News - Big Warzone 2 Weapon Balancing Patch That Didn't Go Live
Intro
By the way, there were a bunch of guns listed in this, and I was fully prepared to give you guys the update on exactly what changed with the actual, like before and after comparisons like I usually do with weapon balancing updates. However, it turns out that after testing a bunch of the weapons, I realized nothing had changed.
It didn't actually apply?
So I think there's one of two things that are potentially happening with this. The first possibility is that this just didn't apply properly and nothing actually changed in the game, even though they stated that this update went live and all these changes went in. The alternative to that is that perhaps these somehow went live in the actual live public match environment without affecting private matches, which is where I have to do all this testing because I can't do all this precise testing.
In a public match game, I can't reliably get exact damage values in public matches and I can't be testing ranges to the nearest, like half a meter, for instance. In a public match environment, that's just not viable. So yeah, something is clearly up here, at least for the multiplayer side of things.
It is worth noting that for the war zone section, it appears that part of the update went live just fine. I saw true game data when I was doing some testing on this, and there were clearly changes made on the war zone side of things, but for multiplayer, this either didn't apply or they've now, for some reason, separated private matches from public matches, which would be a massive pain because I simply can't give you guys accurate data.
Walking through the intended changes
In either case, in today's article, I want to go through these patch notes just in case they did go live in a public match environment. At least you could be updated on the basics of what changed here, but I want to put that massive disclaimer up front: there is no guarantee these changes actually went live at all, and starting it off with the SMGs With the mini boach, they stated they reduce the close damage range as well as the damage amount within close ranges, and that's effectively just the opposite of what they did in a previous update where they buffed the mini, so I don't know if this was meant to fully revert back to where it was or kind of meet in the middle, perhaps, but the mini boach was supposed to catch a Nerf in this update, then for the vasn of 9k, the lockman shroud, and the iso 99 mm, these were all meant to have their damage ranges nerfed, then with the pdsw.
The fenic and the bass P were all meant to have their range values buffed. After getting into the assault rifle category with the tr76, they stated they reduced the close damage range; they also reduced the damage value at close range; they reduced arm, leg, and torso damage multipliers. However, they apparently increased the long-range damage amount, so overall, this seems like more of a Nerf than anything, but at longer ranges, perhaps you're going to maintain some consistency with it.
Then, with the castoff 762, they mentioned they increased the close damage range; with the castoff 74u, they reduced the close damage range but increased the long range damage amount while also reducing the damage multiplier to the leg. So to me, that sounds like a net Nerf to the 74u, although maybe you'll see some more consistency at longer ranges.
With the T 56, they mentioned they reduce the close damage range, and with the F advancer, they increase the close damage range while also increasing mid- and long-range damage amounts, so that seems like it would be a couple really nice. Buffs to the F advancer with the M16; they mentioned they increase the mid-damage range.
The Tempest Razer back increased the close damage range as well as the damage values for mid- to long ranges for the M4; they increased the close damage range; and then finally, for assault rifles with the Lockman 556, they mentioned they increased the close and mid damage ranges, so overall, it seems like primarily buffs were going on with the assault rifle category, with a few exceptions there, of course, that were nerfed.
Next, let's get into the battle rifles, and they've been buffing up the battle rifles. It seems like with every update, we've been getting every weapon balancing update, and it seems like the battle rifles are getting a little bit better each time. With this, they mentioned that the Cronin Squall, the So14, the Lochman 762, and the FTAc Recon all saw damage range increases.
But then let's get into the shotgun category, and with the LD 300 The Bryson 800, although stated as the 900 There's plenty of spelling errors in these patch notes as well, which I wanted to point out, but with those two as well as a KV broadside, when using the dragon's breath ammunition, they mentioned there's a reduction to damage ranges.
With those with those two as well as a KV broadside, when using the dragon's breath ammunition, they mentioned there's a reduction to damage ranges; with those with the expedite 12, they mentioned an increase to close to mid damage range, which is surprising since that already got a pretty solid buff recently; and they also mention that with the KV broadside, if you're just using the Standard 12 gauge ammo, there was meant to be an increase to close damage range.
After that, for the Marksman rifle category, they mentioned range Nerfs to the ebr14 and the Tempest torrent, as well as another range buff to the spr 208. And then finally, for the weapon balancing that was meant to affect Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer, with the RM, they mentioned an increase to mid-to-far damage range, and that wraps it up for all of the weapon balancing that was stated in these patch notes again.
I don't have any evidence that these updates actually went through, and I can't reliably test them in public matches, but these definitely didn't apply to private matches. On top of this, there's also a pretty good list of bug fixes. Mainly applying to things that came with the haunting event, there are specific issues with haunting content like incorrect audio playing for various actions or certain placeholder images popping up when they weren't meant to be popping up, and we're supposed to have the final image there.
Unfortunately, they weren't super specific with this, and I don't recall seeing any of these bugs because I've barely been touching Modern Warfare 2 lately, so I can't even really confirm that these bugs were fixed because I've never experienced them in the first place and don't know exactly how to replicate them, but I did want to point out that there were apparently a good handful of bug fixes here as well; nearly all of them were just UI elements, although they did mention that as far as gameplay goes, they fixed an issue preventing split screen from functioning properly.
