Call of Duty‘s battle royal War zone is just less than a year old. When it launched in March 2020, I praised the online game for 150 players for smooth play, simplified mechanics and fast action. But all the features made earlier War zone one of the best battle royals to invade now feels hampered by the wreck created by recent updates. As it stands now, War zone is a rough mess of bugs, cheats and gun balancing problems.
To keep up with the trend of games as a live service, and to set up constant updates for a massive game like War zone can be both a blessing and a curse. New content keeps the game fresh through new weapons, modes and cosmetics. But every time something is added to the game, something else seems to break.
At the end of last year, War zone many weeks spent by a unlimited juggernaut error, which allows players to cultivate an infinite number of juggernaut kill streaks. The juggernaut suit consists of heavy armor and allows the player to use a minigun, which provides a frustrating battle-royal experience when dealing with only one or two of these threats. Fortunately, this bug has been fixed for now. But some old bugs popped up again, including the voice-shot bug.
The voice-shot is a piece of tactical equipment used to heal, but it is abused with an exploitation that can heal a player continuously and infinitely. This allows players to enter War zone‘s poisonous gas, which would otherwise cause imminent death, and surpass all other opponents for unjust victories. Developer Raven Software tweeted that the problem with the voice recording was solved with a patch last week, but some players still report misuse of the equipment.
One long-term issue that has not been addressed is the load freezer. Many players have reported that their game freezes for a few seconds after trying to collect their download, leaving them vulnerable to the map. I have not personally encountered this issue yet, but it seems to be quite popping up for others.
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Gun fighting has also been rough since December 16, when the developers Black Ops Cold War guns in the Modern warfare-based War zone. Dumping all the extra weapons into the mix caused some bugs and balancing problems. Cold War‘s DMR 14 tactical rifle has become fast War zone‘s most overwhelming rifle, which dominates the meta, followed by the dual Diamatti pistols and the MAC-10 machine gun. An update on January 13 gave the DMR 14 and the dual Diamattis a nerve, but both are still power weapons, especially since the pistols bird completely unchanged.
On the bright side, the DMR has 14 nerf players branching out to try to find the next best gun for long-range firefighting. I still see a lot of players running and shooting with the MAC-10 and Diamattis, but it’s nice to see a slightly better range of weapons in the game. Modern warfareThe CR-56 AMAX assault rifle is my favorite thing War zone, and it feels like it could be a contender again without the DMR meta in play.
There is also a reload issue which may occur with some of the integrated weapons. You can reload a gun and watch the animation happen, but sometimes the weapon is not really reloaded. It cost me my life in more than a few shootouts when I Cold War weapons in War zone.
Some players want the Cold War guns to be removed from War zone, but I think the weapons just need to be properly balanced. Of course, it’s worth noting if War zone remains the bridge that connects the future Call of Duty titles, the arms and equipment pool can become an overwhelming mess. I think Call of Duty would do well to take a page from Fortnite, armed weapons to keep the balance of the game and keep things fresh. I can understand that I hesitate to use safe weapons for which players have bought cosmetics, but it is less difficult to safe an item like the voice-shot so that players do not have the opportunity to abuse it.
There is still rampant fraud War zone. Activision start struggling with fraudsters in Modern warfare and War zone in April last year, but nothing seems to stop the influx of wallhacks and the chisel that the chisel gives away for the integrity of matches. All players can really do is report the fraudster from the option in the game, but Activision does not appear to be reviewing and banning the accounts; fraudsters just create new accounts. Last May, Activision newly added a two-factor verification requirement for everyone War zone accounts on a computer. But hackers are good at finding solutions, and they are still blatantly cheating. No one wants to deal with fraudsters, and many creators and content creators are fed up.
In terms of integrity in War zoneWith the competitive scene, prize money tournaments are often compromised, and players find ways to circumvent the game’s skill-based matchmaking to be placed in ‘bot’ lobbies of lower-skilled players. Several methods have been exposed, including specific routers to ping sites or the use of accounts with inverted statistics. The current Twitch Rivals Doritos Bowl is the first major War zone tournament since the Black Ops Cold War integration to provide private portals to avoid skills-based matchmaking conflicts. Hopefully, all future competitions will include private portals, especially those big money tournaments.
Apart from all these bigger issues, there is a small criticism of me that the Verdansk map is outdated. I’ve been complaining for a long time that there is so much untapped potential in the landscape of Verdansk. Instead of getting Verdansk map updates for season one, we got a second map: the smaller, Cold War-theme “Rebirth Island.” A smaller map does offer a variety in terms of the scenery and pace of the matches, and I often enjoy the faster matches with a high death toll over the slower, campier matches on Verdansk. Although I still do not think it needs the same bells and whistles as the larger Verdansk map, Rebirth Island is now my preferred option for War zone matches.
All the complaints here are not meant to be said War zone can not be a fun time, but it can often be ruined by mistakes or cheats that do not have to stay so constant in an online shooter. I threw away countless hours War zone, and I want it to remain royal my preferred battle, but it’s now too rough to enjoy the sides in the current state. I would like to see a major update that only focuses on cleaning the bugs and balancing the weapons, which is more important than just pushing in new cosmetics or adding limited time modes. War zone needs a little TLC to return to the fantastic form it launched last year.