- Activision shares patch notes for Black Ops 6 and Warzone.
- The update includes sweeping changes to weapon balancing.
- Changes are now live in both games.
Treyarch and Raven Software have announced sweeping changes to weapon balancing, including headshot damage and idle sway animations, in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Warzone.
The changes are the result of gameplay data analysis and player feedback, and also include some visual glitches and bug fixes. The most notable section of the patch notes for Black Ops 6 and Warzone include the changes to weapon balance, which have the opportunity to sway the games' Time-to-Kill and change up the community's weapon meta.
Treyarch targeted weapon motion for the balance, taking what the team called a "comprehensive pass on weapon motion" by applying reductions across all Black Ops 6 weapons in both multiplayer and Warzone. Black Ops 6 introduced new movement mechanics to Call of Duty with "Omnimovement", which proved to cause accuracy problems for players when coupled with weapon sway. The patch aims to reduce sway when players are aiming down sights and moving, turning, changing stances, or firing at enemy combatants, which should prove to make gun play feel more stable.
The following changes were made to weapon motion:
- Reduced visual recoil on all weapons, especially full-auto weapons.
- Reduced turn sway on all weapons, especially on higher magnification optics.
- Reduced gun kick on higher magnification optics on all weapons except for Sniper Rifles.
- Reduced default idle sway on all weapons except Sniper Rifles.
- Further reduced idle sway while firing on all weapons except Sniper Rifles.
- Reduced weapon motion (bob, translation, and additional idle sway penalties) as a result of walking or changing stances in ADS.
- Removed additional layers of hip fire deviation, which caused crosshair to bounce while firing.
The team also adjusted the Aiming Idle Sway with a delay that scales a weapon's idle sway when first entering an ADS (aiming down sights) stance. With the new delay changes, the initial point of aim matches the crosshair position in a way that is improved and more consistent across all weapon classes. The delay for all weapons is now 2.2 seconds, while aiming idle sway delay on sniper rifles has been fully removed. Aiming Idle Sway Delay can also be buffed to 2.9 seconds on all weapons when using a Target Laser attachment.
Melee weapons weren't left out of the new balance pass, as all three weapons now have improved swing times. Knives are improved by 7.5%, baseball bats improved 14%, and the power drill time to swing is buffed by 9.5%.
The weapon balance pass was only a small part of the changes that were made with the recent patch. A nerf for frag grenades inner radius damage ultimately made Flak Jacket a better perk, increasing the chance of surviving a grenade blast when the perk is equipped. An issue with minimaps that prevented teammates that were outside the maximum range of the map from displaying on the perimeter was addressed, and an issue affecting the "Gentleman's Handshake" finishing move preview in the store was also updated.
A strange visual bug that gave players a bright green glow in Nuketown has been taken care of with today's patch. Another bug that occurred when players would change the default attachments on a blueprint weapon, but the changes were not being applied in match, was also fixed with the update.
Saw this pic and was immediately triggered #CallofDuty #BlackOps6 pic.twitter.com/OZsi5Ocs0CDecember 10, 2024
In Warzone, the changes made to weapon balance were present, as well, along with additional bug fixes for the Top 250 Leaderboard in Ranked, a bug fix for the Grenadier Perk that prevented enemies from being slowed by explosives, and a fix for the "Loading Player Stats" loop. Players can also expect an adjustment to the munitions and utility boxes, which will now provide the maximum possible amount of ammunition for the primary and secondary weapons the player has equipped. Additional ammo for unequipped ammo types will no longer be dispensed.
Ranked play has temporarily lost access to the meat shield ability in Warzone because of a known exploit that is being investigated by Raven Software. Also in Warzone Ranked, efforts to minimize randomness have been deployed and buy stations will now always spawn in specific locations, with plans to address dead spots in the map coming in the future.
Zombies players aren't left out with this patch. A few bugs on the latest map introduced with Season 1 Reloaded, Citadelle Des Morts, were part of the update. This includes an issue where players would get an AFK warning even while actively running around the map, an issue where loading a save after obtaining the four incantations would prevent players from entering the Final Encounter, and an issue where light beams for obtaining the amulet would not be visible if a player disconnected and rejoined a match while in a squad.
As with each patch, the Call of Duty team ties things up by declaring that stability fixes were rolled out. Unfortunately, it appears that some lagging and microfreezing issues that have been present in Black Ops 6 and Warzone since the launch of Season 1 persist. Following today's update, users on Reddit continued to confirm 1-2 second long microfreezes were still occurring in the game. The franchise is also under fire as players discover some in-game rewards for the Merry Mayhem event and other challenges have been issuing AI-generated images for loading screens, calling cards, and more.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is currently available on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC via Steam, Battle.net, and the Microsoft Store. It is also available now on Xbox Game Pass on PC, console , and the cloud.
