We’re near the dawn of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, and Treyarch has swung through with a boatload of updates to improve the game. Many of these changes were directly inspired by player feedback from the open beta hosted back in August, and with just a few days left until release, we now know what to expect before jumping in.
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The high points of the day-one patch are aim assist adjustments and map design changes. Three of the beta maps – Scud, Skyline, and Rewind – received cover improvements, making them more survivable and player-friendly. Additionally, aim assist at close-range has been re-enabled (albeit with a gradual curve), with the developers promising to carefully monitor close-range fight data.
Keep in mind, only a portion of the game was playable during the beta, so more adjustments to the maps we haven’t touched down on yet could certainly be coming over the next few weeks.
You can read the full notes attached below.
Weapon Balance
While many weapon balance changes have been implemented across the board since Beta, we consider launch to be our day 1 baseline across the entire arsenal. Weapon balance is always ongoing, so we’ll be evaluating data and feedback, and sharing updates on this regularly.
- In the Multiplayer Beta we tested a change that disabled aim assist at close ranges. While this was a change in the right direction, we felt that this was a bit jarring when crossing that close range threshold, so we’ve adjusted our approach to linearly interpolate aim assist strength. This means that aim assist will be much weaker at point blank ranges and smoothly increase in strength out to a short range. We will of course continue to monitor and assess data and player feedback.
- Improved Pistol and Dedicated Melee swap speeds
- Slight increase to Weapon Butt melee attack speeds
- Adjustments to sway, bob and overall weapon motions to improve point of aim when entering ADS
- Additional improvements coming in Season 01
- Improved Depth of Field across all Weapons
Movement
- Added a toggle option for Corner Slicing
- Added an option to set the hold time to perform a Dive to Prone or Slide depending on your Slide/Dive Behavior setting
- Added an Intelligent Movement option to set Mantle Assist Angle from tight, medium, or wide
Multiplayer Map Adjustments
Keen eyes have already noticed a handful of changes we have introduced to our Beta maps thanks to everyone’s amazing feedback. Delivering fair and consistent gameplay will always remain our goal, and as such we’ve introduced some additional cover and changes to make firefights a bit fairer, as well as various lighting changes. The below selects aren’t every change we have made, but they’ll help provide an idea of what to expect from Beta to Launch.
Skyline
- Expanded the cover points around the hot tub at the center of the map.
- Added new planters as cover near far spawn point.
- Added multiple cover options throughout the map.
Scud
- Adjusted bullet penetration values on the satellite dish panels to allow additional bullet penetration.
- The concrete wall at the main overwatch is now broken out, which will allow more bullet penetration to make it slightly less powerful.
- Panels are doubled up at the side overwatch to still amount a small amount of bullet penetration where there was previously none.
- Made additional cover improvements throughout the map.
Rewind
- Made cover improvements across multiple sightlines.
Audio
- We’re excited to introduce our best-in-class audio experience coming to Black Ops 6 with the introduction of HRTF (Head-Related Transfer Function) via Universal Profile in Enhanced Headphone Mode, which is available to all players for free.
- We’ve also added a setting to disable licensed music across all modes, particularly useful for content creators streaming the game.
This is the second round of patch notes for BO6, with a full set of adjustments happening during the beta. Weapon balancing took center stage back then, perfecting maps is a much more intensive process and likely needed some extra time in the oven before being ready for fans to enjoy.
Some of these changes, such as making the concrete wall on Scud easier to shoot through, will make a huge difference in the overall playability of the map. This is reflected two-fold with the new smatterings of cover. Anyone using an a Submachine Gun on Rewind was practically giving away their life. It’s still an Assault Rifle dominated map, but perhaps the experience won’t be quite so crushing after this round of touchups.
All in all, these improvements set a better standard ahead of that magical October 25 release date. That’s when things get real.
