After a week of testing its new mode, Blackout, Treyarch has revealed the changes that they are implementing for the game’s launch on October 12. The most notable changes that they are looking into are in its inventory and item management system as this particular issue has garnered a lot of attention. There are also changes coming to Armor, as Treyarch has stated that as the game evolves, Armor and weapons will change and be tuned multiple times. The other notable changes that are coming to Blackout are mainly performance issues. Treyarch is looking to adjust some audio problems and Xbox performance issues.
Here is a breakdown of what Treyarch is looking to change:
Armor
Even though Treyarch has been hesitant to change armor, they have made some minor tweaks here and there during the beta. Some changes include the frequency of Level 3 Arnor. It has been decreased to 75% compared to the start of the beta. They plan to have Level 3 Armor be found in stashes and supply drops, though they may spawn in the world from time to time. Lastly, Level 3 Armor was tweaked to break sooner and pass more damage to the player wearing it.
Level 3 Armor wasn’t the only armor to have gotten adjusted as Level 2 Armor was adjusted slightly during the beta. Treyarch has stated that it may be adjusted further in time for launch.
Audio Adjustments
They were several reports of audio issues during the beta. Footsteps sounding louder or quieter than expected, an uneven balance of the footstep volume between teammates and enemies, and having difficulty pinpointing the direction enemies were coming from.
Treyarch heard these issues and are going to make improvements which include making sure that sounds are properly impacted by walls, floors, ceilings, and other objects in the world so the sound disparities between people above or below you should be clearer; teammates’ footsteps will now be quieter than enemy footsteps.
Inventory & Item Management
The biggest issue that everyone had during the beta was how slow item pickup was. Console players had to hold a button to pick it up, so Treyarch is taking the idea of picking up items with a tap instead and making sure they get it right by testing it as thoroughly as they can. The quick equip menu was designed to make adjustments to the inventory as quickly as possible but it got in the way or performing other actions. Treyarch is looking into ways to stop that from happening such as the menu closing when a player performs an action like switching stances, sprinting, or firing a weapon.
Treyarch is also looking to improve their designs of some “quality of life” game systems such as ways to improve the stash interface when looting enemies and containers, adding new ways to quickly remove attachments from weapons and a way to swap attachments from weapon to weapon if the attachment supports both.
Xbox One Performance
The last thing that Treyarch talked about during their recap was fixing some issues that were reported on Xbox One which included some reports of screen tearing and choppiness, an issue when you press the Xbox button and making sure that inviting friends to a party works as it is suppose to.