisation of Call of Duty esports. This season is no different. There is plenty of action taking place nearly all the time, whether it’s the Global Pro League, large scale LAN events, online 2K tournaments and the season ending world championship.

There definitely isn’t a lack of content for the spectators to get their teeth into. With all these tournaments taking place, there’s a huge prize pool of $4.2m that has been split in accordance to the tournaments taking place throughout the year. $1.4m of that prize has been invested into the two stages of the GPL, with $700,000 up for grabs in each respective stage. The Global LAN Opens each have a prize pool of $200,000 and it’s expected that the prize pool for the world championships will be around $1.2m. So, with so much gameplay and so much on the line, where are all the viewers?

Promotion seems to be the problem for the below average viewing figures as of late. Despite the dedicated Twitter account for CoD esports doing all they can to showcase the event, Sledgehammer Games fails to put out one solitary Tweet about anything that is related to the competitive scene. It’s not just the developer which is not doing their best in promotion. Very few professional players are promoting the events either. The likes of OpTic Gaming and FaZe Clan have a huge presence on social media and a couple of Tweets here and there would give the viewing figures the boost that the scene so desperately needs.

There must be some underlying reason that the players and the developers are not promoting the best Call of Duty gameplay on the planet though? That’s because that the game isn’t that great, despite returning to the classic “boots on the ground” style of game. World War 2 released with under ten maps and the ones that have been selected for the competitive map pool aren’t that great. For example, a team pushed onto the third hardpoint hill on Gibraltar and manipulate the spawns to grant maximum time, but there have been occasions where an opposing team member has still managed to spawn at the back of the map. You’d have thought that a developer like Sledgehammer could rectify such a problem with a fix? Wrong. Spawns on the vast majority of the competitive map pool are still poor and there looks to be no sign of a fix anytime soon.

The poor map pool often leads to a best of five series consisting of three Ardennes Forest games, a London Docks and a Sainte Marie Du Mont thrown in for good measure. In my opinion this is a good thing. Thanks to the map veto system allows teams to perfect their strategies in all maps in the pool, but it does lead to the game feeling repetitive, viewing the same map over and over again.

Sticking with the map pool, Valkyrie from the first DLC has been introduced into the competitive map pool, but players will have to pay for it. Way to alienate the competitive community even more!

The meta is also another problem within the game. The current meta of the STG/BAR is only in force thanks to an agreement made by all CWL Pro League teams. They have agreed to not use the FG42 Assault Rifle, the Flamethrower scorestreak and the Kar98k Sniper because they are all deemed to be overpowered for competitive play. This agreement hasn’t even been acknowledged by the CWL Twitter account and you have to do your research in order to find out why this has happened. Previously, the M1 Garand Assault Rifle was causing controversy because of its overpowered nature and lead to an eventual nerf, angering the majority of the casual fanbase.

What Needs To Change?

In short, there’s a lot. There is only so much that MLG can do when it comes to promoting the game to attract more viewers. In the past few days, notable players such as James “Clayster” Eubanks has said that he will broadcast team scrims in order to keep competitive CoD content flowing when there isn’t any tournament action taking place. This is definitely a start. Since the release of World War 2, there has been an increase of pro players streaming the game which is encouraging to see.

Promotion by the developer is a huge issue at the minute. There’s no Tweets from the Sledgehammer account to promote an event which sees the best teams in the world competing on their game. Just a quick Tweet telling people to tune in would be a step forward, as would promoting it on the login screen when you open the game. Treyarch managed to do this in Black Ops 3 so what is stopping Sledgehammer from doing the same to benefit a scene that has had several million dollars invested into it?

Incentives

After watching the Rainbow Six Invitational and HWC Orlando, each of the top teams had their own in-game items equipped. Whether it’s a weapon camo or a tag on your gun, this is something that has to happen in order to tap into the casual fan base of Call of Duty. It’s all good adding camouflages into the middle of the game cycle but by that time, the boat has passed and the hype train is rolling towards the next instalment of the franchise. If in-game items are to be introduced, they need to be in the game as soon as the teams for Stage One of the Pro League are announced. Add them into the game for a set price and Activision will make millions. It’s a win-win. The competitive scene receives some much-needed exposure and Activision continue to milk the cash cow that is Call of Duty. You could even add some of the money made from those items into the prize pool for the world championships too. Imagine that.

Developer Support

Treyarch Studios are considered to be the developer which is most in tune with what the CoD esports scene demands. In contrast, Sledgehammer seem to be the polar opposite. The lack of input with regards to the weapon balance has been atrocious. One week, the FG42 is the best gun in the game, then the next they seem to find a meta with some sense of balance. But then they buff the FG again and the meta is ruined once again, hence the gentlemen’s agreement mentioned earlier.

In order to make the World War 2 season a success, listening to feedback from the professional players is crucial. Whether it’s a couple of modifications to the spawns, a weapon tuning update to restore some balance to the game or even introduce FREE DLC, rather than forcing the entire scene to fork out for a single map which is equally as bad as the others that are in the rotation.

Ranked Play

The addition of a competitive playlist similar to the model used on Overwatch appeared like a huge step forward for the Call of Duty franchise. Think again. Four months into the game and there are still huge issues when it comes to balanced matchmaking. If you’re in gold division with an MMR of 1750, you’d expect to be placed into a game with other players of a similar rank therefore making it a relatively balanced game. Instead, you’ll be in a game with one or two other gold players and five players that are yet to receive any rank. That’s not the only thing wrong with Ranked. More often than not, players will often back out of a losing game, earning a timed ban from the playlist and an MMR deduction. Sounds good until players have found a way to bypass the loss of MMR, resulting in a huge misrepresentation on the leaderboards. Players are only allowed to play in pairs as opposed to a full team of four. It’d be nice to see the addition of a solo and a squads playlist added to the playlist at some point in the immediate future as solo Ranked Play is far from enjoyable. Plus, spending countless hours playing for a crappy helmet is hardly worth it, Rewards need to be much better.

How to fix this? More severe bans need to be handed out to the players who are exploiting the no loss glitch. A lengthy ban with a reset of your rank throw in would be a good deterrent to stop players from committing the offence again.

Ranked play is a way to bridge the gap between the casual fan base and the completive scene. A platform where people can learn all about the competitive game or a place to test your worth against likeminded individuals can use a playlist which resembles what the professionals are using.

To conclude, there is much to be done to help the competitive Call of Duty scene prosper to a much greater level. It requires a combination of a developer that is willing to listen to the demands of the competitive community, players that find the game enjoyable and will promote it through social media or streaming. Lastly, some sort of representation of the teams involved is certainly a logical step to take as we head ever closer to David Vonderhaar bailing out the scene once again.