Call Of Duty: Vanguard Mid-Season Patch Notes Reveal A Focus On Multiplayer Improvements

Sledgehammer Games has detailed the patch notes for Vanguard‘s multiplayer and Zombies ahead of the upcoming Season 1 Reloaded update. While appearing light on new content for multiplayer, the developer says players should see significant changes to gameplay and bug fixes with this mid-season update.

Call of Duty players can’t stop, drop, and roll when they’re on fire, and incendiary grenades have been frustratingly overpowered since the equipment was introduced at the beginning of Season 1. Thankfully, the patch notes promise a nerf to the incendiary grenades as well as perk adjustments to give players new ways to counter fire damage. The Dauntless perk will now give immunity to fire and burning effects, which include incendiary rounds, flamenaut killstreak, and any lingering fire on the ground. Additionally, the Fortified perk will now reduce fire damage taken by 30%.

The update also brings a balancing pass to buff Vanguard’s sniper rifles. Previously, the snipers felt a little too slow to be viable choices, but these mid-season adjustments should make sniping a bit easier. The Type 99 sniper is receiving a reduction to aim flinch and ADS time, the 3-Line Rifle also is getting a reduction to ADS time, and a Kar98 sniper adjustment will allow the gun to retain its one shot kill potential for chest shots when smaller-caliber ammo is used.

Players can also expect adjusted spawns on Vanguard’s smaller maps, including a tweak to spawns for Domination on Dome. The developer says that the spawns have been drastically reworked for the Control game mode to prevent players from spawning directly on teammates. Out-of-map Control spawns on Tuscan have also been corrected for this update.

Sledgehammer Games continues to iron out the issues with many of Vanguard’s camo challenges. The update offers fixes for some of the STG-44 assault rifle’s lingering challenge bugs, and the Katana unlock challenge should properly track player progress. Stability improvements were also included to prevent a host of crashing issues, and Xbox Series X players should no longer experience game crashing with the CDN setting enabled.

As previewed earlier by Treyarch, the Season 1 Reloaded patch notes for Zombies mode detail a new feature, map location and objective, but most notably will include the option to play a more traditional round-based experience within the Der Anfang map.

The full patch notes can be found below, as shared by Sledgehammer Games. All of these adjustments come paired with the new Season 1 DLC announcements, which include a collaboration with the Attack on Titan franchise.

Call of Duty Season 1 Reloaded will arrive as walkouts continue in protest of surprise contract terminations within Raven Software’s QA team. Activision Blizzard faces lawsuits and other investigations related to alleged sexual harassment and discrimination against women.

MULTIPLAYER UPDATES

Stability

• Several sources of packet burst have been identified and resolved
• Several sources of Multiplayer crash errors have been identified and resolved
• Xbox Series X players will no longer experience game crashing with CDN setting enabled
• Playing with keyboard and mouse will no longer result in ‘controller needed’ message

Spawns

• Spawn logic has been tuned to improve small maps with higher player counts
• Adjusted spawn logic for Domination on Dome
• Spawns in Control mode have been significantly adjusted to:
  • Prevent out-of-map spawns on Tuscan
  • Prevent spawning in the enemy’s line-of-sight on Bocage
  • Prevent players from spawning directly on teammates

Weapons & Equipment: Bug Fixes

• Attack / Guard Dog kills now count towards Panzerfaust Camo Challenges
• STG “Reptilian” Camo Weapon Challenge is now tracking Bloodthirsty kills
• STG “Predatory” Camo Weapon Challenge is now tracking Multikills
• Katana unlock Challenge is now tracking properly
• 3-Line Rifle can now be reloaded with the ZF4 3.5X Rifle Scope equipped
• Addressed an issue that prevented the “Kill an Enemy While They Have a Spy Plane Active 5 Times” challenge from tracking in the Counter Measures career challenges
• Addressed an issue where care packages would land out of reach when playing Armageddon on Tuscan and Daus Haus
• Player selected camos will now appear during the match intro sequence
• Locked Camos and attachments can no longer be swapped onto unlocked weapons
• A bug resulting in missing Post-Match Flow has been fixed
• A bug resulting in Type 100 Blueprint “Thunderhead” being invisibly in the pre-match countdown has been fixed

Weapons & Equipment: Balancing Changes

• Weapons
  • M1 Garand
  • Type 99
    • Reduced Aim Flinch
    • Reduced ADS Time
    • Retain One Shot Kill potential for chest shots when smaller caliber ammo is used
  • 3-Line Rifle
  • Kar98
    • Retain One Shot Kill potential for chest shots when smaller caliber ammo is used
• Ammo
  • Hollow Points
    • Removed damage range penalties
• Equipment
  • Stun Grenade
    • Reduced Stun Grenade damage in Hardcore modes
    • Reduced how long players are affected by Stun Grenades
  • Incendiary Grenade
• Killstreaks
  • Mortar Barrage
    • Duration of Mortar Strike has been reduced
    • Number of Mortar Strikes per streak has been reduced
    • Addressed issue where Mortar Barrage deployment was inconsistent
• Perks
  • High Alert
    • Slight delay added before Perk activates after being seen by an enemy
  • Dauntless
    • Gives immunity to fire and burning effects including Incendiary Rounds, Flamenaut, and lingering fire on the ground
  • Fortified
    • Reduces fire damage taken by 30%
    • Reduces excessive damage of all explosives

Maps

• Polish pass to improve and fix player collision issues with map environments
• Overall polish pass on Destructibles throughout all maps

UI/UX

• “Seasonal Challenge” menu is now present in the Challenges tab
• Players will no longer experience visual rank swapping between players in Private Matches
• The Objective progression bar will no longer clips into reticles
• Unintended distortion of MVP images has been fixed
• The continuous post-game level-up animation when players reach Prestige 3 has been fixed
• Store: menu navigation has improved when viewing and toggling between Bundles

ZOMBIES

Survival Gameplay

• Void
  • Survival gameplay comes to “Shi No Numa” in the Void, accessed from Von List’s Office in Stalingrad.
  • Rounds are advanced by defeating increasingly difficult endless waves of zombies, rather than by completing Objectives.
  • After completing 3 rounds in the Void, players must choose to Flee or Survive. Choosing Survive continues to spawn waves of zombies until players choose to escape, or if the game ends when all players go down.
  • Players earn 5,000 bonus Essence for every 3 rounds completed in the Void.
  • After surviving 12 rounds in the Void, players earn a reward that prevents Perks from dropping below Tier II upon going down for the rest of the match.
  • The Pack-a-Punch machine is available in “Shi No Numa” when in the Void.
  • Players can return to Stalingrad to upgrade their Perks, Covenants, and Artifacts after surviving 3 rounds in the Void, and can return to the Void at any time.

Locations

• Von List’s Office
  • Explore this previously closed-off area of Stalingrad to discover new narrative intel and the portal to the Void.

New Feature

• Tome of Rituals
  • Invest Sacrificial Hearts at the new Tome of Rituals to upgrade Artifacts up to four tiers in-game.

Artifact Upgrades

• Frost Blast
  • Tier I – Freezes normal and Special enemies for 3 seconds once they have been in the Frost Blast zone for 0.5 second.
  • Tier II – Increases the Frost Blast radius by 100%.
  • Tier III – Increases the number of charges from 1 to 3.
  • Tier IV – Frozen normal enemies are insta-killed when damaged.
• Energy Mine
  • Tier I – Stuns normal and Special enemies hit by Energy Mine for 3 seconds.
  • Tier II – Explodes 3 times in a row with a 0.75 second delay between explosions.
  • Tier III – Increases the number of charges from 1 to 3.
  • Tier IV – Increases the explosion radius by 66%.
• Aether Shroud
  • Tier I – Automatically reload weapons when activated.
  • Tier II – Deal 500% bonus melee damage while active.
  • Tier III – Gain 50% move speed while active. Duration extended from 5 seconds to 8 seconds.
  • Tier IV – Increases the number of charges from 1 to 2.
• Ring of Fire
  • Tier I – Normal enemies inside the ring take damage equal to 2% of their max HP every second.
  • Tier II – Players within the ring use ammo from stock.
  • Tier III – Staying within the ring for up to 10 seconds increases the duration from 15 seconds to 20 seconds.
  • Tier IV – Staying within the ring for up to 10 seconds increases your damage bonus from +50% to +75%.

Pack-a-Punch Camos

• Three unique camos added to the Pack-a-Punch machine.
• Weapon camo will now change in appearance with each Pack-a-Punch upgrade up to Tier III.
• Pre-Packed loot weapons will display Pack-a-Punch camos after being picked up from Sturmkreigers or the Mystery Box.

Weapons

• Combat Shield
  • Now available in Zombies loadouts and the Mystery Box.
  • Mitigates a portion of damage from the direction the player is facing when raised. Cannot break.
  • Protects the player’s back from partial rear damage when stowed.

Weapon Unlock Challenges

• New weapon unlock challenges added to Zombies for the Katana melee weapon and new Welgun SMG via Create-a-Class:
  • Katana: In Zombies, get 5 rapid kills with a Melee weapon during 50 different Portal Objectives.
  • Welgun: In Zombies, get 5 rapid Critical Kills with an SMG during 50 different Portal Objectives.

Support Weapons

• Warmachine and Deathmachine now available in the Support tab at the Crafting Table.