Sledgehammer Games Breaks Down Beta Changes Ahead of Call of Duty: Vanguard Launch

Call of Duty: Vanguard has its release right around the corner. After a series of alpha and beta tests, the devs have received plenty of criticism with regard to the direction of the game, gameplay mechanics, and a lot of technical issues and bugs. Sledgehammer Games, the studio behind this year’s iteration of Activision’s Call of Duty, made a blog post to let players know about the changes they’d made.

Sledgehammer stated that they received tons of feedback from players throughout the beta period. In cognizant of the feedback, they said they made a bunch of changes to improve the overall experience of the game. The full set of changes can be found in the blog post. However, here are some of the notable and arguably more important ones.

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Changes made after the Call of Duty: Vanguard beta

Visibility

• Distortion effects were removed from muzzle flash and we reduced smoke emitted when firing a weapon
• Completed a pass on muzzle flash placement/coverage when aiming down sights
• VFX Environment ambient placement for better sightlines
• Removed the droplets of water that get all up in your face when it rains
• Various bugs have been fixed including a bug where certain optics would stop enemy and friendly HUD icons from displaying while ADS
• We’ve fixed cases of nametags appearing through Destruction
• Lens flare reduced across all maps (we nerfed the sun)
• We will continue to refine VFX, Lighting, and UI into launch and monitor player feedback surrounding the various topics of visibility.

Audio

• Audio received a complete mixing and content overhaul to address community feedback from the Public Beta, including more audible footsteps, player and non-player weapons, and map environment content
• Footsteps are silent when players ADS, Crouch Walk, or have a Perk / Field Upgrade equipped which silences movement
• Fixed a bug that caused shots after the first shot to be too quiet
• Operator quips occur less frequently
• Asked Butcher to chill out. VO lines are less frequent.

Spawns

• A bug resulting in unpredictable spawns in Patrol has been fixed as well general tuning of spawn logic globally
• We will continue to refine spawn logic over time to improve spawns in matches with higher player counts

Movement

• Grenades and incendiaries no longer slow movement speed of players
• A cap has been placed on max suppression effects
• Changes have been made to animation times including weapon swap speeds and throwing of equipment (ie: Gammon bombs can be thrown more quickly)
• Sprint out times have been sped up and re-balanced
• Dev Tip: Dauntless, a perk that players didn’t have access to in Beta, makes players immune to movement reducing effects

Weapons

• Shotgun lethality has been improved
• Effective Range of most Shotguns, SMGs, and Pistols have been reduced (SMGs and Pistols were overperforming at range and Shotguns were adjusted down due to increased lethality overall)
• Hipfire spread has been adjusted on most guns (mainly to add more consistency across weapon categories)
• Tradeoffs on barrels, magazines, and stocks have been reduced
• Ammo types were rebalanced to include more tradeoffs
• Squashed bugs affecting Weapon Progression and Detailed Stats
• Dev Tip: Vanguard’s version of the smoke grenade works differently than previous games. You’re fully hidden from distant enemies, but can be seen at closer ranges allowing you to close the distance between you and the enemy and hunt them down with close-quarter combat builds.
• Dev Tip: Try setting your mount options to use ADS rather than ADS+Melee. It’s not for everyone but it’s a powerful way to become more accurate in an instant while staying out of harm’s way. It can be combined with blind fire for some great results.

Killstreaks and Field Upgrades

• Friendly Spy Planes and Counter Spy Planes will no longer appear overhead
• Spy Planes and Counter Spy Planes move slower and are easier to hit
• Counter Spy Planes have a shorter duration
• Health has been reduced on Spy Planes, Counter Spy Planes, and most placed Field Upgrades
• Death Machine and War Machine have swapped costs
• Glide bomb is easier to control
• A max timer has been added to the Radar Jammer and Field Mic Field Upgrades
• Bugs resulting in graphical corruption of the Attack Dogs have been fixed – no more Dognados 🙁

Perks

• Low Profile has been removed and replaced with Ninja

Sledgehammer Game’s response to the community has been greatly appreciated by the players. Whether or not they will be able to deliver an appreciable service throughout the game’s life cycle, only time will tell.

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