The weak arse character designs.
I know this is an odd issue to have but I've really liked all Black Ops games, Black Ops 1 was a great game, very fun with some awesome maps. BO2 took time to get balanced but when it was and the snipers were calmed down it was great. I didn't like the idea of 'powers' in BO3 at first but in the end they weren't took OP and were really well done and fit with the style of the game plus it was the first BO story mode I actually finished.
But then BO4 rumours first came out it seemed questionable, 'hero shooter' like Overwatch, adding Blackout like PubG to 'cash in' on the trend. CoD was no longer the trend setter, they were just copying to stay relevant yet still outsold all these games with ease. In the end rumours were right, we have health bars and med kits, characters get abilities, you can only pick a certain amount of characters per game (instead of a full team of 1 character like in BO3). Yet, I'm having fun with it, I like the MP for what is there even if it's half arsed and I like Blackout and while I'm not a Zombie player, I've had fun in Zombies as the Zombies team have done such a great job, 3 maps from the off instead of the 1 from BO3, multiple ways to play.
Yet then there is the specialist and this is what annoys me more than anything else. In BO3 we had great unique designs, Battery looked cool with great character design, we had a robot, a cyborg guy, a pyromaniac, stealth ninja guy, all good. Even the unlockable outfits, hidden behind pay walls or not were different, colourful and unique.
Then you look at the same guys in BO4 and think "What happened?"
I know the idea is that this is essentially a 'prequal' to BO3 but did they really have to make everything about the characters so downgraded? All the 'outfits' you get a just variations on their default 'green' army gear outfits and you can only unluck them via the stupid money making scheme, not playing the character like BO3. They are all just guys in green camo gear, no robots, no cyborgs, the closest we have to anything of unique look is Firebreak and even he is like a half arsed version of his 'future' self. His flame thrower is weak and hardly kills anyone, his 'melting' thing makes you assume the fetal position and is only good to routing out campers, who will camp because they created Torque in BO4. Firebreaks area stun was so much better. Tempest require 2 shots with his lightning gun to kill. Even the Annihilator pistol just takes forever to get and you'd be lucky if you got it once a game, let alone 3 or 4 like Torgue gets with his shields.
This game would have been 50% better if the characters, their abilities and the designs they have were anything close to BO3 designs but they aren't and this annoys me.
Hmm, pie.
