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Call of Duty: Black Ops III – New Update Brings Major Balance Changes, Packs Performance Optimizations

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Activision and Treyarch released yesterday a new patch for Call of Duty: Black Ops III. According to its changelog, this patch brings major balance changes, features performance optimizations as well as various bug fixes. This patch is around 680MB in size and will be auto-downloaded from Steam. You can read its huge changelog below.

Call of Duty: Black Ops III – December 15th Update Changelog:

GLOBAL

C.O.D.E. Warriors Personalization Pack

  • The C.O.D.E. Warriors Personalization Pack includes 3 reticles, Calling Card and custom weapon camo. All profits from the Personalization Pack sales will go towards the Call of Duty Endowment’s support for organizations that prepare veterans to reenter the job market. Offer only available in select regions.
MULTIPLAYER

Black Market

  • Recently Acquired
    • Players are now able to review the last 25 unique items received through the Black Market.
    • Items are tagged with a timestamp and duplicate items are noted.
  • Burn Duplicates
    • Players are able to burn all duplicate Black Market Contraband in exchange for Cryptokeys. More Cryptokeys are rewarded for exchanging duplicates of higher rarities.
  • Trade Again
    • Players are now able to exchange Cryptokeys directly from the Supply Drop results screen without having to go back to the Black Market dealer. Simply highlight and select the option to the left of the item rewards under the Trade Again label.
  • Rare Supply Drop Tuning
    • As always, Rare Supply Drops guarantee at least one Rare or better item.
    • Opening a Rare Supply Drop now has slightly better odds of receiving Legendary and Epic items than the equivalent of opening three Common Supply Drops.
    • Guaranteed to receive a bonus reward with each Rare Supply Drop.
    • Rare Supply Drops now guarantee at least one item related to Specialists or Weapons including the following:
      • Specialists
        • Specialist Themes
        • Taunts
        • Gestures
      • Weapons
        • Melee Weapons
        • Cosmetic Attachment Variants
        • Reticles
        • Camos
    • New Melee Weapons
      • Players have a chance of acquiring the following Legendary melee weapons from Supply Drops:
      • Butterfly Knife
      • Wrench
      • Brass Knuckles

Theater

  • Theater editing suite added. This includes the following modes:
    • Basic
      • Create shot using the basic replay functionality.
      • Screenshot functionality has been added.
    • Director
      • Create epic shot using animated dolly camera.
    • Object Link
      • Attach the camera to Scorestreaks, Lethals and Tacticals.
    • Lighter
      • Add dynamic lights to the map to enhance your shot.
    • Timeline Editor
      • Change the order of shots, edit transitions and preview your clip.
    • Highlight Reel
      • An auto-generated clip based off of the player’s recent games.

General

  • Quick Join option added to the Multiplayer Main Menu. This allows Players to party-up with any eligible Players on their Friends List who are currently playing Black Ops III.
  • Multiplayer Music option in the Audio menu now allows players to preview music samples and change the music heard when playing Multiplayer.
  • Custom Games functionality has been expanded. Support has been added for official Custom Game Variants as well as saving Custom Games.
  • Fixed an error which would occasionally occur when returning to the Multiplayer Lobby after completing a match or entering/exiting the Arena Lobby.
  • Address issues where Players were unable to move layers in the emblem/paintshop creator.
  • Fix for slow game load on some machines when vsync is enabled
  • Performance optimizations
  • Various bug fixes

General Gameplay

  • XP earn rate increased for Team Deathmatch, Search & Destroy, Capture the Flag, Safeguard, Demolition, and Free-For-All.
  • Increased rate at which Cryptokeys are earned.
  • Players no longer get points for killing teammates with the Satellite Drone in Uplink, when Friendly-Fire is enabled in Custom Games.
  • Players will no longer spawn at the same point in Free-For-All if there are more than 8 players in a Custom Match.
  • Fixed an issue where the tinted full screen effect would remain after the player had exited the Hardened Sentry.
  • Improved the Dart Scorestreak’s ability to lock onto enemy targets.
  • Fixed a start spawn issue with Free-For-All where waiting to select a class could spawn the Player behind other Players.
  • Improved enemy spawns during Gun Game and Free-For-All.
  • Players who join a Free-For-All or Gun Game match in-progress will not have a loss recorded if they do not place in the Top 3.
  • Addressed an issue where Players would get disconnected from Gun Game if they joined a match in-progress.
  • Players will now be kicked for inactivity if idling in Gun Game.

Specialists

  • General
    • Reduced Specialist earn rate over time in objective game modes.
  • Reaper
    • Scythe
      • Reduced earn rate.

Create-A-Class

  • General
    • When entering Weapon Prestige with a MAX level weapon that is equipped in Custom Classes, the Attachments now properly get reset.
  • Submachine Guns
    • Kuda
      • Increased recoil control.
    • Weevil
      • Increased recoil control.
    • Razorback
      • Increased recoil control.
      • Increased damage range.
    • Vesper
      • Reduced damage range.
    • VMP
      • Reduced aim down sight speed.
      • Reduced hip fire accuracy.
  • Assault Rifles
    • KN-44
      • Increased recoil control.
    • HVK-30
      • Increased recoil control.
    • ICR-1
      • Increased recoil control.
      • Increased hip fire accuracy.
      • Fixed an issue with the reload animation when a certain magazine was equipped.
    • Man-O-War
      • Increased recoil control.
    • XR-2
      • Reduced movement speed.
    • M8A7
      • Reduced fire rate.
  • Shotguns
    • KRM-262
      • Increased damage, it will now be a maximum 2 shot kill.
    • 205 Brecci
      • Increased damage range.
    • Haymaker 12
      • Increased damage range.
  • Light Machine Guns
    • Dingo
      • Increased movement speed while firing.
      • Increased recoil control.
    • 48 Dredge
      • Reduced fire rate.
  • Pistols
    • MR6
      • Increased movement speed.
    • RK5
      • Increased movement speed.
      • Reduced damage range.
    • L-CAR 9
      • Increased movement speed.
      • Reduced damage.
      • Reduced hip fire accuracy.
MULTIPLAYER

Create-A-Class

  • Special
    • In-game melee weapon flourish and inspect animations added.
    • Flourish animations can be triggered by pressing the Use/Reload button with any melee weapon equipped.
    • Inspect animations can be triggered by pressing and holding the ADS button with any melee weapon equipped.
  • Attachments
    • Suppressor
      • Increased damage range.
    • Laser Sight
      • Increased hip fire accuracy on Assault Rifles and Light Machine Guns.
    • Fast Mags
      • Increased reload speed.
    • Rapid Fire
      • Changed to increase the fire rate and not the burst delay on burst weapons.
    • Dual Wield
      • Reduced movement speed.
      • Reduced switch weapon speed.
  • Equipment
    • Concussion
      • Reduced stun time.
  • Perks
    • Overclock
      • Increased earn rate.
    • Ante Up
      • Increased starting bonus toward Scorestreaks.
    • Hard Wired
      • Increased effectiveness against enemies who have Sixth Sense equipped.

Scorestreaks

  • General
    • Aerial Scorestreaks must be within a minimum distance from the map before locking onto them with a Launcher.
  • HC-XD
    • Increased explosive damage.
  • UAV
    • Increased base health.
  • Counter-UAV
    • Increased base health.
  • Dart
    • Increased explosive damage for collision explosion.
    • Reduced minimum speed.
    • Handling tuning.
    • Fixed an issue where the Dart was not locking onto enemy players.
  • Lightning Strike
    • Increased speed of payload delivery after target selection.
  • Hellstorm
    • Increased explosive damage of cluster bomblets.
  • Cerberus
    • Increased missiles required to destroy by 1.
    • Increased EMP Grenades required to destroy by 1.
  • Rolling Thunder
    • Increased explosive radius per drone.
    • Increased explosive damage per drone.
    • Increased health per drone.
    • Added 4 pairs of drones.
  • Talon
    • Increased damage when AI controlled.
  • Wraith
    • Increased base health.
    • Fixed an issue where the Flak Drone would not intercept incoming missiles.
  • R.A.P.S.
    • Increased missiles required to destroy Deploy Ship by 1.
    • Increased health per drone.
    • Increased explosive damage per drone.
  • G.I. Unit
    • Increased number of War Machine hits required to destroy.
    • Increased duration of G.I. Unit.
    • Increased recovery speed when stunned by an EMP grenade.
  • Mothership
    • Increased missiles required to destroy by 2.
    • Increased explosive bullet damage for owner turret.
    • Increased projectile speed of missiles for owner turret.

Maps

  • Hunted
    • Addressed an exploit where Players were able to mantle to an unintended area on top of a waterfall.
  • Aquarium
    • Fixed an exploit where Players were able to mantle and reach a non-playable area.
  • Combine
    • Changing Hardpoint rotation for gameplay balancing.
  • Nuk3town
    • Fixed an exploit involving the Dart Scorestreak and one of the building walls.
  • Evac
    • Fixed an exploit where players were able to contest the center Hardpoint from outside the Hardpoint boundaries.

Arena

  • Adding Power Rating when reaching Arena Masters rank.
  • Added support for displaying restricted item warnings.
  • Addressed an issue where players were able to ban or protect multiple items.
  • Leaving any time after ban/protect or draft in Pro-Series will result with the player losing a star.
  • Leaving before the match ends in Moshpit will count as a loss and the player will lose a star.
  • If the player has 0 stars for their current rank, they will not lose any stars. This applies to Pro-Series and Moshpit.
  • If the Player completes a match with a win/loss/draw, the correct stars are now awarded.
  • Players now properly receive losses when playing Search & Destroy in Arena.

CODcaster

  • Kill Feed colors will no longer swap when a CODcaster switches between players on opposing teams.
  • Fixed an issue where teams would occasionally be swapped on the Round Win and Game Win screens.
  • Addressed an issue in Uplink where the Satellite Drone would show an incorrect ‘Away’ tag when switching to the other team’s perspective.
  • Fixed issues with incorrect team coloring on the minimap.
  • Outcome will now show the winning team’s name.
  • Death icons will now be colored by team.
  • CODcaster will no longer be affected by EMP grenades.
  • CODcaster will now show clantags.

Challenges

  • Fixed an issue where Concussion Grenades, Flashbang Grenades, and Trip Mines weren’t properly getting tracked for Challenges.
  • Updated Challenges for new Black Market melee weapons.

My Showcase

  • File-share support added for Custom Games, Screenshots, and Edited Films.
ZOMBIES

Dr. Monty’s Factory

  • Be sure to check out Dr. Monty’s Factory in the Zombies game mode lobby. You can use your vials of Liquid Divinium earned in Zombies mode to create GobbleGums by placing vials in the vats. GobbleGums are one-time use perks for Zombies mode and come in multiple rarities which have varying effects on your Zombies match. Use one vial to create one GobbleGum or experiment with two or three vials at a time for more GobbleGums and better odds at getting a Rare Mega GobbleGum, an Ultra-Rare Mega GobbleGum or a Special Sphere!

General

  • Addressed an issue with Weapon Kits when reaching Prestige in Zombies.

Shadows of Evil

  • Addressed exploits in the Shadows of Evil map.
  • Addressed various areas where zombies would not path to players.
  • The Dark Ops challenges should now unlock properly when reaching Prestige and completing the final Easter Egg.
  • Fixed an issue involving an active Level 2 Ghost Sword and the KN-44 wall-buy in the Footlight District.

The Giant

  • Addressed exploits in The Giant map.
  • Addressed various areas where zombies would not path to players.
CAMPAIGN

General

  • Addressed split screen issues and general bugs.
NIGHTMARES

General

  • Nightmares will be unlocked for all players by default and will be selectable from the main menu, listed below Zombies.
  • Addressed split screen issues and general bugs.