FaZe Clan pro player Tommy ‘ZooMaa’ Paparatto went on an impassioned rant about the recent controversy over ‘gentleman’s agreements’ in Black Ops 4, saying he is “tired” of it.
Gentleman’s agreements (GA) have been used to varying degrees and with varying success over previous seasons in competitive Call of Duty, and it is an issue which has cropped up again in Black Ops 4.
Although some in the community are vehemently against GA’s in every aspect, some argue that they are necessary to allow the competitive community, mainly at the professional level, to act quickly when something is problematic – or at least quicker than the developers/CWL can.
Fans from the Infinite Warfare season will recall the issue with OSA assault rifle, which was used by almost all players at the first event, forcing a gentleman’s agreement until it was finally ruled out of competitive play officially.
Black Ops 4 doesn’t have an OSA type situation thankfully, but there has been rumors of a possible GA to Ruin’s Grapple Hook, at least in Search and Destroy, where it can be used at the start of almost every round.
However, ZooMaa has made his feelings very clear on the issue. While playing the recent CMG ProDown tournament, the FaZe Clan vet lashed out at fellow pro’s who were trying to enforce the Grapple GA, calling it a “joke”.
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ZooMaa’s teammate James ‘Replays’ Crowder explains that if he does use the Grapple in SnD, effectively breaking the GA, other teams will respond by using the Ajax specialist (also rumored to be GA’d in competitive play due to the shield, which is not officially restricted in the ruleset).
The Stage One MVP doesn’t care however, saying “I’m tired of sitting back and letting people run the show. I’m using the grapple every fucking map. Use Ajax, for all I give a fuck”, before pointing out that other powerful specialists are being used.
Although amendments to the V1 CWL Ruleset were made to better balance specialists in competitive (like making Torque’s Barricade and Razor Wire deal no damage, for example), there are clearly still issues for some players.
The debate around the Grapple Hook would likely be resolved by giving it a longer cooldown, so it cannot be used so frequently in Search and Destroy, or perhaps restricting it so it cannot be used for the first 10 seconds of an SnD round.
Whether Treyarch has any plans to implement such changes to the Grapple in competitive play is unknown, and with only a matter of weeks until the first major event, CWL Vegas, there isn’t much time to make changes either.
