Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Adjustments In Response To Beta

Raven Software and Treyarch had their ears open for fans’ reactions and comments from the recent Open Beta for the PC, Xbox, and a bit earlier on the PS4. With the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War being less than a month away, the current weekend open beta boasted a few tweaks to help the game play even a bit better.

There have been much edits made since then, with the studio showing how responsive they are to the fans wants and needs for this worldwide-famous and highly anticipated FPS. More additions have been released for this weekend’s beta, with a 2XP and 2X Weapon XP boost just to keep the fans going. Even if the achievements don’t technically carry over when the game releases, reaching level 10 in beta gets you the Mutual Animosity SMG blueprint on launch and Adler as an operator on Call of Duty: Mobile as long as your accounts are properly linked.

Anyhow, patch notes have been released by Treyarch on their official site, proving that there’s much more to see inside the game this weekend. So apparently there’s been the Control and Hardpoint modes added, the Combined Arms Moshpit mode added, the 40-player mode Fireteam: Dirty Bomb has also been added, 2 maps named Alpine and Ruka, and definitely more room to unlock more perks, scorestreaks, and weapons.

To make it easier for you, here’s the updates compiled and transcribed.

GAMEPLAY UPDATES

– In response to player feedback and game data from last weekend’s PS4 Beta, we’ve made a new round of gameplay updates and tuning changes to movement, weapons, attachments, and more. For our PC players joining us this weekend, there’s also a list of known issues and workarounds to be aware of. –

• Movement
  • Reduced the speed of the initial slide impulse and slightly shortened slide duration.
    • During the PS4 Beta, we found players over-relying on sliding to traverse ground quickly or engage in close quarters, making it difficult to target players in the open. Our goal is for sliding to function as a smooth transition to cover, escape, or transition to a crouching stance. This weekend’s changes result in a snappier slide that better fit our goals for the mechanic.
• Significantly reduced slide speed with the Duster Stock attachment equipped.
  • In Weekend 1, the Duster Stock attachment accounted for massive slide speed increases that didn’t fit into our more grounded combat loop. With this new change, Duster Stock now offers a modest improvement in slide speed that is more balanced with other attachment offerings.

Weapons

• Milano 821
  • Reduced damage falloff range.
    • This update causes the 4-hit kill range to turn to 5 hits at 12.8 meters, down from 19.2 meters during the PS4 Beta.
• AK-47
  • Slightly reduced recoil.
    • We’d like to see the AK-47 remain a top contender for assault rifle picks, and it was barely edged out by the XM4 and Krig 6 in the PS4 Beta. By reducing its recoil, we’re giving AK-47 users a better opportunity to compete.
• M16
  • Increased time between bursts from .216s to .233s.
    • This weapon’s high lethality and well-rounded attributes allowed it to over-perform even outside of its intended role during the PS4 Beta. This change keeps the M16’s power and accuracy while requiring more precision.
• Type 63
  • Reduced recoil.
    • Our new recoil system tuning made this weapon a bit too difficult to hit multiple shots on target. We’ve toned down the recoil to make it more effective as the precision weapon it was meant to be.
• RPD
  • Slightly reduced hipfire spread.
    • While the RPD can be effective at long range, we’ve improved its close-range reliability compared to the PS4 Beta.
• Gallo SA12
  • Adjusted medium-range damage to require three hits to kill instead of two at mid-range.
    • This was an extremely effective secondary throughout the PS4 Beta. With this tuning update, it will still take two hits to eliminate an enemy within a short range, just not quite as far out.

Attachments

• Agency Suppressor
  • Reduced some recoil bonuses.
    • This attachment came with too many strengths without enough tradeoffs during the PS4 Beta, particularly with how much it reduced recoil. This update reduces some of those bonuses while still making them notably beneficial.

Field Upgrades

• Field Mic
  • Reduced the range at the Field Mic can detect players who are crouching, ADS walking, or moving but not sprinting.
    • During the PS4 Beta, this Field Upgrade did not incentivize counter-play as much as we were planning for. The Field Mic will now be less effective at detecting footstep noise from players who move more slowly.

Equipment

• Frag Grenade
  • Reduced the damage on the outer half of the Frag Grenade’s splash damage radius.
    • While we expect Frag Grenade usage to drop significantly in the Crossplay Open Beta as more Wildcard and lethal options open up, we also agree with the feedback that frags resulted in kills a little too often.

Known PC Issues and Workarounds

• Mouse Wheel Input Delay defaults at 0, which is lower than intended.
  • Workaround: The player can adjust the value for the mouse wheel delay input in Settings. The recommended default value is 80.
• When many audio devices are available, it is not possible to view or select the last one from the drop-down list.
  • Workaround: These audio devices can be selected using the keyboard.
• Some players on AMD GPUs may experience frequent packet burst spikes during gameplay.
  • Workaround: Lowering the Graphics Settings can alleviate the severity of this issue.

Scorestreaks

Score Tuning/Rewards

• Adjusted score tuning to deliver a more consistent earn rate across all game modes.
• Increased score rewards for streaks of six, seven, eight, and nine kills to better reward players.

Scorestreak Costs

• Adjusted costs for all Beta Scorestreaks.

Cooldowns

• Increased the cooldown on Spy Planes to help limit their numbers in the sky at one time.

Stability

• Fixed a crash that could occur when joining a match in progress where items were not properly spawned.
• Fixed a crash on PC that could occur on boot if Windows was set to certain languages with the “DD.MM.YYYY” date format (for example, Finnish and German).
• Additional general stability improvements on all platforms.

Bug fixes

• Addressed an issue where a player could spawn outside of the map in Cartel at the start of a match.

There’s definitely a lot to look forward to on the game’s release on November 13, so have you already copped a pre-order or are you planning to buy on the day itself? Let us know in the comments section below.