Black Ops Cold War day 1 patch notes: weapon balancing, movement, more

Treyarch has unveiled all the official content added to Black Ops Cold War for its full launch, as well as a slew of changes that have been made since the game’s beta version in October. Here’s what you need to know.

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Ahead of Black Ops Cold War’s worldwide release on November 13, Treyarch have announced all of the changes made between the game’s pre-release beta all the way up to the day-one version.

As expected, the launch update has added a plethora of new content compared to the beta, including several new maps, modes, weapons, features, and more. On top of the new additions, the update has also made numerous adjustments to BOCW’s various aspects and mechanics, including weapon balancing, sliding and movement, scorestreaks, and more.

All of the details about these changes, including the official patch notes, can be found below.

Activision

The differences between the beta build of the game and the final version are, as expected, staggering.

Most important changes in BOCW’s launch update

One of the biggest changes between the beta and the full version has to do with the sliding. In the final build, sliding has been greatly nerfed, now having both a shorter length and speed.

A number of different guns have been tweaked in a variety of different ways, as the weapon tuning has affected almost every category, some receiving buffs, some nerfs, and the rest, a mix of both.

• Read more: Black Ops Cold War & Warzone integration: how it works, start date, more

Scorestreaks have also been tweaked slightly from the beta. Not only have more streaks been added – like the Combat Bow, Care Package, and Gunship – but the actual point costs for some have been changed, in response to some of the feedback received during the testing period.

Activision

Weapons got a ton of changes between the beta and the final version, including ADS speeds and fire-rates.

In addition to all the new stuff that’s been added, Treyarch also enabled a lot of extra features that weren’t available in the beta. This includes the Combat Record, Theater mode, unlockable weapon camos, weapon inspect animations, finishing moves, and more.

Last but not least, the devs further teased the next phase of Warzone in the FAQ section of the update blog post: “We’re also bringing a classified experience to Verdansk starting in Season One, along with some other surprises… and that’s just the beginning.”

Find out all of the changes and additions for Black Ops Cold War’s in the day-one patch notes below:

Black Ops Cold War launch update patch notes

Modes

• Additional Modes
  • Added modes since Beta:
    • Search & Destroy
    • Free-For-All
    • Hardcore Team Deathmatch
    • Hardcore Domination
    • Hardcore Kill Confirmed
    • Hardcore Search & Destroy
    • Hardcore Free-For-All
• Fireteam: Dirty Bomb
  • Gameplay
    • Added Ammo Caches to Ruka and Alpine.
    • Added rappel lines to Alpine.
    • Players can now continue sprinting while equipping Armor Plates.
    • Players will now automatically be air deployed after 15 seconds in the overhead spawn view.
    • Both the downed player and player reviving will be locked in place during a revive to avoid the revive from failing.
    • Added the ability to Call for Help while downed.
    • Added support for bashing a door when beginning to sprint next to a door.
    • Added support for configurable squad wipe respawn delays based on squad size (squads of 1 have no additional squad wipe respawn delay).
    • Made adjustments to objective placements.
  • Dirty Bombs/Radiation
    • Arming progress will now display on the charge when arming a dirty bomb.
    • When arming the dirty bomb, lights on the charge will now show how many teammates are assisting in arming.
    • Improvements made to radiation visuals when in the overhead spawn view.
    • The line to safety while inside of a radiation zone will no longer point players toward out of bounds.
  • Loot
    • Radiation Vest item added to loot pool. This vest will prevent the wearer from taking radiation damage inside of the radiation zones.
    • Combat Bow, VTOL Escort, Cruise Missile, and Gunship added to loot pool.
    • Adjusted item spawn rates to reduce higher end Scorestreak frequency.
  • Vehicles
    • Reduced frequency of Hind spawn.
    • Adjusted vehicle drop timing to reduce the frequency of Hind, Tank, and FAV spawns.
    • Directional damage indicators now point toward the vehicle when taking explosive damage from a Hind or Chopper Gunner.
  • Ping
    • Added the ability to Ping while downed.
    • Added the ability to Ping from vehicles.
    • Added the ability to Ping downed teammates.
    • Added the ability to Ping Field Upgrades and thrown C4 explosives.
    • Added a center dot while freefalling and parachuting for more accurate pinging.
  • Miscellaneous
    • Made adjustments to the fireteam intro scene to better highlight the fireteam.
    • Added an in-game outro scene that highlights the winning fireteam.
    • Killcams and Best Plays will now prioritize downs instead of clean-ups.
  • Bug Fixes
    • Addressed an issue that would prevent objective waypoints from displaying in the overhead spawn view.
    • Addressed an issue where players could be killed as soon as they deployed via air.
    • Addressed a number of issues that would cause a player to spawn away from their intended teammate on the ground from the overhead spawn view.
    • Addressed an issue where players could not deposit Uranium into a dirty bomb.
    • Addressed an issue where the player could be considered out of bounds when deploying from the infil plane.
• VIP Escort
  • Players can now quick-deploy parachute in Crossroads and Armada in VIP Escort.
  • The VIP is now taken into the helicopter by a winch operator upon exfil completion.
  • The exfil notification is now triggered when the VIP gets near an exfil helicopter in order to give the defending team more time to react.
    • Upon getting near the exfil site, the helicopter will begin lowering the fast rope, and all players in the match will be notified that the exfil process has begun.
    • Once the fast rope is lowered, the VIP can interact with the rope to hook up for exfil.
• Combined Arms
  • Players can now quick-deploy parachute in Combined Arms game modes (where applicable).

Weapons / Gunsmith

• New Weapons
  • Added new weapons in multiple categories:
    • FFAR 1 assault rifle
    • Bullfrog SMG
    • M60 LMG
    • DMR 14 tactical rifle
    • M79 special launcher
    • + more
• Weapon Balance
  • Assault Rifles
    • Tuned general assault rifle performance closer to Krig 6 and XM4 Beta performance for better balance across the class.
    • Increased AK-47 recoil.
  • Submachine Guns
    • Reduced SMG effectiveness at longer ranges to counter the dominance of the class seen in the Beta.
  • Light Machine Guns
    • Increased LMG damage output to improve the effectiveness of the class.
    • Increased LMG ADS times.
  • Sniper Rifles
    • Adjusted aim assist to feel smoother yet require more skill and precision.
    • Slightly increased sniper rifle ADS times.
    • Sniper scope glint will now display more regularly.
  • Pistols
    • Decreased burst-fire pistol hip-fire accuracy.
    • Reduced burst-fire pistol max damage range.
  • Shotguns
    • Reduced semi-auto shotgun fire rate.
  • Launchers
    • Slightly increased inner damage of launcher rockets to allow for lethal damage when placed precisely.
  • Melee
    • Slightly reduced sprinting speed with the Knife equipped.
• Recoil and Sight Alignment
  • Cleaned up issues with bullet direction and recoil to feel more intuitive and responsive.
    • In the Beta, the location of the player’s bullet was always based on the direction of their weapon, which could have a slight deviation to their eye-view perspective through the sights. These should now line up better across all iron sights and optics, providing more precision when ADS-firing.
• Aim Assist Tuning
  • Adjusted a number of aim assist parameters to provide a more expected feel across weapon classes.
• Aiming Down Sights (ADS)
  • Adjusted ADS transitions to make them smoother and more fluid.
  • Adjusted ADS sway to provide more dramatic feel while reducing weapon rotation.
  • Adjusted weapon pushback when firing in ADS to address cases where optic models could get too close to the player camera.
• Attachments
  • Additional Attachments
    • Added more attachments to equip in the Gunsmith.
  • Attachment Balance
    • Updated balance for roughly half of the attachments across all weapons to increase viability across the board.
    • Reworked bonuses and penalties on Barrel attachments to better reflect relationship between ranges, muzzle velocities, and barrel length.
    • There are now Barrel attachments that offer shorter Barrel length for increased strafe speed movement, either when hip-firing or ADS-firing. This provides players with greater options for leaning into movement as a kit option.
    • Increased enemy reveal range when using the mounted light attachment.
  • Attachment Descriptions
    • Updated names, descriptions, and statistics categories for weapons to provide a clearer picture of functionality and authenticity.
• Dual Wield
  • Added the ability to dual-wield pistols.
• Weapon Levels
  • Increased primary weapon levels from 40 to 55.
• Stationary Turrets
  • Increased use radius of stationary turrets.

Movement

• Sliding
  • Shortened slide length.
  • Reduced slide speed.
    • Sliding is intended as an escape mechanic or quick entrance into crouch or cover. It’s not intended to be over-used during engagements, or to be too advantageous in close quarters. We’ve shortened the slide length and reduced its speed to address these goals.
  • Ending a sprint to fire is now faster than sliding to fire.
    • In the Beta, it was faster to fire your weapon from a sprint by sliding than by simply ending your sprint to fire. This has been fixed so that ending a sprint to fire is the faster way to get your gun up, and sliding to fire is no longer faster. 
• Mantling
  • Increased speeds for all mantles.

Scorestreaks

• Additional Scorestreaks
  • Added new Scorestreaks since Beta:
    • Combat Bow
    • Armor
    • Care Package
    • Cruise Missile
    • VTOL Escort
    • Gunship
• Earn Rate
  • Improved score event tuning and Scorestreak earn potential across all modes.
  • Increased score bonus thresholds at 10-kill and 15-kill streaks to make high streaks feel more rewarding, and to help boost score to higher-end Scorestreaks.
    • In the Beta, Scorestreaks were being earned more often than intended in several game modes, so we’ve made tuning adjustments to bring the overall earn rate down. On the other hand, because even top players were having a hard time getting to the highest Scorestreaks, we’ve increased the score bonus thresholds for higher kill streaks.
• Scorestreak Tuning
  • Attack Helicopter
    • Increased Attack Helicopter damage from 5-hit kill to 3-hit kill.
  • Chopper Gunner
    • Slightly reduced Chopper Gunner duration and damage.
• Costs
  • Balance adjustment to all Scorestreak costs.
• UI
  • Added a numerical display showing remaining score required to earn your equipped Scorestreaks, which appears briefly on respawn and after closing the Scoreboard.
  • Improved Scorestreak tablet cursor speed.
  • Improved visibility of Scorestreak tablet red dots for indoor enemies.
• Cooldowns
  • Added variation to Scorestreak cooldowns to allow for more interesting player choices and strategy, while also reducing low-end Scorestreak spam.
• Miscellaneous
  • Updated default Scorestreak selection.
  • Updated Scorestreak descriptions with more detail on new functionality.
  • Improved rumble/camera shake on Scorestreak events.

Spawns

• General spawn adjustments across all modes.
• Enemies in Gunboats will now properly cancel spawns within their line of sight.

Perks

• Flak Jacket
  • Flak Jacket damage reduction reduced by 5%.
• Paranoia
  • Updated the sound for when an enemy is aiming at you with Paranoia equipped.

Equipment

• Frag
  • Improved Frag throwback speed.
• Stim Shot
  • Cooldown increased from 8 seconds to 11 seconds.
• Decoy
  • Duration reduced from 20 seconds to 15 seconds.
  • Decoy will now play a static sound effect every few seconds, so attentive players can discern fake footsteps from real ones.

Field Upgrades

• Field Mic
  • Field Mic listening radius reduced by 10%.
  • Field Mic cooldown increased to from 3:00 to 3:30.

Features

• Added Military Ranks up to 55 in standard player progression.
• Added Seasonal Prestige player progression system, beginning at launch after completing Military Rank 55.
• Added Challenges for Campaign, Multiplayer, and Zombies.
• Added unlockable Weapon Camos.
• Player and weapon customization now available.
• Added Combat Record.
• Added Theater support.
• Added Multiplayer bot support.
• Added Finishing Move support.
• Added Weapon Inspect support.

Game Audio

• General
  • Polished volumes and sound falloffs for weapons, foley audio, ambient systems, and map transitions.
  • Additional map sound design improvements.
• Gameplay Audio
  • Improved weapon and footstep sounds.
  • Improved hit marker sounds.
  • Improved player damage feedback sounds.
• Acoustics
  • Polished acoustics systems that simulate how sounds travel through/around geometry.
    • Since the Beta, we’ve created new reverbs for multiple areas, polished filter values so full occlusion now sounds more natural, and tweaked the way interior and exterior sounds blend as you move through spaces.
  • Tuned acoustics of every map.
    • This affects how the map geometry influences every sound, from reverb (how sounds bounce and echo) to occlusion (how objects block sound waves). Map acoustics are based on physical simulations of sound waves travelling through the map. As a result, all sounds should feel even more immersive and realistic, with a high level of fidelity.
• Music Player
  • Added Music Player, allowing players to listen to music tracks unlocked by playing the game.
  • Players can select tracks as their menu music or in-game music.
• Audio Presets
  • Added multiple audio mix presets.