User blog comment:Damac1214/Call of Duty: Black Ops II Multiplayer Reveal coming on August 7th/@comment-4122733-20120804140925/@comment-5071701-20120806124004

I agree with balancing out Cold-blooded/UAV Jammer/whatever, but simply because it was even more overpowered.

It was the worst balancing decision in history because it is utterly stupid to create an entirely new system of adapting the game to your own playstyle, and then making 1/3 of it (the red perk) nearly worthless because one perk outshines all the others by a massive margin. Stopping power was stupid to the point that some weapons were either difficult and required plenty of skill without it, or ultra-faceroll-easy with it (e.g. the bolt-action rifles in WaW). Choosing any other perk required either a proper strategy behind it (e.g. a full-stealth class with silencer, UAV Jammer and Dead Silence in CoD4 - back then a stealth class _really_ reduced overall damage output), or was pretty much willingly giving away a large advantage.

Also, the massive appearance of stopping power everywhere made the game easier and much more "shoot first to get the kill" (most automatic weapons with stopping power killed in 2-3 shots), and greatly reduced the impact of actual aiming skills on the game, actually encouraging a "spray and pray" playstyle. The extreme case of this were the ever-present stopping power + steady aim classes in WaW, where people walked around with SMGs and sprayed across half the map getting kills easily.

Stopping power was kinda like having a laser gun as a lvl1-unlocked primary weapon in CoD, which has infinite ammo with no need to reload, has 5000 RPM fire rate and kills in one hit. Why would you ever choose anything else? (I know this is an extremely exaggerated example but I guess you see my point.)