Developer Treyarch has made some significant changes to Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 as the open beta heads into its second weekend.

Black Ops 6, out October 25, 2024, has a new Body Shield feature, a new Omnimovement feature, and various features returning from Treyarch’s 2020 game, Black Ops Cold War.

The Black Ops 6 open beta restarts at 10am PT today, September 6, and with it comes tweaks to weapons, spawns, and various other gameplay elements that affect Multiplayer.

“Many of the changes below are based on data and feedback from Weekend 1,” Treyarch explained in a blog post, “but rest assured we are also taking this into account as we look ahead to launch. We’ll be sharing more about what’s to come in the weeks after Weekend 2 concludes.”

Highlights include an overall increase to weapon swap speeds, small adjustments to baseline movement speeds on all weapon classes, various weapon balance changes, and adjusted spawn logic across several maps with the goal of reducing a high frequency of spawn flipping.

WEAPON SWAP SPEEDS We’ve seen the feedback about weapon swap speeds, and we agree. We’ll be reducing weapon drop times across the board for an overall increase to swap speeds. Players looking for an even quicker swap speed can try out the Fast Hands Strategist Perk in Week 2 of the Beta.

• Assault Rifle, SMG, Shotgun, LMG, Marksman Rifle, Pistol, and Launcher drop times reduced by 50ms
• Sniper drop times reduced by 100ms

MOVEMENT SPEEDS We are making small adjustments to baseline movement speeds on all weapon classes to make sure they are sitting in a good spot relative to one another. We have mostly focused on Move Speeds and ADS Move Speeds, which come into play during combat engagements.

Overall we are happy with the weapon class usage and performance we’ve seen in Beta Weekend 1, as well as the upper end of movement pacing offered by SMGs, so these adjustments keep SMGs the same and generally improve other classes. We are mindful of speeding the game up too much and will continue to monitor and assess game data and your feedback.

The other notable change here is to Melee Sprint Speeds. We want players to feel incentivized to pull out their Dedicated Melee weapon as a means of map traversal. We also want to ensure that Melee users can catch up to other players who are sprinting with ranged weapons for those sneaky Body Shields and Finishing Moves.

Movement Speed AdjustmentsAssault Rifles

• ADS Crouch Speed increased from 1.75m/s -> 1.88m/s
• Move Speed increased from 4.14m/s -> 4.29m/s
• ADS Move Speed increased from 3.07m/s -> 3.23m/s

SMGs

• Crouch Speed increased from 2.31m/s -> 2.77m/s

Shotguns

• ADS Crouch Speed increased from 1.63m/s -> 1.75m/s
• Move Speed increased from 4.14m/s -> 4.29m/s
• ADS Move Speed increased from 3.07m/s -> 3.23m/s

LMGs

• ADS Crouch Speed increased from 1.14m/s -> 1.3m/s
• Move Speed increased from 3.71m/s -> 3.86m/s
• ADS Move Speed increased from 2.31m/s -> 2.46m/s

Marksman Rifles

• Crouch Speed increased from 2.41m/s -> 2.49m/s
• ADS Crouch Speed increased from 1.37m/s -> 1.55m/s
• Move Speed increased from 3.76m/s -> 3.99m/s
• ADS Move Speed increased from 2.9m/s -> 3m/s

Sniper Rifles

• Crouch Speed decreased from 2.41m/s -> 2.31m/s

Pistols

• Crouch Speed decreased from 2.9m/s -> 2.84m/s
• ADS Crouch Speed increased from 1.88m/s -> 2.24m/s
• Move Speed increased from 4.47m/s -> 4.52m/s
• ADS Move Speed decreased from 3.94m/s -> 3.81m/s

Launchers

• Crouch Speed decreased from 2.44m/s -> 2.18m/s

Melee

• Crouch Speed increased from 2.9m/s -> 2.95m/s
• Jog Speed increased from 5.16m/s -> 5.31m/s
• Sprint Speed increased from 6.93m/s -> 7.16m/s
• Super Sprint Speed increased from 8.41m/s -> 8.66m/s
• Move Speed increased from 4.47m/s -> 4.62

Weapon AdjustmentsSMG Adjustments WeaponAdjustments

• Decreased Maximum Damage from 29 -> 26
  • Decreased Maximum Damage range from 15.24m -> 14.61m
• Decreased Near-Medium Damage from 23 -> 22
  • Decreased Near-Medium Damage range from 22.86m -> 17.78m
• Decreased Medium Damage from 22 -> 18
  • Decreased Medium Damage range from 29.21m -> 26.04m
• Decreased Minimum Damage from 19 -> 15
• Small increase to view kick strength and view kick deviation.
• CHF Barrel
  • Headshot multiplier improved from 1.2 -> 1.4

The Jackal PDW ‘s intended strength is best in class handling and decent mobility, balanced by a slower rate of fire compared to many of the other automatic weapons in the game. It was overperforming at medium ranges, so we’ve increased the damage falloff and pulled the ranges closer along with a slight increase to recoil. Maximum damage and CHF Barrel headshot multiplier have been adjusted to maintain the same hit to kill numbers while using the attachment.

• Increased medium damage range from 25.4m -> 27.31m

We feel that the C9 is in a good spot as a well-rounded Submachine Gun with a solid rate of fire. It has higher horizontal recoil compared to other Submachine Guns, so we’ve given a boost to its medium damage falloff range.

Marksman Rifles Adjustments

• Disabled burst fire queuing, which was queuing an additional burst if the fire input was activated at any time during the previous burst or the burst cooldown.

This is a minor change to improve control with the Swat 5.56 (and any future burst weapons).

ATTACHMENTS

• The Rapid Fire attachment now correctly displays its recoil penalty con. The attachment description has also been updated to indicate the tradeoff.

General

• Adjusted general spawn logic to enable additional valid spawns under certain scenarios.
• Adjusted spawn logic across several maps with the goal of reducing a high frequency of spawn flipping.

Our longstanding definition of a “bad spawn” is any time a player deals or receives damage within 3 seconds of spawning. This is the cornerstone of building the spawn system and does not change regardless of map size or game mode. We use this metric (among others) to track bad spawn rates for Black Ops 6, meaning that if you dealt or received damage within 3 seconds in Weekend 1 of the Beta, we saw it.

As an example, our Core Moshpit entry with the highest bad spawn rate in Week 1 was Domination on Skyline with a 4.2% rate, which means 4.2 out of every 100 spawns saw someone give or receive damage within that 3 second window. While we are generally happy with our averages, we know that an average also consists of worst cases, and we’ll continue to assess throughout the lifetime of this game.

We also recognize that we each have our own definition of what a good spawn or a bad spawn is, and that’s not always just about combat situations. For example, did I spawn out too far on Hardpoint? Or why am I spawning on the same side of the map as the enemy team? The overarching spawn system and the placement of spawns in a map are critical to the flow of the match. It is our goal with Black Ops 6, as it has been with every prior Black Ops game, to have a predictable spawn system that results in head-on engagements with your opponents while providing ample time from respawn for decision making. This includes accounting for time before getting into an engagement before you’re ready for it.

For Weekend 2 of our Open Beta, we’ve adjusted general spawn logic and have targeted multiple maps with additional tuning changes with the goal of improving predictability and time to engagement. We know we have some work to do and will continue to process our data, evaluate your feedback, and play the game with you all to draw our own conclusions on how to continue making positive progress.

• RC-XD
  • Improved handling and general usability.
• Watchdog Helo
  • Increased base health.
• Hellstorm
  • Increased Cluster Bomb damage radius.

• Lethal Equiptment
  • Thermo Grenade
    • Reduced explosive ignition delay.

• Slight increase to the time to enter prone or supine during a slide.
• Slight increase to all mantle speeds.
• Slight decrease to time before movement is allowed after landing from a Dive to Prone.
• Slight increase to Dive to Prone landing friction.

• Weapon XP
  • Increased awarded Weapon XP, which will decrease the amount of time needed to gain Weapon Levels. The Weapon XP speeds observed in Weekend 1 were slower than expected.
• Daily Challenges
  • Fixed an issue that was causing the Daily Challenge countdown timer to display the incorrect reset time.
  • The “Get 50 Eliminations with the Recon Perk Specialty equipped” Daily Challenge will now track progress correctly.
• General
  • Beta Rewards earned in a match will now appear in the After-Action Report.

• Increased player weapon firing audio volume.
• Additional footstep audio adjustments.
• Reduced audio levels for impact sounds when taking damage.
• Resolved an issue where Shotguns could play more than the intended number of hit impact sounds.
• Resolved an issue where explosion sounds would not play during normal gameplay.
• Resolved an issue where some sounds were not playing during Best Play.
• Reenabled a previously disabled audio occlusion system on PlayStation 5.

• Adjustments to underlying Best Play logic which will result in more varied and interesting Best Play selection.

• Improved stability throughout various menus and HUD.
• Addressed various localization issues.

• Users should no longer encounter issues when switching their ADS Transition Timing to ‘Instant’, when using keyboard and mouse.

• Increased the duration of the Lobby Vote before matches to give players a better opportunity to participate in the vote when returning to the lobby after a completed match.
• Reduced the amount of camera motion in the Dynamic Deathcam.

• Improved stability in Skyline.
• Improved stability in Training Course.
• Improved general server-side stability.

Treyarch also plans to add more maps and modes to the open beta throughout the weekend, and has raised the level cap to 30 for all players off the bat, which means you’ll get better access to new weapons, Scorestreaks, perks, equipment, and the beta rewards.

• Level Cap increased to 30. New content available to unlock:
  • Level 21:
    • Blast Trap (Lethal Equipment)
    • Scavenger (Perk – Enforcer)
  • Level 22:
    • Interceptors (Scorestreak)
    • Fast Hands (Perk – Strategist)
  • Level 23:
    • Sleeper Agent (Field Upgrade)
    • Cold-Blooded (Perk – Recon)
  • Level 24:
    • Combat Axe (Lethal Equipment)
    • Tac Mask (Perk – Strategist)
  • Level 25:
    • DM-10 (Marksman Rifle)
  • Level 26:
    • Gunfighter (Wildcard)
    • Forward Intel (Perk – Recon)
  • Level 27:
    • Gearhead (Perk – Strategist)
  • Level 28:
    • Decoy (Tactical Equipment)
    • Ninja (Perk – Recon)
  • Level 29:
    • Chopper Gunner (Scorestreak)
  • Level 30:
    • Tanto .22 (SMG)
• New Rewards available to unlock:
  • Level 23: “The Truth Lies” Loading Screen 
  • Level 27: “Beta Expert” Animated Calling Card 
  • Level 30: “Bug Smasher” XM4 Weapon Blueprint

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].