Director of Game Design at Treyarch, David Vonderhaar, has responded to complaints regarding Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s in-game Combat Record system, after months of mystery.
Combat Records have been a staple of more or less every Call of Duty game, particularly in recent years. The in-game stat-tracker allows you to study, in depth, a player’s statistics, including KDR, scorestreak usage and medals earned.
While not all Call of Duty games have it featured at launch, Black Ops 4 was released on October 12 2018, and, over 5 months into its cycle, still does not have the heavily requested feature – despite Treyarch alluding to them coming only a week after release.
This has led to disapproval from the Call of Duty community, who want to see it added so they no longer rely on third party stat trackers to review theirs or other players statistics.
This is typified in a Reddit post from user ‘kris9512’, who doesn’t understand why it has not been implemented into Black Ops 4 yet, stating that all previous Black Ops titles have had Combat Record systems in which other players’ stats can be viewed.
Furthermore, they are frustrated at Treyarch’s lack of an explanation for its delay, finishing with: “If it’s not coming at all, all I ask is for an explanation as to why.”
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The Reddit post is from a few months ago, but it prompted a reply from David Vonderhaar on Twitter on March 15, after a user sent him a screenshot of it. Vonderhaar, ever-amicable on social media, was happy to respond.
“Great points,” Vonderhaar replied. “We have an answer coming. I am not in the position to talk about it until we lock some things down.” The Treyarch Director goes on to acknowledge it’s a “valid question” and an answer will be provided as soon as possible.
Great points. We have an answer coming. I am not in the position to talk about it until we lock some things down. It’s a valid question with a incoming answer ASAP.
It’s not quite as simple as people think —but that’s an excuse to come short of your expectations.
— David J. Vonderhaar (@DavidVonderhaar) March 15, 2019
This follows previous criticism of Treyarch, when they allegedly made it harder to track players’ stats, preventing certain third party sites from accessing the data.
It’s clear that Vonderhaar takes community feedback seriously, highlighted in his response here, as well as his generally friendly online nature, even in the face of fierce, sometimes explicit criticism.